Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

[Amele]

since late January (edit:2006) (when the first market correction occured after the initial round of gil related bannings) the FFXI economy has been steadily deflating.

now, while I applaud SE for their efforts to reduce and limit the effect of RMT on the economy, It's becoming apparent that there has been something of an over-correction, at least in terms of the gil base (especially quantities in circulation, quantities created (minted) and quantities destroyed.)

my best estimates put this rate of deflation at about -0.5% per day (-83% per year: to contrast, the worst deflation rate seen in the united states during the Great Depression of the 1930's was -10% per year)

so my question to SE: Are there any plans to adjust the gil sources and/or gil sinks in the game to rebalance the economy closer to neutral (or even as far as back to very slight inflation)?

[Mhurron]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

I think you missed Christmas 2005 (which lasted from November 2005 to hell, July 2006). There was NO steady deflation.

Now if you're talking about January 2007, well still deflation started happening before then, but that happened because of SE removing entities that were artificial creators of inflation.

In short, SE has already been doing something about the games economy. All that's left is to have it work itself out.

[Amele]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

Mhurron, thanks for the catch on the year. I meant specifically the first round of bannings post 'ige-christmas'.

and the point I'm trying to make is, SE overdid it. the working out (if it would've happened) should have happened before it took an aristocrat's coat of gil a week to run limbus and dynamis.

as for the 'inflation of november 2005 to july 2006' at least on my server, it dropped ~300% in the first weekend at the end of january (26th ish) - and it is currently *still* deflating (server average) at .5% a day.

if we really want to catalog sources and sinks we can, but the point is that gil is leaving faster than it's being made before we take the gilseller bannings into account, and that's not sustainable.

(edit)
so maybe it would be more accurate to say I want an adjustment in the other direction than the last (what, half dozen to a dozen?) I want less gil leaving and more gil entering than currently.

[Vyuru]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

Well, the main ways for gil to actually ENTER the economy would be:

1) Farm/NPC stuff

and

2) Repeatable quests

Oh and I suppose

3) Money drops from mobs

as well as

4) Cost of buying things from NPCs

1) This is semi viable, I know of a handful of synths that you can make that sell like, 5k+ to NPCs, the flipside is that you probably spend a VERY long time gathering the ingredients for these synths, time wise repeatable quests are probably better.

There are also a handful of mob drops that can be sold to NPCs for a nice chunk of cash, but again, these take awhile to farm even with TH and are non stackable, like that club that those Quadavs drop in Beadeuax (sp >.>) sells to NPCs for 3kish, and is nonstackable.

2) There are a fairly decent amount of repeatable quests that you could make money off of. Regrettably one of the best IMO, the rolanberry quest one, has been nerfed by SE so that you can only turn in one rolanberry per RL day.

These aren't fast to do, but with some people and some organization you could make a tidy profit off of them, especially if you are wanting to gather dynamis/limbus entry fees, otherwise on a cost/person ratio, it isn't that good.

3) For most, if not all, of the game, the amount of money that mobs drop is laughable, at best, especially when you consider the cost of equipment at your level. It is dependant on your fame, but a Spear costs between 16228-18345 gil to purchase from a NPC, and that is a lvl 24 weapon.

A slightly higher mob gil drop rate might be nice, but then SE did say that they wanted to make this game have a player based economy, so I doubt that they would increase the gil drop rate, which does lead to 4.

4) NPC prices are rather.... high shall we say? To put it in comparison, during the worst of inflation was when I saw AH prices actually meet or exceed NPC prices for common things like Antidotes, misc consumables, foods, armors, etc. Until then these had all been lower than the NPC prices, with a few small exceptions I'm sure, but none come immediatly to mind that I can think of.


I think I would be more in favor of lowering NPC prices, including dynamis/limbus entry fees and any other really really high fees (like 50k and above type fees) by a little bit to make them more reasonable with the current deflation.

Or you know, alot of items are bought in stacks, why not have the NPC merchants offer a discount as you buy more items? So maybe you get say.... 10% the total price for buying a full stack, 5% off for half a stack, and so on? You'd actually get people to spend more money that way due to the, "Omgwtfbbq it's a salezorz!11eleventyone!!" mentality.

[little ninja]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

I know S.E wanted this to be a player base economy. But ever since RMT have been ingame it slowly redid the economy. Nowadays we have crafters who are 100 for the simple fact they bought gil an powerleveled to 100. While legit crafters did it the hard way from 1-100. Then you introduce the RMT crafters into the mix. An were all familar with their tactics for controling the market. Then ontop of all that you add in more ways to obtain craftable items, Plus players selling to buy upgrades.. Its just gotten to much to rely on supply an demand economy...

The other day i was cleaning out a drawer an came across an old list i used to go off of for farming. So for laughs i checked out prices then vs stacks an such. I was amazed to see everything i once farmed then is now cheaper then what it was back in 04. Not only that but alot of the stacks were 12-15 up for sale. When back then i barely saw 5-10. Then i looked at everything i crafted. Seriously all 3 cities had 30+ stacks of silent oils while Jeuno had it in the 70's. 12-15 stacks of slime oile everywhere going for cheap, And a ton of silent oils everywhere..

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

3) For most, if not all, of the game, the amount of money that mobs drop is laughable, at best, especially when you consider the cost of equipment at your level.... A slightly higher mob gil drop rate might be nice, but then SE did say that they wanted to make this game have a player based economy, so I doubt that they would increase the gil drop rate, which does lead to 4.

Unless the amount dropped by mobs was made to scale with the economy, raising it would only affect things temporarily.

If SE did a one-time increase to the amount of gil dropped by mobs, the economy would undergo inflation until the gil dropped by mobs, once again, became trivial in comparison to the cost of equipment.

[Wise Donkey]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

I don't think anything needs to be adjusted. Dynamis/Limbus/etc. are supposed to be hard to get in to. SE never did much to adjust for inflation in the actual game, aside from the bannings.

[Amele]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

the banning had alot to do with adjusting for inflation in the game. whenever you add or remove that much gil from an economy, you have an effect on inflation or deflation (this concept is used in all major countries, the difference being that (for example) the united states is not in the habit of burning all the U.S. Dollars currently in reserve in outside countries as frequently as possible). here's a quick list of things SE has done to change the value of gil in the FFXI economy: (I realize several of these things are related to what are technically exploits, more after the list).

SE took action to:
1) change the price point for npc saleable items, so that such items now sell at a loss (pet food alpha/beta/etc, padded caps, many mid-level craft synths in gold and smithing)
2) change the price point for npc saleable high level fish, so that such items are no longer worth farming.
3) introduced vir and femina subligar in an attempt to remove additional gil from the economy. (want to see what SE's *target* for shining cloth is? 8million gil * HQ rate)
4) changed the types and utility of items obtainable via coffer, thereby reducing the likelihood that these coffers would be picked, possibly generating a gil result.
5) Introduced Limbus.
6) Introduced Dynamis.
7) adjusted the costs of chocobo fees multiple times.
8) Banned Billions (if not trillions) of gil in reserve.
9) added many more leveling camps (across all levels) that do not require killing beastmen (reducing the number of beastmen killed {and gil generated by such activity} over a given time period)

I don't disagree with any one of these things. In fact, most of them were necessary. I disagree with the way it's currently going. to give some examples:

1) as of right now, there are approximately 10-40 relic weapons per server (average 20ish) it takes approximately 120 million gil to make a relic. Relic weapons were never meant to be particularly obtainable, but let's run a quick example. the amount of effort required today to make 120 million gil, in the economy 1 year from now will only get you 20.4 million gil. it will take 5 times the effort to get 120 million in one year. it currently takes 10 times the effort to make that gil today than it did in late 2005/early 2006. if this continues for two years, it will take between 50 and 100 times the effort that it used to take to make a relic when dynamis was first introduced in February 2004.)

moreover, it's..highly unlikely that SE intended dynamis to be difficult to access (difficult to win? sure. access? no way. look at the relative requirements: rank 6, LV65, there's 10 zones of it. if SE hadn't intended for people to be able to access it regularly they would not have needed to place a three day restriction on it. end of story.)

2) the amount of effort it takes to raise the 100k for two a week limbus is 10 times what it took to raise the 100k in October 2005 when limbus was first introduced (what you do to make 100k now, would've been enough effort to make 1 million then.)

3) the average chocobo today (600gil) costs 6000gil in November 2005 currency. (adjusted for inflation/deflation)

am I asking for things to be rolled back to the beginning, with all the problems associated? no. SE made changes to the gil sources for good and sufficient reasons. what I am asking is that SE look at what effect these changes had cumulatively on the source-sink system in XI and adjust the sinks to be more in line with the sources. lower AH fees a little, reduce the cost of dynamis (say, to 250k/glass) reduce the cost of limbus (25k per detergent) lower the price of some common npc purchases slightly (arms and armor and spell scrolls pre level 30 comes to mind).

the npc vendors in this game were meant to be a safety valve, so prices never jumped too far above them (I say 'above them' because part of what you pay for at an AH is one-stop-shop convenience) as it stands right now, except for a very few items that aren't frequently in stock, the npc prices are laughably high. when I joined the game in 2003 (PC launch) it was cheaper to buy armor from vendors until level 30. now, it's cheaper to buy armor from the AH in all cases on my server.

in another year, players will start to be priced out of limbus and dynamis entirely, (in fact, I give it about six months if something doesn't change). that's going to lead to a mass exodus of players, because, frankly, the established playerbase in FFXI is mostly still playing because of endgame, and removing two of the four major (if you can even call nyzul isle assault major) 'raids' in the game will effectively kill endgame variety. (you'll be left with nm hunting (ground/sky/sea) and salvage, and salvage is disgustingly low reward compared to limbus/dynamis)

[Mhurron]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

You are over estimating the effects of the deflation. It does not take as much effort to make 100k as it did to make a million unless you're still hunting the same bees. It is still relatively easy to make 100k, if you're smart about it.

It is cheaper now to buy gear on the AH then it was at launch because there is so much more that has been made, high supply drives prices down.

I'm guessing the bottom fell out of what you used to do to make gil and you feel the world is ending because of it.

[Wise Donkey]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?



Maybe I am too disconnected from the End Game community, but I feel that you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I see the logic in your argument, but I don't think it will happen near as fast as you say, and I think it will be corrected before it ever gets that far.

1, 2, and 4 were not done to adjust inflation, they were done to eliminate exploits. I'm not saying they didn't have an effect on the economy, but saying they were done to adjust inflation is a bit of a stretch.

I have played this game off and on for 3+ years and I don't ever remember a level range where Beastmen were enough of a EXP target to effect the game economy. Sure, you kill some Gobs and Gigas pre-30, but you I know for a fact I have made more gil off Beastmen while camping NMs than in EXP Parties.

Limbus, Dynamis - sure they are all gil sinks, but it is outrageously easier to make gil with a 70+ job than without. IIRC, the economy now is close to what it was when Dynamis was first released.

Vir/Femina - you talk like these are the only way to get Shining Cloth, when they aren't.

Those requirements for Dynamis were quite steep when Dynamis was first released. SE has stated numerous times that they did not want Relic weapons to be plentiful and that they should take a long time to get. Where are you getting those numbers on cost? How can you possibly know how difficult it will be to earn gil in another year? Reading Imperial tea leaves?

I'm guessing the bottom fell out of what you used to do to make gil and you feel the world is ending because of it.

Agreed.

[Necropolis]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

With the mass removal of gil, I think that we are finally near where SE intended the economy to be. 50k for Limbus and 1 million for Dynamis, in my opinion, is not that much.

Lets assume your dyna shell has about 30 regulars (we'll assume no one is funding it), and goes twice a week. So your entry fee is ~35k. Limbus is a steady 50k. So all totaled you spend 170k a week just to gain access to the endgame areas. We'll assume a shell crafter makes the meds and consumables that are used for the events.

As a relativley new player, at least in terms of end-game, I have no trouble making a 170k to spend on this. I simply do all six prime avatar fights for 3 days. That's 180k for a minimal amount of time put into it. Then, any crafting or farming I do during the week just goes to fund leveling other jobs, and getting better gear.

There are probably things you could farm/craft for better gil per hour, as traveling to the primes can be tedious, but with this you are assured 10k after the fight. Anyone participating in endgame should not have trouble finding one or two people to do the fights with, as they are relativly easy for most 75's to do. Over all I spend maybe two and a half hours doing the primes a night, not really terrible considering the amount of time you'd spend farming and hoping for a decent money drop.

It's my opinion that the market needs to come down and adjust to the total amount of gil in the system. Some items seem uneffected by the deflation, while some have fallen drastically. But overall, I think the most commonly bought items have adjusted accordingly. A few HQ items seem way overpriced, but those are a luxury at best, and by no means required to preform a job role suffciently.

Yea, things I farmed for money have dropped in price, but so has everything that I bought with it. As for the fixed prices in FFXI (dyna, limbus, et cetera), I think they are more how they are suppose to be. While it's not too much money, we notice it's cost a little bit more than we use to.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

Dynamis/Limbus entry is the only reason I've heard regarding why deflation is a bad thing for the game. Rather than try to combat deflation just for the sake of Dynamis/Limbus, I think SE should take a different approach to solving that problem.

Perhaps SE should add an alternative method for obtaining Timeless Hourglasses. For instance, add a BCNM, KSNM or ENM where the hourglass drops. This would provide two different options to players. Purchasing them with gil would become a viable option when inflation occurs (and under heavy enough inflation, it would be the preferred method). Obtaining them from the BC/KS/ENMs would become the preferred method under heavy deflation.

Since Limbus entry is based on a Key Item which is purchased, the BC/KS/ENM could drop an Rare-flagged item that can be traded for the Key Item (the game could still enforce the 72 hour wait the same way it currently does).

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

I'd personally just like to see fewer or the purely mindless gilsinks, like just buying oils and powers for sky or any other high level zone. I'm not expecting things not to aggro me here, but it would help a great deal if a place like sky wasn't so damned convuluted in design. I've had coffer keys for maps as long as I can remeber - still haven't found 'em because I'm not going to bring a dozen stacks of oils to find them.

I think the Zilart designed a place so symmetrical, convuluted and so drab in design that it was intended to drive thier enemies away via confusion. That or drive them to death by madness.

[Vyuru]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

Unless the amount dropped by mobs was made to scale with the economy, raising it would only affect things temporarily.

If SE did a one-time increase to the amount of gil dropped by mobs, the economy would undergo inflation until the gil dropped by mobs, once again, became trivial in comparison to the cost of equipment.

That is my thought as well, I think I'd be more in favor of lowering NPC costs slightly, like 10%-20% wouldn't be that much, and would be a nice reduction given the current deflation I think.

I simply do all six prime avatar fights for 3 days. That's 180k for a minimal amount of time put into it. Then, any crafting or farming I do during the week just goes to fund leveling other jobs, and getting better gear.

/starts counting on fingers....

Good lord he's right >.> I screwed up my math last time I thought of this, must talk to some LS mates now.....

Lets assume your dyna shell has about 30 regulars (we'll assume no one is funding it), and goes twice a week. So your entry fee is ~35k. Limbus is a steady 50k. So all totaled you spend 170k a week just to gain access to the endgame areas. We'll assume a shell crafter makes the meds and consumables that are used for the events.

I'd honestly think this would be the way to do it, but almost all of the dynamis shells I have heard of are all funded runs.

This would provide two different options to players. Purchasing them with gil would become a viable option when inflation occurs (and under heavy enough inflation, it would be the preferred method). Obtaining them from the BC/KS/ENMs would become the preferred method under heavy deflation.

Since Limbus entry is based on a Key Item which is purchased, the BC/KS/ENM could drop an Rare-flagged item that can be traded for the Key Item (the game could still enforce the 72 hour wait the same way it currently does).

I like those ideas, it leaves people working for their stuff still but it gives them another option besides buying it.

[Amele]

Re: Is SE planning to make any adjustments to the gilsources and gilsinks in game?

You are over estimating the effects of the deflation. It does not take as much effort to make 100k as it did to make a million unless you're still hunting the same bees. It is still relatively easy to make 100k, if you're smart about it.
It is cheaper now to buy gear on the AH then it was at launch because there is so much more that has been made, high supply drives prices down.
I'm guessing the bottom fell out of what you used to do to make gil and you feel the world is ending because of it.

'effort' was estimated using relative value of 1 gil in April 2007 vs. 1 gil in previously stated epochs, using standard jeuno AH purchasing prices, generalized as much as possible using FFXIAH server index values. specifically biased in terms of fixed NPC prices (ah fees, limbus, dynamis, being the big three).
as for 'still hunting the same bees' that's pretty much another way of putting the phrase "effort" since comparing across activity in addition to time is an unnecessary added variable when talking about general purchasing power of gil. another (equally valid way) to word it would be: "unless you're still making the same five cursed pieces at the endcap of your 100skill craft".

side truth: while it is true that many 'luxury items' are less affordable now in terms of such low level materials farming, they are still affordable. my issue (and perhaps it's been lost a bit in the various responses) is that even as the economy has deflated to ~1/10th of it's value when limbus was released (and between 1/5 and 1/10th depending on particular server) since dynamis was released, and 1/5th of the value since the last time SE considered AH and chocobo fees, none of these fixed prices has been adjusted.
That the economy has continued to deflate even during periods between the bannings, rather than simply making a correction after each banning (as would be expected if the gil-system were otherwise stable) is a pretty clear indication that the sources and sinks for gil in the game are out of sync. I realize that short term this is probably by design - but I want to know if SE has looked into long term changes.
I don't disagree that there are plenty of ways to make 100k in current economy, however, many of those ways would have made 1 million or more pretty readily a year and a half ago. (h.e.l.m. activities are a good case study for this - and to answer the slight in your post Mhurron, no, I don't helm and haven't since 2004.)
I'd agree with your appraisal of low level gear availability except that it's happening across all purchasable items (with a few interesting exceptions, notably where SE neutered the supply by moving the item to a less frequent source) including things that are strictly consumable. (food and ninja tools come to mind). if it were simply a case of abundant supply in low level gear then only low level gear would be depressed. I chose this gear as an example because (for instance) one cannot normally index a haubergeon against an NPC price since neither the total ingredients or the finished product is actually npc purchasable.

1, 2, and 4 were not done to adjust inflation, they were done to eliminate exploits. I'm not saying they didn't have an effect on the economy, but saying they were done to adjust inflation is a bit of a stretch.

correct, in both points. they did have an effect on the economy and my unclear wording could be a cause of confusion: "Things SE did that had an effect on the economy" might be more accurate. as stated in my post farther down, I don't have any issue with the particulars (or that things have deflated -in general- just that the sources and sinks aren't in sync and it's going to cause a long term issue left uncorrected.)

I have played this game off and on for 3+ years and I don't ever remember a level range where Beastmen were enough of a EXP target to effect the game economy. Sure, you kill some Gobs and Gigas pre-30, but you I know for a fact I have made more gil off Beastmen while camping NMs than in EXP Parties.

davoi, beadeux, and castle oz were all used for exp at various points in the history of the game (kuftal tunnel didn't exist pre-RoZ) in any case, it's a minor point but it is a source of gil that was adjusted and I figured better to list it than to be called on neglecting it later.

Limbus, Dynamis - sure they are all gil sinks, but it is outrageously easier to make gil with a 70+ job than without. IIRC, the economy now is close to what it was when Dynamis was first released.

approximately 1/5th -> the average SH/Haub was in the area of 2.5million gil (depending on server) in feb. 2004. (noble's were close to 8million because that's what I paid for mine in may 2004) currently they are 500k~. I realize SH is less than ideal but haub is still final endgame for several jobs and will only increase in general value as more players level multiple heavy melee and space becomes a concern.

Vir/Femina - you talk like these are the only way to get Shining Cloth, when they aren't.

right. They are, however, the only NPC reference point for the value of shining cloth, since no other NPC source exists. introduced to combat inflation (they did a good job. taking 8million out of the economy a pop is a nice way to make gil disappear) parentheticals, as always, indicate an aside and were not part of the main thrust of the argument.

Those requirements for Dynamis were quite steep when Dynamis was first released. SE has stated numerous times that they did not want Relic weapons to be plentiful and that they should take a long time to get. Where are you getting those numbers on cost? How can you possibly know how difficult it will be to earn gil in another year? Reading Imperial tea leaves?

again, approximately 1/5th as steep, when dynamis was first released. and relic weapons are not the sum and total of dynamis, SE has obviously intended at least regular relic armor to be available or would not have had need to introduce +1 relic armor. (note the auspicious lack of +1 Amir/Yigit/etc approximately 1 year after introduction, around the same time cop dynamis was added)

the average relic is 18000 coins. after more than two years of dynamis my ls has determined an approximate average of 150 coins drop per run (including outlands but not dreamlands) this is approximately 120 runs (60 weeks) if all coins go to one person. this is 120 runs * 1 million gil = 120 million gil to obtain the necessary currency to upgrade a relic. It is assumed that a successful attestation run etc. are accomplished during this 120 run time period.

how can I know how difficult it will be to earn gil in another year? Economics 101.
it's a pretty simple equation really: value of today's gil * (1 + inflation rate) = value of tomorrow's gil. with 83% deflation, assuming you are tied to the player market (and not the npc market, which is fixed) you are going to need to do 5-6 times the 'work' in a calendar year to make the same gil (120 million * (1 - 83%) = 20.4 million)


since the 'cost' of npc prices is fixed relative to the floating 'gil' the effort required to obtain the cost of an hourglass (or detergent, or echo drops from the npc or chocobo etc) will vary directly with the inflation rate (in this case, inflation is a negative value).

using the the last two months of FFXIAH data on server average as history to establish rate of inflation, the average rate is approximately -0.5%/earth day. this is -83%/earth year, using standard interest rate calculations that anyone with a high school diploma should be able to apply.



I take exception to assumptions that I'm complaining about my own farming method. I don't fish, I don't h.e.l.m.,(the two fields that were most heavily hit by this as near as I can tell). I do hunt some (h)nm's. I do craft, I do occasionally hunt my own materials, I occasionally sell IS/CP items, I do occasionally play the AH. I am better off now in terms of the player economy than I have ever been, but since I'm farther along in my character development and understanding of the game this is to be expected.

in comparison to the npc economy however, I am losing ground at the rate of approximately -0.5%/day. and so are the other 500,000 players playing this game with me. that's what I want changed.