Improving the Game Economically

First off I would like to start by stating one thing; when we make changes to the game economy, we must keep in mind, this is a game designed to allow for players to enjoy themselves. That said, there is a lot of ways players can enjoy the economy, but a certain change or mechanic that is meant to be 'realistic' or 'immersive' should not be implemented if it is bothersome to the players.

I will provide a list of suggestions for people to glance over quickly if they choose to do so, and if you at first disagree with any proposition I will provide my reasoning as well. If you still disagree or would like to add some more, please do so.

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1. Link the Market Wards.

I myself have been against doing so; at least until significantly better means of transportation have been implemented. But after seeing the game progress, my position on this issue has changed. I believed at one point that if chocobos were widely used, and airship travel were possible, players would be able to travel between the markets easily and get the items they need. The option would even be available for players to earn gil by transporting items from one ward to another. However, it is my belief, even with all these modes of transport, the prices of these goods would need to be significantly higher to encourage players to keep moving them. Even then, it would require a great deal of movement to keep up with demand, and even then it is highly unlikely these players would be able to satisfy such diverse needs in most occasions. Thus, it is much more probable that players will continue to gravitate towards a singular city, at the expense of the others. While many players will think such a gravitation is a good thing; in fact in many cases it can be. However, I suggest the cons highly outweigh the pros. For one, new players are already being unnecessarily hindered whenever they choose to start their adventure from either Gridania or Limsa Lominsa. Secondly, players who wish to base themselves from these other two cities are also experience a similar hinderance. The most significant problem with this situation is, Square-Enix has developed 3 very large zones, each with their own unique aspects. It is unwise to prop up a system that arbitrarily focusses the population into one, at the cost of the others. Any overcrowding we experience could be lessened, and the desolace felt elsewhere alleviated.

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

We are planning on linking all three market wards together in 2.0! The reason behind not being able to link them earlier than that is due to the current system limitations.

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2. Auction House versus Market Wards

Many players have been clamoring for an auction house, as, for them, the current market ward system is not as accessible or intuitive as others and it is a solution they are most familiar with. While many players want an Auction House, it is more likely they are looking for something different entirely. What a player needs is something that is simple and effective at doing a few things from both a buyers and sellers perspective. First, a seller wants to be able to quickly bring his/her items to the market and place them where their potential buyers will be able to access their goods. The faster this process is, and the less 'hoops' required the better. The very same could be said about buyers; their experience is generally better as the steps are reduced, but they must also be able to compare other prices just as quickly. Now many 'systems' can accomplish this, it would even be possible to have both, but we must operate within the bounds set before us. Moving foward, we can get the best results by seeking to improve the current system, as they lead to the most immediate results.

3. One stop shopping.

While the market economy is functional, it is not effecient. If we can identify the problems, the solutions will come. First, the most glaring problem, the need to run to each individual bazaar. It should be mentioned the solution I will mention here will at the same time remove the need to place retainers all together. By placing, in the place of separate Market Wards, a single Ward occupied by either several or a single NPC that is capable of meeting the needs of every adventurer. This NPC would be able to reference all retainers holding items in their bazaars and bring up this list for the buyer. In addition, this NPC would then be able to handle the transactions as well. The easiest implementation, would involve keeping the current Market Ward zone, filling it with several NPCs for the various Market Ward divisions. Thus no new artwork would be required. A future and more permanent solution would be a newly designed zone more suited to a single NPC.

4. Implement Retainer Reference System:

Outline of the Retainer Reference system here.
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Summary

To be brief, I have offered two real suggestions. First to link the market wards, and second to implement a simple solution to make transactions for buyers and sellers easier.

Very quickly I would outline the effects this would have on the game.

In order to sell an item, a player need only place an item in their retainer's bazaar. After doing so, the bazaar is then available for reference and anyone from any market can purchase the items within.

Buyers would then be able to move to a single point, accessed by a single NPC, to see this list of items and thier price. This NPC would be able to handle multiple transactions covering all items available by type.

Players, especially new players, would then more readily have access to goods from all over the world and can focus on playing in the zone they enjoy the most.

Edit: I forgot to add... I am reminded as it just happened in game. The frequent market crashes would likewise be a thing of the past. As the game moves foward and hopefully becomes more popular, the markets would continue to be assaulted by Retainers and the problem would become worse. Better to fix it permanently then having to continually readress this issue down the line.

None of these suggestions are ways to improve the economy. They're suggestions to improve the buying process. To improve the economy you have to focus on what exists in the economy, not the means of trading it. So what does exist? Items and gil.

Gil! It's clear there is way too much of it in the economy when there's many people already close to or above 100 million gil only 7 months after the game was released. This gil needs removing from the economy otherwise people have the power to buy anything they want at any price. This will inevitably lead to massive inflation once worthwhile rare items are added. The average player won't be able to afford the 20-50 million asking prices.

To reduce this gil you need to do two things. Limit the flow of new gil into the system and increase the flow of gil going out of the system. Most of this new gil is coming from leves and NPCed crafted skill up items. Stop giving gil for all leves above rank 20 (allow new players to get some). Give shards instead. 50-100 shards are worth more than most leve rewards and if you want gil you can sell them. This does two things. It keeps shard prices low (they're currently back up to 300 on my server) and it stops new gil being created. If you get your gil from selling the shards it's the same gil that already exists. Also stop giving gil for all local leves, give marks instead for all of them but reduce the number to balance it. Lower the amount of gil obtained from items that are NPCed, or at least items that are commonly skilled up on such as rings and masks.

Items! There's too many of them. People can sit and spam and spam items forever until they pop out +1 +2 and +3 versions. This makes the NQ market worthless within a day of a new item being introduced and the +1 market becomes worthless shortly after. You've got to lower the amount of items that can be spammed. You've got to solve the item problem at the source.

Gathering is broke and anyone who suggests otherwise is a fool. I'm 41 MIN and 39 BTN and I can see full well what gathering is doing to the economy. There's too many items coming from it. Too many logs, too many branches, too much fruit and vegetables, too much silver, too much iron, too much gold, too many gems. These items need to be significantly reduced. The cap for every item should be set to 1 maximum gather per dig or chop. But that doesn't go far enough. Some of these items such as gold and gems are already set to that maximum. They need to be even rarer so that instead of getting 20 in an hour you only get 3 or 4. This all goes along to keep prices stable and items worth selling. When the raw materials are worth selling and have value people can't buy up stacks of them and sit and spam synths. NPCing NQs or selling them at rock bottom prices will hurt them badly. As a result there will be less items on the market so their values will stay high for longer.

Rarity of mats dropped from mobs is another issue. Why does that Dodore Doublet or Silver Tricorne still cost millions four and a half months after its introduction? It's because Dodore Wings and Uraeus skins don't drop from mobs like candy. Not a lot of them enter the economy each day because of the effort that goes into getting them. We need more materials that are as rare as these. Not necessarily drops from high rank NMs either. They can be materials obtained through faction leves, BCNM type events, even gathering nodes. Have some gathered items that are so rare that the average gatherer may only see 10 of them in his route from 1-50. When a finished item includes a material like this it can't be spammed. The NQs have value for a long time.

This is what will improve the game economically! Making items rare and have value. Not having the game fetch an item from a retainer for you. I don't disagree with your suggestions, they're good ones, but they won't improve the economy itself.

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None of these suggestions are ways to improve the economy.

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As the title suggests, I want to improve the game through economic processes. The method by which players use to make their trades is involved in this process. I would hope the thread would stay focussed on improving the game, as any step to modify the economy must be taken with this in mind.

But, you do raise some points so I will try to address them.

Gil

I do not see large amounts of gil being a problem at all in the future as long as prices remain reasonable. So far, we have seen this continual influx of gil into the economy, yet in every case there is only a short period of time when the item is rare and prices are high. After more people are able to bring these items to market, prices drop dramatically. Competition is naturally driving these prices down. Now suppose prices do rise, the first conclusion someone may come to is new players will struggle. However, if there is a true inflation later in the game it is likely the items the low level players obtain would raise in value as well. This would mean a greater transfer of gil from more wealthier players into the hands of the new players. So while there may be slight disturbances, it is more likely they would be few and isolated. Any amount of serious disruption in prices would require other players not taking advantage of higher prices, which is unlikely, and many players willing to pay an arbitrarily higher prices, which is also unlikely.

Items

I thought this point made odd, as it seems contrary to your previous notion. You stated before you wished to stop inflation, yet turn around and suggest something that would cause price inflation. There is one point I would like to make; whenever your bring your goods to the market, the price is determined by many things but by one thing in particular. Price is determined by the time it takes you to acquire your items. Obviously other things impact the final price, if fewer people are at your stage of gathering you will be able to raise prices if demand is higher for example. By reducing the number of items gained in a period of time, you will most likely be able to charge more for your lesser # of goods. If you are over supplying a market, prices will fall and your items will lose value. The smart thing to do would be to shift to another mode of acquiring gil. But people who level crafts are willing to incur lesser gains, even costs, to level their class. This is also reflected in the lower prices. The point being is, while gatheres would not necessarily make much more gil, players ( ones who are most likely trying to level up a craft ) would be hindered. And this flies in the face of my first assertion in the original post.

Notorious Monster Drops

This is also a strange suggestion considering the past two you have made. You seek to raise the price of the goods you bring to market, yet you wish to lower the price of another?

The price of these items is determined by a few things. First, the difficulty of the monsters. The time it takes to hunt and get these items. And the price others are willing to pay for them. Just as all things, these prices will eventually drop. Once more players reach level 50 the demand will drop, as these players will most likely group up and kill them themselves. But this will never change the value placed on these items by some players. And they will always be willing to pay top dollar for them. I would just like to also point out, these items are intended to be rare.

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So I would just like to state again, this thread is about Improving the Game through the economy. The market wards are inexorably connected to the economy and have far reaching effects on how well the market functions. My suggestion to improve the market wards does have economic impacts, but the sole purpose of suggesting it is to improve the game itself.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

None of these suggestions are ways to improve the economy. They're suggestions to improve the buying process. To improve the economy you have to focus on what exists in the economy, not the means of trading it. So what does exist? Items and gil.

Gil! It's clear there is way too much of it in the economy when there's many people already close to or above 100 million gil only 7 months after the game was released. This gil needs removing from the economy otherwise people have the power to buy anything they want at any price. This will inevitably lead to massive inflation once worthwhile rare items are added. The average player won't be able to afford the 20-50 million asking prices.

To reduce this gil you need to do two things. Limit the flow of new gil into the system and increase the flow of gil going out of the system. Most of this new gil is coming from leves and NPCed crafted skill up items. Stop giving gil for all leves above rank 20 (allow new players to get some). Give shards instead. 50-100 shards are worth more than most leve rewards and if you want gil you can sell them. This does two things. It keeps shard prices low (they're currently back up to 300 on my server) and it stops new gil being created. If you get your gil from selling the shards it's the same gil that already exists. Also stop giving gil for all local leves, give marks instead for all of them but reduce the number to balance it. Lower the amount of gil obtained from items that are NPCed, or at least items that are commonly skilled up on such as rings and masks.

Items! There's too many of them. People can sit and spam and spam items forever until they pop out +1 +2 and +3 versions. This makes the NQ market worthless within a day of a new item being introduced and the +1 market becomes worthless shortly after. You've got to lower the amount of items that can be spammed. You've got to solve the item problem at the source.

Gathering is broke and anyone who suggests otherwise is a fool. I'm 41 MIN and 39 BTN and I can see full well what gathering is doing to the economy. There's too many items coming from it. Too many logs, too many branches, too much fruit and vegetables, too much silver, too much iron, too much gold, too many gems. These items need to be significantly reduced. The cap for every item should be set to 1 maximum gather per dig or chop. But that doesn't go far enough. Some of these items such as gold and gems are already set to that maximum. They need to be even rarer so that instead of getting 20 in an hour you only get 3 or 4. This all goes along to keep prices stable and items worth selling. When the raw materials are worth selling and have value people can't buy up stacks of them and sit and spam synths. NPCing NQs or selling them at rock bottom prices will hurt them badly. As a result there will be less items on the market so their values will stay high for longer.

Rarity of mats dropped from mobs is another issue. Why does that Dodore Doublet or Silver Tricorne still cost millions four and a half months after its introduction? It's because Dodore Wings and Uraeus skins don't drop from mobs like candy. Not a lot of them enter the economy each day because of the effort that goes into getting them. We need more materials that are as rare as these. Not necessarily drops from high rank NMs either. They can be materials obtained through faction leves, BCNM type events, even gathering nodes. Have some gathered items that are so rare that the average gatherer may only see 10 of them in his route from 1-50. When a finished item includes a material like this it can't be spammed. The NQs have value for a long time.

This is what will improve the game economically! Making items rare and have value. Not having the game fetch an item from a retainer for you. I don't disagree with your suggestions, they're good ones, but they won't improve the economy itself.

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maybe its because these people take the time to farm stuff to sell or take the time to skill up a craft and make stuff to sell... if there wasnt profit in making items to sell, no one woulda been a crafter and we would have people crying about there being no items to buy. Also the ones making all this money isnt the average player so they're the ones who should be able to buy the expensive +3 gear.

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Originally Posted by Roaran

So I would just like to state again, this thread is about Improving the Game through the economy. The market wards are inexorably connected to the economy and have far reaching effects on how well the market functions. My suggestion to improve the market wards does have economic impacts, but the sole purpose of suggesting it is to improve the game itself.

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I don't know why you're stating the obvious. Of course improving the economy is going to improve the game.

Anyway you just don't appear to get it. My post was about preventing the massive deflation that is occurring for crafted items while preventing massive inflation of the super rare items. Super rare items being the equivalent of a Kraken club in XI. Gil is a problem, if five billionaires want an item and only one of them exists you can expect to pay hundreds of millions for it. Did you not learn anything from XI's economy in 2005? You're making the assumption that nothing in this game will be as rare as that.

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Originally Posted by Shampooo

maybe its because these people take the time to farm stuff to sell or take the time to skill up a craft and make stuff to sell... if there wasnt profit in making items to sell, no one woulda been a crafter and we would have people crying about there being no items to buy. Also the ones making all this money isnt the average player so they're the ones who should be able to buy the expensive +3 gear.

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Your post doesn't make sense. I am one of these crafters you talk about, yet it's my idea to fix the economy in this way. I think most crafters who make a lot of gil would agree that items need more value and there's too much gil in the economy.

You got goldsmithing to 50 (kinda funny how similar our classes are haha), are you happy with your jewellery being worth 10-20k a piece? Or would you rather the gems be rare so that you could sell rings for 200k each? Does a high end ring that costs about 10k to make being worth 15k sound like a healthy economy to you?

Surely you can see the economy is broke. I might not have the best ideas for fixing it but some big changes need to be made and I can't see any flaws in what I propose.

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I don't know why you're stating the obvious. Of course improving the economy is going to improve the game.

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You're misinterpreting me. The goal is not to improve the economy; mine is to improve the game. We could have a very advanced and dynamic economy with many different ascpetcs, yet we may end up destroying the game. Reconciling this point is important, as the economy is just one portion of the entire game.

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You got goldsmithing to 50 (kinda funny how similar our classes are haha), are you happy with your jewellery being worth 10-20k a piece? Or would you rather the gems be rare so that you could sell rings for 200k each? Does a high end ring that costs about 10k to make being worth 15k sound like a healthy economy to you?

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If the item your making costs only 10k to create, yet you are able to sell it for 15k; that is quite a substantial profit margin. The problem is your dealing in chump change. It is probably not worth your time to create these items, unless your trying to HQ them. I would just reiterate, prices are coming down quickly because you are competing with other crafters. They are either skilling up on rings and selling them for cheap just to get rid of them, or you are genuinely having other people craft them to make gil. If you want these items to cost more, then you would have to plant that cost in the creation of the item itself. You would need to pay more to create these items, and then you would have to pass this cost onto the buyer. In this process you still have no change in your profit margins as competition is likely the same as before. The only difference is you now have a higher costing item, and thus fewer potential buyers. You would only end up losing revenue, and you needlessly burden others who want this item.

As far as rare items go. They are rare because the developers deem them rare. You need not look further than supply and demand to determine why these items cost so much. The devs arbitrarily determine how many of said items they want in circulation over a certain period of time, and this determines the scarcity. Now, it goes without saying that when a player obtains one of these items, they will seek to maximize the amount of gil they can make. Whether its 900,000,000 gil or 4,000,000 gil it is irrelevant. Those who have the most gil will end up with these items regardless of any impositions we make into the economy.

Shampoo also made a very simple point that is correct; those that put in more time to the development of their character and their crafts/gathering will naturally acquire more gil. It is only natural that these players have an advantage when buying certain items.

But once again I would direct some attention to the title of this thread. Meddling with various mechanics of the economy have a great impact on the entire game. Making improvements in certain aspects may be detrimental to others. I would just advise others to keep in mind the economy must support the game, and there must be some basis in support of this whenever we decide to make changes to the economy.

Agree with the OP.

First you need to make players want to use the Market System that is the most important thing to building a decent economy, the fact the majority of players NPC a lot of their farmed items is actually detrimental to the economy.

Secondly you need a system in place that normalises values, say a price history that shows the average price covering the last 3 days, the last week, the last month and the last 4 months, this way players can judge for themselves where to price their items.

Thirdly all the market wards should be linked, they should also allow you to port from one to another so that you don't need to travel the distance just to buy an item, or allow you to buy an item from the search counter regardless of where it is.

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Originally Posted by Roaran

If the item your making costs only 10k to create, yet you are able to sell it for 15k; that is quite a substantial profit margin. The problem is your dealing in chump change. It is probably not worth your time to create these items, unless your trying to HQ them. I would just reiterate, prices are coming down quickly because you are competing with other crafters. They are either skilling up on rings and selling them for cheap just to get rid of them, or you are genuinely having other people craft them to make gil. If you want these items to cost more, then you would have to plant that cost in the creation of the item itself. You would need to pay more to create these items, and then you would have to pass this cost onto the buyer. In this process you still have no change in your profit margins as competition is likely the same as before. The only difference is you now have a higher costing item, and thus fewer potential buyers. You would only end up losing revenue, and you needlessly burden others who want this item.

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You're missing the point. Nothing in this game should cost only 10k to create. There should not be 50 raw gems for every player on your server. The supply is too high and that's why the prices are so low. I reiterate, prices are coming down quickly because the supply of materials is way higher than demand. This is basic economics. When supply is higher than demand prices fall. When supply is way higher than demand prices hit rock bottom. That's exactly what is happening. To stop this you have to get the supply balanced with the demand. To do this you make items rarer. This is the basis of a stable economy.

If your thread isn't about improving the game's economy then don't title the thread as such.

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You're missing the point. Nothing in this game should cost only 10k to create. There should not be 50 raw gems for every player on your server.

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Please supply your reasoning on why this game should be as you describe.

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If your thread isn't about improving the game's economy then don't title the thread as such.

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Improving the game economically. <- thats the title; or in other words, Improving the game by adjusting economically related aspects of said game.

Anyways, I would invite others to join in on the original suggestions and original discussion as per the title.

I think that both the OP (Roaran) and Xenor are making valid points, but looking at different aspects of the economy.

Replying first to the OP:

I agree that something does need to be done to address the concentration of the economy into a single city. Since essentially all servers are seeing this concentration into Ul'dah, it must be systemic in nature, rather than a random process -- otherwise, the chosen concentration point would be different on different servers.

I am concerned about your suggestion to link all of the market areas into one, however. Such a step, once done, cannot effectively be undone. I have seen many, many games that have been severely diminished by 'globalization' of the world.

As you point out, the purpose of a market is to bring buyers and sellers together. Player A has an item, but has little need for it, while Player B has need of the item and is willing to pay gil for it. The purpose of the market system is supposed to be to bring these two players together, so that exchange of gil and items can take place.

In what ways is this current system failing?

1) Only sellers are represented.
The current market system only lets searches (within one city) be performed on items being sold. Thus only the supply side of the economy is represented. Buyers, and the demand side, must play a passive role. Retainers have the option to seek items, yet this function is currently crippled by a host of problems (cannot search, takes two bazaar slots, must have item(s) wish to purchase, must purchase entire stack at once) that, if addressed, could provide sellers some guidance as to what buyers are willing to pay.

2) Bazaar space is limited
Given the rate at which items are obtained through combat drops, gathering, and crafting, and the sheer number of different items in the game, the 20 bazaar slots available through the two retainers means that there is significant opportunity cost in choosing to list one item instead of another. I'm certain that most people that are selling are taking advantage of character slots being currently free of charge to effectively obtain more bazaar selling space, which is a short term solution.

I'm not suggesting that more bazaar space simply be added (although that is an option), but that retainers be made to fulfill better the function that they are supposed to.

3) Retainers are not autonomous enough
In the very beginning, when you obtained your first retainer, you are told that the retainer is there to help you buy and sell, since you are an adventurer, not a shop-keeper. And yet, your retainer seems to need a lot of hand-holding. In so many ways....

Retainers can be summoned from across the world by the ringing of a bell, yet they cannot go, on your direction, to a particular ward, in a particular city, to sell your goods. Instead, you must physically take your character to the particular ward, to the particular city, and lead your retainer by the hand to tell them where to sell. Why is this so? What is the harm in directing your retainer from Limsa, to travel to Gridania in order to sell your goods? Retainers certainly seem capable enough of travelling around the world.

Additionally, items can only be moved from the retainer's inventory to/from the bazaar in the presence of the player. I fail to see why this sort of instruction could not take place via a linkpearl connecting the retainer and the player. Allowing a player to move new items into the bazaar remotely to replace those that have sold, or repricing existing items lower in order to move goods, would help compensate for the limited number of bazaar slots that retainers have.

Finally, retainers only buy and sell passively. Truth be told, purchasing materials is somewhat tedious and problematic. This seems more like the kind of task that should be given to a retainer. Perhaps, as alternative to "seek item" (or in addition), a retainer could be instructed to purchase certain types of items, at a given price or below, but the retainer would not be put into the market wards as a seller/buyer. Instead the retainer would be "roaming the markets" in virtually the same manner as the player would, buying items or searching for them as they come available. This frees the player from the drudgery of continually canvassing the markets, leaving them free to ... well ... be an adventurer. Since retainers can clearly move from city to city, retainers could move from city to city, searching them all (with time), thus providing some economic connection between the cities without that drudgery being forced upon the players.

Functionally, this could work by give the retainer the seek item task, not setting them in the wards, and waiting. After some length of time (and additional cost, to fund the retainers travel and prevent abuses), if the item is available, the retainer would purchase what can be purchased (length of time to prevent abuses and simulate players performing a similar search).

Retainer were supposed to free adventurers from being chained to the markets, but instead are chaining us to the markets themselves.

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In direct response to your points:

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Link the Market Wards.

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Having diversity of market wards, in the long run, I hope will make a richer and more compelling game world. There are alternatives to linking the market wards via a single NPC, as I have suggested, and hopefully you (and others) will critique them and point out flaws and improvements.

By allowing retainers to travel to sell in distant wards without requiring the player to travel there, and by allowing retainers to travel to purchase items, the markets would be linked. The first allows players to place the retainer where they wish to sell the item, without the player investing the time to travel there. The second allows players to place their retainers more freely where they wish, without the concern that no one will see the goods being sold. Together these could result in retainers being more evenly distributed through the various regional markets.

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One stop shopping.

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I agree that ease of buying and selling should be improved, but I (personally) dislike the over-simplification of the economy into talking to a single NPC. I believe that reducing the amount of time that the player must spend to buy and sell items is the key point here, not necessarily the time spent between desire to have an item and when the item is in the player's inventory.

If I can spend two minutes directing my retainer to go and seek puk wings (for wing glue, say), then go off and do guild leves, or explore the wilds, and two hours later when I return my retainer has the purchase, I would be pleased.

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In summary, while I agree with the OP's goals, I believe that the same functionality of linking the markets and making buying and selling less time intensive can be done by adding more functionality to the existing retainers.

• Make retainer "Seek Item" work
• Allow placement of retainers without the player traveling to the ward
• Allow players to adjust retainer bazaar remotely via retainer linkpearl
• Allow retainers to purchase items from the wards

As I said in the previous post, Xenor had valid points about the economy, albeit of a more systemic nature.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

None of these suggestions are ways to improve the economy. They're suggestions to improve the buying process. To improve the economy you have to focus on what exists in the economy, not the means of trading it. So what does exist? Items and gil.

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I will politely disagree that the suggestions would not improve the economy. Buying and selling are intrinsic to the economy, and if they don't work, the economy won't work. That said, I agree that simply addressing the buying and selling of items without correcting systemic problems won't by itself improve this portion of the game.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

Gil! It's clear there is way too much of it in the economy when there's many people already close to or above 100 million gil only 7 months after the game was released. This gil needs removing from the economy otherwise people have the power to buy anything they want at any price. This will inevitably lead to massive inflation once worthwhile rare items are added. The average player won't be able to afford the 20-50 million asking prices.

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I don't agree that it is the sheer quantity of gil that is the problem. The number is only a number. What leads to inflation is an imbalance between the number of gil sources and the number of gil sinks.

Currently there are many sources of gil, and hardly any gil sinks in the game. The only gil sinks that I know of are (a) tax on items being bought / sold in markets (b) NPC repair costs (c) facility access for crafting (d) purchasing of items from NPCs. None of these sinks are significant enough to offset the gil flowing into the economy via the leves rewards.

To stabilize the economy, the sources and sink must balance (ideally the source is still slightly greater than the sinks). This can be done by reducing sources, as you have suggested, or by increasing the sinks.

The problem with reducing gil sources are two-fold -- it penalizes new players, and is viewed as a negative change by existing players. Alternatively, I suggest that new gil sinks be added. By adding something for players to spend their gil on, it is a positive change -- players have something worthwhile to spend their gil on, rather than having their income taken away. Additionally, keeping the gil sources allows new players to enter the game economically, and continue to earn gil as they need to.

Unfortunately, adding gil sinks means adding new content, something that takes time. In the meantime, we likely will have to deal with the current inflation.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

Items! There's too many of them. People can sit and spam and spam items forever until they pop out +1 +2 and +3 versions. This makes the NQ market worthless within a day of a new item being introduced and the +1 market becomes worthless shortly after. You've got to lower the amount of items that can be spammed. You've got to solve the item problem at the source.

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Items are in the same category as gil. It's less an issue of too many items, as a balancing between item creation and item destruction.

Gathering does create a very large quantity of materials, it's true. Yet, under the current crafting system, these materials are needed in order to advance crafting. The issue, I feel, is less a problem between the gathering and crafting step, as between the crafting and using step.

Crafter must create a very large quantity of items in order to advance, far above the needs of people to consume such items. Since items never need be destroyed, the only current item sinks are (a) actually destroying an item (b) selling an item to an NPC. Both of these are used extensively now, and are somewhat unsatisfactory.

The new task system is a first step toward providing a sink for items both gathered and crafted. Hopefully this will be expanded upon in future patches.

I have thought about and discussed the concept of bind-on-equip items, as well as item deterioration to destruction. However, both of these ideas, while they do remove some items from the economy, cannot do so as quickly as items are created by crafters. Further, they are negatives, essentially taking options (or items) from the players.

Instead, some positive inducement to remove items from the economy should be introduced, as the new task system has. Hopefully, the alluded-to materia system will be such a system. In order to balance continuing item creation, however, such a system would have to be essentially consumable.

As a straw man, suppose that weapons and armor could be broken down (when combined with appropriate gathered items) into various types of materia, which could then be slotted into gear to provide it enhancements. If the slotting of materia is permanent, eventually the items are filled, and the situation would return to the current state.

However, if the slotted materia decayed over time, then items would be continuously needed to be broken down into replacement materia. For example, suppose that applying materia provided an enhancement that lasted for one hour of in-game use (approximately). Given the number of wearable items, this type of system could easily consume all of the excess item production, and create demand for more.

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In summary, I agree that there are systemic imbalances with both gil and items in the game. These are related to the creation and consumption of both gil and items -- currently there is far more creation than consumption.

However, rather than restrict creation, as you have suggested, my suggestion is that increasing consumption would create a game that is more fun to play.

Thanks Amineri for you input :).

I am glad we basically agree on what the problems are. I think that as long as we can agree on the problem a solution is inevitable, and the more we discuss it, the best solution can be found.

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Honestly I had not put much thought into the the bazaar seeking, as I rarely if ever see it being used. Though this is most likely, as you point out, because it is extremely unreliable. And from a seeker's perpsective, your solution would quite easily allow players to base themselves in another region, yet still participate in foreign markets. You would obviously still require a search feature to find what items are be sought after. However, outside of this very limited use, I think this may turn into being a very unintuitive feature.

To explain, suppose a rank 30 player, based in Limsa Lominsa, wishes to participate in the Gridania marketplace. Under the proposed system, our retainer would be able to help us. First, let us again suppose the adventurer is seeking an item that is in shorty supply in Limsa, yet is plentiful in Gridania. Through this system, the adventurer can place his retainer all the way in Gridania and start seeking for the item. But, after placing his retainer, the adventurer must wait or either move on to something else before he/she can recieve the wanted items. Even though there may be plenty of items in the bazaars, there is no independent interaction between bazaars; and, in order for the Limsa-based player to get the items they seek, it will require Gridania players to personally sell these items directly to the bazaar which may or may not require the players to first take items out of their bazaars find the seekers bazaar and then finally make the transaction.

A solution to this may be, to allow bazaars to have automatic transactions. Under certain circumstances bazaars would handle trades and transactions themselves. For example, if a bazaar is currently selling an item and another seeking the item; they would then be able to handle the transaction. But it would also require prices either matching, or implementing a new mechanic that allows players to seek items for a certain price range, and I do not see a mechanic like this ever being implemented.

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The Probelm with a single dominant Market in FFXIV

Before moving on, I would remind everyone, the particular problem we are dealing with here, is how best to spread the population out into the various regions. This particular problem has two roots: first the weak overall population encourages players to seek a common hub, and the second, markets are completely inaccessible from different regions. The former can only be solved with increased popularity, and an overall improvement in the game itself. The latter, however, can be fixed through a myriad of methods. Although, it may be said, that the latter may influence the former if done properly.

Also, in the future, Ishguard may become they new hub of popularity for players. This would mean a desertion of Ul'dah and the other regions completely, as the market would then move to Ishguard (assuming there is a market ward there).

This particular problem affects two groups of players in particular. Newer players and players playing in other regions. Newer players are the most uniformed player, and it is highly likely, in the current situation, that they will not choose Ul'dah as their starting location. Secondly, if the market place moves entirely away from the starting cities to Ishguard, a new player would most likely not be able to participate in a viable marketplace for a very long time. While newer players are unknowingly placing themselves at a disadvantage, there are some players who do so knowingly. These players like to play in the Black Shroud & La Noscea for the most part, and rarely make the long journey to Ul'dah for supplies. Aside from limiting their economic participation, it also places a unnecessary burden on these players. In addition, I don't believe Square-Enix developed equal amounts of content in each zone, just for only one zone to become so dominant. The coalescing of players also places severe pressure on server stability as well. Thus, from a developer and player stand point, it is better to fix this problem.

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I am concerned about your suggestion to link all of the market areas into one, however. Such a step, once done, cannot effectively be undone. I have seen many, many games that have been severely diminished by 'globalization' of the world.

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I do agree with you on this one. Once done, a linking of the market wards would probably never ever be undone, as its convenience would be too hard to part with. For a very long time I shared your exact sentiments. I see the FFXIV economy being one of the most interesting of all online games right now, and it at least has very good potential. I also believed that linking the market wards should not be done or even considered until major means of transportation have been implemented. I still do hold this sentiment to a degree, I am not necessarily in a rush to link the wards. If there were no means of transportation coming, however, it would be almost required for the markets to be linked.

Yet, I have now come to the conclusion that an eventual linking of the markets should take place. I do not come to this conclusion lightly, as I hope you can see I have put a great amount of thought into this subject. By linking the market wards, certain aspects of a dynamic ecnonomy would be eliminated. Although most of these aspects in mind would arguably be more profound with better transportation, they currently are not being employed to any great degree. But, the main point is this: The economy and market system must serve the game, not vice versa, and that linking the market wards would, by helping to alleviate the problems I outlined above, would help lead to a better game.

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Finding the best method to improve the Markets.

I don't assume to have the best ideas, far from it in fact. I am just looking at the most visible problems, and giving suggestions. I believe that while linking the market wards is important, it may be more important to improve the Market Wards system first. I'll outline what we have as major problems so far:

• Placing Retainers
• Moving to each Retainer to Buy
• Unable to see what items are being sought after.
• Market Crashes

These are structural problems within the ward system itself. As I look at these, the best idea that comes to mind is the one I had suggested. Maybe the exact implementation is not best. But a single point to reference all bazaars for items would eliminate the need for players to place retainers in specific wards, and would remove the need for players to move to each retainer to buy the items. A mechanic to search for seeker's items would still need to be implemented. But the bazaar reference system would still be able to handle this. But the most important reason for my suggestion is this: as the game popularity increases. It becomes obvious how bad the market crashes might become. Already there are caps on certain market locations that prevent some retainers from being used effectively. If there is a 30% increase in population, there is no chance for the market wards to hold these retainers. Thus this problem only serves to show how unsustainable the market wards are in the future. It will always be a thorn in the side of the developers that must be continually addressed. This very problem may eventually force the developers to link the market wards, just to distribute the retainers more evenly across the other markets as well. Thus a system that is capable of only referencing the Retainers would be far more effecient, and cause far fewer technicaly problems for the developers.

Amineri and Roaran you have some great idea and its nice to see two people discussing idea's politely.

The problem I see is that what you are suggesting would require a lot of work on the developers part which is fine for the long term but they need to do something soon (before PS3 release).

FWIW we asked many times in beta that retainers be allowed to do our shopping, similar to how you suggested, ie tell retainer to look for item between the price of X and X, I guess we can assume it wasn't considered (mind you that was when Tanaka was leading the game) and as I said the amount of programming and variables to consider would be mind boggling I would imagine.

I do like the idea that you can intrust a retainer to go to a different city, this however brings up a few questions, assuming we send a retainer from Ul'dah to Gridania would this mean we couldn't summon the retainer for 30 mins (ie the length of the journey) or would they have their own Anima :P??

I'm not really a fan of waiting for things, say for example you suggest sending your retainer to buy something and do leves for 2 hours to wait for them to make the purchase and return, what if i have done my leves and want to crack on with some crafting and I'm missing the item/s i require to do that. Does that mean I would have to wait 2 hours for my retainer to return to me with the item or would it mean that if i wanted the item straight away I would have to go get the item/s myself? (this negates the purpose surely)

I feel right now the best way to solve the issue would be SE allowing people to teleport to any of the wards at the market entrance, ie I run up to the market wards in Ul'dah and get a choice which city ward I want to teleport to, obviously this adds another layer to the menu system which I'm not really a fan of but it could be a quick stop gap, there would be no need to link the wards together as they would be easily accessed between the 3 cities. (of course if you enter Limsa market wards from Ul'dah you would only have the choice to exit to the place in which you entered in this case The Fronds)

Another suggestion would be to make the MW's one place (ie one massive instance) and not specific to any one City state but perhaps this is just the same as linking them and would require a seperate server just to handle the traffic flow and crashing issues.

Sorry, a bit late on joining this thread ...

I just started playing FF14 couple of months ago. Having played a few player driven economy MMOs in the past few years, the two major ones are EVE Online and Entropia, I like to share my two gils on this matter ...

Running the risk of repeating what have already been stated, but to help understand, allow me to list some of the issues I have with FF14's market:

- Lacks system resources caused the market to be not fully functional (visual retainers)
- Lacks market data
- Lacks buying/selling functions
- Lacks storage in relation to the massive item inventory

First of all, while the Retainer idea is very noble and entertaining, IMHO it is the major cause of all the issues mentioned above. A lot of the changes can still be done in a form of a "Retainer", but with its functions changed/enhanced.

I suggest SE replace the Retainer, or redo its functionality, and make it a world inventory storage with a pre-defined items space (IE: 250). Additional items space can be purchased via monthly fee, (IE: 1USD = +250). We can access the storage in different terminals (NPC) in the major cities. This reduces the need of players having multiple retainers, as well as the need for players to do the inventory shuffle. (DB overload due to excessive unnecessary data calls.)

Replace the associated market function with retainers altogether and replace it with a world-wide Trade House (TH) AND an Auction House (AH). Both the TH/AH can be accessed via different locations in major cities, and maybe as well as major camps.

The TH needs two major operations, to list sell orders and buy orders. For selling, a player should be able to list items for sale, in whatever quality they like, and at the price they selling it at.

The buy orders will work in reverse. Buyer lists buy order at a set price, and seller sells their inventory to fill the buy order.

The player should be given the ability to set how long their list will stay on the market, eg: 1d, 1w, 30d, limited ability to update item price with time constraints such as once every 30 mins.

The AH will work like eBay, items are listed with a set end date, with or without a buy-out price. SE may or may not limited the AH to unique items.

Both the TH/AH should have low listing fees, and final fee based on transaction value.

With this new world-market, SE now can also gather market data and can make different market trend reports available in game and offer better UI with search ability.

The current visual retainer implementation just does not work, aside from being resource intensive due to all the animation, it is also location restrictive.

IMHO the world storage will help resolve the limitations set by the current retainer system. Being only level 50 with my THM/BLM, I have just and started to level up my DoH this past week, and I am running out of inventory space with two retainers, and I have not even begin serious crafting yet. Yet, none of this is my doing, but necessary caused by game design. The fact that one needs to be a Goldsmith, Blacksmith, Armorer, and Carpenter to craft a level 14 Brass Head Knife, a lot of inventory slots is required for just for one finished product.

In the end, as always, there is more then one way to skin a cat, this is just one additional one.

jc