Inflation knows no bounds

[Andromeda]

Well I was talking to some of my LS members about items. And I saw Shi'ar on two people full equip one HQ and NQ. I made the realization that the body alone costs 5 times that of everything I am worth. Which got me thinking, how much I was worth in gear. I was guessing with prices as they were probably 5 million grand total of everything.

So I went pricing things in jeuno AH. I knew of my things the major items were my Opaline Set, Elemental Staffs and my Adaman Set with Koenig Shield. Well when I checked I was blind sided. I knew prices were getting crazy, but I had some rather common items, so I did not expect it.

Opaline Dress - 1 million
Opaline Hose - 1 million
Opaline Boots - 1 million
Lilac - 300k

I purchase the whole set for a million over a year ago. Now the price has tripled.

Adaman Head - 600k
Adaman Body - 1 million
Adaman Hands - 600k
Adaman Legs - 1 million
Adaman Feet - 600k
Koenig Shield - 1.4 million

I bought the whole set for roughly 2.2 million, it is now worth more than 4 million.

Earth Staff - 700k

I bought it at 250k, for the longest time it droppped to 150k, though I had made a mistake buying it when I did. Now it is tripled in price.

This is not to mention the Emperor's Hairpin which is now 5 million or the Leaping Boots at 3 million, Monster Signa at 3 million, Peaco ck Charm at 25 million. Inflation is just getting crazy. I have a net worth of like 10 million apparently in all my gear and funds. It is just crazy.

[ZRO]

Heh, if you think it's nuts looking at it from that point of view, trying being the one who are trying get some of that stuff now. The only way I can afford anything anymore is if I farm my ass off for days at a time. ~.~

[Skai]

The inflation has only just settled down a bit. During the holidays around Christmas, everything was just skyrocketing. It is all thanks to IGE having that stupid holiday sale where people can buy gil very cheaply.

I'm just glad I came back before the gil boom and got all I needed for PLD when it's still cheap.

[Andromeda]

Yeah a lot of people were saying it about because it was the Holiday, but I did not know why. Gilsellers just drop the prices on costs, and then raise the prices on the AH, increasing their profits even more, its evil.

Other things I forgot to mention.

Silk Threads - 75k
Beetle Jaws - 50k
Beehive Chips - 25k
Erase - 900k
Gold Ore - 50k
Darksteel Ore - 60k

All these things have doubled in price. Gold Ignots are going to cost me 200k rather than 100k to make now. My whm that has been starved for Erase, cannot buy it still because the price has doubled. Clothcrafters are playing double or more for Silk Threads now. Its ugly and getting worse, I have never seen prices this bad, Alexander was a pretty good economy compared to others, but now it is getting worse. Though I have seen some prices on other servers and they have it worse than us, if you can believe that.

[Dawezy]

Originally Posted by Andro

Erase - 900k

Worms Turn is sounding welcome at that price.

But also, I'm not sure if this is inflation or not.. BUT.. recently got a Water IV drop off a Sapphire Quadav and the price was jumping between 1.8 - 1 mil. I put mine up for 1 mil for the sake of not being a ripoff merchant. I'll be sending a slice of that to ZRO too since he was there aswell ^_^

[Skai]

Heh, like OG said, Water IV is a common drop off of Sapphire Quadav. It costs around a million on the auction house and BLMs hardly use it. People are so weird sometimes.

[Andromeda]

A common drop and at a million something is messed up about that. I guess if it is not in a great demand by the Black Mages then I guess I can understand that. But hey, Dawezy take me with you if you do that again. I need money to afford the stupid Erase and countless other things my PLD is still missing. I need my Rosenbogen and Soil Ring. 6 months ago that would cost me 3 million, I am afraid to find out how much it will cost me now. Probably 6 or 7. ; ;

[Skai]

I got my Rosenbogen at around 500k a while ago, like last month. It reached around 800k recently. I think soil ring is around 5 million at the moment. There are quite a few NA goldsmithers that can make then. Perfection and Artax are veteran goldsmithers. I heard that Artax charge for synths while Perfection doesn't. Not entirely sure if Perfection doesn't. I just know that not many people synth soil rings for profit so it is best that you get the materials and ask them to help you synth instead.

[Andromeda]

Hmm, I think Rosenbogen was around 800k last time I checked, months ago and Soil was 2 million. So Soil is up to 5 million now, that is rather annoying. But at least the Rosenbogen has not shot up through the roof yet.

[ZRO]

Actually Andro, if we can arrange it some time, some of the better spells drop off those Quads, and the top tier Yagudo as well. Set up enough people together and we can just kinda wade through'em all I figure, till we rake in enough money. ^^

[Zantar]

Speaking of inflation, if I remember correctly my friend said he bought his HQ elemental staves for somewhere around the price of 1-2mil each. Since my rdm is lv 46 and nearing the lv of needing the staves I thought I would check on the prices. They was pretty much between 4-6mil a piece... Inflation sucks! Expecally when your as poor as I am. Guess I'll settle with the NQ staves, those alone will take me forever to get.

[Secret Azn Man]

A lot of people blame gil sellers for inflation. It's so easy to blame the gilsellers for the cause of the market's inflation. But I don't think it's that simple. You mean to tell me that a group of around 20-50 gilsellers in this server of about 6000-8000 players, has enough power to significantly influence the market? Do you actually believe that the majority of players buy gils and throw them around enough to singlehandedly jack up prices? I mean, why is it that if it's the buyer's fault for willing to pay more, it's the gil buyers, and if it's the seller's fault for putting items at high prices, it's the gil sellers' fault who somehow has a monopoly on all rare drops?

Don't get me wrong. The gil sellers certainly play a major role in accelerating inflation. But they're not the only ones doing it. Regular players do it too. Be honest. You really think everyone fights BCNMs, camp NMs, farm Sky, and crafts items just to get the items for themselves? No. I don't think so. They do it to make money as well. And when they have this highly desired item, who decides the value of it? The players do. The seller tries to sell at the highest consumers will pay and the buyers decide if the price is acceptable. Often times, if the buyer can afford it, the price is acceptable. Sad, but true. I know what you're thinking. "It's the gil buyers! They are rich and don't care about wasting gils!." I don't know the percentage of players buy gils but unless it's over 50% of all rich players, I doubt we can solely blame them for accepting high prices. If more than half of all rich players buy gils, then this server is screwed. Besides, why do you assume all gil buyers are gil wasters? Gils costs REAL money. Do you think they want to waste their REAL money? And if someone buys gils just so they can buy expensive gears, man they will be spending hundreds, even thousands of real dollars. While there might be a very select few who actually do that, I doubt not even 10% of gil buyers do that.

The fact of the matter is, we have too much gils circulating in this server and others. Unlike in real life, an infinite amount of gil can be created. The game will always create items that can be converted to gils. In the real world, we will run out of oil, animals may go extinct, etc. But in the game, BCNM and NMs will keep popping, dropping highly valued goods indefinitely. All the raw items for crafting can forever be farmed endlessly. And these raw materials can be converted into other items for more gils. (Darksteel Ore > Darksteel Ingots > Darksteel Bolts) Even NPCs will keep rewarding players with endless gils and items that can be exchanged for gils. In other words, a lot of gils are created everyday.

But how much are destroyed everyday? How much gil goes back to NPCs such as chocobo renting, airship and ferry fares, repairing relic items, etc, and disappears? How much gils are used for consumable items such as foods, medicines, ninja tools, scrolls, and ammos that disappear? I would guess for every 1 million gils created, about half gets destroyed. Maybe less than half. So everyday, it's reasonable to assume that our server has more and more gils circulating. Gil becomes less valuable because there's an abundance of them. Remember when you thought a million gils were a lot? I could last a month or two on that as ranger or ninja. Now, I'll blow that in a week.

Personally, I think we need to reverse this inflation ASAP. Putting up a pair of Leaping boots for 300,000 gils instead of 3,000,000 gils only slows down the inflation. Because you still created more gil in the server, just 10% as much. We need to destroy more gil. Enough so that for every 1 million gils created, 1.2 million gets destroyed until the economy reaches to a more reasonable level. Then we can destroy 700k foir every million.

So, how do we do this? Fees, fees, fees, and more fees. In real life, we hate them. But in game, I think we need them. All chocobo rentings and travel fares as well as auction fees should double. Every time you rent a mog house in another country, it should cost 500-1000 gils. BCNMs should charge 1000 gils per person. There should be a 1% bazaar tax in all three nations. WOW had a good idea where you must maintain your equipment for optimal results. And repairs costs money. The goal is to create more avenues for gils to go back into the servers, to be destroyed.

There should be more consumable items. More foods, more drinks, more medicines, more tools, more ammos. And these consumable items must be more useful and cheaper to encourage more use. For the love of Altana, WE NEED PHOENIX DOWNS!! New items that can deal elemental damages and anyone can use would be nice. For example, while Black Mages can cast Stone at level 1, there should be a level 5 bomb or mini crystal that can deal earth damage that has a slightly lower damage cap than Stone. Again, these are designed to allow more gils to be destroyed.

In addition to create more ways to destroy gils, we should conversely reduce more ways to create gils. We need more Rare/Ex items. All items that can be exchanged for Conquest Points should also be Rare/Ex.

Hopefully, this should curve the inflation and slowly reduce it without crashing the market.

[LocoColt04]

Now you just have to show Square-Enix your suggestions, and hope they have half a brain to listen to them.

On a semi-related note, for whatever reason, my new laptop came in a week early. I'm typing on it right now. FFXI will be installed after my meeting tonight. To show where the topic relevance lies, it's in this statement: I am not looking forward to returning to an inflated server. It's insane. Bah.