The "Saving the Economy" Super Thread! (ideas to save economy)

[Millimidget]

that actually makes more sense. at least in terms of limiting the amount of crafting u can get maxed. czu as of right now, i dont even have to buy any mats from the AH since i can get and/or make them all on my own. Therein lies the problem that's causing the economy to stagnate over time.

I really don't think that's it.

If I had to rely on others as I do in other MMO crafting systems, I probably wouldn't participate in the crafting system at all.

Stop making all this stuff people should be gathering availible for 2 gil from a vendor.

Plenty aren't sold by vendors.

Speaking of which, they just took some off the vendors.

- Make bosses drop unsellable and untradable ingredients. Also avoids RMT.

So I have to farm the dungeon which drops gear of the same level as what I'm trying to craft, to get some of the materials for the item I'm trying to craft.

Why wouldn't I just farm the gear from the dungeon directly at that point?

I've read through this thread, and most of these suggestions might make crafting more engaging for a small niche of the community (devoted crafters and devoted market traders), but would absolutely tank interest in crafting for the general populace, the same as it has in practically every other MMO I've played. Seeing as the gear is quickly eclipsed while leveling, and isn't on par with the current max level gear even as they release another source of gear (PvP) which actually does offer max level pieces, what makes you think the average player would be interested in crafting at all?

[LineageRazor]

Devoted crafters are VERY interested in seeing interest in crafting absolutely tank for the general populace. The less competition the better! However, the best way to make interest tank is to make crafting an obnoxious, boring grind, as it was in FFXI. Crafting is an enjoyable pasttime in FFXIV, and I'd prefer it to stay that way.

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing a limit on the number of crafts that can be taken to cap, as was the case in FFXI. It's sort of silly that every crafter is eventually going to be an EVERYTHING crafter; you can't really identify yourself as a Goldsmith main, for instance, because the very act of being a devoted Goldsmith means that you should have everything else at 50 as well for the cross-class skills. If SE raises job level caps in the future, they may want to consider forcing crafters to choose only one craft to level beyond 50.

[Fenwick]

I've read through this thread, and most of these suggestions might make crafting more engaging for a small niche of the community (devoted crafters and devoted market traders), but would absolutely tank interest in crafting for the general populace, the same as it has in practically every other MMO I've played. Seeing as the gear is quickly eclipsed while leveling, and isn't on par with the current max level gear even as they release another source of gear (PvP) which actually does offer max level pieces, what makes you think the average player would be interested in crafting at all?

Why would you create content for people who have no interest in it? Or worry about tanking interest for those uninterested already. In my mind it makes more sense to develop the future of crafting and gathering specifically for those who want to do it, not for those who don't want to.

[Nadrojj]

1. In 2.2 raise the crafting level cap to 60 or 70 hell even 100 like they did in ffxi, do the same for gathering. Then make it so you can only pick one craft you can specialize in and level to that new cap. This will take away the I have all crafts leveled I can craft whatever I want. Right now one of the biggest problems is market saturation, this will alleviate some of that.

2. Make bosses drop craft mats going forward, these craft mats can then be crafted into armor.

3. Bring back rare items. Instead of this hey anyone can get said item, bring back rare drops like venomous claws from ffxi that were dropped from certain bosses and made a highly desirable piece of gear called a scorpion harness. All you need to do now is run instances farm your tomes and you have the same gear as everyone else, that's pretty boring.

4. Create endgame gear with comparable stats to end game content. The caveat? Add one materia socket to them. That way you will see people wanting to buy/create these items and see them being used. This would swing the power back to crafting and stabilizing the market. Yeah I like the stats on my Myth tome gear, but If i could get the same stats with a marginal increase via materia, I'd go for it.

An example - Currently Allagan body offers 34 accuracy. Create an endgame body piece with the same stats and give it 28 accuracy and one materia slot. If i'm accuracy capped like I currently am I can add a different stat to my gear, if I need that extra acc I could throw a accuracy materia in there to hit or even exceed the cap.

The materia system is nice, but it's silly it's not used in anything endgame because all the gear we get is from instances/tomes and has no sockets.

[Millimidget]

Why would you create content for people who have no interest in it? Or worry about tanking interest for those uninterested already. In my mind it makes more sense to develop the future of crafting and gathering specifically for those who want to do it, not for those who don't want to.

What are you crafting that you can't make money off of?

[Fenwick]

Snip...

Ignoring the fact that you're completely ignoring my point. I'm not sure what the numbers you're looking at on your server are like, but aside from some choice food, very little is worth crafting here. If you're lucky you'll break even on what the materials themselves are worth.

The only way to make any meaningful gil off of crafting is to break it down into materia, which is less effective now because SE crashed most of that market by giving Materia IV as quest rewards. Essentially they took potentially every character in the entire game, and injected that many Materia IV into the game, times it by four because that is how many you get.

Quicktongue III is worth 22k/p on Excalibur, Quicktongue IV is worth 17k/p.

Steel Ingots went for 600g/p, SE put them available on a vendor in 2.1 and the price is now 120g/p. This is only one example this has happened with every single material added to a vendor in 2.1, they are essentially killing their own economy by putting artificial caps as to how much you can make on certain materials.

The materials that aren't available are farmed so much or given so casually via Treasure Maps, most aren't worth 100g and a large chunk of what gear you can craft is either overshadowed completely by DL/CT or also available on a vendor at the leveling camps.

[Nadrojj]

What are you crafting that you can't make money off of?

On my server as a GSM there is just so much supply and so little demand that you constantly get undercut when you list your items. I sell level 49 rings, selling price for hq's used to be 5500, then as the rest of the masses leveled they dropped that in half. Now you see people selling HQ's for less than NQ's just so their stuff can sell. The saturation of items on the market is one of the reasons no one is able to make a good profit.

[Millimidget]

The only way to make any meaningful gil off of crafting is to break it down into materia

No it's not.

I sell level 49 rings, selling price for hq's used to be 5500, then as the rest of the masses leveled they dropped that in half. Now you see people selling HQ's for less than NQ's just so their stuff can sell.

Is that 5500 number accurate? Or do you mean 55000?

EDIT: Looking at the market boards, I'd say 5500 was correct. You can make as much or more selling practically anything lower level than that.

[ArcheustheWise]

Save the economy? Oh i think its far to late for that personally. They would have to revamp the whole system and i think they know it.

First off they have to make it where you aren't given free armor from quests, thus making crafters 1-50 viable.

They should also remove vendors that sell armor as well. This just circumvents the whole reason on having crafters in the first place.

Next lose this stupid high priced housing bs... this is just causing people to hoard money and is pointless anyway. Its making the furniture market tank as well. Not even sure how they didnt see this one comming. Instead have people buy lots for a reasonable high price then let them bring CRAFTERS to actually build different aspects of the house... a true house raising so to speak. That alone would help stir the market.

Bring out a card game and an arena to face other people and maybe even bet gil. Or ill do one better, make a gil sink kind of "golden saucer with the card game and many other things to do. put the pvp in there, let people watch, or maybe let people fight of waves of monsters. The posibilities are endless.

As it stands right now, theres just not much to spend gil on. Crafters are useless due to the free armor garbage 1-50 and fate grind. And end game is worse. People just get free armor via tomes or dungeon drops.

Well thats all im putting in for now. I personally think its too late lol. They would have to change many things to pull it out of the fire now.

[Norna]

Okay, I’m functioning on less than 2 hours sleep within the last 48 hours, so these might or might not make sense:

Remove most gear as quest rewards except a few quests
That level 5 check you get early on? You need to buy from either market or NPC at least two slots, though it’ll likely be all except the custom-made body slot.

Less productivity when crafting
Everyone can craft a dozen HQ rings in half an hour. That’s a lot of rings entering the market. How about lowering the HQ percentage and also making crafting a bit more time-consuming (Quick Synth should take thrice as long for the amount of stuff you get if you, for example, craft 99 leathers). This slows down the influx of items.

Lots of special crafting stuff can be found in dungeons
Such as ingredients and gear (alternatives to Luminaries found in CT/Coil?). These can then be sold by raiders/battle lovers (or they might be able to commission what they want), thus giving them an income from crafters.

There are BiS craftable gear
This shouldn’t even be up for discussion. If a hardcore anti-crafter wants BiS, he can either commission a crafter to make it for him, or buy it from the market.

Extensive commission system
The commissioner puts up a notice near the market board and gets a few answers. They can see the iLevel and rate of success and HQ when picking the crafter they want, and submit materials and gil. The crafter then crafts the item and submits it, getting their gil. Sometimes, NPCs wants very expensive commissions that’s like hitting the jackpot for crafters.

FC Housing needs a bit of an overhaul
Plot price for largest and best location should never go above 100 million (50mil for large land plot, 50mil for location. Smallest plot/worst location would be around 1mil). Then crafters and gatherers are needed (or you’ll hire a substantially more expensive NPC) to build the house.

This is the craft/gatherer equivalent of Coil/XM Primals as each floor of a large house needs at least 10 000 raw wood, for example, that then needs to be crafted into useable wood by carpenters (and alloys need to be made by ARM/BSM which are then turned into proper nails/hinges/whatever by GSM). Crafters then need to spend a certain time at the plot building it (or hiring an expensive NPC).

Afterwards, once a month, there is a bill of 100 000 (if largest/best location) and a 100 (not dependant on location, but on house size) of each material is needed for upkeep (can also hire steward/maid/butler/FC retainer who automatically use the funds/materials given to them to keep up the house/bill payments. Of course, they also needs to be paid).

Potions need their own, separate cool-downs, and reduce it by 25%
Just to make alchemist a bit more attractive.

Elemental strengths and weaknesses
Just to diversify things and keep the money flowing; for example, you cannot beat XM Ifrit without fire-resistant gear and ice-attributed (through either materia or special weapons) weapon without a lot of difficulty. This means that more gear will be bought and sold.

Boost Leve money rewards
About twice as much would be good, since we need a lot of fountains to go with the gil drains. (Also, boost the allowances a bit.)

Daily Gathering contests
Once a day, gathering guilds call their gatherers task; Miners/Botanists compete on who can gather the most NQ/HQ (separate categories such as Most NQ and Most HQ and Most Overall) and turn for great rewards, as well as Fishers try to snag the best fish they can find (size, quality, type of fish are different categories with different levels of rewards, so the largest HQ Princess Trout might only get 100 gil, but largest HQ 1-5 level fish might get 1000 gil, while levels 1-15 gets 2500 gil, and 1-30 gets 5000 gil and levels 1-50 gets 10 000 gil).

Personal housing stuff
A lot like FC housing, only a lot cheaper; smallest on worst plot is 100 000 gil, while largest and best plot is 10mil. Subject to same bills and taxation and so on.

Bounty hunting
What it says on the tin; at the Adventurers’ Guild, there sometimes pops up new NPCs who want you to hunt down a boss-level monster for them. If you help a farmer/miner/fisher, you get meager gil reward but a week’s boost to gathering (gathering HQ materials). If you help a Yellowjacket, you get a reduction in Limsa Lominsa market taxes and so on. Is recommended to do in parties, but has a few solo-bosses and a few solo-with-NPC-party.

Have a really good Vanity system
Crafters can learn patterns by picking apart uncraftable items (destroying them, unless it’s a one-off item, in which case there is a quest in the corresponding guilds that teaches the patterns when crafting level and gear’s class level reaches 50) which they then can freely apply to any piece of gear. Likewise, dyeing is unrestricted.