A Few thoughtful suggestions for the Economy

[Colvin]

It's fixable with just some not-too difficult adjustments!

Given the fact that SE doesn't plan to increase the craft-ability or usability of additional items below 50 (as stated by Reps on the forums); I have set out a few bullet points that I think will help set some of the economic issues we are having, back on track. All of these ideas are designed to increase demand and reduce the inventory of items across the board.


1. New Gear Recipes (a no-brainer... but the approach?)

This may seem a little obvious. If we add new Recipes that people actually want to use on a regular basis in battle, there will clearly be more sales. However, there could be some additional benefits. New recipes moving forward should use not only the inevitable new materials (in whatever rarity), but also a markedly higher amount of low-level materials. Care should be taken to make sure that a large amount of the materials needed are gathered and not farmed from mobs. One of the best ways to reduce inventory and increase the cost of items such as cotton thread, would be to make level 80 synths require 10-20 of them. This will:

• Dramatically reduce the present inventory
• Increase the price of said goods
• Increase the interest in gathering

2. More NPC turn-in rewards

In order to reduce the inventory of low-level items, there should be additional turn-ins (Similar to GC rewards) which allow you to gain non-gil tokens for purchases. My initial suggestion would be to allow people to do turn-ins for beat tribes. While I admit this would have required a maximum amount per day and a possible increase in the minimum reputation required to level up, I feel this could still be done moving forward without adjusting the present numbers. The tokens could then be used (instead of gil) to make purchases from these factions.

If you will allow me to digress; part of the problem with the US Economic turn-around plan is that fed in to top-down economics instead of bottom up. Money/Gil is most useful in an economy when it is designed to change as many hands as possible from the beginning of its life to end. This creates additional steps and channels for income.

While none of us know what the higher level reputations will provide for sales, the addition of Gather/ Disciple of the Hand goods attainable ONLY via factions would also fill a niche that is not addressed (While keeping in mind overall balance with current items.)

This will (Including benefits from first suggestion):

• Create Competition for goods on the market
• Set another outflow for goods without injecting additional gil (therefore causing inflation)
• Create additional interaction possibilities and play options for faction content

3. Proper iLvl Requirements to Low-Level Dungeons

While I am no fan of the current elitism for over-requisite of iLvl for end-game content (there is no viable way to check skill... something I will address in a different post); I believe this would be an easy way to drum up sales for lower-level items. The system could be simple in that the iLvl requirement for the next dungeon should be the iLvl of the gear in the previous dungeon. This way, people either need to buy gear or play the lower level dungeons multiple times before moving on. Presently, I believe most people only play them for the tome bonus (which will become less and less valuable as more and more tome items are put in to the market), or to farm vanity gear for the future vanity slot patch (will also fade at some point).

• Increase demand for lower level goods
• Increase the price of said goods
• Increase the interest in gathering/crafting

4. Bonus for level-appropriate gear

While I love (and understand the need for) level-sync, the fact that you don't need lower-level gear in lower-level dungeons (or even primals) presents an interesting opportunity. We could give benefits to people who complete dungeons or boss fights with gear which is in a range of the iLvl Requirement. I am not suggesting we change the stat benefit of the gear, but rather you get a bonus of tokens (gil, increased % drop chance, whatever) for wearing that gear.

This will:

• Give Higher level characters a reason to have/buy lower-level gear
• Present an interesting opportunity for elite players looking for a challenge (Do primals in minimal iLvl gear for profit)
• Increase the interest in gathering/crafting (for said gear)

5. An increase in the usability of and diversity of one time use items (food/potions)

Ask any MMO economist and they will tell you that consumables are a key to any economy. People generally flock to crafting jobs such as potion-making and food because they have a steady level of consumption and so remain competitive in price (provided the content provides reason to use them).

There have been more than a few topics on the forums about the need to increase potency and/or longivity of these items so I won't go through all of that reasoning. However, I will say the following:

• Set different cooldowns for some potions
• Adjust the recast to make them (slightly) more accessable
• Diversify the number of foods and potions by swapping up the stat bonus
• Use a wider variety of items (such as different types of fish... SO many worthless fish) to build these

This Will:
blah, blah blah. Same thing as above

At any rate, sorry for the long post and I hope this promotes some good discussion that can encourage SE to make some positive economic changes in our game!

[Beetle]

Here we go again. Another thread that SE will not look at.

[Colvin]

Here we go again. Another thread that SE will not look at.

Sadly, the only way they look at these is if we get a ridiculous number of replies! Care to add your thoughts?

[Muzy]

I agree with most of this, in particular, the consumables part, in most MMO's consumables really make up the majority of the market, part of the issue with them is the cooldown times, though it's by far not the largest part, the largest part of the issue is the low caps on them. For example, X-Ether, NQ is a 5m cooldown, returns 420 mana at most. HQ returns 530 MP and is a 4m 30s cooldown. To many players the cooldown to amount returned is a bit of let down, not to mention most mana using classes have MP returning abilities on a much shorter cooldown that give much greater returns.

Potions are a fair bit better on the cooldown front, but again, suffer from a relative lack of effectiveness, especially with most classes having access to healing abilities in some form that are more effective.

Elixirs are restrictive as all get out with their cooldowns, little wonder that market isn't all that great...

Stat potions are fairly decent, I think the thing throwing most people off from them is the duration to cooldown time, but really, those aren't so bad.

Now food, that is where things get funky. The percentages and stat caps are all over the place on these, and honestly make very little sense.

[Muzy]

Just gonna use a second post for this...

Cosmetic consumables would be a nice addition as well, like a transformation potion or other random amusing things, that would be a decent market in and of itself.

[Beetle]

Sadly, the only way they look at these is if we get a ridiculous number of replies! Care to add your thoughts?

Theres huge amount of stuff they need to fix and said this before....

removing players earned levels. (Not all just the ones you earned through mult leve turn ins and large amount of bonus exp in fates)
removing mult levequest turn ins.
lower overall exp gain.
increase the level cap to open up new recipes and gear
decrease the rate gatherers gain items & the ammount
remove shard farming completely or until reaching lv15-20 as a gatherer
add more recipes with fishing
decrease treasure map rewards
make everyone only able to gain Leather Maps and doing Treasure Charts earn you higher maps.
Have fishing consume more Bait/Lures
Remove alot of gear & materials from NPC shops
Add npc repair reductions to characters with craft already leveled
Have item turn ins for Miner & Botnist levequest like with Fishing.
Remove Shard rewards from all quests under lv15
Remove battlecraft/craft/gathering gear rewards from all quests
Option to sell used Gear with Materia on it
Higher Materia Break Rates
Remove Rare Nodes Gathering spots and put them as random Material in normal gathering locations.
Increase cost of Grand Company Gear
Decrease amount of seals earned in Fates
decrease Materia Spirntbonding rates back to 2.0
Remove Materia Rewards from quests
Option to meld Materia on lower level dungeon gear
Remove all gil from all servers by 60%
Lower Housing cost by 60%
Remove Seals earned through Grand Company Hunting Logs
Have Bllind Market Board where players cant see other players prices. Only the History.
Lower rate in which dungeon gear is rewarded out.
Materia have extra slots only for elemental & illness resists
Have Primals loot not be 100%.
Have Crystal tower only drop 2 pieces gear until end of the dungeon.
Remove % factors from Food & Potions stats. (When Above class level for those items.)
Remove Free Company Buffs that benfit gil,exp,craft,gathering
Give Stealth a time limit
Add lv51~lv70 enemies in open world.
Crafting HQ system needs to be less of a chance. (Such as currectly reaching 100% HQ with all skills. After fix, reaching 20%)
Allow Legacy Characters to go to all servers. (Help spread currency off from Legacy servers where its not an issue.)

Probably could add more... but yeah the damage has already been done so SE needs to repair there mistakes. Some of these to combat rmt effecting the market and basically exp reset for making this game too casual. Really can gain lv30 in 5hrs.

Basically with all this is you will have a market at lv1~lv50 and players buying and selling gear. Also farming materials and earning levels over period of time without crashing the market. Yes there still the issue that dungeon gear is more powerful then crafted gear but long as its ra/ex & drop rate is low it shouldnt have a large issue on the market.

What we currectly have is Shard market only way for players under lv45 to earn decent cash. Until reaching lv45+ they can sell phil but we all know that market about to crash very soon. Theres also Materia but since 2.1 Main Quests offer tier4 Materias and Spirntbond rates for Tier3 & tier4s have been increased by 20~40%. So right now only way to make cash is from spamming dungeons and dailys and selling Deviled Eggs.

[Shneibel]

why not put it into this thread ? so we dont have have 2 thread of the same thing ?

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...nomic-advisor.

[Colvin]

Potions are a fair bit better on the cooldown front, but again, suffer from a relative lack of effectiveness, especially with most classes having access to healing abilities in some form that are more effective.

agreed. I actually keep a stack of potions and use them like a cool-down as a melee/tank, but I make all my own so I guess I don't really contribute to the economy there. Although, for the most part they are way cheap, so even in their current state, people could just buy them to pop them.

[Colvin]

why not put it into this thread ? so we dont have have 2 thread of the same thing ?

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...nomic-advisor.

I saw that thread. I didn't agree with some (not all) of the points. I also didn't want my suggestions to get steamrolled in to a million other posts... thus thread

[Muzy]

agreed. I actually keep a stack of potions and use them like a cool-down as a melee/tank, but I make all my own so I guess I don't really contribute to the economy there. Although, for the most part they are way cheap, so even in their current state, people could just buy them to pop them.

I'm in the process of levelling alc myself for that reason amongst others, there is a market for them on Diabolos, but it's not that cheap sadly, I think in large part due to shard costs.

Which is another point, a lot of recipes use shards, and in large amounts at that, and yet, farming them up can take hours depending how much you want to craft.

Really wish they'd either add a trait in on the Miner/Botanist that grants them extra shards per attempt whether or not using the wards, or add in the crystal/cluster breakdown skills back into the DoH classes.