FFXIV: Cheat 2 Win - The New Norm?

[Mwynn]

If all bots were permanently removed from the game tomorrow (I can wish can't I?), prices of the commodity goods that the bots gathered/crafted would begin to rise as the oversupply of these things ended. Then it would become more profitable for gatherers to actually gather again, and more players would therefore do that, and more supply would allow the prices to settle down a bit. The same is true of crafters working the kinds of craft items that Bots currently flood the market with. Eventually the game would reach a new equilibrium for both crafting and gathering, and prices would stabilize. They might be higher for somethings and lower for others, but at the end of the day, it would benefit players more since there would be more player/player economic action without the artificial market deflation caused by bots.

Was that so hard to understand? But then I can't influence the minds of People that Support Bots in the end...

[Vexander]

I'll never support bots, but I do understand what the person is saying about how cheaper things are better for DoM/DoW players. Rather than support bots, I would sooner support a system in place to avoid price-gouging and crafter circles creating a monopoly and jacking prices way up because they would be no alternative for players.

To put it a different way, I remember when the Eikon stuff came out, I didn't buy a single piece. 2million Gil for a Non-HQ piece of the set? No thank you. Several patches later its sold for about 200K or lower. I buy the set for less than a million.

Who does this benefit?

Not me. Tome gear is ilvls ahead of Eikon now. Its just Glamour.
Not the crafter. They paid/farmed for mats worth millions of gil at the time and are selling at a monumental loss.

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.

[Evangela]

Indeed, and the market will fluctuate too. If there is over supply in a particular line of goods, prices drop (basic supply/demand stuff). Then many crafters will move to more profitable things, reducing the supply. If the demand remains steady and supply drops then prices will rise. It always bothers me when people want to somehow 'fix' the market board because they think things are too cheap.

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

[Evangela]

To put it a different way, I remember when the Eikon stuff came out, I didn't buy a single piece. 2million Gil for a Non-HQ piece of the set? No thank you. Several patches later its sold for about 200K or lower. I buy the set for less than a million.

Who does this benefit?

Not me. Tome gear is ilvls ahead of Eikon now. Its just Glamour.
Not the crafter. They paid/farmed for mats worth millions of gil at the time and are selling at a monumental loss.

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.

I remember all of these. And they were trying to make millions of gil selling relic mats as well.

Now I suppose to feel sorry for the crafters because they're making less money because of the gatherer bots? Hell no.

[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.

[Celef]

Was that so hard to understand? But then I can't influence the minds of People that Support Bots in the end...

Actually yes, I've read it 3 times and yet I still don't get why it would also be profitable for those that don't craft ^^" (honestly, not trying to troll or anything)
Considering I don't gather / craft maybe I just don't have the "logic gatherer / crafter mind" ^^"

I'll never support bots, but I do understand what the person is saying about how cheaper things are better for DoM/DoW players. Rather than support bots, I would sooner support a system in place to avoid price-gouging and crafter circles creating a monopoly and jacking prices way up because they would be no alternative for players.

To put it a different way, I remember when the Eikon stuff came out, I didn't buy a single piece. 2million Gil for a Non-HQ piece of the set? No thank you. Several patches later its sold for about 200K or lower. I buy the set for less than a million.

Who does this benefit?

Not me. Tome gear is ilvls ahead of Eikon now. Its just Glamour.
Not the crafter. They paid/farmed for mats worth millions of gil at the time and are selling at a monumental loss.

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.

^ What he said

[Kosmos992k]

Actually yes, I've read it 3 times and yet I still don't get why it would also be profitable for those that don't craft ^^" (honestly, not trying to troll or anything)
Considering I don't gather / craft maybe I just don't have the "logic gatherer / crafter mind" ^^"

Because, for many of the more highly desired glamours, there are materials that can only be acquired by DoM/DoW players. Those items also sell on the MB, and with no bots to flood the markets with those things, DoW and DoM players would be able to sell them for more gil. So you get a virtuous cycle of DoW/DoM wanting glamours and buying them, crafters make the items using materials gatherers sell on the MB after spending time gathering them, as well as using the materials they have purchased from the DoW/DoM players.

So ultimately Crafters pay gatherers and DoM/DoW players for materials resulting in gatherers and DoM/DoW players gathering or fighting to obtain materials and sell them on to the crafters. Everyone buys glamor items paying the crafters who made them. And the cycle continues with gil circulating from player to player through crafter to gatherer/DoW/DoM, then back to crafter and on to gatherer/DoM/DoW, an then back to the crafters....etc...

You asked how this benefits players other than crafters, right there is the reason, materials do not generally appear out of thin air, they must be acquired. I've sold 2 Kingly Whiskers before, and netted about 5 million gil each for them. Seems like I profited from the extremely rare item used to make an extremely rare glamour weapon that someone else purchsed from the crafter who purchased the whiskers from me.

Without bots to deflate the market, gatherers and DoM/DoW players would all benefit from the improved market health - their income from market sales would increase. With more gil circulating between players, you have the gill you need to buy the expensive glamour you want, so the price of the items relative to the gil available may actually drop - in a relative sense.

For example, if you want something that costs 1 million gil and you have hundred thousand, that thing is completely out of reach and feels very expensive. But, say it costs 2 million, and because of the lucrative sale of dungeon materials you have 500,000 gil. Even though the price of the item doubled, you are now much closer to being able to buy the item, it is in effect relatively cheaper than before, even though numerically it is more expensive.

Of course that all get's into the value of money and perceived value of good being purchased, which is a long discussion not suited to a forum such as this.

[Vexander]

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.

Yes, and while the weeks/months pass of the MB full of Crafted sets priced at 10million gil for a non-HQ piece, players will run dungeons and buy tomestone gear. The longer the wait, the more de-valued the crafted set becomes, particularly as Tomestone gear can be upgraded beyond what Crafted Gear is.

I don't believe in price fixing. I believe in some automated system wherein prices get dropped to a, "Reasonable," level within a short period of time. The higher the price, the faster it goes down. So when you've got that new crafted non-HQ belt at 10 million gil, by the end of day 1, it drops to 9 million. By the end of week 1, down to 3 million. Stops dropping at about 10% of the original listed priced. At any time buyers can, of course, take the item off the market board and put it up again at the original price, but hopefully they'll realize after the umpteenth time of putting that non-HQ belt up for 10 million gil that no one wants to pay that much.

[Zojha]

I don't believe in price fixing. I believe in some automated system wherein prices get dropped to a, "Reasonable," level within a short period of time.

Well, such an automated system does seem to exist, but only on JP servers. I quite vividly remember the Anima mats for the 210 step - 200k+ a piece for months even on a highly populated server like Balmung that has little RMT (500k+ on other NA/EU servers), 50k a piece day one on several japanese servers.

I had a good laugh and never supported crafters nor gatherers since.

[Kosmos992k]

I don't believe in price fixing. I believe in some automated system wherein prices get dropped to a, "Reasonable," level within a short period of time. The higher the price, the faster it goes down.

How is that not price fixing? It's even worse than that since anyone putting a high ticket item on the market sees the price they selected to sell at being involuntarily decreased. That's a terrible way to do things and is absolutely price fixing. I can't see many crafters who paid for the rare mats to make something bothering to list the crafted item if they know that in the space of a few hours he system will drop it below profitability.

Remember the items on the MB are put there by players, not the game itself, yet you want the game to treat those items in a similar way to the decreasing price of housing plots.

Oh, and let me just add, I am by *no* means a rich crafter, non of my crafting jobs are even past level 52, nor my gatherers. So, I'm not arguing from the point of view of being filthy rich and wanting it to stay that way. The way I see it, if we could do away with bots permanently, the entire market would be healthier, and that would in the long term benefit me as a player. Price fixing on the other hand would really not help me at all.