Problem: Items are Worthless

[Solipse]

From the OP:


This means that I just grind out a ton of NQ bows then synth them all together until they are HQs. This means that I don't need any HQ mats to get HQ goods. This means that HQ goods are essentially worthless; no one ever needs them for anything.

The whole problem you're trying to address is essentially the elemental staves market problem in XI. I don't think your proposed solution would work out as perfectly as you think.

Maybe my last response was confusing. Let me highlight, here. Would you rather farm/buy:

512 red coral, 512 green megalocrab shells, 471 iron nugget, 43 iron ingot, 43 bronze wire, 43 bronze nugget, 1536 antelope sinew, 86 ahriman wings, 142 buffalo hide, 1024 aldgoat horns, 256 oak logs, 43 marmot pelts, 43 biast scales, 512 hippogryph sinews, 6144 earth shards, 512 wind crystals, 2009 wind shards, 86 fire crystals, 3072 lightning shards and whatever crystals the 512 synths of each bow require.

or

10 red coral +3, 10 green megalocrab shells +3, 6 iron nugget +3, 2 iron ingot +3, 2 bronze wire +3, 2 bronze nugget +3, 30 antelope sinew +3, 4 ahriman wings +3, 2 buffalo hide +3, 20 aldgoat horns +3, 3 oak logs +3, 2 marmot pelts +3, 2 biast scales +3, 12 hippogryph sinews +3, 520 earth shards, 10 wind crystals, 48 wind shards, 7 fire crystals, 60 lightning shards and whatever crystals the 10 synths of each bow require.

You have your choice, here:

Farm/Buy 5,266 materials, 11,225 shards, 1,622 crystals
Farm/Buy 107 HQ materials, 628 shards, 37 crystals

Yeah, you're right, you don't NEED to buy HQ materials, but if the option is open to you and you'd RATHER gather that staggering amount of materials to do your synth, well, you're pretty dumb. I'll again insist that under a system like this, HQ materials will be at even more of a demand than they are right now.

Let's assume that under this system, NQ materials will be at X while +3 materials will be 50 times more expensive: Let's assume each shard is 200 gil and each crystal is 1500 gil.

NQ cost to make +3 bow: 64,995,000
HQ cost to make +3 bow: 62,981,100

Here's the thing, even if +3 mats are 50x higher price in the retainer area, they end up being CHEAPER in the long run to get your +3 bow (not guaranteed, but then again you may get lucky and get 2 or even 3 +3 bows since this is 10 combines worth of HQ mats). Not only THAT, but you only have to do 60 total combines instead of 2800. Let's figure out time savings assuming that each HQ combine takes 2 minutes. Let's also assume that each base combine (to make all 512 crab bows) takes 1 minute each, and that each additional combine (merging 8 bows into one higher tier bow) will take 30 seconds each.

Total synthing minutes for NQ materials : 2,777 minutes
Total synthing minutes for HQ materials : 118 minutes

So not only do you SAVE MONEY, have a chance at getting more than just a single HQ bow, you also save 44.5 hours of synthing time in making them.

Please explain, in detail, why you think this system makes HQ materials worthless, exactly? Stating that it will is not enough, please back up your opinion. Do you actually think that, with all this in mind, there's anyone who would willingly NOT pay for HQ materials so they can stockpile an entire retainer full of materials, pay more money for them over HQ AND spend two days synthing instead? Please back up your assertions with math or economic principle, not gut feeling.

"It may not work like you think" isn't good enough - every change to an economic system, no matter how minor, has a chance to affect that system in unexpected ways. The only "safe" alternative is to do nothing, which this game cannot afford. Please back up your assertions.

The point of this system isn't to make HQ materials worthless (as proven above, it does the opposite). The point of this system is to add a check/balance to item cost that when item costs for a particular item dip too low, there is an incentive for people to buy those items and combine them.

In a system like this, anyone who sets OUT to make a +3 item by combine NQ materials is idiotic. It's not something someone will set out to do, but rather something someone will do when goods costs dip too low.