Destroying Server Economies

[TwistedTea]

Big misconception. Gil is not needed for anything other than housing, but it's equivalent to time. You can engage in lengthy grinds (mounts, Eureka emotes, raid gear, achievements, etc.), or you can use Gil to bypass that grind. For those who don't care about the rules, it can be sold for real money.


It's being done through cheating.

Exactly, people keep repeating that gil is useless but really gil is the currency of convenience and time. You can rush level all your crafters in a month or less with sufficient gil, as an example of a lengthy grind which can be avoided with piles of gil.

Also, there's this argument that people are mad because their profits are being cut. Sure, there are some people who used to charge absurd prices on lesser populated servers that are mad.

But for crafters like me who are from servers like Balmung, I'm more concerned about bot farms/botters who drive prices so low, no legitimate player wants to compete.

For example gathering bots, even before World Visit, there are well-known gathering bots on Balmung, who gather nearly 24/7. You can tell by the way they drop down on nodes and the janky movement.

They price the stuff that they gather sometimes below 100 gil per item and we are not talking about low level gathering nodes here.

So legitimate gatherers usually try to find other stuff to gather/other niche items and pray that the bots don't catch on. But these niche items end up being temporary and the bots eventually always start gathering those as well.

Then some of the legitimate gatherers move on to crafting and flipping etc. But eventually the impact of botting is felt there as well. E.g. well known crafters who bot.

Also, it's not like these bots are just driving prices low, they are often engaged in RMT.

With World Visit, if bot farms/botters are not adequately addressed, we might see legitimate crafters/gatherers driven out from the Market Board and the 'competition' for pricing between bot retainers.

[KageTokage]

With World Visit, if bot farms/botters are not adequately addressed, we might see legitimate crafters/gatherers driven out from the Market Board and the 'competition' for pricing between bot retainers.

This is already happening on a per-server basis.

Almost nobody wants to bother selling crafted gear on my server when there's an omnicrafter bot with surplus stock of everything who has a second account that constantly checks their retainers to relist items when they sell and undercut whenever someone tries to sell at the same or lower price then them.

It's only gotten worse as of late as more omnicrafter bots decided to transfer in a few months ago and are having a price war with each other.

[Krotoan]

Exactly, people keep repeating that gil is useless but really gil is the currency of convenience and time. You can rush level all your crafters in a month or less with sufficient gil, as an example of a lengthy grind which can be avoided with piles of gil.

Great.. you have Max level crafters quickly.. for.. what?

Also, there's this argument that people are mad because their profits are being cut. Sure, there are some people who used to charge absurd prices on lesser populated servers that are mad.

But for crafters like me who are from servers like Balmung, I'm more concerned about bot farms/botters who drive prices so low, no legitimate player wants to compete.

For example gathering bots, even before World Visit, there are well-known gathering bots on Balmung, who gather nearly 24/7. You can tell by the way they drop down on nodes and the janky movement.

They price the stuff that they gather sometimes below 100 gil per item and we are not talking about low level gathering nodes here.

So legitimate gatherers usually try to find other stuff to gather/other niche items and pray that the bots don't catch on. But these niche items end up being temporary and the bots eventually always start gathering those as well.

Then some of the legitimate gatherers move on to crafting and flipping etc. But eventually the impact of botting is felt there as well. E.g. well known crafters who bot.

So.. the price of the harvestable crafting mats becomes generally near Vendor sell prices (if you see someone selling items below vendor prices you should buy them and vendor them for a profit!). And all the crafters out there can now craft items for reasonable mat prices and charge for the HQrotation/time it takes alone.

I really am not on board with the idea that gathering classes are just made to rake in money for putting in time and cycling nodes.

Also, it's not like these bots are just driving prices low, they are often engaged in RMT.

With World Visit, if bot farms/botters are not adequately addressed, we might see legitimate crafters/gatherers driven out from the Market Board and the 'competition' for pricing between bot retainers.

RMT is not our problem, it's Squeenix's. It affects individual , rule abiding players very little.

Driven out... to.. what? Not craft anymore because it's not profitable? Stop the goal of having a huge pile of gil.. for.. reasons?

[TwistedTea]

Great.. you have Max level crafters quickly.. for.. what?
So.. the price of the harvestable crafting mats becomes generally near Vendor sell prices (if you see someone selling items below vendor prices you should buy them and vendor them for a profit!). And all the crafters out there can now craft items for reasonable mat prices and charge for the HQrotation/time it takes alone.

I really am not on board with the idea that gathering classes are just made to rake in money for putting in time and cycling nodes.

Because some people enjoy crafting/gathering and playing the Market Board?

These are aspects of the FFXIV; FFXIV's market boards are supposed to be player-run economies.

There was a huge ruckus(still ongoing?) about Blue Mage being a limited job.

For me as a crafter/gatherer botters limit how I go about crafting/gathering and interact with the Market Board; for example, gathering niche items, which botters haven't figured out yet/not competing with bots on many items because it is futile,flipping bot listed items,etc.

Also, I already pointed out legitimate crafters/gatherers already switch to flipping when faced with bots. But it becomes harder to flip when bots drive down the price of a whole swathe of items.

RMT is not our problem, it's Squeenix's. It affects individual , rule abiding players very little.

I disagree, it affects server economies and by extension players because RMT generally inflates prices. Combined with bots driving down gil income for legitimate players. After a while, it becomes very difficult to afford certain items as a non-botter. I have seen this happen in other MMOs.

Driven out... to.. what? Not craft anymore because it's not profitable? Stop the goal of having a huge pile of gil.. for.. reasons?

Again, it has been pointed out in this thread multiple times, having gil can bypass tedious grinds. E.g. gearing up for raiding/iLvl requirements without having to go through the tomestone route. Gil is the currency of convenience and time.

[Lersayil]

...
I disagree, it affects server economies and by extension players because RMT generally inflates prices. Combined with bots driving down gil income for legitimate players. After a while, it becomes very difficult to afford certain items as a non-botter. I have seen this happen in other MMOs.
...

While true the key word on this is "generally". We've had bot issues for a while now, but the prices seem to go down and not up. I would guess that either they are not RMT bots, or not enough people buy Gil from them? (the caveat being: for the moment. Sure, if people start buying more Gil from illegitimate sources it would go downhill fast)

Anywho... you know what else inflates prices? Monopolies, cornered markets, MB flippers and a bubble of hyper-wealthy crafters, forming a market of their own, practically excluding the rest of the playersbase. And contrary to the RMT case, we have examples a plenty in-game for this case.

[TwistedTea]

Anywho... you know what else inflates prices? Monopolies, cornered markets, MB flippers and a bubble of hyper-wealthy crafters, forming a market of their own, practically excluding the rest of the playersbase. And contrary to the RMT case, we have examples a plenty in-game for this case.

Agree with you,which is why I like the concept of World Visit balancing out Market Boards out across the data center in theory.

If bots were not an issue, I'm all for breaking up monopolies/cornered markets. MB flippers are limited by how long an item remains at a certain price/price range.

But many of those hyper-wealthy crafters/flippers do bot,at least from what I've observed on Balmung.

In essence,in one of the possible worst case scenarios, if botting remains unchecked, those who accumulated their gil wealth through dodgy methods will become grandfathered into that wealth.

When the only competition on market board pricing is between bot retainers, legitimate players will earn less and have less spending power. It will become a monopoly of botters instead. This can already be observed in the food/potions/crafted gear market of several servers.

[Lersayil]

Agree with you,which is why I like the concept of World Visit balancing out Market Boards out across the data center in theory.

If bots were not an issue, I'm all for breaking up monopolies/cornered markets. MB flippers are limited by how long an item remains at a certain price/price.

But many of those hyper-wealthy crafters/flippers do bot,at least from what I've observed on Balmung.

In essence,in one of the possible worst case scenarios, if botting remains unchecked, those who accumulated their gil wealth through dodgy methods will become grandfathered into that wealth.

When the only competition on market board pricing is between bot retainers, legitimate players will earn less and have less spending power. It will become a monopoly of botters instead. This can already be observed in the food/potions/crafted gear market of several servers.

Yeah I agree. Botters are an issue and we really should get rid of them if possible. But for the moment they seem to be the lesser of two evils (as in they affect less people negatively).

[Krotoan]

Because some people enjoy crafting/gathering and playing the Market Board?

These are aspects of the FFXIV; FFXIV's market boards are supposed to be player-run economies.

I have my doubts about most of the people who set prices actually enjoying crafting, but that's gonna be a pretty subjective argument.
There is a player run economy, it runs on things that are not easily bottable. Things that aren't a pure time to dollar ratio. That's all bots can do. You find complicated crafts that require skill and adjustment as they develop and those will be the markets to "run".

There was a huge ruckus(still ongoing?) about Blue Mage being a limited job.

.. uh? Non sequitur?

For me as a crafter/gatherer botters limit how I go about crafting/gathering and interact with the Market Board; for example, gathering niche items, which botters haven't figured out yet/not competing with bots on many items because it is futile,flipping bot listed items,etc.

Also, I already pointed out legitimate crafters/gatherers already switch to flipping when faced with bots. But it becomes harder to flip when bots drive down the price of a whole swathe of items.

Sounds like you're still running markets. Same bots as always. In fact now you can take advantage of bot deflated markets on other servers to profit back on your home server. There aren't MORE bots just because the servers are accessible now.

I disagree, it affects server economies and by extension players because RMT generally inflates prices. Combined with bots driving down gil income for legitimate players. After a while, it becomes very difficult to afford certain items as a non-botter. I have seen this happen in other MMOs.

I thought the problem was the bots made it difficult to profit? Are the items cheap or are they expensive? The nodes don't run out of stuff, you can get the mats you can make the items and sell them for profit. Bots have been around since 1.0, not a new problem and they definitely haven't killed the economy.

Again, it has been pointed out in this thread multiple times, having gil can bypass tedious grinds. E.g. gearing up for raiding/iLvl requirements without having to go through the tomestone route. Gil is the currency of convenience and time.

Gearing up through crafting is it's own route. Buying all your gear is a shortcut, but not necessarily one I think they intended to be an "out" from grinding tomestones. .. and I also thought all the crafted items were going to be worthless to sell since the bots were going to undercut to hell? The money income will ebb and flow, but so will board prices. As they always have.

[TwistedTea]

I have my doubts about most of the people who set prices actually enjoying crafting, but that's gonna be a pretty subjective argument.
There is a player run economy, it runs on things that are not easily bottable. Things that aren't a pure time to dollar ratio. That's all bots can do. You find complicated crafts that require skill and adjustment as they develop and those will be the markets to "run".

In essence, we're playing whack-a-mole with crafting/gathering/flipping against bots. Eg, we find things which are not 'easily botable' but eventually the botters move in on those maket segments as well, so we have to keep moving into different markets. This would be normal market board flow, if there were no bots, but on hyper-competitive market boards, these shifts occur in a matter of hours. And it's not like you can wait out the botters either and hope that the market recovers. Often, it takes months before, certain items are selling at 'normal' prices again.

Sounds like you're still running markets. Same bots as always. In fact now you can take advantage of bot deflated markets on other servers to profit back on your home server. There aren't MORE bots just because the servers are accessible now.

I think the Blue Mage analogy is apt, having to decide your Market board practice around bots is limiting for people who actually enjoy crafting/gathering/playing the MB.

I thought the problem was the bots made it difficult to profit? Are the items cheap or are they expensive? The nodes don't run out of stuff, you can get the mats you can make the items and sell them for profit. Bots have been around since 1.0, not a new problem and they definitely haven't killed the economy.

I'll make it simpler for you. Bots initially drive down prices to the point where legitimate crafters/gatherers can no longer compete. We could buy gathered mats/flip from the bots and craft/flip items for a profit. But the same bots who gather often craft/flip as well. Then they drive down the price of crafted items as well. So that pushes out the legitimate crafters as well.

When all the legit crafters/gatherers are gone, the bots have monopolies. This can be observed in some of the food/potions/crafted gear markets of several servers.

[Krotoan]

In essence, we're playing whack-a-mole with crafting/gathering/flipping against bots. Eg, we find things which are not 'easily botable' but eventually the botters move in on those maket segments as well, so we have to keep moving into different markets. This would be normal market board flow, if there were no bots, but on hyper-competitive market boards, these shifts occur in a matter of hours. And it's not like you can wait out the botters either and hope that the market recovers. Often, it takes months before, certain are selling at 'normal' prices again.

Sounds exciting. It doesn't sound like you can be shut out of crafting/gathering forever though. .. or playing the rest of the game for that matter.

I think the Blue Mage analogy is apt, having to decide your Market board practice around bots is limiting for people who actually enjoy crafting/gathering/playing the MB.

Limiting.. but not crazily restricted like the entire Blue mage experience.. that was a very far stretch. I guess I get what you're trying to say.. but I'm gonna say the comparison is poor.

I'll make it simpler for you. Bots initially drive down prices to the point where legitimate crafters/gatherers can no longer compete. We could buy gathered mats/flip from the bots and craft/flip items for a profit. But the same bots who gather often craft/flip as well. Then they drive down the price of crafted items as well. So that pushes out the legitimate crafters as well.

if all you ever wanted to do was have 10 items and their mats and just profit forever off of those I can see your problem. But right now it just sounds like they make you change up your tactics (some servers quicker than others). Not exactly ideal, but also still pretty open to actually playing something like a game instead of a spreadsheet.

When all the legit crafters/gatherers are gone, the bots have monopolies. This can be observed in some of the food/potions/crafted gear markets of several servers.

And yet in 6 years of bots the markets still retain player control over much of the crafts and materials.