Endless Item Circulation: Solved

[Fieros]

One of the looming problems with most crafted gear is endless circulation in the market.

To address this issue of excess, Aldarin suggested:

In ffxi you could trade in crafted items for guild points, why not add something like that to remove equipment from circulation. There was also the fact you could donate equipment for conquest points. Such a system would reward players for crafting even when their items don't sell.

Makes perfect sense to me. If not already tied in with the upcoming Grand Companies it could be.

When trading in crafted gear for points, what could these points be used for?

[Xeno]

Brilliant. Brilliant, I say. Someone give this man a cookie. Completely forgot about this from FFXI.

[WinterSkyblue]

Agree! This idea not only find from FFXI, but also other OLG which have crafting system. This really make me think crafting more valuable

[Sanctus]

I would say depending on item optimal rank, a certain amount of guild marks should be given in exchange for the items. So if you trade an optimal rank 10 item in you get maybe 100 marks and maybe max out at 1k marks for the higher level gear.

[Reika]

I would like this. A lot.

[Ava]

I dont think I like this idea unless they alter the prices of items or make a daily/36 hr cap for trades. There are so many excess items right now that if they put this in people would have insane amount of guild points basically making them useless.

I think the better solution is to just make the items good and/or more challenging to obtain.

[Amineri]

I dont think I like this idea unless they alter the prices of items or make a daily/36 hr cap for trades. There are so many excess items right now that if they put this in people would have insane amount of guild points basically making them useless.

I think the better solution is to just make the items good and/or more challenging to obtain.

To a certain degree the problem is of a transient nature, since once the excess items are turned in, things would balance out. However, there is still the issue that the rate at which items can be produced is really QUITE high. It is not difficult to turn out 3 or more velveteen robes an hour, even including time spent gathering the materials.

If items are more difficult to make / obtain, that would kill the ability of crafters / gatherers to rank up, since that is the only mechanism currently available...

Players simply cannot consume items at that rate. So, if such items can be turned in for some sort of points (excepting gil), this would have to be balanced against the rate at which other class-types could earn points.

But perhaps this isn't so bad. Gatherers certainly gather excess of certain types of materials beyond what the crafting market requires, and combat drops could account for a portion of combat characters points, in addition to points from questing.

On a humorous note, I (in the span of maybe three hours) completed and turned in four local leves in Limsa Lominsa for velveteen tabards. For each leve I created 7 velveteen tabards, thus resulting in my delivery of 28 velveteen tabards. The thought kept crossing my mind ... "just what are they using all these tabards for?"

On a more practical note, the points system described above isn't terribly different from the local leve system, excepting the source of the materials. Local leves even offer the chance to gain guild marks.

[Ceons]

Items are not bound to you in this game so after you are done using it you can just go ahead and resell it. Something has to create the need to make new items or people will just keep recycling the old ones.

I like the idea of OP. It's to the right direction.

[moatcarp]

The idea works for me. Also from XI were the OP item trades / sales where you could use items to the guards to increase the influence your country had over the area (obviously this could work with companies just as well if companies could gain some benefit from controlling the little out laying towns or something).

[Chione]

I like this idea, if only because I'd love to see a return of the rare/ex class-specific crafting gear. But would it come with the same limitations (daily item change/set amount you can trade in for credit) it had in XI? And even if not, once the rewards have been gained, there would be little point to continuing to use this system - unless there were some type of consumable reward also available, like the autograph crystals - though the only time I used one of those was to try to sign a cheese sandwich. :P But others might find them useful.

I think I like the you break it-you bought it sorta thing with gear becoming untradable once it's been damaged the first time. It was also suggested in the thread the OP is quoting. The gear could still be vendor-able though, and perhaps to make up for some of the lost gil for the customer, a guild shop could pay more for the item if its of their trade.

That would also benefit crafters churning out items when they grind, if they aren't of the mind to use their retainers, they could get at least a better price from the merchants in the guild they are grinding for.

But, even with this problem, I still find it a little hard to find the exact gear I want. Likely cause I'm not in the 40-50 range yet. I imagine its even more difficult for folks who are just starting out to find decent gear - especially in the color they want.