ARR Gil Cap Reduction

[Xenor]

You should probably read Bayohne's translation, since while I appreciate Reinheart's work, he'll be the first one to admit his translations aren't always 100% accurate. People can sometimes interpret things incorrectly.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post826003 - Bayohne Translation

Nowhere does that say that EVERYONE's gil is getting reduced. All this implies is that anyone with a gil amount over 99,999,999 will be capped at that value in ARR. Reinheart's translation seems to expand on what Yoshida said, but all he said was that vendor items were going to be reduced in cost and what they buy items for will also be reduced.

Reinheart translation:


I emphasized the bolded part because I believe Bayohne's translation is more accurate for that specific part.

Bayohne's translation is confusing because it begins with "No, there won't be a gil wipe". I consider losing hundreds of millions to be a gil wipe. I'm more inclined to believe it's a mis-translation and we'll be divided by 10. They do this kind of thing in the real world too, it's called redenomination. Look at Zimbabwe for a recent example.

[Seig345]

If the change just shaves off any gil above the cap, that would leave someone who has 150,000,000gil with 99,999,999... If the change just knocks a digit off, it would leave someone who has 150,000,000gil with 15,000,000gil, which is 84,999,999gil less than the former, and yet some rich players seem to be an advocate of the latter... I'm not following here...

Also, where's that digit being knocked off from? If it's from the end, are we saying 123,456,789 gil would be 12,345,678 gil, or would it be 23,456,789? Regardless which end you shave that digit off though, someone over cap would still wind up with less gil than just having any extra gil over the cap shaved off... (EDIT: UNLESS, that someone happened to be exactly at the current cap of 999,999,999 gil, granted)

It sounds like some players don't like this simply because they want everyone to lose gil, not just them... Maybe it's just me, but the entire premise of Final Fantasy just doesn't seem to fit with that.

[Ferth]

If the change just shaves off any gil above the cap, that would leave someone who has 150,000,000gil with 99,999,999... If the change just knocks a digit off, it would leave someone who has 150,000,000gil with 15,000,000gil, which is 84,999,999gil less than the former, and yet some rich players seem to be an advocate of the latter... I'm not following here...

Also, where's that digit being knocked off from? if it's from the end, are we saying 123,456,789 gil would be 12,345,678 gil, or would it be 23,456,789? Regardless which end you shave that digit off though, someone over cap would still wind up with less gil than just having any extra gil over the cap shaved off...

It sounds like some players don't like this simply because they want everyone to lose gil, not just them... Maybe it's just me, but the entire premise of Final Fantasy just doesn't seem to fit with that.

Less actual gil, but that gil would have the same inherent value as the higher number previously because EVERYONE would have lost the same percentage of their gil, thus making the value of the gil they have left go up by a proportional percentage.

[Vaer]

If the change just shaves off any gil above the cap, that would leave someone who has 150,000,000gil with 99,999,999... If the change just knocks a digit off, it would leave someone who has 150,000,000gil with 15,000,000gil, which is 84,999,999gil less than the former, and yet some rich players seem to be an advocate of the latter... I'm not following here...

Also, where's that digit being knocked off from? if it's from the end, are we saying 123,456,789 gil would be 12,345,678 gil, or would it be 23,456,789? Regardless which end you shave that digit off though, someone over cap would still wind up with less gil than just having any extra gil over the cap shaved off...

It sounds like some players don't like this simply because they want everyone to lose gil, not just them... Maybe it's just me, but the entire premise of Final Fantasy just doesn't seem to fit with that.

Think there are two interpretations so far:

1. New "max" gil cap is being reduced by 1 digit, right now it's 999,999,999 which will bring it to 99,999,999. This would only affect people that are above the gil cap directly. This is the interpretation from Bayohne's post.

2. Cutting a digit off from the end would affect everyone directly. Relative fortune would still be the same since everyone is getting a digit knocked off not only the people who are above the "new cap." For this to work everything in the game should have a digit cut off. Basically, this just makes numbers smaller and nothing really changes. This interpretation lends itself to the translation where YoshiP explains that things will get "cheaper."

F: Related question but for 2.0 gil will it be wiped or change?
Y: We already mentioned before we would not wipe but we will put this on topics but for example arrow price is bit expensive so stuff like that will change, and gil total will be less by 1 digit for all players and at same time all NPC sold items will be 1 less digit (1,000 gil > 100 gil)

Translation Doc

The confusion is between which is the actual case.

[Orophin]

I see this more of a change for the overall game going forward, rather than targeting individuals who have a lot of money. (or targeting everyone based on how some people are interpreting the translation)

There's also nothing saying at this point that the same NPC that will hold your excess items over 100 won't hold your excess gil over 99,999,999 too. Probably just some coding they can put in during the database conversion, if char has more than 99,999,999 gil, transfer the difference to storage NPC. Once the new game is running, you should be able to mailbox gil across alts and then pick up your excess later. At least this is how I hope it can work.

I don't have anything against the people that have over 100 million gil (I surely don't fall into this category) so it'd be nice if they could get their excess somehow without having to spend it all on other things, hoping to recoup their value in ARR.

[Seig345]

Less actual gil, but that gil would have the same inherent value as the higher number previously because EVERYONE would have lost the same percentage of their gil, thus making the value of the gil they have left go up by a proportional percentage.

I've seen this as well, and I'll admit I'm not exactly educated on financial stuff. But the value of the gil seems (to me) to be stapled, because gil is gil. While the value of, say, the US Dollar can go up and down because it's supposedly a promise note for a certain about of gold (or at least that was the original idea), Gil isn't a representative currency. There's no inflation or deflation, there's just total amount of gil in the collective pockets of all player characters/retainers put together.

There's unlimited gil in the game, NPC vendors, monsters, and quests are lined with it. Individual item prices may go up or down based on rarity and how much people are simply willing to fretter away, but I've yet to see anything to indicate Gil in and of itself having its own value, outside of RMT.

[Shougun]

I've seen this as well, and I'll admit I'm not exactly educated on financial stuff. But the value of the gil seems (to me) to be stapled, because gil is gil. While the value of, say, the US Dollar can go up and down because it's supposedly a promise note for a certain about of gold (or at least that was the original idea), Gil isn't a representative currency. There's no inflation or deflation, there's just total amount of gil in the collective pockets of all player characters/retainers put together.

There's unlimited gil in the game, NPC vendors, monsters, and quests are lined with it. Individual item prices may go up or down based on rarity and how much people are simply willing to fretter away, but I've yet to see anything to indicate Gil in and of itself having its own value, outside of RMT.

The problem is people relate the price of the item and how much gil is in the economy. If you gave everyone a hundred million gil the prices on everything would rise - some items may be resistant because players refuse to raise it, but in general the prices would rise.


A big problem is what large amounts of gil can do to such a fickle system like the one SE has up. Its retainer market is no good on keeping prices steady.

[Xenor]

I've seen this as well, and I'll admit I'm not exactly educated on financial stuff. But the value of the gil seems (to me) to be stapled, because gil is gil. While the value of, say, the US Dollar can go up and down because it's supposedly a promise note for a certain about of gold (or at least that was the original idea), Gil isn't a representative currency. There's no inflation or deflation, there's just total amount of gil in the collective pockets of all player characters/retainers put together.

There's unlimited gil in the game, NPC vendors, monsters, and quests are lined with it. Individual item prices may go up or down based on rarity and how much people are simply willing to fretter away, but I've yet to see anything to indicate Gil in and of itself having its own value, outside of RMT.

Time = money = gil.

Surely this concept denotes the value of gil. If it takes me an hour to farm a million whereas before it took me 10 minutes, it's surely more valuable now.

[Ferth]

Every currency is representative of what you can buy with it, as well as subject to fluctuation based on quantities the currency itself and of the items that it can be used to purchase. The best example I can think of relating to FFXIV would be warped arrows. Right now the current gil cap is just under 1 billion gil. 999,999,999 and the value of 1 gil is equal to one warped arrow. if this is an across the board 1/10th reduction of cost and cap then someone who has 1 billion gil will find themselves with 100 million after 2.0 (100,000,000) if this were truly a universal change in the value of gil then warped arrows would now be 10 arrows for 1 gil. (each arrow is now 1/10th of a gil in value.)

Someone at the one billion cap right now would be able to purchase the same exact amount of warped arrows as someone at the cap after 2.0 with 100 million gil. The only thing that would change is the denomination of the bill.

the problem with theoretical currencies like gil is that it's very hard to balance the amount of gil that exists at a given time.

inflation occurs incredibly easy in MMO's because of the notion of "Vendor Trash." I can spend x amount of time earning y amount of items and they will sell for z amount of money to an npc. That is money that is being created out of thin air. much like if the US decided that to pay off it's debt it was just going to print trillions of dollars. It wouldn't pay off anything because each dollar they print would make every dollar in existence worth that much less.

The best example would be percentage based. All of the gil currently in the game equals 100% of the wealth. let's pretend the game is brand new and not very popular... there are only 10 people playing and they each only have 10 gil. that means that the numerical value for 100% is 100. Each gil is worth 1% of the total wealth. Now let's say the game has expanded. there are 1000 players and they each have 1,000,000 gil. 100% of the wealth is now 1,000,000,000 gil. that means each gil is worth 0.000000001% of the total wealth. (I may be off a decimal place or two, if someone wants to correct me.)

In any system of currency, real life or theoretical values fluctuate and have to be based off of a specific item and are subject to inflation. A gil will never be just a gil.

[Seig345]

Every currency is representative of what you can buy with it, as well as subject to fluctuation based on quantities the currency itself and of the items that it can be used to purchase. The best example I can think of relating to FFXIV would be warped arrows. Right now the current gil cap is just under 1 billion gil. 999,999,999 and the value of 1 gil is equal to one warped arrow. if this is an across the board 1/10th reduction of cost and cap then someone who has 1 billion gil will find themselves with 100 million after 2.0 (100,000,000) if this were truly a universal change in the value of gil then warped arrows would now be 10 arrows for 1 gil. (each arrow is now 1/10th of a gil in value.)

Someone at the one billion cap right now would be able to purchase the same exact amount of warped arrows as someone at the cap after 2.0 with 100 million gil. The only thing that would change is the denomination of the bill.

the problem with theoretical currencies like gil is that it's very hard to balance the amount of gil that exists at a given time.

inflation occurs incredibly easy in MMO's because of the notion of "Vendor Trash." I can spend x amount of time earning y amount of items and they will sell for z amount of money to an npc. That is money that is being created out of thin air. much like if the US decided that to pay off it's debt it was just going to print trillions of dollars. It wouldn't pay off anything because each dollar they print would make every dollar in existence worth that much less.

The best example would be percentage based. All of the gil currently in the game equals 100% of the wealth. let's pretend the game is brand new and not very popular... there are only 10 people playing and they each only have 10 gil. that means that the numerical value for 100% is 100. Each gil is worth 1% of the total wealth. Now let's say the game has expanded. there are 1000 players and they each have 1,000,000 gil. 100% of the wealth is now 1,000,000,000 gil. that means each gil is worth 0.000000001% of the total wealth. (I may be off a decimal place or two, if someone wants to correct me.)

In any system of currency, real life or theoretical values fluctuate and have to be based off of a specific item and are subject to inflation. A gil will never be just a gil.

If 10 players each had 10 gil so they collectively have 100 gil, that means 1 gil IS 1% of the total wealth of all 10 players. It's not worth 1%. If it's worth 1% of something, that means you're able to exchange it for 1% of something, but you're saying it's worth 1% of 100 gil. To exchange it, you're paying 1 gil for 1 gil. 100 x 0.01 = 1. You can base the value of the gil off the vendor cost of a warped arrow, or the time it took to earn it through killing monsters and such, but I'm still not seeing how this causes everyone's gil being dropped raises the value of the individual gil.

If a warped arrow sells for 1 gil each before the cap drop, and is still worth 1 gil after, and the value of the gil is based on it, the gil's value remains the same regardless of who has how much after the drop. If it takes the same amount of time to earn gil by killing stuff before and after the drop, again, I don't see how how much everyone has after the drop affects the value of the gil, just how much everyone has.

Also, time = money = gil... but in FFXIV there's no money, just gil. Time = Gil. You put in time into the game, you get gil. I don't see how this relates to how much gil each player on a server has. I see how this relates to why a certain item should be worth a certain amount of gil, but not the value of the gil itself.

I understand you can exchange gil for items. While too much money in the pool can make prices go up, if it's just dumped in via RMT, not the intended way for players to get in-game currency, you have a problem because people dump out that kind of cash and then are either broke (or they simply don't do it because they don't make that kind of gil easily), or they dump out that kind of cash because they bought it. They run out, they buy more, it's the vicious RMT cycle. But that's what RMT is and why RMT is considered bad to those who actually care about the game.

Sorry for the block of text here. I can see now how Gil's value can indeed raise and lower based on either a simple item at the bottom of the chain or the amount of time it takes to earn it through non-player-economy methods. However, it still seems to me that the amount of gil everyone has only affects the value assigned to it by RMT.