Spiritbinding = Ex?

[Mishaela]

The amount of assumptions and people in this thread expressing an expectation that gear pricing is going to be the exact same in ARR as it was in 1.x is frankly hilarious, and anyone arguing that 1.x's economy was in good shape in its last few months either wasn't playing the game at all, was in the top tier of rich players with enough cash to play the market (or had multiple crafts leveled and didn't ever buy much), or has never played an MMO with a more stable economy. Is fusional the only one around here with any sense?

I still haven't seen anyone explaining what were the issues in 1.0s economy and how this change would fix them.

The problem in 1.x was not the materia system. The materia system was a bandaid to problems with the crafting and item system, stats, and leveling speed. It was supply and demand; economic basics. Namely, the sheer huge volume of items that gatherers and crafters had to produce to level up and could continue to produce at level cap. While leveling to 50, a single gatherer could provide enough materials for a single crafter to make enough items to provide dozens of players to be outfitted for their own 1-50 leveling (speaking in terms of volume here, obviously a miner wasn't supplying wood for arrows, etc.). And then those dozens of players could turn around and re-sell that same gear. Gear that, by in large (besides weapons) made mostly insignificant increases in your stats.

Add on the fact that crafting was so simple (push enter repeatedly for days) any idiot could level a craft or three, and you suddenly have a small subset of the playerbase capable of providing enough gear to the entire server.

On top of all this was, as mentioned, the fact that gear besides weapons was very inconsequential as you leveled. Even without being PL'd by someone outside the party, leveling was very easy. Especially in a party, where a leveling session might zoom you past one or two entire sets of gear. Mages especially could get to 50 non-PLed with starting gear easily in a group. This was even further inflamed by the fact that one character could be many classes meaning gear could be shared between classes on a single character so you could just grab a set of midlevel scale armor and actually use it for 3 different classes (I don't think this last point in particular is a problem, but it did impact gear demand).

This created a crafting economy where crafting anything before level cap gear for profit was seen by many as a waste of time after people hit level cap on a few classes; it was a circular problem--crafters didn't expect low level gear to sell well because people could level quickly anyway so they didn't need the gear (besides weapons), so most crafters didn't make any, and when they did it was priced at a premium because otherwise it wasn't profitible to waste wards slots on the stuff. Midlevel gear was resold by people using it (if they could afford a spot on their retainer), but by in large crafting it was not a profitable venture.

This also created an economy where people viewed melded gear as a monetary investment rather than a character progression step. This was a problem because it meant prices remained high on anything good because it could be resold. Crafters could make a profit from selling a good meld, but the buyer wasn't really out anything because they could sell it back for close to what they paid. Sure, I could make profit making SB items to sell on the wards, but the real profit was from lucky converts, something which anyone, crafter or not, could do.

Materia system was added to remove items from circulation, and for a while it worked well and the economy for SB gear and materia themselves (well, the good ones) was healthy. However, long-term, the materia system itself as it was in 1.x would face the exact same stagnation problem that the crafting system did because melded gear didn't leave circulation until exploded in an attempt to add another materia.

With this bind on use change, items' worth will be measured in their preceived USEFULNESS over a period of time for character progression, not in their MONETARY INVESTMENT VALUE, and the economy will adjust and things will be fine. Prices will even out if for no other reason than people with spare capital will be competing at playing the buy-low-sell-high market game. Raw material and crafted goods pricing will reach a comfortable balance that flows in and out depending on the day's supply and demand and the current stage of the game's content.

1) Crafters should enjoy the benefits of additional removal of items from circulation, creating additional demand for their services to balance out the expected dip in sheer volume of gear that will need to be SBed to get useful materia. People can still cherry-pick what cheap items to SB (no more dated tarred voyager belts T_T but the idea remains, make/buy the cheap fodder items to SB), so it's not like crafters are suddenly going to rule the economy with an iron fist.

2) Gatherers will the benefit of crafters needing their goods. Even NQ items will be needed in high quantities for leveling crafts and churning out SB gear.

3) Players who don't DoH/DoL much should benefit from the overall reduced price of many items because prices will adjust (down) because crafters will not be able to charge as much for an item that they know the buyer can't sell back later on the wards. This will make gear prices for useful gear more accessible overall without seriously hurting crafters' income (provided SB is still a thing in ARR). At the same time, materia, if properly balanced, will still be in constant demand meaning constant source of income for non-crafters to SB->sell materia, much like in 1.x.

Everyone wins.

Except for whiners who played 1.x but didn't craft or gather and feel like this system isn't designed farily because they survive off reselling their old equipment for pocket change rather than doing anything productive like stocking the wards with raw materials, SB items, or good materia and for some silly reason think that the 1.x gear market is going to carry directly to ARR. (To throw some of you a bone, I do agree that it does feel a bit artifical to be unable to hand someone a piece of gear you have used, but fact of the matter is making comparison to things in RL like cars or clothes are flawed analogies because things in real life permanently break and wear out via normal use whlie items in XIV do not.)

Idealy what happens is actually a multi-piece solution. Focusing in on one problem in particular and holding it up as the sole reason for the problems in 1.x is just missing the forest for the trees. BoE itself is only a problem when the rest of the big picture has other significant problems.

For 1-cap crafting to not feel like a waste of time:

1) Gear upgrades have to feel like they're doing some good. If they don't make any real difference, there is no fun or point in upgrading. 1.x had this problem.

2) Similarly, leveling of all jobs has to be paced (including monster difficulty) to make gear upgrades worth stopping your leveling to obtain.

3) Crafting must remain a, if not the, primary means of getting useful gear at any level to make crafters feel needed. Having quests get you started with gear is great, but having quests supply you with gear from 1-cap deeply undermines the need for crafting at all. This, not the BoE/BoU concept itself, is why crafting in games like TERA and WoW is so uninteresting and largely treated as a chore to be completed to get access to one or two good recipes.

For level cap crafting to remain relevant:

1) The rate with which equipment and materia can leave circulation must be not too far from the rate at which they can be produced.

2) Multi-melds must remain competitive with non-crafted gear such as dungeon drops.

3) Materia need to be less permanent to balance out the fact that fewer trash materia will be brought into circulation. Also, crafters must obviously be able to multi-meld gear for another player without trading the item to them (which couldn't be done in 1.x).

4) Encounter design needs to be balanced to not require perfect gear but to be challenging enough to make players feel like a gear upgrade would help, and subsequently that effor needs to be rewarded eventually but not immediately.

5) Playerbase needs to stop thinking of melded gear as a monetary investment and see it for what it is: an expense of character progression. You can't always have your cake and eat it, too. What next, are you going to ask SE to build a time-machine into the game so that once you get your new dungeon drops you can go back in time and get back the time you spent on the dungeon gear you were wearing before? Time is money, friend.

If even one piece of this puzzle is left out or not fit in properly, the whole system may fall apart.

And as others have mentioned already, there are several things you could do with an item in 1.x like turning it in for GC seals, attempting an even better meld, or converting to materia. I would be surprised if all of those were suddenly impossible in ARR.

No longer will a crafter or anyone be able to sell anything substantial before endgame levels because no one will be willing to drop a large amount of Gil on a piece of gear is great for levels say 25-44 on say drg only that will be 100% worthless at say level 45.

Um, did you even play 1.x? That's exactly what was going on in 1.x.

1. how many times have you had your group going to do a primal or a dungeon and you need someone to play a class and them say "i can't play x class because i don't have the main weapon". normally that's simple because you can just check among yourselves and see who has one and repair it and let them use it for the party. i know i've had to do that a ton of times. now this will not be possible.

DEAL WITH IT. Don't bring people if they're not geared for the job you expect them to be on and don't advertise that you can play a job if you don't have it actually geared. (Full disclosure: this did happen to me before with my LS doing Garuda and I borrowed a BLM weapon to reach par for speed burn stats, but it wasn't something I made a habit of and it's certainly something I could live without.)

2. i know how i do materia gear myself and i know many others that do the same thing i do. we go out and get a nice set of decent double melded gear for the class and then use that gear while working on getting a triple/quad meld on another piece. once we get the upgraded gear we then turn around and sell the decent double meld off in the wards. it allows us to recoup some of the gil we spend going for the upgrade as well as give someone else a starter piece for the class they are gearing up. now the double meld we've been using while trying to upgrade is worthless as you can't sell it off or even donate it to another ls member that needs a starter set.

A) For one, it's not worthless. You got lots of use out of it. That's what you paid for. To use it. You're buying something to use, not a collector's item. B) Secondly, this model would not be able to sustain the proportionately high prices you're irrationally afraid of, precisely because everyone would know that they have no resale value and would thus be priced accordingly or they would never sell. C) Finally, double melding was never hard to begin with and isn't it going to be even easier in ARR?

3. i remember starting the game and the hard time getting enough gil to upgrade my armor. [...] this is going to actually make things harder on the low level players.

See B) above.

we're thinking of it as it not really hurting us as we all have millions, but what about these new players starting with nothing?

They're on their new servers with a fresh economy and quests will just hand them gear to get started. Or they're joining an existing server with friends that will probably help them get caught up. Stop thinking that ARR is going to be 1.x with a new graphics engine.

it will, however, effect the people that do not craft because their previous amount was lowered at a higher percentage than the percentage the items dropped in price. then add on the fact that the non crafters cannot sell off their old gear they bought to offset some of the cost of upgrading and it effectively lowers your buying power.

For a player crafting-driven economy, this is necessary. If there is no profit to be had from crafting and gathering, no one will do it. Players who chose not to do crafting or gathering should expect to never see anywhere near the income that someone who utilizes all three systems can generate. That is completely fair. I have absolutely zero sympathy for people crying about not having ways to make money in a game like this. This is a game world where anyone can do anything they set their mind to, not the real world with a bad job market. Converting materia was a great way for non-worker classes in 1.x to make money and I'm sure that will be the case in ARR as well, provided they balance materia well. You are stuck on a non-issue, move on.

[Pseudopsia]

[ispano]

That looks like a used cookie to me.

[Pseudopsia]

That looks like a used cookie to me.

Sorry I couldn't resist.

Here's a fresh one

[Quesse]

Everyone wins.

I used to give a lot of my gear away - especially to random gathers where stats actually did make a difference. Also I would give gear to people in LS who couldn't afford it. Once in a great while I was lend gear to someone at Ifrit, etc. for some reason or another.

All these people lose.

I'm not saying that's a sole reason good enough to not implement bind on use but to say everyone wins, stick playdough in your ears and sing LA LA LA is just stupid.

[ispano]

Sorry I couldn't resist.

Here's a fresh one

[Pseudopsia]

LOL, hidden Oreo.

[Mishaela]

I used to give a lot of my gear away - especially to random gathers where stats actually did make a difference. Also I would give gear to people in LS who couldn't afford it. Once in a great while I was lend gear to someone at Ifrit, etc. for some reason or another.

All these people lose.

They only lose if getting decent melded gear in ARR is as "hard" as it was in 1.x which doesn't seem the case. To think that ARR is going to be the same as 1.x in regards to gear, stick playdough in your ears and sing LA LA LA is just stupid.

[Reika]

I used to give a lot of my gear away - especially to random gathers where stats actually did make a difference. Also I would give gear to people in LS who couldn't afford it. Once in a great while I was lend gear to someone at Ifrit, etc. for some reason or another.

All these people lose.

I'm not saying that's a sole reason good enough to not implement bind on use but to say everyone wins, stick playdough in your ears and sing LA LA LA is just stupid.

I use to give gear away too! Now I guess I will have to vendor or convert it.

/gottenoveritalready

Or, I can simply craft a new, unspiritbonded version of the item I wish to give away, and proceed to give that away.

BRILLIANT!

[Shougun]

I use to give gear away too! Now I guess I will have to vendor or convert it. Then I took an arrow in the knee.

/gottenoveritalready

/fixed

Thank me later