Destroying Server Economies

[NessaWyvern]

They were astounded when I told them that the only HQ piece I'd seen in the last few days of looking was a belt that was listed for 800k, when they learned that the NQ stuff was listed for 300k they offered to craft me a HQ set for free but then realised we weren't on the same server.

iirc, there are vendors that sell NQ items for a few thousand gil, no need to spend 300k on a NQ item for tank leveling.
If you want gear that's a bit better than NQ, there's always the GC seals green items that can be good, depending on your level. I used the GC seal ones when ARR came out, since I didn't have any gil to rub together. The seals were easier to get, due to old gear from dungeons.

[Lozza]

This one is a big nope to me. No one should be expected to have full HQ / dungeon armor pre 50. Even as a tank mostly in level appropriate NQ whites there shouldn't be any real issue assuming normal pulls and a half competent healer.

Also... I don't think anyone makes HQ crafts for that level range to be actually used by people. I think the intended market for that stuff are crafters doing turn-ins, thus the ridiculous price.

Players were complaining about the Brayflox set in Stone Vigil. They'd have been happy with a NQ which I hadn't picked up from quests because I took one look at the defense values and and the fact that only one piece had a whole extra 1 vitality and quickly figured my current set was better than the quest rewards. But apparently even after linking the sets to show that Brayflox was better than NQ, groups were still bothered by my being in Brayflox. My solution to players throwing a fit about seeing a tank in Brayflox gear in SV was to lvl up ARM high enough to craft the lvl40 set (I already had ARM at 30 so it wasn't a hard task) and just glammed it over the Brayflox and the issue disappeared.

As I said, my experience completely changed the way I saw undergeared tanks in pre-50 content. If I couldn't afford a full set of crafted (NQ gear) then other new characters/players may have been in the same position.

[Krotoan]

This is discussion about server economies/market boards. Bots could shut you out of certain markets for long periods of time. We'll have to see how it plays out, now that they can impact the entire data center.

And I'm saying that the bots will be no worse than before. If anything people will probably be happy that the average price of most goods across all servers is going to fall. There are the same amount of them and they cannot sell on more than one server.

And I will disagree with you. Just like a Blue Mage cannot participate in all of the normal combat content, having to plan your market board practices around bots is similarly limiting for people who enjoy crafting/gathering/playing the Market Board.

Irreconcilable then I suppose. A job that cannot participate in ANYTHING the other jobs were built for besides the basic world exploring isn't comparable to a job where you have to rotate through other content to stay ahead of bots in any way other than you can say its "limiting".

Already addressed, bots will move in your new markets as well. Your old markets will probably not recover for a long period for you to move back in. Essentially, the item pool you can compete in diminishes.

If that was the case then by now ALL markets you participate in would have stayed saturated with bots forever. This is not the case. The item pool you can compete in moves.
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Some people like raiding/Eurkea/Gold Saucer etc If they choose to focus on these areas of the game, it can't be held against them. And some people like crafting/gathering/playing the Market Board.

Which is fine, but opening up the markets benefits more of the player base than it harms in my view.

Except, if you observe Balmung or several other servers, certain segments of the market are controlled by botters. These are not exactly small segments of the market either(food/potions/crafted gear etc)

Segments though. Not entire markets. They cannot hope to control all markets and there is nothing expanding the potential amount of bots.

[Maneesha]

Three months back I was trying to buy armour for an alt I had made to play with a friend who was on Siren (because Siren had RT60 and my friend wanted a speedy catch up). I was playing PLD to get us both fast MSQ queues through the game. When it came time for Stone Vigil I went to the MB and tried to buy some lvl40 HQ crafted armour only to find not only was HQ unavailable, but that NQ cost 300k per piece, and as a newish character even if I had the funds for more that one piece, the brayflox armour had noticeably more defense than the lvl40 NQ set. So I wear the Brayflox into Stone Vigil and that caused a huge stink for a number of players - who wouldn't believe (even after I linked the two chests) that the lvl32 set had more defense than the lvl40 NQ crafted set, and then someone asks why I didn't buy the HQ stuff. They were astounded when I told them that the only HQ piece I'd seen in the last few days of looking was a belt that was listed for 800k, when they learned that the NQ stuff was listed for 300k they offered to craft me a HQ set for free but then realised we weren't on the same server.

As much as you might complain your high margins are being eaten into this change will make low lvl armours like the one I was trying to buy for the sanity of any group I was tanking for in DF easier for new characters to afford. I've moaned myself a number of times about undergeared tanks in various sub-50 instances but I'd never thought for a moment that maybe their gear was an issue because they did not have the funds to buy at the prices that some servers charged for gear. After my own experience I've been a bit more tolerant about it.

the ppl you played with had arbitrary standards and have no idea what they are talking about, lots of times dungeon gear has better stats then some crafted hq gear which might be higher in ilvl/lvl, as you could see yourself by comparing the items.
newbies shouldn't buy stuff of the mb, especially gear/weapon/acc's while they level, only if its cheaper then the npc prices, because they get everything they need during leveling/questing and the required dungeons (if a bit lucky with the drops ofc). crafted hq gear is, as someone already mentioned, mostly for crafters or for ppl leveling their "x"number of job ( ppl who played for a while,maybe reached max lvl). if they wish to buy pets/bardings or other misc stuff, its up to them, but not very advisable since they are newbies and don't have sources to get a good income(yet).

the real reason players are undergeared in dungeons is because there is not a "loose" ilvl requirement or they simply refuse to spend money on npc gear, not the mb prices. as mentioned before, npc gear is good enough for everything during leveling phase.

[Maneesha]

also why is no one thinking about asking ppl to craft for them, even if you have to shout in the cities, buy the mats,look for crafters, maybe give them 20k (thou most high lvl ones will do it for free if they see a sproud/low lvl char). 80% of the times it will be cheaper to buy the mats and get it crafted then to buy of the mb. this also used to be a thing in a lot of other mmos.

(stupid 3k limitation)

[KageTokage]

The fact that the bots are able to control even just the markets for mainstream items like crafted gear and infusions is enough of a problem as that's where the vast majority of gil is being spent.

I've also noticed a slow, but definite increase in the number of bots on my server as time has gone on, too, and not just transfers from other servers as I've spotted a number being leveled up from scratch.

[Celestene]

It isn't always cheaper on Balmung. Went to Mateus and Goblin for items earlier that were way cheaper.

[Mikki]

I actually just dropped into Diabolos and bought some stuff cause it was the only server that had what I wanted HQ. Thanks for the fish, guys. I really needed it for my GC turn-in.

[supergiz]

it will be the same, since it is a bit luck/skill based, normal ppl who suck on it will also be inefficient. so it will be same as is now.
companys running bots wont care, since they have huge amounts of them which accumulate the wares which gets them the gil. normal players who use bots will play during the day and use the most efficient way like every other player and get the same amount as normal players, during his "afk/off" time he will use the bot and wont care how much he gets,because it will still be more then ppl who dont bot(are offline/afk).
trading/farming bots cant be countered as long as there is any kind of trade in a game. even if there wasnt, you can see they offer leveling services (normal/eureka) and so on. botting will always be a thing.

Yeah that's unfortunate. Hopefully somehow in the future these companies will figure out a surefire way to combat botting effectively.

[Jinpachiro]

Always been against world visit now this even furthers my stance.