Reactive tax rates in Market Wards

[Loony_BoB]

I've brought this up before, but now I feel more than ever that it is a neccessity.

Ul'dah has the luxurious position (and fitting it is, being a trade city) of sitting between the other two city-states. All the people flood to it, it's market wards are full and it causes server issues. There is no current system set up that lures people to the other city-states. Almost to an amusing degree, the only thing that has forced people away lately has been Ul'dah's inn being closed! Not an ideal situation to be in.

I can only imagine that new members joining the game are seeing Ul'dah as their desired city-state with it's preferential positioning, potentially forcing an imbalance in the strength of the city-states. I'm an Ul'dah boy since the day I joined on day one, but I don't like the idea of Ul'dah being so dominant that it becomes an inconvenience to the game itself.

Limsa Lominsa and Gridania, however, are at a loss. Now, let's put our realistic hats on. What would you do if you were the mayor of Limsa Lominsa, Gridania or Ul'dah? We'll start with the first two. *puts on their mayor hats... one on top of the other*

My first thought is blindingly obvious to me. Lower the market ward tax rate. Ul'dah is flooded and sitting happy with their tax rate exactly the same as ours. We have to accept that so long as we are on the outskirts, there is no reason for them to come here. The only reason people are here are for specialist missions and for our inn, and they only come to our inn due to the maintenance going on at the Ul'dah inn... the maintenance they have ongoing because of the high demand for it!

Lowering the tax rate will make people pay attention. The retainers will gradually move towards our city, taking advantage of the idea that they can get more money. We have reacted with our tax rate! If it ever gets to the point that we have a massive number of people coming our way, then we can raise the tax rate again. This is an economy, and by golly, the players aren't the only ones with a hand in it! If our city isn't making money, we'll suffer massively. Now is the time to encourage some tourism.

Meanwhile, over in Ul'dah, the mayor is thinking the opposite. "This is fantastic! The market wards are flooded and the gil is rolling in! But... we can't fit any more. There's no room to expand the market wards, either. What can we do to make more gil? I know, let's raise the tax rate! Those suckers over in LL and Gridania will never get the demand we have, so we can raise it until the number of retainers starts to drop, and then drop the tax rate slightly until we find the right balance between demand and tax costing. Gil! Giiiil! GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!"

So, reactive tax rate, anyone? I know those of you who are selling things fine may think it's all happy and dandy, but if there are reactive tax rates that adjust in real-time (say once a week?) then hopefully over time people will start to spread themselves throughout the cities and we'll see an improvement on things such as prices, market wards, player and retainer congestion, and fingers crossed it will even impact the game speed with fewer people hovering around in Ul'dah.

Thoughts? Ideas?

[Viritess]

I'm in with the idea depending on who is taxed. this isn't a more gill for me post, so i'll explain.

If the tax falls totally on the sellers, then you could likely see a few things happen:
The big money, high volume or high value item sellers will stay put. being able to afford the taxation and/or edging the prices higher. Other sellers will either edge up prices to compensate for the taxes thus putting the burden on buyers.

Also newer sellers who may have just started (new player populace) "start ups" will either follow suit or move to the lower tax wards, however its likely that when you want to find something you'll still go to Uldah. And its likely buyers will just have to go with it cause they will have little (albeit a bit more) choice.

So possibly much similar to now, but more expensive.

If all the tax rate falls on buyers there is simply little impitus for crafters to move. Since they will get theirs either way. And those that buy and sell will likely break even since they can make up the loss, which i suppose applies to both sides.

My recommendation? not sure. i guess really Tax both buyer and seller. If theres a Tax bump eating a portion of the sale price for sellers and they decide to up prices while the buyer is also about to lose a chunk of extra gold on top of the upped price. Plus people who buy and sell get taxed both ways. and buyers lose a chunk too THEN you might see more movement to lower tax areas.

As long as everyone gets hosed for Gil per sale THAts when i think people will spread out. But its also kinda sad that you would now have a system that basiclly snatches everyones gold purse to encourage people to move. But thats probably the best short term system that will have any impact.

[Raldo]

Gil is currently included in the price when you put things up for sale, so this idea would be difficult to implement. Would the posted sale prices change when the taxes change (thus putting the burden of paying extra the taxes on the buyer), or would the posted sale price stay the same (thus putting the burden of paying the extra taxes on the seller).

[Loony_BoB]

Oh, yeah, definitely the burden on the seller. That much should go without saying, really.

I don't think it's a case of "But its also kinda sad that you would now have a system that basiclly snatches everyones gold purse to encourage people to move." - ah, but it's not so much snatching away as it is putting more money back into the purse. It's up to the seller to take up that option by moving to a new location to get more money.

The other half-decent option would be to reduce the number of retainers you can put into a ward by roughly half, forcing everyone to move if they can't get into Ul'dah... but I think there should be benefits to moving out of the "popular zone", hence reactive tax seems like a more useful option as far as I can imagine.