DevTalk: GIL SINKS! Ideas to Stabilize the Economy and Curb Inflation

[Xenor]

Crafters aren't the problem inherently. It's that the gathering system is so broken that none of the profits of making anything go to gatherers who make it possible. It all goes to the crafters. Combined with a decent amount of top crafters being cheaters because the risks far outweigh the benefits, and you have a population similar to RMT that will be a direct cause of gil inflation.

They will raise prices so you can't afford them. That's the RMT's secret recipe, but it's not unique to RMT.

I agree gathering can use improvements but the profits a gatherer takes aren't from the finished items the crafter produces, but from the process that enabled the crafter to rank up. I've made tens of millions selling gathering materials used to skill up on.

Most gatherers are just as bad as the crafters who don't want to pay extra for HQ materials. I'd sooner NPC my +2/3ed ores and logs than sell them for the same price as the NQ and +1 versions. But many gatherers will happily sell them for the same price, feeding these cheap crafters. If gatherers would stop giving away their crap for so little crafters would start paying the higher prices for better quality when they realise it's pay or get it yourself.

[Volkai]

Besaiders with gil burning a hole in their pocket are welcome to purchase my ludicrously overpriced not-very-useful services! I provide, um... not much. Actually. My highest class is maybe level 12.

[Amineri]

Besaiders with gil burning a hole in their pocket are welcome to purchase my ludicrously overpriced not-very-useful services! I provide, um... not much. Actually. My highest class is maybe level 12.

Go and slaughter sheep in the area south of Limsa Lominsa. The sheep are in the 1 to 9 rank range. Last I checked the cheapest sheepskin in the markets was around 6500 gil.

[Amsai]

Most people in both the real-world and in MMOs (funny, that) don't care about the economy -- until it turns around and bites them on the ass.

Real world -- I don't care about the economy ~~ until the unemployment rate goes up and I can't find a job.
MMO -- I don't care about the economy ~~ until RMT and massive inflation keeps me from buying anything.

For better or worse, any MMO will have an economy. Even if money were removed from the game, as long as trading is allowed, there would be at least a barter economy (and damn if that wouldn't be a mess). Players would probably end up creating their own currency (maybe marmot pelts?).

You could go a step further and disallow trading, in an effort to make an "economy-less MMO". Even then if you can form a party to go after item drops, you could still have economic trades of the form "Player A will help Player B quest for item X if Player B helps Player A quest for item Y". Barter of services in this case. RMT would likely step in and offer to walk players through quests to get items in exchange for real-world currency.

The only way to get rid of an economy is to have a game with no player-exchangable currency, no player-trades, and nothing other than solo quests. This would basically be a single-player game with a glorified chat-room. Maybe that's the type of game you would prefer? It's not a bad game design, but it isn't an MMO.

The point is: any MMO is going to have an economy. If the economy is broken, the game is less enjoyable. Many game titles in the past have proven that point (I'll only point at Aion). If the development team doesn't care about the economy, they don't care about the game succeeding.

You are making a lot of assumptions about me. Also I find a couple of your ideas actually acceptable. And no, I don't want to play a single-player RPG. I get bored far too quickly without a group. Its not like you couldn't take away actual money from an MMO. Me personally? I like the idea of trading helping someone with a quest in exchange for them helping me. In fact I did it quite often in a few MMORPGs.

You see I am a firm believer in paying for things in BLOOD! Why because I am an adventurer and not a crafter. I don't mind having to farm a little gil here and there, but for the most part I would rather just slog through /ragequit hard dungeons/endgame with friends or my LS 7 days a week helping myself and them to attain gear, comradery, fun, and a decent storyline if possible. These are the main things I need in an MMORPG. So as you can see, I would be perfectly happy with no crafters and only needing a little gil to buy consumables and services from an NPC at a fixed price and having everything else be Bind on Pickup. I have no problem helping out others in exchange for help I need with other things (thats where the MMO part comes in) because it provides adventure and not mind-numbingly boring never-ending chore to get gil........ I already do that in real life..... And for the record, I do care about the real world economy, BUT I play games to relax and forget about my worldly troubles, not to relive them.

[Amineri]

:O Sorry if you thought I was making assumptions about you!

I do my best to not do so, since I just know I'm going to screw it up

I can sympathize with your position : games should be fun. And you don't care for or about crafting. Fair enough. You don't have to. However, I hope that you can recognize that there are those of us that do. And ... just because you don't care about crafting, that not every game should not include crafting. And crafting does increase the complexity of the economy.

I in large part chose to play FFXIV because of the rich and varied crafting and gathering system. And so I post about how to improve it.

That said, I hope that some way in which it doesn't take away from your enjoyment of the game can be found, while simultaneously my craving for complex and unwieldy systems

[Seif]

AH please that's all they need to do both things at once.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

AH please that's all they need to do both things at once.

wouldn't fix the issue, MW are Ah's just that you walk instead of insta - get

but ya newbies have it rough guys trust me. And forcing newbies to pretty much do levequests and story quests just to buy A peice of gear is flat out wrong.

Players do have stuff they can do to lower the gil coming in, I suggested them in other posts and no one cared to listen or felt I was ording people around. Instead of asking for over the top gil sinks that screw over casuals and newbies do somestuff yourselves. Can't keep relying on SE to fix problems you guys created for yourselves.

[Punxsutawney]

There only needs to really be a few gil sinks in this game.
1. Chocobos (ownable mounts) make all sorts and colors and let players decorate them with armor and saddles. Not only does the player buy the bird, but they also buy the armor and saddles to customize them. Also let people own up to 5 mounts. This way players spend gil on a red choco and white armor for it as well as a black chocobo with gold armor and saddle. People can collect mounts so to speak, and can customize them as they see fit/can afford. GIL is removed through the cost of the mount and accessorizing it, and they players get the satisfaction of building their own unique mounts.
2. Housing/mog house - This is a no brainer. Housing upkeep fees, furniture, storage containers, all take gil out of the game and most people see these things as worthy perks to spend gil on.
3. Gear dyeing NPCs - another no brainer. Remove the dyes, dyed cloths, and dyed leathers from this game, it takes up way to much valuable space, and have an npc dye the gear for a cost. And let them do 2 tone dyeing. Example: Cloud Strife wants to dye his new piece of body armor. So he hoofs it to the closest gear dyeing Npc. Being fairly wealthy he pays Barrett, the dyer, 5k ¥, err gil, to dye the piece grey. Well he knows his girl Tifa really likes the color red, so he forks over another 2k to have the stitching and accents dyed red. Pulls gil out of the game and frees up valuable, limited retainer space. Another win-win sitchyation.
Feel free to mail me a job app yoshi, if you want to higher me. I can't program a thing but I am a cognitive think tank. Hahaha jking on that part.

[Alhanelem]

Need to tread carefully with this, as you don't want people to be afraid to spend their money fearing that they won't be able to get enough anymore.

[Vahzl]

I vote for a Gambling System that requires huge amount of gil for chances to get non-tradable items that are usable. :P

I vote for a battle royale each time you login. You want to get to your gil stores, and your retainers? Here is a frying pan and a dustbin lid, there is a field of 400 other players, your now server shared retainer is on the other side. Only one person can use it for the entire day.

/pvp flag on

Go!