Inflation issues, is it really inflation that bothers us?

[Zigrah]

Number 1 it simulates a market crash, suddenly peoples gil drops faster than prices can, some people get extremely poor while others get considerably rich. When you suddenly remove extreme amounts of money from an economy prices will be forced to drop of course.

gradual deflation is different from sudden deflation. who with 1M is going to spend 50k on a single piece of Dynamis Currency or spend 200k to buy Ancient Beastcoins from an NPC?

When you use a word like "huge gil sinks", I don't get that your talking about gradual deflation. I know gradual deflation is different, that's why I mentioned both previously.

buying from these "huge gil sinks" like everyone else.

you think everyone will buy Kindred Seals and Beastmen Seals from NPCs until they are broke?

Last I checked, people profitted from Kindred seals. I don't think people would buy them if they would lose money from them. The rare exception might be rare/ex items but if these are gilsinks for the rich only, they most likely own better items. If people do profit from them then yes they will keep buying them and mass deflation will occur.

as you can't just create one perfect gil sink that everyone will use and so on.

you don't want to create a perfect gil sink that everyone will use. you want gil sinks that only rich players will use, you only want to take gil off the top.

that's why you only sell optional items, Dynamis Currency, Ancient Beastcoins, Seals, they are totally optional, people can and do get them in other ways. poor people will simply stick with the usual ways in acquiring them, a lot of people don't even have any use for them.

you never want to make large gil sinks that people have to use.

Doing that would define prices on currency period. People would be required to sell them for less than the vendor, Most people don't buy currency but the ones that do will look for the lowest price and there are bazaars that always have currency to spare. Plus you're still neglecting the rich person that doesn't use those gil sinks and then suddenly quadruples their value merely by waiting... once that happens they are in a position to define prices for everyone.

Economy needs to deflate very slowly, or not at all and just stabilize where it is. Mass deflation is a bad thing if you ask me.

never asked for mass deflation. what's wrong with deflation in general? i don't know why my suggestion would produce mass deflation.

i'm definitely not going to dump gil into Beastman Seals or Kindred Seals. i certainly don't have enough personal gil to invest in Dynamis Currency, i wouldn't dump any LS money into it either.

i might get a few Ancient Beastcoins to upgrade AF+1s for fun though.

You may not have used those exact words but ideally you want quests to be profitable again, if that isn't mass deflation I don't know what is.

There's also the problem of that also creating an economy that soars and plummits constantly, it would lack stability all together which I think you agree is the ultimate goal.

it has already soared, you need a system to make it go down, gradually without the ability to go back up.

when the people that can actually upgrade full relics dump all their gil, they won't anymore, deflation will slow.

when the price of KS30 rewards are worth less than buying 30 KS from the NPCs, than people will stop buying KS. when BCNM40 rewards are worth less than buying 40 Beastman Seals, people will stop buying those. or they'll collect 38 through normal methods and be lazy and just buy the last 2.

nothing about the 4 items i suggest be sold by NPCs is required. if it's more economical to not buy from the NPCs, people will stop. deflation will slow, inflation will creep up, than people will have more gil to spend on this kind of stuff, and somewhere in between there'll be a balance.

Again, first you say nobody will participate... then you say they will be potentially profitable which everyone will flock to. For the first 3 days people will do them until the items flood the market and drop like crazy... then people will barely see the point and your gilsink suddenly fails. Not to mention people just desperately selling before their item becomes worthless... it will be 5 million gil peacock charms all over again. It will either not work or the market will drop very fast. Then when nobody can afford to do them items will skyrocket again until the market reinflates to a point where people can spend again and prices will drop a ton again and repeat many times. That hardly screams stability to me.

Anyways I must reiterate that my issue here was with Square Enix's proposed stratgegy to combat inflation which lies solely on banning gil selling accounts. I don't argue that gradual deflation will work but your methods are wrong. In order to achieve thiss you can't just create "huge gil sinks" you need to affect everyone by raising chocobo prices, AH fees, eliminating the ability to cheat these taxes by simply standing outside rolanberry. The goal isn't to make the rich as poor as we are, SE isn't robin hood and that hardly creates a functional economy.

It needs to gradually effect everyone and take it out really slow so it barely seems noticible until it's already over. regardless... SE isn't doing anything and I still believe their looting system and mass rarity of items encourages people to RMT.

[Kenai]

I partially agree with the above post. Banning gilseller accounts alone will not solve all problems, but they are a big step in the right direction, just because I still firmly agree that if players earn that money rather than buy it, they will be more careful about spending it and manage it a bit better.

I always figured that the gil sinks for the "richer" people were breaking synths on crafts, especially while they were skilling up. I know that happened to a friend of mine anyway...was planning on making some money on HQ A Mantels and broke 6 synths in a row.

The loot system to me I believe is flawed in a sense that there are a lot of gear pieces that have no equal, so people will always want them, yet they aren't really considered luxury items (although that is somewhat improving with the addition of JSE and such). However, RMTing is the "easy" button, and in my opinion is as bad as the Rusty Bucket thing was, but in a different way. People never "needed" to RMT ever, but it saved a lot of time for the person, so they did it, and had no concept of how to save it of even dpend it wisely, much like those young children who spend their money the second they get it (sometimes not a bad thing, but it cases like this, yea).

[layoneil]

When you use a word like "huge gil sinks", I don't get that your talking about gradual deflation. I know gradual deflation is different, that's why I mentioned both previously.

"Huge Gil Sinks" and deflation are different. buying Barone pieces from the NPCs in Safehold is a potential huge gil sink that's already in the game but it doesn't cause any deflation right now because no one uses it.

"Huge Gil Sinks" can exist without deflation but they can also cause deflation when people use them. Subligar desynths is a huge gil sink, some people use it, but not everyone does.

i'm suggesting more of these that more people will use. but like the subligars there will get to a point when it's no longer worth it. and get to a point when people will avoid it like buying Barone pieces from the same NPCs.

Last I checked, people profitted from Kindred seals. I don't think people would buy them if they would lose money from them.

exactly, initially 50k per Kindred might be worth it, but as the economy deflates, less and less people will use this NPC as they would find that the items they get to sell isn't even covering the cost.

but that doesn't mean people will stop completely, if you have 98 KS and you can get a quick last seal for 100k someone will still do it.

there's a huge difference in paying 9.9M for a stack of 99KS and trying to profit than buying a few to finish off a stack. very few people would be stupid enough to drop close to 10M on 99KS, the ones that are deserve to lose all their gil.

but if these are gilsinks for the rich only, they most likely own better items.

you can't own better than Dynamis Currency because the supply via normal means is so low. that is why i dislike selling items, NPC selling Haubergeons is stupid, selling Scorpion Harnesses is stupid.

you want to sell something that takes an extra few steps before it becomes worthwhile to the player.

people don't always win KS fights, KS fights also don't always drop good items. players who are not mentally deficient will take that into consideration when they decide to buy Seals. weighing the cost, sometimes 20/30, it's worth the risk to buy 10 more, but other times it won't be. Venemous Claw doesn't drop off of every KS30 orb.

If people do profit from them then yes they will keep buying them and mass deflation will occur.

the rate is hard to predict but you and i both know at one point it will stop because people will cease to profit from them.

Doing that would define prices on currency period. People would be required to sell them for less than the vendor

what does it matter if it's done guild style? the defined price would increase every hour if people kept buying out the "guild". than you'd force the people to buy from players anyway.

Most people don't buy currency but the ones that do will look for the lowest price and there are bazaars that always have currency to spare.

if bazaars have currency to spare that's because the price is too high or players are obtaning too much currency. the latter is hard to believe.

Plus you're still neglecting the rich person that doesn't use those gil sinks and then suddenly quadruples their value merely by waiting... once that happens they are in a position to define prices for everyone.

i neglect this because the effects can't be permanent. eventually, these people will have to spend their gil too. these people will never be able to define the price of everything and they won't be able to define prices for long periods of time.

this is a player economy in the first place, certain players will always define the price. what makes this different?

You may not have used those exact words but ideally you want quests to be profitable again, if that isn't mass deflation I don't know what is.

mass deflation implies that this happens in a short period of time. my suggestions has no definition on the time frame of which this deflation will occur.

Again, first you say nobody will participate... then you say they will be potentially profitable which everyone will flock to. For the first 3 days people will do them until the items flood the market and drop like crazy... then people will barely see the point and your gilsink suddenly fails. Not to mention people just desperately selling before their item becomes worthless... it will be 5 million gil peacock charms all over again. It will either not work or the market will drop very fast. Then when nobody can afford to do them items will skyrocket again until the market reinflates to a point where people can spend again and prices will drop a ton again and repeat many times. That hardly screams stability to me.

it won't happen this way because it's player controlled, because Currency, Beastcoins and Seals are spread out across so many things.

the Peacock thing happened because it was 1 item. simply people flocking to do BCNMs doesn't mean everyone will do the same one. and because of low drop rates in general, there's a limit to how much people will throw at these gil sinks in a short amount of time.

players can't flood all the KSNM drops and all the BCNM drops at the same time. there are just too many out there. there are also too many players that don't have the ability to do these all the time.

on top of that, a guild selling system would limit how many Seals players can buy on any given day.

the rate of disaster that you predict can easily be averted by limiting players to 10 seals per RL day, or whatever X amount. the game is more than capable of doing this.

In order to achieve thiss you can't just create "huge gil sinks" you need to affect everyone by raising chocobo prices, AH fees, eliminating the ability to cheat these taxes by simply standing outside rolanberry. The goal isn't to make the rich as poor as we are, SE isn't robin hood and that hardly creates a functional economy.

if the rich players spend themselves to that degree on these items, than they are stupid. all of these things are optional investments.

Robin Hood forcifully removes the money from the rich. no one can forcifully make someone buy currency or seals. people have to choose to decrease their wealth in this manner.

this is absolutely no different from subligar desynths except it would appeal to a larger base of players.

in the current system, if you apply across the board changes, you'll just end up with a lot of poor players who can't afford chocobos and poor players who can't afford to even sell items on the AH. whatever changes they make they have to keep the poor from getting poorer.

I always figured that the gil sinks for the "richer" people were breaking synths on crafts

that has no gil sink effect unless the materials come from NPCs. breaking a Venemous Claw just took the gil from a rich crafter and relocated to another person (probably a NM hunter who really wasn't poor to begin with).

gil sinks have to make the gil disappear, not make items disappear.