DevTalk: Detailed Analysis of Depopulation in Limsa/Grid and How to Fix It

[Kiara]

Hi Renta,

Great thread! Clear, well-thought out points and solutions brought up. Well done!

I agree with most of your points, but the 2 I'd disagree with would be:

(1) Unifying of the Markets - Not really disagreeing on the basic level, but on the level that SE needs to provide a solution for better Searching and Display Options; and realistically, a Square version of the SEC monitoring Fair Trade / Better Business Practices. Specifically:

Right now, we only see the Top 20 (Cheapest) Items on Search Results. By unifying the markets (and when this game gets more players on, and when SE grants us the ability to buy/get a 3rd Retainer (and 4th, etc.)), I can't imagine how the busier items are going to sell for many people. Even now (during the slowest time), for categories like Iron Nuggets or Iron Ore, all I see are:

ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
etc.

It's beyond the scope of this thread to discuss how to solve that, but it's part of the problem of unifying markets. We'd get a lot of potential RMT Companies that want to control a market: They'd just use 2 or 3 of their extra Retainers, Dump their Goods at super low prices to drive out the competition, and then jack up the prices after everyone's gone.


(2) Global Shout: If it's a Channel you have to actively Subscribe to (and it's OFF (Unsubscribed) by default), I think it'd be OK. Otherwise, I'd be against having one.

Otherwise, this is a great list that I hope we see SE tackle. Some items are already being addressed like the SP Distribution, and focus of driving people to other Cities (Guild Marks, Rewards).

We'll see how it goes after 1.18 and 1.19. I'm glad we're seeing some changes soon.

[Rentahamster]

Hi Renta,

Great thread! Clear, well-thought out points and solutions brought up. Well done!

Thanks

I agree with most of your points, but the 2 I'd disagree with would be:

(1) Unifying of the Markets - Not really disagreeing on the basic level, but on the level that SE needs to provide a solution for better Searching and Display Options; and realistically, a Square version of the SEC monitoring Fair Trade / Better Business Practices. Specifically:

Right now, we only see the Top 20 (Cheapest) Items on Search Results. By unifying the markets (and when this game gets more players on, and when SE grants us the ability to buy/get a 3rd Retainer (and 4th, etc.)), I can't imagine how the busier items are going to sell for many people. Even now (during the slowest time), for categories like Iron Nuggets or Iron Ore, all I see are:

ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
ajfxygg x99 200 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
xyzb x99 225 gil
etc.

It's beyond the scope of this thread to discuss how to solve that, but it's part of the problem of unifying markets. We'd get a lot of potential RMT Companies that want to control a market: They'd just use 2 or 3 of their extra Retainers, Dump their Goods at super low prices to drive out the competition, and then jack up the prices after everyone's gone.

The retainer capacity issue is more a problem with the game and server code, in my opinion. If they just scrap the NPC retainers for now and stick with a menu-driven interface, they could fix a lot of these problems really easily.

Item search could be optimized more with the elimiation of redundant listings if the same character has multiple stacks of the same item for sale at the same price.

As for your point about RMT, "driving out the competition" in an MMO doesn't really work like how it does in the real world. In an MMO, there is no barrier to anyone farming the same stuff that RMT bots do.

Plus, with a price history that goes back a full year, forcefully manipulating perceived price becomes very hard and very expensive to do.


But anyway, improving the item search feature does not address the issues that a unified wards would address - it wouldn't encourage players to travel to other cities at all. The point of a unified wards is so that a player feel free to go to another city, but not be punished for being outside the access of the Uldah wards.

(2) Global Shout: If it's a Channel you have to actively Subscribe to (and it's OFF (Unsubscribed) by default), I think it'd be OK. Otherwise, I'd be against having one.

I would have the default set to off. With the addition of more chat tabs, the best way to customize the display for global shouts would be to have them all in a separate tab.

Honestly, I'm a little surprised at the opposition to optional global shouts. It has more positive implications for social activity and player interaction than negative ones. After all, isn't player to player interaction what an MMO is supposed to be all about?

[RabidSquirrel]

I would have the default set to off. With the addition of more chat tabs, the best way to customize the display for global shouts would be to have them all in a separate tab.

Global chat set to a different chat tab...damn. I don't know why that thought never occurred to me. Something like that would be awesome.

But it would still be nice to have a few global chats. Like one for trade, one for parties, one for raids, etc. Might at least help split up the inevitable headbutting that will happen over any chat.

[Rentahamster]

Global chat set to a different chat tab...damn. I don't know why that thought never occurred to me. Something like that would be awesome.

But it would still be nice to have a few global chats. Like one for trade, one for parties, one for raids, etc. Might at least help split up the inevitable headbutting that will happen over any chat.

I like the way my chat logs are set up.

I have the main window on the bottom, with the first tab set to show everything (minus a few of the more spammy battle logs), and the second tab to show only battle logs.

I have the second chat window right above the first window, with the first tab labeled, "linkshell" - it shows only linkshell text. The second tab is labeled "party", and it only shows party chat, say, and tell.

[Kiara]

Item search could be optimized more with the elimiation of redundant listings if the same character has multiple stacks of the same item for sale at the same price.

As for your point about RMT, "driving out the competition" in an MMO doesn't really work like how it does in the real world. In an MMO, there is no barrier to anyone farming the same stuff that RMT bots do.

Plus, with a price history that goes back a full year, forcefully manipulating perceived price becomes very hard and very expensive to do.


I would have the default set to off. With the addition of more chat tabs, the best way to customize the display for global shouts would be to have them all in a separate tab.

Honestly, I'm a little surprised at the opposition to optional global shouts. It has more positive implications for social activity and player interaction than negative ones. After all, isn't player to player interaction what an MMO is supposed to be all about?

Hi Renta,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

That's a great suggestion to have an improved Search Function that eliminates redundant listings if the same Character has multiple listings of an item at the same price (sort of like collapsing a sub-menu so to speak). That would help one of the problems.

But in terms of Market Manipulation that definitely happens in an MMO. I saw it happen across many items / resources in FF XI on my server. Even with a price history, if the RMT Corporations drive out the competition (e.g., having multiple retainers all price dump an item with super low price), individual players can't keep up with that. They will eventually give up and leave that market segment.

And then the RMT Corporation swoops in and jacks up the price.

Even if you see the Price History and realize it's marked up, if no one else is selling it (because they were driven out), then you either have to go farm / craft it yourself, or pay the marked up prices.

Re: Global Chat - That's a great suggestion! I didn't think about having a separate Tab in your Chat Window to separate out Global Chat. If it was off by default, and was separated into a separate Tab Window (if you chose to), then I wouldn't mind having that functionality.

[Rentahamster]

Even with a price history, if the RMT Corporations drive out the competition (e.g., having multiple retainers all price dump an item with super low price), individual players can't keep up with that. They will eventually give up and leave that market segment.

And then the RMT Corporation swoops in and jacks up the price.

Once they jack up the price, anyone can come back in and undercut them.

In the end, RMT are going to do whatever they can to make gil. In my view, it's better to ensure that players have a positive gameplay experience since a lot of anti-RMT measures only frustrate legitimate players and don't really have that much of a negative impact on RMT activity at all.