Get Your Gil-Sinks Straight

[Alhanelem]

money is extremely easy to make with this new crafting adjustments because mats are always on demands.

This doesn't produce gil, it makes gil changes hansd. The only things that produce gil are treasure chests and quest/levequest/behest rewards. I think beastmen and NMs drop some money too, not entirely sure there though.

[Chardrizard]

It does destroys gil because the gears that people buys are gone from materia process.

[MariyaShidou]

It does destroys gil because the gears that people buys are gone from materia process.

It doesn't, the gears are 90% crafted, 8% drop and 2% bought from NPC. Only buying gears from NPC remove gil from the game.

[Platinumstorm]

It does destroys gil because the gears that people buys are gone from materia process.

Right, gil sinks destroy gil, but never at a rate in which players cannot earn more than they spend. If players are left with no purchasing power then they feel as if they cannot progress.

[Misteyes]

I agree with... most of this. Inflation will continue for as long as more money enters the economy than exits it, especially now that goods exit the economy (by being turned into materia), while money still largely does not. The only variable sink in the game is the market-tax, which means that the economy will balance when the following is true:

Money generated (Drops, Chests, Leves) = Money destroyed (Airship fees, Workshop fees, Chocobo rental, market tax).

Or, more particularly.
Market Tax (10% of player-to-player transactions) = (Drops+Chests+Leves) - (Airship+Worshop+Chocobo Rental).

With leves still (at the high levels) generating orders of magnitude more money than the fixed gilsinks are taking out, the one variable gilsink in the game will only take out money when items are priced so high (or change hands so quickly) that the player economy moves ten times as much gil every day as is generated.

The fixed gilsinks are also a regressive tax; they charge the poor a greater portion of their income than they charge the wealthy. Someone with an L50 DoH job is not going to care about the cost of the airship, but someone who's highest job is R15 sure as heck is. Even though they're paying half as much for it, that half as much makes up a much larger portion of their income than the artisans, which further decreases their purchasing power.

To some degree, that's okay, but it becomes a problem when my friend who I just introduced to the game hit L20 and we hit the market wards to look for gear for him, only to find that a single piece of appropriate gear for L20 would cost more than he had made in his entire time playing the game (doing levequests with me on a lowbie job to join him).

There are no luxuries for the super rich to spend their money on (unless airships are a luxury, but if they are, they're a pretty important one). Anything that the super rich want to buy comes from the same supply as what the poor do. Since, when leveling a new class, you still have access to all the money from your old class, this leads to L20 gear being priced well above what your average L20 can pay.

I disagree with anything that forcefully takes money out of people's hands, however. The best system, in my opinion, would be to give the super rich something else to spend their money on, such as faster chocobos, player housing, more inventory space, more retainers. Large opportunities were missed when the inventory space was increased from 100 to 200 for free, and another opportunity was missed when materia catalysts were gathered by DoH rather than sold by NPCs. Since the sinks I propose are pure luxury, they will not tax the poor at all unless the poor decide that they are more important than basic equipment.

"Inactive" gil as the poster on Page 2 mentioned doesn't actually matter until it becomes active again, at which point it will be subject to all the same sinks.

[smokymcweed]

gona have to agree with the op shit is to expensive not every player has 10-15 hours a day to play so yea lower the prices and add more bazzar slots on retainers and hey what was wrong with airship prices from xi NOTHING ok SE lets stop acting like all players are rich some of us just dont have the time to be able to afford 500k for a r20 armor piece or the paitence to put up with elitest attitudes like the ones posted in respons to the op

[Nabiri]

I'm not too worried about gil sinks right now because prices of things were just recently changed, and I trust SE will keep an eye on it like they said they would, and adjust if necessary.

I'm not rich but I don't consider myself poor either. I get by well enough, so I haven't experienced any issues with prices yet. May I ask, Anonymoose, what gil sinks specifically do you think are too expensive? What kinds of things would you like to see more expensive? Also, do you more often use dark matter (buying it I mean), or repair NPCs? (I apologize if you may have answered some of these questions already and I missed them.)
I'm just curious, but it's probably good for SE to hear this too.

As for market wards gear, I've been hearing a lot of complaints about the price of low level gear.. If people are really having a hard time affording them it would make sense that not too many sell (unless it's higher level players buying for newbs), so I can see the prices dropping a bit, in time. I've gotten quite a bit of gear from leves, so at least there's that in the meantime. It doesn't help a ton but, it still helps.

For me, I think repairing gear costs me more than anything else, but again, I'm not hurting for money at the moment.

If it's a problem, I wonder if at PS3 release costs will be lowered for new players.

In the future I would like to see more gil sinks. Not necessarily expensive.. just more. I still worry about more money going into the game than being taken out.

[Vaer]

With patch 1.19a, they are reducing the prices of the low level weapons and tools by a TON, so yeah.. The tools especially, they only cost a little more than what it would cost if you made them yourself.

[DNO]

OK, you got 50k full repair, that's telling me you're using lvl 41-50 gear. That's not a new player. A new player wouldn't start at lvl 41+. A full gear repair for under lvl 1-10 is 1000 gil, and 5000 gil for lvl 11-20. Under lvl 25 you pay 2,500 gil for airship and you get a quest at lvl 15 that give you one free pass from either Grid or Ul'dah to LL (Not including return fair). You're comparing maximum amount you need to pay, and make that as a threat against newbie...

Wow good point

[Vahzl]

All of the gil sinks you mentioned in your OP were not added till the cap hit level 75.