How to stop the inflation

[Aeni]

Re: How to stop the inflation

Problem with the suggestions provided to get rid of money are that they affect only 1% of all players - those with 75 jobs and are active in Dynamis or high end crafting. The solutions posed do not do anything about new players with purchased gil, which consideraly outnumbers the older players. The older players will continually find ways to spend their gil while the newer players, because of equipment restriction to levels and all the new lower level capped content SE provided in COP, will not have much opportunity to spend that large sum of gil.

The solution then is to target new players with those purchased gil. The only thing I can think of is outright taxing them for having a million gil on a character that don't have a job over level 20. Let's say, 20% of their total income on that character every Vana'Diel week will just magically disappear. This will force the gil buyers either to blow all their gil on over inflated equipment and weapons and then see the value of their purchase rapidly degrade once the economy stabilizes itself for that lower level bracket or risk losing it through attrition.

In reality, NO lowbie and new player should even have that much gil on them. If their friends are trying to help them, they shouldn't dole out millions of gil at once. The only way I see for characters that have that kind of money would be mules, but forcing players with a higher level main job to take that gil back should make things more interesting (Forcing them to spend that gil rather than hoard it)

[Yossar]

Re: How to stop the inflation

I don't think that gilsellers are the real problem.

Inflation is linked to the quantity of money avaible in the market (M), if M increases, prices raise. The only solution to stop inflation is to destroy money (via NPC's -access to special content should cost X gils, etc-).

Gilsellers come in play to artificially keep prices high. If prices go to high they should automatically go down (less demand at a higher price).

To sum up, I believe that the only viable solution is destroying money (getting it out of the market).

There are other options but they wouldn't deal with the inflation problem itself. They would offer a "parallel market" -NPCs selling items, ex/rare itemization, etc-.

Yup, basically the only way you can stop it is by removing the gil from the economy some way. Extending and increasing Bazaar taxes would work, but people would just trade on the higher items. Increasing chocobo and outpost warp fees would help, too, but in all honesty, it would probably have little effect. Read through some of the discussion on A Discourse on the Economy of FFXI. Odangotama of Midgardsormr did some calculating and it is quite staggering how much gil is created by NPCs even without exploits like the Rusty Cap fiassco.

Aeni, forcing low level characters to spend gil is screwing over many people that use mules to hold LS collective items and gil and mules that people use for crafting. I know one guy that has like two or three lvl 90+ crafting mules. Oh, and not to mention the people that use mules for Bazaaring. Also, hoarding gil lowers the amount of it in circulation, which lowers prices, at least until it's spent. If you force people to spend gil, even more of it will be put into circulation which will create even more chaos.

[Aeni]

Re: How to stop the inflation

Aeni, forcing low level characters to spend gil is screwing over many people that use mules to hold LS collective items and gil and mules that people use for crafting. I know one guy that has like two or three lvl 90+ crafting mules. Oh, and not to mention the people that use mules for Bazaaring. Also, hoarding gil lowers the amount of it in circulation, which lowers prices, at least until it's spent. If you force people to spend gil, even more of it will be put into circulation which will create even more chaos.

No, the problem is we have gil, regardless if it's spent or not spent, in massive quantities. RMT or not, gil buyer or not, the fundamental problem is MONEY SUPPLY, not money in circulation.

If you want to see this in a different perspective, try to imagine all these holders of gil as banks. What happens in an economy if a Bank have more money than they could count? If you have several hundred thousands of such Bank in a country? If all loans and transactions are done w/o taxing, w/o interest levied, etc.?

We need to destroy this excess MONEY SUPPLY. Decommission it, make it disappear, something. Millions were made in that rusty cap fiasco, but as you've said, even without that, millions more were and are still being generated by NPCs.

Removing money from circulation does nothing, as long as this huge tidal wave of hoarded gil is hanging over your head, ready to come down crashing at any moment. If you strip even 25% of all gil that is in the game, you could make a huge impact on inflation.

[Yossar]

Re: How to stop the inflation

No, the problem is we have gil, regardless if it's spent or not spent, in massive quantities. RMT or not, gil buyer or not, the fundamental problem is MONEY SUPPLY, not money in circulation.

If you want to see this in a different perspective, try to imagine all these holders of gil as banks. What happens in an economy if a Bank have more money than they could count? If you have several hundred thousands of such Bank in a country? If all loans and transactions are done w/o taxing, w/o interest levied, etc.?

We need to destroy this excess MONEY SUPPLY. Decommission it, make it disappear, something. Millions were made in that rusty cap fiasco, but as you've said, even without that, millions more were and are still being generated by NPCs.

Removing money from circulation does nothing, as long as this huge tidal wave of hoarded gil is hanging over your head, ready to come down crashing at any moment. If you strip even 25% of all gil that is in the game, you could make a huge impact on inflation.

Money supply and money in circulation are both problems, but the circulation matters more. Case in point, the gil sellers were holding massive amounts of gil. Our economy was chugging along and when IGE had their sale, the money in circulation sky rocketed causing the massive inflation as of late. If a person were to hoard half of the money in the U.S. (I know it's not possible >.>) and then stuff it under thier bed, you would see the value of the dollar go up. I'm not saying the overall supply doesn't matter, because sooner or later, it's going to get out there, but keeping as much gil as possible out of circualtion helps things. Forcing peopls to spend it would not. Read through the figures that Elowan and Odango posted on A Discourse on the Economy of FFXI. Buying things on the AH does little to kill the money supply. All you're doing is forcing the money to be spent faster, which increases circulation and the rate of things being bought. Thus prices will increase as demand rises. Meanwhile, a staggering amount of gil is being created in this ecnomony everyday. Sure, Vir/Femina subligars help, but it'll take a lot more than those to combat what is going on.

[Aeni]

Re: How to stop the inflation

I need to elaborate on that post just now ... www.

Okay, here's what I'm thinking.

We now know, according to my own speculation, [1] which has not yet been challenged by anyone (I even invite the disciples of gil buying to come here and refute my claims if they want to) that much or most of the gil being hoarded by RMT are on no-level characters or characters otherwise known as "mules." The reason, the heart of this strategy, is to avoid a problem which might've appeared back when SE removed the alleged "800 accounts" that were involved in RMT and other "player abuse." [2] [3] How much, however, of these accounts were removed due to RMT is still up for speculation. But assuming that only 10% of these accounts were terminated, if the gil bank were the main characters themselves, you will see why RMT companies changed their gil-bank strategy.

Now, players with mules that craft for them can still avoid the penalty I outlined in the above post. If they simply moved all their gil back to their main account, we will not have much issues. Yet, RMT companies cannot do this, because they will risk losing a bulk of their business if all that hoarded gil lie on their main character (farmers) and if SE decided to terminate those accounts.

I think this idea works basically on the principle of common sense. How many of you players, in the absence of high level player friends, was able to accumulate more than a million gil before hitting level 20 on your main character? Aside from Leaping Lizzy before the update which changed the drop and the very rare rabbit charm from a certain NM rabbit in West Ronfaure, I know no other method of which a new player could possibly accumulate that much gil without being able to enjoy the rest of the game. Many players that I know of will focus all efforts on getting to level 20, the minimum requirement in order to start the Chocobo License quest.



[1] http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52640
[2] http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/final...s_6118597.html
[3] http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news3374.shtml

Double Post Edited:

Case in point, the gil sellers were holding massive amounts of gil. Our economy was chugging along and when IGE had their sale, the money in circulation sky rocketed causing the massive inflation as of late. If a person were to hoard half of the money in the U.S. (I know it's not possible >.>) and then stuff it under thier bed, you would see the value of the dollar go up. I'm not saying the overall supply doesn't matter, because sooner or later, it's going to get out there, but keeping as much gil as possible out of circualtion helps things

However, you're forgetting what happens to the gil that is in circulation now after the recent gil buying rampage. Certain individuals who are now massively reaping this benefit will eventually sell this gil back to the RMT. Also, who's to say that much of this gil isn't going back to RMT players? RMT does not just encapsulate farming activities. They also buy gil from other players as well as craft the sought after items themselves. Thus, removing money from circulation isn't doing anything about the problem. It is the hoarded supply that will make the RMT companies hurt a lot and may eventually force them to leave this game if they no longer see this game as a viable business opportunity if their risk is overwhelming and detrimental to their ability to make money.

Of course, you could do a two way removal of both accumulation and circulation, but you're also going on to the extreme opposite, of which I do not know where the danger lies in that.

[Yossar]

Re: How to stop the inflation

I need to elaborate on that post just now ... www.

Okay, here's what I'm thinking.

We now know, according to my own speculation, [1] which has not yet been challenged by anyone (I even invite the disciples of gil buying to come here and refute my claims if they want to) that much or most of the gil being hoarded by RMT are on no-level characters or characters otherwise known as "mules." The reason, the heart of this strategy, is to avoid a problem which might've appeared back when SE removed the alleged "800 accounts" that were involved in RMT and other "player abuse." [2] [3] How much, however, of these accounts were removed due to RMT is still up for speculation. But assuming that only 10% of these accounts were terminated, if the gil bank were the main characters themselves, you will see why RMT companies changed their gil-bank strategy.

Now, players with mules that craft for them can still avoid the penalty I outlined in the above post. If they simply moved all their gil back to their main account, we will not have much issues. Yet, RMT companies cannot do this, because they will risk losing a bulk of their business if all that hoarded gil lie on their main character (farmers) and if SE decided to terminate those accounts.

I think this idea works basically on the principle of common sense. How many of you players, in the absence of high level player friends, was able to accumulate more than a million gil before hitting level 20 on your main character? Aside from Leaping Lizzy before the update which changed the drop and the very rare rabbit charm from a certain NM rabbit in West Ronfaure, I know no other method of which a new player could possibly accumulate that much gil without being able to enjoy the rest of the game. Many players that I know of will focus all efforts on getting to level 20, the minimum requirement in order to start the Chocobo License quest.



[1] http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52640
[2] http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/final...s_6118597.html
[3] http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news3374.shtml

I'm fairly sure that the accounts that got terminated were the obvious 24/hour campers and what not (even a lot of them survived). While those accounts hold lots of gil, they usually sell it off to companies like IGE fairly quickly. IGE does not involve themselves in camping, mining, whatever. They buy their gil in bulk from overseas and sell it to FFXI players in NA at a profit. If S-E is going to take the time to do all of what you said, they could easily just pick out those gil selling accounts and delete them. Even if they did what you say, gil sellers would just adapt. There is just too much money to be made in that business to just give it all up easily. They might take a small financial hit, but in reality, they'll just come back stronger than ever.

Yes, RMTers are annoying, but they're not the ones creating the gil right now, we are. Even selling items to NPCs does quite a bit of damage to the economy. When you sell something on the AH, aside from the AH fee, the gil amount stays reletively the same, it just changes hands. If you sell said items to an NPC instead of AH, even if you get less money from the NPC, you still hurt the economy by creating gil. Fact of the matter is, more gil is being created than destroyed. The RMTers just made a bad situation worse when they took money they had stored, had their massive gil sale, and all that hoared gil was returned to the economy.

[Alontier]

Re: How to stop the inflation

There is much focus on gil sellers that they are to be blamed and little on the buyers,
but I think the buyers are equally, if not more responsible.
Banning of the gil sellers accounts may have little effects for the companies that are selling,
but banning of the accounts from the players that are buyin should have a more intimidating effect.

[Aeni]

Re: How to stop the inflation

There is much focus on gil sellers that they are to be blamed and little on the buyers,
but I think the buyers are equally, if not more responsible.
Banning of the gil sellers accounts may have little effects for the companies that are selling,
but banning of the accounts from the players that are buyin should have a more intimidating effect.

The problem is, you cannot readily identify a gil buyer. Most gil buyers (Don't quote me on this) are probably those kinds of one-time situational players, where they'll err on the bad side once or twice, but not repeatedly. In other words, they'll commit themselves to a transaction once, but more than likely will not do it again. It's kind of an innocence psychology where the player will liken this to experimental use of a drug (i.e., taking that first hit of marijuana because you were "curious.")

So, are you going to believe that a transaction that is worth at least 1 million gil should automatically make that player suspect? What of players who trade over /tells and never meet with each other in game? I could sell someone an SH and by trust alone (I know, this rarely happens, but is more common between JP players I think) that player will send me the money. Is there a basis for any accusation of an RMT transaction?

Solid-jamz, again, you cannot assume how RMT will operate. You cite IGE as one such company but it is not the only player in the field. In fact, it may not even be the biggest player on the scene. An organized group is more efficient at what they do and has less problems with trying to float a financial documentation without it ever being publicly available (and thus jeopardizing their legality with authorities in their home countries) Even between RMT companies there is a trust factor involved, not unlike the ones you find in-game, when you have a situation where someone contacts a crafter and wishes to pay for the crafting involved. If the crafter up and stiffs the player it is much like one company that might stiff the other company, only in this case, real money exchanges hands, not just virtual currency.

The impact RMT has in this game should never be taken lightly. Since you cannot readily identify gil buyers or build a case against an alleged "one-time" time offender, the only other method is either to indentify the RMT (which is near impossible without dipping into circumstantial evidence and heresay) or to implement a non-discrimnatory system of removing stored gil.

If you want an extreme answer to the question you posed, Solid-jamz, I'll be the first to propose a non-buyback system on ALL NPCs in this game. Thus, no one is allowed to sell their goods to the NPC and must liquidate their items through the AH or player interaction. This will more than likely stop power leveling in crafting thus limiting the amount of high level crafters in the field. If players insist on continuing to power level in crafts, they are forced to dump their items and thus gil is promptly removed from the game and not returned by the NPC.

[Manatra]

Re: How to stop the inflation

I'm just going to post what I've said before, since this is probably the only reasonable solution SE has:

Trying to get rid of gilsellers is a near herculean task that realistically, cannot be accomplished. Blizzard for example has been quite public about its campaign against gold sellers, yet there are constantly new farmers popping up (this can be attributed to readily bought accounts and cheap copies of the game available).

...

Thus for the consumer it's a lose/lose situation, and the only way I can see SE getting themselves out of this hole is basically nullifying the relevance of most equipment across the level ranges. Which is why I think with the expansion we will see a massive influx of /EX gear at every level that will be earned through quests, missions, and BCNM/ENMs that will be equivelant/better than the current gear available (the solo content SE is promising?). But I know one thing is for sure, it's time for some good ol' mudflation.

But in the immediate future, there is not much SE can do... the game simply wasn't designed with gilsellers factored into the equation, and I don't think at the time they could have foreseen that gilsellers would have been a problem either.

[Medalink]

Re: How to stop the inflation

Lets gather some hackers and wipe out the GS sites?

>.>

<.<

....

Medalink

[Coinspinner]

Re: How to stop the inflation

Trying to get rid of gilsellers is a near herculean task that realistically, cannot be accomplished. Blizzard for example has been quite public about its campaign against gold sellers, yet there are constantly new farmers popping up (this can be attributed to readily bought accounts and cheap copies of the game available).

...

Thus for the consumer it's a lose/lose situation, and the only way I can see SE getting themselves out of this hole is basically nullifying the relevance of most equipment across the level ranges. Which is why I think with the expansion we will see a massive influx of /EX gear at every level that will be earned through quests, missions, and BCNM/ENMs that will be equivelant/better than the current gear available (the solo content SE is promising?). But I know one thing is for sure, it's time for some good ol' mudflation.

But in the immediate future, there is not much SE can do... the game simply wasn't designed with gilsellers factored into the equation, and I don't think at the time they could have foreseen that gilsellers would have been a problem either.

Like WoW, where the best equipment for each level range is mostly EX items that can (or must, since this game uses level caps often) be gotten with a group or alliance around the level where the equipment becomes available. It'd be an easy solution but I don't think they're willing to abandon the player economy ideal that easily.

[Sanim]

Re: How to stop the inflation

Like WoW, where the best equipment for each level range is mostly EX items that can (or must, since this game uses level caps often) be gotten with a group or alliance around the level where the equipment becomes available. It'd be an easy solution but I don't think they're willing to abandon the player economy ideal that easily.

That's it. Changing the items is betraying their conception of the game. What they have to solve is the real problem behind inflation: the quantity of money in the market.

Well, I've read the link that solid-jamz posted and it sums up everything. No need to talk more about it imo

[progenitor]

Re: How to stop the inflation

It is the rate at which new gil is created that is destroying the economy.

Last Novemeber, I made 30 million from one GC99 run. Post x-mas gil inflation, I would have made 40-50mil. I sold it all to other players, but where did they get their gil?

How is new gil crated? Where does it come from?

It's not the NM camping and claiming that creates gil, it is not selling NM drops to other players that creates gil. It is the gil droped from mobs and gil obtained from selling to NPCs that creates new gil, and to a much lesser extent, quests and missions.

Even with AH taxes, chocobo costs, NPC's selling stuff, dynamis and limbus, the amount of gil absorbed by the game, is still signifigantly less than the gil created by other actions.

I'm sure SE never inteaded for a large quanity of people to farm 24/7, as they do now.

While it might take a bit of effort, mob gil drops and NPC prices need to fluctuate. The longer a person is in a zone, the less gil drops for them, till it reaches 0, the less items should drop too probably as well. They need adequate measures in place to make sure that just zoning in and out doesn't reset it, that it is somehow time based.

NPC's that buy/sell items, should base their price off of the amount being sold to to the NPCS across the world. The more item XYZ that is in NPC hands, the less the value of it becomes. Perhaps even having the NPC's put items they don't normally sell onto the market at their closest AH, to keep the items in game. Perhaps even readjusting their prices with each holiday that they have or every tally.

Without some sort of control over how new gil is created, the ecnomy will always skyrocket out of control.

-p

[kuu]

Re: How to stop the inflation

It is the rate at which new gil is created that is destroying the economy.

Please read the many many and I do say many threads on this...

It is a very inefficent way to lower inflatation. It's like a boy trying to put a bandaid on a punctured rib.

The way we do it in real life is the almightly "raising interest rates" One would have to take an eco or business class to realise why this works.

BUT the main way it works is through banks, which ffxi lack.

So ffxi needs a more creative, if not more basic way, most of which SE has implimented.

In one of the basic ways the core of what the US government does and it is not actually decreasing money supply(not a lot) but, decreasing the rate at which money transfers. To apply that to ffxi, is a little hard, since gil does move so fast and more people means it moves yet faster.

So then the problem is how to lower the popularity of trade, while at the same time, still making it fun and convient. Maybe some kind of creative sub system can be invented.

IMOO: The resent jump in prices wasn't because a system broken, but the wide spread abuse of another hack tool, (see pol for stealing problem). Nothing increases short term inflation faster then that.

[pantherball]

Re: How to stop the inflation

ok well i read a few of these ... not all of them because i'd get a headache from reading so much xD so jsut say if this was already said or why it wouldn't work ... but i think ...........

if SE put a cap on the prices at the AH say like equivalent to the rarity of the item easy items have like say 10k higher or lower cap than a base price then as the rarity gets higher say like hauby have like a 5 mil higher or lower cap then a base price ..... and the base price being something SE sets up to what they think it should be and 5 mil might be wrong i was jsut using an example to show difference in how rare it is compared to say a rabbit hide. then people wouldn't be able to put it higher than a certain price or lower than a certain price so eventually inflation would stop at the cap ... people would get sick of the item being capped all the time and try to start lowering the price so it would go from capped to lower to capped to lower but never get extremely high and people won't make extreme money by overpricing them either ...... i dunno jsut a thought reply to how useless this was and how it could never work :-D i'd be delighted to read how many stupid mistakes my idea had :-D **or possibly any improvements on the idea if u think it could work with some adjustments XD**