Guild Wars 2

There is a major balance issue with material acquisition. While Metals and Timbers are fine, and with some exploration it is possible to locate whatever food you might need, and even gems show up enough from general mining, obtaining certain cloths and leathers is virtually impossible. Firstly, you can’t go out looking for them because you just have to wait for them to appear in drops, but even more problematically, there is no way to farm for lower level items such as Jute. If you haven’t been able to level up your crafting before you outlevel the drops for these low level materials, you have no good way to get them. Even salvaging stops being a viable source due to your drops becoming too high level to yield the low level materials.

This further leaves you unable to utilize the later drops, resulting in you ceasing to mine, lumber, etc. as you are full up on higher level materials and can’t do anything with them. Then the entire system breaks down and you start not even bothering to gather at all.

There needs to be an alternative acquisition method for Cloth and Leather materials of all levels, so you are not depending on random chance to acquire them. This could be the addition of nodes for them, perhaps in towns or cities, or the addition of quests that are guaranteed to drop certain materials. But there needs to be a way to get them on purpose when you need them, rather than by pure RNG.

When you kill mobs in lower lvl areas, they drop lewt at your level AND at the level of the area. Salvagable hides, rags and whatnot are always of the level of the mob… I feel your claim that it’s not a viable means is untrue.

Map bonuses are a means for getting cloth/leather. And, by doing the events that get you those map bonuses, you get karma which allows you to buy gear you can put in the Mystic Toilet and salvage the results.

I’ve found that I get a lot of things that can salvage into cloth/leather when I’m killing the things that drop it; even the lower lvl stuff when being higher lvl. It’s anecdotal, I know, but it does feel like ANet increased the drop rate. I think I get a roughly equal amount of leathers and cloths to the ore/plants/wood I farm when I take the time to kill the mobs along the way. But, again, I realize that’s anecdotal.

I’m fine with not all resources needing to be gathered the same way. It mixes things up.

~EW

Also having a lower level character that you don’t play very much, can be used to open those bags or salvage the drops to have them yield lower tier materials.

I don’t think it is as dire as the OP suggests, but I can certainly relate to the difficulty in gathering some very specific cloth/leather types. Map bonuses are not a terribly reliable way to gather those items as they are few and far between. They seemed geared more towards passive generation than actual farming. I would love to see Anet put in some animals in the world that act as nodes for leather and maybe utilize some of the plant nodes to also act as cloth nodes. just to even the balance a bit and make something a bit needless tedious less so.

To the OP there are places you can go to gather specific types of materials, be sure to read the wiki where to find said items and it pays to do some searches for player guides that also provide solutions as well.

ToriSama.5270:

Also having a lower level character that you don’t play very much, can be used to open those bags or salvage the drops to have them yield lower tier materials.

That requires that you have spare accounts lying around. Not everyone will have those. Slots cost money and some people in particular like to have a character for every class and aren’t going to spend more money to buy even more slots just to have a junky harvester character, both due to the money and due to the desire to play with their fully leveled X class character instead of low level one.

I don’t see this as a major issue. There’s nothing fundamental about gaming that says that mats have to accumulate at the same rates.

MrGhosty.4296:

Map bonuses are not a terribly reliable way to gather those items as they are few and far between. They seemed geared more towards passive generation than actual farming.

But it is a means that helps increase leather/cloth accumulation, and has been increased/adjusted in various patches… along side of map-completion rewards. I recall ANet saying they’re watching the cloth/leather production rate and making adjustments as appropriate… though I don’t know where that post disappeared into the depths of forums.

~EW

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

MrGhosty.4296:

Map bonuses are not a terribly reliable way to gather those items as they are few and far between. They seemed geared more towards passive generation than actual farming.

But it is a means that helps increase leather/cloth accumulation, and has been increased/adjusted in various patches… along side of map-completion rewards. I recall ANet saying they’re watching the cloth/leather production rate and making adjustments as appropriate… though I don’t know where that post disappeared into the depths of forums.

~EW

Just so we’re clear, I absolutely love map rewards. They’ve given me reason to return to zones I’ve not been back to since completing. As long you are constantly doing that regardless of which projects you have going you will have an abundance of mats which is why I referred to it as passive generation. But taking an example into mind, say one of the rewards is linen. There are always several materials in that particular queue so you’ll only receive that particular reward once every three or four events let’s say.

For one Bolt of Damask you need 20 bolts of linen so you need 40 linen scraps. That is just for one Bolt of Damask and most ascended gear recipes require several. So while I agree it is certainly one of the many avenues for acquisition, it isn’t terribly reliable or straightforward as “go to X zone and look for nodes on the map” and the leather is even worse. I don’t expect Anet to hand us these things on a platter, but their system certainly has room for improvement. As I understand it, early on there was too much of the cloth and leather materials in the wilds and changes were made, I just argue that perhaps they can come back a bit from those existing changes. I’m a huge fan of the marketplace and love the fact people can work on supplying themselves and then turning a tidy profit but I also feel that these systems should be as easy to understand as the other nodes in the game (not the same, just a similar thought so as to make it possible to educate new players)

I feel like the OP used a bit hyperbole in their description of the state of things, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an underlying problem that we can try to “armchair developer” our way out of.

Okay, let’s list the current methods for getting Cloth and Leather:

1) Random drop – available at all levels based on region, drop random
2) Salvage items – available at all levels based on region, drop random
3) Salvage equipment – Returns dependent on character level, drop random
4) Map rewards – Available in limited quantity based on map and rotation at all levels
5) Marketplace – Available at all levels at significant cost (ex – Just scraps 2 silver+ ea)
6) Refine at Mystic Forge – Only allows promotion of lower level to higher level mats, wasteful

The first two methods depend on luck, the third also depends on not outleveling the equipment drops for the material you need, which is ironic because by doing the crafting you outlevel the material you need. The fourth method is reliable if you can find a map on the right rotation spot, but is limited in how much you can use it. The fifth is freakishly expensive for most applications. The last only allows promotion (which is almost never needed) and is horribly inefficient, being available only when you have a full 250 of the lower mat and yielding a very small amount of the new mat. None of these are particularly reliable or viable for any intentional resource gathering in quantity.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Okay, let’s list the current methods for getting Cloth and Leather:

1) Random drop – available at all levels based on region, drop random
2) Salvage items – available at all levels based on region, drop random
3) Salvage equipment – Returns dependent on character level, drop random
4) Map rewards – Available in limited quantity based on map and rotation at all levels
5) Marketplace – Available at all levels at significant cost (ex – Just scraps 2 silver+ ea)
6) Refine at Mystic Forge – Only allows promotion of lower level to higher level mats, wasteful

The first two methods depend on luck, the third also depends on not outleveling the equipment drops for the material you need, which is ironic because by doing the crafting you outlevel the material you need. The fourth method is reliable if you can find a map on the right rotation spot, but is limited in how much you can use it. The fifth is freakishly expensive for most applications. The last only allows promotion (which is almost never needed) and is horribly inefficient, being available only when you have a full 250 of the lower mat and yielding a very small amount of the new mat. None of these are particularly reliable or viable for any intentional resource gathering in quantity.

Materials of the same tier close in price on the TP at the time I’m typing this. Close is relative, you might disagree how much is considered close, so ymmv.

T1: Jute, Copper, Rawhide, Green Wood.
T2: Wool, Iron, Thin Leather, Soft Wood.
T3: Cotton, Seasoned Wood. Course Leather is roughly 1s more than these.
T4: Linen, Rugged Leather. Hard Wood is roughly 1s40c less than these.
T5: Thick Leather, Elder Wood Log. Silk is way less than both of these.

If you feel that farming cloth/leather is too inconvenient, time-consuming, or subject to RNG, then go farm trees… sell logs on the TP, and buy the cloth/leather you need.

Given that the TP prices reflect availability as much as demand, that list that tells me that there’s not as much of an availability/farming problem as you think… t4 being the closest to an exception.

~EW

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Okay, let’s list the current methods for getting Cloth and Leather:

1) Random drop – available at all levels based on region, drop random
2) Salvage items – available at all levels based on region, drop random
3) Salvage equipment – Returns dependent on character level, drop random
4) Map rewards – Available in limited quantity based on map and rotation at all levels
5) Marketplace – Available at all levels at significant cost (ex – Just scraps 2 silver+ ea)
6) Refine at Mystic Forge – Only allows promotion of lower level to higher level mats, wasteful

The first two methods depend on luck, the third also depends on not outleveling the equipment drops for the material you need, which is ironic because by doing the crafting you outlevel the material you need. The fourth method is reliable if you can find a map on the right rotation spot, but is limited in how much you can use it. The fifth is freakishly expensive for most applications. The last only allows promotion (which is almost never needed) and is horribly inefficient, being available only when you have a full 250 of the lower mat and yielding a very small amount of the new mat. None of these are particularly reliable or viable for any intentional resource gathering in quantity.

Materials of the same tier close in price on the TP at the time I’m typing this. Close is relative, you might disagree how much is considered close, so ymmv.

T1: Jute, Copper, Rawhide, Green Wood.
T2: Wool, Iron, Thin Leather, Soft Wood.
T3: Cotton, Seasoned Wood. Course Leather is roughly 1s more than these.
T4: Linen, Rugged Leather. Hard Wood is roughly 1s40c less than these.
T5: Thick Leather, Elder Wood Log. Silk is way less than both of these.

If you feel that farming cloth/leather is too inconvenient, time-consuming, or subject to RNG, then go farm trees… sell logs on the TP, and buy the cloth/leather you need.

Given that the TP prices reflect availability as much as demand, that list that tells me that there’s not as much of an availability/farming problem as you think… t4 being the closest to an exception.

~EW

On the contrary, what this tells me is that T4 is the only one available in abundance. Not surprising given they are found on the maps people spend the most time on and are the salvage rewards for people playing on lvl 80 characters.

There are two causes for price inflation: low supply and low demand. Low demand inflation can only occur if there is a market for the item as a specialty or luxury, which low level mats are not. The elevated prices for lower level mats therefore must indicate a supply shortage, otherwise why would people be willing to pay those kinds of prices for something they could go get themselves?

You omitted the primary source of cloth and leather, which is bags.

You can have as much cloth and leather as you want if you focus on killing humanoid enemies of the appropriate level since they all drop bags, and the bags all have around a 30% chance to give you cloth or leather.

mtpelion.4562:

You omitted the primary source of cloth and leather, which is bags.

You can have as much cloth and leather as you want if you focus on killing humanoid enemies of the appropriate level since they all drop bags, and the bags all have around a 30% chance to give you cloth or leather.

You’re right, I did leave those out. However, the cloth and leather you get out of them are level dependent. So lower level mats don’t drop as your character increases level. This is why high level mats aren’t so expensive, but does nothing to fix the shortage of low level mats.

Also I didn’t mention the special nodes you can get for the home instance for cloth and leather, because those require gems and shouldn’t be considered since most people won’t have access.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

mtpelion.4562:

You omitted the primary source of cloth and leather, which is bags.

You can have as much cloth and leather as you want if you focus on killing humanoid enemies of the appropriate level since they all drop bags, and the bags all have around a 30% chance to give you cloth or leather.

You’re right, I did leave those out. However, the cloth and leather you get out of them are level dependent. So lower level mats don’t drop as your character increases level. This is why high level mats aren’t so expensive, but does nothing to fix the shortage of low level mats.

Also I didn’t mention the special nodes you can get for the home instance for cloth and leather, because those require gems and shouldn’t be considered since most people won’t have access.

I mean the loot bags, not the champ bags. The items that come out of loot bags are based on the loot bag, and the loot bag drops are based on the enemy’s level not yours.

If I take my level 80 to Lornar’s Pass to kill bandits, the bags they drop give me level 40 range leather and cloth.

Okay, let’s list the current methods for getting Cloth and Leather:

1) Random drop – available at all levels, drop random based on zone
2) Bags – available at all levels, contained drop random based on zone
3) Salvage items – available at all levels, salvage drop random based on zone
4) Salvage equipment – salvage drop random based on level of salvager + luck stones
5) Map rewards – Available at all levels in limited quantity based on zone and rotation
6) Marketplace – Available at all levels at significant cost, inversely proportional to tier
7) Refine at Mystic Forge – Only allows promotion of lower tier to higher tier mats, wasteful
E) Home instance nodes – in home instance, if purchased for 800 gems per node type

From the Opening Post:

This further leaves you unable to utilize the later drops, resulting in you ceasing to mine, lumber, etc. as you are full up on higher level materials and can’t do anything with them. Then the entire system breaks down and you start not even bothering to gather at all.

Why can’t one sell these higher-level materials, and purchase the lower-level materials one needs? I can’t, personally, say I’ve ever heard of anyone saying they ’wouldn’t bother gathering at all’ when almost every mat will sell for some amount of Gold.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Okay, let’s list the current methods for getting Cloth and Leather:

E) Home instance nodes – in home instance, if purchased for 800 gems per node type

If you have a friend who has them, you can join their instance. Or even someone in your guild. I have like 5 different people I can poke, and that’s not including others I know who have them.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

The elevated prices for lower level mats therefore must indicate a supply shortage, otherwise why would people be willing to pay those kinds of prices for something they could go get themselves?

Oh, that’s an easy question. Because this is a game of entertainment, and people will in general gravitate towards doing the things that are the most interesting and entertaining to them. Farming low lvl mobs/areas is generally less interesting, and thus less sustainable, than adventuring in lvl 80 areas. Added to that the amount of money that can be made in other more interesting (to them) areas, and it means that many people are willing just to pay those prices than go out and farm for low-tier mats.

Material gathering is a cost/benefit analysis each person must make. And everyone has a profit level that they’re willing to sacrifice some entertainment to achieve. The economy balances itself out…. but that balance doesn’t mean everyone is going to want/like the prices required of them.

Farming comes in different forms, not just the axe-to-tree form. You pick the method that’s most sustainable to you, sell ‘em, and from the profits you buy what you want. That’s how it’s generally done in most MMOs.

I still take the fact that logs can for the most part sell for as much as cloth/leather, and logs are a different form of farming (and imo a more accessible one), that cloth/leather is just fine.

~EW

Anyone who believes material acquisition isn’t imbalanced is deluding themselves. There’s absolute proof of the imbalance within the game itself – Trading Post Prices.

Sartharina.3542:

Anyone who believes material acquisition isn’t imbalanced is deluding themselves.

I can agree that material acquisition is different without believing that there’s an imbalance.

Sartharina.3542:

There’s absolute proof of the imbalance within the game itself – Trading Post Prices.

Actually, that’s proof that supply|demand determines prices: not too long ago, nearly all leather sold at vendor prices. The supply entering the market has gone up and so have prices, because there’s more demand for leather now (legendary collections etc.).

My suggestion would be to allow players to directly salvage the karma items we can purchase from Heart vendors. They would offer a quick, reliable way to obtain items of a specific level, even if your character is already level 80, and it would further give value to a currency that otherwise does not see much use. With the changes to Fractals, you also get quite a lot of karma per day if you do all the dailies, and since it’s a content stream that ANet seems quite eager to push, it would have the added benefit of further incentivizing Fractals runs.

It’s not broken though, so why fix it?

Zaxares.5419:

My suggestion would be to allow players to directly salvage the karma items we can purchase from Heart vendors. They would offer a quick, reliable way to obtain items of a specific level, even if your character is already level 80, and it would further give value to a currency that otherwise does not see much use. With the changes to Fractals, you also get quite a lot of karma per day if you do all the dailies, and since it’s a content stream that ANet seems quite eager to push, it would have the added benefit of further incentivizing Fractals runs.

You probably remember why ANet nerfed karma items, to be non-vendorable and non-salvage. I can’t imagine they want to return to worrying about potential exploits of karma items.

PS i’m not against anet adding faucets for leather (even after so many of us demanded that anet add demand for it, to increase its value) — i just think it’s neither urgent nor particular important to the overall economy. It’s difficult for me to get used to selling ore to pay for leather and cloth, but since the market has changed, i’m willing to adapt.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Sartharina.3542:

Anyone who believes material acquisition isn’t imbalanced is deluding themselves.

I can agree that material acquisition is different without believing that there’s an imbalance.

Sartharina.3542:

There’s absolute proof of the imbalance within the game itself – Trading Post Prices.

Actually, that’s proof that supply|demand determines prices: not too long ago, nearly all leather sold at vendor prices. The supply entering the market has gone up and so have prices, because there’s more demand for leather now (legendary collections etc.).

Thank you. I was feeling the need for someone to make these points.

Leather used to be dirt cheap — now it’s not, due to increased demand, not decreased supply. Relative parity of materials at the same tier means that the materials are relatively balanced.

However, it only feels unbalanced because logging (for example) is done more by farmers choosing to chop down trees, while leather is obtained by everyone automatically. Therefore, each person gets less leather, but more people get that leather, and the world supply is balanced.

As a test I did Wayfarer Foothills from 0 to finished, killing everything I came across. I got 17 Jute Scraps. 17 for doing the entire map without doing any skips, on the lowest level map where you should be getting tier 1 mats. This is supposed to be a balanced acquisition rate?

I’m no economy expert or anything and I wouldn’t know how this will affect it, but what if there was a reversed upgrade option, like instead of a salvaging kit, we can have some kind of a decomposition kit to lower material tiers to some amount or at a cost or something?

Sell something you have gathered excess of. Buy what you haven’t.
Trading post, working for you, when you need it.
It’s not essential that you get everything you need all by yourself which is just as well or guild halls would still be just a pile of propped together sticks.

UM I totally disagree, every time I salvage all my stuff that I accumulate( mainly from pvp reward tracks and killing world bosses) I have soo many matts that I run out of space in my storage to hold them and have to just sell them all on the trading post. And back when key farming was a thing I salvaged all my crap I got from doing hearts and killing low level things and always filled up my jute space really quickly and had to just start selling it. But if there’s a shortage in jute on the trade post it could be cause of no more key farming….

The perfect fix for materials, especially low-tier cloth and leather, would be to stop scaling up weapons and armour drops in low level zones to player level. That way you could go to low level zones specifically to get low level gear, which would salvage to low level materials.

As it stands now, equipment drops in low level zones are a mix of player level scaled and zone level scaled, and I don’t understand why.

Incarnadine.1652:

The perfect fix for materials, especially low-tier cloth and leather, would be to stop scaling up weapons and armour drops in low level zones to player level. That way you could go to low level zones specifically to get low level gear, which would salvage to low level materials.

As it stands now, equipment drops in low level zones are a mix of player level scaled and zone level scaled, and I don’t understand why.

So that you can still get precursors or other valuable drops even when playing in low level areas.

Well cloth is needed for most inscriptions and caster armour. Many gw2 want to be aoe Harry Potter, therefore cloth prices are the way they are. If you want to farm you can either farm them on low lvl Charakters or dropp tons of bloodtide coast karma cloth items into the mystic toilet.
It would help if leather and metal armour inscriptions, or if more players would farm for these Mats, or if players would play less ele and necro (my personal wvw stick).
As it stands, you can “farm” them, just not like timber or ore.

Ellie.5913:

UM I totally disagree, every time I salvage all my stuff that I accumulate( mainly from pvp reward tracks and killing world bosses) I have soo many matts that I run out of space in my storage to hold them and have to just sell them all on the trading post. And back when key farming was a thing I salvaged all my crap I got from doing hearts and killing low level things and always filled up my jute space really quickly and had to just start selling it. But if there’s a shortage in jute on the trade post it could be cause of no more key farming….

I have this as well, but only for high tier materials, ie Mithril, Hard Wood, Silk, etc. Which is the problem: I can’t get to the point where I can craft using the higher tier mats because I can’t get the lower tier mats because everything gives me higher tier mats than my current crafting level can use. That’s the crux of the issue. While I can purposefully go to low level zones to get low tier wood and metal, when I try to do the same for cloth, which you will need at various points in almost all disciplines, I get harvest rate like those I mentioned earlier that barely let me do 1 discovery for an hour+ of “gathering”. That’s why this thread is specifically about the issue for cloth and leather, and not for issues concerning wood and metal.

ekarat.1085:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Sartharina.3542:

Anyone who believes material acquisition isn’t imbalanced is deluding themselves.

I can agree that material acquisition is different without believing that there’s an imbalance.

Sartharina.3542:

There’s absolute proof of the imbalance within the game itself – Trading Post Prices.

Actually, that’s proof that supply|demand determines prices: not too long ago, nearly all leather sold at vendor prices. The supply entering the market has gone up and so have prices, because there’s more demand for leather now (legendary collections etc.).

Thank you. I was feeling the need for someone to make these points.

Leather used to be dirt cheap — now it’s not, due to increased demand, not decreased supply. Relative parity of materials at the same tier means that the materials are relatively balanced.

However, it only feels unbalanced because logging (for example) is done more by farmers choosing to chop down trees, while leather is obtained by everyone automatically. Therefore, each person gets less leather, but more people get that leather, and the world supply is balanced.

They’re unbalanced because the costs are unbalanced. In a stable economy, leather, metal, cloth, and wood should all be in approximately balanced demand. If they’re not, it means the crafting recipes are unbalanced (Why does it only take 2 T5 mithril to refine, but 4 T5 leather? And why does it take 100 refined silk (At 3 base each) to make the ascended daily, instead of just 50 like the other three?)

Anet controls the supply through drop access, and demand through crafting recipes.

Sartharina.3542:

They’re unbalanced because the costs are unbalanced.

Then your complaint is about the costs, not about the acquisition. And again, I agree that the costs are different; I don’t agree that is sufficient to call them imbalanced.

Sartharina.3542:

In a stable economy, leather, metal, cloth, and wood should all be in approximately balanced demand.

No. By definition, a “stable economy” is one in which prices are in equilibrium and the market in this game has always been ‘stable’ — changes to equilibrium only happen when ANet intentionally disrupts that equilibrium (often to increase demand, e.g. changing silk scrap to bolt rate, often to increase supply, e.g. new faucets for resonating slivers).

In a stable economy, there’s no specific comparison between the prices for anything.

In a controlled, centralized economy, the authorities set prices without regard for the stability of the rest of the economy.

The more successful game economies have stuck with the free market model rather than a centralized market. It’s much, much harder to maintain a dynamic economy that responds to changes in player interests using a centralized structure; the only easy way to do this is to eliminate the trading post and make everything available at vendors.

Sartharina.3542:

If they’re not, it means the crafting recipes are unbalanced (Why does it only take 2 T5 mithril to refine, but 4 T5 leather? And why does it take 100 refined silk (At 3 base each) to make the ascended daily, instead of just 50 like the other three?)

Why does it have to be identical? Why should we be able “easily farm” enough mats for each ascended daily, without use of the trading post? I don’t think it’s necessarily horrible if can farm it all and neither do I think it’s bad for the community if we cannot.

Sartharina.3542:

Anet controls the supply through drop access, and demand through crafting recipes.

They heavily influence the supply and the demand, but they don’t have complete control of it. This allows for a dynamic economy, for players to choose to farm (or not), either for personal gain or to supply themselves with mats. It allows the market to respond to changes in interest, without ANet needing to tweak things on a daily basis.

tl;dr there’s nothing fundamentally bad about differences in material refinement ratios or acquisition methods.

(That said: ANet does a poor job of communicating their market philosophy to the community — there are several aspects that differ substantially from other games and not every player is going to adapt quickly without some help.)

Incarnadine.1652:

The perfect fix for materials, especially low-tier cloth and leather, would be to stop scaling up weapons and armour drops in low level zones to player level. That way you could go to low level zones specifically to get low level gear, which would salvage to low level materials.

As it stands now, equipment drops in low level zones are a mix of player level scaled and zone level scaled, and I don’t understand why.

Because that satisfies both needs. Can you get area-level items? Yes. Can you get your-level items? Yes. You win both ways, unless you get greedy and want area-level items at twice the rate. I don’t see a problem here.

Sartharina.3542:

ekarat.1085:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Sartharina.3542:

Anyone who believes material acquisition isn’t imbalanced is deluding themselves.

I can agree that material acquisition is different without believing that there’s an imbalance.

Sartharina.3542:

There’s absolute proof of the imbalance within the game itself – Trading Post Prices.

Actually, that’s proof that supply|demand determines prices: not too long ago, nearly all leather sold at vendor prices. The supply entering the market has gone up and so have prices, because there’s more demand for leather now (legendary collections etc.).

Thank you. I was feeling the need for someone to make these points.

Leather used to be dirt cheap — now it’s not, due to increased demand, not decreased supply. Relative parity of materials at the same tier means that the materials are relatively balanced.

However, it only feels unbalanced because logging (for example) is done more by farmers choosing to chop down trees, while leather is obtained by everyone automatically. Therefore, each person gets less leather, but more people get that leather, and the world supply is balanced.

They’re unbalanced because the costs are unbalanced. In a stable economy, leather, metal, cloth, and wood should all be in approximately balanced demand. If they’re not, it means the crafting recipes are unbalanced (Why does it only take 2 T5 mithril to refine, but 4 T5 leather? And why does it take 100 refined silk (At 3 base each) to make the ascended daily, instead of just 50 like the other three?)

Anet controls the supply through drop access, and demand through crafting recipes.

Why do you think the costs are not balanced? I think they are, as backed up by this previous post:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Materials of the same tier close in price on the TP at the time I’m typing this. Close is relative, you might disagree how much is considered close, so ymmv.

T1: Jute, Copper, Rawhide, Green Wood.
T2: Wool, Iron, Thin Leather, Soft Wood.
T3: Cotton, Seasoned Wood. Course Leather is roughly 1s more than these.
T4: Linen, Rugged Leather. Hard Wood is roughly 1s40c less than these.
T5: Thick Leather, Elder Wood Log. Silk is way less than both of these.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Ellie.5913:

UM I totally disagree, every time I salvage all my stuff that I accumulate( mainly from pvp reward tracks and killing world bosses) I have soo many matts that I run out of space in my storage to hold them and have to just sell them all on the trading post. And back when key farming was a thing I salvaged all my crap I got from doing hearts and killing low level things and always filled up my jute space really quickly and had to just start selling it. But if there’s a shortage in jute on the trade post it could be cause of no more key farming….

I have this as well, but only for high tier materials, ie Mithril, Hard Wood, Silk, etc. Which is the problem: I can’t get to the point where I can craft using the higher tier mats because I can’t get the lower tier mats because everything gives me higher tier mats than my current crafting level can use. That’s the crux of the issue. While I can purposefully go to low level zones to get low tier wood and metal, when I try to do the same for cloth, which you will need at various points in almost all disciplines, I get harvest rate like those I mentioned earlier that barely let me do 1 discovery for an hour+ of “gathering”. That’s why this thread is specifically about the issue for cloth and leather, and not for issues concerning wood and metal.

As we keep saying, the method of distribution of leather and cloth is across everyone, not just farmers. This means that some people have too much leather and cloth and others have not enough. When this happens, we trade.

It seems like you don’t want to buy the mats off the TP. If not, that’s on you and not a flaw in the game — otherwise, what’s the point of gold if not to buy and sell?

ekarat.1085:

Incarnadine.1652:

The perfect fix for materials, especially low-tier cloth and leather, would be to stop scaling up weapons and armour drops in low level zones to player level. That way you could go to low level zones specifically to get low level gear, which would salvage to low level materials.

As it stands now, equipment drops in low level zones are a mix of player level scaled and zone level scaled, and I don’t understand why.

Because that satisfies both needs. Can you get area-level items? Yes. Can you get your-level items? Yes. You win both ways, unless you get greedy and want area-level items at twice the rate. I don’t see a problem here.

Twice what rate? What does this even mean?

Am I getting twice the loot when I play a lvl 80 zone? All the drops are lvl 80, there are no low level mats or items sprinkled in.

I still have issues obtaining jute in this game, even when I am creating and re-creating alts left and right (I am very picky about my toons, lol). First off, jute doesn’t seem to drop enough from the low-level enemies and their bags, and I am more likely to get rawhide leather from salvaging light armor than jute. It only compounds frustration when all armor crafters require either cloth or leather or both to make things – and you are stuck with the low-level armor until level 25/30. The relative rarity of jute explains why it goes for over a silver a piece on the TP. Many times, while crafting armor, I get so frustrated of farming that I end up buying about 50 jute at a time from the TP for 60s.

Need to bump up the mid tier leather/cloth supply a bit and make mithril less common and materials will be pretty well balanced.

Shiyo.3578:

Need to bump up the mid tier leather/cloth supply a bit and make mithril less common and materials will be pretty well balanced.

I think the problem is in the refinement step. The raw materials on their own are useless. But for some reason, it takes 4 Leather for a single square, and only 2 Mithril for an ingot – and the price discrepencies align with that. There is twice as much demand for Thick Leather as Mithril, even when the demand for their finished goods is the same.

Sartharina.3542:

Shiyo.3578:

Need to bump up the mid tier leather/cloth supply a bit and make mithril less common and materials will be pretty well balanced.

I think the problem is in the refinement step. The raw materials on their own are useless. But for some reason, it takes 4 Leather for a single square, and only 2 Mithril for an ingot – and the price discrepencies align with that. There is twice as much demand for Thick Leather as Mithril, even when the demand for their finished goods is the same.

Because it use to be so cheap, people would npc it.

That’s whyI think the system is fine as it is now, cloth and leather have value, and it’s not hard to obtain from the tp, so why make unnecessary changes that can mess that all up again?

For low level Cloth and Leather I save up all the champ and normal bags that I get and open them up on lower lvl alts. I have a lvl 40 Ele and 50 Guardian that I use for pvp and they happen to be the perfect lvls for the cloth/leather I am usually in need of. For those of you who have spare char slots it may be worth looking into. Make good use of all those level up tomes that everyone seems to find no use for.