The Current Economy

[axemtitanium]

There are two major gilsinks currently implemented in the game.

1) Repair NPCs, which aren't quite as effective because you can just get your friends to repair for you in exchange for 500gil and DM. DM technically costs money but can also be found in a lot of places so this is mostly a bust. Chocobo rentals are equally useless.

2) Tax on Market Ward transactions. Currently, there's a tax for both buying and selling although the buyer's tax can be waived if you bother to actually go to the correct ward and purchase the item in person instead of using the Item Search Counter. This is a low % but high-volume gil sink since every sale loses 2-5% of the sale price to the void. Clearly it's not sufficient to counteract the effects of RMT though and it certainly couldn't deal with the amount of gil dumped into circulation as a result of Atomos.

I was also told that double-melding was a great gilsink but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it actually wasn't since gil isn't actually removed from circulation when equipment blows up. So that's out...

So if we break that down very quickly, the only things people actually throw money at - are the hamlet items used for class weapons. Let's look at best case - the most hardcore player who builds 7 relics, double melds at an 18% chance (so approximately 1 in 5), you are only looking at 35x of these 50k items that is being removed from the game. That's 1.75 mil. That same hardcore player can make that in a couple (to be generous) of hours, farming from generated sources.

I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about here. What item is this?

[Abriael]

I was also told that double-melding was a great gilsink but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it actually wasn't since gil isn't actually removed from circulation when equipment blows up. So that's out...

It's an indirect gilsink. You don't blow gil directly, but you blow stuff you purchased with gil or that derives from stuff you purchased with gil. Even in the remote case that you got *everything* that blows up, and its ingredients, from drops, all of it has a monetary value, so it's still a gil sink.

Basically every operation that removes anything of monetary value (either gil itself or items) from the market is a gil sink.

[Zdenka]

Clearly it's not sufficient to counteract the effects of RMT though and it certainly couldn't deal with the amount of gil dumped into circulation as a result of Atomos.

RMT doesn't add gil into the game; in theory they actually help remove gil from circulation through MW taxes. They farm a leve, which they gain no gil from because they don't complete it, and resale the skins on AH and remove 10% of the sale from the game. So actually RMT help's reduce inflation how they have operated in v1.0. Depending on what method's they use in 2.0 this might change.

It's an indirect gilsink. You don't blow gil directly, but you blow stuff you purchased with gil or that derives from stuff you purchased with gil. Even in the remote case that you got *everything* that blows up, and its ingredients, from drops, all of it has a monetary value, so it's still a gil sink.

Basically every operation that removes anything of monetary value (either gil itself or items) from the market is a gil sink.

This is 100% wrong. Item's only have a monetary value only at the point they are sold to an NPC. If they never get sold to an NPC they are not a gil sink when they are removed since no gil was removed at the same time.

Example: I farm all ingredients (mine/battle/fish etc) to make a Cobalt Haubergeon, this costs 0 gil, produces 0 gil. I then proceed to blow it up using farmed matters, and my own spirit bonded materia which also cost 0 gil to produce. This entire process neither added nor subtracted gil from the economy yet by your logic that Haub had value so when it blew up it somehow magically caused a gil sink.

Basically if item X isn't sold to the NPC (Inflation) or resold on the MW (Deflation) it has a value of 0 because its irrelevant to the economy. Because an item is "worth" something doesn't mean its a gil sink when it goes away because you could say the same thing about my Darklight Corselet if that was the case. If I drop that its a gilsink because items have value?

Anyways all means of inflation are:

1. Selling items to NPC Vendors.
2. Completing Quests/Leves/Missions.
3. Mob Drops (very small)

There is nothing else that causes inflation in the game.

Deflation (otherwise called "gilsink") is caused only by:

1. Ward Taxes.
2. Chocobo/Airship Rentals
3. Buying item's from NPC vendors.


Blowing up items by melding doesn't cause deflation, nor does dropping them on the ground etc.

[Abriael]

Blowing up items by melding doesn't cause deflation, nor does dropping them on the ground etc.

A gil sink isn't defined by the fact it causes inflation or deflation. Causing deflation is a consequence.

It's simply the removal of currency from the market. Items *are* currency, as they can be automatically echanged for currency (by vendoring them).

By the way, not sure who told you that RMT don't complete levequests. They do, and that's the whole reason why they go around in trains of eight multiboxed lalafells. By leve linking they multiply the gil earning from every levequest.

Once they're done with the leve allowance of a group of lalas, they move to the next (they have access to a ton of them) over and over.

[Altena]

We are talking about the value of gil, not the value of items. Farming/crafting items then blowing them up does not add or remove any actual gil value to the game. The only items that remove gil from the game, are items purchased with gil via an NPC (which are very few).

An item is farmed by person A, (increasing/decreasing the amount of gil on a server by 0).
Those items are then purchased by person B, so person A gets gil (this is circulation, not adding any gil into the game)
Person B makes Cobalt Hauby and sells it on the market (another example of circulation, no gil is being added or removed).
Person C buys that hauby and blows it up. No gil is removed from the game (aside from market taxes).

This is not a gil sink, as it does not increase or reduce the value of GIL in the game, it simply circulates it.

As for the items I was talking about - I am talking about "Coke" "Aquerius Whetstone" "hardened sap" etc etc