Guild Wars 2

There are currently a couple of things wrong with T5/T6 mats. Silk, T5 and T6 leather are all worthless. They are actually less then worthless, the max buy offer on the TP for them in less then half the vendor value.

On the other end of the spectrum is T6 Dust. A material that was originally intended to be plentiful and used to regulate the gap between T5 and T6 prices has become so rare that it is now the most expensive mat in the game, even more expensive then Ectos.

All of this can be quickly and easily fixed by removing Silk, T5 and T6 leather from T6 bags and replacing their loot chance with T6 dust.

More dust, restores the availability of T6 Dust, and less silk and leather means those prices can rise to be more in line with other crafting mats.

They are worthless because a) they created by salvaging high level basic gear which can drop from everywhere on a high level character and b) players mindlessly dumped so much of it on the TP that you actually make less money selling it there than to a merchant.

Where as T6 dust only drops from very high level critters, only found in high level zones. If players are tired fighting the risen on Orr, the supply won’t be there.

Rarity means pricey, common means cheap. T6 dust, only 5K or so available at TP = rare. Silk Scraps, over 3 million for sale = cheap.

Although I do agree that the rates of the crystalline dust is way too low, your solution to this problem defeats the purpose of it being a T6 mat… From what you’re saying, REPLACING the drop rate of silk and leather (which is a huge percentage) with crystalline dust, will only cause dust to significantly drop in price and create the same problem (with TP price ending up becoming cheaper than vendor price). So your plan would defeat the purpose of the rarity of T6 mats.

A more effective strategy that would raise the price of silk and leather, as well as keep the idea of a T6 mat being rare, would be to decrease the drop rate of silk/leather and replace it not to dust, but possibly just silver.

How about a temporary Mystic Forge recipe that converts silk and leather to dust, sort of like the solution they used shortly after launch to get the price of T1 wood above the vendor value?

RebelYell.7132:

How about a temporary Mystic Forge recipe that converts silk and leather to dust, sort of like the solution they used shortly after launch to get the price of T1 wood above the vendor value?

Let’s make a recipe just like the one already up there for T6 Dust at the MF but use much cheaper mats.

Yeah. Right. Ah, no.

I love seeing all of these threads that state how a simple change would fix everything and then seeing them get voted up.

Does anyone realize the impact this change would actually have on the game, the market, or the economy? Or….is it just the fact that you want what you want, but feel the price of what you want is too expensive so rather than working for something, or god forbid, saving for it…..you want it given to you?

Charismatic Harm.9683:

I love seeing all of these threads that state how a simple change would fix everything and then seeing them get voted up.

Does anyone realize the impact this change would actually have on the game, the market, or the economy? Or….is it just the fact that you want what you want, but feel the price of what you want is too expensive so rather than working for something, or god forbid, saving for it…..you want it given to you?

It really has nothing to do with what I feel. The price of the mats I mentioned are messed up. It isn’t an opinion it is just a fact. The fact is that Anet created recipes that require Crystalline dust to upgrade mats, and put them in the game. Since they are there we can only assume that they intended them to be used and to keep a link between T5 and T6 mat prices. Using those recipes currently loses you 1.5-3g per use. Clearly that is not the original intent. Before the original changes to bags, the conversion recipe did just that. It held the prices between T5 and T6 within the margin or uncertainty for the output of the recipe. Once dust changed, even though the other T6 mats were dropping MORE frequently, the prices still rose due to the lack of dust to keep the up-conversions going.

I did misspeak however when I said “directly replace” the chance for silk and leather with that of dust. That would make dust just as valuable as silk and leather currently are, i.e. no worth except to vendor them. A better method and explanation would be to increase the dust chance significantly, remove those worthless mats from the possibilities and change the probabilities for all other mats as little as possible.

Mithril and Ori are both salvage from common armor as well, but they have both maintained a steady and reasonable market value. The reason: They don’t drop in droves from T6 bags. Heck, you can even mine for Ori and Mithril and they still maintain value, so the problem seems to be linked to those bags.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

I love seeing all of these threads that state how a simple change would fix everything and then seeing them get voted up.

Does anyone realize the impact this change would actually have on the game, the market, or the economy? Or….is it just the fact that you want what you want, but feel the price of what you want is too expensive so rather than working for something, or god forbid, saving for it…..you want it given to you?

hahaha so true

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Charismatic Harm.9683:

I love seeing all of these threads that state how a simple change would fix everything and then seeing them get voted up.

Does anyone realize the impact this change would actually have on the game, the market, or the economy? Or….is it just the fact that you want what you want, but feel the price of what you want is too expensive so rather than working for something, or god forbid, saving for it…..you want it given to you?

It really has nothing to do with what I feel. The price of the mats I mentioned are messed up. It isn’t an opinion it is just a fact. The fact is that Anet created recipes that require Crystalline dust to upgrade mats, and put them in the game. Since they are there we can only assume that they intended them to be used and to keep a link between T5 and T6 mat prices. Using those recipes currently loses you 1.5-3g per use. Clearly that is not the original intent. Before the original changes to bags, the conversion recipe did just that. It held the prices between T5 and T6 within the margin or uncertainty for the output of the recipe. Once dust changed, even though the other T6 mats were dropping MORE frequently, the prices still rose due to the lack of dust to keep the up-conversions going.

I did misspeak however when I said “directly replace” the chance for silk and leather with that of dust. That would make dust just as valuable as silk and leather currently are, i.e. no worth except to vendor them. A better method and explanation would be to increase the dust chance significantly, remove those worthless mats from the possibilities and change the probabilities for all other mats as little as possible.

Mithril and Ori are both salvage from common armor as well, but they have both maintained a steady and reasonable market value. The reason: They don’t drop in droves from T6 bags. Heck, you can even mine for Ori and Mithril and they still maintain value, so the problem seems to be linked to those bags.

or because the drop rate is terrible

Orc Slayer.2780:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Charismatic Harm.9683:

I love seeing all of these threads that state how a simple change would fix everything and then seeing them get voted up.

Does anyone realize the impact this change would actually have on the game, the market, or the economy? Or….is it just the fact that you want what you want, but feel the price of what you want is too expensive so rather than working for something, or god forbid, saving for it…..you want it given to you?

It really has nothing to do with what I feel. The price of the mats I mentioned are messed up. It isn’t an opinion it is just a fact. The fact is that Anet created recipes that require Crystalline dust to upgrade mats, and put them in the game. Since they are there we can only assume that they intended them to be used and to keep a link between T5 and T6 mat prices. Using those recipes currently loses you 1.5-3g per use. Clearly that is not the original intent. Before the original changes to bags, the conversion recipe did just that. It held the prices between T5 and T6 within the margin or uncertainty for the output of the recipe. Once dust changed, even though the other T6 mats were dropping MORE frequently, the prices still rose due to the lack of dust to keep the up-conversions going.

I did misspeak however when I said “directly replace” the chance for silk and leather with that of dust. That would make dust just as valuable as silk and leather currently are, i.e. no worth except to vendor them. A better method and explanation would be to increase the dust chance significantly, remove those worthless mats from the possibilities and change the probabilities for all other mats as little as possible.

Mithril and Ori are both salvage from common armor as well, but they have both maintained a steady and reasonable market value. The reason: They don’t drop in droves from T6 bags. Heck, you can even mine for Ori and Mithril and they still maintain value, so the problem seems to be linked to those bags.

or because the drop rate is terrible

The drop rate of what? I really have no idea which material you are referring to. The purpose of this thread was because the drop rate of Dust, leather and silk are all terribly imbalanced, so yes I agree?

I agree with the opinion (and despite any arguments you might make, it is 100% an opinion and not a fact) that dust prices have increased to unhealthy levels. Now, establishing that (in my mind) as a problem, how do we resolve that issue? Well, there’s essentially two options, you can either increase the supply or decrease the demand.

To deal with supply, we could (as the OP suggests) “replace” the silk/leather drops with dust (T5 with T5 and T6 with T6). But that doesn’t quite have the exact outcome the poster seems to expect. This would likely have a strong downward effect upon the price of dust (especially T5 dust) but would also push the price for T5 fine materials up (and likely T6 fine down, though it’s really hard to say for those). It would also unbalance both the silk and leather markets. That’s the real concern here, the long term effects when the excess silk and leather supply (off the top of my head it’s something like 1.5MM silk and 4.4MM leather right now) is completely burned through. Where do those stabilize at, and how do those affect the market? Do the increased prices cause popular crafting recipes to be even less profitable? Does it impact the crafting market to the point where ecto prices are affected? What will it do to the prices for fine crafting mats? How much higher will Powerful Blood prices spiral after such a change? Something as simple sounding as replacing silk drops in moldy bags with dust could have such far reaching effects as to disrupt WvW (via EB Skelk/Drake farming).

I would rather take a slightly less drastic method for increasing the supply (if that were my solution) and increase the likelihood of 2 or 3 crystalline dust coming from a supply bag, or to flat out increase the drop rate from mobs. While such changes would still have far reaching consequences (lower dust prices lead to higher fine material prices except for T6) they would be much more controlled and wouldn’t have a huge buffer delaying the actual outcome.

A better solution might be a temporary mystic forge recipe. If dust prices have stabilized, a one time supply shock might be a better option than a long term change in drop rates. A potential recipe could be 250 silk or leather + 250 silk or leather + Elonian Wine + 5 Philosopher’s Stone = 5-10 crystalline dust. Such a recipe might fix the issue, as prices for crystalline dust were relatively stable (around 5s-7s) until the introduction of the Triforge Pendant (ascended) which required 750 crystalline dust to craft and was the only available ascended amulet for some time.

Back to my previous point though, people seem to look at this as solely a supply issue. There is another option: decrease demand. As we saw with the Triforge Pendant, one recipe can have a huge effect upon the entire market. As such, the demand could be reduced by reducing the quantity required in the recipes its used in. Instead of 2 core + 1 wine + 1 crystal + 1 dust for a lodestone, make it 4 core + 2 wine + 2 crystal + 1 dust for 2 lodes. Cut the dust required for the gift of color to 200 from 250. Require 3 dust instead of 5 to promote fine crafting materials to T6.

Alternatively, without access to Mr. Smith’s wealth of data, it might be that the price of crystalline dust is driven by the price of T6 blood (the only T5-T6 fine promotion that’s profitable right now). If that’s really the case, increasing the supply of T6 blood would likely cause the price of dust to fall.

Syeria.4812:

….as prices for crystalline dust were relatively stable (around 5s-7s) until the introduction of the Triforge Pendant (ascended) which required 750 crystalline dust to craft and was the only available ascended amulet for some time…..

Ok….so if I understand it correctly, the introduction of this amulet recipe is the true culprit of the rise in T6 Dust. If that’s the case, then what are all of these other arguments trying to play with other areas of the markets to fix a problem that didn’t exist before the introduction of this recipe? 750 of any item, especially a T6 item, is an extremely large amount for a recipe. Rather than looking at silk or leather or bags….perhaps you should be asking Anet to look into the Ascended Triforge Amulet recipe. What if it only used 250 instead of 750? They could then replace the other 2 stacks of dust with something else….like Elonian Wine, Ectos, Obsidian Shards or Fractal Relics. Replacing 2 stacks of dust with something else would reduce the consumption of dust by 2/3 without the need to touch supply. In time, the price of dust should come down to a reasonable level…probably not the 5s-7s range where it was when it started, but at least more manageable.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

I love seeing all of these threads that state how a simple change would fix everything and then seeing them get voted up.

Does anyone realize the impact this change would actually have on the game, the market, or the economy? Or….is it just the fact that you want what you want, but feel the price of what you want is too expensive so rather than working for something, or god forbid, saving for it…..you want it given to you?

The economy HAS to be impacted. CoF farmers have infinite buying power, but the people who supply them goods have finite farming power. The current stagnation is the worst case scenario.

Syeria.4812:

I agree with the opinion (and despite any arguments you might make, it is 100% an opinion and not a fact) that dust prices have increased to unhealthy levels. Now, establishing that (in my mind) as a problem, how do we resolve that issue? Well, there’s essentially two options, you can either increase the supply or decrease the demand.

To deal with supply, we could (as the OP suggests) “replace” the silk/leather drops with dust (T5 with T5 and T6 with T6). But that doesn’t quite have the exact outcome the poster seems to expect. This would likely have a strong downward effect upon the price of dust (especially T5 dust) but would also push the price for T5 fine materials up (and likely T6 fine down, though it’s really hard to say for those). It would also unbalance both the silk and leather markets. That’s the real concern here, the long term effects when the excess silk and leather supply (off the top of my head it’s something like 1.5MM silk and 4.4MM leather right now) is completely burned through. Where do those stabilize at, and how do those affect the market? Do the increased prices cause popular crafting recipes to be even less profitable? Does it impact the crafting market to the point where ecto prices are affected? What will it do to the prices for fine crafting mats? How much higher will Powerful Blood prices spiral after such a change? Something as simple sounding as replacing silk drops in moldy bags with dust could have such far reaching effects as to disrupt WvW (via EB Skelk/Drake farming).

I would rather take a slightly less drastic method for increasing the supply (if that were my solution) and increase the likelihood of 2 or 3 crystalline dust coming from a supply bag, or to flat out increase the drop rate from mobs. While such changes would still have far reaching consequences (lower dust prices lead to higher fine material prices except for T6) they would be much more controlled and wouldn’t have a huge buffer delaying the actual outcome.

A better solution might be a temporary mystic forge recipe. If dust prices have stabilized, a one time supply shock might be a better option than a long term change in drop rates. A potential recipe could be 250 silk or leather + 250 silk or leather + Elonian Wine + 5 Philosopher’s Stone = 5-10 crystalline dust. Such a recipe might fix the issue, as prices for crystalline dust were relatively stable (around 5s-7s) until the introduction of the Triforge Pendant (ascended) which required 750 crystalline dust to craft and was the only available ascended amulet for some time.

Back to my previous point though, people seem to look at this as solely a supply issue. There is another option: decrease demand. As we saw with the Triforge Pendant, one recipe can have a huge effect upon the entire market. As such, the demand could be reduced by reducing the quantity required in the recipes its used in. Instead of 2 core + 1 wine + 1 crystal + 1 dust for a lodestone, make it 4 core + 2 wine + 2 crystal + 1 dust for 2 lodes. Cut the dust required for the gift of color to 200 from 250. Require 3 dust instead of 5 to promote fine crafting materials to T6.

Alternatively, without access to Mr. Smith’s wealth of data, it might be that the price of crystalline dust is driven by the price of T6 blood (the only T5-T6 fine promotion that’s profitable right now). If that’s really the case, increasing the supply of T6 blood would likely cause the price of dust to fall.

Very nice analysis.

I agree it would have pretty far reaching effects. Though I considered all of them except the T5 dust, which I forgot about somehow. It would have a negative effect on T5 dust prices, which is something I need to think about more.

I agree that the change would certainly bring T5 fine mats up, and I think it would have a stronger effect on bringing T6 prices down. The prices between T5 and T6 were very strongly linked to the conversion recipe before the changes to dust.

50 T5 + 5 Crystalline dust + phil stones + 1 T6 = average of 7-8 T6 mats.

You could always depend on the prices between T5 and T6 to stick very close to that conversion formula, and it is what held down Powerful Blood prices for a long time.

It is rather a wild card on where cloth and leather prices would end up. Leather just doesn’t have a ton of demand, so even if you drastically cut the supply I don’t think T6 leather will ever rise to the level of the other T6 mats. Cloth seems to have slightly more demand, but it is just so readily available from the tons of salvaging I don’t think it would reach the price of Mithril/Ori even with the reduced supply. Of course I can’t say for certain, but that is my guess.

A conversion recipe would be helpful if the problem with dust truly is Triforge, but unless a change is made to cloth/leather it would just build right back up and become worthless again.

Don’t forget Bifrost also requires 750 crystalline dust. There are just far too many uses for dust and far too few outlets to get it.

There are essentially no good uses for thick leather or silk as an end-game material; they are leveling materials, nothing more. It isn’t so much a supply problem as a demand problem; without any recipes useful in the endgame, there’s nothing to generate demand above and beyond what is needed for people to level their professions to 400.