Materia System

[Peregrine]

I offered that suggestion in one of my other posts and it really does seem to be the only way that no one can really control the markets like you are suggesting (and more than likely) will happen with SE's setup.

Also make the NPC charge a fair price (if you include Crafter and gatherer based materias) so that way we have gil getting removed from the game, something this game really has nothing of at the moment, in fact right now its the complete opposite, all the PCs sell to the NPCs to get more gil, instead you should have PCs BUYING from the NPCs more than they sell to keep inflation low.

As part of that they could also lower the cost for repairing gear from the repair NPC if they decide to make the NPC charge, it would allow two services for the price of the current one service (repairing gear). I think it would make people a little happier on all spectra tbh.

Agreed. I did not know they intended this gear to be sellable. Actually, NPC doing the final inlaying is better than the gear not being sellable. I like it.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

I rather have the players play a role in the economy, but I go with whatever the majority thinks is better. I still don't think it's a big deal since DoW/DoM could sell their own materia gear to other DoW/DoMs.

[Physic]

I offered that suggestion in one of my other posts and it really does seem to be the only way that no one can really control the markets like you are suggesting (and more than likely) will happen with SE's setup.

Also make the NPC charge a fair price (if you include Crafter and gatherer based materias) so that way we have gil getting removed from the game, something this game really has nothing of at the moment, in fact right now its the complete opposite, all the PCs sell to the NPCs to get more gil, instead you should have PCs BUYING from the NPCs more than they sell to keep inflation low.

As part of that they could also lower the cost for repairing gear from the repair NPC if they decide to make the NPC charge, it would allow two services for the price of the current one service (repairing gear). I think it would make people a little happier on all spectra tbh.

yea, you did mention it first, its probably the best idea, far as making repairs cheaper, i dunno bout that since its the only gilsink, and it scales to the items value, not to mention even with the expensive npc repair, i really dont see many people offering fair prices for repairs (cheaper than the req item? and it can fail? ehhhh)

[OMEGA_HACK]

I rather have the players play a role in the economy, but I go with whatever the majority thinks is better. I still don't think it's a big deal since DoW/DoM could see their own materia gear to other DoW/DoMs.

The biggest problem with all this is the inflation levels, like mentioned a second ago there are no gilsinks in this game (there are no Chocobos to rent, or airships to ride and quite frankly will probably not be used too often due to being able to teleport to and fro)

Also the problem with the quoted text is that combat classes are still at the very bottom of the rungs its like a peasant screwing over another peasant to reach the upper-lower-class, its not a balanced economy. Something you should strive to achieve in a MMO (and personally in the real world as well, but; /le_sigh that is another off topic thread in its own)

[Peregrine]

I rather have the players play a role in the economy, but I go with whatever the majority thinks is better. I still don't think it's a big deal since DoW/DoM could sell their own materia gear to other DoW/DoMs.

Think about how you will go about doing this as a DoW and DoM.

You'll buy gear to turn into materia. You'll get the good materia, and inlay it into your current set of best gear. You won't initially sell your materia'd ger to anyone else. YOu'd remove the inferior materia, and replace it with better materia until you were done with a set.

Then what do you do? Well to get better you have to start trying double inlays. You again buy a bunch of gear to turn to materia. Once you have enough materia, you start trying double inlays. But on what gear do you try these high-fails on? Best in class NQ gear? Are you willing to burn +1 Jade crooks? +2? +3?

At what point do you become done, selling your materia'd gear to other people? You don't ever, until you have a double-materia'd Jade Crook+3 in every slot.

And by that point you'll either bee piss poor or sick of it.

Once a materia'd gear goes onto a DoW or DoM, that's where it dies. It would never get resold. You would resell all of three gears. The NQ double inlay once you made a +1 double inlay, the +1 double inlay once you made a +2 double inlay, and +2 double inlay once you made the +3.

Everything else will be garbage.

[Felis]

Instead of buying one Jade crook to use, now you end up buying one to use and five or six just to turn into materia. That is where crafters benefit. The consumption of the gear they make goes up six-tenfold.

I use 2-3 weapons anyway. No time to repair my weapon during the battles.

[Amineri]

I'm not being dense, it is a very valid point. And one you don't have a counter argument for which is why you are now calling me dense instead.

Any crafter charging 120k for an item that cost 12k to make needs to be shot. I think we can both agree with that. But you are assuming all crafters would do such a thing, which isn't true. Free markets ensure people like that never make a profit.

I'd like to point out that one reason such large markups exist and continue to exist is because the only cost to the seller isn't the materials. There is also the limited retainer bazaar space, which creates an opportunity cost. This is a virtual cost, but real nonetheless.

Internal reasoning as follows:
"I only have 20 retainer bazaar slots to sell things with. Therefore, my selling something in a bazaar slot for low profit means that I can't sell something else with high profit. So, even if I list a low cost item, I'm still going to add a fixed markup cost since I couldn't use that bazaar slot for a higher end item."

It stands because there isn't anyone willing to take a smaller profit margin on those items to compete with said seller. It's the same principle as to why the consumer pays for the shelf space in a grocery store.

The more items there are available, and with the number of bazaar slots remaining fixed, the greater the value of a bazaar slot becomes. So, with the addition of (presumably) a wide array of materia and materia-enhanced items, the cost of a bazaar slot goes up another delta. Expect this to result in ALL items getting more expensive.

[Amineri]

Peregrine makes the point of:

If the warrior does ALL the work to get the materia why does he have to pay a butt load of gil (making the obvious assumption that crafters will overprice as they already do) to infuse the materia into his new weapon.

AND

Said crafters will be able to craft the items that the warrior buys (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) assuming that most crafters will want all the mats to be provided by the warriors, the warrior purchases the catalyst (that is +1 Gatherer -1 Warrior) now the crafter also has a fee for doing this for the warrior (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) Crafter infuses the materia on the new weapon, rinse and repeat.
All in all you have Crafter+2, Gatherer+1, Warrior-3.

His point is a completely valid; the combat people will loose out in the long run and the Crafting classes will end up controlling the markets without any real need for checks and balances.

This analysis assumes that the flow of goods only ends up with the combat classes being the only consumer.

This can be broken in a couple of ways:

1. Crafters and Gatherers will likely be users of materia-enhanced gear also.
2. Crafters and Gatherers can presumably add AP to items as well as the Combat classes.

If Crafters are also consumers of materia, it means that they will be paying a cost for materia that does NOT get directly passed on to the end-consumer, because they are the end-consumer.

In addition, this whole chain of logic rests on the assumption that crafters can indiscriminately set their prices however they want. This would be true, except for the fact of COMPETITION. Yes, there is competition amongst crafters.

Look at this scenario:
Crafter buys semi-rare materia for 5M, adds to item, lists for 6M. Before someone buys it, another crafter buys the same materia for 4M and lists it for 5M. Before that sells, another crafter buys the same materia for 4M and lists it for 4.5M. Now, the original crafter cannot even make a profit on the original 5M purchase. This risk is in part why the markups are so high. The person selling the materia is guaranteed 5M. The crafter purchasing it is not.

Crafters are no greedier than battlers or gatherers. Everyone wants to sell their goods for as much as they can. However, the system should be a little bit more balanced.

Suggestion:
If crafters cannot create their own materia (for their own uses), then they will be an end-product user of crafter-oriented materia.

Then the battle classes can mark-up such materia as much as desired, since the cost will not be passed back to them. Further, since crafters "have so much gil", the competition amongst crafters for rare crafter-oriented materia will be fierce, and prices will be high.

The situation then partially reverses, where battlers (say), purchase gear from crafters, turn said gear into crafter materia, and sell said drastically marked-up materia back to the crafters.

[LateReg]

That happened to scorpion harness much later in the game, it was a 6mil item for a long time, wasnt till they had better, more easily attained gear that it dropped.

Here is the thing, there is no chance of failure on the first binding. So why should it cost more than repairs, which have a chance of failure? Only because of marketing.
Peregrines point, is that crafters wont want to work by commission, when they can make money. There are a lot of crafters who wont craft if you bring them the items, why? because if everyone gathers items themselves, the crafters as a whole wont make money. They may do it for their shell mates, but not for the average joe. Heck i remember early on in this game, when someone joined a crafting LS and they said their ls had said they can make item for people anymore, just wait till they make it themselves.

Its not in the best interest of a corporation of crafters to offer socketing services, when they can make more money off selling socketed items. And it would be logical to do this, if SE makes the system this way.

heres the key, crafters will pass any costs of materia back to the people they buy it from, and a cost for them doing the work, will it be a reasonable cost? probably not for some time.
Compound that to the fact, the crafter has the least invested in these ventures. Adventurer buys gear, wears it does whatever to get attached, gatherer farms up catalysts. The only thing the crafter does for this system is a guaranteed synth, why are they the ones that control the final product? The one who puts in the most work is the materia creator, unless the catalysts are super rare/in insane places to get to.

Maybe they should make a socketing npc and just leave the crafters out, or make it simply an option. Crafters will be making way more items, and thus already getting something out of the system.
We dont need to add an extra middleman cost to the prices, and basically ensure that it will be more profitable for crafters not to socket things for people with the required items.

Huh? It doesn't matter if the Harness was 2mil or 20mil NQ, you missed the point entirely. I know how much it was, I played since Japanese PS2 Beta...

I was saying that if you, as a bonecrafter, bought a Claw (which was always the same price as NQ harness, if not more), you would always lose money if you didn't HQ, and this game is matching that right about now, at least on my server. I listed some exceptions in my post.

[Feldt]

Just wanted to add my few cent's, tbh i like the name "Materia" "Materia System" would be glad if this would retain it name ^^