Economy SpeculationFollow

This is exactly what I did in the beta. I just didn't like having to break up my crafting/gathering sessions, that's all. I'd rather have an overabundance of materials once I sit down and craft instead of having to go back outside.

Self-sufficiency (especially on new servers) will be a LONG way off, given the interdependency between the Hand classes & all Land classes (not as bad as XI still!). However, in the early days of the game, I do see gathering as being a very good source of consistent gil, as some people will want to rush crafting to 50 (to corner THAT market), without the hassle/timesink of getting a corresponding gathering skill to 50 as well. It's the same argument as with most MMO's - do you try to hit that 1, big-ticket HQ armour/weapon for an absolute s**tload of gil, or do you grind out consumables (either food/potions, or components/materials) for a slower, more consistent source of income?

Then, as you alluded to, once the game matures, gatherers will have markets for dark & carbonized matter (repairs + materia bonding), plus a constant flow of high-level ores/logs/plants, to fuel the spiritbond gear farm cycle for more materia. The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with the elegance of SE's implementation of the materia system, both in bringing together multiple game aspects, and how it seems to ensure viability for all Hand classes for the foreseeable future.

I'm reserving judgment until I see an actual use for large amounts of money in the game. It seems from most people's perspective SE killed the economy by artificially infusing gear and perks into every quest/dungeon so that gil itself is devalued. I see people crafting for gear to make for Grand company points or other forced examples, but not for profit. I think SE went too far trying to rid RMT from the game.

SE went too far in 1.0 to try and rid the game of RMT by not having an Auction House, not having a mail system, and not having the most basic functionality in a lot of aspects.

I respectfully disagree that they went too far with ARR. Perhaps money isn't as important as it is in a game like FFXI, but that's a good thing. There's more emphasis on self-reliance and independence, and I don't see that's negative. I see that as an excellent decision, because it actually encourages players to spend more time leveling up other classes in their game, hence making the replay value higher. If it causes RMT to suffer, all the better.

Nothing really keeps RMT from the crafting/gathering game, though. Hell, some people might even take it upon themselves to level such characters solely to sell off to them. So, I would never call them gone and they might still be persistent enough to hurt markets.

As is, I don't think I've ever played a MMO with what I'd call a truly healthy economy (though my definition of this may fly in the face of real world economics because... game worlds aren't the real world~). Even with materia, people are going to figure out what is worth making/gathering/selling, and those things that aren't worth it are just going to become useless data bits. Okay, so maybe once every 30 days GC may ask for x amount of them. The rest? This is, I'd argue, the downside of "finished" dropped gear/items being out there, and doubly so if they're superior to crafted counterparts. Materia just may wind up a band-aid over that wound instead of a fix.

A problem I've had with gathering in a lot of games is simply the monotony of it, especially if resource spawns are fixed. What if making your daily stuff takes up too many resources to quickly gather? "Well, just hop to the AH!" Okay, so you're probably in the red here and will need even more time to make other things to get back into the black. Doing this day after day can get exceedingly tedious, particularly if paired with fame/faction requirements suited more to combat class quests. If all this leads to people not wanting to participate in the economy, then I'd say it's not doing things right.

So, I dunno... I just expect another game where the no lifers ruin things for everyone else. New game economy != established game economy, so what some people claimed to be working for them in beta may be dead wrong in 6+ months when rushes have died off. I'd like be wrong, but there's still that specter of raid drop superiority that also haunts these games.

The only major thing I can see for gil is housing costs. S-E may or may not have exaggerated just how "expensive" the bigger estates will be, we'll have to wait and see. Working on your FC house with crafting classes sounds like the bigger payoff for now until we see some type of DoL/DoH FATEs or something of the like. For the people that don't care about housing, crafted gear, etc., then no, there won't be much of a "point" to having a lot of gil in this game.

Not to be pedantic, but a product isn't considered elastic or inelastic. Some variable related to an economic good (typically Demand) is considered to have some degree of elasticity with relation to some other variable (price, availability of a substitute good, etc).

For example, demand for food is generally inelastic with price. People need to eat so much, and won't eat much more or less simply because the price changes.

I think they have taken great strides with the way the economy will work here vs ffxi.

In ffxi when I played around when it was released it was so hard to get gil. And if you couldn't get gil you couldn't get gear thus not being invited to any groups. This is a reason why rmt went threw the roof for that game.

In ARR you don't need gil to play the game but if you want to excel at it or have the best gear you will. Only time will tell , but it will be crazy or not there for awhile like every other MMO than balance out.

This is why I won't level Culinarian/Fisher right away. I'm the most curious about the food market across the new servers. I have a feeling it'll take a while to really take off.

This is a very possible scenario Bartel. This why I included the following caveat.



Game economies change all the time, while some get better, others get worse. I can definitely see the potential of everything you listed above. My response is that we don't know how the economy will work 6 months to 1 year from now. My current assessment is dead on based on what we know today. Everyone isn't going to stick around for the long haul. Like the 1 million beta players, FFXIV isn't likely to keep them all. If you high hopes for the future, that's fine, but it's not realistic to make those claims yet. Most of the economic principles you want to apply here won't take place for sometime because the majority of players will be getting free gear and spending very little out of pocket expenses. I respect your opinion and hope you see my point as well.



SE doesn't have a economic team like Eve Online does to my understanding. Considering SE was never really able to balance the economy in FFXI especially in regard to crafting; I don't see how they have the expertise to balance the economy. I completely agree with you not everyone will take to crafting; especially not to maximum levels. So I believe that the max level crafters will have the greatest benefit simply due to being fewer of them. We do need time to sort this out, that's true. I would agree that about 6 months after the game launches we'll know what to expect over the long haul. It was never my intention to predict the future, only point out the current condition. I suppose the current economy is moot to most people right now because we will be busy leveling and doing the content. I think we can agree on these points at least.

I was going to post in this thread many times but I chickened out. My post always ends up too long, too muddled and inconclusive.

Mainly I agree with Bartelx. I just think its too early to tell what the economy is going to do....on either side.

We just dont have all of the variables yet. The ones we did have were either neutered not paid attention to in Phase 3.

I can make a unbiased list of what we know, what is coming and what we don't know, but at this point it seems like overkill.

The only thing I can say with certainty is that SE has done things differently with the economy this time around.