Economy and Crafting - Idea

[Khamsin]

Okay, so crafter person says he can't make money because of oversupply, and someone else says things are too expensive nowadays. This averages out to prove my point that everything is still the same.

No, they don't average out because they both aren't about the same items. There's something that separates things like Dusk Gloves +1, Mahatma Cape, etc. from things like flame rings and triumph earrings. The former are worth several times more now than they used to be, and the latter are worth several times less than they used to be.

It would also devalue many items. Dusk Gloves +1? Mahatma Cape? 30% chance to HQ? Sure, but when they turn around to sell them, they'll be worth a fraction of the price because everyone else would have gotten a level 5 crystal and synthed one of those, too.

Don't forget how long it takes to actually collect 400,000 guild points. It would take like 5-6 months real life time, and that's if you're trading every day. On top of that, not everyone would go for the same item. In the end, you might have like a few people per server getting specific items (30% is still only slightly higher than a T2, it's definitely a far cry from guaranteed), at which point they have to wait another couple months before they can try again with that rate.

They would devalue for the sheer fact that they will become "guaranteed" with enough time and effort. All this method of synthing ends up doing is handing out guaranteed rewards after enough time and effort is put in. Can you be guaranteed a ridill after spending 3 hours a day in aery for 3 years? Can you be guaranteed a defending ring after spending 3 hours a day in dominion for 3 years? So why should crafters get a 30% fixed chance at a pair of dusk gloves +1 or a mahatma cape simply for levelling a craft to 100 and accumulating GP for 6 months? After a couple years, any old 100 crafter is nearly guaranteed a rare HQ like that under this system. If they implement a system like this, you'll start seeing people asking for similar system for HNMs. People will be saying "Hey, I spent 3 years doing the same thing every day, I should be given something for it, too!"

Do you want this to happen?

[aurik]

Won't solve the real problem which is everyone having a craft at 90+. The ability to make money sucks now because of overcompetition and relatively few crafted durables even have a market.

There are other things they can do to alleviate that as well. I don't think raising the crafting cap is a long term solution because once everyone hits the new cap, same problem again. One thing could do to alleviate that is Rare/Ex Recipe Scrolls dropped from NMs, for which the item cannot be synthed unless one has "learned" the recipe. Make them drop from normal lottery NMs, 24-hour NMs, sky gods, and hell even sea gods. This keeps the supply of these recipes low, and as such the number of people who can synth them will always be low.

That's just one thing, I'm sure I could think of others if I tried.

Raising the crafting cap is a long term solution as long as they're willing to keep raising it later. The natural stable point of most systems is gentle inflation.

Another alternative is to make craft skill degrade over time and require maintenance. It would be annoying as fuck but it would achieve the same effect of letting only the truly dedicated to a craft sit around with capped skill and thus capped potential.

Oh dear god, the clothcrafters would kill you. Bonecrafters wouldn't give a damn though.

I am both a clothcrafter and a bonecrafter. It would help fix the problem but it would cause a definite increase in my baby kitten drowning frequency.

[divisortheory]

They would devalue for the sheer fact that they will become "guaranteed" with enough time and effort. ?

They're already "guaranteed" with enough time and effort. If you synth a T0 1,000 times, you're "guaranteed" an HQ. Well, not really, but may as well be. However, the amount of time it would take you to fund enough synths to get an T0 HQ the normal way might work out to be about the same as the amount of time it would take to get enough GP to get enough of those crystals to "guarantee" the HQ.

[Khamsin]

They would devalue for the sheer fact that they will become "guaranteed" with enough time and effort. ?

They're already "guaranteed" with enough time and effort. If you synth a T0 1,000 times, you're "guaranteed" an HQ. Well, not really, but may as well be. However, the amount of time it would take you to fund enough synths to get an T0 HQ the normal way might work out to be about the same as the amount of time it would take to get enough GP to get enough of those crystals to "guarantee" the HQ.

I think you can see why three or four 30% synths is better than 1000 0.1% synths.

Plus, for the rarest synths, like Mahatma Cape, not even the crafters with a mule at 100 for every craft, with each one filled to the brim with max gil, is going to be able to synth 1000 of them in 2 years' time. However, if they could save up GP for 6 months and have a 30% chance, after 2 years they'd have had 4 chances. I pretty much can guarantee you that if this system was implemented, you'd see a lot more Mahamta Capes within 2 years than if things stayed the same.

[divisortheory]

I think you can see why three or four 30% synths is better than 1000 0.1% synths.

Plus, for the rarest synths, like Mahatma Cape, not even the crafters with a mule at 100 for every craft, with each one filled to the brim with max gil, is going to be able to synth 1000 of them in 2 years' time. However, if they could save up GP for 6 months and have a 30% chance, after 2 years they'd have had 4 chances. I pretty much can guarantee you that if this system was implemented, you'd see a lot more Mahamta Capes within 2 years than if things stayed the same.

Of course it's "better", that would be the entire motivation for saving the points. That's what people want, right? progress? But there are tons of T0 synths that people regularly synth in batches over and over to try to HQ, unlike Mahatma Cape, which is a fairly extreme example. Genie Weskit, Cursed Mitts, Koenig Shields, Dusk Gloves to name a few. For these, people are going to synth them anyway, and after a certain amount of time they're going to get HQs anyway if they're dedicated. I'm more interested in what would happen to 99% of the items, not 1% of the items.

Yes, it will increase the supply of HQs gradually over a long period of time, but who cares? There's still a market for NQs and there's bajillions of those. Who cares if each server has 10 mahatma capes in a year? So I sell it for 10 million instead of 30 million. Am I complaining? Without the ability to have a significant boost in my HQ rate I may never have gotten one in my whole life. Furthermore, with the huge drop in supply of NQs due to people trading for guild points, NQs would equalize out in price close to the cost of synthesis, thus alleviating the situation that many crafters face when trying to HQ, namely that if the die is not in their favor, they can lose millions on NQs. Would HQs be slightly devalued as a result? Obviously. Would the fact that NQs were not such a loss anymore offset that? It's not so clear.

[Khamsin]

I think you can see why three or four 30% synths is better than 1000 0.1% synths.

Plus, for the rarest synths, like Mahatma Cape, not even the crafters with a mule at 100 for every craft, with each one filled to the brim with max gil, is going to be able to synth 1000 of them in 2 years' time. However, if they could save up GP for 6 months and have a 30% chance, after 2 years they'd have had 4 chances. I pretty much can guarantee you that if this system was implemented, you'd see a lot more Mahamta Capes within 2 years than if things stayed the same.

Of course it's "better", that would be the entire motivation for saving the points. That's what people want, right? progress? But there are tons of T0 synths that people regularly synth in batches over and over to try to HQ, unlike Mahatma Cape, which is a fairly extreme example. Genie Weskit, Cursed Mitts, Koenig Shields, Dusk Gloves to name a few. For these, people are going to synth them anyway, and after a certain amount of time they're going to get HQs anyway if they're dedicated. I'm more interested in what would happen to 99% of the items, not 1% of the items.

Yes, it will increase the supply of HQs gradually over a long period of time, but who cares? There's still a market for NQs and there's bajillions of those. Who cares if each server has 10 mahatma capes in a year? So I sell it for 10 million instead of 30 million. Am I complaining? Without the ability to have a significant boost in my HQ rate I may never have gotten one in my whole life. Furthermore, with the huge drop in supply of NQs due to people trading for guild points, NQs would equalize out in price close to the cost of synthesis, thus alleviating the situation that many crafters face when trying to HQ, namely that if the die is not in their favor, they can lose millions on NQs. Would HQs be slightly devalued as a result? Obviously. Would the fact that NQs were not such a loss anymore offset that? It's not so clear.

The problem isn't that all HQs would be devalued slightly, its that a select few HQs would no longer be rare or (as) valuable. Genie Weskits are nothing. If someone had a Genie Weskit, you aren't going to go "Wow, that's a Genie Weskit, that's priceless and one of the few on this server!" You see a Mahatma Cape or Armada Hauberk, you will be thinking that. And for those types of items, specifically, they will be trivialized. Gone will be the days of seeing a rare crafted item, and knowing exactly who made it even without looking at the signature.

Consider ridills and d.rings for a moment. They're fairly rare, d.rings moreso than ridills, and having one is a status symbol. People know the names of those who have ridills and d.rings on their server.

What if, for every hour you spend in aery or dominion during a KB or Fafnir window you gained 1 point. Once you had 1000 points, you could could check a ??? in either place for a 30% chance of obtaining a ridill or 5% chance of obtaining a d.ring. Ridills and d.rings would no longer retain their status and rarity. People would no longer know who on their server has ridills and d.rings, nor would they care. Nearly two-thirds of the people who have been playing for 2+ years would have ridills, and one-tenth would have d.rings. That's a lot more than the amount of people that have them now, compared to the past 2 years. And worse, they'd only have those items due to the time they put in, regardless of claim or competition. They'd be devalued.

[Dank]

OK. This is a good idea, but let me throw a scenario out there.

If I were a crafter, and I spent 6 months trying to get points for a sooper-dooper crystal, and spent mad gil doing so, and I did everything in my power to make my HQ chance go up, and I crafted a NQ, I would quit the game.

It sounds like a great idea, but you are gonna have some people be severely pissed off, because you know how much SE loves making time/gil sinks with a lot of promise, and no payoff.

Ya, it could be a temp fix for the economy, but after 2-3 posts of "OMG MY SOOPER CRYSTAL SYNTH BROKE" on zam.com, nobody will try it anymore.

[Plow]

even if they're are so many people

ok I know grammar nazi posts suck but seriously WTF dude come on

[Sixtail]

This makes me glad I leveled cooking. Steady profit.

[Mifaco]

i agree with the OP, we should fuck over crafters even more X)

[Sixtail]

SE could never totaly break crafting. The glut of people who ran to bone/cloth/gold/wood back in mid 05 and grinded though it looking for the bling of the JPN crafters broke the markets far worse then SE ever could.

Any new rare/ex or whatnot that SE puts in can only be like putting a old sick horse to death.

[shinobi_tabi]

even if they're are so many people

ok I know grammar nazi posts suck but seriously WTF dude come on

HAHA! Here is some "correct" grammar: Blow me.
ps. you capitalize first letter of sentences and end them with a period

Every synth material EX would reduce the focus on crafting and turn it into a farmfest. The theory behind crafting for profit is that you buy materials for less than the effort it would have taken you to get personally, then provide a service to the community by 1) taking the risk that the synth materials would break and 2) making something with extremely high skill for enhanced result.

There are now so many morons crafting that they will do (1) for no profit--see for example amemet mantle +1 selling for 4x amemet skin price. They think they're making money when they get lucky and go 1/3, but they're not, they'll go 1/5 later.

And since everyone has max skill now, there is no competitive advantage, so you can't really make money off of (2).

The real money is having patience to do non-glory crafts like silk cloth and stuff. It's the equivalent of working in a mcdonalds, but it's risk free and actually decent money for time spent because it's so fucking boring.

Well we weren't talking about theories behind crafting for profit and 1) and 2) are still possible if your materials are ex.
The examples we all basically know by now too.
My idea about the "ex material" follows the logic that it takes a long time to craft now, limiting the supply.
It is still profit even if you farm materials to synth stuff, just takes longer, but it is still crafting for profit. see:chocolixir

...Take HQs out of system...

Huh?! Nono we want a way to make NQs actually worth somthing but, people still want a HQ over a NQ...

Raising the crafting cap is a long term solution as long as they're willing to keep raising it later. The natural stable point of most systems is gentle inflation.

I am not sure why you think raising the crafting cap is the solution to decreasing the the supply of armors and weapons, which was what the 1st post in this thread was about. Just think of how many new recipes they would have to keep adding, it would end up making certain things obsolete, which could be a good thing. But with people skilling up again and again, you are again flooded with NQs. And you know Mr. ISellNqDirtCheap will undercut stuff like crazy if market is very saturated, just to make his next 100k per day quota, somthing like that, you know what tactic i mean there.. lol

Some stuff...

People prefer HQs over NQs and adding alittle more then the normal as it is wouldn't be too bad. But i agree it would be bad if it was ridiculously easy to HQ anything, especially tier0.

If you're still reading, please go back to first post and reread it. Tell me it wasn't about doing somthing with all these crappy NQs...and increasing HQ rate alittle as a reward for doing that somthing...

reduce the shit out of the supply, hence creating more demand for items, which could have a major long term effect on the economy.

That sums up the OP well
Post, not poster ;P

[shinobi_tabi]

i agree with the OP, we should fuck over crafters even more X)

you read it? or you mean then original poster? he didn't mention what you say he did in the OP either.

[shinobi_tabi]

To further explain how making materials ex. would affect the economy.
Crafters would only be able to craft as much as they could farm, unlike now they can craft as much as they can buy out an AH.
I have seen chocolixir price has been pretty steady at 80-100k~ish 38 days since it's release on Bahamut, there is only 2? zones you can farm the ex. item needed from.
I will admit it would have drastic impacts, maybe bad ones, i can just imagine the look on leathercrafterjohnny's face when he sees he has to compete egains Xing1,Xing2,Xing3,Xing4 if he wants to craft an Amemet+1..lol
I think it would work pretty well, kind of how like the emp pin patch went. Never heard noone complain about that patch yet..


To elaborate absurdly, what if you were the only one who could make use of your crafted item? And couldn't sell it. Ever. Nevermind that is absurd.

[phirien]

its a good concept some others brought up some good points as to why it would be ineffective as well.

how about something like this:

-instead of offering a crystal that increases HQ rate, offer a crystal that allows for some statistical personalization.

imagine some kind of options similiar to our merit system.

200,000GP = +/- 1 attribute of your choice to synthed item.
300,0000GP = +/- 3 attributes of your choice to synthed item or 1-2 magic skills


may still be able to elminate a ton of gear/gil off the servers, while also allowing for crafters to make their items more unique. i think it could defnitely increase crafter profits (because its shit now bc of competition) due to a ton a comimision synths (some rich guy wants a scorp harness w/ 5 STR on it, pays you a ridiculous amount).

[Miji]

SE could never totaly break crafting. The glut of people who ran to bone/cloth/gold/wood back in mid 05 and grinded though it looking for the bling of the JPN crafters broke the markets far worse then SE ever could.

So you're saying a crafting system that doesn't accomodate an honestly small percentage of the player base wanting to craft is the players' faults? Think about what you're saying...

[Veli]

Won't solve the real problem which is everyone having a craft at 90+. The ability to make money sucks now because of overcompetition and relatively few crafted durables even have a market.

It doesn't help that SE occasionally adds items which fuck with crafted alternatives on the slot. Rajas/Tamas? Jet Seraweels? Ethereal Earring? Intensifying Cape? Yigit Gomlek? What melee job classes actually use crafted weapons...drk and drg?

I think this is the main problem with crafting now. I would think all those items did some damage to some synths. I know Walahra Turban was what hurt leather the most. I wonder why they dont let goldsmithers HQ the level 74 rings that would be a nice tier 0 synth. They added so many items to the game with assault and i think they should add some synthesis materials to assault also.

[divisortheory]

Yea, they really do add a ton of good items from NMs and Assault and Limbus and shit like that, why can't they add items of that caliber from crafting? If they had a single update where they added like 10 new items to each craft, and each item was really good in some way or another, that would fix crafting for quite a while. It's certainly doable, there was that one update where they added over 50 NMs.

[Merryck]

I think it would work pretty well, kind of how like the emp pin patch went. Never heard noone complain about that patch yet..

If you're from Bahamut, and you leveled in the Dunes prior to the Rare/Ex VE patch, you know him pretty damn well:

Songokou

[Ravenlokk]

There isn't any oversupply. Things cost the same as they did two years ago.

Last December, I was looking at the AH, and saw a 2 year old entry for errant cape priced at 6 mil. I saw one in a bazaar not long after, for closer to 60 mil. I also saw a Juggernaut for 70 mil, and I was recalling how I had bought a Juggernaut myself for 3 mil a couple years earlier.

Even with an oversupply (e.g. Juggernaut, since it drops 100% every few days), things are worth a lot more than they used to be. My hauberk cost me 2 mil, but do you know how much it cost barely 9 months ago?

Oversupply/Surplus = Supply - Demand

Im pretty sure more than 1 WAR hits lvl 70+ every 3 days. (New Lv75s, and people leveling alternate jobs)
So their is a steady demand.

Also, with GS gil farming, and gil re-entering circulation through RMT (often not legitimate gil) the currency becomes inflated- combined with the increasing demand significant inflation can occur.

As for the prices last chrismas, it is directly a result of a massive gil sale (duped gil) and its impact was much like counterfeiting- money loses its value and people will use any amount to get the items they want.

This isnt intended to be a flame, just an observation and my opinion. :D