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The economy is grinding to a haltFollow

#1 Jul 12 2013 at 12:50 PM Rating: Excellent
I'm hoping this is just a temporary problem as everyone deals with "OOOH SHINY" from the update this week, but I'm having more and more things sitting on the AH for days at a time, things that used to sell at an acceptable, if slow pace, before being returned to me, unsold.

This phenomenon is painfully more apparent with the mog gardens, in which I'm distributing crap to mules that are already stuffed to bursting because of the Mog Bonanza, but they're not able to free up any space because their stacks of things aren't selling either.

At this rate, it isn't going to be all the changes in gameplay that make me quit FFXI, it's the fact that the economy has slowed down so much I can't accomplish anything. (Doesn't help that earth crystals recently had a strange bubble, climbing to 100K for a stack of clusters. I still don't know wtf was going on with that.) Smiley: frown

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#2 Jul 12 2013 at 1:23 PM Rating: Good
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Just a guess, but I'd wager it's a simple factor of significantly less people playing. I know when I came back recently I only stayed for about 2 evenings and had enough.
#3 Jul 12 2013 at 2:13 PM Rating: Default
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I would think the largest contributing factor is the fact people simply do not EXP in the traditional way, and as such much of the stuff is becoming harder to find. Back in the day crystals were cheap as **** because you could basically had 6 dudes walk away from EXP with 2-3 stacks each. Now with people EXPing in abyssea instead the amount being found and put on AH is significantly less.

Further compounding this is the lack of relevant high level crafts, meaning the supply of good items essentially comes from people doing content, which is (at least when I left) few and far between (at least on a consistent basis). This kind of is a double whammy with the lack of any real comparable crafted items...which also has taken a hit because people are not out farming for ****, that doesn't really sell, because it is probably easier to just go make Magian weapons/armor to bridge the gaps.

But ya Abyssea essentially killed the crystal market, with the cost of crystal making crafting more expensive, and the lack of any really relevant high end crafts compounding it, the AH system is pretty much left to the random drops from events, that people don't seem to do to much, because its either a pain in the *** to get the people to come (because everyone thinks optimal is the only way to accomplish anything) or the event itself isn't relevant enough to sink time into.
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#4 Jul 12 2013 at 3:22 PM Rating: Excellent
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I dunno, haven't played for 2.5 weeks or so. I am pretty burnt out on the game. It wouldn't shock me though.
#5 Jul 12 2013 at 3:27 PM Rating: Good
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Yeah, Sylph has been slow since around the 4th of July holiday.
#6 Jul 12 2013 at 3:32 PM Rating: Excellent
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Can we seriously stop trying to attribute every single thing that goes into decline to Abyssea? It's moronic at this point.

The only market Abyssea killed was low level gear and that was only really months after Visions came out and people finally figured out the majority of the mechanics of the place. Food was still being made, moved, and sold. Crafting mats were being sold and usually in higher quantities simply because there were more available due to previously scarce materials (i.e. Dragon Meat for example) becoming more common place. It suddenly wasn't so expensive to level a craft if you really wanted to because the higher tier components were a bit easier to obtain.

No, what killed the market was the introduction of Adoulin. There was a massive drop in most crafting mats when it was release because of the way H.E.L.M. works in this game you could get the majority of the items in Adoulin plus people were spending their time on Bayld farming, attempting Skirmish runs, and then trying Wildskeeper runs. ...and then came Delve. Why bother buying items for Relics when they're now inferior and no good timetable as to when they'll be "adjusted"? Why bother with Magian trials (unless you're a caster) since all the weapons are now useless?

The market "collapsed" because what people spam now (Delve) doesn't drop anything but Airlixirs and Rare/EX gear so there's nothing to put on the AH. When you have nothing coming to you from an event you've got nothing to put on the AH -- logic. The only market not affected by Adoulin and Delve is cooking... but cooking's been stable for the entire game's history and won't go anywhere due to how important food buffs are.
#7 Jul 12 2013 at 3:49 PM Rating: Excellent
I'm on Asura, and I have 9 items that I have re-listed at least 3 times now. Making it worse is that all my items keep getting undercut by a lot. Hahava mails averaged around 400k up until 2 weeks before the update. Then they climbed to 600-700k for a few days, and have since been undercut by at least 50k, every sale, for 2 weeks. I have multiple mails that I'm sitting on because they don't sell unless severely undercut. Flame rings, some neck pieces, couple other crafting mats... All useless, apparently.
#8 Jul 12 2013 at 3:50 PM Rating: Default
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I quit in 2010 and just glancing a few posts I see this world I once loved is ruined
#9 Jul 12 2013 at 7:44 PM Rating: Default
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Viertel wrote:
Can we seriously stop trying to attribute every single thing that goes into decline to Abyssea? It's moronic at this point.


Its not moronic, people have no reason to do anything outside Abyssea. The biggest being EXP farming. This means the millions of EXP that used to be ground on stuff that drops crystals and mats no longer happens. Without crystals (the very core of the markets) everything becomes more expensive to the point that it isn't worth spending money on other crafts, those mats + the crystals for the next crafting stage aren't used, and slowly but surely everything constricts and costs more.

People stop buying stuff on the AH because it becomes to expensive, so they go out and get alternative themselves, many which can drop from spamable events such as abyssea and void watch. This means less things are being put on the AH because more people are getting specific things for themselves and moving on from there. On top of this because nothing is being sold really, outside of Abyssea pop items and some consumables, lots of mats have no market value and are sold to NPC's or just outright dropped on the floor. Resulting in an ever continuing cycle of constriction of the markets, and a rise in the cost of practically everything.

Abyssea has had a huge impact in the game, not simply in the markets, but in the core of the game itself. For example, you level to 99 in abyssea, and use the Cruor you attained to buy a decent set of gear to start you off in Abyssea. So you aren't even exchanging gold with players for the most part, unless you really want an item and are extremely unlucky in attaining it.

The only markets left in the game are currency markets, and this is largely because of Abyssea, and SE not adding really anything to the back end of the crafting system since before abyssea.

Thats not to say there is anything wrong with abyssea, it is a massive reset button. The economy is resetting, and only relevant stuff is being traded. Unfortunately for people who used crafting as an income source are mostly SOL, because Abyssea killed the crafting markets, and SE hasn't done anything to revive them. (I think we all can agree, Synergy is a pretty lackluster attempt.)
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#10 Jul 12 2013 at 8:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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When gear becomes obsolete at the rate we've seen since adoulin it shakes peoples confidence in buying stuff. Why throw large amounts of gil at meager upgrades like we did before when every update the progression comes in leaps and bounds? The best stuff is rare/ex, so right now the only viable markets are forms of currency, as was already stated. Airlixrs, alexandrites, heavy metals, dyna coins, certain pulse cells, and a few miscellaneous items are the only reliable things that go fast. The rest of the big markets come from content that people gave up on because gathering a party to do the bcnms is too much work. The BCNMs that drop the magic skill enhancing sashes, the few remaining valuable lvl 35 earrings, and several voidwatch drops that got left behind once people finished getting clears are a few examples of content that people don't do because it's out of the way. Other than that there really is no demand for sellable items. Most high lvl crafted items require skill that people don't have and crafting materials that are so rare they're almost not worth persuing (orlmolu ingot, scarlette ingot, staghorn coral are a few examples of the more commonly known items), and those markets are limited by the amount of hexed abjurations that people can fish out of legion.

What else is there? Everything is rare/ex, and the rate at which it gets outdated is consistently one or two updates. Skirmish weapons were bested one month after release, some delve gear is outdated by new items from this update (quite badly no less), many pieces of neo salvage equipment got killed shortly after people obtained them, and s-e hasn't released a time line of when we can expect the R/E/M update, and to my knowledge they haven't confirmed that they will continue to update them indefinitely as time goes on or if it'll be a once and done deal. Literally less than two weeks before the delve weapons were released I sunk 30 million gil into heavy metal plates which I can never get back, and I know I'm not alone feeling like I was slighted on that one. Airlixrs have plummeted in value within two months of delve's release by about 50-70% of their starting rates.

When money takes a while to obtain and the things you buy with it are rendered old and inferior within one or two months you feel like your investments have very little staying power. We used to feel like when we spent tens of millions of gil we would have something that would last us a very very long time. Now s-e is releasing new stuff too fast and we don't get that feeling, so there's no shock that people won't blow their coin like they once did. People want their investments to be relatively future proof, and when the markets are this volatile that just isn't something we can feel assured of.

Edited, Jul 12th 2013 10:14pm by Melphina
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#11 Jul 12 2013 at 8:20 PM Rating: Default
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rdmcandie wrote:
Its not moronic, people have no reason to do anything outside Abyssea.


That is not even remotely true. You are living in the past. Abyssea is pretty much dead to experienced players at this point. New and/or returning players, sure they still do Abyssea. Anybody who has been around a while and is worth a crap has been done with Abyssea for a long time. AF3+2 gear is largely irrelevant now except for certain situational pieces. Empy weapons were killed by Delve weapons. I don't know anyone who still has any reason to go into Abyssea at all.

#12 Jul 12 2013 at 8:24 PM Rating: Decent
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CorncobWilly wrote:

rdmcandie wrote:
Its not moronic, people have no reason to do anything outside Abyssea.


That is not even remotely true. You are living in the past. Abyssea is pretty much dead to experienced players at this point. New and/or returning players, sure they still do Abyssea. Anybody who has been around a while and is worth a crap has been done with Abyssea for a long time. AF3+2 gear is largely irrelevant now except for certain situational pieces. Empy weapons were killed by Delve weapons. I don't know anyone who still has any reason to go into Abyssea at all.





As far as the markets are concerned you twit. Selectively quote this.

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#13 Jul 12 2013 at 8:29 PM Rating: Decent
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I had just blamed it on a new expansion came out so everyone was play, play, play, play, play until burn out. And now we've got that mild period where a lot of players like myself are taking breaks.
#14 Jul 12 2013 at 8:33 PM Rating: Excellent
Everyone is taking a break right now because of the ongoing maintenance ARGH ARGH ARGH

All this time thoughts of quitting XI never really hit me. Now it's all I can think about.
#15 Jul 12 2013 at 8:39 PM Rating: Default
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Catwho wrote:
Everyone is taking a break right now because of the ongoing maintenance ARGH ARGH ARGH

All this time thoughts of quitting XI never really hit me. Now it's all I can think about.


I was going to reapply this weekend, all the emergency maintenance stopped me though...kinda glad i did, maybe next weekend...then again steam summer sale had provided me with a few new games, so Ill probably get lost in them, I still have last of us, all the Metal Gear to play...that should take me into September when GTA 5 comes out, and judging from the game play vid released and online multiplayer talk...I might not play another game again.


Edited, Jul 12th 2013 10:39pm by rdmcandie
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#16 Jul 12 2013 at 8:56 PM Rating: Decent
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The idea that SoA killed the dead economy of the last 4 months (also, longer) is funny!
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#17 Jul 12 2013 at 9:28 PM Rating: Good
Things were becoming harder to sell when I left back in January, so it's not surprising that a new expansion has made it slow down even more so. I'm still considering coming back if the game goes on sale through steam for 5-10$, but the more I keep reading these forums the less I want to come back.
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#18 Jul 12 2013 at 9:55 PM Rating: Good
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Outside of consumables, the progressive shift to "Raid or GTFO" was worrisome for me. Just exchange Raid with Delve, Nyzul, Salvage, or whatever. I know some wanted to say the economy was healthy when Dynamis currency was more in demand, but maybe I'm in a minority not believing a small handful of goods out of hundreds, maybe thousands moving reliably enough on the AH/bazaars as a "healthy" economy. Less drops need to come in complete/workable form, instead having more equipment synths out there of all endgame tiers. Let alchemists synth stuff like arlixirs for the next gear tier. Instead of delve ammo, let woodworkers make them. Hell, this doesn't even touch mid-range spells where their sources aren't being done like BCs because the seal conversion rate is ******* horrible.

Granted, none of these issues are new, it's just magnified because SE claims to not have the resources to better flesh out content beyond their raid progression paradigm.
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#19 Jul 13 2013 at 4:13 AM Rating: Good
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Hell, this doesn't even touch mid-range spells where their sources aren't being done like BCs because the seal conversion rate is @#%^ing horrible.

Great idea. SE, make it so we can bazaar our seals. I'm sitting on something like3k beastman and 1.5k kindred so I could make a killing if they would let me sell them.
#20 Jul 13 2013 at 7:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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Honestly, after being in FFXIV's beta, I have pretty much resigned myself to quitting. Doing the login campaign right now to get a bird hat for the lulz, but honestly, I'm tired. I have been chasing gear for close to 9 years now, if not a little longer. I have yet to get a kill on any weapon-related Delve mobs, and now they've shoved more content out the door. I'm sick of it.

I discovered I'd rather change games and just enjoy the ride to the top, then mess about for a while till I get tired of it, then move on.

Oh, and the markets did die due to Abyssea. Let's not pretend about that. They were withering due to stagnant content, sure, but you still have some movement on top tier craftables and consumables. But SE has killed a lot of the market. Any gear pre-99 is practically useless, so there's a ton of synths that are just done. Food is only really important at 99 so that tosses aside a lot more synths. Ninjas have their NPC multi-tool. Recycle and Scavenge lower arrow/bullet/bolt usage.You can get passable gear for 99 via Abyssea, and as rdmcandie said, crystals started becoming more rare, discouraging people further from crafting, which led to less crafters replacing outgoing crafters. That led to price increases which led to disinterest in farming for those goods because gear that was essentially free was good enough.

Now Adoulin is just finishing off the job.

Edited, Jul 13th 2013 9:49am by Pawkeshup
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#21 Jul 13 2013 at 10:10 AM Rating: Good
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xantav wrote:
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Hell, this doesn't even touch mid-range spells where their sources aren't being done like BCs because the seal conversion rate is @#%^ing horrible.

Great idea. SE, make it so we can bazaar our seals. I'm sitting on something like3k beastman and 1.5k kindred so I could make a killing if they would let me sell them.

That wasn't even my initial thought, but it honestly wouldn't bug me. My mention was more the Kindred Seal can't be turned into five Beastmen Seals. Instead it's literally one straight conversion rate where downgrading screws you over. And since seals have a drop restriction tied to both the mob level and an invisible party timer, well, it's not surprising the low/mid-tier supply dried up. Heck, even when I was playing, I don't think a scroll of Paeon V had sold on Sylph since December 2011. Not the end of the world for a BRD, sure, but it annoyed me as a spellbook completionist.

Edit: LOL, the "not sold" streak still continues, I see.

Edited, Jul 13th 2013 12:13pm by Seriha
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#22 Jul 13 2013 at 10:23 AM Rating: Decent
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Paeon V has nothing to do with seals, it's a Boneyard Gully drop, unless it was added to another pool that isn't listed. Issue is that both fights are still cap 75, so require you to have help, plus the drops aren't amazing anymore and it's time-limited.
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#23 Jul 13 2013 at 11:00 AM Rating: Default
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Easiest way to fix the market is the following:

Make it a giant NPC Market. Set a price for all the goods on the AH and make stock unlimited.

For example lets say SE sets a Dark Staff to 10K

If you want a Dark Staff, you go to AH and buy one for 10K
If you want to sell one you go to AH and sell one for 10K

This essentially kills undercutting, and maybe more importantly AH bots like Lucusu (sp.) on Lakshmi who has spent 8 years standing at the same AH window buying up anything people put up for under NPC sell price. Essentially destroying mats/items for a couple hundred gil at a time. I don't think that the community is strong enough to support a player run market (that what bazaars are for). Nor are they inclined to since the vast majority of the market is largely irrelevant in todays game thanks to the massive reset button that was Abyssea.



Edited, Jul 13th 2013 1:00pm by rdmcandie
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#24 Jul 13 2013 at 12:05 PM Rating: Excellent
Really sad when the only thing moving on the AH right now is Aqua Geodes I tossed up for 500 gil each.
#25 Jul 13 2013 at 12:35 PM Rating: Good
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A lot of people like me, who used to provide a lot of liquidity in the AH, have quit because of digust with a lot of the player base.

I started playing pre-CoP, and was always very serious about crafting and the AH, although I also completed Zilart, CoP, ToAU, and really enjoyed Campaign and WoTG. I quit around the level 85 cap, but came back when I learned last August that the crafting cap had gone up to 110.

It was fun being back, for a few months, and I was having a good time. Got to level 95, was making buttloads of money with Cooking and Woodworking. Red Curry buns were great for making Gil, and I had the Cursed Togi market all to myself, surprisingly selling them regularly for a huge, huge profit.

It went sour for me when a significant number of other players began obviously AH-botting. I'm sure that AH-botting has been going on for a long time, but it was not obvious. It suddenly (around last November) became very, very obvious, to the point that it was impossible to buy critical mats on the AH at a reasonable price if you did not bot. This caused the price of Dragon Meat, for example, to double as people who did not bot drove up the price just to be able to buy mats (this was when Dragon Meat was still in very high supply). I suspect (but can't demonstrate) that people were also craft-botting, which allowed them crank out lots of product without much effort, and drive down prices on the product by constant undercutting. The profit margin on Red Curry Buns fell to a fraction of what it once was in a period of a few weeks.

People were (and still are) bragging openly and with pride on the FFXIAH forums about fish-botting, craft-botting, etc. "They won't ban botters, because they'd lose half the player base" is a common comment over there.

The game just began to feel dirty and corrupted. At the same time, I could not find help to get through the level 95 limit break, even when I had farmed a tail on my own. Taken together, I gave up and quit.

I could have tried harder to solve the 95 limit break issue, but I wasn't motivated to put in that much effort, because of the state of the economy, all the open botting, etc.

I suspect that quite a few people who provided liquidity to the economy have similarly wandered away.


Edited, Jul 13th 2013 2:38pm by shadowymithra
#26 Jul 13 2013 at 1:40 PM Rating: Decent
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FFXI has attempted to make the switch in endgame philosophy more similar to other MMO's. Unfortunately since most of the game was not built around that concept making the switch is leaving large sections of the game as "useless". The game thrived on sidegrades, and now there are none. Other games have economies which deal with consumable items like potions, elixirs, flasks, etc. and in FFXI historically the only real consumables are bullets, silent oils and prism powders (and crystals/ninja tools I suppose) and silent oils and prism powders are still used, but not with great effect since the endgame situations mostly only require them once or twice a run, or none at all depending on where you're going, you can just warp in to fight Pugil or Orobon in Foret, for instance.

All the gear you may find in non-SoA is "useless" as leveling is a one-day thing from 30-99 and SoA supplies all the gear through currency purchases, not gil.

FFXI has attempted to steal the model used in other games but is doing so poorly. If they were to try to succeed drops need to be different. Delve NM's should drop tokens for AF and have a chance at dropping a rare-item that's BiS for 1-3 jobs. So some people farm them to get AF4, and some people do so for a big ticket item. And have this be the case for the 20-30-40 bosses they are adding. They put in an unsustainable system that will get "beaten" too quickly by those in the lead who will "finish" and be "done" with it, which is what I was experiencing a few weeks back last I played. People were finishing their plasm upgrading, airlixirs tanked, and plasm farming grinded to a halt. People were no longer trying to fight NM's for KI's, etc.

It's unfortunate they screwed up, but I can't fully fault them, they still made some drastic changes and did make a good bit of interesting content along with it. They just didn't get the whole picture right and don't have the manpower to patch it up quickly.
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