Atomos = Inflation...

[Preypacer]

Not only that but those two points you bring up act synergystically upon each other. The people who made the most gil out of the exploit also bought all the GC gear. Having that GC gear they have even less reason and need to spend the money they made on crafted gear. So they just sit on huge piles of gil waiting for the arr redenomination. Whatver.

Not necessarily so.

There are people, believe it or not, who still have other classes/jobs to level. I'm going to be leveling THM. I'm still going to be buying gear for that class - and eventually for others - from the Wards.

You're forgetting something else, though, that kinda shoots a hole in your theory/argument. NM Drops. You can get a good amount of good gear from NMs around Eorzea. I almost entirely geared up my LNC and PGL in that gear for many levels, hence not buying anything from the Ward at all, either. There wasn't much I had to buy during that time.

Further, if someone was so determined - or perhaps didn't have the money coming in to buy stuff outright - they could well have grinded out quests/missions for the GC and gotten their gear that way. That also would result in people not spending money in the wards.

And there are other examples. People leveled the classes themself, crafted their own gear and didn't need to buy it off wards. People had others in their LSs crafting the gear and selling it to them for extremely cheap, or for nothing at all.

It's all well and easy to throw the whole thing at the feet of SE with Atomos. Truth is, though, there are, and always have been myriad ways that people could get good gear without having to buy from the Wards. It's a bit disingenuous to say "it's all Atomos".

It's just like with the inflation thing. People are all eager to point at Atomos and say "that event is causing inflation! Prices are ridiculous!" Yet I can clearly remember wanting to buy lower level gear for a new class some months back and not being able to afford even level 10-ish stuff, 'cause it was all in the 100,000s. I couldn't afford to buy any of it and was running around in lowbie gear for upwards of 20 levels, until I got into range of using NM gear. When I posted on the forums about it, no one seemed to think it was a big deal. Strange how it's a huge issue now.