New AF Storage, Areas, Search Comment, & More Feb'05 Upd

[Sivara]

Oh, good! You posted the fishing changes!

I just read that on the FFXI site a couple of minutes ago. I don't fish, but the announcement is exciting to me. First of all, I farm in an area where there are TONS of fishbots. I watch them get killed, homepoint to the town in the same zone, and walk the same path out to the water where they start fishing again. Every fishing adjustment that SE has added has not fixed this issue (although the last one that added monsters seemed to lower the number of fishbots in this area...there are still many that don't mind eating the death).

I know it's evil of me, but I thought about taking my THF out there once it's 45, and steal from aggro monsters, drag them to the bots (they all stand in little clusters), then use Hide so the monster will pick them off one by one. It's only a thought though. I'd never do it out of fear that just one of them would be a real person.

These new action-oriented changes may not mess up the bots permanently, but it's yet another setback to the bots because they will have to be completely reprogrammed. Perhaps the stamina of a fish will vary not only from one species to another, but even among fish of the same type -- maybe even giving each fish of the same species a totally random amount of stamina.

Second, I have been thinking about trying fishing again. My skill is only 1 right now because I tried it but gave it up because I didn't know what bait or rod to use and fishing was pretty boring to me. This new action-oriented system sounds like the fishing systems in games like Breath of Fire and Legend of Zelda.

[Crispleaf]

Something just occured to me:

These changes may make it more difficult to obtain Nebimonites on the Selbina-Mhaura boat... at least until the fishing bots can adapt to the changes...

And since Nebimonites are essential to making black ink...

And black ink is essential to making shihei, the ninja tool for Utsusemi...

Ninja better stock up now while they still can

[kashell]

I'm go glad I'm done with NIN when shihei only costed 5k a stack....

[Mystiana]

I know it's evil of me, but I thought about taking my THF out there once it's 45, and steal from aggro monsters, drag them to the bots (they all stand in little clusters), then use Hide so the monster will pick them off one by one.

Anyone that's fishing in a 'live' area will fish up something far stronger than something you can drag over, unless it's an NM.

This new action-oriented system sounds like the fishing systems in games like Breath of Fire and Legend of Zelda.

Dark Cloud 2 has an excellent fishing game. I'm too hopeful in thinking it would be that cool though. -.-

[Dukuji]

Something just occured to me:

These changes may make it more difficult to obtain Nebimonites on the Selbina-Mhaura boat... at least until the fishing bots can adapt to the changes...

And since Nebimonites are essential to making black ink...

And black ink is essential to making shihei, the ninja tool for Utsusemi...

Ninja better stock up now while they still can

NOOOOOOOOO! Oh, why does Altana hate ninjas? SE, please, please, please think of ninjas, don't nerf us for the 7th time in a row, please, please, please. How much more are you going to squeeze out of us? Am I to turn to the Dark Lord for my Shihei? . . . . . . so . . . tired . . . . . . oh Godess . . . it hurts, it hurts . . . . . . I'm . . . just . . . gonna . . . lie down . . . for awhile . . .

[Crispleaf]

*sigh*

She always Mijun Gakures when she's upset.

*starts casting Raise on Dukuji*

[Dukuji]

*starts casting Raise on Dukuji*

No, don't . . . the only peace I get is when I'm lieing incapacitated . . .



Oh, all right . . . I'll come back and face my fears . . . but I'm running straight to my mog house to hide.

[Prrsha]

I told you about the fishing patch that would come soon. It's nice to see that it is finally herrre.

All they need to do now is introduce a huge money sink now to drain excess gil frrrom the econ. Maybe reset everyone's gil by 80%?

[Alya Mizar (Tsybil)]

All they need to do now is introduce a huge money sink now to drain excess gil frrrom the econ. Maybe reset everyone's gil by 80%?

Guild points seem to be a HUGE Gil sink.

The only problem is we have a three tier economy. Gil is worth different things to each teir.

1, Those who make their Gil in game. It maters little how, and we all have different Gil / hour ratios, but we have to work when we should be leveling or something.

2, Those who work IRL and buy gil. They have a Gil / hour ratio also, just way different than I do. A hot code writer can make one million Gil in an hour or two, a retail clerk in less than a day.

3, Those with deep pockets or indulgent parents. Gil means little or nothing to these people.

EVERY time IGE lowers the price of Gil we have a bout of inflation.

[Sivara]

Anyone that's fishing in a 'live' area will fish up something far stronger than something you can drag over, unless it's an NM.

Yeah, but these are fishbots that continually eat death after death...and I think I see your point. No "real" player would fish, die, zone back out, fish, die, zone, etc., or so one would think (but you never know). Anyway, these are obviously not higher-level characters. I watch them die after maybe 2 hits from a pugil they fished up. Then they blissfully totter right back out there and resume fishing.

[Mystiana]

2, Those who work IRL and buy gil. They have a Gil / hour ratio also, just way different than I do. A hot code writer can make one million Gil in an hour or two, a retail clerk in less than a day.

3, Those with deep pockets or indulgent parents. Gil means little or nothing to these people.

EVERY time IGE lowers the price of Gil we have a bout of inflation.

Personally, if I could buy a million gil ($42.99) from a single hour of work, that would be quite tempting. Wrong, but still tempting.

I would group 2 and 3 together if you're going to include programmers. ^.~

[Nivez]

im more intrested in the af storage system, god knows i could use it, free up 10 slots in my MH when i want to do something besides pld or whm >.>;; and 5 when im doing one of those. (starting rdm soon probably so im gonna need the storage...)

[Sirc]

Maybe reset everyone's gil by 80%?

That would make me extremely upset. I mostly solo and farm. I've accumulated quite a large sum of gil that will be used (very quickly ) when I start crafting. If I logged on and found that they had stolen 20% of my hard-earned gil then I would cancel my account immediately and be installing a newly purchased copy of WoW within an hour.

[Dukuji]

I told you about the fishing patch that would come soon. It's nice to see that it is finally herrre.

Now, okay, I remember you saying something about a new fishing system awhile ago and I remember asking you about it (but I can't remember If you answered or not). Out of curiosity (yeah, yeah, it killed the mithra; my mother tried scaring me with that one when I was a kitten) how did you know Prrsha? Have you got secret connections or was this some talk you heard like on a site Alla? And if you knew about this, what else can you share with us?

/em leans in closer to hear more hot leads.

[Prrsha]

Maybe reset everyone's gil by 80%?

That would make me extremely upset. I mostly solo and farm. I've accumulated quite a large sum of gil that will be used (very quickly ) when I start crafting. If I logged on and found that they had stolen 20% of my hard-earned gil then I would cancel my account immediately and be installing a newly purchased copy of WoW within an hour.

But, if gil was reset, prrrices in the AH would be cheaper so you won't have a problem.

In addition you would have the same ratio of gil compared to other players that you had before. Gil needs to be removed from the game to "fix" the economy. Don't you want to see the game get fixed?

[Aony]

Maybe reset everyone's gil by 80%?

That would make me extremely upset. I mostly solo and farm. I've accumulated quite a large sum of gil that will be used (very quickly ) when I start crafting. If I logged on and found that they had stolen 20% of my hard-earned gil then I would cancel my account immediately and be installing a newly purchased copy of WoW within an hour.

But, if gil was reset, prrrices in the AH would be cheaper so you won't have a problem.

In addition you would have the same ratio of gil compared to other players that you had before. Gil needs to be removed from the game to "fix" the economy. Don't you want to see the game get fixed?

um....I uh....have absolutely no idea how that works >.>

and btw YAY ON THE FISHING UPDATE!!! NO MORE BOTTING(for a bit anyways)
Also, I stopped fishing a wihle back because it's so boring to just sit there, cast line, sit there more, repeat, but now with a more actiony thing in it i'll probly start fishing again. I got to recruit rank by accident kinda my brother wanted me to fish him up some quus for bastok fame (bubbly bernie quest) and i had to log out after i got him only 2. So, being the greedy sneak that he is, he logged on as me(i kinda regret giving him my POL account, even though it originally was so he could play, now he has his own account) and started fishing with my char. SOMEHOW, we still have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW, but he managed to BREAK the unbreakable-exept-for-if-you-get-really-big-fish GLASS FIBER FISHING ROD in Port Bastok! been months and we still dont know how he did it...but he couldnt hide from me that when I logged on i no longer had my sabiki rig, and had a broken glass fiber fishing rod in my inventory. He immediately paid me 3k for a new rig and another 1k or so for light crystal and pay somebody to fix my rod....as far as i know he's never logged on my account since.

the story aside, yay for new fishing! i'm gonna try it out ASAP

[Alya Mizar (Tsybil)]

The Glass Fiber Rod is not nearrrly that unbrrreakable.

Now the Mithrrran Rod...

[Sirc]

Maybe reset everyone's gil by 80%?

That would make me extremely upset. I mostly solo and farm. I've accumulated quite a large sum of gil that will be used (very quickly ) when I start crafting. If I logged on and found that they had stolen 20% of my hard-earned gil then I would cancel my account immediately and be installing a newly purchased copy of WoW within an hour.

But, if gil was reset, prrrices in the AH would be cheaper so you won't have a problem.

In addition you would have the same ratio of gil compared to other players that you had before. Gil needs to be removed from the game to "fix" the economy. Don't you want to see the game get fixed?

I'm not really sure how the game is broken. Yes, things cost more, but then you also get more when you sell them. What's the difference between something costing 5k or 10k gil if your income goes up accordingly? I think this has more of a psychological impact then a financial one.

If they get rid of the gil sellers and the botters then prices will gradually drop by themselves (or at least stabilize). If you just suddenly steal 20% of everyone's gil then there's gonna be chaos until the AH prices finally drop back down to a reasonable level. Why should the honest players be penalized? I don't wanna have to stand in a bread line until things become affordable again.

There is also the situation where someone with only 5k gil would lose 1k gil, and the person with 1M gil would lose 200k gil. The loss would be trivial for the former, and devastating for the latter. It's never a good idea to abruptly change anything in a complex economy. And I doubt SE would implement such extreme changes.

[Prrsha]

The main problem is the current price of the crystals. When the crystal is 80% of the cost of making a low end item, it will never get made. Also inflation is making it harder to afford most consumable items, yes sure you get more from items at the AH but NPCs and quests don't update their rewards accordingly.

[Fayin]

I'm not really sure how the game is broken. Yes, things cost more, but then you also get more when you sell them. What's the difference between something costing 5k or 10k gil if your income goes up accordingly? I think this has more of a psychological impact then a financial one.

If they get rid of the gil sellers and the botters then prices will gradually drop by themselves (or at least stabilize). If you just suddenly steal 20% of everyone's gil then there's gonna be chaos until the AH prices finally drop back down to a reasonable level. Why should the honest players be penalized? I don't wanna have to stand in a bread line until things become affordable again.

There is also the situation where someone with only 5k gil would lose 1k gil, and the person with 1M gil would lose 200k gil. The loss would be trivial for the former, and devastating for the latter. It's never a good idea to abruptly change anything in a complex economy. And I doubt SE would implement such extreme changes.

What you need to look at is the current overall amount of gil in the world vs. the outgo of gil to NPCs and the price of items from NPCs. There's billions upon billions of gil in one server of FF. Airships cost 200, chocobos 500-1500. That's less than insignifigant to many players. It's nothing at all. Another example is the price of gems in the jewlery shop in Jeuno. 3k? Also nothing. So you have a LOT of goldsmiths now. Many other things I could go into.

The price of items on AH and Bazaar has gone up since launch. Everything in the game has at least doubled, many have quadrupled. The game doesn't ballance gil income (gil generated by the server when selling something to NPC, getting gil from mob, or from quest, chest, whatever) with gil outgo (airship, chocobo, NPC merchants, etc). If it did, we wouldn't have inflation since the server gil level would remain the same.

I would be totally FOR a game-wide slash of every player's gil total by 75%. If they coupled that with every NPC having supply/demand code instead of just guild merchants do, I think I'd wet my pants.

Sirc, the economy in FFXI is broken. SE hasn't done much to fix it. I don't even know if they have acknowledged the problem.

[Sirc]

Okay, I do understand what you all are saying. But relying on income from gil gotten from NPCs, mobs, and quests has never been that great. You can't survive on that, and you never have been able to. You MUST farm if you expect to keep your armor/weapons/food upgraded. That's the way it's always been. And farming is very profitable.

Yes, things are very expensive, much more so then when I played 8 months ago. But you can't just take gil from everyone. 25%? LOL. You'd have a mass exodus from the game. Don't underestimate the power of greed. Sad, but true IMHO.

[Prrsha]

Cash has been wiped in other MMORPGs. The ones that have are still up and running strong. Yes, people would leave prob. (people are leaving over the new fishing system as well), but the vast majority would stay I'd imagine.

The inflation rate has RUINED crafting. Crafting is broken ATM. It is no longer profitable (you can't even break even) making low end items now due to crystal prices. Like I said, 80% of the cost of making those items come from crystal prices.

Let me give you an example:

I want to make Leather armor to skill up and I plan to sell the item to the AH to cover my costs. Sheepskin is around 300g, Dark Crystals are 800g and both Windurst Tea Leaves and Distilled Water are beyond cheap since they can be bought from the NPC.

Ok I begin synthing. It takes 3 sheep leather and 1 lizard hide to make 1 suit of leather armor. Lizard Hides cost around 800g and Earth Crystals around 200g. Now lets add up the total cost: 4,300g for ONE suit of leather armor.

Now why would anyone in their right mind buy that at the AH when you can buy the same suit of leather armor from a NPC for 1,000g? Do you see what I am getting at now? Yes, inflation has caused gil prices to rise, and yes you do get more gil from SOME items but, the NPC prices DO NOT change with inflation so the current system is broken ATM.

[Josiejo]

Hmm... you could keep a character around level 5-8 and farm Dark Crystals, Earth Crystals and Sheepskin from West Ronfaure. Then your only cost would be Lizard Skins (800), and thus making 200 gil profit. Not much, but if you don't really have the gil to spend on the other materials, it's a way to go. If you start getting too high in level, you can always make a few death warps back to town to take you down a peg.

[Prrsha]

Hmm... you could keep a character around level 5-8 and farm Dark Crystals, Earth Crystals and Sheepskin from West Ronfaure. Then your only cost would be Lizard Skins (800), and thus making 200 gil profit. Not much, but if you don't really have the gil to spend on the other materials, it's a way to go. If you start getting too high in level, you can always make a few death warps back to town to take you down a peg.

Well, the point is that I still "lose" money crrrafting low level crafts. It would be better for me to sell the stuff I farm at the AH. There is no point in making low level items. That's why the econ is broken.

[Alya Mizar (Tsybil)]

Prrsha, I have been herrre since a week orrr so after the NA release. Leather armour was NEVER profitable. But I made it to Goldsmith 40 with a small positive cashflow all the way. It took me overrr a year RT, but I did everything slowly then. Today, I can STILL find profitable synths in Gold as I work my way back up to wherrre I was, I just never could in low level Leather.

One problem is the old hand to new chum ratio. Most of our crystals come from people leveling low level jobs. Think of all those who beg or pay to get powerleveled to and through their teens. Think of the crystal farming opportuinities they arrre throwing away.

Think what the PS2 invasion did to prices. Crystal prices plumeted like sheep, low level gear went up. Those werrre good times indeed.

[Prrsha]

I have been here since NA release as well, and you arrre correct, making leather armor was never profitable but at least you'd break even. Leather armor was just an example but you see the trend in other low end items as well. The simple fact of the matter is that the current trend of inflation is making it harder and harder for new crafters to get started. It's getting to the point where most items are not worth synthing anymore, the only pay off is to get lucky with a +1 synth.

As for goldsmithing, most low level finished goldsmithing synths are no longer profitable due to the price of fire crystals (at least on Phoenix anyways).

[Dukuji]

Okay, I've added a BIG one . . . Job-related Adjustments

This one should make Crispleaf VERY happy (as well as all you other WHMs).

[Maezen]

bah...dragoon misses out on yet another opportunity for a job trait.

though maybe the ability is one of the 75+ ones they were talking about..../sigh guess i won't be finding out anytime soon.

on another note...does anyone know the day they're planning this update? I know they said something about late february but that's not specific enough for me....i neeeeeeed to know!

[Prrsha]

Oooooo...

[Crispleaf]

Okay, I've added a BIG one . . . Job-related Adjustments

This one should make Crispleaf VERY happy (as well as all you other WHMs).

Thank goodness they're at least considering bringing Raise 3 back.

I mean, even if it were rare/ex, you'd still have to defeat a level 90 god who can summon 4 minor gods to help him just to have a chance at getting the scroll.

And I thought Eldieme Necropolis was bad

And as for the Banish spells being more useful... it's about time I could use Divine Magic for something. I only use Holy for a good laugh, otherwise it's a terrible waste of mp