Some suggestions for the games economy

[Sneakaboo]

I feel like the in game economy and materia in general aren't as fun as it could be.
Bit of a wall of text but well, enjoy.

Some feedback about this.

Five subjects to cover :

- Not enough ways to regenerate gil

- Materia not being as important as it could be

- Dark matter

- Auction house


- Not enough ways to regenerate gil

While I can do levequests and farm fates I don't earn a lot on this.
Especially compared to the current repair costs/port cost.
The game removes money out of economy with out giving enough ways to earn.

Suggestions

A: Make dungeon mobs drop gold/dark matter/grey items
This way people won't skip trash all the time since it will be one of the ways to earn money.

B: Fates should generate a bit more gold


- Materia not being as important as it could be

I've a retainer with a couple of tabs full of materia , aside those used for the artefact quests I have no use for them.
All the gear I obtain through tombs/dungeon drops have no materia slots.
This removes an aspect out of the game where you want to level your grey items for materia/melt it and sell or use.

This just isn't fun at all, what's the whole point of Materia?
I replace low level gear so fast it isn't really worth putting it in there.
Most high level gear doesn't have slots and crafted gear isn't superior as far as I can see.


Suggestion

- Add slots to dungeon drops and tomestone items as well, lower their stats slightly to balance it out.


- NPC vendors selling most crafting materials

If you can gather an item than it should not be sold at a npc vendor for a low price.
It removes the whole purpose of gathering these items.
It's also again money that could go from player to player.

If I gather copper ore an NPC should not sell it for 3 gil, if people want the ore they should just buy it from players that put it on the market board.


- Dark matter


Too expensive with seals, it doesn't drop anywhere either as far as I see.
I've made a suggestion that would fix it.


-Auction House

Don't reinvent the wheel here.
Just have a basic auction house and a bank.
The retainer is obnoxious and requires posting this way more tedious than it should be.
Yes it has an history button but I rather just be able to browse through the action house and post with pressing ctrl/right click DONE.

Also I'm a PC user and got 8gig memory, can you please just allow me to see every item in one bag.
It's just one big mess, even when I sort thing it isn't ordered.
Just add an option to sort every item alphabetically.

Actually the NPC vendors do the same put it alphabetically, I'm not some one that is very ordered in general.
But the way the designers put stuff in this game is just pure anarchy, it's just a big mess.

[Jinko]

Agreed, I think they tried to find a use for retainers and shoe horned an AH into them as best they could, it still ends up being quite convoluted (especially for new players)

I agree about vendors selling gathered materials, I can see why they have done this, because it is convenient for crafters, on the same note I think they should reduce the amount of quests reward gear as well as this is marginalising the economy to the point its barely worth crafting any more.

Again Materia is pretty useless expect for pre end game gear and most times aetherial and green named gear will get you through until darklight.

I disagree with the gil aspect of your post though, as a crafter I can make money quite easily so don't think there needs to be any changes there.

[Tyl]

I disagree with the gil aspect of your post though, as a crafter I can make money quite easily so don't think there needs to be any changes there.

So u craft things u later sell to the NPC?
If not, u just transfer money from PC to PC (Player Character). In generall sooner or later 80% of PC will have no means to even REP their gear, no?

[Duoo]

I think the easy way to remedy this is just increase the gil from leves until they come up with a better solution.

[Bufkus]

- NPC vendors selling most crafting materials

If you can gather an item than it should not be sold at a npc vendor for a low price.
It removes the whole purpose of gathering these items.
It's also again money that could go from player to player.

It would be a monumentally bad idea to remove this. The NPCs only sell very low level crafting materials and they are there for a reason: so crafters can get started and not have the hassle of having to go out and gather materials right away. Once you start hitting 15+ in a craft that's when materials no longer become available from an NPC and you have to get them from the AH or gather them yourself.

By going with your suggestion, it will make crafting unsustainable. Fewer people will have the patience for it and nobody will end up buying low level crafted items since they will be too costly (time-wise) to create at low levels.

[Jinko]

So u craft things u later sell to the NPC?
If not, u just transfer money from PC to PC (Player Character). In generall sooner or later 80% of PC will have no means to even REP their gear, no?

How did you come to that conclusion ?
I craft and sell to PC's not NPC's, where would the point in that be besides leve hand ins. (yes which you get money from)

Op is forgetting we do get allagan pieces which are designed to be sold to vendors for cash, Ie the equivalent to grey/trash items in WoW.

If you look at it in details there is a various streams of money coming in and out of the economy.

It would be a monumentally bad idea to remove this. The NPCs only sell very low level crafting materials and they are there for a reason: so crafters can get started and not have the hassle of having to go out and gather materials right away. Once you start hitting 15+ in a craft that's when materials no longer become available from an NPC and you have to get them from the AH or gather them yourself.

By going with your suggestion, it will make crafting unsustainable. Fewer people will have the patience for it and nobody will end up buying low level crafted items since they will be too costly (time-wise) to create at low levels.

A much better way to do this would be have the class quests give you enough materials to level on for the first 15 levels.
This way its not an endless supply of mats and only enough to get you to a certain point. (it might even stop those idiot gil sellers buying items from vendors and price hicking them on the MW)

[Layenem]

I agree with the OP but I have one thing to add... If someones posts a stack of 99 iron ore you HAVE to buy the entire stack... This is such an old system of forced purchasing/posting where people who are trying to shop for single mats for first time combines get boned. I mean even EQ2 allows you to select how many you want to buy at one time... EQ2... we're talking what? 2004/2005 release? It's 2013 and the market boards are still based on an old system? Come on SE, don't insult your game by having highly limited source of generating Gil without degrading your gear to the point you spend it and then add in an auction house that is worse then vanilla WoW... You shouldn't build your PC with 2 amazing parts and the rest crap so why would you do this to a game! I hope they make some better options or that they allow the players do mod the market boards when they add in the mods.

[Fellswoop]

The low vendor items are good mainly because they make it impossible to flip AH prices and force new lvl crafters suffer (This needs to Stay as is)

Mob Item drops Some of these need to be relocated or increase the spawn areas , a Lot of crafts become stuck with a costly venture or need to get high level DPS when the lvl 30+ crafts need mats that drop from 40+ mobs to make gear for 30+ with is on the verge of stupid.

Materia yes needs to be made more useful and relevant again.

Gil sorry even at low levels gil isnt an issue and the economy will not totally die for some time why? the high level characters only need gil for repairs all upgrades are Farmed/Dropped or AF/AF2

Add in the fact from the latest youtube videos getting end game stuff is quick avoid all trashmobs kill boss which is a major SQE fail . Gear = Limited by Time not Difficulty didnt remember the Devs telling us about that.

Face it (Fates)+(No need for Crafting)+(Easy Access Endgame Gear) = Broken

[Sneakaboo]

Well you could make the items from the npc vendors a bit more expensive.
Currently if I would sell the item for the vendors price I would make a loss because of the AH cut.
This leaves some room for people that gather to sell it on the AH.


I like the EQ concept in the current environment.
I can for one post 40 items so I can't put a lot of stacks.
That or go for the WOW approach, let people post as much as they want.


The thing is finding moneysinks to keep people from getting too rich is easy.
How ever in ARR it is the opposite, people lose more than they make.\
RMT know it as well, that's why they spam.

Most MMO's use this concept as 'gold sink'.

- Items on a long duration that give you buff think of flasks.
- Repairs
-Food buffs
- Potions
- vanity items (some very expensive ones)
- WOW for one has expansions that functioned as a reset of the economy.
- Transmorg (being able to use skin of gear you obtained , making this very expensive helps)

Best concept I've seen has been WOWs black market.
NPC spawns every day and has some items, most vanity some loot.
You can bid on them.
In that game there are tons of vanity items and people tend to collect them so it works as a good money sink.


Personally I find rolling alts the worst solution out there.

[MJFERN]

Personally I find rolling alts the worst solution out there.

Rolling alts is totally useless in ARR. You cannot mail to players on your account.