Guild Wars 2

Ok I know there is a discussion about the prices of silk. However with 35,628 pages of back and forth, it’s getting difficult to keep track of all thats going on, and arguments are just being repeated.

So instead of discussing the reasons behind the prices, the disparity of mats and time required for light ascended armor, lets talk solutions to the problem.

Several of the solutions already presented, and discussed at length are:
Decrease the amount of silk required for damask.
Increase the amounts of other mats required for ascended medium/heavy.
Introduce a reliable method for obtaining silk.

Lets try not to bring those back, and start another circular discussion about the pros and cons of each. Instead lets come up with new solutions. looking at the problem from another angle and devising a new solution.

As others, and myself, have suggested in the other thread adding cloth as a salvage drop to medium armor, would increase the supply, which in turn would have an effect on the TP prices, as well as make it more viable for “farming”.

What other solutions that we haven’t looked at, that could possibly be viable?

Why limit it to medium? If you implement a system like that, heavy should also have a chance to salvage into cloth, as it is required in the craft of it. It would also reduce by a small amount the input of metal in the market, thus giving more value to it (mithril is low atm)

Lytalm.5673:

Why limit it to medium? If you implement a system like that, heavy should also have a chance to salvage into cloth, as it is required in the craft of it.

True, but it might bring too much silk into the market, and essentially crash it, causing prices to fall to vendor value again. Also that would mean that 100% of armor drops providing cloth, instead of 66%.

pdavis.8031:

Lytalm.5673:

Why limit it to medium? If you implement a system like that, heavy should also have a chance to salvage into cloth, as it is required in the craft of it.

True, but it might bring too much silk into the market, and essentially crash it, causing prices to fall to vendor value again. Also that would mean that 100% of armor drops providing cloth, instead of 66%.

But all armor weights need silk, so why artificially limit it to only being obtainable from two of the armor weights?

What about adding Nodes for it?

there is a node we can buy for our home instance which is great but its random..

why not add just a handful of tanning racks around outposts in the world that would give level appropriate mats like Jute, cloth and silk

This would not dramatically increase availability but it should be enough to encourage more frequency to lower populated maps and outposts which could also lure more people to specific events as well and encourage people to open contested WP’s and areas more often etc

Morsus.5106:

pdavis.8031:

Lytalm.5673:

Why limit it to medium? If you implement a system like that, heavy should also have a chance to salvage into cloth, as it is required in the craft of it.

True, but it might bring too much silk into the market, and essentially crash it, causing prices to fall to vendor value again. Also that would mean that 100% of armor drops providing cloth, instead of 66%.

But all armor weights need silk, so why artificially limit it to only being obtainable from two of the armor weights?

All armor weights do require silk. So why can you only salvage it from light armor?
Adding it to be salvagable from all armor weights would add in too much silk, making it lose a significant amount of value. As it is now, the only “reliable” way to get silk is to salvage light armor. So instead of having only ~1/3 of armor drops grant cloth, adding in medium armor would double the amount you can obtain from salvaging. Increasing that to all armor drops would triple the amount of cloth.

If you introduce too much, the cloth market crashes, and cloth then becomes worthless. Add in too little, then it essentialy stays where its at. I think that just 1 more armor weight providing cloth would increase the supply enough so that it doesn’t lose too much value, but still makes it so it’s not as bad to farm.

Silk doesn’t need to go down in price, the other equivalent mats need to go up. leather for example should not be selling at merch values. If its value went up, players could sell it and buy silk, which would even everything out.

Solution for silk price?
Make Bolt of Damask cost only 50 silk threads
Make all insginia for armors cost 1 bolt of Damask and 1 elonian hide.

That’s the design it SHOULD be long ago.
The current one makes no sense.

They made it like that back then because they look at the price of those materials and decided what’s the best material requirement back then. However now all the materials are gone, this measurement of the past is no longer viable. Anet should adjust the material requirement accordingly after the material prices shifted.

I am getting the distinct feeling that people aren’t so much concerned about the cost of silk, as they are the cost of ascended armor. IMHO there is nothing wrong with how expensive this armor is. I will be seriously bothered if they make it so people can make this armor in 1 day with very little effort in gathering the funds for the materials. If the concern is the difference between the 3 sets, then They should make the medium and heavy more expensive to craft.

There’s an even smaller change they could make to decrease the price slightly.

Reduce the scrap cost of making a bolt to 2 instead of the current 3.

Currently every other piece of cloth requires 2 scraps to make a bolt, silk is the only exception.

Having about 10 stacks of the stuff still, i’m an advocate of of either increasing the drop rate or giving VIABLE (not gem store) alternatives. I really do think Arena is looking into how to stabilize the prices of silk. It’s kind of out of control at the moment.

Broken or working as intended?

A OK.8276:

Broken or working as intended?

Just incompetent manipulation of the game economy backfiring.
Anet wanted to increase the silk price, they got what they asked for.

Not Ascended armor is basically silk gated while Leather rots and is sold to NPCs.

At this point I’d prefer if Anet simply stops trying to fix the economy, they dont seem to know how to do it right anyway.

The only reasonable change would be to reduce the cost of Bolts from 3 to 2.
Because that doesnt mess up other things.

pdavis.8031:

Morsus.5106:

pdavis.8031:

Lytalm.5673:

Why limit it to medium? If you implement a system like that, heavy should also have a chance to salvage into cloth, as it is required in the craft of it.

True, but it might bring too much silk into the market, and essentially crash it, causing prices to fall to vendor value again. Also that would mean that 100% of armor drops providing cloth, instead of 66%.

But all armor weights need silk, so why artificially limit it to only being obtainable from two of the armor weights?

All armor weights do require silk. So why can you only salvage it from light armor?
Adding it to be salvagable from all armor weights would add in too much silk, making it lose a significant amount of value. As it is now, the only “reliable” way to get silk is to salvage light armor. So instead of having only ~1/3 of armor drops grant cloth, adding in medium armor would double the amount you can obtain from salvaging. Increasing that to all armor drops would triple the amount of cloth.

If you introduce too much, the cloth market crashes, and cloth then becomes worthless. Add in too little, then it essentialy stays where its at. I think that just 1 more armor weight providing cloth would increase the supply enough so that it doesn’t lose too much value, but still makes it so it’s not as bad to farm.

It is strange that it only drops from one weight when it’s used in others.

party buddy.4956:

I am getting the distinct feeling that people aren’t so much concerned about the cost of silk, as they are the cost of ascended armor. IMHO there is nothing wrong with how expensive this armor is. I will be seriously bothered if they make it so people can make this armor in 1 day with very little effort in gathering the funds for the materials. If the concern is the difference between the 3 sets, then They should make the medium and heavy more expensive to craft.

I agree that people only have a problem with the cost of ascended armor and not with the price of silk.

And as it is supposed to be a long term goal, I think the prices are fine.

One or more of these:

1. Add some sort of limited guaranteed daily source of cloth like, for example:
   • Cloth nodes you can gather with the sickle (its uses would be increased to 150):
     • Jute plants for jute.
     • Roaming thick-furred rams and dolyaks for wool (they’ll appear neutral and ignored by enemies, you get close to them and ‘use’ them like nodes, and the player chases them with the sickle shearing them waving the sickle with the same animation as using the Magnanimous Choir Bell, that’ll be hilarious).
     • Cotton plants for cotton
     • Flax for linen.
     • Worm cocoons for silk.
     • Spider cocoons for gossamer.
   • Bonus chests dropped by certain events.
   • Some object that spawns after certain events like with toxic spores.
   • Daily stocks on certain vendors that can be bought once a day for karma. E.g.: A daily pagage for each type of cloth from the clothier’s shop containing 15-20 of that type of cloth, shared by all clothiers; daily small stacks of 5-25 from certain Karma vendors in orr; daily packages of cloth in certain amounts for the collectable tokens on Silverwastes and Dry Top’s shops, a daily stack of 15-25 from the Southsun vendors you can buy with coin + karka shells, a daily stack from coin vendors that spawn after events scattered all over the world (so there’s a reason to check their inventories other than some crappy low level gear or a hardly useful consumable)
2. Make a intermediate ‘blank insignia’ like the intermediate dowel for inscriptions, crafted with either all 3 armor basic materials. Or maybe have a different intermediate blank insignia based on the discipline, so an armorer would make insignia out of metal, a leatherworker out of leather and a tailor out of cloth. Once crafted, they’ll be usable by either discipline like now, though. So a Berserker insignia made with the armorer’s metal blank insignia would be usable by a tailor.
3. Make intermediate armor materials for Armorsmith use leather instead cloth.
4. Increase the changes of getting either basic material (and sometimes both) from salvaged gear, so instead always getting 1-3 leather from a leather aror, you could get 1-3 leather, 1-2 cloth, and if you are lucky enough, both 1-3 leather and 1-2 cloth.

In general, what it seems that would work is creating paths that would allow shifting some of the cost from cloth to other materials, and adding more intentional dedicated sources for cloth.

So if one of the paths has too much resistance, players can go for another path, which will balance and even out things on its own.

The solution to silk prices is to build a time machine and go back to the launch of the game, and hire someone to oversee the economy so massive fluctuations in prices dont happen (like when silk went from a few copper up to 2s when ascended armor came out). Seems like most games have someone in a position like that, no idea why we dont.

Wanze.8410:

And as it is supposed to be a long term goal, I think the prices are fine.

Though I do believe with your in game wealth Wanze, you may have become a bit desensitized and removed from the majority of the player base. It’s like going out to restaurant and buying a $49.95 steak would seem fine to a millionaire but, outrageous to someone with a middle class income.

For light ascended armor, what it is about 500g for the bolts of damask? That seems a bit steep for the value they bring. They really need to have a hot swap feature for runes and infusions. Which is another topic for a different thread.

For silk prices, I’d much rather see players increasing supply on their own. More people playing content, not the TP. More players running in light armor, not all heavies. Players should be saving their bags and opening them on their light armor’s instead. And yes, as Wanze pointed out to be patient. When I get enough silk to make a bolt, I make a bolt. I don’t even bother rushing it anymore. Especially when I can rune multiple set’s of exotics with more specialized runes that out perform Ascended gear with generic runes usually.

btw.. I had to edit this because (dollar sign 50) was kittened???? huh?

DeWolfe.2174:

Wanze.8410:

And as it is supposed to be a long term goal, I think the prices are fine.

Though I do believe with your in game wealth Wanze, you may have become a bit desensitized and removed from the majority of the player base. It’s like going out to restaurant and buying a $49.95 steak would seem fine to a millionaire but, outrageous to someone with a middle class income.

For light ascended armor, what it is about 500g for the bolts of damask? That seems a bit steep for the value they bring. They really need to have a hot swap feature for runes and infusions. Which is another topic for a different thread.

For silk prices, I’d much rather see players increasing supply on their own. More people playing content, not the TP. More players running in light armor, not all heavies. Players should be saving their bags and opening them on their light armor’s instead. And yes, as Wanze pointed out to be patient. When I get enough silk to make a bolt, I make a bolt. I don’t even bother rushing it anymore. Especially when I can rune multiple set’s of exotics with more specialized runes that out perform Ascended gear with generic runes usually.

btw.. I had to edit this because (dollar sign 50) was kittened???? huh?

It’s the combination of letters you used around the $50. The censor thought you were trying to bypass it.

As for silk prices, I don’t think a solution needs to be found to silk prices as I don’t think the price of silk is the real problem.

It’s the amount needed for ascended gear, especially for light armored classes. I like the suggestion of changing 3 silk scraps needed for a bolt of silk down to 2. That in and of itself would 1/3 the amount of silk needed. A lot more reliably than adding nodes or changing what you can get from salvaging.

In the beginning it was a 2:1 ratio for silk scraps to bolts. As everyone was pushing to get to T6 crafting and needed gossamer silk soon became overly abundant so they made the change to a 3:1 ratio scraps to bolts. Mithril remained at 2:1 ore to ingot as a mithril node is not dependent on an rng drop of an item to salvage to silk.

When ascended came in it took awhile before people hit that 500 cap and started making damask but the ratio remained at 3:1 for a bolt of silk. As well Damask is needed for all armours, light, medium and heavy and silk quickly became the bottleneck in the equation. It will not level off until the bubble of people currently at level 80 and crafting ascended levels off.

What could be done? Create a stock exchange (literal) where you can trade the raw materials up or down as needed. If I have an abundance of gossamer I should be able to trade it 1 gossamer for 2 silk, 2 linen for 1 silk, 1 orichalcum for 2 mithril, and the same for all other raw materials from kitten T6.

It would not take long before things balanced out.

Just change heavy armor recipes to use leather instead of cloth for the padding? That lowers the demand for silk (slightly) and increases the demand for leather with one change.

errr.. how about we tackle another issue why silk is always low supply?

Farming on 2/3 light armour classes are pretty terrible. Anet update that made drops more relevant for classes only decreases the overall supply

Wanze.8410:

party buddy.4956:

I am getting the distinct feeling that people aren’t so much concerned about the cost of silk, as they are the cost of ascended armor. IMHO there is nothing wrong with how expensive this armor is. I will be seriously bothered if they make it so people can make this armor in 1 day with very little effort in gathering the funds for the materials. If the concern is the difference between the 3 sets, then They should make the medium and heavy more expensive to craft.

I agree that people only have a problem with the cost of ascended armor and not with the price of silk.

And as it is supposed to be a long term goal, I think the prices are fine.

X’s prices only become a “problem” when people who can’t afford X want them and think they are entitled to get X anyway lol.

Either of
1. Reduce from 100 bolts to 50 bolts
or
2. Reduce from 3 scraps to 2 scraps
would be viable options.

However, with some thought, the relative abundance of the other materials for the ectoplasmic refinings means that there should be some mechanism to consume more of those materials. Mithril, Thick leather and Elder wood are all available in great quantities. To whit, I think a compromise to address the imbalance may be feasible

1. All of the ectoplasmic refinement base materials, mithril, thick leather, elder wood increase to 75.
2. Mithril ore required to make ingots should go up to 3 (it doesn’t make sense that iron and steel ingots require 3 ore but mithril ingots only 2 ore)
3. Thick leather and Elder wood requirements stay at 3 base units per refined unit.
4. Silk scraps would be either one of the original options considering its requirement for all 3 armour types.

I believe silk is fine as it is. The only thing that I feel needs to change is that the other materials, like leather and ore, need to be increased in value somehow.

My opinion will not change regardless how many threads people make on this issue.

loseridoit.2756:

errr.. how about we tackle another issue why silk is always low supply?

Farming on 2/3 light armour classes are pretty terrible. Anet update that made drops more relevant for classes only decreases the overall supply

I don’t really pay attention to the prices of things anymore now that the npe killed alternate characters for me but I couldn’t believe how expensive it is now. I take back my working as intended quip earlier. I have a stack of silk bolts, scraps, and 36 damask waiting for to be used on ascended gear if I ever settle on a build for one of my light armor classes. I’m going to have to pay attention to this and see if anything ever gets fixed because that’s a lot of gold I’m sitting on and didn’t even know it.

I feel like silk was easier to get after the sw map opened. I salvage everything except rare weapons. I crafted t 100 bolts of silk in 2 or 3 log ins. Is that slow or fast compared to others?

Man….remember when silk was only worth a few coppers, and people complained about it being so low?

Each ascended insignia needs 3 silk spool infused with spirit energy, but each of them need 100 of t5 material, as opposed to 50 on the other materials. Why the prejudice on light armored characters anet? Is there favoritism (or hatred) of certain classes in the dev team? Are you trying to replicate the value of silk during the middle ages in real life? I just don’t get it. In the first place, why —--100—— t5 materials to make a Spool of Silk Weaving Thread? Do you lack foresight anet? Yeah t5 materials might have been abundant a year ago when you made a database query. Oh I’ll just find out what materials are abundant NOW, deedubeedumdum, there, oh it’s silk. Gotta purge them excess silk. I know, make each Spool of Silk Weaving Thread require 1000000000000 silk, yupyup, that solves the over abundance. And for the sake of common sense, this is ascended materials we are talking about. Why are you still following the recipe for exotics to make ascended armor. For exotic armors, you get a chance to get gossamer when salvaging high level items. Do we have a chance to get ascended materials when salvaging high level items? Come on, don’t you get it? I know there is a chance to get silk instead of gossamer, but really, my bank’s overflowing with gossamer already, and you have a 6/25 chance (it’s not accurate I know) to get a light armor piece when ever you get a monster drop or open a bag. Wait a sec, does salvaging medium and heavy armor give you a chance to get back the mats used to make the insignia, or do you just get back metal and leather? Maybe that’s a solution, make silk (and other cloth materials) salvageable on ALL armor classes, since cloth materials are used on them as well.

Maybe anet, when you think of something, when it seemed ingenious to yourself or to your buddy, let it sleep over first. Then take some breakfast, then think about your ingenious decision. Relax in your toilet, then think about your ingenious decision. Play the game, then think about your ingenious decision again. When you drive to work, think about your ingenious decision. When you are planning/programming the game at your office, think about your previous ingenious decision while making new ingenious decisions. Take a coffee break, and still think about your ingenious decision. Maybe then you would finally realize that you should make some kittening simulations and testing first, before releasing your ingenious decisions upon the citizens of Tyria.

Being able to salvage mats to a lower grade would be a great concept too. Instead of promotion in the forge, having the capacity to salvage and demote an item. For example salvaging Gossamer for silk, Silk for Linen, Mithril for platinum, Elderwood for hard wood, and etc. etc.

Gossamer actually needs to go up in price. Silk was an issue before and now isn’t. Leather needs to be addressed in a big way. Money sinks with crating mats are awesome. When you don’t need it anymore you can actually make money on it and that’s great for my wallet!

This thread needs to be merged into the other one. It adds nothing new.

The solution to silk prices, and OP may not like it but it is the solution:

Silk & cloth drops are now common bonuses from Silverwastes & Dry Top chests plus silk & cloth drops are common festival rewards. So load up on silk during festivals when it is cheap, or go do Silverwastes.

Ok lets try this again.

We are looking at NEW solutions.

The argument that silk should be reduced back to 2 scraps, and 50 bolts per damask has been made countless times in every thread that start discussing prices and ascended crafting. Let not have it here again.

I agree that making new recipes to soak up the ungodly amount of leather, gossamer, and other mats would be a good idea. But would that help stabilize silk prices? I personally don’t think that silk prices are out of control, however the price of the silk coupled with how much is needed certainly makes crafting ascended light armor far more expensive than its medium and heavy counterparts. And its because of the amounts needed, along with the prices, that so many people are complaining about silk.

Now moving along. What about a way to demote mats? (i.e. gossamers, thick leather squares, etc.) I know it’s been mentioned before, but would that help reduce that price of silk by injecting the market with fresh supply, as well as help increase the value and usefullness of gossamer? (And other mats as well of course, but using silk/gossamer in this example.)

Ok here is my new solution:

Hold a festival.

The meta reward got the festival is a silk rack containing 1-3 silk scraps for the home instance. After the festival is over, the silk rack gets added to the laurel vendor with the other old festival rewards.

nekretaal.6485:

This thread needs to be merged into the other one. It adds nothing new.

---

The solution to silk prices, and OP may not like it but it is the solution:

Silk & cloth drops are now common bonuses from & Dry Top chests plus silk & cloth drops are common festival rewards. So load up on silk during festivals when it is cheap, or go do Silverwastes.

I was hoping that it would spark a discussion on finding a way to solve the problem but introducing new solutions. But it seems that most people just cut and paste the already existing proposed solutions and ignored the OP. Those have been discussed so many times that I almost know them all be heart.

And I personally don’t feel that silk is over priced, or that it takes too much silk for ascended light users, or that it is “unfair”. I farm Silverwastes all the time, that pretty much what I do now. A couple of runs of SW, do the hidden depths, then on to Teq. Doing that rotation I generally get ~100-120 scraps of silk. (Hint: Sandy bags of gear are awesome!!). However, I can see that people are concerned, and feel that they are being treated unfairly because they chose to play a specific class. So this thread should be to work on solving the problem (even the perception of a problem) instead of just copying and pasting the same thing from both threads.

(you know who I’m talking about…. :P)

pdavis.8031:

Ok I know there is a discussion about the prices of silk. However with 35,628 pages of back and forth, it’s getting difficult to keep track of all thats going on, and arguments are just being repeated.

So instead of discussing the reasons behind the prices, the disparity of mats and time required for light ascended armor, lets talk solutions to the problem.

Several of the solutions already presented, and discussed at length are:
Decrease the amount of silk required for damask.
Increase the amounts of other mats required for ascended medium/heavy.
Introduce a reliable method for obtaining silk.

Lets try not to bring those back, and start another circular discussion about the pros and cons of each. Instead lets come up with new solutions. looking at the problem from another angle and devising a new solution.

As others, and myself, have suggested in the other thread adding cloth as a salvage drop to medium armor, would increase the supply, which in turn would have an effect on the TP prices, as well as make it more viable for “farming”.

What other solutions that we haven’t looked at, that could possibly be viable?

Unfortunately, 2/3 solutions are some of the most viable solutions to the problem.

Reducing silk to bolt & bolt to thread is a critical step.
Reducing thread, leather or ingot to insignia (and components) is also a critical step.

I think cloth is reasonably reliable to get, kill stuff, collect bag, break down items, rack in cloth. Now, you’re no swimming in it or anything, but you can also take the $ earned while killing stuff & buy more. I don’t have much problem collecting the various cloths I need… It’s just… The quantities required…

I don’t mind time gates.

I don’t mind expensive mats (maybe a little).

What I do mind is excruciatingly excessive quantities of mats (which is exactly what is required for ascended light armor). I can make ascended medium or heavy much more easily as you’re dividing the mays necessary across 2+ item types (item types that just seen plain easier to get too & are required in smaller quantities). Light armor… It’s all cloth, minus a minute amount of leather (the cheapest one to just go out & buy).

I don’t get it… silk is only like 50% the cost of damask. Why is everyone so hung up on silk? The other mats are even more expensive, much harder to get, and have a much more limited supply. Do people just freak about because they see such a large number next to silk?

Silk is the only T5 common mat that seems to have a reasonable price. Leather is utterly useless, and mithril is pretty good in large quantities, but it isn’t making anyones main income source.

Silk needs no solution, and the only decent argument I’ve seen against the price of damask is that light needs more days to complete their armor set than medium and heavy. Up medium and heavies requirements so heavy needs 36 ore and medium needs 36 leather and then I don’t see a problem anymore.

I don’t see any problem. Never paid for silk and have tons… ><’

Solution : salvage everything you loot and be patient. 2h of game give you around 150 silk (without even trying).

There is no solution as long as real demand outstrips the rate of supply. Price is the equalizer in that situation as demand, players willing to pay that price, matches up with the rate of supply.

As long as ANet believes the rate of supply daily/weekly/monthly is “enough” and they aren’t willing to provide more, the price will remain.

The other method is of course reducing demand but that would take a recipe change that will not go over well with all those who have already crafted using that recipe for personal use, as crafters that sell in theory make a profit and aren’t directly harmed over previously crafted items.

This is economics at it’s most basic. Stuff you are taught week one in any economics class that discusses theory.

Demand is actually up. All the new players from January’s $10 sale are crafting ascended armor now. Even leather managed to briefly go up by 1 copper.

Silk is fine. Materials shouldn’t be worthless.

Linen, on the other hand is a problem.

I don’t have access to the kind of data that ArenaNet does, so my post here is speculative, but I believe that the rate of new cloth and leather entering the game outpaces the rate of new ore/logs by a rate of 2-3 times. However, because the rate is ambient (i.e., not targeted but resulting from normal gameplay), it makes it difficult for a single person to acquire as much as they want without interacting with the TP. Because Cloth has more valuable uses than Leather, the market competition forces up the price.

It is due to this naturally higher amount of cloth being generated that the crafting recipe for silk uses more scraps than other types of raw materials use in their refinement process. This higher scrap requirement brings the ratio of created to used into alignment with other materials, which prevents a glut of supply from building.

Now, the question that should be debated is this: What are the benefits of having farmable and non-farmable materials, and would the game be better or worse if we shifted all 4 raw materials to be either farmable or non-farmable?

pdavis.8031:

What other solutions that we haven’t looked at, that could possibly be viable?

As I suggested in the other thread:

• Slightly increase the number of scraps obtained from salvaging armor and “salvage items” such as garments and rags.

As others have suggested

• Create a gossamer demotion recipe for the mystic forge, i.e. a stack of gossamer plus one silk plus one crystalline dust + some MF crystals.

Any solution ought to be

• Adjustable, to allow for tweaking and changes to the market for other reasons.
• Incremental, to avoid a massive market disruption.
  • This allows for a proportionate response to an issue that critics refer to as a problem of fairness and/or parity.
  • It also means that we won’t have the predictable reaction problem of existing Ascended armor owners becoming enraged over how much they “wasted” crafting their own gear. No use in mollifying a plurality of moderately cranky players only to create a new plurality of supremely angry players.

i feel any proposed change that affects ascended crafting is going to tank silk prices way more than the proposer of said idea think

i think it would be generous to assume it would only fall about 50% possibly much more than that.

I believe the most beneficial solution is to make a more effective way of getting silk or at least you know you can get might not affect the price much but should ease the burden on craftors of light ascended by making it so you know you will eventually get enough on your own

I don’t see how the market-dictated price of silk is a problem to begin with. You might not like how much it costs, but that’s just the way it goes.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t get it… silk is only like 50% the cost of damask. Why is everyone so hung up on silk? The other mats are even more expensive, much harder to get, and have a much more limited supply. Do people just freak about because they see such a large number next to silk?

Silk is the only T5 common mat that seems to have a reasonable price. Leather is utterly useless, and mithril is pretty good in large quantities, but it isn’t making anyones main income source.

Silk needs no solution, and the only decent argument I’ve seen against the price of damask is that light needs more days to complete their armor set than medium and heavy. Up medium and heavies requirements so heavy needs 36 ore and medium needs 36 leather and then I don’t see a problem anymore.

because 300 silk costs 6-7 gold.
because other mats require 50 silver for the same part
because if you dont want to buy it, it takes you 2-3 hours in the good farms, and even longer on the bad farms.
because its part of the daily craft, so every day it hangs over your head, i should get 300 silk… today… or im going to fall behind schedule

Andred.1087:

I don’t see how the market-dictated price of silk is a problem to begin with. You might not like how much it costs, but that’s just the way it goes.

its not really dictated by the market. Its value was created by turning a desire to have best in slot into a value for silk.

The crafting recipe being noticeably different than other ascended basic recipes, and the structure of silk in every armorcraft is the main reason the cost for silk is so high

Andred.1087:

I don’t see how the market-dictated price of silk is a problem to begin with. You might not like how much it costs, but that’s just the way it goes.

The price of 1 silk scrap isn’t the problem that people have.

People making ascended light armor have to use (or buy components that use) a total of: 10,800 silk scraps. That’s 43.2 full stacks of silk scrap.

I personally don’t think there is a problem with silk scrap prices. I don’t have a problem with the ascended recipes. I do have a problem with how much scrap is needed for 1 bolt when the other bolts and ingots and whatever the secondary tier is for leather only require 2 scraps/ore/etc.

Which isn’t only tied to the production of ascended gear. It’s part of the price to get to 400 tailor. Those not even going for ascended gear and just want to craft their own exotic gear get hit with that. When the other armor crafts don’t have the same issue.

pdavis.8031:

Ok I know there is a discussion about the prices of silk. However with 35,628 pages of back and forth, it’s getting difficult to keep track of all thats going on, and arguments are just being repeated.

So instead of discussing the reasons behind the prices, the disparity of mats and time required for light ascended armor, lets talk solutions to the problem.

Several of the solutions already presented, and discussed at length are:
Decrease the amount of silk required for damask.
Increase the amounts of other mats required for ascended medium/heavy.
Introduce a reliable method for obtaining silk.

Lets try not to bring those back, and start another circular discussion about the pros and cons of each. Instead lets come up with new solutions. looking at the problem from another angle and devising a new solution.

As others, and myself, have suggested in the other thread adding cloth as a salvage drop to medium armor, would increase the supply, which in turn would have an effect on the TP prices, as well as make it more viable for “farming”.

What other solutions that we haven’t looked at, that could possibly be viable?

I would like to see a complete overhaul in the way we obtain materials such as cloth and leather.

All humanoid enemies should drop 1-4 scraps of cloth relevant to their level and likewise, beast-like enemies drop leather.
The bags in which u randomly find these mats, should be overhauled as well, where they only hold mats that are required for inscriptions/insignias etc, such as as blood, bones, venom etc.

This would not only make sense in terms of how u obtain these materials, but would also create a more reliable source to obtain them.

phys.7689:

Andred.1087:

I don’t see how the market-dictated price of silk is a problem to begin with. You might not like how much it costs, but that’s just the way it goes.

its not really dictated by the market. Its value was created by turning a desire to have best in slot into a value for silk.

The crafting recipe being noticeably different than other ascended basic recipes, and the structure of silk in every armorcraft is the main reason the cost for silk is so high

How does the market not dictate the price? It’s all supply and demand. What you’re talking about is factors that determine demand, which in turn affects the price.

I know that ANet tweaked the recipes to do something, honestly I can’t recall what, but frankly I don’t care. Supply and demand are still the determining factors of the market price, and I don’t see the current price as problematic. Sure, it does make ascended light armor more expensive than the rest, and ANet could have maybe thought that through a little better if they wanted it to be roughly equivalent, but the amount of money required to make ascended armor is not terribly difficult to obtain, and ascended is far from required for anything other than the highest level Fractals.

Andred.1087:

phys.7689:

Andred.1087:

I don’t see how the market-dictated price of silk is a problem to begin with. You might not like how much it costs, but that’s just the way it goes.

its not really dictated by the market. Its value was created by turning a desire to have best in slot into a value for silk.

The crafting recipe being noticeably different than other ascended basic recipes, and the structure of silk in every armorcraft is the main reason the cost for silk is so high

How does the market not dictate the price? It’s all supply and demand. What you’re talking about is factors that determine demand, which in turn affects the price.

I know that ANet tweaked the recipes to do something, honestly I can’t recall what, but frankly I don’t care. Supply and demand are still the determining factors of the market price, and I don’t see the current price as problematic. Sure, it does make ascended light armor more expensive than the rest, and ANet could have maybe thought that through a little better if they wanted it to be roughly equivalent, but the amount of money required to make ascended armor is not terribly difficult to obtain, and ascended is far from required for anything other than the highest level Fractals.

If the only two factors that determine price are supply, and demand, and anet have primary control of both for this item.
The price is basically set by anets policy.

Problems with the current price
makes ascended cloth cost noticeably more time/effort to obtain
Is noticeably imbalanced in respect to other teir 5 values
is noticeably imbalanced in respect to basic versus fine value
is noticeably imbalanced in respect to t5 versus t6 values

these are objective issues.

Andred.1087:

I don’t see how the market-dictated price of silk is a problem to begin with. You might not like how much it costs, but that’s just the way it goes.

No it’s not, it’s Anet way of price manipulation way back 1.5 year ago.
They looked at the price of the silks back then and decide to make silk consumption way more than other ascended material. They manipulated the demand so much to try to “balance” the market. (Because silk was like 7 copper back then)

However they didn’t do enough research and overdid the effort to make silk’s price broken. If they broke the market, they should fix it by lowering down the material requirement to the level of other materials because there’s no longer any excess supply.
The market is already balanced, so they should revert this intentional consumption of silk.

My suggestion is make silk thread cost 50 silks to make. Also make Ascended Insignia cost one bolt of damask and one elonian leather to balance out the consumption of both silk and leather. (I know you’re going to say how about armorsmith? Easy, just make armorsmith able to craft elonian leather.)

It should not be a problem for Anet to manipulate the market because THEY ALREADY DID IT BACK THEN.