whats the point of crafting...

[YuriRamona]

The problem is not simply that crafted gear is only worn for a short time, it's that for most people it is never even considered as a possible option. As the prices drop for philosophy tome items the cost of materia has stayed the same or in many cases gone up. So while an item might only cost 300,000 gil to make now it still costs well over 600,000 to make one and properly meld it.

Now assuming that the average player earns roughly 400,000 gil in total by completing the main quest line and getting their first class to 50 this means he/she will be unable to buy and meld a SINGLE piece of crafted 70 gear, let alone all 13 slots. The only players with the amount of gil necessary to purchase crafted gear are other crafters and Titan win sellers. This is a doubly weak market because other rich crafters can usually make the gear themselves and Titan win sellers need better gear than crafted gear to sell wins in the first place. This only leaves rich crafters with a new 50 battle class who do not already have all eight crafts at 50. I suppose you could also count people who do lots of WP speed runs but they share the problem of Titan sellers of already having significantly better gear.

That's like refusing to teach your child how to drive because you're afraid they might someday have an accident. They're going to have an accident regardless, but giving them the tools to be successful drivers will give them the ability to handle the accident better than not knowing anything at all. Right now you're saying that combating RMT takes priority over everything (ironic, given how much spam there still is, how many mining bots I still see, and how many RMTs I report every day that seem to go ignored). RMT will always try to take advantage of the game in any way they can. But by creating an environment where combating them takes priority over game play, you're depriving a large part of your player base of a huge part of what is for them the most enjoyable aspect of the game.

I just think it's funny they say they don't want to encourage RMT.

And then they go and add housing that cost millions and millions of gil.

Trying to bring this discussion back to the response given by Yoshi-P, in which he highlighted the crafting of high-level gear, the concerns about RMT, and solutions offered through PvP gear and housing.

As Dale alludes to, housing prices were devised partly as a countermeasure to the wealth of some players across the servers.

There are a few problems. As Nenin mentioned, one of the primary ways that wealthy players spent gil was by buying and melding 2-star ilvl70 gear. Not only does this only transfer/distribute gil, but it also makes the geared player richer by enhancing their ability to farm and produce gil in the game.

The critical consideration is that there are little to no viable means for these very rich, very well-equipped players to spend their money. Housing, for many reasons, is not an effective gil sink (predominantly because the wealthy tend to be dedicated/hardcore progression players and not the casual type targeted by housing).

And so we have the paradox of an existence of a wealthy elite with no reason to spend, a design philosophy centered away from the practicality and desirability of gil (well-intentioned but hopelessly idealistic), and a blind, at-all-costs mentality of fighting RMT. (did we forget that they just picked hundreds of people and divided their gil by one hundred a few months ago?)

It's an incredibly dangerous situation when the wealthy elite are not offered legitimate means to spend their gil, and eager RMT who are ready to buy from them and re-distribute to the less wealthy.

I don't have the numbers and stats, obviously, but having RMT be the only active means of not only circulating, but re-distributing wealth is a highly toxic economic environment. And this is exactly what we have, and will not go away until we solve the problem of gil's usefulness in the game.