Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

[Sabaron]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I hate gilseller crafters. They control every scroll and ninja tool market. I want to see every one of their little taru corpses roasting on a giant fire getting ready to be eaten by slavering, rabid Galkan hordes (oh wait... Galkas prefer their Taru raw, never mind the fire... eaten alive will be fine).

GS Crafters (I watch them closely) always sell at such a small margin of profit that there is no point in anyone else making the product. I, retardedly, spent some time making Jusatsu recently, only to find that I have to sell them for under 1k per stack profit. -.- I don't buy Shihei or any Ninja Tool from the AH--I make them or get them from the Tenshodo (in the case of the one that uses copper nuggets). I don't buy things from Gilsellers if I know that's who's selling the product. I cannot make money from Alchemy because they have taken over all of my markets. They make all the bolts and all the tools. All I have left are Icarus Wings and slow-selling Concoctions. Icarus Wings sell very fast and for nice profit, but competition is pretty bad for the feathers: Icarus Wings are now made for profit by basically any alchemist who can make them and get their hands on feathers and every alchemist who's skilling up at low level (and it takes a lot of feathers to finish Icarus Wing skill up). I can make Composite Fishing rods, but they take up vast amounts of space. I'm just waiting for stupid gilsellers to finish invading the Alchemy consumables completely and turning the Auction House into a fantasy version of Chinese Wal-Mart.

[Aeolus]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

People hardly ever/have ever made profit of silly little synths like the ones you all say RMT are causing. The rich people from crafting are the ones who gather their materials and synth as much HQ stuff as they can during full moons, like cursed gear-1 or Hauby+1 etc. Not the ones who just whore spam crap synths.

[Jei]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

There are different ways to make money. Selling a lot of cheaper consumable is one, HQing few expensive things are another. RMTs do indeed drove people off the cheaper consumable markets. Silent oils is the most obvious one.

[Vyuru]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

People hardly ever/have ever made profit of silly little synths like the ones you all say RMT are causing. The rich people from crafting are the ones who gather their materials and synth as much HQ stuff as they can during full moons, like cursed gear-1 or Hauby+1 etc. Not the ones who just whore spam crap synths.

Well, while I agree with you, we're not talking about being rich though. I can't really afford a 400,000 gil item without going out and farming, used to be I was able to do a little side crafting with my farming and get there in a reasonable amount of time, but the side crafting has been cut off for me.

And those silly little synths add up over time, I made about 2 million off of wool threads alone between May until about August, not counting my other farming and other synths I was doing.

Most of the other low level cloth crafting synths are not profitable unless you go out and harvest/farm the ingredients yourself, which can take alot of time. Or they are just plain unprofitable no matter how you look at it.

I used to know people who made their livelyhoods off of shihei, sushi, and all those other silly little synths that alot of people mention, and then other people come along and drove them out of the market.

[Wise Donkey]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I think the economy will be just fine - It is a player driven economy, not an RMT driven economy. Crafters watch the markets - once a demand is created from the post-RMT vacuum it will be supplied. Maybe not supplied as cheaply as before, but it all balances out, believe it or not.

One thing that is definitely not the answer is raising the rewards from repeatable quests. Making new gil easier to obtain will only inflate the market.

[nohopeless]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I present to you the first rule of economics: Everyone is a maximizer. That is to say that everyone is greedy, and is always looking out for themselves:

Joe Schmoe:
I hate it when there are gilsellers when I'm camping NM.

I hate it when gilsellers undercuts me in the AH making my crafts not profitable.

Wouldn't it be great if SE banned gilsellers that are preventing me from getting what I want?

I hate it when HNM LSes camp the NM that I want to camp.

I hate it when HNM LSes have a monopoly over HNM crafted items.

Wouldn't it be great if SE banned HNM LSes that are preventing me from getting what I want?

Oh but wait, in a free market economy such as FFXI, everyone is potentially my enemy, be they gilseller or HNM LSes. It doesn't matter if one group sells the gil and one group doesn't. They still get in MY way, me, me, me!

Now if only I can complain to SE enough and convince them that HNM LSes are destroying the economy and the game, using the argument that they're having a monopoly on certain items, maybe then I can get what I want. Or will I...?

Stay tuned for more topics on economics, including Opportunity cost/Comparative advantage, and the problems of a Free Market and Free Trade!

[Jei]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

Nope. There's a big difference between Phamacist selling medicines and criminals selling Drugs.

I'll use Sky for example. There's a reason why Sky RMT are so hated.
They camp HNM to sell drops, they are monopolizing the triggers to force normal players to have no other way to get the items but to buy from them. And when they sell the drops, where do the gil go? Got RMT of course.

HNMLS camp HNM for items their members want to use. Gearing up their members.

Of course no one like competitors. But will I hate other HNM LS just because they camp my mob? No way.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

Of course no one like competitors. But will I hate other HNM LS just because they camp my mob? No way.

We just hate them because they like to MPK and CFH Faffy.

Yes this happened today. This is why I'm happy I never have to camp the kings.

[Jei]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

HE tagged Darters at Faffy, then someone (Mxx) diaga them.
Mxx later got jailed and suspended for that. xx=sensor but you know who.
It was quite a scene...

Cxxxxx LS then tried to kill Faffy in help mode because they want to "teach HE some lesson." Which ended up upsetting some people, so they call hate, move faffy and flailed Cxxxxx.

It's not fun... but still fun >.>

[Sabaron]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

People hardly ever/have ever made profit of silly little synths like the ones you all say RMT are causing. The rich people from crafting are the ones who gather their materials and synth as much HQ stuff as they can during full moons, like cursed gear-1 or Hauby+1 etc. Not the ones who just whore spam crap synths.

We don't all sit around with out billions of gil cranking out Royal Cloaks all day... Some of us used to make money on those silly little synths. "Rich" people do what "Rich" people do. I can't afford to level up Clothcrafting to 100, so I get by on "silly little synths." Making a piece of cursed gear is just now within my reach, but it requires such an enormous investment that I find it, at present, impracticable. Therefore, in order to amass enough capitol that I could make such a thing, I have to use "silly little synths" which have been turned into worthless little synths. If I make 500gil on each stack of Jusatsu, I'll have to make 2000 stacks of them. I'm Tier III on them so assuming I get 49.5 per synth, that's 4000 syntheses or 70ish hours of crafting give or take not including acquisitions. I can't do that. A Gilseller Jusatsu bot can though. I used to make 2k a stack on them with my HQ Rate because the price was set at a nice comfortable level where Tier I's would make a small profit. Now, the HQ rate to break even is around 50%, so that even with my excellent HQ rate, I cannot make money on them. This is how the GS shut people out of the markets. It has several important effects:

1. It shuts Skill-up crafters out of consumables so that they cannot make money while levelling craft (like I did). This blocks access to upper tiers of the craft to new players and stifles new competition.
2. It keeps even Tier III's out of a market that has high-turnover allowing GS to extract money from the economy continually but at a relatively slow rate.
3. It increases demand for the product and thus practically maximizes the rate of turnover and the trickle rate for that price level.

Someone else stated some market force crap like "If there were no Gilsellers you'd want regular people banned for interfering with your market". Normal players don't bot-craft. They can't sit on their computer 24/7 making Jusatsu until they have 1,000,000 worth and then sell each stack for a pittance profit to undercut everyone else. This market force is unusual and with the removal of GS, the market will return to normal. It's the Wal-mart principle: Sell everything as fast as possible with the lowest possible profit margin and you have no competition. Once they're crushed, the market is yours to do with as you please.

You see the second part of the effect occur too. Since GS can know when they're the only dog on the block, they can raise prices for a very quick spike sell at a higher price and replenish low-price stock as soon as they notice someone else digging into the market to block. Normal people don't sit at the AH and monitor it continually.

[nohopeless]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I have to disagree with the general use of normal players. Normal players, left to their own vices, have shown to use bots to bot NMs, warp hack, and bot craft. Was it "gilsellers" that made these bots/hacks, or was it "normal players" that invented it?

Jei: History have shown that pharmacist have sold drugs which are deemed illegal by today's standards. Pharmacist now sell marijuana that used to be sold by criminals, but that's besides the point.

As for sky RMTs, from a person's point of view, anyone that claims the trigger NMs are getting in their way. If a Dynamis LS farmed sky trigger items to fund dynamis items, would that be any different? My point is that it does not matter what they do with the item. The bottomline is that they prevent whoever it is that is trying to get the same item. That is competition. That is a part of the game, no matter who the competition is.

Sabaron, I will use your post as a way to introduce the next part of economics that I want to discuss, which is comparative advantage and high cost of entry.

"Gilsellers", as you termed it have a comparative advantage over "normal players" because they are able to craft many consumable items and selling them for low profit, as well as the ability to craft the items non-stop. This gives them an advantage compared to "normal players", which in this case are the high cost producers since their time can be better spent elsewhere. That is to say that "normal players" rather do fun things than craft all day. To connect this to my original post, anyone who has a comparative advantage over me is by definition competition. Since I am greedy, I hate them. I took time to level my craft to a high level, therefore, I should be rewarded. If I can corner the market on an item all to myself I will be rich. If I can shut others from entering the market, it is in my interest to do so. It makes no difference to me whether they are "gilsellers" or "normal players". I must exert domination over others to keep my privileged position. This includes buying raw materials from farmers to craft them into items that will yield a profit, a surplus. From that surplus, I will further exert my domination by growing my operation, leveling several other crafts. This is more or less capitalism.

In what you have described as not being able to skill up on crafts and profit at the same time is what is known as high cost of entry, or barrier to entry. That was point 1 in your post. This is common in markets such as car manufacturers where one requires a large amount of capital before being able to enter the market.

Here I raise the question to you, how often does someone ask the question:

How much did it cost for you to level ninja, a great farming job to 75? as opposed to
How much did you make leveling ninja, a great farming job to 75?

Clearly, the leveling of jobs can be used to make money just as a craft. However, why should one make money while leveling up a craft? Afterall, a high level job or a high level craft is a means of making money. The saying goes, you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Here's a final thought and some food for thought. In WoW, crafting does not require the player to be at keyboard. As long as you have the materials in your inventory, the computer will make as many as you want. What are the effects of that feature to WoW's economy? Was it positive or negative?

Are there "normal players" in FFXI that have mules that uses crafting bots that make them money 24/7? Surely, one can make a mule with typical GS name, and one would never know if whether they are GS or not.

[DieselBoy09]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I don't know what you all are talking about with the ninja tools being so cheap. I just recently leveled my ninja up to 12 so now I have Tonko and Utsemi. For Utsemi I shelled out 30k (I got lucky, the AH had them all listed as 35k) for twelve stacks of tool bags, and this was the cheapest out of the ninjutsu tools. The same set up for the others (12 stacks of tool bags) ranged anywhere from 50k- 250k. With these things being one time use, I can imagine going through a stack of 99 fairly quickly, especially with the elemental jutsu's that I hear are a really good thing to use, but I don't have the means to honestly make that much gil. I used to be able to when the inflation was high since I farmed silks (were 60k a stack) and beehive chips (were 20k a stack) but since silk now goes for about 10k a stack and beehive chips go for about 5-6k a stack I find that farming them isn't worth my time and instead just sit around in Jeuno tele-whoring to pay for gear or just to make it so I can buy consumables like food. I don't have the budget to buy sushi (usually anywhere from 30-50k), I stick to meat mithkabobs (5k a stack) for the melee and then rolanberry and melon pies (5-10k, depends) for WHM and BLM, and with that small budget in mind I will soon find myself having to shell out money for a SH (still hovering around 3mil I believe, I might be wrong) and I can't honestly think of anyway to practically raise that type of gil and I've been frantically searching for a way to circumvent it, seeing if there is a lesser, far cheaper armor to equip around that level that is nearly as practical and acceptable. With all that in mind, I still find this economy on the right track. Prices are generally becoming lower and things are generally becoming more accessable but the ways of generating good amounts of gil seem to have vanished from my grasp and as I near the higher leveled gear, I find that their price has dropped, but hasn't dropped proportionally with the rest of the economy, helping to create a fissure between the "rich and the poor". Only time will tell about whether this divide I perceive will disappear or whether it will mimic real life and only grow as the upper end materials remain within the grasp and means of the "upper class".

[Sabaron]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

The primary difference between a GS Craftbot and a Player Craftbot is that a GS Craftbot can be manned 24/7 to avoid any GM Issues. All they have to do is sit and listen for a /tell ding then switch to that particular mule to converse with whoever it is.

With respect to the interest of shutting out competition, it is extraordinarily difficult for a single person to achieve this in a high-volume consumable market without being active continually. You cannot list more than 7 items at once per sales mule. If you set your volume to high, others can slide something in under your margin because you, obviously, must have a margin of profit or you wouldn't be doing it. If we're working with pittance profits, a relist fee is a bad deal--it might cut your profit margin by 10%-50% depending on what you're selling and how much the line price is. A gilseller does not have this problem since they can have a 24/7 manned station, they can just add product to the same queue of 7 whereas in order for you to do that (since you probably have to work or sleep or something), you'll have to use multiple mules to keep your active supply above the demand range.

I made money while levelling up Alchemy because there are non-HQable profitable syntheses. The same is true for many crafts, but in Alchemy, there are a higher percentage of usable as opposed to craftable items. For instance, if you are making Hi-potions that you wish to sell quickly, it is actually not nearly as cool to get a whole crap load of +1's, because no one even bothers to check if they're comparably priced. They'll assume their cost/effect ratio is too much to bother with and pick up NQ instead. The Hi-potion market was ruined in a completely different way than Ninja Tools of course, but that's not the point here.

Levelling a job is a primary activity of the game--it enables you to access the game content. Crafting does not do this--it is an ancillary activity akin to levelling a sub job or levelling THF for TH/TH2 for farming. You do not get any content benefit beyond acquisition for levelling craft. Craft is designed as an economic support feature and though there is a lot of personal taste decision making and certain costs associated with each, the question that one would level NIN simply for farming is an odd analogy since levelling the class provides much more benefit than levelling a craft.

WRT WoW, I have absolutely no idea what "effect" it had on the economy and, I assume that this feature has been fully implemented since inception, therefore there is no data or any possible way to make a comparison between WoW economics and FFXI.

As for whether or not a "fake gilseller" legit player crafter/manned bot, etc. exists, it is highly probable that there already exist such entities that are not involved in RMT. However, the proportion of population of said entities is likely to be much, much lower than RMT. The most efficient way to create a manned bot crafter would be to use a separate account onto which "shifts" of legit players (akin to work shifts that are possible with RMT) man the bot while performing other activities.

My discussion re: Gilselling on this particular thread has been rather craft-focused based on observations of activity I perceive as "recent". The game has been around for some time and I've been on it for some time and I haven't noticed such activity in the past. The likelihood that gilsellers are involved in this activity is imo high as they have the position and resources available to do so much more easily than a legit player or consortium of legit players.

The fact that you attempt to "defend" gilsellers right to exist simply by way of justifying their activities as simple economics does not address the primary issue involved with gilselling that is what I have gone through in other threads:

Gilsellers acquire gil as product. Therefore, it is not used as currency in the same way as it is normally. Banked Gil does not circulate in the economy and during periods of heavy stocking, lowers market currency volume and causes deflation based on real world buying cycles. When this currency is bought in large volume, it gets dumped back into the economy in a large chunk which causes inflation. This cycle of collection and dumping by itself creates artificial flux in the economic cycle by opening it to an external economy (the real world economy). Regardless of the effects of this (it can obviously be exploited by players to make money), I believe the intention and my preference, of course, is that the game economy remain as a closed system of currency. The effect of currency destruction due to SE intervention is largely null since the currency destroyed has already been effectively removed from the game for the purpose of sale. Gilseller participation in the economy is not required for the game to function.

Do you sell gil, by any chance?

[Jei]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

noho, I don't know why you would want to be to protective about gilsellers.

You're right, they are not the only group of people that cheat or contribute to the screw up economy we have. But are they the major part of it? They do.

Yes I am extremely biased against gilsellers. But so do a lot of people. I hate them, and it really bothers me when legit players show opinions to be on their side. T

Most recent event - the POSing selbina clay exploit. So much of a problem that SE needed to change a quest that's been in game for 5 years... Just one of the things they ruined it for everyone.

And no, when did we even talk about making money while skilling up our craft?
I said comsumables are heavily dominated by gilsellers. They have hordes of farmers to provide them with free resources 24/7 which keeps the market on a constant flood of supplies. Slime farmers --> silent oil makers, blacksole botters --> sushi makers are just a few example.

ry to break into comsumable markets. Or try get trigger for Ulli. And you'll see how much they are affecting our game play.

Legit players don't have 24 hours to farm our resources. And buying resources from AH and selling products becomes ineffective way of making money.

No legit fisherman even catches blacksole anymore these days because of the botting bullcrap that's going on.

[Sabaron]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I don't know what you all are talking about with the ninja tools being so cheap.

I am specifically referring to the Asuran economy and the profit margins on the items in question. Not their cost to the consumer. I track the reagent and product markets to determine a number that I call the Minimum HQ To Profit Line (MinHQ). The formula for MinHQ is:

Sum([Reagent Costs]) * [Saleable Stack Size] / [Synthesis Yield] / [Stack Price] - 1

The MinHQ is calculated for all (viable) stack sizes available on the market. For Jusatsu specifically, there are 3 viable stack types: stack [99], toolbag (single) [99], and 12-stack toolbag [1188]. The individual market is non-viable and only gets touched when someone makes an error and buys a single tool for the price of 99.

When the MinHQ line is around 50%, this means that the synthesis is basically non-viable for profit. For example, 30% MinHQ is good if you're Tier III [50%], but hedges out Tier I and Tier II crafters. Any time when the MinHQ rises very close to the 50% marker, manufacture of the product drops as the crafters flock to a more profitable synth. Maintaining continuous production at a low margin say 49% allows you to hedge out most of the other crafters--it doesn't prevent them from making money, but it slows them down since the markets they go to are more than likely lower demand (Shihei vs. Mizu-deppo), have lower profit per synth (Shihei vs. Jusatsu), are more volatile (Silent Oil vs. Composite Fishing Rod), or are a product with a small stack size (Fang arrows vs. Scorpion). GS (or legit players masquerading under the guise of GS-like patterns and names as an above poster mentioned) maintains productions at extremely tight margins in certain markets (in the 45%+ range).

Basically, I still make money off my syntheses, but since I'd rather be doing something interesting (ZM5 etc.), I'd rather make more per synthesis. None of this, however, has anything to do with the underlying reason I feel GS should be removed from the economy (which was stated above--to remove the influence of external market factors on the FFXI Economy and maintain the FFXI economy as a closed system for the most part).