Gil Toss Ability to drain gil out of the economy?

[Nixius]

I commend your efforts but I think it is a bad idea, slipper slope that in my humble opinion.

A gil sink is required though, but perhaps a slightly different angle would work better.

*goes away to think about possible alternatives*

[Alexis_Arteme]

its easy for ppl who have no money to talk about spending money.

funny idea but no thanks.

Ill sit on my millions and wait for something worthwhile to come come along

This thread is eerily starting to remind me of real life.

[Cursive]

No, I know this because I have over 200mil.

And im not going to throw the shit at a monster when I could just kill it instead.

don't lie. you said most of that is your ls bank!

[Ava]

Adding something similar to relics would be a pretty effective gil-sink, although that would probably get a lot of hate from anti-ffxi2 people.

I think I read somewhere they plan on having one of the new transportation methods cost a lot (I think it was the airship). This will be a start, but hopefully at some point they'll give us some kind of awesome droppable/tradeable rare item that you turn into a vendor to get a piece of gear (like a relic). People will buy that crap like crazy, especially with how rich some people are.

[Rorix]

Well, I can't say that I would use that ability but it DOES seems that a lot of people have tons of gil.
I mean, yesterday I was looking at some shops in the market wards and some items where being sold for like 9,999,999,999 or something and I was like "Does people really have that amount of gil to buy that stuff? I only have like 20,000 gil! o.O"

[Ashaylin]

I think I read somewhere they plan on having one of the new transportation methods cost a lot (I think it was the airship).

The only answer from Yoshi-P we've got about airship costs is "huhuhu," which some people interpret to be evil laughter.

And people who put items on their bazaar for 999,999,999 are either using the bazaar slot as storage space or they're decorating their retainer and don't want you to buy the item.

[Aeyis]

To each their own, seriously. Funny ppl seem to argue whether or not they'd hurl their hard earned gil at a monster when it's just a suggestion. Some ppl would, some ppl wouldn't, don't need to have a conclusion to that do we ? lol

Put the option there, use it if you feel it's worth or call it a last resort kinda act - you're a frail mage and tank just went down, the boss monster hanging on it's sliver of health, and he's lunging at you and the most you'd survive is 2 hits. Casting big enough a spell would also mean possibly getting interrupted, but HEY you're a RICH crafter! Select throw gil and it will instantly throw a couple of million at it to make sure it's dead. It's just an option (Just a sample scenario so refrain from coming up with 'intelligent' ideas how to get out of it).

Reminded me of Ragnarok Online - a Blacksmith spending MILLIONS each session castle fight using "Mammonite". I can never understand that kind of spending, when there are other skills they could use.... but he earned lots of respect for sure.

I am really really interested however how's SE going to balance this out with PS3 players. Too big of a gil sink, PS3 players would end up getting poorer each day, while PC players around this time got so much accumulated it'd last them for another few years....

Youd have less respect for those rare blacksmiths when you realised that every single one had dozens if not hundreds of millions.
Ofc in Ragnarok Online the skill itself only costed 1k to use, so when youve got a few dozen millions spending a few hundred k's twice a week isnt much of a big deal.

[Maiandra]

Love it. This is the best suggestion I've seen in awhile. =P
This would be a fun flavor ability to add, but would never work to the suggested end.
Most people who have ridiculous amounts of gil acquired it for the purpose of having it.

The brainless grind-monkeys believe such things demonstrate how "good" they are at the game.
They would never sacrifice it for the sake of flavor or fun. They seek only ways to "prove" how
much better they are than everyone else, and grinding/buying gil is the easiest way to do that.

[DonMega]

Now that leve gil-rewards have been significantly reduced it is difficult to make large amounts of gil.

However there is still -lots- of gil floating around and no real gil sinks.

So how about a gil-toss ability that does 1/10th damage of the gil thrown.

Then have "quick runs" as a requirement for some items on raids. So basically the super-rich or the giant linkshell-banks can spend their gil to kill off bosses insanely fast for quick-run victories.

Basically use gil-toss as a way to drain the economy of gil. At some point it would become fairly useless because enough gil would be taken out of the economy to make the gil vs damage ratio not worth it.

Your thoughts?

edit: please read this before you try to argue no one would spend gil.
I think a lot of people are failing to connect the dots here.

This is nothing new.

FFXI had HNM shells selling HNM drops for large amounts of gil. Those who didn't want to do HNMs but wanted a ridill could farm 20mil and purchase one.

FFXI proves people would be willing to pay the gil.
All this does it take out the middle man, instead of paying an HNM shell to farm you a really rare drop, you offer to use your gil to win a raid (which can get them other items).

The raid can still be done without gil, so endgame shells can still raid for the item.
Those who are rich can spend some of the gil they have to get the item faster so they don't have to waste time raiding
People who want the item but think 10 ppl will get it before them can farm or craft or do some kind of economic activity to make gil and then spend that to get a -chance- at the item.

So -everyone- wins. If you're a raider you have a chance, if you have lots of gil you have a chance, if you don't get to play often but can save up a lot you have a chance.
The economy wins because people create more economic activity to get the gil to have a chance.
And the economy wins because gil is drained from the game.

once more
-PEOPLE WERE WILLING TO PAY FOR ELITE GEAR IN FFXI-
so why wouldn't they be here?

who cares about gil right now, when the game has something to offer then worry about it

[Phenidate]

you can't say that people are being preyed on or idiots for making certain purchases. Sure marketing plays a big role, but everything comes down to what economists like to call Utility. You can think of utility as happiness points.
If you have $5000 you want to spend it in order to maximize your utility / happiness points.
If spending it on cleansing your soul with chi does that, then the service is legitimate. However you have to look at the opportunity cost of spending the $5000 on a cleansing. For example, maybe if you spent the $5000 on soliciting 'entertainment' instead, you may be happier.

If someone spends 50mil in game, gets an epic helmet that looks cool and is better than any other helmet in the game for a considerable period, and they are happy they got it. Then its beneficial both to the player and to the games economy.

The gil sinks in the game currently are no-where near enough to counteract the gil in existence. The best it is doing is balancing the current amount of gil in the economy.

And its marketing, not sales-people or showmen (IN GENERAL) that determine if a product is a success or not. And that ties directly into neuro-economics. If you know what makes humans happy (btw, scientifically proven that genetically we are interested in relative not absolute gains, meaning we want to have more or better stuff than others) then you can market a product well. A Gucci bag isnt about the bag, its about the status associated with the bag.

edit: Much like the status associated with e-peen gear in game.

My opinion of people throwing away money on garbage still stands. If you need to pay for status or spiritual freedom, there are better ways to go about it.

Go back and read the rest of my post because I already brought up the reason as to WHERE this massive influx of cash is likely coming from.

The number of botters and multi-boxers running around exploiting the present system of leve rewards has been rising steadily over the past couple weeks, from being an uncommon sighting to the present common occurrence.

Whats more, insane prices like your aforementioned 20million gil HNM drops is a serious symptom of poorly balanced gil sinks to gil adds, one of the contributing factors on why the economy was messed up in FFXI. Where is any single person going to farm that sort of money without a MASSIVE over dedication in time? There IS A REASON RMT ARE SUCCESSFUL. Why spend weeks of your time when you could just pay off some internet creep to give it to you after they hoarded it doing what ever TOS violating operation they run; be it botters, underpaid GIL farmers or multi-boxing to exploit rewards. Its crap like that 20million HNM drop that encourages it and makes such a business successful.

What is needed? Tweaks to existing gil sinks, more gil sinks which are REASONABLE and do not encourage large lump sums of gil. 100 gil here, 1000 there... Balance it against the frequency that players gain gil against the frequency these gil sinks are used, allowing for some accumulation of wealth (the rate of which is dependent on how much money has to be expended).

How this system is balanced dictates the amount of effort a player needs to invest to afford what they want. Raise the difficulty too say... the ridiculous difficulty of early FFXI and you make it too tempting and easy too just pay someone else too do it for you. Make it too easy and the value of money just becomes irrelevant after a certain point (such as in WOW where once you start raking in thousands of gil NPCing off greys or what have you, there is very little left to do with it other than just pass it around. There is a reason Blizzard started to add random junk like pets and novelty items costing hundreds of gold, there isn't much else they can add without making the barrier to entry to high for some via classic gil sinks)

The point is, take too heavy handed and over zealous an approach to this problem and you have the same stupid mistakes we've seen in the past such as our lack of a decent way to exchange goods. Boy, that sure shut down the RMT didn't it? Pay no attention to the 16 lalafell running by with vowel-less names and eerily mechanical movements folks.

Your solution is the equivalent of a nuke where a scalpel is needed.