Destroying Server Economies

[Coatl]

Wait a minute, this actually brings to mind some bigger problems. Since people will be flocking to the big market servers like balmung for lower prices, doesn't that make it harder for those on smaller servers to now sell their goods? Everyone will be hopping to the big servers to buy their stuff there, meanwhile the crafters on the smaller servers are sorta SOL and just have to hope and pray someone randomly sees their item on their smaller server and buys it.

That's not exactly fair, and sort of sets a bad precedent for the future economy of ffxiv.

[Kaedan]

Wait a minute, this actually brings to mind some bigger problems. Since people will be flocking to the big market servers like balmung for lower prices, doesn't that make it harder for those on smaller servers to now sell their goods? Everyone will be hopping to the big servers to buy their stuff there, meanwhile the crafters on the smaller servers are sorta SOL and just have to hope and pray someone randomly sees their item on their smaller server and buys it.

That's not exactly fair, and sort of sets a bad precedent for the future economy of ffxiv.

Not if they lower their prices to match (or in some cases, they can raise their prices to match, or undercut)

People won't need to spend the time server visiting if they can get the same prices on their home server.

[Tint]

Not if they lower their prices to match (or in some cases, they can raise their prices to match, or undercut)

People won't need to spend the time server visiting if they can get the same prices on their home server.

But what when people hop onto the "Mall"-Server before they even started looking in their home world? Why looking on your own market board when you know you can get everything you need for a cheap price on the other server?

[Ilan]

But what when people hop onto the "Mall"-Server before they even started looking in their home world? Why looking on your own market board when you know you can get everything you need for a cheap price on the other server?

Not only that. People on the smaller worlds would have to server hop all the time to adjust their prices if they want to sell something. Sounds extremly annoying.

[Seraphor]

Not only that. People on the smaller worlds would have to server hop all the time to adjust their prices if they want to sell something. Sounds extremly annoying.

Yes, server hopping all the time will be extremely annoying, which is why it won't matter all that much.
People are already too lazy to teleport to the same city as the seller to avoid the marketboard tax, they're not going to server hop to get something slightly cheaper.

This will only affect those rare, expensive items that people would usually be waiting for a price reduction before purchasing anyway.

e.g. "Oh, that item I wanted is up for sale at 300k… that’s too much, I’ll wait until it’s cheaper.”
“Oh, that item I wanted is up for sale at 300k… that’s too much, I’ll try another sever.”
Either way, that item isn’t selling for 300k.

[Ilan]

Yes, server hopping all the time will be extremely annoying, which is why it won't matter all that much.
People are already too lazy to teleport to the same city as the seller to avoid the marketboard tax, they're not going to server hop to get something slightly cheaper.

This will only affect those rare, expensive items that people would usually be waiting for a price reduction before purchasing anyway.

Porting to another city would only make sense if you would've a trading chat that you can read in every city and the housing zones. Otherwhise your example is not a good one because i can't know what someone wants to sell in Limsa when i'm in Gridania.
There will be enough people that are going to hop servers especially when new crafted gear will come out.

[Seraphor]

Porting to another city would only make sense if you would've a trading chat that you can read in every city and the housing zones. Otherwhise your example is not a good one because i can't know what someone wants to sell in Limsa when i'm in Gridania.

Er... what?

No, I mean, you check the MB and there's something you want to buy for 200k. The Seller is in Limsa, you're in Gridania.
You teleport to Limsa before you buy it to avoid the tax, you save 10k.

[LalaRu]

Not only that. People on the smaller worlds would have to server hop all the time to adjust their prices if they want to sell something. Sounds extremly annoying.

Well, if you are listing items for millions Gil, it is worth the time. I'd sure won't jump to see if my batch of ten 15 Gil items is sold at 14 there.

[Enla]

Wait a minute, this actually brings to mind some bigger problems. Since people will be flocking to the big market servers like balmung for lower prices, doesn't that make it harder for those on smaller servers to now sell their goods? Everyone will be hopping to the big servers to buy their stuff there, meanwhile the crafters on the smaller servers are sorta SOL and just have to hope and pray someone randomly sees their item on their smaller server and buys it.

That's not exactly fair, and sort of sets a bad precedent for the future economy of ffxiv.

You're forgetting one thing. Most people are lazy.

I make most of my gil, for example, reselling vendor items here on Balmung. You would not believe how much money I can make because someone cannot be bothered to look up which vendor has the item and then port to their location. Not even SE adding the vendor price to item descriptions has stopped this and any attempts within the wider community to get people to save gil and use the vendors always loses traction within a few months. So honestly speaking I can't see this becoming a huge issue in the long term. Yes, some people will definitely seek out the cheapest server while the larger data center economy equalizes. But the average player? I can see them doing it for a week out of curiosity then inevitably buying something from their home marketboard because it's quicker before that once again becomes the norm.

Also even if this does happen, which again I very much doubt, it just means servers will need to adapt and for a standard pricing scale to be set across all the servers on a data center. I'd give it a few months before most servers have near identical market boards for most of the easily moved items.