Shard/Crystal Ceiling Price

[HakuroDK]

With inflation creep (more currency continues to enter the economy than exits thereby raising average prices slowly over time) eventually shards would only be bought from npcs. (why should bots in the future mine shards that sell for 50 gil each ((assuming a theoretical npc sells for 51)) when they can mine grade 1 carbonized matter going for a future 300 gil a piece) the bots would move on to other sources of gil. SE only responds to bots to show an effort as players dislike them, but bots pay subscriptions too (yeah, SE makes money off bots, so other than making a show to the player base they try to limit bots, they really don't have an incentive to get rid of them until enough players decide to drop subscriptions because bots made their game un-fun that it over rides the incremental revenue bot account holders generate. If you don't think this is how business works keep dreaming). So, if your gripe is you dislike shard prices, fact is they keep your shard prices lower than what it would be without them. What players want to spend days gathering nothing but shards? If your argument is you dislike bots, they would move on to other items if shards are shut down. If it's because you don't see shards as a gaming activity worth player time, then consider that shards are targeted at brand new players who think "I want to try a gathering job!" and introduce them to the job with a tangible reward desired by others in the player base. It also transfers gil from those of us that have a much higher opportunity cost if we were to gather shards ourselves to those that have few to no gil resources, there by giving that player incentive to continue playing aka paying their sub.

There are a few noticeable problems here.

1. You're assuming gathering shards/crystals is anything like gathering crafting mats. Shards and Crystals are stackable to at 9999, maybe more, each. For that to happen with a raw material like electrum, that would require filling up one's entire inventory and that's it. Not only that, but you can't use Wards on normal crafting materials. You have to use King's Yield, and that is not only more expensive GP-wise, but also only works on a single attempt, making it economically not worth it.

2. You're assuming that the dev team doesn't care about botting. First of all, the dev team are players of the game just like anyone else and play fairly just like everyone else. Second, bots are prohibited by the ToS. If they weren't prohibited, everyone would be using bots. The fact that they are prohibited by the ToS and little is being done about it is less attributed to sub prices (as I am absolutely certain that the players who do bot make up less than 1% of the subscription base, which isn't worth defending.) So here's a question: Why prohibit bots in the ToS if the dev team ultimately doesn't care? That makes no sense and it sounds extremely jaded and cynical of the entire process.

3. My "gripe" is backed up with the solution of selling shards and crystals from beast tribe vendors, which renders them completely worthless to sell on the market boards except for convenience purposes. So no, they would not keep shard prices lower. At least not universally. If I want shards, I want to be able to buy them for 10 gil each at a beast tribe vendor. Crystals? 100 gil sounds fair for those. Clusters wouldn't be sold as they aren't nearly as farmable.

4. Your whole argument seems to be defending botters from an economic standpoint. There are a lot of bots, true, but their numbers nowhere near compare to the number of legitimate players. Why else would there be so much action taken against them? Your argument makes no sense.

5. As for new gatherers, I can guarantee that all of the legitimate gatherers want to level their gatherers ASAP. Farming shards and crystals is not at all the fastest way of doing that. Shards are always Level 1. That means maybe 10XP yield with each gathering attempt, maybe more. With how XP scales, this is not at all lucrative unless you plan on botting while doing other things. Crystals only appear at specific nodes in an area and are Level 30, making them even less lucrative for leveling unless botting. I started mining with a crafting mentality. Mine up all of the ore so I don't have to buy it on the market boards. That was my goal. And you know what? I achieved it. Now I'm mining up Darksteel and doing stuff with it. And I am sure there are miners that try to make a profit from mining, and that they do succeed through legitimate methods. But the fact of the matter is that no legitimate player would ever mine up shards and crystals exclusively to turn a profit. Ever.