About the grind for the new Skysung tools

[Caimie_Tsukino]

That sort of spike is a common feature of all patches that introduce new things. I wouldn't really consider it an improvement to the economy.

The common spikes that you refer to every patch has to do with increasing demand of certain items. I am not a econ major. So I dunno what can be considered "improvement" of the overall economy. But because of the increasing demand for these raw mats for the skysung tool grind, old items that were once worthless became profitable. At least it benefits the seller's $$$ (including myself). And so I think it is a positive effect that the tools have brought us.

[Granyala]

I am not a econ major. So I dunno what can be considered "improvement" of the overall economy.

My guess: long term increased profit margins. We always have rather crazy spikes when patches drop but things go back to sleep a few weeks after that.
If you aren't part of the big rush at the beginning, you won't make much of a profit.

[Jojoya]

The common spikes that you refer to every patch has to do with increasing demand of certain items. I am not a econ major. So I dunno what can be considered "improvement" of the overall economy. But because of the increasing demand for these raw mats for the skysung tool grind, old items that were once worthless became profitable. At least it benefits the seller's $$$ (including myself). And so I think it is a positive effect that the tools have brought us.

Being an economics major would be little help here because the game economy is controlled by people with no education in economics and options not seen in real life. Constant gil generation, lack of any price controls except through direct competition, no hard limit on resource availability, the ability for all players to be 100% self-sufficient - they have an impact not seen in real world economics.

A seller is going to see the game economy differently than a buyer. For the seller, things are good when they can sell items for more gil. For the buyer, things are good when they can buy items for less gil.

Shift things too far to favor the sellers, and buyers end up unhappy. New players feel like they're locked out of the game because they can't afford to buy the things they believe they need and either quit or resort to RMT. Some existing players decide enough is enough and become sellers themselves. That annoys the old sellers who dislike the increased competition and supply driving down prices. Oops, sellers ended up their own worst enemy by complaining they weren't making enough profit in a free market anyone can entered fueled by unlimited resources.

Shift things too far to favor the buyers and... some sort of equilibrium is achieved? Some sellers who dislike the lower profits might quit selling but any gap between supply and demand gets filled by those who remain. They learn where they can still make a decent profit by testing to see what prices buyers will tolerate and watching what other sellers are listing. Players who aren't particularly interested in selling stick to buying because they feel the prices are reasonable instead of turning into competing sellers. New players feel included because they can buy the things they need at prices they can afford on what little gil they've managed to accumulate.

I don't see SE making any changes that's going to shift things dramatically back in favor of sellers. There's no overall benefit to the game by doing so. They've made the content accessible and left it up to players to decide which part of the economy they're going to contribute to based on their personal interests.

[Driavna]

Being an economics major would be little help here because the game economy is controlled by people with no education in economics and options not seen in real life. Constant gil generation, lack of any price controls except through direct competition, no hard limit on resource availability, the ability for all players to be 100% self-sufficient - they have an impact not seen in real world economics.

A seller is going to see the game economy differently than a buyer. For the seller, things are good when they can sell items for more gil. For the buyer, things are good when they can buy items for less gil.

Shift things too far to favor the sellers, and buyers end up unhappy. New players feel like they're locked out of the game because they can't afford to buy the things they believe they need and either quit or resort to RMT. Some existing players decide enough is enough and become sellers themselves. That annoys the old sellers who dislike the increased competition and supply driving down prices. Oops, sellers ended up their own worst enemy by complaining they weren't making enough profit in a free market anyone can entered fueled by unlimited resources.

Shift things too far to favor the buyers and... some sort of equilibrium is achieved? Some sellers who dislike the lower profits might quit selling but any gap between supply and demand gets filled by those who remain. They learn where they can still make a decent profit by testing to see what prices buyers will tolerate and watching what other sellers are listing. Players who aren't particularly interested in selling stick to buying because they feel the prices are reasonable instead of turning into competing sellers. New players feel included because they can buy the things they need at prices they can afford on what little gil they've managed to accumulate.

I don't see SE making any changes that's going to shift things dramatically back in favor of sellers. There's no overall benefit to the game by doing so. They've made the content accessible and left it up to players to decide which part of the economy they're going to contribute to based on their personal interests.

I will also like to add that players with a big amount of money are also benefited from this, now their Gil is worth even more.

[Granyala]

Thanks for the Overview.

Bit disappointing that we do not get a fancy glow like the combat classes do.

[Nixxe]

I will also like to add that players with a big amount of money are also benefited from this, now their Gil is worth even more.

It really doesn't. The amount of merchandise rich players consume pales in comparison to the amount they produce. Saving a couple hundred thousand gil on a crafting chest or something one time is a net loss when you weigh it against the fact that they're also losing out on that money when they turn around and start selling them by the dozens. You also need to consider that some parts of the game do not respond to fluctuations in the player economy, such as housing, and a mansion is the single most expensive thing in the game. Most of the other big ticket items, such as the night pegasus whistle, vary more or less entirely with supply. We're not seeing some sort of economy wide deflation. We're just seeing the value of crafted goods specifically being depressed by over accessibility.

[Jojoya]

Thanks for the Overview.

Bit disappointing that we do not get a fancy glow like the combat classes do.

I'm sure it will be part of the final tool since past Blessed tools from the achievements had their glows.

I will also like to add that players with a big amount of money are also benefited from this, now their Gil is worth even more.

Gil is only worth as much as the things you need or want to buy with it. That's going to vary from player to player since not everyone has the same needs and wants.

Gil that has no use is worth nothing. At best it's a scoring system for those who like to see who's better at getting rich.

Right now, I feel like only about 20 million of my gil is worth anything. It's a decent amount to have on hand in case some new rare drop is released that I don't want to bother farming for myself. It's also an amount that's easy to replace when I do use it. Otherwise, my normal gameplay provides what I need and want.

That leaves what I have in access of that amount effectively worthless to me. If I have a friend that wants to buy a house but is short the needed gil, I don't have a problem giving them a few million since it's worthless as far as I'm concerned. It's nice to be able to give it to a friend that will find value in it.

It could change if SE added some substantial gil sinks outside of housing but I doubt that's going to happen. Large gil sinks also have the tendency to encourage RMT, and that's enough of a problem already.

[Driavna]

Gil is only worth as much as the things you need or want to buy with it. That's going to vary from player to player since not everyone has the same needs and wants.

Gil that has no use is worth nothing.

I understand what you mean but I disagree.

[Liam_Harper]

We're not seeing some sort of economy wide deflation. We're just seeing the value of crafted goods specifically being depressed by over accessibility.

I'm not sure about that. As an example of some of the prices of items in Stormblood on my world: Night Pegasus - 25-30m, Dodo 15m, Grade VI combat materia 50k-100k depending on patch time, Grade VI craft materia, 800k-2m a pop, Fat Cat 1m and so on. Now? 10m, 4m, 10-15k, worthless, 300k. Most old ores used to sell 2-3k are 600 gil. Nearly all the Bozja items are worthless or crashing.

Basically everything in the game is much cheaper than it was 2-3 years ago. This is a result of a few things. Less sources of raw gil, no 100k gil bunny fates in Bozja, less people doing leves with Ishgard being a thing and no gil from spamming collectibles for scrips. Accessible crafting. You make less gil via crafting, far less people can afford high prices, this affects everything.

It really doesn't. The amount of merchandise rich players consume pales in comparison to the amount they produce.

I think they mean the rich players already have a pile of a billion gil+. They don't need to produce anything. I haven't sold much in months myself, it's a waste of time. That billion(s) is worth more than it was back in StB or HW.

Gil is only worth as much as the things you need or want to buy with it. That's going to vary from player to player since not everyone has the same needs and wants.

Gil that has no use is worth nothing. At best it's a scoring system for those who like to see who's better at getting rich.

Pretty much, although it has potential worth. Let's say Ishgard opens its new ward. A rich player has the means to snap up a mansion without even thinking of their wallet while a new player can only dream of that much gil. New mount? Snap it up. There's some value in the ability to do that.

I can't say I have much problem with the economy really. Things sell less, but less buys you more. It balances out. My own complaints have been on the ease of crafting, rise of botting on Master recipes and dislike of the overall changes.

[Nixxe]

I'm not sure about that. As an example...this affects everything.

There are specific reasons pretty much everything you listed is cheaper.

Two to three years ago Heaven on High was new. Dodos were new. The population that had previously been doing PotD more or less straight up abandoned it to do Heaven on High. This caused a spike in Night Pegasus Whistle prices at the time as the supply dried up. I was on Balmung at the time, and they went from around 7 mil pre-HoH to 25 mil (it may have been higher tbh) when HoH was the new hotness. I should also add that when I transferred from Balmung to Sargatanas at the end of Stormblood ahead of the data center reshuffling, I bought dodos for like 1.5 mil a piece to flip on Sarg at I think 2-3 mil a piece. Those same dodos are now worth 7 mil, so the price has gone up, which tracks with reasonable assumption that HoH is outdated and nowhere near as many people are doing the upper floors that give you the dodos now, just as PotD participation before it also dropped off as new content came out.

Fat cat used to only come from very high end fishing ventures. Those previously high end fishing ventures are now low end, and it continues to come from increased levels of waterside exploration. Meanwhile, DoL have been made much easier to level over the years, likely leading to an increase in the number of eligible fishing retainers who can retrieve the item. It's also an item you only ever can use one of, which means there is a very finite demand for it. If the pet is sufficiently available, the playerbase can become largely saturated with respect to who owns the cat out of players interested in owning the cat, which drives down demand for it even as the supply likely stays stable or increases.

Materia changes were going to annihilate the value of materia no matter what. That has nothing to do with deflation. That has to do with the change from convert to extract materia dramatically increasing the supply of materia.

On top of that, making market boards data center wide caused normalization of prices, so if you had a low pop server with crappy prices, you could now hop on over to your local big server and steal their stuff. This means you probably did see deflation if you were on a crappy server, but top end items, which tend to be supply-throttled on lower pop servers, would likely have gone up in price on larger servers that were now having their supplies siphoned off. I've never known a time when old ores were 2-3k a piece, personally. Even on Balmung where bots had a hard time getting in, they were usually 1k or less.

Bozja items crashing is the only thing anyone should expect if they have any familiarity with this economy. It's new content, so a ton of people rush to do it and very quickly generate a large number of items. A handful of people will pay exorbitant prices to get it without delay, but most of the server will wait, knowing that crash is coming. So you have numerous sellers competing to snipe a small handful of sales before equilibrium price is achieved.

You make less gil via crafting because they've made it too accessible. That's the only reason. If you throw a mass of players at a market, you will always find a couple who are willing to grind for pennies who destroy the market because they don't value their own time. When markets are smaller and getting into them takes more investment, you usually end up with people who value their time more who will compete in a more sensible fashion that preserves the value of the market, even if they're both gunning to steal all of the sales.

Like do you just not watch the market board? Prices fluctuate a lot based on what sorts of content people are doing and what point in the expansion it is. Old stuff getting cheaper is to be expected in many cases.