Inflation guide - fountains and sinksFollow

Hi all,

In an effort to better understand the inflation problems we've been having in Final Fantasy, I'm trying to figure out where money is being printed.

There are two key areas I'm interested in; fountains and sinks.

A fountain is a place where new gil is added to the economy. For our purposes, a fountain has to be something that can be repeated without end. Rank Missions give large gil rewards, but they can only be handed out once per nation.

One of the most notorious fountains was the lake in Rabao, which grew quite famous for producing Rusty Caps. Fishermen would gear themselves up to catch items, then bring in as many Caps as they could. With enough Smithing skill, the Rusty Caps could be transformed into Padded Caps, which were then sold at an NPC vendor for a very good price. This was so profitable that Rabao always had fishbots present, 24/7, until SE nerfed the hell out of the price of padded caps at the NPC.


A sink is a place where gil is permanently taken out of the economy. This can happen in a lot of different ways and is a primary way to keep inflation in check. The requirement for a sink that the gil must be permanently gone. Changes in the price of commodities do not count, nor would gil lost gambling at a Jeuno casino; if gil is moving between players it is not a true sink.


What am I missing? Our inflation over the last year suggests more fountains, but I can't think of where they might be.


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Fountains

Repeatable Quest rewards

Sale of items to NPCs
... Fish
... Random objects
... Weapon and Armor drops
... etc

Gil dropped from kills
... from Beastmen
... from certain other monsters (Gods)

Gil spawned from treasure chests

Gil can be awarded from BCNMs

THF's Mug command can steal thousands of gil from NMs

And you can fish up 1 gil, from time to time.



Sinks

Transport
Chocobo fees
Airship fees
Selibina-Mhaura ferry fees
Regional (outpost) teleport fees
Solo ENM Goblin Teleport NPC (Gambling for the key item)


Taxation
Auction House listing fees
10% Bazaar Tax in Jeuno


Pay 2 Play
Dynamis Hourglass
Limbus/Apollyon fees


Commodities
Sale of items from NPC vendors
... items from guild shops (particularly consumables)
... items from region vendors
... items from weapon/armor shops (rarely done as prices are above market)
Anima creation (2k for an item you can't re-sell)


Special questy things
Purchase of Mannequins
Purchase of Colored Chips (`Strange Apparatus` quest)
`Inside the Belly` quest


Player Maintenance
Title-change fees
Equipment storage fees (Lower Jeuno NPC)
Changing Nation Allegiance
Worldpass fee


Other
Synthesis Image Enhancement





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edit: more sinks added
edit: and a fountain or two


Edited, Mon Dec 5 18:36:24 2005 by Wingchild

A very good, neutral tone on this topic.

In addition to the Airship fees, there are the Selbina-Mhaura ferry fees. Also, the 10% bazaar tax in Jeuno (easily circumvented for dedicated bazaar vendors and buyers), the regional teleport fees, and the Ballista entry fees. Aren't there entry fees for other activities? I haven't done Dynamis yet, I think that has an entry fee as well.

In my opinion, any model of inflation in this game needs to account for the rise in the average level of each player's highest level character. The number of 70+ characters has increased steadily over time. This does affect currency supply: it is easier and faster to farm beastmen for gil with higher-level characters. But this is, obviously, something for the next stage in your little project.

Outpost teleport fees.

Another sink would be changing allegiances to a different nation.

Consumable items bought from NPC's is a sink, a small one, but still a sink. I think if SE expanded on consumables bought from NPC's (such as food, ammo, tools), it would take a good deal of gil out of the economy.

There is a catch to this. If you are buying, for example, bat wings, you are spending way more on them than you are getting back, so gil is essentially going out of the economy. Also, when you re-create a mule to quest, for example, ninjutsu scrolls, you are still just shifting wealth around, no new hard currency is being introduced.

If you meant something else, please correct me, I just want to make sure people keep clear in their mind that he is talking strictly about hard currency coming in and out of the game.

Also, Worldpass and Gold Worldpass fees.

For those who buy, instead of questing, their Airship passes, that's as much as half a million as a sink right there.

Synthesis image enhancement fees, also.

Very minor fountains: fishing (occassionally pulls up gil), chocobo digging (I think - I don't recall for certain.)

Along those lines any of the HELM activities could be considered fountains in their own way.

That is just so much work!

I think fish botters would be foolish to NPC their fish due to fishing fatigue. Due to fatigue, all fishermen are subject to a fish size/number limit. Upon reaching this limit, no additional fish (or anything, for that matter) can be caught. As a result, one must carefully choose which fish to target each RL day. This being the case, I can't imagine botters targetting a fish to NPC for piddly prices.

I do agree that 25k a night would add up over time, but that 25k/night could easily be 200-300k/night selling on the AH. For example, take a look at the Black Sole market. It's a level 96 fish used in probably the most popular sushi in the game so it should be pretty expensive, no? Chances are, the price per stack is actually very reasonable (20-25k/stack on Kujata). Why is this? Because they can be fished relatively easily in Port Jeuno from the airship docks. These people would be foolish to sell their stacks for 7-8 to NPC instead of getting 25k on the AH.

My fishing skill is pretty low, so I can only conjecture here, but let me make a few comments. First, as far as fatigue goes, I do not think this is a major concern for botters. If you pay an extra five bucks a month for five mules, you can signifigantly increase the amount you can fish. If you say each bot can only fish for one hour before becoming to fatigued, that is still five solid hours of fishing.

Also, there is only so much volume the auction house can support. Only so many stacks of fish will be sold in a day, so you physically can not sell all the fish you could bring up. Further, monopolizing the AH like this would lead one to wonder how you got all those fish in the first place...

Edit: I have had the same thoughts as shadowymithra regarding deflation. I simply can not find enough gil 'fountains' to account for the massive amount of gil in the economy. There is so much gil being siphoned off by the numerous sinks that it just does not add up to my mind.

Edited, Mon Dec 5 14:53:50 2005 by Sarlos

Only if the activity directly produced gil, not things that can be sold for gil. You can, in fact, fish up gil pieces. I don't think you can harvest them. (Harvesting something and then selling it to an NPC counts as a fountain only because selling anything to an NPC is gil fountain.)

Keep your eyes on the target here: the idea is to see where the system "prints" money. That is the core of inflation.

Shadowymithra,

My thought is that gil selling is itself an arbitrage arrangement; they acquire in-game currency with real money from Point A (a seller), then hand it out for more money at Point B (a buyer). The acquisition of game currency for the purpose of arbitrage is most easily handled by farming up something pricey (saplings, for example) and making your sales on the AH. Same goes for holding monopoly control of high-value items (archers rings, before Stroper Chymes were altered).

If the most efficient way to acquire gil for resale is through item farming, that's what a gil selling team would do - at least, that's what makes the most logical sense. But the arrangement as described would not increase inflation in the marketplace. They would be providing a service of sorts by moving gil around between people, but as their payment comes in the form of Real Dollars that aren't tied to the game, no new gil would be generated -- no actual in-game inflation should occur.

As you noted, inflation is a problem where there is a steady increase of currency in an economy. We've seen prices double or triple over the previous year. This inflation vastly outpaces reality and suggests either that there are unchecked fountains still in play (like the old Rusty Cap thing) or that the existing fountains do not yet have enough sinks to counter their effects.


Gil sellers can only sell what currency they can acquire in-game. Someone has to purchase their goods at the asking price.

The person doing the purchasing their product must already have currency. In many cases (particularly archers rings) this `price` is passed on to other players - crafters make Snipers Rings, gardeners create Ores, and so on.

Yet, none of this actually creates inflation.


The reason for working on this list is to try and understand where the heck new gil is coming from. You can't hit 200% inflation in a year's time without someone printing money. :)

Technically speaking, Gil selling does create inflation by invalidating some of the existing sinks (i.e., 1M Gil goes between people without being penalized by AH fees or Bazaar fees), but I have no way to estimate the cumulative effects. One would think if the transfer method were the problem that we'd have seen much sharper inflation in the past, if only because all players have always had the option of barter (bazaar outside of Jeuno, or trade an item for gil directly).

(Continuing that thought, the AH tax is basically one of convenience, as it enables sales by proxy, but that's a different discussion for another time.)