FFXIV: Cheat 2 Win - The New Norm?

[Kosmos992k]

Except they will never stop crafting. That's why they're still doing it now.

I'm certain that is true of some. But for most players with a more middle of the road approach, they will craft or gather when it is worth their time to do so. Removing bots from the game would bring more of those players back into the game of crafting and gathering (giving them more reason to stay and play). If more gatherers and crafters are engaged, ultimately prices will settle down at a reasonable level as determined by market factors of supply and demand.

Remember, things can only be sold for what the market will bear. If bots were successfully removed from the game RMT would essentially be over and so players who want to buy something would need to earn their gil in game. Their desire for the item would determine what they will pay. Prices of such goods will reflect that value as well as the degree to which more than one crafter has entered the markete increasing supply.

If there were no Bots and RMT, market boards in this game would be a pretty good demonstration of the laws of supply and demand, and the impact of customer desire and social factors such as 'fashion' trends.

Now if the prices had been more reasonable back when it was new, I might have gone for it. And of course, 'Reasonable Prices,' is subjective. There are players out there with enough gil to buy entire housing wards. Then there is the 99% of players who don't gave millions of gil on hand to throw at whatever the latest crafted set is.

Price fixing doesn't help and ultimately harms the market, and all who participate in it. The truth is that the Eikon gear will only sell at a price someone is willing to pay, over time (just as happened with the thavnarian bustier and other once rare glamour gear) supply increases and prices drop. It doesn't matter if some small clique of crafters dominate initially, sooner or later they will have to drop their prices so they can sell the things. As other crafters come into the market with the same items, and the supply of the materials needed for the craft similalry increases, the price will fall.

External price fixing ultimately kills the market it is involved with, crafters of difficult or rare items will not bother crafting items if the return on the investment of time and gil on materials is not sufficient. And because of the price fixing, very few crafters will ever bother to try to participate in selling price fixed items.