Market Economy is a Mess - Possible fixes

[LittleArrow]

Since 2.1 Philo items have crashed to severely low prices. Players can't seem to stop undercutting causing items that once sold from 25-15k to 5-3.5k. This is a huge issue considering Philo items were a go to source of income for adventurers.

The cause of this market crashing is due to SE providing more tokens (for ease of gear) in dungeons and players not having anything else to purchase with said tokens.

Here are a couple suggested fixes for this issue:

1. Introduce more crafting recipes that call for more Philosophy items.

2. Add a new token specifically for crafting items

3. Add new Philo items for new crafting recipes

4. Add new armor / items to spend Philo items (potions, food, etc)

(The reason why I took out the suggestion of increasing the cost is due to the fact I don't believe this would significantly increase the price sold on the market. There are still players that have zero need for Philo tomes and will sell these crafting items dirt cheap.)

These are just a handfull of suggestions. Either decision that is made, there is a serious need to fix the issue of a crashing market.

Thanks for reading.

[Lumiin]

Dude, it's pretty clear that Yoshi-P doesn't want an economy because of RMT. They even removed some gill from some mobs I believe because they are terrified of rmt. Even if they added a few recipes or a few drops since everything is so easy and handed to everyone it will still be a lot of supply no demand. They need something rare and hard to get that can actually be farmed and traded to help. The problem isn't that players keep undercutting it's that everything is handed too you so nothing is "worth it" so they undercut because they didn't really have to spend a lot of time or hard work to get.

[indira]

they hate RMT yet im always getting /tell from them trying to sell gil. there measures failed.

[blowfin]

Maybe it's just me, but although prices have dropped for a lot of things post 2.1, they do seem to have stabilised now. I don't think anything really needs fixing, this is more a kneejerk reaction based on not being able to find a decent way to make money (hint: there are plenty of ways to do that still).

[LittleArrow]

@Blowfin,

I couldn't disagree more with you. All of the Philo items drop at least 100-200 gil every other day on my server. Nothing has stabilized, everything just keeps getting lower and lower. Eventually Philo items will be 1g per item just like the pets in 2.0.

Also, every avenue I've found continues to crash. I'm purely discussing battle ways to farm, not gathering / crafting. I'm also super sick and tired of people saying "oh I have a secret way to get gil." That's great for you, but the rest of us are getting poorer by the day, so it isn't a solution to the widespread problem.

[Grailer]

crafting is a waste of time , I only bought a few things ever .

if armor broke down eventually had to be repaired by player for example .. or staff had to be recharged by enchanter etc etc money would be exchanged .

Maybe make the hairdresser into a player profession . But only allow people 1 craft so that people speicalise and don't become self sufficient .

[LittleArrow]

@Grailer,

Thanks for the suggestions ^^

[blowfin]

All of the Philo items drop at least 100-200 gil every other day on my server. Nothing has stabilized, everything just keeps getting lower and lower. Eventually Philo items will be 1g per item just like the pets in 2.0.

Well, they have stablised on Tonberry at just under 3k.

They'll stabliise at whatever price reflects the supply and demand on your server, but It's pretty clear that SE intended for them to drop in value quite substantially.

Again, there are ways to make money, one of the most simple at the moment is to get a group of people together and do 8x treasure hunts. Or go and gather a decent amount of raw mats, add value with crafting, etc. If you're not willing to do any of those things then the problem lies with you. You can't expect to make a decent sum of money out of running dungeons and/or only focusing on battle. Unless you are spiritbonding, which still isn't a bad option for gil generation.

[LittleArrow]

@blowfin,

I think this is where we have to agree to disagree. Here are the reasons why I disagree with your way of thinking, after this we'll just be at an impasse and I don't want to drag out a discussion where two people just aren't seeing eye to eye lol.

Treasure Maps - You have to spend money to make money. The profit I've seen from treasure maps is 5k, those maps cost anywhere from 10k-15k. So, 8 treasure maps is what 40k gil income out of dumping 80k (10k per map). You lose 40k. If you're banking on a rare drop, that's completely unreasonable as I know friends that have done over 35+ maps in an attempt to get a pet.

Spiritbonding - the materia market crashed due to SE putting in Materia IV as a quest reward. I, like so many other people, thought the materia would go back up after the surplus was gone. Yeah, it didn't. Materia that used to be 25-20k is now 5-10k. People are depending on spiritbonding for some sort of revenue which causes more of a surplus. Now, a good way to fix this would be possibly to either add more crafting gear with materia slots or do something else with the materia (turn it in for an item or something).

Gathering - Not everyone has the time to level up a gathering job. This is probably my biggest disagreement with where you stand. Everyone should be able to make some sort of return on gil to help themselves, FC, friends. That's the WHOLE point of playing a MMO. The social aspect is what drives relationships to become closer and groups to get stronger. Housing, repairs, relics, etc require gil. Toss in a total of 8 jobs and yeah that gets pricey. There are a hundred arguments against and for our viewpoints so I'm just going to end this rebuttal with, I believe every aspect of the game should provide a comparable method of gil income (battle, crafting, and gathering).

[blowfin]

The profit I've seen from treasure maps is 5k, those maps cost anywhere from 10k-15k. So, 8 treasure maps is what 40k gil income out of dumping 80k (10k per map). You lose 40k. If you're banking on a rare drop, that's completely unreasonable as I know friends that have done over 35+ maps in an attempt to get a pet.

I'm not going to agree to disagree when your math is wrong . If you do a full round of 8 maps with a group (1 map each) the minimum amount of gil you're going to get per player is somewhere between 12.5 and 40K gil. Maps are 8k on my server. That means EACH player has made between 4-32K gil. Not to mention you get random mats (including Philo) thrown in to boost the bottom line, plus you have the chance of getting the rare minion.

You could:
- Spam HM primals for furniture items
- Do battle leves
- Supplement income with dailies and roulette
- Spam an easy level 50 dungeon to farm gil

There are enough things that you can do to make money on a battle class, certainly enough to be able to repair your gear and keep your head above water.

I also disagree with the notion that simply spamming dungeons for Philo tomes should be able to make you incredibly wealthy, because it shouldn't. I think it was a massive mistake to value those items so highly in the first place.