Item Binding

[Judge_Xero]

The main issues were 1. everyone (well, almost everyone) having a few crafts leveled and 2. each craft having only a few profitable synths (which all the crafters were making and selling simultaneously). This was caused by not having any limits to max level crafts (in XI for example one character could only have 1 craft at max level) and crafts being way too easy and fast to level (it was even profitable to level a craft!). Most players either had all the crafts they needed to synth their own gear or could ask a friend to synth / meld gear for them, which meant nearly no one had to buy stuff from the wards.

The gear bind system will not fix any of the main problems in 1.0s gear economy or make it any easier for the crafters.

You have to look at the issue from more angles. What else do we know is changing.

- The number of tiers of materia is being reduced
- Increased odds to get higher tiers of materia from high level gear
- Hopefully increased population of new people

So we should have a pile of new people that have 0 crafts leveled and may not even be interested in crafting.
(don't assume that everyone in the whole world has every craft leveled, because the number of people that played Version 1 will be a very small % of people if ARR really takes off)

If you break it down and look at just high level gear and materia. If there are greater odds to get high level materia from high level gear, and with reduced tiers, there will be more good materia. So if the market gets flooded with good materia, then the value of the materia goes down.

Gathers sell to Crafters. Crafters sell to Adventurers/Spirit Bonders. Spirit Bonders sell to General Market.

If you take gear out of circulation through Binding and Spirit Bond, then there will always be a demand for it. Which means there will always be a demand for Raw Materials. Which opens up a huge range of Markets for items to be sold.

Looking at just the high level market in Version 1.
- Level 50 gear was worth a lot until single melded gear came.
- Single Melded Gear was worth a lot until Double Melds
- Near the end of Version 1 even Double melds were getting dirt cheap when Tripple Melds started popping up.

At that point it was only worth the Gatherers time to go after Darksteel, Cobalt, Gold, Copper, and a few others and whatever Botanists and Fishers gather, because the Niche Market was Darksteel Gear, Relic Weapons, Hamlet Provisioning Items, and some Foods (Raptor Stew etc)

The life of Version 1 wasn't long enough for us to see it completely Plateau the Market, but it was getting close.

People might be complaining now that their gear is worthless, but if you are a casual player and the markets were ruled by Hardcore players, and everything was Million Dollar Tripple Melds or Rare Dungeon Drops because nothing else was worth their time to sell:
- your time would be spent Leveling a gathering job because Raw Materials would be too expensive to buy, or there would only be items that the hardcore groups would buy.
- your time would be spent leveling a craft or four to craft the gear, because it's not worth the crafters time, and the raw materials for your gear are non-existent or super expensive.
- now you're angry because you really just want to run some dungeons, but this game forced you to gather and craft, just to make some better gear.