So, about Hardened Leather....

[Drew.1865]

In my opinion they need to add skinning into the game and allow players a way to farm leather without going to Lake Doric.

[OriOri.8724]

> @Kichwas.7152 said:

> > @Ayrilana.1396 said:

> > If players feel the price is too high then they can collectively do the leather farm in Lake Doric to bring it down.

>

> Basically this.

>

> I think Anet's "plan to address the price of Hardened Leather" was to add a huge camp of centaurs to Lake Dorric. Hardened leather rains down on you in there...

>

> It's a seriously boring mindless farm spot... but there it is... Hardened leather "should" be more common than any other mat now... but that farming spot is so dull it keeps people from doing it enough.

>

> That said... I've been there twice, about an hour of time in, and got, if I recall right; 37 leather from it.

> - Basically I'm going to do it just enough to regear several characters over to vipers... and then forget about it.

>

 

 

This is great an all, but for an hour of your time you got 37 leather from it and you think that is ok? I mean in an hour of farming nodes I can get significantly more Ori or Ancient wood than just 37. In an hour of regular play I can get more than 37 gossamer just from salvaging the equipment that drops, and I don't even have to go out of my way to get that like I do for the other 3 mats.

 

I don't understand why people keep defending this practice. Why is it that its ok for leather to be the only base mat that you cannot get from regular gameplay, and yet also

is needed in the highest quantities in crafting, and in every armor weight? That fundamentally does not make sense.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

Historically, they weren't used for other weight classes, and the TP was piled up with a shit ton of hardened leather, so they changed the requirements in crafting and added a bunch of other stuff to pull out all the hardened leather. Unfortunately, it got overnerfed and they never really fixed it. Even after years. They balanced crafting around TP stuff all the time, actual, all the crafting processes for legendaries and ascended stuff was made around what is the momentarily trend on the TP. Starting in don't know 2014 or 2015, don't remember.

[Boogiepop Void.6473]

This is a generalized problem. It's just getting more press right now as everyone tries to craft all the lunatic armors at once. It's a lot, no matter which set you got from the drops (and not everyone knew they should get the medium before it was too late).

[Oglaf.1074]

> @"Boogiepop Void.6473" said:

> This is a generalized problem. It's just getting more press right now as everyone tries to craft all the lunatic armors at once. It's a lot, no matter which set you got from the drops (and not everyone knew they should get the medium before it was too late).

 

For the third time now, that doesn't matter. _All weights_ require 10 Cured Squares per insignia. The insignias is where the silliness resides.

[Rauderi.8706]

> @Wanze.8410 said:

> I heard lake doric farm is quite profitable atm but that fact that so few people do it tells me that most players are content (not necessarily happy) with current leather prices because they rather play other content for the fun factor or because other farms yield enough gold per hour that they can afford the current prices.

 

It hasn't been a big deal for me, because my usage isn't that great, so what I do get from salvage is enough to slowly keep my stock up. I'm not buying leather or farming it otherwise. I have to wonder how many other players are holding off on their crafting projects because they're doing the same. I'm not doing much crafting, but others might be in that trap of "too expensive to buy, no good farm". Which, with Lake Doric isn't 100% true, but it's also not a great/fun/etc thing to do, and not something one can do solo, which is the usual essence of farming. If the Lake Doric farm could be solo'd, you can bet the price would've dropped.

 

> Anyways, I just made that comment to illustrate that aiming for the same values for materials of the same tier wont necessarily lower the price of leather.

 

But, if the prices *were* equivalent, it would be easier to farm other materials for trade. ...Which would then tilt prices of leather up and other goods down, so in reality that's not going to happen. Kind of a silly example, honestly.

 

> There is also no good reason to aim for the same value of materials, just because they are in the same tier, if they *have completely different sinks and faucets,* which is the case for the 4 common mat groups.

RE: highlighted part: That would be ANet's fault. The sinks were tampered with to generate shifts in the materials market, *because the price of some of those materials was "too low".* That is 100% ANet "aiming" for a value of materials, which I think J.Smith acknowledged was something of a mistake.

The materials don't have to be the same in price, and aiming for that would be lunacy, but it is a problem when there is a factor-of-10 difference between them, specifically because the recipes were tampered. The 3:1 refinement *and* the 10:1 insignia are a big chunk of the problem. The over-correction was simply too severe.

 

 

 

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

> @Wanze.8410 said:

> they did address hard leather by introducing bloodstone-warped hides in LS s2e4 and buffing its salvage rate into hard leather later on.

>

> You can target farm those, if you think the price of hard leather is too expensive for you.

 

Whether I think it's too expensive for me is somewhat irrelevant, because you see, rather than going to farm leather to craft armor, I'd just take the cheaper and more time effective option of buying the armor, or acquiring it through other means.

 

And that's precisely the problem. If a form of acquiring armor is no longer cost nor time effective, people will simply ignore it altogether. This in turn reduces the variety of viable options for acquiring gear and ends up rendering certain features moot. The last time I used any of my leveled armor crafts was to make the light Ornate guild pants. That's the sum total of my crafting for the past year, outside of refining mats to make space in my collections tab.

 

So, if people aren't farming hides, it isn't necessarily because they think the price of leather is fine, it's just because they don't see a point in farming it when they can get what they want in a cheaper or more cost effective manner. And those who do farm it often do it just for the gold sell value. In turn, the usefulness of crafting is diminished and it is eliminated as a viable, competitive option for acquiring gear (outside of gear unique to crafting).

 

Ultimatey, the reason I feel a price adjustment is necessary isn't because I am poor (I am quite far form it) or because I am lazy, or because of Halloween as some people seem to think (if I really wanted a spectral back item, I'd get it without issue). It's because I just want to be able to look at crafting as a viable way to acquire gear, or to at least increase it's use to the point where I don't only craft one item every few months, because unreasonable prices completely drive any desire to utilize those tools from me.

[Halan.8951]

..........

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

> @Halan.8951 said:

> How about adding horizontal Mystic Forge conversion (the ones we have now are vertical, tier up). Something like 50 metal+50 wood+50 cloth+Spirit Shard=25 Leather. Or any missing material, but I doubt someone would use it to get metal or wood.

 

I like this idea! It would definitely protect materials from having this order-of-magnitude prize disparity!

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Tenrai Senshi.2017" said:

> > @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> > It hasn't hit its 1 year high yet. In fact, it's about 35 ish percent below its previous high. (32 s then to about 22s now.)

>

> It's still too high though.

 

These arguments make no sense ... the market price should tell you what your threshold is for simply buying it or going out and getting it. This is the reason Anet introduced a higher drop rate of leather in Doric Lake in the first place; because people where the market price was above their threshold had no options. Anet has already solved this problem for you ... in a few ways actually (the other is probably even more offensive to you). It's just that you don't like your options. That's a different and non-Anet related problem.

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

> @Obtena.7952 said:

> > @"Tenrai Senshi.2017" said:

> > > @"Strider Pj.2193" said:

> > > It hasn't hit its 1 year high yet. In fact, it's about 35 ish percent below its previous high. (32 s then to about 22s now.)

> >

> > It's still too high though.

>

> These arguments make no sense ... the market price should tell you what your threshold is for simply buying it or going out and getting it. This is the reason Anet introduced a higher drop rate of leather in Doric Lake in the first place; because people where the market price was above their threshold had no options. Anet has already solved this problem for you ... in a few ways actually (the other is probably even more offensive to you). It's just that you don't like your options. That's a different and non-Anet related problem.

 

You don't actually seem to understand my arguments at all. Perhaps you should read my recent post above, and stop assuming that I am somehow offended or just want an easy way out. The problems I addressed have not been solved, not by ANet, and not by any means I can contribute directly outside of discussing the problem and bringing attention to it.

[Ayakaru.6583]

> @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > @Ayrilana.1396 said:

> > If players feel the price is too high then they can collectively do the leather farm in Lake Doric to bring it down. If they feel like that is not worth the effort then the existing price is justified as the additional cost will be for the benefit of not having to farm them.

> So, you suggest that players sacrifice their play time and work hard to fix a problem Anet introduced?

> Who's gonna pay them for it? You?

>

 

Oh yes, you’re right, everyone should quit daily lives, jobs, and schools, to become diamond miners, if everyone pitches in, we can make them cheaper

[OriOri.8724]

> @Ayakaru.6583 said:

> > @Astralporing.1957 said:

> > > @Ayrilana.1396 said:

> > > If players feel the price is too high then they can collectively do the leather farm in Lake Doric to bring it down. If they feel like that is not worth the effort then the existing price is justified as the additional cost will be for the benefit of not having to farm them.

> > So, you suggest that players sacrifice their play time and work hard to fix a problem Anet introduced?

> > Who's gonna pay them for it? You?

> >

>

> Oh yes, you’re right, everyone should quit daily lives, jobs, and schools, to become diamond miners, if everyone pitches in, we can make them cheaper

 

Diamonds are not the best comparison tbh. Yes, their price is artificially high because of a controlling company controlling supply and demand, but they are not required in life, whereas leather is required for crafting armor of any weight.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @Wanze.8410 said:

> > @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > They rarely bother to balance mats of supposedly equivalent value, but they really should. All items within the same tier should be roughly equivalent in value most of the time, within a reasonable margin.

>

> so i conclude that you would be fine with 20s each for ori, ancient wood and gossamer.

 

If that's the fair balance point, then yes. Maybe all lower, maybe all higher, I'm not sure what the balance point should be, but it should be the same for all of them. If they aren't the same, then that means there is a problem with the supply access and/or demand for one or more of them, and they need to fix that. Sometimes this is a short term issue, in which case they should employ short term solutions, in some cases it's a long term problem and demands long term solutions. In either case, they should do *something* rather than nothing.

 

Personally, of course, I always err on the side of "lower priced" than higher priced on any good.

 

Btw, one thing that would help stabilize markets would be if they were being more transparent about what moves they were making and their intended effects, rather than expecting the players to figure it out themselves. The current method only benefits people who find the new sources/recipes first, and know how best to exploit them before the rest of the community catches on. If they were instead to just say in the patch notes "we're increasing the drop rates of certain sources of hard leather by 3%, and expect the prices of hard leather to fall by 5% in the near future," players could adapt quicker and more evenly to changes in the market, and avoid those hoarding scenarios they were talking about before PoF's release. Players would know where things were heading and would not have to gamble on the future. Things were heading to equilibrium.

 

> @"Tenrai Senshi.2017" said:

>So, if people aren't farming hides, it isn't necessarily because they think the price of leather is fine, it's just because they don't see a point in farming it when they can get what they want in a cheaper or more cost effective manner. And those who do farm it often do it just for the gold sell value. In turn, the usefulness of crafting is diminished and it is eliminated as a viable, competitive option for acquiring gear (outside of gear unique to crafting).

 

Nobody should be farming materials with the intent to sell them on the trading post. Any place this is happening is a broken market. People should only be farming if they want a material for their own use, and don't want to pay the market rates for it. Materials that appear on the market should just be materials that the player got without seeking them out, and had no personal use for.

 

 

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

> @Ohoni.6057 said:

>

> Nobody should be farming materials with the intent to sell them on the trading post. Any place this is happening is a broken market. People should only be farming if they want a material for their own use, and don't want to pay the market rates for it. Materials that appear on the market should just be materials that the player got without seeking them out, and had no personal use for.

>

 

To be honest, I'm not against people farming a material for the sake of selling it. It's something a lot of people do, especially those who have no interest in crafting whatsoever. It also helps increase supply on the market, and closes the gap between supply and demand to an extent, which does help out prices. With that being said, it isn't exactly the most efficient or reliable gold farming method. You'd probably be better off farming fractals for a more consistent income, for example.

 

My main concern is that the prices for materials like Hardened Leather are balanced as such that using them to acquire gear through crafting is a competitive alternative to other forms of acquisition. The fact that it's often more efficient to sell your leather and buy armor with the gold you net from it, than it is to use that leather to craft armor is a bit odd for me, especially when the latter method (crafting) typically demands more time and effort. I do feel that if someone has taken the time to level their crafts, and subsequently takes the time to acquire mats and craft items, it should be a rewarding experience relative to that effort involved.

[DeWolfe.2174]

Well, we Engi's were doing the Lord's work and getting the prices of Hardened Leather to go down. The Dev's killed the leather farm which is keeping prices high. This wasn't done by accident.

[Wanze.8410]

> @"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

> Imagine if you bought 100g worth of Hardened Leather in January 2015, if you sold it in April 2017 you would have made 27,000g.

 

imagine not selling your earned leather until january 2015 in the first place and keeping it until april 2017.

[Wanze.8410]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> In an hour of regular play I can get more than 37 gossamer just from salvaging the equipment that drops, and I don't even have to go out of my way to get that like I do for the other 3 mats.

 

I call cute kittens on this one.

 

When Pof launched, I made some [research into unid gear](

). From my numbers you can see that I salvaged 2381 blue and green gear in the process and only got 55 scraps of gossamer.

 

So unless you explain to me, how you can farm 40 blues and greens per minute in order to salvage 50+ gossamer scraps in an hour from your loot, I will say that your claim is simply false.

 

[Wanze.8410]

> @"Tenrai Senshi.2017" said:

> > @Wanze.8410 said:

> > they did address hard leather by introducing bloodstone-warped hides in LS s2e4 and buffing its salvage rate into hard leather later on.

> >

> > You can target farm those, if you think the price of hard leather is too expensive for you.

>

> Whether I think it's too expensive for me is somewhat irrelevant, because you see, rather than going to farm leather to craft armor, I'd just take the cheaper and more time effective option of buying the armor, or acquiring it through other means.

>

> And that's precisely the problem. If a form of acquiring armor is no longer cost nor time effective, people will simply ignore it altogether. This in turn reduces the variety of viable options for acquiring gear and ends up rendering certain features moot. The last time I used any of my leveled armor crafts was to make the light Ornate guild pants. That's the sum total of my crafting for the past year, outside of refining mats to make space in my collections tab.

>

> So, if people aren't farming hides, it isn't necessarily because they think the price of leather is fine, it's just because they don't see a point in farming it when they can get what they want in a cheaper or more cost effective manner. And those who do farm it often do it just for the gold sell value. In turn, the usefulness of crafting is diminished and it is eliminated as a viable, competitive option for acquiring gear (outside of gear unique to crafting).

>

> Ultimatey, the reason I feel a price adjustment is necessary isn't because I am poor (I am quite far form it) or because I am lazy, or because of Halloween as some people seem to think (if I really wanted a spectral back item, I'd get it without issue). It's because I just want to be able to look at crafting as a viable way to acquire gear, or to at least increase it's use to the point where I don't only craft one item every few months, because unreasonable prices completely drive any desire to utilize those tools from me.

 

In my opinion, other viable means of acquiring the same gear without crafting are already the tool that Anet implemented to combat rising material prices for crafting.

 

If t6 leather will get too expensive for players to use in crafting their gear, they can simply choose more efficient methods (in time or gold) to acquire that gear, which takes alot of demand off t6 leather for crafting and therefore prevents it from rising further.

 

I think leveling and also using your crafting professions on a regular basis already offers plenty of incentives and just trying to establish a lower value for t6 leather, so you personally would use the crafting system more, would also render the other acquistion methods that you are talking about unfeasable (because crafting will be the cheapest option). This will result in rewards of other content (LS, wvw, pvp, fractals) to loose its appeal to its players.

[Wanze.8410]

> @DeWolfe.2174 said:

> Well, we Engi's were doing the Lord's work and getting the prices of Hardened Leather to go down. The Dev's killed the leather farm which is keeping prices high. This wasn't done by accident.

 

turret farm didnt really reward you with lots of bloodstone warped hides, though.

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

> @Wanze.8410 said:

> If t6 leather will get too expensive for players to use in crafting their gear, they can simply choose more efficient methods (in time or gold) to acquire that gear, which takes alot of demand off t6 leather for crafting and therefore prevents it from rising further.

>

> I think leveling and also using your crafting professions on a regular basis already offers plenty of incentives and just trying to establish a lower value for t6 leather, so you personally would use the crafting system more, would also render the other acquistion methods that you are talking about unfeasable (because crafting will be the cheapest option). This will result in rewards of other content (LS, wvw, pvp, fractals) to loose its appeal to its players.

 

I understand what you are saying, but that's why it's all about balance. You don't want crafting to be seen as the only viable option to acquire gear, but you also don't want it to be removed as a competitive alternative. It is a tricky slope to traverse, but that's how it goes.

 

In an ideal world, you'd be able to look at various options, and all of them would be viable, so the choice between them would be a matter of personal preference rather than efficiency (after all, being able to choose the most fun way for you to do things while still being efficient is, I think, the most ideal situation a player could want). Unfortunately, we are not in that ideal world at this point. XD

 

I'm also not naive enough to think we'd attain such perfect balance, but at the very least, it would be nice to close the gap a bit between options, so that a player can make a choice based on preference, without feeling like they're shooting themselves in the foot.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

I finally got the backpack, but now I'm pretty much in need of a van that has "Free Candy" on the side so I can take that free candy to sell and get my money back.

I'm more broke than the Scourge's shades were.

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> I finally got the backpack, but now I'm pretty much in need of a van that has "Free Candy" on the side so I can take that free candy to sell and get my money back.

> I'm more broke than the Scourge's shades were.

 

Congratulations. I am glad you were able to get what you wanted. ;)

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

> @"Tenrai Senshi.2017" said:

> > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > I finally got the backpack, but now I'm pretty much in need of a van that has "Free Candy" on the side so I can take that free candy to sell and get my money back.

> > I'm more broke than the Scourge's shades were.

>

> Congratulations. I am glad you were able to get what you wanted. ;)

 

It's still puzzling the only thing that was expensive to get was that leather.

The skull if you needed was a joke to get (and not hard to get either way, you just need a ton of them). Same for the Nougats and the Fangs.

Those leather though.... that leather...

I have some pets on my ranger that's leathery... kind of want to skin them to get some of that leather back.

 

Skin does grow back, right...?

[Wanze.8410]

> @Ohoni.6057 said:

 

> Btw, one thing that would help stabilize markets would be if they were being more transparent about what moves they were making and their intended effects, rather than expecting the players to figure it out themselves. The current method only benefits people who find the new sources/recipes first, and know how best to exploit them before the rest of the community catches on. If they were instead to just say in the patch notes "**we're increasing the drop rates of certain sources of hard leather by 3%, and expect the prices of hard leather to fall by 5% in the near future**," players could adapt quicker and more evenly to changes in the market, and avoid those hoarding scenarios they were talking about before PoF's release. Players would know where things were heading and would not have to gamble on the future. Things were heading to equilibrium.

 

A statement like this would be completely useless for several reasons:

 

* First of all, Anet would have to start micromanaging their materials one by one. They currently arent doing that because its too time intensive

* most materials already go through bigger value, supply and demand swings several times on any given day, depending on wether its prime time or not in their main markets, north america and central europe, so they could post this every day

* If they start **predicting** bigger value swings, they will get into a downward spiral of scrutiny from the player base, if their predictions arent accurate

* while they can definately adjust sinks and faucets to have the value of a material swing one way or the other, its way harder to determine where that swing ends without adjusting sinks and faucets once again

* They simply cant predict how the market develops as accurately as you want because there are too many variables involved, as long as every single player can influence what materials he farms and which materials he consumes

* it doesnt matter if players discover new sinks or faucets in game by themselves or through patch notes as there will always be players who discover and act on it first and some will be last