Drytop Quartz Mining account-limited?
This is not the only material that is limited in this way and the game has other sources of quartz, notably Wintersday Gifts. The currently supply of quartz on the TP is 20% more than it has been in the last six months (as of my check just now), which doesn’t include the massive amounts of quartz that speculators bought (and hoarded) when the price dropped during Wintersday. The use of quartz is limited to relatively small niches.
In contrast, Watchwork Sprockets have only two reliable sources: the single node in some people’s home instances and the Watchwork Mining Pick, a gem store item (let’s not get started on whether that’s appropriate for the cash shop or not). Sprockets also have niche use, but it’s arguably a bigger niche. Interestingly, the TP supply of sprockets has been relatively stable over the same six months (fluctuating between 240k and 280k).
So even if this was intentional, at best, it’s just odd, not absurd. If the quartz ‘faucet’ was much stronger, then the price would take, making it relatively worthless.
If the quartz ‘faucet’ was much stronger, then the price would take, making it relatively worthless.
As has indeed happened in the past. The somewhat more interesting question is, what would happen if the time gate on charged quartz crystals were removed as well? I suspect that quartz crystals would still tank, but maybe not as hard.
Also, OP, the 5-quartz drop from the home instance node is not that rare. I get it multiple times per week, so I’d estimate the chance at somewhere around 10% per swing. (As an aside, the theoretical maximum of quartz mined from the nodes in your home instance and Dry Top is quite a bit higher than 27: The +5 has a chance to drop from the home instance node per mining pick swing, as does the charged quartz. And the three normal nodes in Dry Top are influenced by gathering bonuses from WvW and boosters, giving you chances at additional drops each swing as well as additional swings.)
Quartz is also available through the map bonus system. That is pretty reliable unless you are having trouble completing events in low level zones. 20 events for 5 quartz is probably much slower than running through and mining. Sprockets are also available from the map bonuses but at a lower rate.