Aggressive Gold Sinks

[JunseiKei]

There is no easy fix to this. This is a player-made problem. You don't need high amounts of gil to play the game. You only need gil for when you're lazy (you raid, but you don't craft, so you buy food or pots; housing is completely optional; crafted battlegear is not necessary, etc). If people got rich once, they will be again and we're back to the same issue. Just leave it as is; having max gil means nothing, so don't make it mean something by gating it behind frivolous things poorer people might want. It doesn't solve the issue.

[Stormfur]

Let me tell you, on my server anyway, this past week's Fashion Report was a jackpot for crafters. If you could craft Cashmere Boots you could sell them at 4-6m a pop and they'd fly off the shelves. So don't think for a minute that people won't drop a lot of gil on glamour, because they absolutely will. And the crazy thing (to me) is -- it was ONLY for the Fashion Report!

[YuyuZ]

500 Gil -> 1 MGP
1 Billion Gil -> 2 Million MGP

They would have to increase the amount of new valuable items in the gold saucer each patch release.(Materials for a gold trimmed housing exterior that you can't sell, new mounts, minions, etc)
Downside is it would encourage new people to buy gil from gil sellers just for gold saucer rewards.

I'm surprised SE charged real money for the gold leaf flooring and wallpaper instead of a huge amount of gil since its literally gold interior.

[Aerlana]

I'm surprised SE charged real money for the gold leaf flooring and wallpaper instead of a huge amount of gil since its literally gold interior.

I really dislike a cash shop in a sub MMORPG...
In fact, the cash shop stuff should be... gold sink stuff in my mind.

But, strangely, people prefer a a real money mount, than seeing this mount free for in game money... Strangely

[Khanscott]

It would be nice if I could dump 50+ million gil on a mansion.

[Stormfur]

I'd drop 10+ mil on a hellhound mount right now.

[IllyriaKnotfred]

I support this.

[dracklor]

I really dislike a cash shop in a sub MMORPG...
In fact, the cash shop stuff should be... gold sink stuff in my mind.

But, strangely, people prefer a a real money mount, than seeing this mount free for in game money... Strangely

I can answer this one. A bunch of people have plenty of real world money, but either not enough time or skill to farm mounts (I doubt I will get Alte Roite before late 6.4ish, still haven't bothered to farm Levi-pony and it is the last one I need). But I have all the cash shop mounts and the promotion mounts.

[Aerlana]

I can answer this one. A bunch of people have plenty of real world money, but either not enough time or skill to farm mounts (I doubt I will get Alte Roite before late 6.4ish, still haven't bothered to farm Levi-pony and it is the last one I need). But I have all the cash shop mounts and the promotion mounts.

The matter is, cash shop is full of exclusiv stuff. And we are on a sub mmorpg (we are paying for the game, the cash shop is only bonus for SE)
But, would be a good think to get the gold sink made of... all cash shop stuff dont you think?

[LloydShade]

I see no real advantage of gil sinks, within the current systems. For all intent and purpose, gil is only useful to acquire optional items. Little to no character advancement is possible with gil and every advancement gil allows has alternatives that will not cost any gil. This is because FFXIV uses a system of specialized currencies to acquire specialized items, leaving few options for the general currency. This is by design.


With this in mind, there is nothing that needs to be done to players hoarding gil, precisely because gil is near pointless. A player cannot be rich if his wealth is worthless. The housing system is a weird semi-important feature of the game. You can do without it, but specific instances, for free companies, requires them. It is not optional enough to be on the gil currency, but it is too optional to create a specialized currency for housing. My understanding is that housing was not meant to be this important, but additions in Heavensward and Stormblood have made the system more useful, therefore important, which is likely an oversight from the development team.

The idea of creating more gil sinks has the purpose of giving more value to the gil, which is designed to be of little importance. It is a contradiction.


To address the elephant in the room, exclusive, high costs items purchased by gil only encourages gil buyers to throw real money at their computer's monitor. This is the reason we have a cash shop. So many players are ready to trade virtual goods and time for money, that SquareEnix is bypassing the middle man and taking in all the profits, instead of none. I do not like it, but this is the way it is. Never forget that gil sellers would not be in business if there were no buyers. Game companies would not be using cash shops if the majority of gamers were happy to be grinding those items, for no additional cost.

If you know that by making gil-exclusive items, you encourage gil buyers, there are two answers with a subscription-based game.
1. Let the gil buyers make gil selling profitable.
2. Have an official cash shop, in which all those items are sold for real money.