• A Realm Reborn Economy and Archery Changes


    Recently, we reported on a Q&A session with Producer Naoki Yoshida about Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, where he stated that the max gil allowed would be reduced to 10% of the current value (999,999,999 to 99,999,999). Well, it turns out it’s more complicated than that, and Yoshida has issued a clarification on the FFXIV forums.

    It turns out that basically all gil is being reduced to 10% of its current value. This includes the prices of NPC goods, how much NPCs will pay for your items, the amount of gil received as loot and rewards, and, most significantly, the amount of gil currently in players’ possession. If you have 1,000,000 gil in the bank, when ARR is released you will no longer be a millionaire.

    Apparently this major change is, in large part, an attempt to “rectify the increase in cost of items relative to the price of arrows, since archers in A Realm Reborn will no longer need arrows.” All archers will now apparently come with a Time Lord quiver that holds an infinite number of arrows.

    Yoshida tried to assuage all the (rich) players:

    In other words, all the hard work you've put into saving up gil won't be lost. Even though the gil you possess will become 1/10th what it currently is, we're adjusting NPC sale/buy prices to also become 1/10th what they are now, so relatively nothing will change. However, we do apologize that this may be a shock emotionally.
    Additionally, Yoshida urged players not to panic and sell all their expensive stuff before it all becomes 1/10 of its current value. Well, first off, this makes no sense, as your gil will also be 1/10 of its value. Secondly, Yoshida stated that item values, effectiveness, and availability are being changed and tweaked as ARR is being developed, so you may end up screwing yourself over if that item actually becomes more useful or rare. He recommended people just stay the course, though unfortunately did not follow that up with this:


    Some people are apparently very unhappy with this decision, but inflation has historically been a terrible problem with MMOs. I think it’s good that the FFXIV development team are trying to get a handle on it, though we’ll have to wait until A Realm Reborn comes out to really see how the market reacts.

    Source: ARR Gil Cap Reduction - Page 29
    This article was originally published in forum thread: A Realm Reborn Economy and Archery Changes started by Raistlin View original post
    Comments 21 Comments
    1. Loony BoB's Avatar
      Loony BoB -
      Quote Originally Posted by Ouch! View Post
      I'm not saying that they're going to go ALL the way back up, but I sincerely doubt that they'll all settle as low as 10% of current value. My point was that quest rewards and NPC prices have increasingly insignificant impact on a player-driven economy as the game goes on. FFXI demonstrated this significantly. Prices on the auction house were vastly different from anything dictated by NPC prices or quest rewards (notably, absurdly bloated by comparison). I fully expect the same thing to happen in FFXIV. Eventually, prices will go up driven independently from whatever prices SE tries to artificially set. It happens in just about every MMORPG with a legitimately robust trading system between players, and I, for one, very much doubt that FFXIV will be any different.
      Oh, I agree that NPC prices don't drive the economy alone, but I disagree that prices will go up if there simply isn't enough gil being generated. They might hit 20%, meaning people will have to work twice as hard for every bit of gear due to the gil demand, but in all honesty I don't think that the change in the gil system is going to have any real impact on the market and unless demand changes or gil increases, the prices won't be that much higher than 10% until there is a significant change in how gil is generated in-game.

      ...also, FFXIV:ARR has an ad campaign? Last I checked they only have released very limited footage on the internet. Outside of a few gaming sites which have picked up on them, I don't think that there has been a massive ad campaign yet. I think that will come when, you know, you can buy the game and play it. That's when they'll start pushing out the advertisements. They've openly stated on multiple occasions that they would rather not release anything at all at the moment, so I wouldn't say they are advertising. Just keeping us minions informed.
  • EoFF on Twitter

  • Square Enix on Twitter