Crafting & Economy - How SE should improve on it and keep Gilsellers away

[avalonstormm]

How can SE improve the existing crafting system to make the economy work for the players while at the same time keeping the Gilsellers far away or atleast at a distance that they won't affect the economy at all?

I welcome any feedbacks on this, as I believe that this should resolve any crafting woes out there if SE is able to come up with a good solution to resolve this dilemma.

[Stylz_p]

The biggest issue is, the best way to stop gilsellers is to stop having an economy, gillsellers thrive off of an good economy, and if we want an good economy there is not much you can do besides have an active team look and hunt them down.

I am going to do a post in this subforms on the problems of our economy and in general how game economies and economies in general work.

[Wolfie]

You can't get rid of gilsellers until you make it impossible to trade items between players.

What they SHOULD be focusing on, instead, is having a healthy economic model where items and gold enter and leave the market at the same rate. Then you can simply ban gilsellers/buyers as you see them.

[AmazingUserName]

Or you could make a relastic economy in which ingame prices change day-to-day, with the occasional depressions and surplus. It would'nt get rid of gilsellers but would make things more difficult for them or at least teach them math

[Chione]

I can't think of a single measure that would hurt RMT that wouldn't also hurt legitimate players even more. The problem with RMT is that they have nothing but time, and infinite characters to throw at every attempt to stop them. While we have only the characters we pay for, and most of us have actual lives to attend to. Gathering fatigue, lack of delivery boxes, the absence of an exchange connected to all cities - these could all be said to be attempts to slow the RMT. In reality so far all these things have done is frustrate actual players.

Tracking and banning RMT is the only way to stop them without harming legit players.

I know SE has managed to put a few RMT companies out of business through their task force in FFXI. But in FFXIV it seems nothing is being done at all. The same gaggle of RMT that I saw when I started the game are still running around doing their battle leves in leve-reward and starter gear; they are still sitting around in alchemy synthing groups wearing the beginner alchemist gear; still fishing endlessly in freebie fishing gear. I imagine this is because they are relatively harmless at the moment, and only a huge eyesore to most players.

Here's hoping SE is at least keeping track of all these RMT though. Let them stockpile their gil, and then kick them all out the door when they start asking for the monthly fee again, or once the economy is fixed.

As for that; I see the major issue being the lack of any sort of gil-sink. Adding modes of transportation and dungeons that require a fee in gil to use would help a little. Maybe even put the Gladiator arena to work and let players pit their skills against each other for an entry fee. These might be small things but after a while, they'd chip away at the overabundance of gil in the game.

Other ideas: NPCs that refill anima and guardian favor (priestly types could do this) for a hefty sum would likely have their services taken advantage of as well.

[Peregrine]

I like RMTs current role in the game: Using their lowbie characters to farm me cheap shards. That's about as good a position for RMT to occupy in a MMO as there ever has been if we're not going to get rid of them. At least they stay out of gathering and NM hunting.

RMT has been so useless in this game because gil is useless. I would have thought they'd take to selling power levels by now. They just don't seem to care about FFXIV. I imagine it's because there's no money in it and they're working on Rift now.

[WintersMoondancer]

Seriously, who on earth would have to buy gil for this game???

[Reika]

Seriously, who on earth would have to buy gil for this game???

Dummies that wanna be haxxored lol

[Amineri]

I wonder if the "anti-RMT hysteria" is a being a bit blown out of proportion by certain parties.

As Chione (among others) pointed out, there really is no way to remove RMT completely, without making a game so unplayable that no-one will play it.

We've all seen the situation where RMT goes completely out of control, and distorts the economy and game world to the point that the game becomes more frustrating that real life. People should also bear in mind that RMT is very likely not responsible for all such distortions -- there are very likely large guilds that have manipulated game world economies to the same extent as RMT activity.

If RMT activity is accepted as a fact of life, we can try and look at how it hurts:

Square Enix - Does RMT hurt Square Enix? If SE is making money off subscriptions, and the subscription rates are still high, then does it matter if RMT exists? In fact, if RMT entities are purchasing game accounts, this means actually MORE revenue for SE. This type of thinking may be why many MMOs turn a somewhat blind eye toward RMT (or other monopolizing activities) until it is too late.

The players - If RMT (or others) distort the game in such a way that make the game unenjoyable for others, then clearly this is an impact. If it doesn't, does it really matter all that much? What is the boundary between a player grinding for gil and a person grinding gil for RMT, if it has little impact on the play environment? I recognize that this is a slippery slope, but wanted to point out the distinction.

Final conclusion : Perhaps the focus should be less on "eliminating RMT from the game", and more on how to improve the economy (for the sake of improving gameplay experience for as many as possible), and minimizing the impact of RMT and other forces that seek to disrupt the economy for whatever motive.

[Choc]

this is the worse economy ive ever seen in an mmo. I dont think its the most pressing need right now but it certainly needs to be fixed soon. Items are quickly losing value as everyone is starting to dismiss anything that isnt HQ anymore. Classes like gatherers dont have much purpose right now do to no rare resources so they are only for obtaining mats needed (selling) but since gil is worthless anyway not many people play these.

They need changes like Requirements on gear so you dont see rank 5s running around in full iron gear which would also create a need for those low/mid rank items.

Multiple gil sinks and a decrease in gil obtained from leves, even these changes would only be a small step. Gil need to be worth something.