Guild Wars 2

Ider.1276:

ArchonWing.9480:

Drop the sentimental downpour. I’m all for improving leather farms. But that’s with a purpose and not carried by guilt tripping people.

Anet should improve recipes or salvage rates, not the farm. In 3 weeks that farm will be locked behind another paywall (when LS ep5 comes in) from new players.

I said Farm(s). It doesn’t have to be locked behind an LS, though frankly locking entire maps behind one is something I’ve never been a fan of.

There is no reason for leather to be more rare, expensive and obtained by farming in comparison with cloth.

I don’t accept this premise. This has been an assumption since the beginning of the thread, and it is up to people to prove it. Prove a need beyond people being too lazy to look up exotic armor names, ascended crafting, and various niche stats. Here’s one: Guild Halls.

But we’re talking about “new players”, and every time I’ve actually asked anyone why new players need leather, they fail on the specifics. Instead I’m getting ridiculous arguments about new players needing ascended. Which is true for basically 1 endgame area of the game. Maybe 2. It’s almost like people don’t understand progression or something when they try to educate new players and try to drag them to the endgame areas immediately. I wonder why that would make for a miserable experience.

Go into any open world HoT map, or WvW map. Click on people and see if they have any food buffs that aren’t Magic Find. Most won’t. Heck, I’ve had people refuse advice on food, just because. That means they don’t care about the 150-200 stats food/utilities can offer even if it costs less than a waypoint. The difference between a piece of ascended armor and exotic armor is less than that! And a lot of these players probably aren’t new, since they’ve gotten to these maps.

I also speak for myself. I want reasonable leather aquisition or prices. I speak for my friends that are still playing this game. They want tha same. Should we make a poll or something?

Sounds better. So can we drop the “new players” out of this discussion?

It’s not like I would mind if dropping prices would help new players in droves. But I think there’s been a pretty disingenuous move on these claims. Though it’s not just by you.

As long as it drops more than 0, it’s a new source.

But the fact stands that before “the adjustment” that HoT brought with it, leather and cloth was sourced from salvaged drops and bags and due to lack of enough sinks T6 was plentiful. Perhaps THAT is what needs to be looked at again and adjusted. Because while pre-HoT 30c for T6 was ridiculously low, 30s each is ridiculously high.

Likely it was the near 2000 T6 squares per Guild Hall along with the Gossamer Patch and refinement recipe change that drained away the 5 million T6 sections down to 10-20 thousand and pushed it into hording/easier to manipulate status.

I tried the leather farm, and got around 60’ish hides in a little under 30 minutes. Then DR started kicking in, and I think the culprit is this.

Also, Out of those I think I managed to salvage one hardened leather section. Now, this might be RNG. I mean, should I use a mystic kit for these things?

On the other hand, it doesn’t seem too bad at getting the other leather. But it’s not much of a leather farm when it comes to hardened leather.

According to the wiki (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone-Warped_Hide/Drop_rate), about 10% of hides salvage to hard leather. This is using a basic or master salvage kit. Using a crude kit is much lower.

NOTE: Not many people have added info, so this should be taken as tentative.

Ouch. Seems pretty atrocious even if I got a bad RNG roll.

Still though, this farm isn’t bad. It’s just not good for getting hardened leather. It almost feels like it’s good for getting everything but hard leather.

Not complaining. But it seems clear why it hasn’t affected hardened leather.

ArchonWing.9480:

Ouch. Seems pretty atrocious even if I got a bad RNG roll.

Still though, this farm isn’t bad. It’s just not good for getting hardened leather. It almost feels like it’s good for getting everything but hard leather.

Not complaining. But it seems clear why it hasn’t affected hardened leather.

Its bad for everything but T5 leather. Unstable hides from events in Doric (or farming WM clerics) give much more t2-t4 leather than centaur ones. I’m really surprised you didn’t know that. As it was stated when first threads on hardened leather came in, just doing events in Doric gives more t2, t3, t4 and t6 leather than centaur farm. And still it is not enough (at least in the case of t6).

I don’t accept this premise. This has been an assumption since the beginning of the thread, and it is up to people to prove it. Prove a need beyond people being too lazy to look up exotic armor names, ascended crafting, and various niche stats. Here’s one: Guild Halls. you.

My friend wanted to play condi engeneer cause he likes the sole idea and gameplay/rotation. Couldn’t afford it, because viper/sinister gear is crafted only.
My other friend liked WvW a lot. Shame that a lot of viable in WvW stat sets like zealot, marauder, commander, etc are also craftable.
Personally I don’t think that its a luxury to play GW2 in a way you want to play it.

Ider.1276:

ArchonWing.9480:

Ouch. Seems pretty atrocious even if I got a bad RNG roll.

Still though, this farm isn’t bad. It’s just not good for getting hardened leather. It almost feels like it’s good for getting everything but hard leather.

Not complaining. But it seems clear why it hasn’t affected hardened leather.

Its bad for everything but T5 leather. Unstable hides from events in Doric (or farming WM clerics) give much more t2-t4 leather than centaur ones. I’m really surprised you didn’t know that. As it was stated when first threads on hardened leather came in, just doing events in Doric gives more t2, t3, t4 and t6 leather than centaur farm. And still it is not enough (at least in the case of t6).

I didn’t know that, because this was the first time trying out the leather farm, and I haven’t done much Lake Doric But thanks for verifying you don’t get t6s. I’m not really sure why you’re surprised, given that I have pretty much suggested multiple times that I have little concern or need for leather. I obviously have no real interest in a leather farm.

My friend wanted to play condi engeneer cause he likes the sole idea and gameplay/rotation. Couldn’t afford it, because viper/sinister gear is crafted only.
My other friend liked WvW a lot. Shame that a lot of viable in WvW stat sets like zealot, marauder, commander, etc are also craftable.
Personally I don’t think that its a luxury to play GW2 in a way you want to play it.

It sort of is a luxury, if you intend on doing something specific.

The condi engineer I think is one of those cases where I think it holds some degree of water. Of course, this is more of an issue of these stat combos being soulbound and required crafting. Nothing’s to stop your friend from using rampagers as a stopgap though, and eventually saving up for ascended, since the HoT mats in of themselves cost a lot considering for exotic stats. Also note that the Living Story trinkets can also compensate, though admittingly that’s a lot of grinding.

Of course, even excluding armor, you can hit +85% burning/bleeding already: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqKSYLKwPsEDAA-TlBuwAyM/IUPwmHAAAlgL3fQsyPCBoYOA-w

It’s not the best, but it certainly doesn’t mean you can’t do condi.

As for WvW, it’s really more of the same. Sure, marauder/commander might be nice, but they’re not really required to play WvW at all.

But let’s be serious for a moment. You say people can’t afford these things. But as I’ve brought up time and again in this thread, which keeps getting ignored for some reason is that gold is easier to come by.

Login rewards give 55 laurels and 20 mystic coins every month. Dailies give 2 gold a day. So let’s assume one spends their laurels on heavy crafting bags for (hey, let’s lowball it) for 25g a month and they sell their mystic coins for 20g.) That’s 45g in one month for simply having a pulse.

So our poor “new player” in 2 months will have gotten about 80-90 gold. Even if we want to go all out and spend about 200 gold on equipment (a one time purchase mind you), they would have to do the equivalent of 2 months worth of dailies.

This is assuming they want “optimal” stats. If they actually play the game, it’ll happen a lot faster. In practice, they could just get set up for 10 gold, and start building wealth from there.

There are some other obvious facts such as armor parts being a smaller contributor to stats like weapons and trinkets, as well as the chest/legs parts being a bigger deal. That’s what I take into account when I don’t want to craft full ascended, but rather the parts that have the most impact.

ArchonWing.9480:

So our poor “new player” in 2 months will have gotten about 80-90 gold. Even if we want to go all out and spend about 200 gold on equipment (a one time purchase mind you), they would have to do the equivalent of 2 months worth of dailies.

Think of it as having to wait 2 months to craft something of basic necessity. Its not ascended (or legendary) gear, its exotic. It is heavily implied by Anet that exotic is normal (or “default”) lvl 80 gear, all HoT openworld content was balanced for it. Talking about balance: exotic weapons are much easily and cheaply crafted, and materials for a whole set can be easily gathered in several days by any player.

Ider.1276:

ArchonWing.9480:

So our poor “new player” in 2 months will have gotten about 80-90 gold. Even if we want to go all out and spend about 200 gold on equipment (a one time purchase mind you), they would have to do the equivalent of 2 months worth of dailies.

Think of it as having to wait 2 months to craft something of basic necessity. Its not ascended (or legendary) gear, its exotic. It is heavily implied by Anet that exotic is normal (or “default”) lvl 80 gear, all HoT openworld content was balanced for it. Talking about balance: exotic weapons are much easily and cheaply crafted, and materials for a whole set can be easily gathered in several days by any player.

Even considering that exotics are essential, I do not believe that Anet balanced around HoT exotics. We’re not just talking about someone getting geared, but rather someone getting geared on a very specific set of stats. The essential exotics you speak of are somewhere between 1/5 to 1/10 the cost. I was deliberately picking the worst case scenario aka “I must have niche meta stats or bust” in order to keep things somewhat interesting.

Incidentally with 200 gold, one could max out leatherworker and be finishing up their first piece of ascended armor., So to me, it seems to be a failure of how HoT stats are acquired.

As for weapons, this is something notable about cost in this game. That being the most important things aren’t as costly while they make you go the extra mile for the extras. This is why Amulets < Rings < Earrings in cost even though in terms of effectiveness, it’s the exact opposite, as well as exotics having most of the effectiveness of ascended gear. And also why the small things like +stat infusions and backpieces carry the premium. And weapons are more important than armor.

Now, I can’t say why it’s done like this, but the result is grind typically is concentrated towards the last few percent of min-maxing, of which I think is a good thing.

OriOri.8724:

But that doesn’t account for ascended gear at all. A lot of people will eventually want to go for ascended gear for various reasons (min/maxers, skins, character progression, bored, etc…), and this does include new players. Even ascended weapons can now require large-ish amounts of leather if you choose to go the route of crafting weaponsmith marks and then buying the weapons. And if you ever want to change the stats on your gear, it requires T6 leather in large quantities for how infrequently its obtained through regular gameplay.

It does nothing but give players who are done gearing up their characters a bit of extra gold, at the expensve of everyone else.

And the fact that there are still posts being upvoted to the top of the subreddit about once a week about leather shows that large communities in GW2 are not ok with the price of leather either.

the grandmaster marks itself dont require any t6 leather at all.

I think for those who are trying to convince us that everything is fine with leather here thanks to the leather farm, I would like to quote the original post which contains a point that apparently has been forgotten about:

“I Speak from experience: Leather wasn’t a problem but then Anet said “leather is too cheap” and instead of slightly tweaking salvage rates they 1) changed refinement ratios, 2) nerfed drop rates, 3) nerfed salvage rates, and 4) added leather to a ton of recipes. Instead of doing 1 or 2 of these, THEY DID ALL AT ONCE.”

One of the main reasons why leather is not dropping in price is that the demand has skyrocketed because of 1 and 4. I know that I do not sell any leather anymore because i need it all for crating ascended gear. I am constantly buying leather off the TP because I don’t have enough. And it costs.

I love that people say you’re “lazy” if you don’t want to do the leather farm. Kind of like we’re lazy if we don’t want to do the silk farm? Or lazy if we don’t want to do the mithril farm? Or lazy if we don’t want to do the elder wood farm? Oh wait, I get all those things by PLAYING THE GAME NORMALLY.

Is it weird we want to have enough leather by playing the game normally which is how we get all our other materials?

Oneira.7691:

I think for those who are trying to convince us that everything is fine with leather here thanks to the leather farm, I would like to quote the original post which contains a point that apparently has been forgotten about:

“I Speak from experience: Leather wasn’t a problem but then Anet said “leather is too cheap” and instead of slightly tweaking salvage rates they 1) changed refinement ratios, 2) nerfed drop rates, 3) nerfed salvage rates, and 4) added leather to a ton of recipes. Instead of doing 1 or 2 of these, THEY DID ALL AT ONCE.”

One of the main reasons why leather is not dropping in price is that the demand has skyrocketed because of 1 and 4. I know that I do not sell any leather anymore because i need it all for crating ascended gear. I am constantly buying leather off the TP because I don’t have enough. And it costs.

If you have a spare character slot, opening bags on a mid-level character can be pretty useful.

I understand that’s not the best of solutions and a screwy mechanic, but you can get a lot of t3-t4 mats like that. I thought it was a pretty good investment over time.

One suggestion that i really like was: Allow to change T6 material for another T6 material on a 4:3 ratio.
Like you could take 100 T6 metal material and exchange for 75 T6 leather material.
This way all the prices would find a balance, not being too cheap, not too price.

Ider.1276:

Think of it as having to wait 2 months to craft something of basic necessity. Its not ascended (or legendary) gear, its exotic. It is heavily implied by Anet that exotic is normal (or “default”) lvl 80 gear, all HoT openworld content was balanced for it.

But full lvl80 exotic gear is not a necessity at all, and that is the point. I have been playing GW2 for 8 months now and leveled my crafting disciplines from the beginning. At no point I had issues with leather prices as a new/leveling player.

I played Orr in greens/rares and maybe a lvl72 or 78 exotic here and there and started out in HoT maps in mixed and matched lvl80 rares and exotics. It works. Crafting or buying a full set of exotics was my first “long-term” goal as a new player. So I did not see a problem with it being more difficult to get.

In the end it took me 4-6 weeks after reaching lvl80 to craft my first set (light vipers armor and two vipers weapons), without grinding or farming of any kind. Just by playing the game and using the TP.

I agree with those who say that older players are more bothered by the high prices than newer players. Now that I am accustomed to full exotics and even ascended, I get more impatient to gear alts. It is purely psychological in my case.^^

Ider.1276:

ArchonWing.9480:

So our poor “new player” in 2 months will have gotten about 80-90 gold. Even if we want to go all out and spend about 200 gold on equipment (a one time purchase mind you), they would have to do the equivalent of 2 months worth of dailies.

Think of it as having to wait 2 months to craft something of basic necessity. Its not ascended (or legendary) gear, its exotic. It is heavily implied by Anet that exotic is normal (or “default”) lvl 80 gear, all HoT openworld content was balanced for it. Talking about balance: exotic weapons are much easily and cheaply crafted, and materials for a whole set can be easily gathered in several days by any player.

The best part about your story about your friend was the part where you guys considered using rampager’s armor as a substitute until he was in a position to get the gear he wanted. Oh wait …

This is probably the most egregious thing about using ‘new players’ as the motivation to change things in the game … because no one considers that people that have the means to craft these end game armors have been at it for hundreds or thousands of hours of gametime. Then we have people trying to get their friends to that point after a marathon 15 hour leveling session to 80 … then complaining they can’t do things that are ‘necessary’ that other 1000 hour players can do. These people should stick to FPS games. Like it or not, MMO’s have this very real thing that relates game access to time spent. You can’t sneak around that. And then to blame the game for it … I mean, that’s silly; people need to have very realistic expectations for getting to these levels of gameplay.

It’s not the leather preventing your friends from being successful at the game; it’s the preconceived notions that they have been fed by their ingame friends that they will suck and not have fun playing the game if they don’t get full ascended Viper gear on their condi engineer. They were sold the game as a job to accumulate stuff to not suck, not as something fun where they end up with mats and gold they needed through that gameplay anyways.

TorsoReaper.8530:

I love that people say you’re “lazy” if you don’t want to do the leather farm. Kind of like we’re lazy if we don’t want to do the silk farm? Or lazy if we don’t want to do the mithril farm? Or lazy if we don’t want to do the elder wood farm? Oh wait, I get all those things by PLAYING THE GAME NORMALLY.

Is it weird we want to have enough leather by playing the game normally which is how we get all our other materials?

That’s still not a reasonable complaint, because you get gold through normal gameplay that allows you to buy what you need off the TP, just like any of the other mats you list that you would buy off the TP as you needed.

Is it weird we want to have enough leather by playing the game normally which is how we get all our other materials? It sure is weird, because that’s not the primary way people get all their other materials in the first place. Don’t try and paint the picture that no one ever goes to the TP to get mats they need to craft … EXCEPT for leather, and therefore …. That’s completely unbelievable, especially for anyone that has crafted.

Obtena.7952:

That’s still not a reasonable complaint, because you get gold through normal gameplay that allows you to buy what you need off the TP, just like any of the other mats you list that you would buy off the TP as you needed.

Is it weird we want to have enough leather by playing the game normally which is how we get all our other materials? It sure is weird, because that’s not how people get all their other materials. Don’t try and paint the picture that no one every goes to the TP to get mats they need to craft EXCEPT for leather. That’s completely unbelievable, especially for anyone that has crafted.

It’s only weird because you fail to understand the simple human logic behind the argument.

People complain leather prices are high → leather farm gets added so people have a way to get leather → Leather farm doesn’t yield enough leather → Players don’t really farm since they rather play the game normally → Leather prices go up even further → people still complain if not more.

Some players don’t want to farm (it’s boring, it doesn’t yield what i need, don’t have time, whichever) they want to play normally and get enough leather for whichever goal. This was previously more than possible as TP prices were reasonable. And then no one complained and such nostalgia feelings will last very long. Now prices go up, players see their extended goals go up in price if not out of reach, they complain.

Except T6 Leather Sections costing 30 copper wasn’t “reasonable”, it was worthless. That’s why it accumulated over 5 million on the TP before HoT. It wasn’t rock bottom NPC value but it might as well be.

Behellagh.1468:

Except T6 Leather Sections costing 30 copper wasn’t “reasonable”, it was worthless. That’s why it accumulated over 5 million on the TP before HoT. It wasn’t rock bottom NPC value but it might as well be.

Why do you people act like there is absolutely zero middle ground between 30 copper and 30 silver per section? It makes every argument you guys make look downright silly.

Obtena.7952:

That’s still not a reasonable complaint, because you get gold through normal gameplay that allows you to buy what you need off the TP, just like any of the other mats you list that you would buy off the TP as you needed.

That would be a reasonable solution if the price of the leather was equivalent to the price of the other materials.

Obtena.7952:

Is it weird we want to have enough leather by playing the game normally which is how we get all our other materials? It sure is weird, because that’s not the primary way people get all their other materials in the first place. Don’t try and paint the picture that no one ever goes to the TP to get mats they need to craft … EXCEPT for leather, and therefore …. That’s completely unbelievable, especially for anyone that has crafted.

Who tried to paint that picture? Why are you putting words in his mouth? He simply said that we shouldn’t have to go to one particular area of the game world and dedicate our effort to only getting leather. We should be able to get the same quantity of all materials by doing the same types of activities. Which is entirely true and reasonable.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Obtena.7952:

That’s still not a reasonable complaint, because you get gold through normal gameplay that allows you to buy what you need off the TP, just like any of the other mats you list that you would buy off the TP as you needed.

Is it weird we want to have enough leather by playing the game normally which is how we get all our other materials? It sure is weird, because that’s not how people get all their other materials. Don’t try and paint the picture that no one every goes to the TP to get mats they need to craft EXCEPT for leather. That’s completely unbelievable, especially for anyone that has crafted.

It’s only weird because you fail to understand the simple human logic behind the argument.

People complain leather prices are high -> leather farm gets added so people have a way to get leather -> Leather farm doesn’t yield enough leather -> Players don’t really farm since they rather play the game normally -> Leather prices go up even further -> people still complain if not more.

Some players don’t want to farm (it’s boring, it doesn’t yield what i need, don’t have time, whichever) they want to play normally and get enough leather for whichever goal. This was previously more than possible as TP prices were reasonable. And then no one complained and such nostalgia feelings will last very long. Now prices go up, players see their extended goals go up in price if not out of reach, they complain.

I get why they complain … I also understand why these complaints make no sense.

Djinn.9245:

That would be a reasonable solution if the price of the leather was equivalent to the price of the other materials.

That’s a reasonable solution EVEN if the prices aren’t the same, because the demands for all these materials differ. It’s literally impossible for Anet to do what you are implying; to balance drops with constantly varying demand to make similar pricing. Not going to happen. Complaining that the situation doesn’t match some player-required ideal is a non-starter. The economy isn’t built that way, so it makes no sense to base any argument on equivalent mat pricing;.

Djinn.9245:

We should be able to get the same quantity of all materials by doing the same types of activities. Which is entirely true and reasonable.

Except you don’t need to do that to do that to get leather if you don’t want to, so yeah, no words in anyones mouths … just completing partial truths here. In addition, do you have proof you don’t get the same volume of materials by doing the same types of activities or is that just hyperbole? I’m pretty sure that when I do a run of whatever, I get pretty even amounts of all the materials we are talking about here. There is no correlation between leather stats on the TP that could possibly give anyone the idea that they don’t get even amounts of materials when they do content. If people are just going to invent nonsensical cause and effects, I have little reason to believe these discussions are just smoke and mirrors to unreasonably complain about leather prices.

Again, as much as you want to make this discussion about pricing, it’s not. The leather drop in Doric lake was NOT implemented to make leather cheap for people; it was put there to give people choice. If that choice isn’t reasonable to you, then you CAN continue to simply play the game wherever you see fit and take the leather you get doing that or purchase from the TP … nothing has changed that. If no options appeal to you, then like anything else on the TP, you really must not want it that badly in the first place. “I only want it if it’s cheap enough” is not a compelling reason for Anet to change anything.

As some one else elloquently put it. Please take a sledgehammer to gossamer patches.

Unrelated, also burn oiled gear to the ground for exotics. Leave that stuff for ascended+

The fact that there are still multi-page threads on these forums every few weeks, as well as threads being upvoted to the top of the Subreddit every few weeks, about the ridiculous state that leather is in tells me that a not insignificant portion of the community truly thinks something is wrong.

Whether or not you personally agree with that statement, Anet needs to stop ignoring these complaints. They keep coming because lots of people care. If the community as a whole thought leather was fine then it would stop happening. But it keeps happening, and we as players deserve that ANet acknowledges this and issues a statement on the matter.

OriOri.8724:

Behellagh.1468:

Except T6 Leather Sections costing 30 copper wasn’t “reasonable”, it was worthless. That’s why it accumulated over 5 million on the TP before HoT. It wasn’t rock bottom NPC value but it might as well be.

Why do you people act like there is absolutely zero middle ground between 30 copper and 30 silver per section? It makes every argument you guys make look downright silly.

Don’t misunderstand me. 30 silver is outrageous, my issue was about calling 30 copper for T6 and 11 copper for T5 “reasonable”. The supply/demand of these mats pre HoT were as much out of whack then as it is now. It’s just the pendulum swung all the way to the other side now.

That said GW2BLTC best guess is over 12K T6 sections are bought daily from the immediate sale side of the TP, it’s just being bought as fast as it’s posted for sale. As long as there’s enough people willing to pay 30 silver plus for whatever is posted for sale, price isn’t going to go down any time soon.

I don’t know how anyone can claim hardened leather prices are okay when they’re, what, 20-30 times the price of gossamer (despite gossamer also coming entirely from salvage and loot bags).

Hyper Cutter.9376:

I don’t know how anyone can claim hardened leather prices are okay when they’re, what, 20-30 times the price of gossamer (despite gossamer also coming entirely from salvage and loot bags).

There are those that understand that each item in the game can have its own unique supply/demand metrics that’s not dependent on the tier that it is in.

Ayrilana.1396:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

I don’t know how anyone can claim hardened leather prices are okay when they’re, what, 20-30 times the price of gossamer (despite gossamer also coming entirely from salvage and loot bags).

There are those that understand that each item in the game can have its own unique supply/demand metrics that’s not dependent on the tier that it is in.

You fail to find the equivalence, then. Hyper wasn’t comparing farmable items like orichalcum or ancient wood (which Lake Doric has in spades, yet that hasn’t killed the TP value). Gossamer and Hardened Leather have the same acquisition methods. There’s even a “farm” for the leather. Gossamer is relatively in control. A smidgen low, but not on vendor floor. It might even rise once HLS stops being absurd. But the “supply/demand metrics” were specifically manipulated by ANet to cause grief for the players buoy weak leather prices.

Behellagh.1468:

As long as there’s enough people trading post barons (sic) willing to pay 30 silver plus for whatever is posted for sale, price isn’t going to go down any time soon.

There are currently roughly 27k units of HLSections in stock (just checked). While I wish I had the actual log-in counts, I’m just going to be fairly sure that’s way less than 1 unit per player. That is not a healthy market for a basic crafting material.

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

I don’t know how anyone can claim hardened leather prices are okay when they’re, what, 20-30 times the price of gossamer (despite gossamer also coming entirely from salvage and loot bags).

There are those that understand that each item in the game can have its own unique supply/demand metrics that’s not dependent on the tier that it is in.

You fail to find the equivalence, then. Hyper wasn’t comparing farmable items like orichalcum or ancient wood (which Lake Doric has in spades, yet that hasn’t killed the TP value). Gossamer and Hardened Leather have the same acquisition methods. There’s even a “farm” for the leather. Gossamer is relatively in control. A smidgen low, but not on vendor floor. It might even rise once HLS stops being absurd. But the “supply/demand metrics” were specifically manipulated by ANet to cause grief for the players buoy weak leather prices.

Behellagh.1468:

As long as there’s enough people trading post barons (sic) willing to pay 30 silver plus for whatever is posted for sale, price isn’t going to go down any time soon.

There are currently roughly 27k units of HLSections in stock (just checked). While I wish I had the actual log-in counts, I’m just going to be fairly sure that’s way less than 1 unit per player. That is not a healthy market for a basic crafting material.

And both have their unique supply and demand metrics. Gossamer isn’t used for hardly anything whereas hardened leather has many uses outside of exotic armor crafting. There are also more ways to obtain hardened leather than gossamer. So yeah, not exactly the same.

There might be “more ways” to acquire hard leather, but the drop rate in each acquisition method is so low that I’m still swimming in way more gossamer than I am in hard leather. Your arguments don’t make any rational sense.

OriOri.8724:

There might be “more ways” to acquire hard leather, but the drop rate in each acquisition method is so low that I’m still swimming in way more gossamer than I am in hard leather. Your arguments don’t make any rational sense.

Like I said in my post, gossamer has relatively few uses compared to hardened leather. My arguments make little sense because you’re selectively ignoring parts of them.

Edit: I’ll also add that I arguing for or against hardened leather prices being out of line in that post. What I was arguing against was the poster using gossamer as a basis for how hardened leather prices should be when they have different supply/demand metrics.

Ayrilana.1396:

OriOri.8724:

There might be “more ways” to acquire hard leather, but the drop rate in each acquisition method is so low that I’m still swimming in way more gossamer than I am in hard leather. Your arguments don’t make any rational sense.

Like I said in my post, gossamer has relatively few uses compared to hardened leather. My arguments make little sense because you’re selectively ignoring parts of them.

Edit: I’ll also add that I arguing for or against hardened leather prices being out of line in that post. What I was arguing against was the poster using gossamer as a basis for how hardened leather prices should be when they have different supply/demand metrics.

To be fair I think this is part of the problem. To “fix” leather prices, Anet slapped leather into a bunch of recipes it shouldn’t be in. I’m surprised you don’t need leather to bake food. Anyways, this is why gossamer is cheaper than leather.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Avoid making it personal: I am sure everyone at Anet is trying to do a good job, but this is one place they have made many mistakes.

Avoid presenting opinions as facts.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Ayrilana.1396:

OriOri.8724:

There might be “more ways” to acquire hard leather, but the drop rate in each acquisition method is so low that I’m still swimming in way more gossamer than I am in hard leather. Your arguments don’t make any rational sense.

Like I said in my post, gossamer has relatively few uses compared to hardened leather. My arguments make little sense because you’re selectively ignoring parts of them.

Edit: I’ll also add that I arguing for or against hardened leather prices being out of line in that post. What I was arguing against was the poster using gossamer as a basis for how hardened leather prices should be when they have different supply/demand metrics.

To be fair I think this is part of the problem. To “fix” leather prices, Anet slapped leather into a bunch of recipes it shouldn’t be in. I’m surprised you don’t need leather to bake food. Anyways, this is why gossamer is cheaper than leather.

Perhaps gossamer should be given more sinks then.

Ayrilana.1396:

Perhaps gossamer should be given more sinks then.

The gossamer will have sinks if leather in gossamer patches will be fixed. People at last will start crafting exotics and sink it all there.
You can’t solve this problem by building more and more on top of it. They already tryed with glorified leather farm and failed. The only solution is going down to foundation, the sorce, and cleaning the mess there.

Ider.1276:

Ayrilana.1396:

Perhaps gossamer should be given more sinks then.

The gossamer will have sinks if leather in gossamer patches will be fixed. People at last will start crafting exotics and sink it all there.
You can’t solve this problem by building more and more on top of it. They already tryed with glorified leather farm and failed. The only solution is going down to foundation, the sorce, and cleaning the mess there.

Having patches require more gossamer wouldn’t provide much of a sink.

Leather farm only “failed” because there are some players that didn’t understand its purpose and thought it should be another gold farm. Funny thing is that even if it caused hardened leather prices to fall 50%, it still wouldn’t be a good gold farm and thus deemed a “failure”.

Ayrilana.1396:

Having patches require more gossamer wouldn’t provide much of a sink.

Not really. Because of the rarity of hardened leather noone crafts exotic now, so this sink would be minimal. And it will just bring more trouble, cause, as I said, building upon problem doesnot solve it. But if hardened leather in gossamer patces was nerfed to reasonable levels, people would start crafting exotics and sink gossamer into patches AND tailoring parts.

Ayrilana.1396:

Leather farm only “failed” because there are some players that didn’t understand its purpose and thought it should be another gold farm. Funny thing is that even if it caused hardened leather prices to fall 50%, it still wouldn’t be a good gold farm and thus deemed a “failure”.

Leather farm failed because people wanted T6 leather and farm was giving them T5 leather. Noone wanted to farm gold, we have silverwastes for this.

Ider.1276:

Ayrilana.1396:

Having patches require more gossamer wouldn’t provide much of a sink.

Not really. Because of the rarity of hardened leather noone crafts exotic now, so this sink would be minimal. And it will just bring more trouble, cause, as I said, building upon problem doesnot solve it. But if hardened leather in gossamer patces was nerfed to reasonable levels, people would start crafting exotics and sink gossamer into patches AND tailoring parts.

Ayrilana.1396:

Leather farm only “failed” because there are some players that didn’t understand its purpose and thought it should be another gold farm. Funny thing is that even if it caused hardened leather prices to fall 50%, it still wouldn’t be a good gold farm and thus deemed a “failure”.

Leather farm failed because people wanted T6 leather and farm was giving them T5 leather. Noone wanted to farm gold, we have silverwastes for this.

It “failed” because people were expecting it to be a gold farm and stopped doing it so they could do something more profitable. You must have missed the posts where people said that it wasn’t worth their time as they could go elsewhere and farm gold quicker. even if the drop rates were made to be the same among all tiers, it’d be the same as it is now. The farm is only effective at controlling the prices if players choose to farm it.

Again, changing patches to require less leather would not cause much of a sink for gossamer. Just look at gossamer price trends before they made the change to the patches. Players could farm elsewhere to get gold which they could then spend to buy the leather off the TP if they wished. This gets worse the further the price goes down.

Ayrilana.1396:

OriOri.8724:

There might be “more ways” to acquire hard leather, but the drop rate in each acquisition method is so low that I’m still swimming in way more gossamer than I am in hard leather. Your arguments don’t make any rational sense.

Like I said in my post, gossamer has relatively few uses compared to hardened leather. My arguments make little sense because you’re selectively ignoring parts of them.

Edit: I’ll also add that I arguing for or against hardened leather prices being out of line in that post. What I was arguing against was the poster using gossamer as a basis for how hardened leather prices should be when they have different supply/demand metrics.

Considering I don’t currently use my hardened leather for anything, nor my gossamer, this is not too relevant. Gossamer is needed in orders of magnitudes less than T6 leather is, and has far fewer sources, yet still we end up obtaining far more gossamer than T6 leather. And that’s because there is a disconnect between how much leather is required for crafting, and how much is acquired through regular gameplay.

This needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. I already know people in game that have stopped using the crafting system in its entirety due to leather, I know others that have left the game, and I know friends irl that refuse to try GW2 because of how kittened up leather is. This is actively driving people away from the game at this point, and I don’t understand why Anet doesn’t care.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Ayrilana.1396:

OriOri.8724:

There might be “more ways” to acquire hard leather, but the drop rate in each acquisition method is so low that I’m still swimming in way more gossamer than I am in hard leather. Your arguments don’t make any rational sense.

Like I said in my post, gossamer has relatively few uses compared to hardened leather. My arguments make little sense because you’re selectively ignoring parts of them.

Edit: I’ll also add that I arguing for or against hardened leather prices being out of line in that post. What I was arguing against was the poster using gossamer as a basis for how hardened leather prices should be when they have different supply/demand metrics.

To be fair I think this is part of the problem. To “fix” leather prices, Anet slapped leather into a bunch of recipes it shouldn’t be in. I’m surprised you don’t need leather to bake food. Anyways, this is why gossamer is cheaper than leather.

That’s a huge part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that Anet introduced these new sinks to eat up the supply of leather before HoT, but then also removed the ability of players to generate such a large supply. So the demand for leather in recipes is out of sync with the acquisition rates of leather through gameplay.

" I know friends irl that refuse to try GW2 because of how kittened up leather is."

How in the world would people who haven’t even tried gw2 know the ins and outs of level 80 crafting? The only thing I can think of is if you talk their ears off about it when they ask a question about the game. If that’s it, maybe point them to level 80 temple armor or cheap TP exotics for their first armor. That may be all they need. Not everyone carries around multiple sets of armor.

OriOri.8724:

Ayrilana.1396:

OriOri.8724:

There might be “more ways” to acquire hard leather, but the drop rate in each acquisition method is so low that I’m still swimming in way more gossamer than I am in hard leather. Your arguments don’t make any rational sense.

Like I said in my post, gossamer has relatively few uses compared to hardened leather. My arguments make little sense because you’re selectively ignoring parts of them.

Edit: I’ll also add that I arguing for or against hardened leather prices being out of line in that post. What I was arguing against was the poster using gossamer as a basis for how hardened leather prices should be when they have different supply/demand metrics.

Considering I don’t currently use my hardened leather for anything, nor my gossamer, this is not too relevant. Gossamer is needed in orders of magnitudes less than T6 leather is, and has far fewer sources, yet still we end up obtaining far more gossamer than T6 leather. And that’s because there is a disconnect between how much leather is required for crafting, and how much is acquired through regular gameplay.

This needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. I already know people in game that have stopped using the crafting system in its entirety due to leather, I know others that have left the game, and I know friends irl that refuse to try GW2 because of how kittened up leather is. This is actively driving people away from the game at this point, and I don’t understand why Anet doesn’t care.

Whether you use them or not doesn’t matter. Within the past few months I farmed up a lot of HoT currency and in the process I ended up salvaging a lot of gear. I didn’t get any more gossamer than I did hardened leather. Using gossamer as a base to compare against hardened leather is incorrect as both are different.

I’m not arguing for or against any changes to be made. I was only arguing against them using gossamer price as a base to compare against hardened leather.

As far as people quiting the game because of leather and such, I find that to be an exaggeration. Sure, some people may but nowhere near the level that you’re implying.

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

I don’t know how anyone can claim hardened leather prices are okay when they’re, what, 20-30 times the price of gossamer (despite gossamer also coming entirely from salvage and loot bags).

There are those that understand that each item in the game can have its own unique supply/demand metrics that’s not dependent on the tier that it is in.

You fail to find the equivalence, then. Hyper wasn’t comparing farmable items like orichalcum or ancient wood (which Lake Doric has in spades, yet that hasn’t killed the TP value). Gossamer and Hardened Leather have the same acquisition methods. There’s even a “farm” for the leather. Gossamer is relatively in control. A smidgen low, but not on vendor floor. It might even rise once HLS stops being absurd. But the “supply/demand metrics” were specifically manipulated by ANet to cause grief for the players buoy weak leather prices.

Behellagh.1468:

As long as there’s enough people trading post barons (sic) willing to pay 30 silver plus for whatever is posted for sale, price isn’t going to go down any time soon.

There are currently roughly 27k units of HLSections in stock (just checked). While I wish I had the actual log-in counts, I’m just going to be fairly sure that’s way less than 1 unit per player. That is not a healthy market for a basic crafting material.

And both have their unique supply and demand metrics. Gossamer isn’t used for hardly anything whereas hardened leather has many uses outside of exotic armor crafting. There are also more ways to obtain hardened leather than gossamer. So yeah, not exactly the same.

I didn’t say “exactly the same”. I specifically removed that from my draft in writing it.
Pay attention. They have the same acquisition. Pay attention. Leather has an additional “farm,” which should mean additional supply except it doesn’t, because unless someone really wants a scrap of cash that can be gotten more reliably/efficiently elsewhere or already needs leather, players aren’t doing it. And when they do it, they find it doesn’t provide anything more than what’s already available in game elsewhere. And even if they get lucky, they stop doing the farm when they meet their needs, so there is no/very-little supply added to the market.

So, overall, the supply issue isn’t solved, but it’s also not that problematic. After Silk’s stupid price spike, it eventually (year+ later) came back down to being manageable.

“If that’s the case, why all the complaints?”

Pay attention.
ANet toggled the sinks too high, in a huge burst of need, in order to drain the stocks and elevate the prices. What’s happened to the leather market, especially Hardened Leather is direct response to blatant manipulation, and the econ team is on vacay right now, “keeping an eye on things.” They told us as such.

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

I don’t know how anyone can claim hardened leather prices are okay when they’re, what, 20-30 times the price of gossamer (despite gossamer also coming entirely from salvage and loot bags).

There are those that understand that each item in the game can have its own unique supply/demand metrics that’s not dependent on the tier that it is in.

You fail to find the equivalence, then. Hyper wasn’t comparing farmable items like orichalcum or ancient wood (which Lake Doric has in spades, yet that hasn’t killed the TP value). Gossamer and Hardened Leather have the same acquisition methods. There’s even a “farm” for the leather. Gossamer is relatively in control. A smidgen low, but not on vendor floor. It might even rise once HLS stops being absurd. But the “supply/demand metrics” were specifically manipulated by ANet to cause grief for the players buoy weak leather prices.

Behellagh.1468:

As long as there’s enough people trading post barons (sic) willing to pay 30 silver plus for whatever is posted for sale, price isn’t going to go down any time soon.

There are currently roughly 27k units of HLSections in stock (just checked). While I wish I had the actual log-in counts, I’m just going to be fairly sure that’s way less than 1 unit per player. That is not a healthy market for a basic crafting material.

And both have their unique supply and demand metrics. Gossamer isn’t used for hardly anything whereas hardened leather has many uses outside of exotic armor crafting. There are also more ways to obtain hardened leather than gossamer. So yeah, not exactly the same.

I didn’t say “exactly the same”. I specifically removed that from my draft in writing it.
Pay attention. They have the same acquisition. Pay attention. Leather has an additional “farm,” which should mean additional supply except it doesn’t, because unless someone really wants a scrap of cash that can be gotten more reliably/efficiently elsewhere or already needs leather, players aren’t doing it. And when they do it, they find it doesn’t provide anything more than what’s already available in game elsewhere. And even if they get lucky, they stop doing the farm when they meet their needs, so there is no/very-little supply added to the market.

So, overall, the supply issue isn’t solved, but it’s also not that problematic. After Silk’s stupid price spike, it eventually (year+ later) came back down to being manageable.

“If that’s the case, why all the complaints?”

Pay attention.
ANet toggled the sinks too high, in a huge burst of need, in order to drain the stocks and elevate the prices. What’s happened to the leather market, especially Hardened Leather is direct response to blatant manipulation, and the econ team is on vacay right now, “keeping an eye on things.” They told us as such.

Hardened leather as the farm which provides a more direct way to obtain leather than cloth has. And once again, you’re so fixated on acquisition that you completely ignore the demand side which I have brought up several times already.

The leather farm isn’t doing as well because players can earn gold per hour at greater rates elsewhere in the game so it’s not worth their time. If they needed the leather, they could just farm elsewhere and buy it off the TP. Hardened leather price could drop 50% and this wouldn’t change.

The farm does provide more leather mats than elsewhere in the game. I’m not sure where you got the idea that it didn’t or was on par. Have you actually done the leather farm and see what you get?

Again, my post was in response to them using gossamer as a base on how hardened leather should be. That’s it. Please don’t expand it out to include topics I wasn’t even discussing. Is hardened leather prices a problem? Are they not a problem? I don’t care. Gossamer scraps and hardened leather, although they have similar ways to acquire them, are not the same and cannot really be used to state how one should be like the other in regards to price.

Personally, I think it would be a good thing if Gossamer, Orichalcum, and Ancient Wood were also trading up as high as Hardened Leather is. They are T6, and thus should be quite a bit more valuable than the lower tiers.

Ayrilana.1396:

the demand side which I have brought up several times already.

And you’re ignoring the completely artificial demand spike that was caused by ANet. Inconvenient facts are still facts.

The leather farm isn’t doing as well because players can earn gold per hour at greater rates elsewhere in the game so it’s not worth their time the Hardened Leather Section drops are pitiful.

Fixed.

If they needed the leather, they could just farm elsewhere and buy it off the TP. Hardened leather price could drop 50% and this wouldn’t change.

Paid absolutely no attention to the only 27,000 units as of this morning citation. If we assume a measly 75,000 players logging in per day, that’s not enough to cover potential need. Some players are priced out and won’t buy. The ones with the money don’t need much to utterly wipe that supply out, if they wanted. One baron could shovel the roughly 9500g to buy the “reasonably-priced” supply of sections. That’s pocket change and dangerously unhealthy for the market.

Have you actually done the leather farm and see what you get?

Yes.

Is hardened leather prices a problem? Are they not a problem? I don’t care.

Apparently, you do.
And judging by the complicit satisfaction on “the farm” and prices in general, it’s easy to see one who is concerned more with lining pockets than player satisfaction.

mtpelion.4562:

Personally, I think it would be a good thing if Gossamer, Orichalcum, and Ancient Wood were also trading up as high as Hardened Leather is. They are T6, and thus should be quite a bit more valuable than the lower tiers.

Maybe not as high as Hardened Leather, but elevating them a little wouldn’t be terrible. They could go up 200-400% and not be a huge pain the rear. Inversely, leather could drop by at least that much and the entire market would coast along freely for a while.

The big problem right now is that the materials aren’t self-correcting. They rely on econs hawking over them, fiddling with knobs and often writing in the “11” to turn it up to, then quietly cringing in surprise when it all goes south.

The trading post is a great general solution to player trading, but material markets can easily fall out of line without a systematic mechanism to balance them.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

" I know friends irl that refuse to try GW2 because of how kittened up leather is."

How in the world would people who haven’t even tried gw2 know the ins and outs of level 80 crafting? The only thing I can think of is if you talk their ears off about it when they ask a question about the game. If that’s it, maybe point them to level 80 temple armor or cheap TP exotics for their first armor. That may be all they need. Not everyone carries around multiple sets of armor.

This nonsense has been repeatedly debunked by me in this thread and ignored, probably because it is inconvenient.

It probably happens because they have friends giving them well-intentioned, but ultimately terrible advice.

Just to refresh a few things:

Login rewards give 55 laurels and 20 mystic coins every month. Dailies give 2 gold a day. So let’s assume one spends their laurels on heavy crafting bags for (hey, let’s lowball it) for 25g a month and they sell their mystic coins for 20g.) That’s 45g in one month for simply having a pulse.

But we’re talking about “new players”, and every time I’ve actually asked anyone why new players need leather, they fail on the specifics. Instead I’m getting ridiculous arguments about new players needing ascended. Which is true for basically 1 endgame area of the game. Maybe 2.

When I was gearing my 4th to 6th toons— they were the last of mines that I traditionally leveled— I simply salvaged everything that dropped. That was enough for the characters to gear themselves. This was the time where mid-level leather/cloth went up in price thanks to ascended gear. With every equipment drop salvaging mats worth a few silver a piece, it was quite profitable given the effort.

See, while exotic armors was less expensive in the past, the ability to earn gold has greatly increased for players just starting out thanks to dailies and log in rewards. Back when I started out, armor might have been 2-3 gold a piece (wait it still is), but it was a lot longer to get 2-3 gold. Heck, 30 gold would get you a bunch of gems already.
But wait…. there’s also a lot of exotic armor that’s gotten cheaper. At 70s they’re not even that much more expensive than rares. Sure, they’re not good stats, but they’re still level 80 exotics. You can get a set of medium exotic rampager armor for 1.5g a piece, less so if light/heavy.
But you want to be meta. Okay. You can get level 78 exotic berserker armor for less than 80s a piece. Level 80 Zhed’s Gloves has 133 defense, 45 power, 32 precision, 32 ferocity. The level 78 berserker’s gloves has 129 defense, 43 power, 31 precision, 31 ferocity. Yea, it’s not as good, but for a new player that enters 80 zones, I really doubt that’s going to make a difference.
Finally, armor is not as important as the weapon and trinkets. This doesn’t mean one shouldn’t wear armor, but it’s not as big as a deal, if say you use rare armor for light pve. This is also why ascended armor is of low priority as well.
Anyone that brings new players into this discussion literally doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

A post made by a poster actually relatively new to the game

But full lvl80 exotic gear is not a necessity at all, and that is the point. I have been playing GW2 for 8 months now and leveled my crafting disciplines from the beginning. At no point I had issues with leather prices as a new/leveling player.

I played Orr in greens/rares and maybe a lvl72 or 78 exotic here and there and started out in HoT maps in mixed and matched lvl80 rares and exotics. It works. Crafting or buying a full set of exotics was my first “long-term” goal as a new player. So I did not see a problem with it being more difficult to get.

In the end it took me 4-6 weeks after reaching lvl80 to craft my first set (light vipers armor and two vipers weapons), without grinding or farming of any kind. Just by playing the game and using the TP.

I agree with those who say that older players are more bothered by the high prices than newer players. Now that I am accustomed to full exotics and even ascended, I get more impatient to gear alts. It is purely psychological in my case.^^

Some more actual facts: Full ascended vs Ascended weapons/trinkets + Exotic armor is a 2% difference.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3xd0ex/ascended_vs_exotic_updated/

Oh yea, I’d actually support leather farms and lowering prices and helping new players. However, I’m not going to do it on this flawed premise.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

" I know friends irl that refuse to try GW2 because of how kittened up leather is."

How in the world would people who haven’t even tried gw2 know the ins and outs of level 80 crafting? The only thing I can think of is if you talk their ears off about it when they ask a question about the game. If that’s it, maybe point them to level 80 temple armor or cheap TP exotics for their first armor. That may be all they need. Not everyone carries around multiple sets of armor.

They ask me how crafting in this game is. And I tell them that leather is simultaneously that mat needed in the highest quantities for most crafting, and is also the slowest to acquire through gameplay. Turns them off from the game, because that just isn’t a good design for a crafting system.

Rauderi.8706:

Maybe not as high as Hardened Leather, but elevating them a little wouldn’t be terrible. They could go up 200-400% and not be a huge pain the rear. Inversely, leather could drop by at least that much and the entire market would coast along freely for a while.

The big problem right now is that the materials aren’t self-correcting. They rely on econs hawking over them, fiddling with knobs and often writing in the “11” to turn it up to, then quietly cringing in surprise when it all goes south.

The trading post is a great general solution to player trading, but material markets can easily fall out of line without a systematic mechanism to balance them.

I think that adding a demotion recipe to the Mystic Forge and upping the drop rate for Dust would allow for a greater degree of self-correction.

OriOri.8724:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

" I know friends irl that refuse to try GW2 because of how kittened up leather is."

How in the world would people who haven’t even tried gw2 know the ins and outs of level 80 crafting? The only thing I can think of is if you talk their ears off about it when they ask a question about the game. If that’s it, maybe point them to level 80 temple armor or cheap TP exotics for their first armor. That may be all they need. Not everyone carries around multiple sets of armor.

They ask me how crafting in this game is. And I tell them that leather is simultaneously that mat needed in the highest quantities for most crafting, and is also the slowest to acquire through gameplay. Turns them off from the game, because that just isn’t a good design for a crafting system.

now there’s a conversation you don’t see every day.

OriOri.8724:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

" I know friends irl that refuse to try GW2 because of how kittened up leather is."

How in the world would people who haven’t even tried gw2 know the ins and outs of level 80 crafting? The only thing I can think of is if you talk their ears off about it when they ask a question about the game. If that’s it, maybe point them to level 80 temple armor or cheap TP exotics for their first armor. That may be all they need. Not everyone carries around multiple sets of armor.

They ask me how crafting in this game is. And I tell them that leather is simultaneously that mat needed in the highest quantities for most crafting, and is also the slowest to acquire through gameplay. Turns them off from the game, because that just isn’t a good design for a crafting system.

This reminds me of a thread where a guy complained that all his friends would try gw2 then quit. After a bit of discussion it turned out he was bad mouthing the game every time he gave advice and information, and then was surprised his friends formed a negative opinion of the game. This sounds like that sort of situation where someone asks about a feature and the adviser only gives information on one aspect and doesn’t give the alternatives, such as temple armor or dungeon armor. It assumes that the new person must craft and ignores that many people can get their exotics outside of crafting. Maybe next time you could discuss the alternatives to crafting and discuss how to get them to encourage your friends to play instead of only pointing out one way of acquisition (that you don’t like).