Guild Wars 2

Hi,
I’m not sure if there has been a topic created concerning this particular issue I have-mind that I did check some of the posts but given the amount…well anyway, here is my issue: why in particular do you need 100 bolts of silk to craft one spool of silk weaving thread?
I mean seriously, all other ascended materials, that can be crafted require 50 of their respected ingredient: 50 elder wood planks for glob of elder spirit residue, 50 mithril ingots for lump of mithrillium and 50 cured thick leather squares for a spool of thick elonian cord.
So again I ask kindly that someone, preferably a developer, explains or directs me to a discussion, where it’s explained, why is this as it is, since the prices of bolts of silk are ridiculously high, which you already know, and thus for one damask you need to spend 8g on silk alone. Also mind that bolts or scraps do not drop more often, actually in comparison to leather they are rare. Also, bolts of damask are needed at every piece of armour, elonian leather squares are not. Just a hint.
Thank you for reply.

I know I’m not a developer, but it’s a case of serious over correction. There was too much silk, and so they decided to do this in hopes of using up some of the supply. Well, it worked to well and now we have a deficit.

Its possible, but they need to fix it. The supply /demand ratio is now completely reversed which causes damasks to be the most expensive thing when doing armour. Not only that it causes the armour pieces to be more expensive then a single weapon which doesn’t make any sense to me.
Thx for reply though, hope i here something from devs because this doesn’t make-and i know i repeat my self-any sense at all.

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose. There was a large amount of supply and it’s used in all three crafts. Any reduction in the price of silk would increase demand for it and cause the price of the other cloth materials to go up as more people will want to craft the damask cloth.

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose.

Yes it was an over correction, and yes the game economist said the over correction was on purpose. The extreme requirements for that one item has given value to quite a number of items, including karma.

I expect we’ll see more of this thinking even if we don’t like it much, and that’s why we’re seeing more and more account bound crafting lately. That sucks too.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose.

Yes it was an over correction, and yes the game economist said the over correction was on purpose. The extreme requirements for that one item has given value to quite a number of items, including karma.

I expect we’ll see more of this thinking even if we don’t like it much, and that’s why we’re seeing more and more account bound crafting lately. That sucks too.

The bolded statement of your post is illogical. I respectfully suggest double checking the definition of over-correction. It’s impossible for a result to be an over-correction if that result was intended.

Most dictionaries define ‘over correct’ as something similar to ‘to apply a correction to in excess of that required.’ Nothing about intent there, really.

So basically they knew they were being excessive with the silk amount required in order to drain the millions of scraps out of the system. The requirement can never change for economic reasons, but perhaps they can start providing more ways to get it.

Or possibly some way to convert it. Like a guy who takes your thick leather and gives you silk for some reason. How much he’d exchange could be tied to the AH like vendor dye prices and such used to be tied to trades in GW1.

Please stop arguing who is right and who is wrong. If you made your statement i thank you, otherwise debating on what the term “overcorrection” means is pointless.
Also: i disagree with suggestion of exchanging silk for leather since the issue stays the same-prices of other mats needed for damask will rise in either case. So my suggestion to developers is that they slightly raise the amount of materials you get from low level items such as wool and linen and change the amount of bolts needed for damask from 100 to 50.
Its the only way the market will be stabilised and you wont have to spend ridiculous amount of money on damask alone. As I said, and i will repeat myself for numerous times, i want to hear explanation of the situation and how do they intend to fix it.

Escapist.5687:

As I said, and i will repeat myself for numerous times, i want to hear explanation of the situation and how do they intend to fix it.

They stated several times that its working as intended, so they wont fix it. Cutting the requirementsfrom 100 to 50 bolts will not make damask cheaper because all the other cloth (linen/cotton/wool) will get more expensive due to added demand.
People are now willing to pay 15g per bolt of damask, and they will afterwards as well.

Is the situation correct? No. John Smith can still improve it.
Is it better then in the past? Yes. Less oversupply, and strikes a relative good balance between Linen (low) and Silk (high) supply in the market.
Is there an easy solution to improve it? No. It’s more complex then that. Bolt of damask balanced last months around 15g. The market seems to accept this price more or less, as it is very rarely spiking (otherwise it would). When a price is accepted in a market, and you shake it up, by any change possible, speculaters will come in. They alon will change the price, but people (like you) expecting Bolt of damask to drop in price, will just because your new enthousiasm cause bolt of damask to spike, and linen, whool, cotton (who are very rare atm, underestimated), to become even more expensive.

I agree there’s a problem though. It’s unjustified Light armor is way more expensive then medium. It’s unjustified, that leather is like 20x cheaper then Silk. If upping Silk is a priority of John Smith, then Leahter requirement should be upped too somehow, or more sinks.

i partially agree with your interpretation phoebe, none the less in my opinion for this issue there are two solutions: either raise the amount of silks that drop from items you salvage or lower the amount of those needed. True, it is a possibility that the price will go up. None the less imo that isn’t true since there is an uneven ratio between prices of other cloth mats and for example wood or iron.
When the prices match in between all of those, prices do not match among the t5 mats such as silk, mithril or elder planks. Granted, there are more ways to acquire wood or mithril, however looking at the price of wood planks makes me think why are armour pieces more expensive then a single weapon, even a great sword.
Btw, who the hell is John Smith?

Somewhere down the line when ascended crafting starts dying down when everyone has what they want, we will be back to the same problem of oversupply. What do you do then? Jack up requirements to 200? To me it is a short sighted adjustment.

They ought to have introduced good consumables that can burn away at the supply forever.

I believe it was worked out that heavy ascended armor is around 500g to craft a full set, light ascended is around 550g for a full set, thats just a 50g difference. Heavy armor uses mithril, this crafting mat is also used to make rare weapons to throw into the mystic forge, please tell me for what other reason would anyone want silk for? Its only sorce of value comes from making ascended armor. As John Smith has said, it was on purpose. Stop looking at the cost per damask and look at the over all cost, its relatively on par.

This thread is so full of misinformation it’s unbelievable.

First of all, it is not just a 50 gold difference. For example, the difference between Zojja’s Doublet (Light) and Zojja’s Breastplate (Heavy) is already 33 gold. That’s just one piece of armor.

Second of all, for all the people who are saying that the change is intended. Please don’t be sheep and just repeat something just because “an economist” says so. He never said why silk prices are intended as they are and it just doesn’t make sense balance wise to agree with his statement. Light classes are getting shafted because of this imbalance and the forum keeps getting flooded by new threads like these.

The thought that lowering the price of silk might increase the price of the lower level cloths is true. It shows how imbalanced the whole supply mechanic is of cloths. While trees can be cut and ore can be mined there is no reliable source for cloth. As long as this isn’t changed light classes will have to pay a higher margin and these threads will keep making their return.

Noah.4756:

This thread is so full of misinformation it’s unbelievable.

First of all, it is not just a 50 gold difference. For example, the difference between Zojja’s Doublet (Light) and Zojja’s Breastplate (Heavy) is already 33 gold. That’s just one piece of armor.

Second of all, for all the people who are saying that the change is intended. Please don’t be sheep and just repeat something just because “an economist” says so. He never said why silk prices are intended as they are and it just doesn’t make sense balance wise to agree with his statement. Light classes are getting shafted because of this imbalance and the forum keeps getting flooded by new threads like these.

The thought that lowering the price of silk might increase the price of the lower level cloths is true. It shows how imbalanced the whole supply mechanic is of cloths. While trees can be cut and ore can be mined there is no reliable source for cloth. As long as this isn’t changed light classes will have to pay a higher margin and these threads will keep making their return.

Heavy classes had the shaft for over a year after release because their rare and exotic armor was more expensive than light and medium, didnt see no complains there.

Concerning your sheep comment: Why arent people allowed to repeat what the game economist had to say but you are allowed to repeat what complainers have to say?
Just saying the economy is imbalanced or the recipes are out of whack isnt very constructive.
You already acknowledged that simply lowering the silk requirements propably wont have the desired effect, so what do you suggest? Personally, i couldnt care less about light armor users as i only play warrior but i will give it a shot.

First of all, some general observations:

- Leather (all tiers) is the cheapest of the mats used in armorcrafting, it is not farmable directly but due to having next to no real sink apart from leveling tailor and ascended light and medium armor crafting, there is an oversupply. T5 leather is the only mat used in asc crafting that usually is available at vendor value.

- Metal (all tiers except t6) is the 2nd cheapest of the mats used in armorcrafting, it is directly farmable from nodes. It also has alot different meaningful sinks apart from ascended armorcrafting (crafting rares for forging precursors, gift of metal, mystic forge weapons, regular weaponcrafting and jeweler). In my opinion, metal is the “healthiest or most balanced” of the 3 mats used in armorcrafting.

- Cloth (all tiers except t6) is the most expensive of all mats used in ascended armorcrafting, it is not directly farmable but even though it has no other sinks, due to the higher requirements of t5 mats (300 silk instead of 150 thick leather or 100 mithril) and its requirements in ALL armorcrafting, it is undersupplied.

I think the general idea is to bring all 3 armor types more in line in terms of pricing. Which means we have to get damask and elonian leather more in line with deldrimor.

Lets have a look what we need to craft one full set of each armor:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor#Materials

• 75 Bolts of Damask (36 for light, 24 for medium and 25 for heavy)
• 24 Elonian Leather Square (6/18/0)
• 16 Deldrimor Ingots (0/0/16)

In general, i think we should leave metal requirements untouched, their prices are healthy and there are alot of other sinks. Obviously, the ascended sink for cloth in general is to big and the ascended sink for leather is too small but the ascended sink for both should be higher than for metal.

If we change the requirements for the heavy armor set and substitute Bolts of Damask with Elonian Leather, we would see a way more balanced distribution to craft 3 full sets:

• 50 Bolts of Damask (36 for light, 24 for medium and 0 for heavy)
• 49 Elonian Leather Square (6/18/25)
• 16 Deldrimor Ingots (0/0/16)

Additionally, Thick Leather section requirements should be raised from 150 to 300 (its the only mat at vendor value), to bring the sinks of cloth and leather more in line.
Cloth will still have a bigger sink as leather from 0-400 crafting, though, so the changes to heavy armor crafting (using leather instead of cloth for paddings/linings) should also be introduced from 0-400 to ease demand on cloth in general. That leaves the additional cloth sink (compared to leather) from crafting insignias.
They are obviously crafted with cloth because each armorcrafting profession can use and refine cloth. But as the heavy armorcrafters wont need cloth anymore, i would suggest to make insignias in general be craftable with either cloth or leather. That gives leatherworker and tailor the choice of which mat to use (a good way to balance prices between those two) and heavy armorcrafters will have to use leather only.

Problem solved?

Noah.4756:

This thread is so full of misinformation it’s unbelievable.

First of all, it is not just a 50 gold difference. For example, the difference between Zojja’s Doublet (Light) and Zojja’s Breastplate (Heavy) is already 33 gold. That’s just one piece of armor.

Second of all, for all the people who are saying that the change is intended. Please don’t be sheep and just repeat something just because “an economist” says so. He never said why silk prices are intended as they are and it just doesn’t make sense balance wise to agree with his statement. Light classes are getting shafted because of this imbalance and the forum keeps getting flooded by new threads like these.

The thought that lowering the price of silk might increase the price of the lower level cloths is true. It shows how imbalanced the whole supply mechanic is of cloths. While trees can be cut and ore can be mined there is no reliable source for cloth. As long as this isn’t changed light classes will have to pay a higher margin and these threads will keep making their return.

It’s not a 33 gold difference so you did something different. That’s my initial guess but I had calculated the entire set rather than what it was per piece. That 50 gold difference was calculated by comparing the buy order differences between the components needed for both sets. The only way I can see you getting 33 gold is by buying everything outright from the TP at the sell prices.

1. It’s out of whack (silk requirement).
2. It was done (reportedly) to remove excess Silk from game.
3. Devs are well aware it’s out of whack.
4. Nothing has been done to change the recipe for over 6 months.
5. Players have been making Light Ascended Armor during that time.
6. Changing it now is unlikely.

Ayrilana.1396:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose.

Yes it was an over correction, and yes the game economist said the over correction was on purpose. The extreme requirements for that one item has given value to quite a number of items, including karma.

I expect we’ll see more of this thinking even if we don’t like it much, and that’s why we’re seeing more and more account bound crafting lately. That sucks too.

The bolded statement of your post is illogical. I respectfully suggest double checking the definition of over-correction. It’s impossible for a result to be an over-correction if that result was intended.

That’s not true. Consider an over correction in a car that is starting to slide. Now it definitely can be an intended over correction to show the effects of such……ie Here’s what happens when one over corrects when starting to loose control.

And there you have it. A perfectly possible example of an intended over correction. You can take that check to the bank and cash it too.

Essence Snow.3194:

Ayrilana.1396:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose.

Yes it was an over correction, and yes the game economist said the over correction was on purpose. The extreme requirements for that one item has given value to quite a number of items, including karma.

I expect we’ll see more of this thinking even if we don’t like it much, and that’s why we’re seeing more and more account bound crafting lately. That sucks too.

The bolded statement of your post is illogical. I respectfully suggest double checking the definition of over-correction. It’s impossible for a result to be an over-correction if that result was intended.

That’s not true. Consider an over correction in a car that is starting to slide. Now it definitely can be an intended over correction to show the effects of such……ie Here’s what happens when one over corrects when starting to loose control.

And there you have it. A perfectly possible example of an intended over correction. You can take that check to the bank and cash it too.

Then its not an over correction but an over reaction.

Essence Snow.3194:

Ayrilana.1396:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose.

Yes it was an over correction, and yes the game economist said the over correction was on purpose. The extreme requirements for that one item has given value to quite a number of items, including karma.

I expect we’ll see more of this thinking even if we don’t like it much, and that’s why we’re seeing more and more account bound crafting lately. That sucks too.

The bolded statement of your post is illogical. I respectfully suggest double checking the definition of over-correction. It’s impossible for a result to be an over-correction if that result was intended.

That’s not true. Consider an over correction in a car that is starting to slide. Now it definitely can be an intended over correction to show the effects of such……ie Here’s what happens when one over corrects when starting to loose control.

And there you have it. A perfectly possible example of an intended over correction. You can take that check to the bank and cash it too.

No, for reasons I already mentioned in my post you quoted.

Edit: I don’t believe you understand the usage of words such as under and over when used as prefixes.

In any case, can we drop this and get back to the subject of the thread rather than a discussion on grammar?

To get this back on topic, if anything is done that reduces silk scrap prices by 50%, an increase of 14% or more in other scrap prices would put players worst off. Any change in silk would increase demand for all scraps so you can be pretty certain that prices would rise more than 14%.

Wanze.8410:

Essence Snow.3194:

Ayrilana.1396:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose.

Yes it was an over correction, and yes the game economist said the over correction was on purpose. The extreme requirements for that one item has given value to quite a number of items, including karma.

I expect we’ll see more of this thinking even if we don’t like it much, and that’s why we’re seeing more and more account bound crafting lately. That sucks too.

The bolded statement of your post is illogical. I respectfully suggest double checking the definition of over-correction. It’s impossible for a result to be an over-correction if that result was intended.

That’s not true. Consider an over correction in a car that is starting to slide. Now it definitely can be an intended over correction to show the effects of such……ie Here’s what happens when one over corrects when starting to loose control.

And there you have it. A perfectly possible example of an intended over correction. You can take that check to the bank and cash it too.

Then its not an over correction but an over reaction.

It’s called an over correction…over correcting. That’s what it’s called, named, referred to, and/or the terminology.

Ayrilana.1396:

Essence Snow.3194:

Ayrilana.1396:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose.

Yes it was an over correction, and yes the game economist said the over correction was on purpose. The extreme requirements for that one item has given value to quite a number of items, including karma.

I expect we’ll see more of this thinking even if we don’t like it much, and that’s why we’re seeing more and more account bound crafting lately. That sucks too.

The bolded statement of your post is illogical. I respectfully suggest double checking the definition of over-correction. It’s impossible for a result to be an over-correction if that result was intended.

That’s not true. Consider an over correction in a car that is starting to slide. Now it definitely can be an intended over correction to show the effects of such……ie Here’s what happens when one over corrects when starting to loose control.

And there you have it. A perfectly possible example of an intended over correction. You can take that check to the bank and cash it too.

No, for reasons I already mentioned in my post you quoted.

Edit: I don’t believe you understand the usage of words such as under and over when used as prefixes.

In any case, can we drop this and get back to the subject of the thread rather than a discussion on grammar?

To get this back on topic, if anything is done that reduces silk scrap prices by 50%, an increase of 14% or more in other scrap prices would put players worst off. Any change in silk would increase demand for all scraps so you can be pretty certain that prices would rise more than 14%.

You said it wasn’t possible. I showed that it was. Care to rethink?

Essence Snow.3194:

Ayrilana.1396:

Essence Snow.3194:

Ayrilana.1396:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Ayrilana.1396:

It wasn’t over correction as the game’s economist said it was on purpose.

Yes it was an over correction, and yes the game economist said the over correction was on purpose. The extreme requirements for that one item has given value to quite a number of items, including karma.

I expect we’ll see more of this thinking even if we don’t like it much, and that’s why we’re seeing more and more account bound crafting lately. That sucks too.

The bolded statement of your post is illogical. I respectfully suggest double checking the definition of over-correction. It’s impossible for a result to be an over-correction if that result was intended.

That’s not true. Consider an over correction in a car that is starting to slide. Now it definitely can be an intended over correction to show the effects of such……ie Here’s what happens when one over corrects when starting to loose control.

And there you have it. A perfectly possible example of an intended over correction. You can take that check to the bank and cash it too.

No, for reasons I already mentioned in my post you quoted.

Edit: I don’t believe you understand the usage of words such as under and over when used as prefixes.

In any case, can we drop this and get back to the subject of the thread rather than a discussion on grammar?

To get this back on topic, if anything is done that reduces silk scrap prices by 50%, an increase of 14% or more in other scrap prices would put players worst off. Any change in silk would increase demand for all scraps so you can be pretty certain that prices would rise more than 14%.

You said it wasn’t possible. I showed that it was. Care to rethink?

All you showed was that you don’t understand what under and over do when used as prefixes.

lol Whatever makes you sleep at night buddy.

Essence Snow.3194:

lol Whatever makes you sleep at night buddy.

Do you actually have anything on topic to say or are you still just here to discuss semantics and derail threads?

Oh I see, when you do it it’s fine, but when I do what you normally do it’s objectionable.

The point was showing that an intended over-correction is not only possible but happens. Not saying that it happened in this case, but it does happen.

Anyway… back to the real topic…

The math I did a month ago that put them at 550 gold and 500 gold, respectively, was incorrect. I goofed with how I did the Thermocatalytic Reagent calculation. It was actually 478.26 vs 391.23. As of this morning it was sitting at 467.92 vs 374.58.

Ayrilana.1396:

Anyway… back to the real topic…

The math I did a month ago that put them at 550 gold and 500 gold, respectively, was incorrect. I goofed with how I did the Thermocatalytic Reagent calculation. It was actually 478.26 vs 391.23. As of this morning it was sitting at 467.92 vs 374.58.

I did some math to, that 550g and 500g was from another topic, but that i quoted from someone else, so my results with nothing more than the Bolts of Damask, Deldrimor Steel Ingots and Elonian Leather Squares, for Heavy armor i found it to be 334 gold, nothing else except the cost price to make those materials, 16 ingots and 25 bolts. Then worked out cost price of light armor, just the ascended materials, not the thermocatalytic reagent or insignias, for light i got, 424 gold, thats 36 bolts and 6 squares, in total the difference between the two armor weights came out at 90g…regardless, if 90g is a problem for just making the ascended mats then they wont enjoy this game regardless. Goals are there for a reason.

And my calculations are close to yours yet yours are more detailed…still just around the 90g mark…

Except in all the suggestions that people have made to fix the disparity, they actually make it worse.

I think it’s an extremely silly way to reduce the supply of silk. They punish the player for their own fault: having nothing interesting to craft with silk before ascended. Now they correct it by just doubling the needed amount for a new craft. In fact all the ascended crafting mechanics were made to reduce supply.

And now they don’t want to change it, even the supply/demand is inverted. But it seems it’s the way Anet handels such problems.

ProtoGunner.4953:

I think it’s an extremely silly way to reduce the supply of silk. They punish the player for their own fault: having nothing interesting to craft with silk before ascended. Now they correct it by just doubling the needed amount for a new craft. In fact all the ascended crafting mechanics were made to reduce supply.

And now they don’t want to change it, even the supply/demand is inverted. But it seems it’s the way Anet handels such problems.

Ok. Suppose that they did not make it that you needed 300 silk scraps. Imagine what the prices of the other scraps would be.

The current system with cloth is just bullox.
If you craft everything yourself, light armor needs the longest time since damask is dominant to a ridiculous amount, the other armors have steel/leather to a larger degree.
There is no balance between leather, ingots and damask, regarding acquisition, be it by farming or purchase.

I find few players with full multiple ascended weapon-sets, while full ascended armor seems to be quite common. Deldrimor Steel is easy to acquire if you run over the nodes, same for Spiritwood. Leather is overabundand in every regard since it doesn’t have as many sinks as cloth.
The only thing hard to farm is cloth. You need to be in specific regions and hope for some mob to drop something that has the areas level instead of yours.

You can farm the gold you need to buy 300 silk within an hour. Silk makes up 45% of the cost for the light ascended set.

You know you can just buy the Damask off the TP, right?

mtpelion.4562:

You know you can just buy the Damask off the TP, right?

Lol. Much much cheaper to buy up the materials at sell prices and craft it than buy it on the TP. I’m sure you knew that though.

Ayrilana.1396:

mtpelion.4562:

You know you can just buy the Damask off the TP, right?

Lol. Much much cheaper to buy up the materials at sell prices and craft it than buy it on the TP. I’m sure you knew that though.

Shhh!

Don’t worry about it, mtpelion. If the prices of the Meaty Plant Food are anything to go by, there’ll never be a shortage of players who value their time more than their money.

Look at it this way, most things require 3 silks, when you compare it to ores, most things cost 2 ores. Silk is very easily obtained too, just salvage light armor gear.

uberkingkong.8041:

Look at it this way, most things require 3 silks, when you compare it to ores, most things cost 2 ores. Silk is very easily obtained too, just salvage light armor gear.

The problem that people see is that ore, unlike silk, comes from a solidly reliable source, nodes. Silk on the other hand comes only from armour and that is far more variable. RNGesus might just throw a mountain of cotton or linen at you instead. I’ve never been short of silk as fractals drops armours like there’s no tomorrow, but not everyone frequents fractals and the regularity of armour drops in open world just doesn’t match up

Azrael.4960:

uberkingkong.8041:

Look at it this way, most things require 3 silks, when you compare it to ores, most things cost 2 ores. Silk is very easily obtained too, just salvage light armor gear.

The problem that people see is that ore, unlike silk, comes from a solidly reliable source, nodes. Silk on the other hand comes only from armour and that is far more variable. RNGesus might just throw a mountain of cotton or linen at you instead. I’ve never been short of silk as fractals drops armours like there’s no tomorrow, but not everyone frequents fractals and the regularity of armour drops in open world just doesn’t match up

If you are farming Orr events your bags fill up with armor and weapons at an alarming rate. If you don’t have gobs of silk it is because you aren’t doing things that drop gobs of silk.

If the economy wasn’t completely in the crapper lvl 70+ light armor blues and greens wouldn’t automatically cost 4-5x vendor price.

All cloths are so completely expensive right now it’s ridiculous. The demand far far far exceeds supply, and that is for 1 main reason:

Every ascended armor set piece requires 600-1000 bolts of silk, which is, obviously, 1800-3000 scraps per craft. You can’t even make 1 insignia with a full stack of scraps. That’s ridiculous.

Silk is the only material required in every piece of armor, plus is the main material for light armor on top of that.

Any economist that came up with this type of material dump/spending did so to offset their previous poor economic decisions. They’re trying to play economic commissar, which fails every time. Set an equal amount of of items needed for crafting or consumables from the beginning and you won’t need to apply bandaids that will be with us forever (high cloth prices).

Also, create a game where pve/dungeons don’t make 3/4 of the available builds/play styles completely irrelevant and you won’t have berzerker-specific mats selling for 5x the price of soldier-specific mats. If they created the initial pve balance, or changed it since launch, to make those play styles irrelevant, you also wouldn’t have exotic berzerker greatswords selling for 2x the price of soldiers. Same with runes and sigils.

When you make 3/4 of the builds unnecessary, you make 3/4 the stat sets unnecessary, which makes the specific mats required for their crafting in less demand, which, all else being equal, drives down the costs of unwanted specs and drives up the cost of wanted specs at probably close to a directly inverse proportion.

Look at the cost of greatswords as another example. Greatswords can be used by 1/2 the classes of the game, but for most of those classes it allows for the maximum or close to the maximum DPS that class can dish out. Since speccing for anything thats not full or mostly DPS is completely unnecessary for all of PvE, it means you have 3-4 classes desiring the same weapon. This, to my knowledge, is unlike every other weapon that may have 1-2, maybe 3 classes heavily desiring it (dagger = viable meta or similar dps build for 3 classes?). That drives up the price of greatswords, which drives up the cost of materials used to craft them. Throw berzerker on top of that, and it’s not surprising in the least that a zerker GS is the most expensive weapon in the game at any rarity.

Instead of fixing these issues they created even more by intentionally making silk scraps the most-desired basic material in the game. YAY!

ANet creates an economy, screws it up, and then keeps adding fixes that never address the core problems and instead make things worse. Sounds like a real government, eh?

TLDR explanation:
ANet screwed up initial pve balance, material acquisition, and crafting, causing some mats to be in way higher demand than others. Instead of fixing these core issues they began applying economic bandages on materials less in demand. Case in point: requiring 100 bolts of silk per asc armor piece.

I love how fully crafting an ascended insignia has you spend gossamer to craft the exotic version and then silk, a lower quality material, to upgrade it to ascended. It’s not unsimilar for other ascended pieces, and reeks of applying short-sited bandages on poor lower tier material prices.

Solutions?
The basis of almost all of these problems stems on ANets pure hatred for the Holy Trinity. It’s cool that they have gotten rid of a player pigeonholing themselves into one defined play style for the life of their toon, but by building dungeons and encounters as they have, they have created the Holy Unity: DPS. Without the need, ever, for a true tank or healer (or even hybrid tank and hybrid healer), everyone is DPS. Always. And if you’re not, you’re doing it wrong. The problem isn’t meta DPS builds, it’s the lack of reason to use anything else!

I think they’ve done a fantastic job creating variety in each class. All 8 classes can do a few things extremely well: at least 4 classes could legit tank and at least 4 could be legit healers. But ANet needs to modify existing dungeons and add new ones that actually require it. Theyve actually already done the hardest part, making characters that can excel in playing multiple different ways effectively…but then failed at the easy part, producing content to require it!

They need to create engaging fights that require actual strategies instead of, “stack here and burn it down”. There are a few good fights already in place, but since these require more than stacking, they often result in wipes and explorable paths that aren’t farmed. THATS A GOOD THING! Instances that can’t be farmed in 10 or 15 minutes usually means the encounters are unique, engaging, and at least a little different from the mindless auto-attacking common everywhere else.

Creating dungeons that require more than an occasional aoe heal from a character in full zerker gear would put more emphasis on other stat sets and weapons. Then, players that love healing will have a viable play style they enjoy instead of being pigeonholed into DPSing if they want to play efficiently and not get kicked out of some groups. Making some encounters require a genuine tank will allow those players to do what they enjoy, too. Both will make tank and healing stat sets more desirable, including the specific materials needed to make them.

As for silk, and cloth in general, they should make ascended heavy armor require leather instead of cloth products. This should not only have the effect of raising leather and lowering cloth a little, but also will make armorsmithing consistent with the other 2 armor crafts. They should follow the same structure for everything and stop making exceptions trying to fix past mistakes.

With a truly balanced game materials of the same tier would naturally sell for around the same price, and without adding “dumps” in to manipulate prices to what they consider desirable.

Reducing prices for silk would increase demand for it while also increasing demand for the wool, cotton, and linen scraps in the process. Those lower tiered scrap prices would increase as a result and the additional could outpace the savings you would achieve from lowered silk scrap prices.

^ That. If they do want to seriously lower cloth prices, they’d need to increase cloth supply overall as a holistic measure. Something like “all cloth scraps obtained from salvage are now increased by 50%”. That would increase supply across the board.

Of course, what that might end up doing is more players go “Hey, I think I can afford Ascended armor now!” and keep prices the same due to increased demand.

BUT the flip side of that is that it would now seem easier for a player to “farm” his own supply, so I think it would be a good move overall.

Yeah. If they were to lowered silk then they’d have to do something about all of the other scraps to balance out the demand. Maybe being able to downgrade upper tiered materials like you can for the fractal shards? It would add more demand to silk again but then there’s gossamer scraps that have very little value.

could it possibly Anet actually want things to be expensive? Making things more grindy does boost cash shop sells.

That’s what all the cash shop mmorpg games do. I’m not sure why people Anet is any different.