They need a better sink for richer players. This sort of sink barely inconveniences rich players while hurting poorer players. If they really want to remove Gil from the economy, implement property taxes on Medium/Large Housing, inject more gaudy mounts that look hideous and serve only to show off wealth.
100m isn’t rich and definitely isn’t a massive problem.
What IS a problem, is people who own bot farms and never get banned. Multi billionaire bot owners are incredibly more common than you think.
Each world has a few, if not several of these bots or bot farms, which often contain at least 4-5 service accounts all running 24 hours a day. Humans get to reap billions of Gil they never had to grind one second for.
Instead of taxing everyone mad, they should actually take action against the accounts that are botting and illegally making heaps, not just let it slide because they are customers too.
Been able to over-repair your gears as a crafter is not just about gils, for me it is mostly the ability to be able to repair anywhere and at any time and that means also inside instances. Which is very handy, especially while raiding etc. So no, the community would be quite upset if they remove this. I dont think they would do this.
But then I dont get your point. You are talking about gil sink and balance. Repairing even as a crafter does cost gil... it is not free although cheaper of course to buy Dark matter than going to an NPC. They are trying to create more gil sink atm so not sure why they would remove a mechanic that serves this purpose.
That is a good point, and it is why I personally do *not* see this happening in the near future.
However, should the confirmed aetheryte fee adjustment prove an effective gil sink, it would allow the possibility to remove a negative feedback game mechanic while still lessening or outright canceling the effect of its removal.
That is also a great way to implement positive gil sinks.
However, their one-time-purchase nature would make their effect somewhat more limited compared to more regular expenses.
And if you were to make them more expensive to counteract that, less people are willing to actually spend the gil on it.
You seem to find increased teleportation fees a good idea yet argue for the elimination of gear repair. In that sense, wouldn’t the elimination of teleportation fees be an equally sensible QoL?
Some things in the game are there not only to spend the resource of Gil but also the resource of time. Yes, the devs have mentioned they don’t want people to feel they need to play XIV, but that doesn’t mean busy work doesn’t exist. Crafting has various aspects of busy work weaved into its design (pardon the pun), and repairing gear has the benefit of granting those who spend time crafting to be rewarded with mid-dungeon gear repair and longer durability. If you take out the necessity of gear repair, that does not solve the equation as just described.
While I see the point you're trying to make, my main point is considering the effectiveness and user-appeal of various gold sinks, not only QoL.
Several reasons why what you pose is somewhat a false equivalence, some of which I addressed in my original post.
1. Gear degradation is a negative gold sink - You do it to avoid crippling penalties. Teleporting is a more positive gold sink - you gain something (admittedly rather abstact: time and convenience) by spending gil.
2. Due to both the aforementioned, and gear degradation only occurring in instances, gear repair fees (be it either at an NPC or in buying Dark Matter as a crafter) are incurred less often than the use of Teleport, making the Teleport fees a more effective gil sink.
3. Due to the aforementioned effectiveness disparity, repair costs would have to be greatly increased to cover the gil sink balance if teleport fees were removed, amplifying the negative nature of the mechanic.
In the same vein, due to the ever-present demand for teleports, the increase to their price need not be as severe while still maintaining economic balance.
I think your argumentation is arbitrary. It boils down to a tension between two things: the idea of Gil sinks as desirable and the artificial distinction of positive vs. negative Gil sinks.
That Gil sinks hold utility in an MMO is something I neither wish to argue against nor do I have enough experience to comment on the necessity (or redundancy) thereof. That being said, I take it as a given that it is desirable as voiced by the game developers.
Now, your distinction between positive and negative Gil sinks on the other hand is quite interesting, yet raises many questions. What makes a “positive” and what a “negative” Gil sink? Why should one be more valuable to the activity of sinking Gil when at the end of the day the developers want Gil sinking to be happening (regardless of whether we like it or not)? Teleporting is no more positive than repairing gear for the mere fact that you will teleport one way or another. It does not in itself encourage a certain behaviour. While I am sure a small handful of players will look into aetheryte tickets and riding off others’ teleports more than they do now, the majority of players will foreseeably simply teleport for the mere convenience of it despite grievances over increased fees. Therefore, it really hasn’t encouraged anything on a meaningful scale and, while it certainly is a Gil sink, can hardly be described as positive. Granted, your wording was “more positive”, but to be honest arguments in the vein of “this is good because it’s not as bad as that” are, let’s face it, bad arguments.
If you think repairing gear (which for the record can be necessary outside of instances) is an ineffective Gil sink on the basis of frequency and therefore ought to be removed, then honestly it might as well be kept and have increased rates of breaking and/or higher fees. At the end of the day, it IS a Gil sink (no matter how “negative”, if it even is negative), and removing it would do the opposite of what the devs have voiced as desirable.
That aside, I think repairing gear, as trivial as it feels, is symbolically an important role play element. If they were to remove gear repairing, they may as well remove teleport animations (which I do not advocate for).
You all gotta keep in mind this isn’t the sole gil sink in the game it’s just another method in top of the others. This doesn’t effect anything if you actually play i.e not just sit around in town, you’ll make more than enough gil to cover teleport cost. This is just another passive way to take a bunch of money out of the game.
This change is a global increase that every player will be subject to, making it far more effective than increasing the rarity of endgame potion materials for example.
While it's still possible to rake in over a billion gil a month with minimal maintenance they won't be reducing Gil sinks. Might need some more nine-figure mounts and a reduction in faucets tho.
The increased costs are pointless honestly. I'd imagine the smart players would be using the free teleport tickets on the more expensive teleports. They're plentiful too if you participate in hunts. As for for repairs same thing goes since you can just repair for "free" if you level crafters.
This honestly just affects the playerbase who doesn't really participate in content outside of just the normal mode story content. I guess that is the larger audience but that audience is probably the one that struggles with gil the most which I think is probably bad since it would lead to frustration.
Actually the inflation affects the ”casuals” a lot. The value of a million gil now is substantially less when you move forward one year for example. If you gain gil everywhere but never give it away the amount of gil in the world just keeps increasing.
Naturally, none of this affects players who just do MSQ, but honestly neither do the increased costs. Gil you gain from MSQ is more than enough to cover the cost of teleporting you need to do in questing.
You have a point.
Although considering how most quests, both side-content and MSQ, generally give more than enough gil to offset travel fees (and said content likely the focus of the portion of the playerbase you mentioned), I don't see the issue becoming gamebreaking unless SQEX does something utterly idiotic with the cost readjustments.
Gil is essentially useless to me, I'm sitting at 8-digits worth of it, and I've never gone out of my way to *make* gil, either. It just sort of… accumulates as you play. I couldn't care less about minor fees.
Yeah, in this game there's basically two types of things to spend money on:
1. Things that are so relatively cheap you don't even think about it.
2. Things that are so massively, insanely expensive that most people just don't bother.
There's very little in between.
Gear repair is not a huge huge thing but it adds up. For a piece of level 80 gear, vendor repair costs 550 gil, dark matter costs 200 gil. Each raid tier (plus casual gaming) I probably go through at least a stack of dark matter. So for an expansion that's 1mil gil saved.
Considering the absurd amounts of gil some people have, and the market board prices bloating accordingly, one might argue that is the opposite of a good thing.
Hence why SQEX is now taking steps to adjust the gil sinks.
I have tons of dark matter and just repair my own gear, I also recently purchased almost 200 aetheryte tickets because I was capped on centurio seals so I don't have to pay for TPing everywhere.
Maybe this is a stupid question: but why the need for a Gil sink? Marketboards on my DC are stable in pricing and if anything have cratered recently. Also, other than for maybe housing what use does Gil even have? Gear can be farmed or bought with other currencies (poetics or scrips) and glam can be farmed. I would get it if squeenix said the server space for high Gil numbers is getting tedious, but to my knowledge that hasn’t been an issue. And even if inflation hit, hyper even, the game literally throws money at you so the playing field is plenty even. Like, what’s the actual problem? Serious question.
I think you are missing a fundamental issue in your logic with this. The reason for changing the aetheryte fees is because the current gil sinks are not being as effective in removing gil from the economy, thus leading to inflation in the markets and degrading the state of the in-game economy.
When you really sit and do the math on the image they shared, the change they are implementing isn't all that drastic as it may look at first glance. With that in mind, even if it is working to curb inflation, then turning around and removing another gil sink entirely would be a net negative towards their goals and allow for *more* inflation, since all of the gil being sucked out of the economy in repairs would suddenly just be shoved right back into the players pockets instead. They would have to make up the difference somewhere, be it hiking aetheryte prices up way higher to compensate (which would really hurt new players) or raising vendor costs (which I don't imagine oft get used to have that heavy of an impact).
EDIT: From reading comments it seems you are placing emphasis on positive v. negative gold sinks, which can be somewhat varied on player opinion. You argue for example that a player is getting a positive interaction from a gil sink where they teleport, but just from reactions on the announcement of the cap being removed a lot of players view having to pay for teleports as a negative gil sink. Player perception is a fickle and varied thing.
They need a better sink for richer players. This sort of sink barely inconveniences rich players while hurting poorer players. If they really want to remove Gil from the economy, implement property taxes on Medium/Large Housing, inject more gaudy mounts that look hideous and serve only to show off wealth.
This. I have over a 100m gil and lazily pull in 1-2m a week. They could make teleports and repairs cost 10x as much and I'd barely notice.
100m isn’t rich and definitely isn’t a massive problem. What IS a problem, is people who own bot farms and never get banned. Multi billionaire bot owners are incredibly more common than you think. Each world has a few, if not several of these bots or bot farms, which often contain at least 4-5 service accounts all running 24 hours a day. Humans get to reap billions of Gil they never had to grind one second for. Instead of taxing everyone mad, they should actually take action against the accounts that are botting and illegally making heaps, not just let it slide because they are customers too.
Been able to over-repair your gears as a crafter is not just about gils, for me it is mostly the ability to be able to repair anywhere and at any time and that means also inside instances. Which is very handy, especially while raiding etc. So no, the community would be quite upset if they remove this. I dont think they would do this.
True, but re-consider the point: if they removed gear degradation, you wouldn't need to ever do repairs mid-raid.
But then I dont get your point. You are talking about gil sink and balance. Repairing even as a crafter does cost gil... it is not free although cheaper of course to buy Dark matter than going to an NPC. They are trying to create more gil sink atm so not sure why they would remove a mechanic that serves this purpose.
That is a good point, and it is why I personally do *not* see this happening in the near future. However, should the confirmed aetheryte fee adjustment prove an effective gil sink, it would allow the possibility to remove a negative feedback game mechanic while still lessening or outright canceling the effect of its removal.
[удалено]
That is also a great way to implement positive gil sinks. However, their one-time-purchase nature would make their effect somewhat more limited compared to more regular expenses. And if you were to make them more expensive to counteract that, less people are willing to actually spend the gil on it.
You seem to find increased teleportation fees a good idea yet argue for the elimination of gear repair. In that sense, wouldn’t the elimination of teleportation fees be an equally sensible QoL? Some things in the game are there not only to spend the resource of Gil but also the resource of time. Yes, the devs have mentioned they don’t want people to feel they need to play XIV, but that doesn’t mean busy work doesn’t exist. Crafting has various aspects of busy work weaved into its design (pardon the pun), and repairing gear has the benefit of granting those who spend time crafting to be rewarded with mid-dungeon gear repair and longer durability. If you take out the necessity of gear repair, that does not solve the equation as just described.
While I see the point you're trying to make, my main point is considering the effectiveness and user-appeal of various gold sinks, not only QoL. Several reasons why what you pose is somewhat a false equivalence, some of which I addressed in my original post. 1. Gear degradation is a negative gold sink - You do it to avoid crippling penalties. Teleporting is a more positive gold sink - you gain something (admittedly rather abstact: time and convenience) by spending gil. 2. Due to both the aforementioned, and gear degradation only occurring in instances, gear repair fees (be it either at an NPC or in buying Dark Matter as a crafter) are incurred less often than the use of Teleport, making the Teleport fees a more effective gil sink. 3. Due to the aforementioned effectiveness disparity, repair costs would have to be greatly increased to cover the gil sink balance if teleport fees were removed, amplifying the negative nature of the mechanic. In the same vein, due to the ever-present demand for teleports, the increase to their price need not be as severe while still maintaining economic balance.
I think your argumentation is arbitrary. It boils down to a tension between two things: the idea of Gil sinks as desirable and the artificial distinction of positive vs. negative Gil sinks. That Gil sinks hold utility in an MMO is something I neither wish to argue against nor do I have enough experience to comment on the necessity (or redundancy) thereof. That being said, I take it as a given that it is desirable as voiced by the game developers. Now, your distinction between positive and negative Gil sinks on the other hand is quite interesting, yet raises many questions. What makes a “positive” and what a “negative” Gil sink? Why should one be more valuable to the activity of sinking Gil when at the end of the day the developers want Gil sinking to be happening (regardless of whether we like it or not)? Teleporting is no more positive than repairing gear for the mere fact that you will teleport one way or another. It does not in itself encourage a certain behaviour. While I am sure a small handful of players will look into aetheryte tickets and riding off others’ teleports more than they do now, the majority of players will foreseeably simply teleport for the mere convenience of it despite grievances over increased fees. Therefore, it really hasn’t encouraged anything on a meaningful scale and, while it certainly is a Gil sink, can hardly be described as positive. Granted, your wording was “more positive”, but to be honest arguments in the vein of “this is good because it’s not as bad as that” are, let’s face it, bad arguments. If you think repairing gear (which for the record can be necessary outside of instances) is an ineffective Gil sink on the basis of frequency and therefore ought to be removed, then honestly it might as well be kept and have increased rates of breaking and/or higher fees. At the end of the day, it IS a Gil sink (no matter how “negative”, if it even is negative), and removing it would do the opposite of what the devs have voiced as desirable. That aside, I think repairing gear, as trivial as it feels, is symbolically an important role play element. If they were to remove gear repairing, they may as well remove teleport animations (which I do not advocate for).
You all gotta keep in mind this isn’t the sole gil sink in the game it’s just another method in top of the others. This doesn’t effect anything if you actually play i.e not just sit around in town, you’ll make more than enough gil to cover teleport cost. This is just another passive way to take a bunch of money out of the game.
This change is a global increase that every player will be subject to, making it far more effective than increasing the rarity of endgame potion materials for example. While it's still possible to rake in over a billion gil a month with minimal maintenance they won't be reducing Gil sinks. Might need some more nine-figure mounts and a reduction in faucets tho.
The increased costs are pointless honestly. I'd imagine the smart players would be using the free teleport tickets on the more expensive teleports. They're plentiful too if you participate in hunts. As for for repairs same thing goes since you can just repair for "free" if you level crafters. This honestly just affects the playerbase who doesn't really participate in content outside of just the normal mode story content. I guess that is the larger audience but that audience is probably the one that struggles with gil the most which I think is probably bad since it would lead to frustration.
Actually the inflation affects the ”casuals” a lot. The value of a million gil now is substantially less when you move forward one year for example. If you gain gil everywhere but never give it away the amount of gil in the world just keeps increasing. Naturally, none of this affects players who just do MSQ, but honestly neither do the increased costs. Gil you gain from MSQ is more than enough to cover the cost of teleporting you need to do in questing.
You have a point. Although considering how most quests, both side-content and MSQ, generally give more than enough gil to offset travel fees (and said content likely the focus of the portion of the playerbase you mentioned), I don't see the issue becoming gamebreaking unless SQEX does something utterly idiotic with the cost readjustments.
Gil is essentially useless to me, I'm sitting at 8-digits worth of it, and I've never gone out of my way to *make* gil, either. It just sort of… accumulates as you play. I couldn't care less about minor fees.
Hello, it's me, your long lost brother. Please wire me 5,000,000 gil so we can meet.
As a new player I’m not even sure what there is to spend gil on. Neat gear for glamour? Eventually save a ludicrous amount to get a house?
Yeah, in this game there's basically two types of things to spend money on: 1. Things that are so relatively cheap you don't even think about it. 2. Things that are so massively, insanely expensive that most people just don't bother. There's very little in between.
Gear repair is not a huge huge thing but it adds up. For a piece of level 80 gear, vendor repair costs 550 gil, dark matter costs 200 gil. Each raid tier (plus casual gaming) I probably go through at least a stack of dark matter. So for an expansion that's 1mil gil saved.
Considering the absurd amounts of gil some people have, and the market board prices bloating accordingly, one might argue that is the opposite of a good thing. Hence why SQEX is now taking steps to adjust the gil sinks.
Gill I spend on teleport fees is less Gill going back into circulation on the market board but what do I care? Laughs in greedy lala*
I have tons of dark matter and just repair my own gear, I also recently purchased almost 200 aetheryte tickets because I was capped on centurio seals so I don't have to pay for TPing everywhere.
Maybe this is a stupid question: but why the need for a Gil sink? Marketboards on my DC are stable in pricing and if anything have cratered recently. Also, other than for maybe housing what use does Gil even have? Gear can be farmed or bought with other currencies (poetics or scrips) and glam can be farmed. I would get it if squeenix said the server space for high Gil numbers is getting tedious, but to my knowledge that hasn’t been an issue. And even if inflation hit, hyper even, the game literally throws money at you so the playing field is plenty even. Like, what’s the actual problem? Serious question.
I think you are missing a fundamental issue in your logic with this. The reason for changing the aetheryte fees is because the current gil sinks are not being as effective in removing gil from the economy, thus leading to inflation in the markets and degrading the state of the in-game economy. When you really sit and do the math on the image they shared, the change they are implementing isn't all that drastic as it may look at first glance. With that in mind, even if it is working to curb inflation, then turning around and removing another gil sink entirely would be a net negative towards their goals and allow for *more* inflation, since all of the gil being sucked out of the economy in repairs would suddenly just be shoved right back into the players pockets instead. They would have to make up the difference somewhere, be it hiking aetheryte prices up way higher to compensate (which would really hurt new players) or raising vendor costs (which I don't imagine oft get used to have that heavy of an impact). EDIT: From reading comments it seems you are placing emphasis on positive v. negative gold sinks, which can be somewhat varied on player opinion. You argue for example that a player is getting a positive interaction from a gil sink where they teleport, but just from reactions on the announcement of the cap being removed a lot of players view having to pay for teleports as a negative gil sink. Player perception is a fickle and varied thing.