Meanwhile: Less Populated Markets Depression

[lackofwords]

SE, developers, reps, can we please breathe some life into the other two markets? Whether if it is tax relief, an incentive to work in other cities, or anything to bring some economy to the other two cities. It would be much appreciated. It is like watching a depression occur in the other two cities, and no one (meaning the officials in charge) is doing anything about it.

Right now, there is really no benefit for the player to place their retainer in the other two cities beside just avoiding the headache of trying to shove your retainer in Ul'dah. They are not achieving a large market audience, nor are there even specialized crafters in the other cities to demand specialized wares. You would think Limsa would be the place to sell your ores and metals, but yet the market there is empty.

On the flip side, instead of giving incentive to market wares in the other two markets, why not punish players more for listing wares in the incorrect wards? Simply 3% tax increase is no threat to the merchant as you can see most of the wares in Ul'dah are listed all over the place. Most merchants aren't even abiding to the threat because it is isn't hurting their profit margins enough. If the taxes were absurdly higher, it will force merchants to think twice before listing their wares in the incorrect ward, as well as branching out to other markets to avoid the taxes.

Here is a small example;
During the last Halloween Event I was gathering Pumpkin Cookies and selling them by a few ways.

1. Selling them on retainers at Ul'dah at a higher price
2. Selling them on retainers at other cities at a lower price (30% cheaper)
3. Selling them on my bazaar at Ul'dah the lowest price (40% cheaper)

The price would fluctuate, and I adjusted to daily values accordingly to the average market price, but the differences in prices I kept between my sales were the same.
My bazaar sold the most.
Ul'dah sold the second most, at a rate twice as fast as the other cities.

Even although I was overpricing my wares, and the event could have been done with pretty much the same efforts in any city. Ul'dah still sold the most mainly because of it's population density. By no means is this solid studies, but at least provides a glance at how thriving the markets are.

There has to be something to boost the economy of the other two cities, or else they will be forever in depression until 2.0 rolls around.

Granted, that the design plans is to just merge everything into one large markets in 2.0, we the players can not just simply wait for that to happen and ignore the current issue at hand.

We are planning on linking all three market wards together in 2.0! The reason behind not being able to link them earlier than that is due to the current system limitations.

Lastly, remember this?;
[dev1114] The maximum number of retainers dispatchable into a single market area has been increased.
This is just nursing Ul'dah. This is just telling the players, "hey, shove more stuff into Ul'dah" This is not helping the current issue.

[Roaran]

If there was the demand for the items, I would buy them up at Ul'dah, and resell them for a slight profit. This isn't feasible though with only 20 slots max to sell. I'd make more gil actually providing the items people wanted at ul'dah.

However, if I could sell as many items as I had space on my retainers, then I could buy up the ore, spend 5,000gil on the airship and place it in Limsa.

In an ideal world, you would have the miners of La Noscea mine the ore of La Noscea (Iron/Cobalt), and sell it on the Limsa market wards. Then, the merchants would buy a portion of this and resell it somewhere else. This type of activity, on a large scale, would lead to items being available everywhere there is a consistent demand.

If the seek function was as viable as the regular selling function of the bazaar, people would be able to show, in advance, what the demand is for certain items.

Linking the markets directly, however, is the ultimate solution to make transactions easier among all parties; although, it isn't necessarily as interesting.

As for your suggestion, I think creating a tax that was dependent upon the volume of items in the market itself would, depending on the severity of the tax itself, might, to some small degree, accomplish the end you're seeking. But, it is really bad economics when you think about it. You are arbitrarily deciding that players should spread themselves out amongst the cities, so rather than, when deciding where to sell their items, focussing singly on where the greatest demand is, players will end up making decisions based on these incentives. The arbitrary incentives lead to items going not where they're most wanted, but, isntead, to other areas.

I'd say, the best solution is undoubtedly linking the markets; but, for a temporary 'fix' until 2.0, having more bazaar slots would be able to solve most of the problems. But, just because items are then able to flow elsewhere, that doesn't then mean that the demand will be there.

[Sephrick]

I think the devs are taking a laissez faire aproach to Ul'dah's centrality till they blow up the maps in 2.0.

Right now it's all about prioritizing the essentials.

[lackofwords]

If there was the demand for the items, I would buy them up at Ul'dah, and resell them for a slight profit. This isn't feasible though with only 20 slots max to sell. I'd make more gil actually providing the items people wanted at ul'dah.

However, if I could sell as many items as I had space on my retainers, then I could buy up the ore, spend 5,000gil on the airship and place it in Limsa.

That could help bring a variety of goods to other markets, it would also make Ul'dah's inventory stock 15 times larger (assuming a total of 300 items listed from two retainers). So more wares for all.

I think the devs are taking a laissez faire aproach to Ul'dah's centrality till they blow up the maps in 2.0.

Right now it's all about prioritizing the essentials.

But... but they said they would help us...
http://wdl.square-enix.com/ffxiv/dow...Content_EN.pdf

Improvement of search function, release of auction house features, measures to stimulate in-game economy after patch 1.20.

[Yrusama]

Mashing all the markets into one does seem like a fix, but it doesn't make any sense for you to enter the wards in Limsa Lominsa (an island only accessible via airships that cost gil or boats to West Thanalan) and see retainers from Gridania.

I'm on Saronia, which is a pretty small server, and ALL retainers can fit in the U'dah bazaar. Even in the Tailor's Rows I can still call my retainer. The other day I went to Limsa Lominsa and had to call my retainer in the wards to store something, they were COMPLETELY EMPTY! I think maybe one or two retainers are stationed there (none in the section I was in), and probably only because the player called their retainer there for storage but hadn't set them back up in Ul'dah.

==Spoiler Warning==
The problem is that the original main story quests converge on Ul'dah.
==Spoiler Warning Ends==

Over time, the players, and their retainers, slowly did the same. I keep thinking "new content will come out to bring people back to Limsa", but so far it's only become worse because people joined Ul'dah out of convenience. (To Maelstrom's credit, 1/3 of the logged-in players I found on search were from Maelstrom). Ul'dah is in the middle of everything and has some nice guilds like the Weaver's and Goldsmith's guilds to boot, so an island city like Limsa Lominsa, which requires up to 5k gil and 5 minutes of waiting to reach (if not 3 anima) with efficiency in mind, doesn't stand a chance economically. I think Ifrit has ever so slightly boosted Gridania's economy, but until the PVP arena comes out, or some instanced raid in La Noscea, Limsa will remain empty.

On the bright side, I have no in-Limsa temptation to sell the stacks of Mahogany Logs or anything else I got trying for my Logging the Hours: La Noscea achievements, so I've made a gargantuan profit in Storm Seals!

[lackofwords]

Forgot about how the main story pushes everyone to Ul'dah at one point.

Even though merging all the markets into one single market does seems odd, (like the FFXI chocobo races linking all the cities with a convenient portal) the application is one way of solving the issue.

The one lingering problem is how there is no time limits nor penalty by leaving a retainer on the market wards. What this allows is a pile of retainers that can be selling nothing. This happens just because the players wants to ensure a placeholder.

Just recently I went to look again on Selbina Ul'dah markets. Granted this random sample set is extremely small, but allows you to see at a glance.

I start at one end of the ward, take a few steps, and check a new floor retainer that first appears up on the screen, repeat until I reach the other end of the wards with a total of 10 retainers checked.

The following are the number of retainers selling nothing, or selling items only priced at 999,999,999;

Tinkers 5 of 10
Battlecraft 1 of 10
Spellcraft 3 of 10
Fieldcraft 3 of 10
Tradescraft 1 of 10
Armorfitters 3 of 10
Lower Tailors 3 of 10
Middle Tailors 2 of 10
Upper Tailors 2 of 10
Jewelers 3 of 10
Grocers 3 of 10
Chirurgeons 0 of 10
Ironmongers 2 of 10
Woodcutters 0 of 10
Tanners 1 of 10
Masons 1 of 10
Clothiers 2 of 10
Crystaliers 1 of 10
Menders 1 of 10

Total 37 of 100 retainers.

That sounds like a lot, but remember it's a small data set. A better way to get more reliable numbers is to use yg's updater program and sweep all the retainers. Assuming, yg fixes that functionality eventually.

But even disregarding that, the issue there is people feel the need to have a placeholder. Why? Because marketing space is limited. Even if they don't plan on selling anything, the value of having the spot allows them to sell things easily. That'll still remain an issue even if they merge all the markets together while keeping the same market structure.