June 2020 Version Update

we can't tell how much gil is currently circulating in the individual server economies can we?

i remember befor they introduced the crafting shields quite some pieces also went for 300-500mil+. now with kraken club reaching 700mil they act again. seems like ~500mil for single pieces of equipment is when SE feels the need to make drastic changes.

I don't think SE can even tell that. They ban 50billion in an RMT economy thats probably sitting on 100x that.

That's why I don't think RMT care about the bans and such.

The bans are a speed bump.

Same thing with speeding in your car. You may get caught and get a speeding ticket. But you're going to speed again. It's a game of chancing getting caught.

You speed significantly more times that you get pulled over and ticketed....

I mean, I'm cool if its account related, but what exactly would you suggest? Saying we should do something without giving any details only tells me we shouldn't do anything.

The easiest way to fix RMT is to make gil rare/ex and you cant trade it or use it to buy things on the AH. In fact, just remove the AH its funding RMTing. Also make it so items arent trade able in case someones selling them for RL money too. To prevent trade of real money for leveling they need to remove the party system as well and your account now can only be linked to 1 IP if any other IP tries to login it wont let them. If you are moving addresses or changing ISP you need to contact SE with the new IP and allow up to 60 days for the new IP to be registered. Only 1 account can be registered to each IP, to prevent power leveling, Anyone outside of a town that is within 25 yalms of someone for 5 minutes or enters that range multiple times within the same jp day will be subjected to a temporary ban of all the offenders accounts, to be safe. This will also keep people from botting as you mist be aware who is near you or you will get banned.

Now you have no more RMT.

Right now, you get a 30 day lockout for server xfer on toons right?

They could implement a 30 day lockout for re-creating a character.

"Pay your dollar and make your toon. If you delete that toon; that particular 1/16 slot cannot re-create a new character for 30 days. Grey out the "create" button for that particular login slot.

some day, people will realize just like the American economy doesn't function without a certain level of underpaid illegal immigrants, FFXI does not stay afloat without a certain prevalence of RMT accounts. Both from the standpoint of the account fees paid by RMT to SE and the services provided by RMT to lonely players unable to progress without merc services who also would have quit long ago.

Its a dirty secret in the underbelly of Vana'diel.

^^^^ It all goes back to SE did not develop this game because they love people and wanted to give us something to do.

Every single move made by SE is in their best interest for profits.

You also have no players lol. Don't forget that line lol. I know its troll post but still gotta lol it. Something people seem to forget is you can't get rid of rmt in games. Its too easy for people just to say *** it I'll just have someone do it for me and have fun with my weapons. I personally think SE should be going after buyers as much as sellers but as we know its kinda hard to track each person doing it. End of the day players set prices on ah not rmts. So the gilbuying and selling in a way isn't just SE fault.

That was my point, There are always workarounds until you make it a single player game.

Yea im sticking by my fix.

It won't remove RMT (monthly subs)... instead limit how much gil they can make on sparks for their 12.95+ (15x1$) investment.

Causing more 12.95 investments.

It's the answer the accountants at SE would favor.

100k/week? well *** - does SE not understand what this is going to do to the economy? ***wont fall in price, but it will be impossibly hard to make gil now for non crafters. its like we had a leaky faucet, and SE came in and said "im going to fix the faucet for you guys" and then burned the entire house down and said "SINKS FIXED YALL"

So where's everyone buying gil these days? /s

NO. You can actually invest your time into the content and sell the rewards. If you are solo... you can shout for 2+ people and clear delves/vagaries.

Sell your mats to the crafters.

You shouldn't be making as much money as crafters.

its 2 mil per week, not 100k. 100k accolades = 1 mil gil, 100k sparks = 1 mil gil.

Y'all are acting like RMT were the only issue causing the inflation. Tons of non-RMT players were botting/instaselling during Gain Experience and had a similarly large and negative impact on the economy.

On the surface SE claimed that RMT were the reason they were capping Sparks/Accos, but they were doing it to rein in players just as much. And since regular players aren't going to remake their characters indefinitely the cap will make a noticeable difference over time no matter what the RMT do.

When my friends and I first started a year or two ago we spark farmed like crazy to get set up, can't imagine how we'd have managed now with the cap in place.

If you can't get to endgame on 2M a week something is wrong.

You're very right in that SE didn't address the issue until it was so rampant among "regular" players that the effect on the economy was too big to ignore any longer.

But if it was just those "regulars" doing gain-exp windows, even if multiboxing, it wouldn't have been addressed. It was those 500dmg hit and crystal objective spammers in Ceizak and the like.

I support both of these messages.

Old Dyna, Salvage II, Omen detritus+cards, Domain Invasion, Voidwatch campaigns and probably other stuff I'm forgetting. Plenty of avenues for new players to earn gil even in basic 119 gear, especially if you pair it with the free 2M per week from sparks/accos.

Yeah I agree people just blaming rmts when the whole damn player base has been spam farming this ***and or botting it in a way. I think at the end of the day people are more so hoping this fix stops bots so they can say how much rmts hurt the game when in reality prices are gonna drop a little on items but nothing crazy because its still not hard to print gil.

Two pages of back quotes;

Character creation is a huge core problem. By exposing it, maybe they fix it (in ten years rofl)

Bans don't work, limits don't work, nothing works, because you can create brand new characters as fast as you can blink your eye.

Square is a business, Money > people etc

Boredom, honest, realist

2m/week is kinda *** if you think about it. I mean, if you consider items like Moonbean Ring and Staunch Tathlum as 'getting to endgame', that's 7m right there. Getting 150 items for JSE weapon puts you ~1m, Vexed Wristbands 2m, etc. All that stuff adds up pretty quickly to get yourself set up half decently.

Which confuses me a little because just removing those objectives would have been the more direct RMT-focused nerf (or hell, leave them in if it's an indexing issue and just set reward to 0 sparks). I'm fine with the cap still to push players into doing other activities and stymieing the gil creation but it just feels like SE missed the target a bit.

I guess so.

again- the bigger picture of seeing the economy change from one of "gil creation" to "gil exchange" and having to do it so abruptly is what I worry about. Just because YOU can have the same size wallet doesn't mean that wallet buys the same stuff. And if your suppliers (crafters, farmers) arent' willing to do such things for a lowered profit margin, it doesn't matter.

A change was needed, but this is just so much all at once. The long term might be in better shape, but how we get there is very intriguing to me.

I don't consider those items getting to endgame.. ambuscade or NPC gear will get you to endgame. At the point you get there you probably have developed a network to help with the next step of things.

If you farm the items and bring them to a crafter.. atleast on fenrir... I will craft for zero cost... on any of the shields.

The greater problem is non crafters want the simple profits that crafters get because they see nothing but AH sales.

Go out and actually farm the materials. Spend some time working for it.

Cehuetzi pelts are going for 19m a stack on fenrir and climbing.

People want a simple buck.

edit** nothing in this game costs gil, it costs time. Stop trying to limit that. If you want nicer things, you gotta work for it.

This is pretty *** logic IMO. Moonlight Coral for instance drops from Ou, you're telling a new player 'getting ready for endgame' to go out and farm Ou to lot the coral to bring to a crafter to make a ring? That's not happening lol. You can't expect a newer player to be able to farm all their mats to get by, it's not logical.

He's telling them to go kill Tojil a few times, sell the horns, and buy the coral.

an 18 year old game has various players who grew up in different gaming environments.

If you started this game in 2005, you're probably ok with a RMEA taking 3 months, because you've done it. You experienced 6 months to get a job to 75 and merited. And you waited 4 months for Byakko to drop YOUR haidate- before that you were winning, but damn it wasn't as easy. But then again, EVERYONE didn't have one.

If you came from other games and started FFXI in 2017, that's an experience not paralleled in any other game right now, at least to my understanding. Leveling is a hassle you do so that you "get to play the game". Gearing up is "BiS onry" rather than learning to do fights with appropriate gear, just not the best.

Mix those two cultures and the clash happens. The harsh reality is this game isn't for those with short attention spans, who aren't willing to grind. SE has tried to make ways to avoid grinding, and they always get abused by RMT or high-powered endgame players. And they'll keep trying to attract those new players who don't want to play the game FFXI really is in its bones.

You can give vana'diel all the facelifts and boob jobs you want, its still FFXI. And there's gonna be some grinding, or a way to abuse so you can avoid it.

Gonna have to lower your standards on what is acceptable again. NQ ONRY!

At least morons won't be paying 50m for relic+3 anymore so that's good.