a way around RMT and to regulate prices in the future

[edgarfigaro]

My idea has always been to make every single item NPC-able. Buy a Harness from an NPC for 20,000 and the problem ceases to exist.

Wow.

That would make a big part of this game worthless...I Don't think people would invest hundreds of hours into crafting just to sign something >.>

Seriously, the best part of FFXI is the player driven economy. People have their choices on how to earn gil, and how to spend it. You can camp NMs, do BCNMs, farm, craft...all with varying risks, varying rewards, and amount of effort involved. It is inherently a "fair" system in which you get what you put in. Unfortunately, RMT is ruining that, but the answer is not draconian measures against crafters, or price control. The answer is for SE to get off their asses and ban the gilsellers. I'd rather SE go all out like WoW and hit a few "innocent" bystanders than pussyfoot around like they do now. IF someone camps gil NM's 24/7...either they're addicted to camping NMs or gilsellers...either case they need to get banned. If a character sits around jeuno doing 30 gil transfers per hour every hour, they're not some casual player that just happens to have a ton of gil and likes to give it away, it's a gilseller mule, BAN it. So simple.

Basically, by putting price caps on items, you fundamentally change FFXI, and more likely than not, it would ruin the game.

[kareface]

I love the conspiracy theorys. Crafters can only control the price of something they have a monopoly over. There are only a few instances of this on any server. Accusing them of lowering NQ prices is a flawed argument.

Its meerly an end result of the crafting system. If crafters could get there material costs back on the NQ synth, there is no question in my mind that they would. NQ prices are simply supply vs. demand. If there is 100 of them on the AH and only 3 sell a day, the price will fall. If the price falls so far to the point where the HQ rate on the item is soo small to make a profit off of then no one will make them. Time passes with no sales of that item on the AH, then after time crafters will relist the NQ with a price relative to the current economy and HQ attempts will begin again.

[Xavier]

Crafters can not go solo Behemoth, Kirin, etc.

No but they certainly use their money to buy the drops (rare/ex and not).

Or they can just Bot them. right?
http://www.theorderls.com/phpBB2/viewto ... 01&start=0

Not really relevant, but kudos for changing the subject. You stay classy Vana'diel.

If you don't want to buy a SH or Haub because it cost to much then go wear lizard armor. Don't try to fix something that isn't broken from the high level crafters perspective.

you're right, we shouldn't ever fix anything because it might screw over a group of people.

we shouldn't of ended slavery because it inconvenienced white men

biased opinions spewing self-interest mean little to nothing to me

Talk about self interest? I'm not selling slaves, how can you make a moral argument from crafted items to slavery?

You're complaining about any changes to a system that would benefit the community as a whole, while adversely affecting crafters in a small way. Its not a moral argument, its a comparison that sometimes the greater good is better than self-interest policy.

The only thing I've really seen is that crafters seem to cry a lot about changes to help the economy.

[aurik]

The only thing I've really seen is that stupid crafters seem to cry a lot about changes to help the economy.

Fixed. The smart ones find the new seams that the changes introduce and make a fortune by being there first.

Anyway, I think it would be dumb to make "the best" things readily available from npc, for the same reason why it would be stupid to have an npc sell abjurations for a "reasonable" price. If you do that, why would players even bother leaving town?

[Xavier]

Anyway, I think it would be dumb to make "the best" things readily available from npc, for the same reason why it would be stupid to have an npc sell abjurations for a "reasonable" price. If you do that, why would players even bother leaving town?

I do now, as I have always believed, that simply instancing 3 kings would fix the game. No reason to put things on an npc when LSes can just fight Nidhogg 10 times a day, or even make it on a 3 day timer, weekly timer, wouldn't matter, 1 nidhogg a week is a lot better average than almost any LS can claim.

I remember I read one of the reasons Square didn't want to instance, outside of the fact that they're retarded and don't know how, is because putting 3 kings into a BCNM environment wouldn't be like playing an online game anymore. Which totally makes sense, since people could enter the bc and solo the mob.

[kareface]

I do now, as I have always believed, that simply instancing 3 kings would fix the game. No reason to put things on an npc when LSes can just fight Nidhogg 10 times a day, or even make it on a 3 day timer, weekly timer, wouldn't matter, 1 nidhogg a week is a lot better average than almost any LS can claim.

I think that would devalue the items they drop tho. Even if you put it on a one week timer, thats still 1 week for each group (not LS, but group of ppl within a LS) to enter. The ammount of nid's that would pop (so to speak) per week would be 10x's what it is now. Unless they changed the drop rate (from like 5% to .5% or lower) the "rare" items would just become common place.

Endgame is important. Its what keeps people going inbetween content patches and expansions. Asking them to constantly add engdame content to keep up with the upper 5% of the server is unrealistic. If they increased the drop rate of the one reason why most LSs sill participate in day-to-day activities, once people got what they wanted then what? Even if its boring and tedious what end game content isn't in some way.

You do run into less problems instancing things, and if they changed the drop rate it could even it out. The best idea I heard for the 3 kings was making the kings spawn in 2-3 diffrent places, and the HQ could only spawn at one of the 3 per normal king cycle. It would be harder for one LS to control the spawns, and maybe the other spawn areas could be a little larger then dragons aery. Or just taking there current spawn areas and enlagring them so there are 2-3 large areas in the aery, behe's area and the vally. When you think about it, all 3 zones are rather small compared to most other zones in the game. They could use a remodle anyway.

*keeps thinking about possibilities*

What do you think of this idea. Using the basis of what I just said. Remodeling the 3 kings areas so they are much larger and there are 3 "spawn areas", each roughly the size of the current spawn area. During the NQ pops, they can spawn at any of the 3 places. This would make it much harder for the LS botters, because the area is 3 times the size and much further apart. Then on the day of the HQ, the HQ can randomly pop at one of the 3 camps, and the NQ will pop at the other 2 camps (just to allow a consolation prize for the other LSs there. Going to niddy would kick ass because even if you don't claim you still get a chance at a ridill.

Just a random thought.

[aurik]

Man that sounds stupid.

The argument that "increasing king item drop rates will lead to endgame players getting bored and quitting the game"...uh...lol? The biggest problem with endgame right now is it's boring camping the same mobs for 3-9 hours a day, day after day after day. The worst of it is that the reward system is so random and stingy you don't even have anything to show for it most of the time.

Now that I'm temporarily retired from endgame, I realize that there's so much content in this game that I never had the time to explore when I was spending my life staring at darters. Unfortunately, a lot of this content that requires more than 4 or 5 people and therefore is virtually impossible to organize because all my friends are dragged to 3-9 hours of HNM camping per day.

Anyway, Xav, I think a set of "3 kings" ENMs would be great. Make it locked like the ouryu fight is, so that you have to do something -- farm pop item? -- to actually get into the fight.

It'll also make it harder because a lot of shells, when they first learn to kill the nms, execute a "rotating tank" / "rotating DD" strategy, where you rotate out the people as they get killed, and eventually the mob gets bored and dies. Can't really do that with a player limit. But then, you actually get to try the fight once a week, so people would learn fast.

[Septimus]

Now that I'm temporarily retired from endgame, I realize that there's so much content in this game that I never had the time to explore when I was spending my life staring at darters. Unfortunately, a lot of this content that requires more than 4 or 5 people and therefore is virtually impossible to organize because all my friends are dragged to 3-9 hours of HNM camping per day.

It really annoys me when people disrespect NPC Fellows because they have nothing to do with end-game. Not everything has to revolve around Fafnir/Nidhogg/KB/Aspid, people should go out and enjoy other things. (The Fellowship storyline is very good. >_<)

[Bryn]

Fixed. The smart ones find the new seams that the changes introduce and make a fortune by being there first.

Bingo.

Anyways, I don't believe making the higher end gear readily available via NPC. Just the crafting materials. As was pointed out, the subligar desynth hasn't affected Nobles and manteel much. HQs would still go for a lot of money, and the smart crafters would make money off crafting fees. Shoot, even now, tipping the crafter for a high levle synth is a courteous thing to do, considering the investment they make to help us.

[aurik]

Actually, the subligar has affected the availability of the manteel a ton. Especially during xmas when people were buying nobles tunics for 25m and manteel for 50m, as a clothcrafter you just can't lose with those odds.

I think over 1 billion gil got flushed down the subligar desynth drain over xmas. I know I flushed almost 200 mil, and I'm rather conservative when it comes to risk. Another crafter I know self-sold a full stack of shining cloths lol...