Square Enix. Please hire an economic advisor.

[SecsyMancat]

If they wanted to seriously save a large portion of their end game economy they would put materia slots in top tier gear. that would save that market. They would also make top tier food worth buying (Right now <50 food is better because they have higher % and you can actually hit the caps on them. Yes that's right, on my main I get a larger stat boost from level 50 food than 2 star. Potions exist and do sell, but it's the mega potions which any old Joe can 100% HQ. They built scarcity into the HQ2 star mats but then made those recipes more or less useless for the 2 consumable crafts. The lower level pots and food are just too easy to flood the market with because there is no scarcity of materials. Since any player can gather/craft anything there is no specialization in production and no scarcity of supplies, this is a bad combination that leads to mass flooding of markets 2-3 months after the game (and or level increasing expansion) is released. Unless you're one of the first in the market, you're not making much for profit.

[jomoru]

.. As long as the Economic Advisor isn't part of the Obama Administration or a member of any Democrat committee... they do horrible junk math just to get what they want.

All politically factioned Economists are biased

[Gardthorne]

If somehow they found a giant mine full of diamonds tomorrow, enough to put a giant rock on the finger of everyone in the world, diamonds would cease to be valuable. It is because they are rare, and that they are hard to get that they are so valuable.

Diamonds are valuable because the supply is carefully controlled and people are suckers for marketing. They're not rare at all. Just sayin.

[Aniforani]

Not everyone will enjoy every aspect of this game, and that some features are of greater importance than others. However, there should be an incentive to exploring everything the game has to offer if you want to keep people invested.
With the game structure I don't believe DoW/M had much influence on the stability of market prices. Early on money was exchanged in the markets between crafters and gatherers leveling as fast as possible to hit cap, those who arrived at 50 early made large amounts of gil back. I attempted to be one of those first to cap, and ended up completing my journey in time to profit from my investment. With little to no profit even at the cap why should people invest time in crafting/gathering?
I'd like to see some missions added for those who level crafting and gathering classes to further enhance BiS gear. Not big bonuses, but enough to drive people to craft. A single stat point is often incentive enough.

[Jyoeru]

You'd rather play $13/month to do the same dungeon 10 billion times?

Picking flowers isn't how I made gil in games with a good economy.

I'd rather there be ample content to do such that I am never stagnant farming the same 4 dungeons. I just started a gathering craft yesterday, and I am already over it.

[IzumiRaito]

I stopped reading at getting back to rng crafting. Please do not destroy the best crafting in mmos.

[MichiKyou]

Hopefully when they release 'Vanity' items, this will be balanced.

Every craft needs more 'rare' things to make, that are simply vanity!

[Dashuto]

Any FC that has the means to actually buy a house are going to have plenty of people that have DoH/DoL maxed. They don't have to pay anyone to do -anything-, they just have to get the mats. You've effectively kicked the problem of a crashing economy a few months down the road.

This to the complete limit. Anyone who thought for just a few moments would have seen this situation coming from miles away. If an LS can actually afford a house at this insane pricing, they obviously have enough economic means under their belt to completely and totally forego the Marketplace to dress up the house. That stuff just wont ever move well until the housing is far far cheaper, or until personal housing is out.

[Raezaiel]

Yea I have no idea why there aren't materia slots on high level gear. No idea.

[Taekrys]

OP is right to some extension.
But he misunderstood the actual problem.

Evil exploiter of the economy system is now earning a lot less than did before, because people can't spend nothing if they want to gather enough to buy a house.
That, however, is not a problem: if people don't buy from each other, average wealth don't change. What makes average wealth change are Gold Sinks, like housing.

The issue here is the reason because people earned so much to start with.
And that was the huge amount of silver and gold allagan on the storyline quests.

Thanks to that, everyone was a fresh starter with more than 100.000 gil.
New storyline quest gives you Allagan Silver. And a few of them.
So they intentionally stopped making people earn good money via quests, WHILE putting up those absurd prices, WHILE calculating them on each server actual economy, which doesn't make any sense.
Their estimations doesn't take in account the fact that we now don't earn enough, anymore.