How would you fix inflation?

[Cuer]

FWIW, the issue of "controlled inflation" doesn't really transfer to an online game from real life economics. It works in standard economies because (by and large) there are few places where either prices or wages cannot be altered by the market. In an online game, the reverse is true; by and large, all the gil that a player can get from the actual game itself (as opposed to other players) is fixed or in a narrow range, as is the cost of goods.

Inflation really hurts newcomers to the economy in this sense, because they're getting the same fixed amount of gil for completing a mission or quest, or selling an item to an NPC, that other players did 3 years ago. This is why it's important for the people running these economies to make sure that they're pulling the currency back out of the economy at roughly the same rate it goes in, so that players aren't totally screwed by the inflationary prices. In this situation, a new player trying to "play well" really only has a handful of options:

1) Spend hundreds of hours farming, to try to get the gil gathered for the basic "standard equipment".
2) Play with what is considered to be crappy gear.
3) RMT.

The other big part of the issue is the simple need for alternate items, so that there isn't this focused pressure on a small percentage of the items in the game, that are high-ticket items because they're what everybody wants/needs. For example, as long as the Haubergeon and Scorpion Harness have such hard to get (for the average player) ingredients, and are easily better than other available gear for so many jobs, their price will continue to sky-rocket. Even if the inflationary issues were resolved, there would still be a lot of pressure to push the prices up on those items, as more and more characters are added to the game.

[DrObvious]

Funny that people were fishbotting over 18 months ago and yet the price of staple items like leaping boots and emperor's hairpin held a constant price at that time, at least on my server. Prices started to slowly increase when I was told that buying gil became less expensive.

Like many other people, I don't agree with purist economists. It's quite simple to see that economics can't apply here beyond the supply and demand of individual items. Having players that RMT drastically increases the price of items since the rate of demand increases and supply does not. You have to be blind to say that RMTing has no effect on the inflation of prices. Yes, in the literal sense, it has no effect on the inflation of gil, but the whole point of RMTing is that you get receive gil for specific items.

The root of our problem was the supply of gil. Our current problem is the cheap and abundant supply of gil online.

[Solefald]

Back to the original topic, a couple of things that I think could mitigate inflation are:

More kinds of abjuration equipment, so that expensive crafting materials get locked into pieces of rare/ex armor, thus taking money permanently out of circulation.

Raise the price of the timeless hourglass and increase dynamis currency drop rate. Increasing the amount of currency dropped will offset the higher cost to enter dynamis, plus it would hopefully spur more people to upgrade their relic weapons, which is of course a huge money sink.

[DrObvious]

More kinds of abjuration equipment, so that expensive crafting materials get locked into pieces of rare/ex armor, thus taking money permanently out of circulation.

Unless those crafting materials are NPC buyable, that doesn't do anything for inflation, because gil was not created when the crafting items dropped.

[Quicklet]

More kinds of abjuration equipment, so that expensive crafting materials get locked into pieces of rare/ex armor, thus taking money permanently out of circulation.

The opposite is actually what happens. The item gets taken out of circulation, the money doesn't.

If I pay 800k (made up number) for a siren's hair to make cursed mitts, when I turn the mitts in with the abjuration the 800k I paid is still in the hands of whoever I bought it from if he hasn't spent it yet.

Raise the price of the timeless hourglass and increase dynamis currency drop rate. Increasing the amount of currency dropped will offset the higher cost to enter dynamis, plus it would hopefully spur more people to upgrade their relic weapons, which is of course a huge money sink.

Raising the price of the timeless hourglass would have the effect of lowering the gil-price of items, but it will do nothing to change their value. This is a crude example because the way it works is more complicated than this, but if the total amount of gil on a server is 10 billion and an emperor hairpin goes for around 1 million, if the gil on the server were reduced by moneysinks to 5 billion, then if nothing else changes in supply of hairpins or demand for hairpins, the price would probably move closer to 500k. The hairpin is valued at less gil, but everyone else has less gil too so it's not like the average player would have an extra 500k to spend on other items. The hairpin costs less money because people have less money but they can't buy more things than they could before.

Increasing the amount of dynamis currency dropped would lower the gil-value of currency but increase the gil-value of other items. Again, upgrading relic weapons is not a moneysink. When you use up 15,000 currency in the process of upgrading a relic weapon, you are not getting rid of gil, you are getting rid of currency.

[Tom Chambers]

Ichthyos is right and NynJaa is wrong. RMT doesn't matter on a large level because it's still just the same amount of gil being moved around. If I buy 4 million gil from TwixyGirl, and she got that from camping Mee Deggi, nothing changes. One Ochiudo's Kote is brought into the economy and 4 million is given to the person who produced it, and that person gives that gil to me.

That matters to people partying with me, people I'm friends with, people I compete with, because I just acquired the gil without putting in the requisite in-game 'work'. It does not matter to the community at large on an inflation basis, because no new gil is being added to economy. Old gil is simply changing hands.

What needs to happen is to just plain close the system, as Ichthyos said. The gil we have here is the gil we have here. SE can monitor it and after a few months turn the NPCs back 'on'. Then turn them back off for a time. Create some type of half-assed storyline for it, doesn't matter. Just close the system. When the game started and people got their gil from their adventurer's coupon, quests, and beastmen, it was needed. No longer. New players can get their gil from selling crystals. If you have signet, you should have 100k or more just from soloing to like 15.

And openly declaring that no new gil will be put into the economy will certainly do wonders for the player bases' spending.

[Nikko]

RMT essentially spreads the wealth much more evenly than would happen naturally. Basically all profits from the mobs that RMT kill are split among all those who buy gil, rather than split among only those who killed. This doesnt cause inflation, but simply speeds it up because when the gil is highly concentrated, inflation over the entire economy will not occur quickly because there is only so much gil those ppl can each spend at a time. It will occur slowly though, unless ppl whore the gil and never spend it.

Anything that spreads gil among everyone quickly, and causes the rich to spend their money, is what causes the quickening of inflation. Selling dynamis currency, selling ancient beastcoins, selling gil online... all speed up inflation tremendously because they provide more ways for the gil to spread from one person to the many suppliers or coins / buyers of gil, causing it to lose value. Without these things, gil would be forced to spread from one person to only a few, and inflation would happen much slower (but it would still happen as long as ppl spread the wealth).

If there is 1 trillion gil on the server, and 90% of it is on 10% of the characters then prices will be one way. When the gil spreads to the other 90% of the ppl, and average gil per person rises, than of course prices will rise. This doesnt actually harm anything except those who keep their assets in gil instead of items, and under the circumstances that the avereage prices break game design (like 9 digits and bazaars).

[Lockecole]

RMT essentially spreads the wealth much more evenly than would happen naturally. Basically all profits from the mobs that RMT kill are split among all those who buy gil, rather than split among only those who killed. This doesnt cause inflation, but simply speeds it up because when the gil is highly concentrated, inflation over the entire economy will not occur quickly because there is only so much gil those ppl can each spend at a time. It will occur slowly though, unless ppl whore the gil and never spend it.

Anything that spreads gil among everyone quickly, and causes the rich to spend their money, is what causes the quickening of inflation. Selling dynamis currency, selling ancient beastcoins, selling gil online... all speed up inflation tremendously because they provide more ways for the gil to spread from one person to the many suppliers or coins / buyers of gil, causing it to lose value. Without these things, gil would be forced to spread from one person to only a few, and inflation would happen much slower (but it would still happen as long as ppl spread the wealth).

If there is 1 trillion gil on the server, and 90% of it is on 10% of the characters then prices will be one way. When the gil spreads to the other 90% of the ppl, and average gil per person rises, than of course prices will rise. This doesnt actually harm anything except those who keep their assets in gil instead of items, and under the circumstances that the avereage prices break game design (like 9 digits and bazaars).

The Correct Answer to why you see a 200% increase in prices. Yes the amount of gil is not changed with gilfarmers, but the amount of gil PLACED in the hands of those who WILL spend it in mass amounts and without restraint IS increased. That is all that matters.

[Blackbrock]

I suppose this could open the doors to another craft type or two, I'm sure it would be handy to have someone who can craft components or repair weapons in your xp party

I am not a historian but I believe that would be a blacksmith

[DrObvious]

Ichthyos is right and NynJaa is wrong. RMT doesn't matter on a large level because it's still just the same amount of gil being moved around. If I buy 4 million gil from TwixyGirl, and she got that from camping Mee Deggi, nothing changes. One Ochiudo's Kote is brought into the economy and 4 million is given to the person who produced it, and that person gives that gil to me.

That matters to people partying with me, people I'm friends with, people I compete with, because I just acquired the gil without putting in the requisite in-game 'work'. It does not matter to the community at large on an inflation basis, because no new gil is being added to economy. Old gil is simply changing hands.

It matters because people who RMT typically pay whatever price the seller is asking. These are the people who pay 10m gil instead of 9m gil if there's only one scorpion harness on the auction house, because as they say, easy come easy go. Then other people start selling their SH for 10m and soon the new price is 10m, because if you can sell for 10m instead of 9m, why not?

Everyone who doesn't RMT has to live in fear of those who do. Every time you see 1 item up on the AH you have to ask yourself, "do I want to risk the price increasing because some greedy person decides to eke out every last few hundred thousand gil" when we know there's an RMTer or a rich crafter or whatever who will buy it anyway instead of waiting for more stock? Of course this becomes something of a self fullfilling prophecy, but I'm sure I'm not alone in seeing this trend? It happens over and over again on item after item, and yeah, sometimes the price comes down again, but lots of times it doesn't.

Anyway, on my server, this is happening on a lot of items. Basically any expensive item you can imagine has increased 500k-3m in the past 3 weeks or so, and has stabilized(ie 10+ sales) at the new higher price.

[FFXIFlux]

It matters because people who RMT typically pay whatever price the seller is asking. These are the people who pay 10m gil instead of 9m gil if there's only one scorpion harness on the auction house, because as they say, easy come easy go. Then other people start selling their SH for 10m and soon the new price is 10m, because if you can sell for 10m instead of 9m, why not?

Then obviously 9M was too cheap, if more than 1 person pays it.

Seriously, would any of you pay $200 real money to buy the gil for a scorpion harness? Do you know many people that would? Probably not.

Inflation is happening because theres more gil in the system, not because the gil is being spent more often. With a 2% AH fee wipeing gil from the game, faster gil spending just means more gil leaving the game faster. If that was what was happening then staple items like staves, sheihei, sushi etc. wouldn't be going up continually.

[Ragnard]

Nsx posted this pages ago...

RMT isn't going to change currency inflation, but it will create price inflations.

The posters on the last pages have been right on the money:
RMT will put money into hands where it never existed before. It's like giving a bum on the streets $50,000. He'll spend it on useful goods, I'm sure, but he won't invest it well. It's no problem when there's one bum. But if you took the 100 wealthiest people in the US and split their net worths among all the bums in the streets of the major cities, eventually things of high demand to bums would skyrocket in price, like liquor, cigarettes, crack and affordable housing.

So yea, it's understandable that wide-scale RMTing would lead to price inflations on high demand items. But keep in mind that the currency itself isn't inflated... low demand items haven't shot up in price. I can still get a NQ Amemet Mantle for less than 20k, like I could a year ago. I can still get +4 stat rings, NQ nomad's mantle, spike necklace, etc for the same price. The demand for these items is the same as in the past, and their prices are the same. The currency isn't inflated. Flip back again to HQ items, and we see that demand post-RMTing is up, because a huge new segment of the population now has the means to actually purchase these items. Price inflation.

So the solution? Don't invest in currency if you feel like the market value is fluctuating wildly. Invest in high-demand goods, and diversify your investments. If you have 50 million sitting on your character, buy all the good items for good prices from rolanberry bazaars that you can. If you are confident that continued RMTing will lead to even higher prices on these items, then hold onto the items, not the cash.

[Ragnard]

Do you see the first reason why ANY moneysink will not change the fact that the game's economy is broken thanks to duping and RMT?

All the points that you wrote were completely true! Money sinks would hurt those who are close to them, and new money sources will most benefit those who are closest to them in times of inflation. I'll buy all of that, 100%.

Duping is a problem that I've never run into. If it exists, then yea, it actually will completely fuck the economy. XD

RMTing is just circulating the existing money around. If you put in more sinks for the money, then yes, you'll help the overall problem, but you will hurt those who are closest to the sinks. Perhaps then, a better solution would be to increase all NPC prices, to leave the sinks as they are, but increase the sink rate? Like prices at mea could get worse... ><

Anyway, I think it's fair to say that if you take enough money out of the economy, you'll eventually start to see a difference reflected in the prices. If people are seriously duping large amounts of gil, then the economy is, as you've commented, completely hosed. :/

[Soje]

Golden Saucer 8)

If setup with real casino pay out rates it would litterally drain millions every day.

Or how about a tax on shouting in Lower Jeuno :D

[iobane]

A game I used to play kept a running tally of how much cash flew into the player economy and how much was removed (via npcs and other game functions). It also kept a track of how much per money source/sink.

When there was more going in than out, Npcs raised their prices according to the ratio. When there was more going out than in, Npc prices dropped.

A similar system might work for FFXI but I think that old game tied people to Npc shops more than FFXI does.

[DrObvious]

So yea, it's understandable that wide-scale RMTing would lead to price inflations on high demand items. But keep in mind that the currency itself isn't inflated... low demand items haven't shot up in price. I can still get a NQ Amemet Mantle for less than 20k, like I could a year ago. I can still get +4 stat rings, NQ nomad's mantle, spike necklace, etc for the same price. The demand for these items is the same as in the past, and their prices are the same. The currency isn't inflated. Flip back again to HQ items, and we see that demand post-RMTing is up, because a huge new segment of the population now has the means to actually purchase these items. Price inflation.

Exactly, I see multiple people talking about how every item in the game has gone up by the same amount and that's total bs. There are lots of items that haven't really increased in price. Using Amemet as an example, the skins have at most doubled, yet earth crystal prices have gone up by 6x. Mahatma Slops have actually decreased in price from over 1 year ago. Light crystals are the same price they were after the rusty cap nerf over 12 months ago. Fire crystals used to be 2-3x the price of lightning but now lightning are the same price, even spiking higher.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

If money sinks would help then here is my idea...for 500 million gil or more, hell even a billion gil, you can buy another jobs JA (Job traits as well), including 2hour JA's. If people are willing to spend hundreds of millions of gil on relics other than Excalibur, Aegis, and the bard horn I am sure they would be willing to spend gil on another jobs JA. Yes every PLD would want to buy Provoke and then be overpowered with ninja sub, but for 500 mill gil I damn well better than everyone else who has not spent 500 mill. Obviosly a JA would be buyable from an NPC so the gil is never seen again, and I would make it so people do not have to make a one time payment, they trade the NPC gil as many times as it takes until they have traded the correct amount of gil.

[yuriku]

Why not have a automatic adjusting economy?


Place a range on the amount of gill in game.

A Minimum amount of Gill
And a Maximum amount of Gill


When lots of money is intorduce via Beastman and NPC

Have all NPC's raise prices to compensate. Always keep the amount of gill withen a certin range? With all NPC in the game adjusting prices on that percentage, it would not be very noticable.

The game started with 0 gill and was deisgned to intorduce gill into the server. Now that there is so much purhpase it's time for a cap?

[BRP]

A lot of good ideas. In reality, the best thing SE could do, but would never do is, daily reset the gil on all gil selling accounts. Don't ban them, don't ban the farmers. Just take all their gil away from the system and before they could sell it. But that would downright NEVER happen.

[Semitry]

As BRP mentioned, the best way would be to wipe gilsellers gil. If SE cared, they would buy gil from IGE, track down who was sending it, wipe out that account + whatever account the credit card was associated with. Gilsellers are responsible for most of inflation be it price inflation or currency inflation. Price inflation through monopolizing, jacking up prices and forcing people to buy gil as their only outlet if they want to be "leet". Currency inflation through massive bots way before any of it seemed to be a problem.

If you all remembered rusty caps (which is still doable), that wasn't shit. The gilsellers had lu shangs in port windy, and the sarus since NA release. Think 50+, probably all by the same company. Each character amassed 500k- 1 mil per day. This has been going on for what? 2 years before it got nerfed. Each bot making 365 mil a year x 50+, that's a lot of fucking gil. Just wiping whoever runs the Mid****** bots on our server would probably cut like 25% of the gil from teh economy. But then, if SE did that, they would lose out on 50+ subscriptions. They're probably getting a cut of the gilseller's profits too. Because I don't know how else they could mpk without repercussions day after day.