ARR Gil Cap Reduction

[Ferth]

Every currency is representative of what you can buy with it, as well as subject to fluctuation based on quantities the currency itself and of the items that it can be used to purchase. The best example I can think of relating to FFXIV would be warped arrows. Right now the current gil cap is just under 1 billion gil. 999,999,999 and the value of 1 gil is equal to one warped arrow. if this is an across the board 1/10th reduction of cost and cap then someone who has 1 billion gil will find themselves with 100 million after 2.0 (100,000,000) if this were truly a universal change in the value of gil then warped arrows would now be 10 arrows for 1 gil. (each arrow is now 1/10th of a gil in value.)

Someone at the one billion cap right now would be able to purchase the same exact amount of warped arrows as someone at the cap after 2.0 with 100 million gil. The only thing that would change is the denomination of the bill.

the problem with theoretical currencies like gil is that it's very hard to balance the amount of gil that exists at a given time.

inflation occurs incredibly easy in MMO's because of the notion of "Vendor Trash." I can spend x amount of time earning y amount of items and they will sell for z amount of money to an npc. That is money that is being created out of thin air. much like if the US decided that to pay off it's debt it was just going to print trillions of dollars. It wouldn't pay off anything because each dollar they print would make every dollar in existence worth that much less.

The best example would be percentage based. All of the gil currently in the game equals 100% of the wealth. let's pretend the game is brand new and not very popular... there are only 10 people playing and they each only have 10 gil. that means that the numerical value for 100% is 100. Each gil is worth 1% of the total wealth. Now let's say the game has expanded. there are 1000 players and they each have 1,000,000 gil. 100% of the wealth is now 1,000,000,000 gil. that means each gil is worth 0.000000001% of the total wealth. (I may be off a decimal place or two, if someone wants to correct me.)

In any system of currency, real life or theoretical values fluctuate and have to be based off of a specific item and are subject to inflation. A gil will never be just a gil.

[Seig345]

Every currency is representative of what you can buy with it, as well as subject to fluctuation based on quantities the currency itself and of the items that it can be used to purchase. The best example I can think of relating to FFXIV would be warped arrows. Right now the current gil cap is just under 1 billion gil. 999,999,999 and the value of 1 gil is equal to one warped arrow. if this is an across the board 1/10th reduction of cost and cap then someone who has 1 billion gil will find themselves with 100 million after 2.0 (100,000,000) if this were truly a universal change in the value of gil then warped arrows would now be 10 arrows for 1 gil. (each arrow is now 1/10th of a gil in value.)

Someone at the one billion cap right now would be able to purchase the same exact amount of warped arrows as someone at the cap after 2.0 with 100 million gil. The only thing that would change is the denomination of the bill.

the problem with theoretical currencies like gil is that it's very hard to balance the amount of gil that exists at a given time.

inflation occurs incredibly easy in MMO's because of the notion of "Vendor Trash." I can spend x amount of time earning y amount of items and they will sell for z amount of money to an npc. That is money that is being created out of thin air. much like if the US decided that to pay off it's debt it was just going to print trillions of dollars. It wouldn't pay off anything because each dollar they print would make every dollar in existence worth that much less.

The best example would be percentage based. All of the gil currently in the game equals 100% of the wealth. let's pretend the game is brand new and not very popular... there are only 10 people playing and they each only have 10 gil. that means that the numerical value for 100% is 100. Each gil is worth 1% of the total wealth. Now let's say the game has expanded. there are 1000 players and they each have 1,000,000 gil. 100% of the wealth is now 1,000,000,000 gil. that means each gil is worth 0.000000001% of the total wealth. (I may be off a decimal place or two, if someone wants to correct me.)

In any system of currency, real life or theoretical values fluctuate and have to be based off of a specific item and are subject to inflation. A gil will never be just a gil.

If 10 players each had 10 gil so they collectively have 100 gil, that means 1 gil IS 1% of the total wealth of all 10 players. It's not worth 1%. If it's worth 1% of something, that means you're able to exchange it for 1% of something, but you're saying it's worth 1% of 100 gil. To exchange it, you're paying 1 gil for 1 gil. 100 x 0.01 = 1. You can base the value of the gil off the vendor cost of a warped arrow, or the time it took to earn it through killing monsters and such, but I'm still not seeing how this causes everyone's gil being dropped raises the value of the individual gil.

If a warped arrow sells for 1 gil each before the cap drop, and is still worth 1 gil after, and the value of the gil is based on it, the gil's value remains the same regardless of who has how much after the drop. If it takes the same amount of time to earn gil by killing stuff before and after the drop, again, I don't see how how much everyone has after the drop affects the value of the gil, just how much everyone has.

Also, time = money = gil... but in FFXIV there's no money, just gil. Time = Gil. You put in time into the game, you get gil. I don't see how this relates to how much gil each player on a server has. I see how this relates to why a certain item should be worth a certain amount of gil, but not the value of the gil itself.

I understand you can exchange gil for items. While too much money in the pool can make prices go up, if it's just dumped in via RMT, not the intended way for players to get in-game currency, you have a problem because people dump out that kind of cash and then are either broke (or they simply don't do it because they don't make that kind of gil easily), or they dump out that kind of cash because they bought it. They run out, they buy more, it's the vicious RMT cycle. But that's what RMT is and why RMT is considered bad to those who actually care about the game.

Sorry for the block of text here. I can see now how Gil's value can indeed raise and lower based on either a simple item at the bottom of the chain or the amount of time it takes to earn it through non-player-economy methods. However, it still seems to me that the amount of gil everyone has only affects the value assigned to it by RMT.

[Ferth]

what happens is that there are multiple levels of in game economy that exist. One is the npc vendor economy, then there is also the player economy. The first one is static unless they make actual changes to the game. the second one relies on the first as a small portion of it's overall effectiveness, but (hopefully) would rely far more on the value of tradeable goods in the game

in a real economy it's not just the money that holds value. every single item that can be purchased also has a fluctuating value based on supply and demand.

In ffxiv that would be crafted items, tradeable gear, materia and consumables. those items have value based on the demand for the item compared to the available supply. A great example would be explorer's gear. When they first added it to the game, things like tabards and moccasins had a much higher value because the demand was high and the supply was low.

As people started doing the required 17 minute speed runs in efforts to get relics the supply of the items caught up and surpassed the demand, now with a few exceptions their value is significantly lower.

but that isn't a one way street. a prime example being the atomos exploit they just recently tried to fix. It was possible for people to get a crazy amount of GC seals in a very short period of time by purchasing low seal cost vendable items and then selling them to npcs for gil.

You see it most with RMT because that is all they do. though in reality that is happening all the time. In a well balanced game you shouldn't be too aware of it though. the problem is that FFXIV right now is not even remotely well balanced. (or rather it's balanced around an incredibly low value for gil.)

I would hope that the lowering of the gil cap is an effort to make each gil more valuable, the fairest way do to that would be to eliminate a percentage of total gil in the game. every person loses 90% of their gil, the value AND distribution of wealth as a whole stays the same, the quantity of gil is lowered significantly. if they were to just remove all gil that anyone had over the cap gil would be worth more than it is now, but not by much and it would really only take the wealthiest people at the top and take their % of the total wealth down. people under the cap would actually gain a higher % of the wealth.

When considering vendors, gil is a static value, because their prices and their quantities will never change. When considering a player driven economy it changes all the time, both based on the current quantity of gil AND based on the current quantity of items available and items needed/wanted by the community.

[Seig345]

[...]

When considering vendors, gil is a static value, because their prices and their quantities will never change. When considering a player driven economy it changes all the time, both based on the current quantity of gil AND based on the current quantity of items available and items needed/wanted by the community.

(Gotta say first that I love these kinds of discussions; Civil and beneficial in one way or another)

I agree with your post, and I really like how you summed up the two systems at the end there, but FFXIV consists of both systems in one.

That being said, I think I may finally be coming to understand here, so let me know if I've got this right:

The value of gil in the player driven economy will rise if everyone is knocked down by the same percentage? It seems like as far as the static system goes, that still relies entirely on the static system's parameters. But from the perspective of those who only earn their gil via the player driven market, I think I can finally understand why a 10% drop across the player board would be preferable.

Edit: Preferable over just a shave off the top of the cap, and why it'd be preferable to leave the cap as it is overall.

[Ferth]

(Gotta say first that I love these kinds of discussions; Civil and beneficial in one way or another)

I agree with your post, and I really like how you summed up the two systems at the end there, but FFXIV consists of both systems in one.

That being said, I think I may finally be coming to understand here, so let me know if I've got this right:

The value of gil in the player driven economy will rise if everyone is knocked down by the same percentage? It seems like as far as the static system goes, that still relies entirely on the static system's parameters. But from the perspective of those who only earn their gil via the player driven market, I think I can finally understand why a 10% drop across the player board would be preferable.

Edit: Preferable over just a shave off the top of the cap, and why it'd be preferable to leave the cap as it is overall.

Yes, sir. That's it exactly.

[Seig345]

Yes, sir. That's it exactly.

Awesome, as geeky as I feel for saying this, I feel like I've accomplished something!

I was only confused at first because my perspective comes from one who earns next to no gil off the player market at all. SO since I'm only sitting on roughly 500,000gil at any one time, and I earn it off the static system 99% of the time, I'm not exactly chaffed regardless of how the cap drop is handled.

Now I appreciate the problem more, and would say that I'd gladly take a 10% drop off my lowly 500,000gil if it meant keeping the other side in balance!

[dascorp]

How is this fair to the players who put the time in and and faith in this game? Is this the reward we are getting?

SE you need to realize that all of those future new people had the chance to play this game from the start and they chose not to. So, why punish the rest of us? What are you guys doing to keep the old players?

[AeraLucis]

How is this fair to the players who put the time in and and faith in this game? Is this the reward we are getting?

SE you need to realize that all of those future new people had the chance to play this game from the start and they chose not to. So, why punish the rest of us? What are you guys doing to keep the old players?

The sad reality is that they've already got you. How many people who have devoted 2 years into this game are going to just up and quit like that? It may not be right, it may not be fair, but since when did companies stop having their bottom line as their top priority?

[Ferth]

Well said, Kestiel.

[Luhy]

I hope this is wrong only because some people are going to find an exploit. They will either spend all of their gil on materia and re-sell it early on in ARR before the prices go down 90% or spend all of their money on something that they can NPC to make back a big part of their losses.