Guild Wars 2

For example — In Brisban Wildlands, the only ore in the entire region is iron, silver, or possibly copper. None of the merchants need to sell steel mining picks. Much less Darksteel picks.

The merchants should all have iron tools available, and maybe if they’re close to a portal to a higher level zone, steel tools. At most.

It’s a waste of coin to buy tools for much higher than the level area, and if I’m in the region I should still be able to find level appropriate tools. Brisban Wildlands is rated as a level 15-25 zone, and the Darksteel tools can’t even be equipped until level 30.

Alternate suggestion: If a merchant sells a given level of tool, also give that merchant all lower level tools as well. So all merchants that sell Darksteel would also have steel, iron and copper tools. Merchants in the cities have all tool levels available, so we already know that the full list isn’t too unwieldy.