Cost of Living, Daily Wages

[Reaper]

I found myself curious, what do an average adventurer and peasant (and by extension, peasant family) need to make per day to ensure a living?

 

As near as I can tell, materials to produce food cost about 3-4 gil a piece for simple food. With each meal usually having 2-3 parts, and usually ending up with 3 helpings/meals from the finished product, that would be an average cost of ~10 gil per day for food per person who can cook it themselves.

Lodgings I can find no lore on. I assume renting an inn room is about 50-100 gil per day, which would put renting an apartment at around 20 gil per day per family. This is speculation, but would bring the daily peasant cost to 30 gil / day + 10 gil / additional family member. An average family of 4 would therefore be 60 gil / day to keep fed and sheltered, plus a little on the side for clothes and other things such as taxes would probably bring the average family of 4's necessary wages to get by to about 100 gil / day.

 

Does that math look right, or are people aware of numbers or lore that proves otherwise?

 

Furthermore, the average adventurer may spend time camping which can be virtually free (can get water from rivers, food from hunting, no taxes or fees to camp under the stars), but in town between jobs it would be about 10-30 gil per meal according to vendor prices plus 50 gil per day for an inn room. That brings average expenses for them to about 90 gil per day of downtime.

 

That stated, levequests (which I think would be the average way adventurers get paid, or so I would imagine unless there is evidence to the contrary) offer anywhere from ~50-1,000 gil depending on the difficulty, plus they can sell any loot they receive to traders for anywhere from a few gil for newer adventurers to many thousands later on.

 

So... to just get by, expenses are:

Solo peasant: 30 gil / day

Peasant family (4): 60 gil / day

Solo adventurer (downtime): 90 gil / day + Fees for repairs, potions, and other materials (Unknown)

 

Wages are likely:

Peasant supporting family: 80-100 gil / day

Solo adventurer (Fresh): 51-200 / adventure

Solo adventurer (Seasoned 201-1,000 / adventure

Solo adventurer (Expert/Skilled/Veteran): 1,001+ / adventure

 

Do these numbers make sense? Yay? Nay? I know only food came from in-game prices, and the rest is pure speculation. I welcome all forms of discussion and presentation of actual numbers if they're present in game!

[Reaper]

The main reason why I'm asking is because I intend to RP my expenses to some degree. That is to say, after 20 days without ICly doing an adventure I would imagine my character is struggling to pay rent and may be eating naught but stale bread. Likewise, for the week immediately following an adventure he will be able to eat like a king.

 

Furthermore, he intends to hire help for various tasks and I want to know whether 500 gil is a fair price to motivate someone to risk their life and limb, or would it have to be 5,000 gil? That sort of thing.

[Aedan Marceaux]

The value of gil has been debated in the past on this (the old) forum and, iirc, the general consensus was essentially whatever you want to do.

 

In general, looking at the prices of in game materials and such is a bit of a trap as, like with any game of this sort, prices go up as levels go up for the relatively same thing. So you're running into the OOC mechanic versus IC/lore boundary. Do the inflation mechanics (players amassing gil via questing and such while leveling, so raise the prices of the general stuff as an attempt at a small gil sink) reflect what the IC cost of living would be...?

 

A lot of people do that, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it. As mentioned before, do as you please. But it's a bit difficult to justify then spending 1000+ gil on a meat pie... if orange juice is just 8 gil.

 

All I can say is a lot of people tend to do ratios for gil conversions.

Every 100 gil is like $1.

50:1

2:1 (the one I personally use whenever needing to discuss gil icly.)

Etc.

 

Another handful of rpers just handwave it with vague terms such as "large sum of gil" or "a fair amount of gil", etc.

 

Edit to add: That ooc mechanic is reflected in the leves as well. As your level increases, the gil reward from leves (at your level) does as well. And its debatable if the leves are truly that much more difficult from an IC stand point than the ones you do at the beginning levels. The only reason they're more difficult is because of the ooc mechanic of the game devs giving the mobs higher stats.

 

So, unless I've missed a bit of lore that flat out states cost of living and the like, it's difficult to pin down. You just have to go with whatever method feels most comfortable to you.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2018 by AedanBlacke

[Aedan Marceaux]

Case in point for example. The Amal'jaa in Thanalan are a fair bit lower level and easier to kill OOCly than the antelope like creatures outside of Ishgard. ICly, though, youd have a hard time convincing anyone that "Bambi" is more dangerous, and thereby worth more gil, than a massive, muscled up beastman that potentially flings fireballs. The OOC leve mechanic says that it is, though.

Edited December 4, 2018 by AedanBlacke

[Valence]

It's ultimately hard to tell because I don't remember much lore about that. When high amounts are mentioned in quests, like for example when Ascillia ends up at Phrondale's for medical care in 1.0, they just talk about "a lot of money" without giving specifics.

 

The only thing we know for sure if I remember correctly is that teleporting fees are usually seen as quite prohibitive, especially if you port often (presuming that you can do it often or even do it period in the first place... not given to everybody). I tend to assume that 100 gil for a small distance teleport is already a certain sum of money, especially for the average joe.

[Sounsyy]

Here's some examples of gil amounts used in dialogue, including the medical bills mentioned by Valence above. Of note, all but the last quote are from Ul'dah and exceedingly wealthy individuals as well. These costs are all meant to be seen as astronomical to the average joe (even if some of them don't sound too terrible to us).

 

 

Faustigeant: "What would you like done with the remains? He was not a citizen of Ul'dah. You will have to appeal to Arrzaneth Ossuary to make arrangements. I should think medical expenses and interment costs will come to upwards of one and a half million gil."

 

Rorojaru: “It is for just such unexpected acts of kindness that I continue to give selflessly to the Order of Nald'thal. I recently purchased for them an elaborate statue of Nald for some ten billion gil or so, I don’t recall the exact figure. No doubt such a gift moved Nald to imbue this talisman with his complete graces.”

 

Memeriga: "Five billion, six hundred million, eight hundred and seventy thousand gil! You've ruined me! Ruined meeeeeeeee!!!!"

 

Wymond: "First, we have to start a few rumors, an' make 'em seem true. Make your way to Seseroga at the Sapphire Avenue Exchange, an' get his attention with this banknote. Tell him you're workin' for a wealthy fellow who wants to buy as much ceruleum as he can with the gil promised on that paper. Then, actually buy a boatload of the fuel from whomever Seseroga introduces.

Aye, the moment they light their pipe, one hundred million gil's worth of the stuff will explode! That's what I sold the futures contract for: explosives what can blow a settlement sky-high!"

 

Frine: "One hundred and twenty-three million, five hundred and four thousand gil, at last assessment. 'Twas over seven hundred years old and graced the homes of a dozen archbishops, eight counts, two lord commanders and one duke."

 

 

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, it's hard to pin down exactly a great gil-to-dollar value or even a living wage. Most people are poor, very poor. Is there such a thing as a wage? Depends on your job. There's no real lore on this that I know of. Outside of extraordinary figures like those above on Ul'dahn luxuries and faux Ishgardian fineries to drive home the absurdity of the price, the game handles things in the vague and the general as stated above. 

 

Gagaruna: “But never mind all that! The man spends more gil on a moon’s research than most people see in a lifetime! Hence our amicable relations!"

Havak Alvak: "As you are no doubt already aware, it costs a sultan’s ransom for foreigners to acquire Ul'dahn citizenship. Of the Ala Mhigans who have successfully amassed the funds to do so, the vast majority are career soldiers who risked life and limb to earn the privilege."

Encyclopedia Eorzea - Free Brigade: "On this occasion, many came seeking a portion of Ul’dah’s legendary wealth, only to find that the Free Brigade offered but modest pay. By rumor, this was done with a purpose: only those who truly wished to aid the nation would join for so little coin.”

 

Can we base it on food items, when bread from Limsa costs 8 gil but bread in Kugane costs 500 gil? However, housing prices are pretty fixed, so if you're looking to make a better approximation on how gil compares, maybe starting there would be a better step. Though I think it's not necessary. Using general terms in RP is far easier, and more universal when RPing with other people who may have different views on how much gil is reasonable. For instance, one RP Tavern might charge 50g for a drink, while another might charge 5,000g for something similar. The latter might consider this cheap, but if you're operating on your own specific gil understanding, you might think this place is very pricey. 

[Reaper]

Gotcha. That's fair.

 

I occasionally enjoy haggling over supply shipments and coin for rare materials, which is why I was hoping it would be a little more direct in FFXIV. Hopefully more lore will come out on this, though I doubt it. Thanks for the information!

 

It'll probably be easier to barter with supplies... "X yalms of X cloth and X crates of X for a shipment of firesand by the end of the month", since I can't really figure out a good gil equivalent.

Sounsyy, I need to ask, where do you get all these quotes from? Is there some storage website where literally every quote in the game is stored, or do you just have primal-tier photographic memory?

[LiadansWhisper]

12 minutes ago, Reaper said:

Sounsyy, I need to ask, where do you get all these quotes from? Is there some storage website where literally every quote in the game is stored, or do you just have primal-tier photographic memory?

I'm not Sounsyy, but as I understand it, she's basically done nearly every quest in the game and saved screenshots of the quest text and dialogue.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

38 minutes ago, LiadansWhisper said:

I'm not Sounsyy, but as I understand it, she's basically done nearly every quest in the game and saved screenshots of the quest text and dialogue.

Also the lorebooks and other interviews like ones on GamerEscape.

[Valence]

http://xivdb.com/lore-finder

[Reaper]

Glorious.

[Sounsyy]

17 hours ago, Reaper said:

Sounsyy, I need to ask, where do you get all these quotes from? Is there some storage website where literally every quote in the game is stored, or do you just have primal-tier photographic memory?

It's usually a maddening combination of running around in game, scouring the two lore books, XIVDB.com, Gamerescape archives for individual open world NPC text or full loremonger transcripts of MSQ that XIVDB does not capture, Youtube videos, ChrysalisWiki, or desperately searching through 5 years of my own lore posts here or on Tumblr looking for the exact quote. Having a pretty decent memory helps too though.

 

The lore is out there. Finding it is the trick.

[Reaper]

And behold, Sounsyy the living god (primal?) of FFXIV lore bequeathes his secrets unto the masses.

 

Thanks again. I'll probably try to use barter-based trade where possible and try to vaguely speak about gil. When forced, I'll probably use the rough 2:1 ratio provided above to estimate things (though I'll try to avoid this where possible).

[Tregarde]

In almost every MMO it is difficult to pin down even an estimate of what things would cost realistically, and even more difficult to give a reasonable estimate it's value in modern currency. Not to mention that the relative value of many things have fluctuated considerably in history, as industry and other techniques have developed to make harvesting and producing goods more efficient. Just for example, at one time iron was so valuable people would burn down an old house to salvage the nails.

 

It doesn't help that for game mechanics the 'price' of something is most often tied to the level when it's available, without any regard to what it's made of.

 

When in RP I just tend to use words like 'cheap', 'expensive', or any other way to describe value without giving actual numbers. I take my characters' backgrounds into account - someone who was raised poor will relate to things differently and have different expectations than someone who was raised wealthy.

 

The world of Final Fantasy is quite different from Earth, but it can be useful to study some historical economy to get ideas.

[Valence]

Speaking here about the most expensive wine on Hydaelyn (or one of the most sought after), the Sud Viandja. It's compared to the price of a house in the Mist (so about 3M to 40M), so that would at best be "worth a birdhouse in the Mist".

 

 

With this in mind I feel more compelled not to take too seriously the price inflation of a lot of consumables ingame.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Valence