Economic failure

**zsuper** · 2010-10-09 00:16

Is anyone else predicting the horrible economy we experienced in FFXI? That is, a small number of people control a large portion of the world's gil, and the only way you have a chance of even getting a small amount of that gil is to find a ridiculously rare item and sell it to them. There's no way you can farm a reliable source of gil, your only chance is to luck out on a rare item. V. Claw being an example.

My biggest concern is that not enough gil is being destroyed, compared to how much is being created by leves and quests.

My next biggest concern is that a huge portion of all the gil existing is in the hands of a small number of people. The people who are keeping ahead of the curve with their crafts have ridiculously high amounts of gil.

I could go into an essay about this, but to summarize, I have around 880,000 gil. I make 100,000+ each night. Four days from now, someone selling the same items I was getting 100,000 gil for will be getting maybe 20,000 gil max. I'll be selling even higher items and making even more gil. They don't really have a chance to catch up, and the gap between the gil we have and the gil they have continues to grow.

Also, there are so many people farming compared to the people crafting that materials are dirt poor, while the items they make are ridiculously expensive.

**miokomioko** · 2010-10-09 00:36

You're really jumping the gun here.

**Caestus** · 2010-10-09 00:42

I thought I was doing well having 330k >.>;

**Kurokikaze** · 2010-10-09 00:48

880k? What a peasant.

Jokes aside this shit ain't advanced... -_-;

**ZarakiKujata** · 2010-10-09 01:01

If anything I'm more concerned w/ not having an AH to regulate prices serverwide so you have pretty big pricing discrepancies on certain items.

**Darus Grey** · 2010-10-09 01:02

Not only is this jumping the gun, but in the entirely wrong direction...

The free flow of gil from leves means exactly the opposite of your hypothesis, in XI the only ways money entered the economy were beastmen drops and NPCing items(and quests but they were nonsignificant), meaning those with enormous wealth actually controlled sizeable chunks of a comparatively static item. This economic system is more comparable to the real world, you go harvest resouces(items to npc or mobs) and use them to bring wealth into the economy.

In XIV it's impossible to control, and just flows freely from a magical source. This is the economic system of Zimbabwe, magical money everywhere, and it's all absolutely worthless.

As it stands gil will inflate week after week until we eventually have a barter economy.

Barter economies fucking BLOW.

**ZarakiKujata** · 2010-10-09 01:05

We won't have a barter economy for long if it even gets that far (although you are able to put up items as rewards for shit you are seeking in bazaar so who knows maybe thats what SE wants..) because once you have ferry tax, chocobo tax, airship tax and I'm guessing raising the bazaar/AH tax % they will be removing a lot of gil.

edit: On the plus side, huge amounts of liquid gil + surplus preventing grinding to high levels quickly means CGF won't entrench themselves as quickly if at all?

**Kurokikaze** · 2010-10-09 01:07

Dont forget those expensive 75% repairs... Cost like 140k to repair all my stuff. Never again.

**Kirbyprime** · 2010-10-09 01:10

If you want to remove gil from the game just make it so you can buy Favor / Anima. I'm pretty sure it's easy enough to justify how it's being done. Have a freaking church in game that takes donations and have some scientist researching the crystals and is willing to extract the poison whatever in your system so you can warp some more.

**ZarakiKujata** · 2010-10-09 01:17

Originally Posted by Kirbyprime

If you want to remove gil from the game just make it so you can buy Favor / Anima. I'm pretty sure it's easy enough to justify how it's being done. Have a freaking church in game that takes donations and have some scientist researching the crystals and is willing to extract the poison whatever in your system so you can warp some more.

There was an NPC in The Golden Bazaar in Open Beta who talked about there being a shrine for one of the 12 Guardians nearby, I'm assuming eventually we will be able to go to these shrines around the world and do something along the lines of what you are describing.

**Nevex** · 2010-10-09 02:23

I have about 1m and not once have I crafted and sold finished products for profit. I really put no effort at all in making gil, just spammed combat leves and NPC'd stuff.
I wouldn't be surprised if hardcore crafters already hit the 10m mark.

I assume they'll add more ways to remove gil from the economy later, else things aren't looking too bright.

One thing they should fix is motivating repairs from both NPC and players. I don't see why player-made repairs couldn't be 100% success rate. If they really think that those 30ish skill points per repair can be gamebreaking then just nerf them, I don't think anybody is relying on repair spamming to level a crafter class.
NPC fees need to be much lower... I'd say no more than double the price (or even 150% since NPCs don't even fully repair them) you would have to pay for self-repairs.

**Achitophel** · 2010-10-09 03:54

Inflation is going to be a serious problem, very quickly.

**Spira** · 2010-10-09 03:56

gil creation is definitely a lot easier and less inhibited here than in XI. i suppose the economy is bad enough some people can already start stashing huge reserves for it.. and probably worse considering theres no central AH atm, meaning imperfect information of demand and supply in the market. this makes it really hard to sell stuff since it'll be really difficult to settle on a stable price that others in the market will follow.. that and no real gil drains in the system yet.. no taxes or regular costs to bear.. maybe repairing but its not all that often and people can like repair it themselves...

its either Square-Enix doesn't care so much, or they're hoping for gil to only be the base currency that players use with NPCs.. or with player who can't care less about gil depreciation. There already is a tab in inventory for Currency, so I'm assuming other more controlled forms of currency will appear and could probably be used for trade between players. That way you can still play the game with enough gil for NPCs, but not necessarily blow huge chunks of gil on anything anyone else sells

**miokomioko** · 2010-10-09 04:07

Originally Posted by Spira

There already is a tab in inventory for Currency

This is where your Guild Marks are held, and probably any other future event-related "points" akin to Theron Ichor, Zeni, Moblin Marbles, Cruor, Ancient Beastcoins, Dynamis Currency, Allied Notes, Imperial Standing, Conquest Points et cetera.

**Kaylia** · 2010-10-09 05:15

If there is money sink in a brand new economy, no gil will be introduced in it since they are wasted immediatly (not that it would be a bad thing in itself). They are probably waiting a little bit before balancing this out.

**jenasu** · 2010-10-09 06:05

why is this crap allowed on the internet.

**KarrilDaltaya** · 2010-10-09 06:38

I am a brand new player to FFXIV. For me, 'having too much gil' is definitely not a problem. After quests and such, i had 35k. The problem is, the prices of gear people are selling (even when shopping around) are really high for people starting out. I was able to buy only a few items after i bought my crafting tools.

Anyway, the economy as it is seems to be a lot like the the real one. The poor are very poor, and the rich are very rich. I really hope we get an AH soon, so prices on things can start coming down.

**Lyramion** · 2010-10-09 06:45

880,000 gil

I have like double that and didn´t touch a single Craft. 30 leves spit an even larger amount of gil into the game. Hardcore crafter friends have more like 6 mil right now. But so ya.. the Surplus cockblock will keep the hardcore crafters up there for many months.

**Sephiroth** · 2010-10-09 09:20

Indeed, with crafting classes surplus serves only to help the rich get richer. I said this when the game launched but then the SE defence force came out telling me it's okay. Anyone who is at the top of the curve now will stay that way until they reach the level cap, no matter how much time you can devote to skilling up your craft.

I have hopes that the lack of knowledge on 30+ recipes and the rarer raw materials will slow people down however. I couldn't even tell you what ore blacksmiths use after iron for example. We're looking at grade 4-5 mining/logging/fishing points for a good supply of 30+ crafting materials.

**CasualPlayer** · 2010-10-09 10:00

You realize that an AH or even a market ward search function will bring prices of things down drastically. Crafters will be rich sure but DoL classes will be just as rich selling raw materials.

And leves do give a rediculous amount of gil and so do quests. 60k for the rank 4 storyline quest for example. Also your forgetting that it takes a lot of effort to make low level gear. Something like 40 synths if your making a bronze chainmail and making the hempen tabard for it. High lvl crafters aren't going to be doing that later on so there will always be something for new crafters to make and profit on.

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