Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

the tp players dont correct mistakes, what he means is if a mistake is made, AND then fixed, the market will quickly adapt to the new equilibrium.

As for his silk price, its fine in a vacuum, but its not fine withing the design of ascended.
if clothcraft didnt require 10800 silk scraps, its cost of 2-3 silver would be fine. (even though it means the costs of a whole bunch of other items are relatively wrong)

This thread is more about the disparities of silk aquisition as its related to crafting ascended armor.

The way I see it, there’s different issues at play.

• Silk aquisition
• Silk requirements for Ascended gear
• Silk price

The first isn’t much of an issue, honestly. There are many ways to farm Silk. I can get tons from WvWing (Discarded Garments). I can MF Karma armors and salvage. Or I can just buy them outright from the TP.

Second issue is something that I can see being a problem. Sure a lot of Silk is required for crafting Ascended gear, everyone is in agreement here. BUT, I see it as an intentional decision by Anet to create volatility.

The third issue is price. The market currently has each at 2.5 Silver. One of the reasons why it’s at this level is because there are many players willing to pay this price. Compared to prices for Linen (5 Silver), and Silk is a deal. Now if players felt that this was overpriced, Silk scraps would naturally drop, as TP players would keep lowering prices until a new equilibrium is found. In this scenario, it would require ALL players to agree that it’s overpriced. If there’s even 0.1% of the player population who demands Silk that doesn’t see the price as a problem, they’ll continue to buy at the current levels, and TP players will keep selling it to them. Only when these Silk buying players had their fill, will prices then start to drop, as no one would be buying anymore.

You just compared an Apple to yet another Skateboard. The Destiny Loot cave was a Exploit. Also, everything you gained there was newly generated loot that didn’t exist in the game before.

One, the loot cave was an exploit only because the devs decided to classify it as an exploit. If the devs decided to classify the TP as an exploit then it would be no less of an exploit. Aside from that, the difference is negligable.

And for the thousandth time, I absolutely reject your idea that TP profits are different than game-distributed rewards because they come from other players rather than from the aether. I get that there is some difference there, but within the context of discussion it’s a distinction that does not matter. It’s like if you have two pipes pouring sludge into a river, and one comes from a factory, and one comes from some magical hole in space that nobody can explain, ok, very different sources, but what matters is the sludge pouring into the river, and ideally both sources could be plugged up.

It actually makes perfect sense when you don’t cut out the rest of my quote.

Nope, I read the stuff before and after it, it’s still nonsense within the intended context. For future reference, know that when I say something is nonsense, I am ALWAYS keeping it’s full and proper context, as well as context from prior posts, into account when I determine that it is, in fact, total bunk.

This is where you don’t understand the fundamental difference between Rewards and Profits. Newly generated currency in any MMO, if left unchecked, will destroy economies.

Yes, I get that, and it is an important concern, for certain segments of a discussion, but just because TP profits do not have as much inflationary impact does not mean that it is entirely immune to discussions of balance and fairness. Yes, with standard ingame rewards you do have to consider the inflationary impact and account for it, but that is one issue, that’s handled and we’ll set it aside now, and there is still the fact that TP profits are a reward because it is gaining money that you did not previously have.

You can continue to refuse to accept that, but if so you just cannot reasonably participate in the discussion because you aren’t using common terms. It’d be like discussing trains with someone who refuses to consider a cargo train a “train” because it does not carry passengers. They’re both trains, they do different things, they are not identical in all regards, but they are still both trains, and discussion of the rail system needs to take both into account.

Profits don’t ruin economies, as the TP players are doing a service to the entire population. They

provide items that other players desire
help bring prices to equilibrium through competition
buy goods off of other players, thus spreading the wealth

• They do this, but in many cases they do this by buying the item off some other player, meaning that they end up providing the item to the other player ONLY at a higher price than they would have paid if they’d just bought it off the first guy who listed it.

• They do, but end-buyers and sellers can do this just as well. It might take slightly longer for prices to balance out this way, but not so much that this is a huge service.

• They do buy goods off of other players, but if they are doing well then they take more money off players than they give back. If they buy items off of players for business, then they resell them at a higher price later, taking gold from the players in the end. If they take it for personal use, then their gold does re-enter the market, but changes are they are selling other things that add up to more. Can you name someone who has successfully made, say, 5000g on the TP, who has actually distributed more money out to the adventurers than he has taken from them? Think about that one for half a second before answering, there’s a bit of a trick to it, I know.

This last argument is as silly as the “rich people are job creators” argument, no, middle class consumers are job creators, rich people are profit takers.

And by the way, there are no gates to becoming a TP player. Anyone can do so with the proper understanding of what to buy, when to buy, and how much to sell for.

“There are no gates to entering the castle, there’s just a 10ft trough filled with water, 3ft thick stone walls, and a 2ft thick wooden door, but if you can get past all that, you’re in, no problem.”

Whether those things you listed serve as “gates” is entirely relative.

Maybe your quote style has made it so you missed a few of the cons brought up. I would reread the thread here of I were you. There are plenty.

Nope, they’ve all been addressed and solutions were found to resolve them. You should read back through the thread.

Second issue is something that I can see being a problem. Sure a lot of Silk is required for crafting Ascended gear, everyone is in agreement here. BUT, I see it as an intentional decision by Anet to create volatility.

But, why should cloth-wearing classes be more of a victim of volatility than players of other classes? I can see if they decided to make [something] cost more than [something else] in the name of volatility, but whatever they decide to make [something] be, it should be something that everybody would use in equal measure, so that whatever character or build you run, you would be equally effected by their arbitrary choice. They could have just as easily made leather the material used in the quantities cloth is, and Medium players would be ####ed and Light players would have it easy, why didn’t they? Coin flip. Why should cloth characters be permanently disadvantaged by the result of a dev coin flip?

One of the reasons why it’s at this level is because there are many players willing to pay this price. Compared to prices for Linen (5 Silver), and Silk is a deal. Now if players felt that this was overpriced, Silk scraps would naturally drop, as TP players would keep lowering prices until a new equilibrium is found.

Yes, but the reason “players are willing to pay this” is because ANet gave silk a certain practical value, and they gave certain methods of acquiring it directly, and players decided that 2.5s is “worth the hassle.” They did not just decide this price in a vacuum. This wasn’t a case where some random player who had never interacted with the game was asked “how much should silk be?” “I dunno, 2.5s? That sounds like a good number.” No, it was a case of players earning their own silk through play, and figuring “I want something that needs thousands of silk, and I’ve only made a couple hundred so far, I guess I’d pay 2.5s to avoid having to keep doing this for years.”

This is not players setting the price in a vacuum, it is players determining price based on conditions that ANet created. If ANet wanted the price to be different, all they would have to do is change those conditions. If the players decide that they would like to say less than 2.5s for silk, there’s nothing they, as individuals, can do about that, but if they successfully petition ANet about it, then ANet could increase supply or reduce demand, which WOULD lower the price.

To continually insist that players determine the price is like insisting that people drive umbrella sales, and completely ignoring any impact that rain might have on the situation.

Ohoni:

Thats not entirely accurate. (referring to the price and willingness to pay)
You seem to be leaving out willingness to sell. So player A farms a bunch of silk to sell, and player B wants to buy it. It’s up to the seller alone to set the price. So even if anet increases supply or reduces demand, are players going to be willing to sell for less than what it is currently? Probably not. I know I wouldn’t. But if player B wants to buy for cheaper, he needs to find someone willing to sell at his asking price, otherwise pay what the seller Asks.

Are farmers going to ask Anet to change their farms so that they can sell at a lower rate? Are those who just sell a bit here and there going to be content that they are making less money?

You can’t look at one side of the TP and say that lower prices benefit everyone. It doesn’t quite work that way. The lower the buying price means lower the selling price which means that less gold is being sunk per transaction which means more gold in game which means prices begin to inflate and increase because more people have more money to spend which then leads to gold having less spending power (i.e. losing value). Which is not healthy for the game in general.

pdavis.8031:

Ohoni:

Thats not entirely accurate. (referring to the price and willingness to pay)
You seem to be leaving out willingness to sell. So player A farms a bunch of silk to sell, and player B wants to buy it. It’s up to the seller alone to set the price. So even if anet increases supply or reduces demand, are players going to be willing to sell for less than what it is currently? Probably not. I know I wouldn’t. But if player B wants to buy for cheaper, he needs to find someone willing to sell at his asking price, otherwise pay what the seller Asks.

Are farmers going to ask Anet to change their farms so that they can sell at a lower rate? Are those who just sell a bit here and there going to be content that they are making less money?

You can’t look at one side of the TP and say that lower prices benefit everyone. It doesn’t quite work that way. The lower the buying price means lower the selling price which means that less gold is being sunk per transaction which means more gold in game which means prices begin to inflate and increase because more people have more money to spend which then leads to gold having less spending power (i.e. losing value). Which is not healthy for the game in general.

gold is used mostly for trading, anything a player isnt spending doesnt matter as far as gold inflation.
Essentially they will just spend money elswhere, which will stil get 15%

also, sellers who want to keep thier silk will keep it, but the majority of sellers really dont care, any money is better than negative inventory for them.
people sell mithril at 50 copper, what makes you think they would want to keep their silk?

Ohoni.6057:

If the devs decided to classify the TP as an exploit then it would be no less of an exploit. Aside from that, the difference is negligable.

In the wise words of John Smith -

John Smith.4610:

Wow…

…

Ohoni.6057:

And for the thousandth time, I absolutely reject your idea that TP profits are different than game-distributed rewards because they come from other players rather than from the aether. I get that there is some difference there, but within the context of discussion it’s a distinction that does not matter. It’s like if you have two pipes pouring sludge into a river, and one comes from a factory, and one comes from some magical hole in space that nobody can explain, ok, very different sources, but what matters is the sludge pouring into the river, and ideally both sources could be plugged up.

You reject the reality of the situation, because you’re completely biased against the TP’s existence. When we asked you about the impact of your suggestions to the economy, you had this to say:

Ohoni.6057:

And yes, I don’t care about the impact.

TP players can make a lot of money. You’ve openly stated that you have no desire to make money on the TP. Learning the basics of trading doesn’t take much effort, but being good at it does. Someone makes a lot of money, and you complain that it isn’t fair. You can’t eat your cake and have it too. You choose not to use the TP to make money, and turn around to complain that someone else did in your place.

A real world analogy would be if you saw $50 on the ground, and you just stare at it, refusing to touch it. Another person comes along 5 minutes later and picks up the $50, and you complain that it isn’t fair he’s $50 richer.

In game example – In the case of Silk, an opportunity presents itself to you. You can buy three stacks of Silk for 1 Silver each from a friend. You can then keep it, or resell on the Trading Post. If you have absolutely no use for it, and don’t want to keep it, you’ll sell it on the TP. Someone else is willing to pay 2.2 Silver for each.

There’s a willingness on the part of the buyer to pay 2.2 Silver per Silk. There’s a willingness on your part to get rid of the Silk. This is how the TP works. Existing money is exchanged between the two players, and 15% is destroyed. This is not reward created by the game. This is profit.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

phys.7689:

the tp players dont correct mistakes, what he means is if a mistake is made, AND then fixed, the market will quickly adapt to the new equilibrium.

As for his silk price, its fine in a vacuum, but its not fine withing the design of ascended.
if clothcraft didnt require 10800 silk scraps, its cost of 2-3 silver would be fine. (even though it means the costs of a whole bunch of other items are relatively wrong)

This thread is more about the disparities of silk aquisition as its related to crafting ascended armor.

The way I see it, there’s different issues at play.

• Silk aquisition
• Silk requirements for Ascended gear
• Silk price

The first isn’t much of an issue, honestly. There are many ways to farm Silk. I can get tons from WvWing (Discarded Garments). I can MF Karma armors and salvage. Or I can just buy them outright from the TP.

Second issue is something that I can see being a problem. Sure a lot of Silk is required for crafting Ascended gear, everyone is in agreement here. BUT, I see it as an intentional decision by Anet to create volatility.

The third issue is price. The market currently has each at 2.5 Silver. One of the reasons why it’s at this level is because there are many players willing to pay this price. Compared to prices for Linen (5 Silver), and Silk is a deal. Now if players felt that this was overpriced, Silk scraps would naturally drop, as TP players would keep lowering prices until a new equilibrium is found. In this scenario, it would require ALL players to agree that it’s overpriced. If there’s even 0.1% of the player population who demands Silk that doesn’t see the price as a problem, they’ll continue to buy at the current levels, and TP players will keep selling it to them. Only when these Silk buying players had their fill, will prices then start to drop, as no one would be buying anymore.

I agree.

Silk price isnt really an issue atm. It shouldnt rise much further though, to levels of pre-season 2. But I think Anet showed that they are able to gradually pump more silk into the economy with seasonal festivals or new permanent content that it isnt neccessary to adjust silk requirements of damask or add direct farming methods. As Silk has very few other sinks apart from ascended crafting, I think its vital that the average player wont be able to collect enough silk on a daily basis for his crafting because we have to utilize the silk that drops for players that currently dont want to craft damask for whatever reason. If thats not the case anymore, the value of silk will go back towards vendor value.

The only valid complaint I see is the disparity between weight classes in terms of time restrictions and overall value between the two sets.

Those are 2 issues worth addressing but at this point, i doubt that this can happen in a constructive way in this thread.

thought better of it

Thats not entirely accurate. (referring to the price and willingness to pay)
You seem to be leaving out willingness to sell. So player A farms a bunch of silk to sell, and player B wants to buy it. It’s up to the seller alone to set the price. So even if anet increases supply or reduces demand, are players going to be willing to sell for less than what it is currently?

Of course they are. This is not new territory, prices fall all the time. Now you, as a player, might say “Silk is worth 2.5s! Forever!” and refuse to list at anything less, so you horde. But other players don’t care, and the vast majority just don’t know any better. They just go on, look at the going rate, and try to undercut it. So long as supply keeps entering the market, the price will continue to creep downwards until it reaches a natural point of stability, in which the effort involved in acquiring it is roughly equal to the going rate.

Now, you could argue that the players could all band together and refuse to sell at a penny less than the current prices, and the price would stay like that regardless of ANet’s moves, and that is technically possible, but practically impossible. It’s a bit like saying “if everyone just decided to stop fighting over things, we could have world peace tomorrow.” Whenever you design a system that is meant to interact with human beings, you can’t design it for what players might do (although you should take those outliers into consideration), rather you have to design it for what they WILL do if they behave as humans can be expected to behave.

I actually experience this myself. There are certain markets I dabble in, and I keep track of where they tend to go high or low, and I refuse to sell lower than a certain level, and that means I do sometimes go days or even weeks without selling any of them, but if the price never goes back up, all I’m doing is wasting inventory space.

You can’t look at one side of the TP and say that lower prices benefit everyone. It doesn’t quite work that way. The lower the buying price means lower the selling price which means that less gold is being sunk per transaction which means more gold in game which means prices begin to inflate and increase because more people have more money to spend which then leads to gold having less spending power (i.e. losing value). Which is not healthy for the game in general.

The “TP is an untouchable gold sink” angle is a weak one. Yes it is a gold sink and it serves a vital function, but the changes being proposed would still involve plenty of trading and should not result in a huge difference in the amount of gold that passes through the markets overall. And even if the TP were to become completely worthless as a gold sink, there are plenty of other ways they can sink gold.

For example, having Damask as a major cost of Ascended armor works to make it expensive, but has the problem we’ve been describing of making cloth armor way more expensive than others, which isn’t in balance. You know what is balanced? Thermocatalytic Reagents, and potentially things like Gossamer thread. These are items that are bought off vendors, they are PURE gold sinks. Every single one purchased is 100% gold sink. I’m sure some clever person could calculate that if the price of silk fell by half, let’s say, then the amount needed to make Ascended armor would cost X amount less to buy on the TP, which would amount to a X*15% decrease in sunk gold per armor, fair enough, so maybe they could make that up by raising the total cost of vendor-bought components by X*15%, whatever that ends up being.

Even if they did that, ensuring that the “gold sink value” of making Ascended armor remained steady, it would still be a value to the players, since they would only have to pay 15% of X, rather than 100% of X. They’d be up 85% of whatever X is.

TP players can make a lot of money. You’ve openly stated that you have no desire to make money on the TP. Learning the basics of trading doesn’t take much effort, but being good at it does. Someone makes a lot of money, and you complain that it isn’t fair. You can’t eat your cake and have it too. You choose not to use the TP to make money, and turn around to complain that someone else did in your place.

“You choose not to farm the loot cave, and turn around and complain that someone else did in your place.” YES, I do. It’s about balance. Things should be balanced, whether we’re talking about rewards provided by the game OR by the TP, yes, there are significant macroeconomic differences between the two and the game’s economists need to keep that in mind, but to the end user, all that matters is the quantity of gold that ends up in your account.

Look, if you can disagree with me on this problem with a straight face, I’ll concede the point:

You start a new account. Let’s say that you know absolutely everything there is to know about playing the game, all the best farming locations, all the easiest paths to success, all the best things to kill and how. Let’s also say that you are an absolute master of the TP, and know exactly how to work it. Your goal is to get a full set of Ascended gear for your Mesmer.

So path A: You do not engage with the TP at all except to buy gear that you need or to sell off whatever you find. You can play any active content in the game that you want otherwise, play three hours a day, seven days a week.

Path B: You can level to 80 any way you like, but once you hit 80 and have collected all the Bloodstone/Empyreal/Dragonite you need, you can’t leave LA, You can only continue to make money on the TP.

So here’s the question, do you disagree with me that Path B is likely to acquire his full set of ascended armor WAY faster than Path A, and that by the tie Path A catches up, Path B would have thousands of gold left over (or equivalent non-liquid assets)?

It doesn’t matter on the end-user level where the gold comes from, all that matters is whether the gold comes or not.

A real world analogy would be if you saw $50 on the ground, and you just stare at it, refusing to touch it. Another person comes along 5 minutes later and picks up the $50, and you complain that it isn’t fair he’s $50 richer.

No. . .that analogy has absolutely no relevance to the discussion at hand.

In game example – In the case of Silk, an opportunity presents itself to you. You can buy three stacks of Silk for 1 Silver each from a friend. You can then keep it, or resell on the Trading Post. If you have absolutely no use for it, and don’t want to keep it, you’ll sell it on the TP. Someone else is willing to pay 2.2 Silver for each.

There’s a willingness on the part of the buyer to pay 2.2 Silver per Silk. There’s a willingness on your part to get rid of the Silk. This is how the TP works. Existing money is exchanged between the two players, and 15% is destroyed. This is not reward created by the game. This is profit.

And I’ve never shown any indication of not understanding that. The only difference is that I understand that profit IS also reward. It is reward from a different source than genrated loot, but reward nonetheless. And yes, if people are willing to pay 2.2s for silk, I expect people to sell it to them at that price, I certainly wouldn’t expect players to say “no, that’s ok, you can have it for less,” but what I would expect in that scenario, if 2.2s were deemed too high a price, is for the devs to tweak the circumstances in the game such that players would not view 2.2s as a reasonable price to sell things at, and customers would not be willing to pay it, causing the prices to fall until the intended balance were reached.

Ohoni, I’d like to pose a query to you:

Do you believe that rewards should be a function of time spent or a function of how time is spent?

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

The only mistake that I know of John admitting to was with the sheer amount of Bloodstone Dust players farmed. Something about it being 10 digits more than what he expected.

Well, no, I didn’t really do the whole train thing.

I was really referring to the bolded part of Obtena’s quote.
Sorry for any confusion.

Wanze.8410:

The only valid complaint I see is the disparity between weight classes in terms of time restrictions and overall value between the two sets.

Those are 2 issues worth addressing but at this point, i doubt that this can happen in a constructive way in this thread.

I think I agree with Wanze here, but I’d add that the disparity between tiers of cloth and leather should probably be addressed too. This thread is on a downward spiral though…

(Edited to fix quotes)

As a side note, I acquired a whole bunch of silk yesterday, as the result of casual play.
..of course, it involved the trading post, but I didn’t feel bad about it at all.

I do a fair amount of alt leveling, so I tend to have scores more middle-tier materials that can trade at a reasonably 1:1 basis with silk scraps, or better than that ratio. Linen sat well over 5s last night, so I traded that out for silk 1:1 and kept the profits. From the right mentality, I got paid to farm silk by doing what I normally do, but merely adding barter as a part of it.

The fantastic part, I saved roughly 20-30% via buy orders. …and they still filled up instantly. So thanks to all those “bad, naughty” farmers selling on the trading post. Keep hacking away at those plant meanies and zombies.

Being less silly now, my point is you don’t have to spite the trading post as some evil machination. Or, if you’ve got a chip on your shoulder about capitalism, use the system to beat the system. Or something. >_> Sorry, I’m losing my point in silliness. Perspective matters.

My actual point is, silk acquisition isn’t terrible. The actual material amount is where the imbalance sits. So, in a basic adjustment formula, what would the thought/impact be on making the relevant recipes 2 per bolt/square/ingot and 100 per intermediate ascended material? Still doesn’t solve the cloth-insignia balance, but making thick leather and mithril more in line with silk would promote more trading between them.

Rauderi.8706:

My actual point is, silk acquisition isn’t terrible. The actual material amount is where the imbalance sits. So, in a basic adjustment formula, what would the thought/impact be on making the relevant recipes 2 per bolt/square/ingot and 100 per intermediate ascended material? Still doesn’t solve the cloth-insignia balance, but making thick leather and mithril more in line with silk would promote more trading between them.

Take a little from this and take a little from that to balance. This seems like a good balanced suggestion to even out the disparity between weight classes with regards to ascended armor.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s like if you have two pipes pouring sludge into a river, and one comes from a factory, and one comes from some magical hole in space that nobody can explain, ok, very different sources, but what matters is the sludge pouring into the river, and ideally both sources could be plugged up.

This analogy is wrong and Ill tell you why. The River(economy) is not fed by both the “factory”(TP profits) and “magic hole in space”(rewards). Instead rewards are like precipitation that fills the river and TP profits are more like a waterwheel. This water wheel in the analogy only impacts the river by taking about 15% of the water from it.

I find it interesting that your view on the gold in the economy is analogous to sludge but that isn’t what it is.

Ohoni.6057:

A real world analogy would be if you saw $50 on the ground, and you just stare at it, refusing to touch it. Another person comes along 5 minutes later and picks up the $50, and you complain that it isn’t fair he’s $50 richer.

No. . .that analogy has absolutely no relevance to the discussion at hand.

With regards to TP flipping and the profits from it this is a perfect analogy for those who complain about the TP flipping.

Ohoni.6057:

The only difference is that I understand that profit IS also reward.

No it isnt. Profit is gold returned from invested gold that was already a reward. A reward is items/gold created from nothing. TP profits =/= dungeon rewards.

If you cant acknowledge that one has a positive impact on gold inflation and one has a negative impact on it and the ramification of these two different sources of wealth in the macro economy then there is no reason to continue any discussion with you. You are simply ignoring what you do not want to hear which is a waste of everyone’s time.

Again the thread turns. Now it’s about the those devilish TP flippers.

Of course this isn’t an issue with silk because the gap between the max buy and min sell is less than the TP’s 15% cut so there is no immediate profit to be made because liquidity and quick turn around is everything in flipping. Sure someone could be buying silk and post it for sale at a 25% mark up but they will have to be willing to wait for the price to reach that level, if ever. That’s not flipping but speculating.

Actually this thread for calling out silk may be a contributing cause towards it’s continued rise. Some may consider this a time to speculate or invest in a stockpile now. The more players entering bids, the more likely the bid price will rise. This will encourage the sell price to rise as well. No reason to chase the sell price down if the bids are rising now.

Behellagh.1468:

Again the thread turns. Now it’s about the those devilish TP flippers.

Notice how any complaints involving the BLTP and economy turn towards the “flippers” “TP barons” or “speculators”. The issue is, for some who feel Entitled, they let their envy override their common sense when it comes to the subject on the TP.

The wheels on the bus go round and round…..

I saw an overcutting/undercutting thread again recently. Haven’t seen one in a while, probably someone returning with that issue still stuck in their craw.

The answer to the title was answered relatively quickly, the new source of cloth during Wintersday ended so the price is returning to pre-Wintersday levels.

The reason why silk is in high demand has been talked to death as have alternate ascended mat and armor recipes and reasons why higher tier mats are going for lower prices than lower tier mats.

Can we stick a pin in this, it’s done. It’s soup.

Do you believe that rewards should be a function of time spent or a function of how time is spent?

It should be a reasonable balance of the two. Basically, some activities can be more or less rewarding than others, obviously, but any activity in the game that involves a reasonable amount of challenge and engagement should provide roughly the same amount of reward on average, and no such activities should provide either negligible reward or significantly over the top reward.

Relative to this discussion, the TP should not provide rewards magnitudes higher than the same amount of time invested in any other aspect of the game, nor should any other activity. If, say, Dry Top farming were to offer 50g per hour, I think players could reasonably complain that it was too heavily favored over other activities. That was the problem with the Destiny Loot Cave from a player perspective, that it offered so much loot relative to other activities that it made them seem like a waste of time, even if players did not find the loot cave particularly enjoyable. And that’s the problem the TP causes now, that players feel compelled to spend time working it because of the massive reward potentials, even if they do not find the activity to be a particularly enjoyable experience. It becomes work rather than play.

As a side note, I acquired a whole bunch of silk yesterday, as the result of casual play.
..of course, it involved the trading post, but I didn’t feel bad about it at all.

I do a fair amount of alt leveling, so I tend to have scores more middle-tier materials that can trade at a reasonably 1:1 basis with silk scraps, or better than that ratio. Linen sat well over 5s last night, so I traded that out for silk 1:1 and kept the profits. From the right mentality, I got paid to farm silk by doing what I normally do, but merely adding barter as a part of it.

What are you going to sell to buy Linen when you need to make the Damask?

This analogy is wrong and Ill tell you why. The River(economy) is not fed by both the “factory”(TP profits) and “magic hole in space”(rewards). Instead rewards are like precipitation that fills the river and TP profits are more like a waterwheel. This water wheel in the analogy only impacts the river by taking about 15% of the water from it.

Your analogy works better for your purposes, mine works for mine, but I meant mine as I intended it. My point stands, that whether a player’s income comes as a generated reward or as TP profits, on the player level that income is still a reward, and there is absolutely no difference between the two. At the player level, those two reward streams should be balanced.

With regards to TP flipping and the profits from it this is a perfect analogy for those who complain about the TP flipping.

It really isn’t. To reverse engineer the analogy, the GW2 equivalent of the $50 bill would be if there were a 80s’s worth rich ori node just sitting in the middle of LA, and players could mine it or not. Yeah, in that situation, you could blame the players who failed to mine it. The TP is not nearly so effortless though, it is not simply picking money off the ground.

It requires investment of time, and if that is not time you enjoy, then it is a chore, and it is unfair to reward players significantly more for doing this one activity than for time spent in any other ingame activity.

It also requires a certain level of skill, skill that not every player has the talent for, and rewarding players significantly more for having TP skill than for having skill at any other aspect of the game is likewise unfair.

Again, it’s a balance issue, it’s not that the TP should offer no reward, just that the amount of reward it provides should be brought more in line with other ingame activities.

No it isnt. Profit is gold returned from invested gold that was already a reward. A reward is items/gold created from nothing. TP profits =/= dungeon rewards.

You can repeat this as many times as you like but it doesn’t make it true. Nobody said that TP profits were dungeon rewards, because it clearly doesn’t come from dungeons, but it is still a reward, no different at the player level than gold earned from an event, or a champ bag, or a mob loot, or a story mission, or a level-up prompt. And again, at the macro level there is a difference, in that it adds to the total gold supply, and the devs do need to stay on top of that, but that macroeconomic difference is irrelevant at the player level. To the players, gold in == reward, and TP profit is just as much gold in as dungeon profits.

Let’s do another example, what if there were a global “play tax?” What if every hour you played, you automatically lost 15s or so? Then the rewards given out by missions were entirely relative to the amount of tax money brought in, such that, once “enough” gold had entered the economy, no new gold would be generated by the system, and all distributed rewards would come entirely from the collected taxes. I’m not suggesting that this system would be good or anything, I’m just positing it as a thought experiment, in such a system, where no new gold is being generated by the system, would you insist that the money being given to players in champ bags and dungeon complete rewards was no longer “reward?”

If you cant acknowledge that one has a positive impact on gold inflation and one has a negative impact on it and the ramification of these two different sources of wealth in the macro economy then there is no reason to continue any discussion with you.

I have repeatedly acknowledged this and never once disputed it, I’ve just pointed out that nothing you said in this paragraph has anything to do with whether TP profits are “rewards” and should be treated as such for balance purposes. It’s like you keep shouting “If you can’t accept that carrots grow in the ground, and therefore cannot be compared to lettuce, then we have nothing to discuss,” while I keep saying “I understand that one grows below ground and one above, and there are reasonable discussions to be had about different cultivation methods, but that are both also still vegetables, and both can be compared for relative nutritional value.”

Ohoni.6057:

No it isnt. Profit is gold returned from invested gold that was already a reward. A reward is items/gold created from nothing. TP profits =/= dungeon rewards.

You can repeat this as many times as you like but it doesn’t make it true. Nobody said that TP profits were dungeon rewards, because it clearly doesn’t come from dungeons, but it is still a reward, no different at the player level than gold earned from an event, or a champ bag, or a mob loot, or a story mission, or a level-up prompt. And again, at the macro level there is a difference, in that it adds to the total gold supply, and the devs do need to stay on top of that, but that macroeconomic difference is irrelevant at the player level. To the players, gold in == reward, and TP profit is just as much gold in as dungeon profits.

And you can repeat that as much as you want and it won’t make it any truer either.

ANet only has controls over reward sources and mandatory sinks in this game. Now if a player can establish a profitable venture trading with other players, it’s the same as someone has the skills to speedrun dungeons. They are rewarded for their skill.

The competitive nature of the TP causes prices to collapse quickly to where incoming supply is bought in it’s entirety and if the price is high enough, encourage others to seek out additional supply to sell. On a basic mat like silk scrapes, the trading volume is high enough to reflect the true value of silk.

Think of it this way. Your choice is to gather it yourself or pay someone, either what they are asking for or offering a price for someone else to gather it for you. That’s the entire purpose of the TP. If you offer too little, others feel it’s not worth doing and you will get none. It’s like paying the neighbor’s kid to shovel your driveway and walk. Offer enough he’ll be willing to do it, not enough, enjoy being snowed in or doing it yourself.

Ohoni.6057:

[snip]

Ohoni.6057:

[snip]

No, your wrong . No matter how many words you use you are wrong about rewards and profit…

TP profits =/= participation rewards (dungeon rewards)

Your analogies and examples are bad. They are completely off base and have nothing to do with reality. I even fixed you analogy because it was wrong. Your analogy had 2 sources for wealth going into the River(economy) and that isn’t how it works.

profit =/= reward. Just because you say it isn’t so doesn’t make what you are saying true.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s like you keep shouting “If you can’t accept that carrots grow in the ground, and therefore cannot be compared to lettuce, then we have nothing to discuss,” while I keep saying “I understand that one grows below ground and one above, and there are reasonable discussions to be had about different cultivation methods, but that are both also still vegetables, and both can be compared for relative nutritional value.”

But that isnt what I or you are saying. I am saying there is a difference between newly created rewards and TP profits with the multitude of reasons WHY they are different, and you are covering your ears and going “LALALALALALALA, I cant hear you, Here’s an irrelevant analogy”

This is why I hate analogies and don’t like to deal with them.

Ohoni.6057:

Do you believe that rewards should be a function of time spent or a function of how time is spent?

It should be a reasonable balance of the two. Basically, some activities can be more or less rewarding than others, obviously, but any activity in the game that involves a reasonable amount of challenge and engagement should provide roughly the same amount of reward on average, and no such activities should provide either negligible reward or significantly over the top reward.

Relative to this discussion, the TP should not provide rewards magnitudes higher than the same amount of time invested in any other aspect of the game, nor should any other activity. If, say, Dry Top farming were to offer 50g per hour, I think players could reasonably complain that it was too heavily favored over other activities. That was the problem with the Destiny Loot Cave from a player perspective, that it offered so much loot relative to other activities that it made them seem like a waste of time, even if players did not find the loot cave particularly enjoyable. And that’s the problem the TP causes now, that players feel compelled to spend time working it because of the massive reward potentials, even if they do not find the activity to be a particularly enjoyable experience. It becomes work rather than play.

The TP though is simply two players agreeing to exchanges goods and coins. There is no way that concept can be balanced around other forms of reward structure since every other source of rewards is based only on your decision to do it or not.

That is why time spent on the TP is “rewarded” orders of magnitude above the built in rewards, because it cannot be limited, and players clearly value expediency over gold.

That’s why cloth is more expensive than ore and logs. Because players are more than willing to trade their coins to other players in order to get the cloth faster. Cloth actually represents the kind of “balanced” reward structure that many posters here are asking for. All players, regardless of how they play, are able to acquire it at around the same rate. Cloth (and leather) represent rewards based on TIME SPENT while ore and logs represent rewards based on HOW time is spent.

The TP then acts as the tool by which these two types of rewards are balanced as it allows players to trade one type of reward for another.

eithinan.9841:

Behellagh.1468:

Again the thread turns. Now it’s about the those devilish TP flippers.

Notice how any complaints involving the BLTP and economy turn towards the “flippers” “TP barons” or “speculators”. The issue is, for some who feel Entitled, they let their envy override their common sense when it comes to the subject on the TP.

The wheels on the bus go round and round…..

It turns because the people making the arguments against the system don’t actually know what they are complaining about or the root cause of what they dislike about the game.

eithinan.9841:

Behellagh.1468:

Again the thread turns. Now it’s about the those devilish TP flippers.

Notice how any complaints involving the BLTP and economy turn towards the “flippers” “TP barons” or “speculators”. The issue is, for some who feel Entitled, they let their envy override their common sense when it comes to the subject on the TP.

The wheels on the bus go round and round…..

Id like to point out that TP baron issue was raised by smooth penguin, an indirectly wanze, as an illustration for how fast he can earn money.

I said very little on the topic because its a derail. Nothing can be balanced around TP players earnings because their earnings are irregular.

if yall dont want to talk about tp baron topic, stop bringing it up.

phys.7689:

Id like to point out that TP baron issue was raised by smooth penguin, an indirectly wanze, as an illustration for how fast he can earn money.

I said very little on the topic because its a derail. Nothing can be balanced around TP players earnings because their earnings are irregular.

if yall dont want to talk about tp baron topic, stop bringing it up.

Kind of a lost cause, phys. There’s so many shoulder chips available, you should rebuild at least 3 new shoulders from the debris. =P

Wanze put up a more focused post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Imbalanced-asc-armor-costs-by-class/

ANet only has controls over reward sources and mandatory sinks in this game. Now if a player can establish a profitable venture trading with other players, it’s the same as someone has the skills to speedrun dungeons. They are rewarded for their skill.

Yes, reward. And ANet has less control over TP profits than over dropped loot, but that doesn’t mean they have no control over it. They certainly could put in measures that would make profits more limited, especially on the extreme ends.

And yes, a player who can speedrun dungeons will make more than someone who can’t, but a player who can really work the TP will make more than that dungeon speed runner by a much larger degree than the speedrunner will over the non-speedrunner.

Think of it this way. Your choice is to gather it yourself or pay someone, either what they are asking for or offering a price for someone else to gather it for you. That’s the entire purpose of the TP. If you offer too little, others feel it’s not worth doing and you will get none. It’s like paying the neighbor’s kid to shovel your driveway and walk. Offer enough he’ll be willing to do it, not enough, enjoy being snowed in or doing it yourself.

I have literally said almost exactly that several times in this thread. Why do you guys keep repeating back to me my own points as if you’re explaining something I do not know. I understand all these concepts just as well as you do, I’ve just reached different conclusions as a result of them.

profit =/= reward. Just because you say it isn’t so doesn’t make what you are saying true.

So, you internally concede that I’m right, but can’t fit that into your ideology so you refuse to admit to it?

The TP though is simply two players agreeing to exchanges goods and coins. There is no way that concept can be balanced around other forms of reward structure since every other source of rewards is based only on your decision to do it or not.

Of course you can balance the TP profits, if you care to. You could limit the maximum amount players could recover from the TP over a given period of time, for example, or have a progressive tax on TP income so that people who bring in more, bring in less of that “more” over time. You could reduce the value of speculation by making it more obvious to all where trends are going, if everyone knows that the price of something is going to go up in future, everyone can stock up rather than just speculators, for example. There are tools that could be available that would help.

But the first step is acknowledging that it is a problem, even if you can’t think of any solutions, which you at least seem honest enough to do, even if your peers are not.

Rauderi.8706:

As a side note, I acquired a whole bunch of silk yesterday, as the result of casual play.
..of course, it involved the trading post, but I didn’t feel bad about it at all.

I do a fair amount of alt leveling, so I tend to have scores more middle-tier materials that can trade at a reasonably 1:1 basis with silk scraps, or better than that ratio. Linen sat well over 5s last night, so I traded that out for silk 1:1 and kept the profits. From the right mentality, I got paid to farm silk by doing what I normally do, but merely adding barter as a part of it.

The fantastic part, I saved roughly 20-30% via buy orders. …and they still filled up instantly. So thanks to all those “bad, naughty” farmers selling on the trading post. Keep hacking away at those plant meanies and zombies.

Being less silly now, my point is you don’t have to spite the trading post as some evil machination. Or, if you’ve got a chip on your shoulder about capitalism, use the system to beat the system. Or something. >_> Sorry, I’m losing my point in silliness. Perspective matters.

My actual point is, silk acquisition isn’t terrible. The actual material amount is where the imbalance sits. So, in a basic adjustment formula, what would the thought/impact be on making the relevant recipes 2 per bolt/square/ingot and 100 per intermediate ascended material? Still doesn’t solve the cloth-insignia balance, but making thick leather and mithril more in line with silk would promote more trading between them.

When you look at your ability to earn silk, you should keep in mind how much work you had to do to reach point A.
You may be looking at now, without thinking about it, and say hey! i ll use some of these excess mats from leveling alts!
keep this in mind
1) your bank and stored items are your savings, representing many hours of play
2) once those charachters level, it will be a lot harder to obtain the same amount of low level materials with them, and it will be a lot less entertaining to be on those areas.
3) you need 7200-10800 silk, if by selling all your excess materials for a week, you were able to get 600 silk, it would still require you 12 to 18 weeks, just to pay for the silk in ascended.
4) If you sold anything that you may need to buy later, you basically lost 15% of the gold in that transaction, if prices stay the same.

Anyhow just things to consider.
regardless it doesnt really address the main issue of the OP which is the imbalance of value/requirement of silk within the framework of damask and ascended armorcraft

Behellagh.1468:

I saw an overcutting/undercutting thread again recently. Haven’t seen one in a while, probably someone returning with that issue still stuck in their craw.

The answer to the title was answered relatively quickly, the new source of cloth during Wintersday ended so the price is returning to pre-Wintersday levels.

The reason why silk is in high demand has been talked to death as have alternate ascended mat and armor recipes and reasons why higher tier mats are going for lower prices than lower tier mats.

Can we stick a pin in this, it’s done. It’s soup.

did you actually read the OP? you realize the title thread is not always going to accurately represent the OP, it has to fit a certain amount of letters.

The op has always said, silk price is an issue as it relates to damask and the requirements for ascended crafting. That issue still hasnt been resolved.

phys.7689:

When you look at your ability to earn silk, you should keep in mind how much work you had to do to reach point A.
You may be looking at now, without thinking about it, and say hey! i ll use some of these excess mats from leveling alts!
keep this in mind
1) your bank and stored items are your savings, representing many hours of play
2) once those charachters level, it will be a lot harder to obtain the same amount of low level materials with them, and it will be a lot less entertaining to be on those areas.
3) you need 7200-10800 silk, if by selling all your excess materials for a week, you were able to get 600 silk, it would still require you 12 to 18 weeks, just to pay for the silk in ascended.
4) If you sold anything that you may need to buy later, you basically lost 15% of the gold in that transaction, if prices stay the same.

Anyhow just things to consider.
regardless it doesnt really address the main issue of the OP which is the imbalance of value/requirement of silk within the framework of damask and ascended armorcraft

All issues I readily accept. Money is number and a tool, especially in a game. As long as I’m in the black, I’m good.
The advice is appreciated, especially since #3 still sticks my craw.

I’m hoping Wanze’s revamp of the thread gets some appropriate attention, as I’d like to see resolution to the system issue in Ascended armor crafting.

Ohoni.6057:

It should be a reasonable balance of the two. Basically, some activities can be more or less rewarding than others, obviously, but any activity in the game that involves a reasonable amount of challenge and engagement should provide roughly the same amount of reward on average, and no such activities should provide either negligible reward or significantly over the top reward.

Relative to this discussion, the TP should not provide rewards magnitudes higher than the same amount of time invested in any other aspect of the game, nor should any other activity. If, say, Dry Top farming were to offer 50g per hour, I think players could reasonably complain that it was too heavily favored over other activities. That was the problem with the Destiny Loot Cave from a player perspective, that it offered so much loot relative to other activities that it made them seem like a waste of time, even if players did not find the loot cave particularly enjoyable. And that’s the problem the TP causes now, that players feel compelled to spend time working it because of the massive reward potentials, even if they do not find the activity to be a particularly enjoyable experience. It becomes work rather than play.

Mr. Ohoni.6057 is right. I’m on a lv 10 warrior, and I would like to make money from mining these copper ores as the players who sell orange and yellow color armors on the market house. I think I’m up to 20 silver, and I still can’t afford to buy yellow rings. If I can get 50g per hour playing, I think this game would be a good place.

Natto.5819:

Ohoni.6057:

It should be a reasonable balance of the two. Basically, some activities can be more or less rewarding than others, obviously, but any activity in the game that involves a reasonable amount of challenge and engagement should provide roughly the same amount of reward on average, and no such activities should provide either negligible reward or significantly over the top reward.

Relative to this discussion, the TP should not provide rewards magnitudes higher than the same amount of time invested in any other aspect of the game, nor should any other activity. If, say, Dry Top farming were to offer 50g per hour, I think players could reasonably complain that it was too heavily favored over other activities. That was the problem with the Destiny Loot Cave from a player perspective, that it offered so much loot relative to other activities that it made them seem like a waste of time, even if players did not find the loot cave particularly enjoyable. And that’s the problem the TP causes now, that players feel compelled to spend time working it because of the massive reward potentials, even if they do not find the activity to be a particularly enjoyable experience. It becomes work rather than play.

Mr. Ohoni.6057 is right. I’m on a lv 10 warrior, and I would like to make money from mining these copper ores as the players who sell orange and yellow color armors on the market house. I think I’m up to 20 silver, and I still can’t afford to buy yellow rings. If I can get 50g per hour playing, I think this game would be a good place.

Think this through first. If everyone can make 50G/hr, what do you think will happen to prices for everything?

Ayrilana.1396:

Natto.5819:

Ohoni.6057:

It should be a reasonable balance of the two. Basically, some activities can be more or less rewarding than others, obviously, but any activity in the game that involves a reasonable amount of challenge and engagement should provide roughly the same amount of reward on average, and no such activities should provide either negligible reward or significantly over the top reward.

Relative to this discussion, the TP should not provide rewards magnitudes higher than the same amount of time invested in any other aspect of the game, nor should any other activity. If, say, Dry Top farming were to offer 50g per hour, I think players could reasonably complain that it was too heavily favored over other activities. That was the problem with the Destiny Loot Cave from a player perspective, that it offered so much loot relative to other activities that it made them seem like a waste of time, even if players did not find the loot cave particularly enjoyable. And that’s the problem the TP causes now, that players feel compelled to spend time working it because of the massive reward potentials, even if they do not find the activity to be a particularly enjoyable experience. It becomes work rather than play.

Mr. Ohoni.6057 is right. I’m on a lv 10 warrior, and I would like to make money from mining these copper ores as the players who sell orange and yellow color armors on the market house. I think I’m up to 20 silver, and I still can’t afford to buy yellow rings. If I can get 50g per hour playing, I think this game would be a good place.

Think this through first. If everyone can make 50G/hr, what do you think will happen to prices for everything?

Mr. Ohoni.6057 says that people will be happy. I know I would be if I can buy good armors. This game should be balanced so we are all even. I read on a MMO website that Guild Wars 2 made it possible to enjoy every level map equally, no matter what level you are. So why can’t I get enough money to be like everyone else? Is it because I buy this game last week, and not in 2011? And how do I find Dry Top on my map? Is that were all the gold is?

Couldn’t read through all that 19 pages but if anyone would kindly answer me this question: What exactly is preventing the idea of changing silk crafting cost from 3 to 2 just like metal and leather crafts?

Mr. Ohoni.6057 is right. I’m on a lv 10 warrior, and I would like to make money from mining these copper ores as the players who sell orange and yellow color armors on the market house. I think I’m up to 20 silver, and I still can’t afford to buy yellow rings. If I can get 50g per hour playing, I think this game would be a good place.

I think your heart is in the right place, but I think that would be a bit excessive. Someone at level 10 should not make as much as someone buying and selling high level items on the TP, but a level 10 player should make about as much through gameplay as someone trading copper/rough/jute on the TP, and someone who’s level 80 and running level 80 content should be making about as much as someone trading in level 80 gear and mats. You should still have to earn what you make, you should still have to work for it, but if you do work for it, all the various activities, including the TP, should offer comparable rewards.

And how do I find Dry Top on my map? Is that were all the gold is?

It’s east of Brisbane Wildlands, and it’s a level 80 zone, but it’s not all that much better than most places at the moment. Silverwastes is probably your best bet, but you’ll need to hit 80 first. At level 10 just do your story missions, clear your starting area and maybe a second starting area, and once you get into your early 20s, Kessex Hills is a good place to go.

Ohoni.6057:

Mr. Ohoni.6057 is right. I’m on a lv 10 warrior, and I would like to make money from mining these copper ores as the players who sell orange and yellow color armors on the market house. I think I’m up to 20 silver, and I still can’t afford to buy yellow rings. If I can get 50g per hour playing, I think this game would be a good place.

I think your heart is in the right place, but I think that would be a bit excessive. Someone at level 10 should not make as much as someone buying and selling high level items on the TP, but a level 10 player should make about as much through gameplay as someone trading copper/rough/jute on the TP, and someone who’s level 80 and running level 80 content should be making about as much as someone trading in level 80 gear and mats. You should still have to earn what you make, you should still have to work for it, but if you do work for it, all the various activities, including the TP, should offer comparable rewards.

And how do I find Dry Top on my map? Is that were all the gold is?

It’s east of Brisbane Wildlands, and it’s a level 80 zone, but it’s not all that much better than most places at the moment. Silverwastes is probably your best bet, but you’ll need to hit 80 first. At level 10 just do your story missions, clear your starting area and maybe a second starting area, and once you get into your early 20s, Kessex Hills is a good place to go.

Why do I have to wait to farm silk and gold at level 80? And why can’t I make 50 g every hour at my level? I read a little back, and the player Wayne made a new account, and has 300 gold already. I only get a small amount of copper from the NPCs when I sell weapons and armors. Are players cheating to make a lot of money?

Why do I have to wait to farm silk and gold at level 80? And why can’t I make 50 g every hour at my level?

Well, you can make 50g per hour at your level, but only on the TP, which is part of the problem. You really shouldn’t be able to make that much atr that level. This is an adventure RPG, which means that you should have to earn the rewards your receive, and currently the TP subverts that. Don’t worry though, you can reach 80 in a relatively short about of time.

Ohoni.6057:

Why do I have to wait to farm silk and gold at level 80? And why can’t I make 50 g every hour at my level?

Well, you can make 50g per hour at your level, but only on the TP, which is part of the problem. You really shouldn’t be able to make that much atr that level. This is an adventure RPG, which means that you should have to earn the rewards your receive, and currently the TP subverts that. Don’t worry though, you can reach 80 in a relatively short about of time.

You are a good player. Guild Wars 2 should hire you to take control of the market. then everyone would be rich! Thank you for your advise.

Caelus.7139:

Couldn’t read through all that 19 pages but if anyone would kindly answer me this question: What exactly is preventing the idea of changing silk crafting cost from 3 to 2 just like metal and leather crafts?

I think the question is what problem this is supposed to solve?

If you think the problem is the high cost of ascended armor in general, this would definately give some relief towards the prices.

But I dont think, and thats just my opinion, that Anet wants that because they are fine with the high ascended armor costs as it is supposed to be a long term goal.

If you think the problem is the higher timegate and cost for light armor compared to heavy and medium, your suggestions isnt a solution because it doesnt solve the problem.

Natto.5819:

Ohoni.6057:

Why do I have to wait to farm silk and gold at level 80? And why can’t I make 50 g every hour at my level?

Well, you can make 50g per hour at your level, but only on the TP, which is part of the problem. You really shouldn’t be able to make that much atr that level. This is an adventure RPG, which means that you should have to earn the rewards your receive, and currently the TP subverts that. Don’t worry though, you can reach 80 in a relatively short about of time.

You are a good player. Guild Wars 2 should hire you to take control of the market. then everyone would be rich! Thank you for your advise.

Problem solved!

Please close this thread!

And abandon all servers.

Just look at GW2 spidy and you will see that silk scraps have actually went down overall since October 2014. They spiked greatly before that when ascended armor crafting came out. Silk scraps have a great amount of value as a great amount of silk scrap is needed to make ascended armor. Silk scraps are around 2.37 silver now and were over 3 silver in October 2014. Many people have gotten their ascended armor since then and I am guessing that many more are starting to get their ascended armor now.

Caelus.7139:

Couldn’t read through all that 19 pages but if anyone would kindly answer me this question: What exactly is preventing the idea of changing silk crafting cost from 3 to 2 just like metal and leather crafts?

Only Deldrimor Steel via Mithrilium needs only 2 T5s in Mithril Ore (100 ore in total). But the Iron and Steel Ingots require 3 Iron Ore (90 ore in total).

Elonian Leather Square via Spool of Thick Elonian Cord requires 50 Cured Thick Leather Squares, needing 3 Thick Leather Sections per Square.

So it’s not just Silk that required 3. If anything they matched the the Silk Bolt requirements to the Cured Thick Leather Square which always needed 3.

Behellagh.1468:

Elonian Leather Square via Spool of Thick Elonian Cord requires 50 Cured Thick Leather Squares, needing 3 Thick Leather Sections per Square.

So it’s not just Silk that required 3. If anything they matched the the Silk Bolt requirements to the Cured Thick Leather Square which always needed 3.

So what you are saying is that changing from 3 scraps to 2 wouldnt have much of an impact considering the leather is in the toilet and that the amount of silk/bolt is mostly superfluous? Considering leather has been 3 sections/square since release and the price is still bottomed out since demand isn’t as high for it based on use?

Ohoni.6057:

profit =/= reward. Just because you say it isn’t so, doesn’t make what you are saying true.

So, you internally concede that I’m right, but can’t fit that into your ideology so you refuse to admit to it?

No, and I really have no idea how you came to that assumption but I added a comma for you.

No, when they raised it from 2 to 3 silk was also “in the toilet” and thus the two base mats at vendor with a several million glut of supply now matched in the requirement for refinement. It was a step toward being consistent.

Just like how formulas for armor were already consistent. Light armor was always cloth for the insignia, cloth for the padding, cloth for panel while medium and heavy were cloth for the insignia, cloth for the padding, leather or metal respectively for the panel. Just the Tier level changed between quality levels.

Rare and below quality the quantity of cloth matched the amount needed for the padding. At exotic it was 5x the amount needed for the padding and for Ascended, it was only 3×.

The only place not consistent was making the silk bolt requirement 100 Vs 50 for either Course Thick Leather Squares or Mithril Ingots, the other two refined T5 mats.