Why is everyone screaming gil sinks and broken economy?

[Coglin]

One assumption I see flawed here, is to assume a level 5 class that can use that shiled would automatically make a player new. They can easily have 5 other 50's. Just throwing that out there.

[quantumsaint]

Leves used to award a lot more gil than they do now, leaving some of the earlier players with max gil, and quite a few others with more gil than they know what to do with. This has the potential to cause severe economic imbalance further down the road (through the monopoly of expensive items as well as inflation).

[AngryNixon]

Everyone is screaming gil sinks and broken economy because screaming the things they were screaming last week is no longer all the rage. Next week it will be something else, worry not, the object of the screaming will change soon enough.

[LemmingKingXXX]

supply and demand of items in the economy usually outweighs the supply and demand of money in an MMO context, hence the reason I was able to buy a colbalt curiass for 34k just last week when my MRD got near 49, the same people with a boat load of gil at 2.0 won't be able to overprice items if there is competition for the items and a price history, undercutting is a way of life for most people

[Nakiamiie]

Even with gil sinks in 1 year when they open v 2.0 all those people who stay now will have such ridiculous amount of money that ps3 players will never catch up. I predict SE will open some new servers for them so they won't have to pay 500k for a lvl 10 item.

Nobody will pay 500k for a level 10 item. On my server I'm really good at finding those ridiculous prices and putting up the same item in multiple copies for 5k.
Ah~ the joy of being a crafter. xD

Economy is not screwed and with purchase history, it will be so easy to spot the scammer. Also, earning gil is really easy if the players go out there in the wild and gather things to sell or simply do leves. Someone said it: don't expect to have the money for level 50 gear if you get PL'ed to level 50. One more downside of being PL'ed, who says it was overrated?

[Masamune1004]

Is it just players who dont spend time farming for gil and have none who are complaining?

i never spend any time farming for stuff to sell, yet i always have more money than i know what to do with. I rerolled my character for 1.19 and made 550k in 2 days just selling off the loot i got from grinding, which is enough to buy a lv50 set of gear. Its probly just the people who npc all there stuff and bitch when they cant buy anything. Learn to play people.

[Vackashken]

I rerolled my character for 1.19 and made 550k in 2 days just selling off the loot i got from grinding, which is enough to buy a lv50 set of gear.

.............. uh huh

[lordvr]

Materia is the ultimate gil sink. The game is fine without any others.

[DarkDepravity]

Materia is the ultimate gil sink. The game is fine without any others.

You do realise that Materia (and blowups) just moves gil from player to player, not eliminating it?

[Roaran]

The biggest issue is making sure newer players can purchase gear for their characters. They have to compete with older players levelling their classes, and there's not as much gil to be made by crafters making the lower rank gear.

So, it's natural for lower level items to be more expensive in proportion to their ingredients than higher level items.

An economy can never really be broken, as long as everyone is free to make their choices and isn't given any unfair disadvantage. An example of such disadvantage would be not being able to place items up for sale or being forced to only use Gridania market wards.

As for gil sinks, this is an element of the money supply. Gil goes into the economy via predominately leves and some from quests. There would never be any inflation if the growth of the economy kept up with the rate at which gil was being introduced. So, if, on average, there is 5,000,000 more gil every week, and there is 5,000,000 more gil's worth of items, then there is not inflation. When gil growth beings to exceed economic growth, then there is inflation.

You can either address the inflation, in an MMO, through growth of economic activity, or contraction of the money supply ( Gil Sinks). Because it is much easier for developers to control money supply, that is often the preferred route to take.

HOWEVER,
Because we have deflation, as evidenced by falling prices in essentially everything possible, MORE gil sinks would actually be detrimental. So, to answer the OP, more gil sinks now, is probably bad.... but it's all arbitrary anyways so it does not matter much at all in the end.