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.)