Gil is worthless.

[Avidria]

I dont know if there really is a good solution to that. Im also not sure how widespread of a problem it actually is. I know a few people who have that much, but i personally have never had more than 80 mil at one time and most of my more casually playing friends have far less.

I played WoW when it had ammo costs for ranged weapons and it absolutely sucked. And would suck to implement this far into the game. Charging a tax on houses would be insult to injury on a system that already requires you to stay subbed and spend real money monthly to keep it. I cant see SE making savage gear sellable when that would make it possible for someone to get that gear without ever actually stepping foot in savage, and any limits to prevent that... im not sure would add much beenfit? In general? Raising teleport or repair costs would impact new players more than old ones, and so would any similar change. So... eh?

Tldr this isnt a problem for me and any "solution" would probably be annoying to me.

[MistakeNot]

why does money in the real world need to have value.

It doesn't need to have value, and there are several cases from history where hyperinflation made money literally worth less than the paper it was printed on.

But gil in FFXIV is not worthless. There are many things one can buy with gil. Useful things.
However, gil is not important in FFXIV. It is easy to get enough gil to pay for everything you need, that can be bought with gil. Not so easy to buy everything you may want, but a lot of the things you can buy can be considered mere luxury items that may be nice to have but that in no way are necessary.

Also, gil isn't the only currency in FFXIV, though it is the main currency that can be used for trading between players.
The important currencies are tomestones, and to a lesser extent company seals and the various hunt rewards.

[KisaiTenshi]

this complaint is nothing new, but neither has anything been done about it. were still 3 years on from the first set of gil sinks and people have nothing to spend there money on. i have now accumulated 300Mil, but for all the worth it has, it might as well be 300gil.

The reason it's worthless is because RMT exists. If you let players trade everything (most green gear is bind-upon-pickup, pretty much) the price inflation just escalates until the server can't deal with the numbers, and players have to resort to bartering items-for-items.

In an ideal situation, the game wouldn't have 60 different currencies. All the tokens we get from raids would not exist, the only the gear would be dropped and the dropped gear would be sold on the marketboard. But then people would never be able to obtain 90% of the gear because it comes from too-difficult-of-a-raid, and likewise can't equip stuff because of the level locks. Basically the way things work now isn't perfect, but it ensures that people have to play the raids to get the gear rather than buy it without playing it.

The worst aspects of earlier MMORPG's were always around obtaining money in the game when the game generates infinite money.

How MMORPG's "should" work, and how they "can only work" are pretty far apart.

For example, all the stuff people throw on the marketboard that are just regular monster drops. Well if you fight 100 monsters to get 100 of an item, you should get 100 items, not have it be a random drop that results in you having to fight 500 monsters. When you sell things you should be able to sell it on the market board for the price you want, or NPC it at the "present" marketboard price. Likewise NPC's should 'run out' of items if no players are selling to NPC's, and adjust their prices based on number of items remaining in the global NPC inventory. Thus ensuring that players can have something to "sink" gil into.

However MMORPG's can't work that way because players will collude and buy all the NPC inventories of items needed to craft. Thus ensuring an escalation of RMT activities.

The flip side of this is the game can't make all the mounts and fashion accessories in the game cash shop only, without having to be non-tradeables. Because if you allow people to sell cash shop items to other players, you create a back door RMT market. Ideally everything in the game should be always be found "in the game" without the cash shop. If something is an a seasonal event, then yes, that can go be in the cash shop afterwords. But those events should come back annually otherwise people get FOMO and if the items were tradeable people would hoard seasonal event items.

The problem with currencies in this game is that it's overtly complicated. "gil" is for things involving NPC's, and trash items you pick up to sell, thus crafters basically get all this stuff for next to nothing, and make a lot of money selling things that almost nobody actually "needs" since the NPC shops have the same items. If there existed a mechanism that the NPC shops selling gear actually "bought" it off players on the NPC board if it's cheaper than their own price, that would make the economy function better.

But it's far too late in the game's life to refactor gil. They would have to do what they do with tomes and require exchanging gil for new gil every expansion pack to correct for inflation, and that would result in people getting mad that their money has been devalued.

[StouterTaru]

I renew my petition for a new in-game title, bought from Rowena:

Title: Former Gillionaire
Cost: 999,999,999 gil

[vetch]

There isn't inflation, at least not noticeable save on very rare items from content from past expansions that pretty much nobody does. The cap on gils as well as events when you can get rare stuff for little efforts (flood the market with items that were previously rare) takes care of that. Heck my collection of fats cats have gone down from 600k to 30k each...we saw it for other items - the Island and the Seacloth was brutal - and we're about to see the same thing with the Gabriel mount.

That's true for the specific rare items that they add to the events (or to quick ventures) but there's noticeable inflation in other areas, like gear for alt jobs or interior furnishings even when they're given away for free en masse. It's not unusual for Fine Wax to sell for over 10k or a set of 70+ leveling gear for a popular job over 200k and you wouldn't say that no one does Haukke Manor or the MSQ. And of course, it's also in niches of the glamour market that aren't being supplied by Square. Even crafted glams from extremely cheap materials have been a good and consistent source of profit, which feels nice for me but probably not for some sprout who wants a simple eyepatch and must pay 70-100k for something that cost me 2k to assemble.

[LilimoLimomo]

this complaint is nothing new, but neither has anything been done about it. were still 3 years on from the first set of gil sinks and people have nothing to spend there money on. i have now accumulated 300Mil, but for all the worth it has, it might as well be 300gil.

and i know i will get the comments "give it to me then" for what? so u can buy everything too then wind up with the exact same problem? what will you do then? horde it untill you need 10 retainers to hold all your cash

There are plenty of players who don't have enough gil to buy the things they want; because of that, the gil that you claim is worthless literally has the power to make someone's day.

So give it away, whether all at once or little by little. Then you can enjoy the experience of giving another person unexpected delight. I honestly can't think of a better way to spend your cash if you genuinely feel like there's nothing else for you to do with it.

[Sjol]

There's only one MMO I've played with a functioning economy and it's a TOTALLY different kind of game. If you want to experience a real economy in game and all the lifelike problems it introduces, go play EVE Online. Once in-game money is hard to come by you'll get all the degeneracy of mankind coming to your favorite game. I would much rather have venues and ERP than real-world psy ops, cartels, scams, etc.

If you have 300mil, have bought all the registerables you can, have all your artifacts and relics maxed out, congrats you've won the game. Take your victory lap and wait for the next level you can also conquer.

Also, I have 200mil, but your 300mil would give me a nice even 500mil, which would be pretty cool, so... can I have your gil?

[littlehobbit13]

A wild thread to read through. OP's main point seems to be "I'm upset that there's aren't more ways to show off that I have more money than other players", followed by an argument for why we need to introduce capitalism as the game's primary economic structure. As if that's working out so well for everyone in the real world.

The thing is, there are plenty of ways to get rid of gil if you genuinely believe it has no real value. That includes value for the ego. You could buy expensive mounts for friends (or randos) and give them away. In fact, that would be a self-reinforcing solution to your problem, because by taking the supply of rare items, you'll drive up both the value and price, which theoretically improves your ability to get rid of gil. But as you've said in multiple responses, you don't want to do that. You're not looking for a way to simply get rid of gil; you're looking for more ways to spend gil on yourself. Those are two different goals there, Bezos.

according to some studies i found by ACTUAL economists, real money has its value because it has a level of trust in it, that we trust that with this token we can have the item we desire immediately, or even items we couldnt normally have at all.

The fallacy in your comparison is that there are no true supply/demand constructs in the game like there are in the real world. In the real world, one person *can* have exclusive rights to a resource, thus generating both supply and demand. In the game, by contrast, anyone can access any resource with enough individual effort. Everyone can craft, everyone can gather, everyone can farm. The closest thing we have to "exclusive" rights are probably items that require crossbreeding in gardens or sub/airships, since that can only be done if you have a house (which are limited in supply).

And the whole "real money has its value because of the level of trust" is not an accurate explanation of that concept. The FORM OF CURRENCY has value because of the trust in its value. It's the reason I'll take a bill or coin from someone instead of their pig or goat. The pig has a value, and "level of trust" has to do more with "you said a pig = this much of your made-up currency".

currency servers important roles in locking the players put of certian content, making you NEEED to play the game, just like irl money locks you out of living on hawaii in a 5* appartment

Capitalism and classism. That's what you're arguing for. "People should have barriers to entry based on their economic class." You're arguing for the game to be more about productivity than about fun. Instead of trying to ruin a venue of escapism for the rest of us by forcing a grind, maybe you can just log off and pick up an IRL side hustle that will scratch exactly the itch you're focused on.

[SilverObi]

There are plenty of players who don't have enough gil to buy the things they want; because of that, the gil that you claim is worthless literally has the power to make someone's day.

So give it away, whether all at once or little by little. Then you can enjoy the experience of giving another person unexpected delight. I honestly can't think of a better way to spend your cash if you genuinely feel like there's nothing else for you to do with it.

That's what I tend to do with my gil, I bank it until I get to around 150-170 mil then buy something cool for my friends or FC members (recently bought someone a night pegasus for their birthday). It's nice to see Number Go Up of course, but it's there to be spent. And if I don't want to spend it on myself, there's always someone else that would be happy to get something fancy.

[Rikizza]

That's what I tend to do with my gil, I bank it until I get to around 150-170 mil then buy something cool for my friends or FC members (recently bought someone a night pegasus for their birthday). It's nice to see Number Go Up of course, but it's there to be spent. And if I don't want to spend it on myself, there's always someone else that would be happy to get something fancy.

You’re so kind. I love that. Do you wanna make me happy? :3