Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

mtpelion.4562:

Leather and Cloth both have SUBSTANTIALLY higher Ambient Supply Rates than Wood and Ore do, which means that all players are generating Leather and Cloth at all times, regardless of if they need or want to while Wood and Ore are typically only produced when people intentionally go node farming.

Because it seems you didn’t know that, salvaging drops gives you ore and wood as well. Wood is likely the lowest of all 4, but ore is generated at a similar rate to cloth and leather. And it can be harvested.

But ore has far greater use/demand than cloth and leather.

Ayrilana.1396:

Astralporing.1957:

mtpelion.4562:

Leather and Cloth both have SUBSTANTIALLY higher Ambient Supply Rates than Wood and Ore do, which means that all players are generating Leather and Cloth at all times, regardless of if they need or want to while Wood and Ore are typically only produced when people intentionally go node farming.

Because it seems you didn’t know that, salvaging drops gives you ore and wood as well. Wood is likely the lowest of all 4, but ore is generated at a similar rate to cloth and leather. And it can be harvested.

But ore has far greater use/demand than cloth and leather.

Sure, but not that much greater. Certainly not great enough to balance for even greater supply.

In short, ore may have bigger demand, but has also supply so good that it still has the best supply/demand rating.

Astralporing.1957:

Ayrilana.1396:

Astralporing.1957:

mtpelion.4562:

Leather and Cloth both have SUBSTANTIALLY higher Ambient Supply Rates than Wood and Ore do, which means that all players are generating Leather and Cloth at all times, regardless of if they need or want to while Wood and Ore are typically only produced when people intentionally go node farming.

Because it seems you didn’t know that, salvaging drops gives you ore and wood as well. Wood is likely the lowest of all 4, but ore is generated at a similar rate to cloth and leather. And it can be harvested.

But ore has far greater use/demand than cloth and leather.

Sure, but not that much greater. Certainly not great enough to balance for even greater supply.

In short, ore may have bigger demand, but has also supply so good that it still has the best supply/demand rating.

Ore/Wood

• Precursor crafting
• Precursor forging
• Ascended weapons
• Ascended armor (Not wood)
• Legendary gifts (Most)
• Guild Upgrades
• Exotic Armor (Not wood)
• Exotic Weapons

Cloth/Leather

• Ascended Armor
• Guild Upgrades
• Exotic Armor
• Legendary Gifts (only a few for T6 leather)

These are just a few that I could think of immediately off the top of my head. Seems like there a far greater demand for ore and wood. Also keep in mind that guild upgrades are a one-time thing for a guild and typically are spread out.

Astralporing.1957:

mtpelion.4562:

Leather and Cloth both have SUBSTANTIALLY higher Ambient Supply Rates than Wood and Ore do, which means that all players are generating Leather and Cloth at all times, regardless of if they need or want to while Wood and Ore are typically only produced when people intentionally go node farming.

Because it seems you didn’t know that, salvaging drops gives you ore and wood as well. Wood is likely the lowest of all 4, but ore is generated at a similar rate to cloth and leather. And it can be harvested.

I did know that and didn’t say anything that would suggest otherwise. Wood and Ore have a lower ambient supply rate which is almost exclusively provided via salvage, whereas cloth and leather have multiple sources of ambient supply with bags being the largest source.

Astralporing.1957:

Ayrilana.1396:

Astralporing.1957:

mtpelion.4562:

Leather and Cloth both have SUBSTANTIALLY higher Ambient Supply Rates than Wood and Ore do, which means that all players are generating Leather and Cloth at all times, regardless of if they need or want to while Wood and Ore are typically only produced when people intentionally go node farming.

Because it seems you didn’t know that, salvaging drops gives you ore and wood as well. Wood is likely the lowest of all 4, but ore is generated at a similar rate to cloth and leather. And it can be harvested.

But ore has far greater use/demand than cloth and leather.

Sure, but not that much greater. Certainly not great enough to balance for even greater supply.

In short, ore may have bigger demand, but has also supply so good that it still has the best supply/demand rating.

I’m not sure what makes you think that. I have several guildies who use 20,000+ ore/wood a day for precursor crafting. I know at least 2 people who top 100,000 wood/ore a week.

The problem with this thread is that people have no real concept of actually how many mats go through the TP in a given day. For instance did you know that as of 2 years ago, John Smith told us that 10+ Dusk’s are sold every 24 hours. That means people are making at least that many a day. Do you have any concept of how much wood/ore it takes to forge a single precursor, let alone 10?

I think John Smith said something like 300,000 ectos are sold in a day. I imagine wood/ore turns over at about 10x that rate.

Ayrilana.1396:

Ore/Wood

• Precursor crafting
• Precursor forging
• Ascended weapons
• Ascended armor (Not wood)
• Legendary gifts (Most)
• Guild Upgrades
• Exotic Armor (Not wood)
• Exotic Weapons

Cloth/Leather

• Ascended Armor (All, not just heavy)
• Ascended Bows (Leather)
• Guild Upgrades
• Exotic Armor
• Legendary Gifts (only a few for T6 leather)

These are just a few that I could think of immediately off the top of my head. Seems like there a far greater demand for ore and wood. Also keep in mind that guild upgrades are a one-time thing for a guild and typically are spread out.

8 uses for ore and wood.
4 uses for cloth and leather.

Which says nothing of the quantities needed for actually using them.

Mithril Ingot = Ore x2
Elder Wood Plank = Log x3
Ascended materials for these are x50

Bolt of Silk = Scrap x3
Ascended = x100; 300 scraps that cannot be farmed directly.
Comparable with Elder Wood, which seems fine, until one realizes that there are huge wood farms in Orr and almost all end-game nodes are Elder Wood instead of Ancient. It’s an old argument, of course, and the economists at ANet have tried to leak cloth back into the market. The blatant manipulation is galling, of course, but silk is somewhat reasonable right now, especially with the daily gold infusion.

Thick Leather Square = Section x4
Ascended = x50; 200 sections that cannot be farmed directly.
Thankfully less intensive than silk, but all that change did was effectively cut the supply in half in a period of new uses. And all leather was due for a rise because of the way Patches work. x10 to make a set of patches that are used for insignias. Changes like that didn’t address the issue of acquisition, only the fallen price due to lack of demand. Now demand is spiked and acquisition hasn’t changed.

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

Ore/Wood

• Precursor crafting
• Precursor forging
• Ascended weapons
• Ascended armor (Not wood)
• Legendary gifts (Most)
• Guild Upgrades
• Exotic Armor (Not wood)
• Exotic Weapons

Cloth/Leather

• Ascended Armor (All, not just heavy)
• Ascended Bows (Leather)
• Guild Upgrades
• Exotic Armor
• Legendary Gifts (only a few for T6 leather)

These are just a few that I could think of immediately off the top of my head. Seems like there a far greater demand for ore and wood. Also keep in mind that guild upgrades are a one-time thing for a guild and typically are spread out.

8 uses for ore and wood.
4 uses for cloth and leather.

Which says nothing of the quantities needed for actually using them.

Mithril Ingot = Ore x2
Elder Wood Plank = Log x3
Ascended materials for these are x50

Bolt of Silk = Scrap x3
Ascended = x100; 300 scraps that cannot be farmed directly.
Comparable with Elder Wood, which seems fine, until one realizes that there are huge wood farms in Orr and almost all end-game nodes are Elder Wood instead of Ancient. It’s an old argument, of course, and the economists at ANet have tried to leak cloth back into the market. The blatant manipulation is galling, of course, but silk is somewhat reasonable right now, especially with the daily gold infusion.

Thick Leather Square = Section x4
Ascended = x50; 200 sections that cannot be farmed directly.
Thankfully less intensive than silk, but all that change did was effectively cut the supply in half in a period of new uses. And all leather was due for a rise because of the way Patches work. x10 to make a set of patches that are used for insignias. Changes like that didn’t address the issue of acquisition, only the fallen price due to lack of demand. Now demand is spiked and acquisition hasn’t changed.

The quantities needed are the result of those uses…

Has anyone else read this thread and thought “But this one goes to 11!”

It really is the same argument.

A more common phrase is comparing apples to oranges. If something costs 2 apples or 1 orange, you can’t say that the apple price is more expensive than the orange price because 2 > 1. The reason is that 1 apple /= 1 orange.

Similarly, 1 cloth scrap /= 1 ore.

RNG vs harvestable doesn’t matter either — it’s the total quantity generated by the game that matters.

So, do I care that a mithril ingot takes 2 mithril ore, while a bolt of silk takes 3 silk scraps? No. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Comparing raw numbers, like 3 > 2, is not relevant.

Anet is fully aware of the cloth and leather situation. They made a mistake in allowing for ore and wood nodes. They would take those out of the game if they could and blow up the price on those too. They are not doing anything to fix the current situation, and have no intentions on doing so. Everything is going according to plan.

Ayrilana.1396:

The quantities needed are the result of those uses…

The quantities needed are the result of ANet dinking around with the formulas and what’s needed for specific creation goals.

Soft Wood is probably the best example. When there was a glut of it, suddenly, it went from 3 per plank to 4 per plank, above the norm.
It’s not 2 per plank, which is below the line for crafting.
And it’s still above 2s each. (..huh, I should probably do a little farming for it.)

ekarat.1085:

RNG vs harvestable doesn’t matter either — it’s the total quantity generated by the game that matters.

Kinda yes. The how of their generation also matters. Cloth does get leaked into the game from plenty of sources: bags and salvage being the most consistent. Ore/wood can be farmed as fast as one can travel. Cloth/leather requires RNG and killing things with loot drops as fast as possible or participating in high yield events like Silverwastes. It’s not a direct farm.

Also, it’s the odd multiplication of what’s involved for each.
Ore is farmable and requires less than any other material.
Wood is farmable and doesn’t have excessive material costs.
Cloth and leather are not farmable and have excessive materials costs.

If Mithrilium cost me 300 ore, I’d chuff, but I also build up that amount so easily that I’m trash-dumping ingots into my guild so I don’t have to deal with the pathetic sale price. Roughly the same for Spirit Wood. If I somehow had a dearth of them, I could go farm on a character or five and have a full stack within an evening. Generation is only as limited as my patience.

Cloth and leather almost feel like a bribe to go do events and kill lots of humanoids that drop bags. (Not inherently a terrible thing?) But, it also means there is no reliable acquisition method. To kind of drive it home, there’s a sort of AI for salvaging:

Blue: Salvage.
Green Light/Medium, Staves, Foci, Tridents: Salvage.
Green Heavy or Weapons (Mithril tier): Sell to Vendor.
Green Heavy or Weapons (non-T5): Salvage

A little simplistic, but there could be a lot more Mithril on the market, if some players weren’t turning those salvages directly into liquid wealth because mithril doesn’t overly matter.

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

The quantities needed are the result of those uses…

The quantities needed are the result of ANet dinking around with the formulas and what’s needed for specific creation goals.

Soft Wood is probably the best example. When there was a glut of it, suddenly, it went from 3 per plank to 4 per plank, above the norm.
It’s not 2 per plank, which is below the line for crafting.
And it’s still above 2s each. (..huh, I should probably do a little farming for it.)

ekarat.1085:

RNG vs harvestable doesn’t matter either — it’s the total quantity generated by the game that matters.

Kinda yes. The how of their generation also matters. Cloth does get leaked into the game from plenty of sources: bags and salvage being the most consistent. Ore/wood can be farmed as fast as one can travel. Cloth/leather requires RNG and killing things with loot drops as fast as possible or participating in high yield events like Silverwastes. It’s not a direct farm.

Also, it’s the odd multiplication of what’s involved for each.
Ore is farmable and requires less than any other material.
Wood is farmable and doesn’t have excessive material costs.
Cloth and leather are not farmable and have excessive materials costs.

If Mithrilium cost me 300 ore, I’d chuff, but I also build up that amount so easily that I’m trash-dumping ingots into my guild so I don’t have to deal with the pathetic sale price. Roughly the same for Spirit Wood. If I somehow had a dearth of them, I could go farm on a character or five and have a full stack within an evening. Generation is only as limited as my patience.

Cloth and leather almost feel like a bribe to go do events and kill lots of humanoids that drop bags. (Not inherently a terrible thing?) But, it also means there is no reliable acquisition method. To kind of drive it home, there’s a sort of AI for salvaging:

Blue: Salvage.
Green Light/Medium, Staves, Foci, Tridents: Salvage.
Green Heavy or Weapons (Mithril tier): Sell to Vendor.
Green Heavy or Weapons (non-T5): Salvage

A little simplistic, but there could be a lot more Mithril on the market, if some players weren’t turning those salvages directly into liquid wealth because mithril doesn’t overly matter.

Disparities existed before they modified some refinement formulas when ascended came out.

I’m pretty certain that you could ask Anet revisit some of the refinement formulas after legendary armor is craftable. There may be enough sinks at that point to warrant a reduction in the quantity needed for some. This does not mean to make them comparable to ore. They are not the same when it comes to their supply and demand.

Let me try my argument from another perspective. If they instead tweaked salvage materials to drop more leather, then leather prices would fall. It is about the amount of leather created versus leather used. Similarly, if too much cloth is being created by the game, this can be offset by requiring more cloth scraps in refinement. So, requiring the same raw-to-refined ratio for all 4 kinds of materials isn’t useful — you need to look at the big picture of how much is being created versus consumed and adjust things to balance out.

This was said before, but it bears repeating — not too long ago, leather was selling at vendor prices. This is because there was too much being produced compared to what was being consumed. Now, those numbers have changed.

I remember when leather was so cheap no one wanted it. Like coppers cheap. I love these prices now

I also remember when soft wood planks required 4 soft wood… or is it still 4 soft wood logs to make a plank? i think it was reduced because soft wood was quite expensive back then, like 5 silver I think

TP prices and supply / demand will change based on players. How materials are acquired can only be changed by Anet. I don’t understand why people can’t allow the OP to talk about what he wants to talk about.

I agree with the OP – it makes no sense for some base materials to come from nodes and others to come from sources which are not directly available in the environment. I’ve always seen it as bad design.

Djinn.9245:

TP prices and supply / demand will change based on players. How materials are acquired can only be changed by Anet. I don’t understand why people can’t allow the OP to talk about what he wants to talk about.

I agree with the OP – it makes no sense for some base materials to come from nodes and others to come from sources which are not directly available in the environment. I’ve always seen it as bad design.

The OP is free to post. Nobody is telling them not to talk about what they perceive to be an issue to them. Just as the OP is free to post, so is anyone who disagrees with them.

Djinn.9245:

TP prices and supply / demand will change based on players. How materials are acquired can only be changed by Anet. I don’t understand why people can’t allow the OP to talk about what he wants to talk about.

I agree with the OP – it makes no sense for some base materials to come from nodes and others to come from sources which are not directly available in the environment. I’ve always seen it as bad design.

This is, regardless of supply/demand discussion, the important part of the argument. Even setting aside craft recipe tweaking, this is the important part.

So far as actual supply management, I have to give my head nod to FF14. Everything was farmable and craftable from the ground up (barring special boss drops at endgame). And for those things that weren’t, there were even retainers that could farm it for you, to a limited degree. And yet (at the I was still playing) prices weren’t out of control, and I was making good, sweet money farming extras to fill in the market.

If they did make leather/cloth more directly farmable, such as through nodes, you can expect them to increase the amounts needed for refinement even more which brings us back to demand/supply.

Rauderi.8706:

Djinn.9245:

TP prices and supply / demand will change based on players. How materials are acquired can only be changed by Anet. I don’t understand why people can’t allow the OP to talk about what he wants to talk about.

I agree with the OP – it makes no sense for some base materials to come from nodes and others to come from sources which are not directly available in the environment. I’ve always seen it as bad design.

This is, regardless of supply/demand discussion, the important part of the argument. Even setting aside craft recipe tweaking, this is the important part.

Okay, then let’s talk about this part. What is wrong with having different resources being gathered by different means? Whether or not it was implemented well, I think it adds a modicum of variety to an often tedious task. Variety is the Omnomberry of life… even if there’s only two flavors, it’s still better than one.

I think this is more a debate of whether the means to gather a given resource was implemented well, and not about where specifically the resources come from…. and for that discussion to happen TP economy, price discrepancies, and supply/demand can’t be dismissed. It’s not about where the mats come from, but whether the acquisition rate fulfills the needs of the players and the economic system as a whole regardless if prices aren’t equal.

~EW

edit: and, let’s not forget that any changes to supply that ANet makes needs to be done slowly. And, oh my gosh, that’s what they’re doing! They added home instance nodes of cloth and leather. They improved map reward bonuses to give more cloth and leather. It would not surprise me if they’ve improved drop rates slightly for salvageable hides and cloths (but that part is just speculation). These tweaks might seem only like a dribble to a single player, but taken over the thousands of players, that is no small amount of new mats being introduced into the supply. It would be dumb for them to turn the faucet on and deluge the game with leather and hides… and even though they are more expert than us on knowing when there’s too little vs too much, that doesn’t mean they can precisely find that line… and adjustments should be made slowly like they have been.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

For pete’s sake, one would think one rarely gets a blue or green drop with all this talk of RNG for mats.

Half the time, said blue and green drops salvage for wood or mithril.

Rauderi.8706:

Djinn.9245:

TP prices and supply / demand will change based on players. How materials are acquired can only be changed by Anet. I don’t understand why people can’t allow the OP to talk about what he wants to talk about.

I agree with the OP – it makes no sense for some base materials to come from nodes and others to come from sources which are not directly available in the environment. I’ve always seen it as bad design.

This is, regardless of supply/demand discussion, the important part of the argument. Even setting aside craft recipe tweaking, this is the important part.

It’s important to you — it’s not necessarily important to the game. Why do things have to have identical mechanics for supply & demand? Especially in this game, which has a marketplace that allows everyone to trade just about anything in terms of mats. The TP is the great equalizer, that allows folks to decide whether to be patient and farm or relatively impatient and buy from those that don’t need the mats.

Why does there need to be a guaranteed node for every mat? (fine mats don’t have one, for example) We are just used to the “good ol’ days” when we had plenty of everything, including too much cloth (especially silk), too much leather (especially thick), too much wood (especially elder), and too much ore (especially mithril).

Again, I’m not against ANet tweaking the sources and requirements. I just don’t think anyone has yet offered an argument that explains why this is urgent.

What is wrong with having different resources being gathered by different means?

Not a whole lot.

Where it becomes a problem is the lack of consistency. The harder a material is to obtain, the less it should be used for recipes. ANet has taken the exact opposite stance. If anything, I object to the blatant manipulation of supply by inflicting the changes in how they were handled. It’s leading to this notion that setting huge material requirements is anywhere near enjoyable. And not just cloth/leather, because I’m looking at you, cactus recipes.

…and adjustments should be made slowly like they have been.

It hasn’t been slow, is the issue. It’s particularly heavy-handed, with crafting tweaks made on dual fronts, which makes an obnoxious cycle of price spikes and gradual, eventual decline.

So as not to be completely full of criticism, the changes from cloth-only insignia to cloth-leather patches was a good one, and one that players repeatedly highlighted. It used leather from the supply and helped drop the cost of silk. Good times. We need to use more leather, now. That one tweak could/should have been enough.

But then the 4-to-1 section-to-square ratio came with it, and we suddenly need to use multiplicatively more leather. Prices spiked, crafting got harder, and now it’s in roughly the same complaint-worthy place as silk is/was, because acquisition is in the same place, and its usage was artificially inflated.

Why change it?

It’s hard to argue in economic terms, certainly. It’s more game/play-related.

There are two play styles impacted by these kinds of manipulations: farmers and independent crafters.
As much as MMO communities fingerwag-shame on farmers, they help bring costs down. And all’s fine and good if they’re not automating the process. Some people like to zone out, watch TV, and farm. I guess that leaves them with iron, platinum, and various woods, because it’s certainly not cloth or leather.

Crafters get a sense of pride out of building things on their own, and GW2 is generally pretty good about that. Best-in-slot from hammering out some effort? Fantastic. This leads them to farm as well, but again, cloth/leather isn’t available that way. So, they either have to wait an excessively long time before they can craft a single piece of their greater projects, or they have to use the trading post. That rankles, especially as the money spent could be going toward vendor-sold materials.

I suppose I could add on the immersion-seekers and RPers, but at some point, the game has to be a game, and not every crafting system can take every detail from the ground up. :P

Economically, the system is certainly going as intended so far. We’ll see how leather supply holds up over time. And with dailies giving decent chunks of gold, it’s easier to commit funds to the marketplace. I keep a sort of 50% strategy when I’m TP-harvesting materials, so I can balance material acquisition with building up funds. Lately, I’ve been buying over 1g’s worth of silk per day (and selling roughly that much in quarts and iron :P).

And yet, the cunning thought occurs. Cloth/leather are most prevalent from drops (armor and trophies) and event rewards (bags, etc). Players must defeat enemies to obtain them. Players must engage the game for them. Participate instead of farming.
/sagenod
Very cunning, yes.

Here is why the TP can be ignored. All the prices of ascended materials are a direct result of the gathered materials and crafted materials. If a material fundamentally takes more the an equal tiered counterpart, for NO reason at this point in time, then that will skew the TP prices. Furthermore, if one material is based on RNG and the other is not, then the prices for the RNG based one will typically be higher as well as a result. SO if one is RNG and also takes more (for a reason that is no longer valid because we don’t have millions of cloth and leather on the TP anymore) then it will be grossly out of proportion compared to its non RNG/less material required counterpart.

This is an unknown that someone starting the game will discover, and one that those already playing the game don’t understand either. Yes I’ve crafted all three weights (at the time leather was cheapest because it was before HoT) but I was not happy that light cost close to 500 gold when heavy only cost around 300 gold (I’m casual, don’t have the time to grind for mats and could get gold from dungeon runs at the time). How is a 200 gold difference ‘working as intended’ just because I was getting light armor gear instead of heavy armor gear?

I’d like a good explanation why a necromancer has to either waste WAY more time hoping for RNG to farm the materials or should pay 50% to 100% more to craft their ascended gear than a warrior? Or any gear, not just ascended really. A good explanation, because ‘TP and economics’ isn’t one as I just explained.

Also, to those who say leather and cloth drop more than metal and wood… have you cleared a map and seen the gross difference between the gathered materials? I mean just gone around heart to heart, way point to way point, WITHOUT farming humanoids on purpose and seen the difference?

I have, dozens of times. I can usually have 125-250 metal ore, 75-200 lumber (possibly 40 more of one or the other because of map completion reward), then I might have 15-50 cloth and 15-50 leather (possibly 40 more of one or the other because of map completion)… This is from opening every bag, salvaging every drop (by the way, drops are about 50/50 between armor and weapons and no matter what class you are on weapons salvage into metal and wood), and hitting every node I pass by.

The last zone I cleared (gendarren fields on my Revanant-level 80) yielded 35 mithril, 15 elder wood, 6 silk, 9 thick leather, 116 iron, 57 silver, 86 soft wood, 25 wool, and 26 thin leather… (I got some chef material for the completion reward)

Totals:

Ore: 208
Wood: 101
Leather: 35
Cloth: 31

Notice anything? Maybe if I ignored the nodes the drop rates would be closer, but that’s plain idiocy. They’re right there, a guaranteed 3-10 ore (rich ore generally gives me 10 and more if it is iron) or wood (gotten 6 from one tree before) that takes 3-5 seconds to get. I could see up to about half of mithril being silk if I was playing on a light armor user or leather if I was on a medium armor user (since theoretically armor drops are weighted to what you use now) but only half because armor/weapon drops are around 50/50 from my experience.

Even running around Silverwaste, focused on events and ignoring the nodes, I typically saw 10%-25% more mithril and elder wood because of weapon drops than silk and leather and that was on an Elementalist. Maybe you have a different experience though, but that is the fundamental problem with RNG based systems of acquiring basic materials. Some will get boons of cloth/leather while others only ever see droughts. I probably am somewhere in the middle in all honesty.

Edit:
I would like to point out, that leather doesn’t need to be a node, but if there was a significant chance 25%+ that killing that boar or jaguar would yield a slavageable hide I would probably kill them as often as I drop by the nodes. But since it isn’t, it’s closer to 5 or 10%, I just ignore the ones that don’t attack me and move on. Cloth could be the same way with humanoids.

Kentaine.4692:

~snip~.

The TP cannot be ignored because it was one of the main drivers for the quantity disparities. Anet did not just randomly assign the refinement rates without reason.

You also are grossly underestimating the velocity that leather/cloth is put onto and sold off of the TP.

The gap between light and heavy ascended armor has never been greater than ~100G if you crafted the T7 yourself using buy orders. Most often the difference was only 70G or so.

Kentaine.4692:

Here is why the TP can be ignored. All the prices of ascended materials are a direct result of the gathered materials and crafted materials. If a material fundamentally takes more the an equal tiered counterpart, for NO reason at this point in time, then that will skew the TP prices. Furthermore, if one material is based on RNG and the other is not, then the prices for the RNG based one will typically be higher as well as a result. SO if one is RNG and also takes more (for a reason that is no longer valid because we don’t have millions of cloth and leather on the TP anymore) then it will be grossly out of proportion compared to its non RNG/less material required counterpart.

This is an unknown that someone starting the game will discover, and one that those already playing the game don’t understand either. Yes I’ve crafted all three weights (at the time leather was cheapest because it was before HoT) but I was not happy that light cost close to 500 gold when heavy only cost around 300 gold (I’m casual, don’t have the time to grind for mats and could get gold from dungeon runs at the time). How is a 200 gold difference ‘working as intended’ just because I was getting light armor gear instead of heavy armor gear?

I think you are getting confused somewhere. The amount of mats are different precisely BECAUSE of that price difference before HoT. Anet adjusted them so that all 3 armor weights cost relatively the same amount. The disparity you are talking about to craft ascended armor no longer exists…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor

At current prices(ascended mats only, everything else is the same):

Full Light Set: 679g
Full Medium Set: 717g
Full Heavy Set: 649g

The difference between the most expensive and least expensive is only 70g and that fluctuates by ~20g depending on time of day. That is a <10% difference in price between the sets. This is of course because Anet does know what they are doing and the prices are acquisition rates are well balanced.

I make a good “living” buying armor off the TP and salvaging them for mats. And it’s not that RNG when salvaging in large quantities as the output is fairly predictable.

Ayrilana.1396:

Kentaine.4692:

~snip~.

The TP cannot be ignored because it was one of the main drivers for the quantity disparities. Anet did not just randomly assign the refinement rates without reason.

Most of the reasons stopped being valid very shortly after that, and yet they continue. Seriously, it took them 3 years to fix the refinement rates for soft wood, even if the reasons that made them change them in the first place didnt apply for at least 2 of those years, if not more.

Yes, most of those changes might have been as well done at random if you looked at them after some time.

Astralporing.1957:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kentaine.4692:

~snip~.

The TP cannot be ignored because it was one of the main drivers for the quantity disparities. Anet did not just randomly assign the refinement rates without reason.

Most of the reasons stopped being valid very shortly after that, and yet they continue. Seriously, it took them 3 years to fix the refinement rates for soft wood, even if the reasons that made them change them in the first place didnt apply for at least 2 of those years, if not more.

Yes, most of those changes might have been as well done at random if you looked at them after some time.

Maybe, maybe not.

It’s one thing to ask them to take a look at specific refinement recipes but it’s completely different to say that they’re unfair because they don’t parallel those of wood and ore.

I personally have no issue with specific refinement recipes being looked at on a case by case basis. What I do have an issue with is if the sole reasoning is so that they would be practically identical to wood/ore while ignoring the reasons that there was a disparity in the first place and will likely continue to be one.

The numbers are balanced around the total quantity entering game vs total quantity being used (for ascended or otherwise), so that leather and cloth are coming from somewhere.

The similar cost for a full ascended set of heavy, medium, or light is evidence of this.

Without reading too much, I would like to say I finished my entire ascended set (first one) in 2 days and am just about to finish the back.

I bought banyan of the mats and paid right around 1k. I would also like to note that I’ve been playing completely solo, breaking down anything that was not useful, selling the better priced items and storing the rest for years, so that could have a small bearing on early mats.

Off Topic: I use this Forum for a while and I still not managed to figure out how to quote a text :-(( Can someone send me a PM with a “procedure” of how to do this?

On Topic: The title for this debate is" Disparity Between Ascended Crafting Materials" – the OP is raising the question why in the ascendant materials the quantities of T6 mats are so unbalanced.

Ayrilana.1396: “The TP cannot be ignored because it was one of the main drivers for the quantity disparities”.
In my opinion this is a false statement. The TP prices are influenced by the quantity disparities. The TP prices CANNOT influence the quantity disparities in the ascendant material crafting, because these disparities are influenced only by the RECIPES. And to adjust the quantities only for the sake of TP prices have no sense. This is GW2 not TP wars.
So, the circle is:
1. Anet designs a (or several) recipe(s) – the materials needed are fixed by the recipes.
2. Also Anet fixes the drop rates and the ways the materials can be achieved.
3. From 1 and 2 you can calculate how many materials are needed (for the targeted segment of the players) and how many are generated.
4. 1+2+3 determines the supply and demand.
5. Based on the supply / demand ration you see the prices on TP.

So, the supply / demand ratio in this game is fixed by Anet. Everything Anet is doing in this game is to raise the company profit (I think this is OK for a company). The recipes (and the disparities in quantity) is one method. You can easily see that the economy in this game is not a free one, but is closely controlled by Anet (even J.Smith indirectly agreed with this by his question – “tell my why you think a free economy can be good for the game”).

Conclusion: The disparity in the quantities is not a result of a chaotic mind or a mistake in calculations. It was designed as a tool in Anet’s hand. And you design a tool by taking in consideration what you want to do with this tool. What Anet wants? As a company in a competitive real life world, I doubt they are animated by philanthropic reasons. They want a source of incoming :-))).

Cristalyan.5728:

Off Topic: I use this Forum for a while and I still not managed to figure out how to quote a text :-(( Can someone send me a PM with a “procedure” of how to do this?

On Topic: The title for this debate is" Disparity Between Ascended Crafting Materials" – the OP is raising the question why in the ascendant materials the quantities of T6 mats are so unbalanced.

Ayrilana.1396: “The TP cannot be ignored because it was one of the main drivers for the quantity disparities”.
In my opinion this is a false statement. The TP prices are influenced by the quantity disparities. The TP prices CANNOT influence the quantity disparities in the ascendant material crafting, because these disparities are influenced only by the RECIPES. And to adjust the quantities only for the sake of TP prices have no sense. This is GW2 not TP wars.
So, the circle is:
1. Anet designs a (or several) recipe(s) – the materials needed are fixed by the recipes.
2. Also Anet fixes the drop rates and the ways the materials can be achieved.
3. From 1 and 2 you can calculate how many materials are needed (for the targeted segment of the players) and how many are generated.
4. 1+2+3 determines the supply and demand.
5. Based on the supply / demand ration you see the prices on TP.

So, the supply / demand ratio in this game is fixed by Anet. Everything Anet is doing in this game is to raise the company profit (I think this is OK for a company). The recipes (and the disparities in quantity) is one method. You can easily see that the economy in this game is not a free one, but is closely controlled by Anet (even J.Smith indirectly agreed with this by his question – “tell my why you think a free economy can be good for the game”).

Conclusion: The disparity in the quantities is not a result of a chaotic mind or a mistake in calculations. It was designed as a tool in Anet’s hand. And you design a tool by taking in consideration what you want to do with this tool. What Anet wants? As a company in a competitive real life world, I doubt they are animated by philanthropic reasons. They want a source of incoming :-))).

You’re not understanding what I was saying about the TP.

I had a longer response before, but I’ll go with the summary:

How is this a plot by Anet to squeeze more money out of their players? How does this generate revenue? This sounds like a wild conspiracy theory to me.

As interesting as this discussion is to watch, I have to say, cloth is something I never seem to have enough of. I used to have lots of leather, since it was easily salvageable, but with the changes to how much was salvaged from items, I’m getting a bit behind on that too. I tend to get a lot more weapon drops than armor drops when I play, so I salvage plenty of ore and wood.

So, since some of you seem to have “plenty” of leather and cloth, do please mail them my way.