So, about Hardened Leather....

Are there any plans to re-balance the value of this particular mat? Because right now, Hardened Leather is many times more expensive than other similar mats of the same tier (such as Ancient Wood, Gossamer or Orichalcum). It's gotten to the point where crafting anything that uses Hardened Leather ends up being overly expensive, especially when leveling crafts like Tailor, where you can't even sell the end results for half the cost involved in crafting them.

I'd really like a proper response from an ANet official please, because I want to know if there are actually any plans, or if it's even being looked at, at all.

I dread on when I get enough cobs to do the heavy lunatic outfit as... I don't think I have enough of this leather to finish the collection for that backpack.

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:I dread on when I get enough cobs to do the heavy lunatic outfit as... I don't think I have enough of this leather to finish the collection for that backpack.

Yeah, It really is quite a shame. But for now, I would focus just on the recipes. As far as I understand it, I believe you can still craft the actual Lunatic armor after Halloween ends and thus can complete the collection over a longer period of time if need be.

Also maybe not make a SINGLE INSIGNIA use 10 FRIGGIN' SQUARES, Anet.

If you guys cared that much about crafting prices, you should have picked the medium set from the achievement rewards, then you wouldn't be in this situation.

Only person that mentioned a set they need to craft said heavy. You need tons of leather regardless of armour type because of the insignia.

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.)

@Coldtart.4785 said:Only person that mentioned a set they need to craft said heavy. You need tons of leather regardless of armour type because of the insignia.

But if you picked Medium, it would have costed less, no?

@DakotaCoty.5721 said:If you guys cared that much about crafting prices, you should have picked the medium set from the achievement rewards, then you wouldn't be in this situation.

1: You made the blunder of assuming I wanted the price to drop specifically for the Halloween event. This is not the case, because I have zero interest in the back item. The price of leather is a general problem, the scope of which lies far beyond just one annual event. (P.S. I did actually choose the medium armor for the event rewards, :P).

2: You might be surprised to learn that medium armor is not the only armor that uses leather. All armor crafts (including Tailor and Armorsmith) require Gossamer Insignias, and all Gossamer Insignias require 10 Cured Hardened Leather Squares (used in Gossamer Patches) to craft. That's roughly 6.8 gold worth of leather per insignia.

The implication is that they did pick medium but hardened leather still dominates the cost for the other two weights.

@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. I would understand a higher cost for mats like lodestones or T6 monster materials (like powerful blood, etc), but Hardened leather should fall into the same realm as Orichalcum, Gossamer and Ancient Wood as far as typical crafting mats go. And yet it costs over 2000% more than some of those latter three. If they just reduced the amount used in recipes, the demand would go down and the price might normalize.

On the flip side, it could probably be said that Gossamer, Ori and Ancient Wood are now too cheap. I think their overabundance in the new expac areas sunk their prices quite badly.

@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.)

The same things happened to charged lodestones. Their price has been dropping also as more legendary options become available (and other reasons)

I personally will likely sell my stacks of leather knowing that in 5-6 months, the price will drop.

I think maybe one other factor that is increasing the price right now is the marks for WvW armor which, based on the time gating of skirmish tickets, has impacted the prices on a few mats. I think it's more of a perfect storm right now.

Its actually in a much better spot than it was last year, but I agree its still at a huge imbalance with the other T6 mats.

However, I have to give props to Anet, they have been very slow, very very slow, in addressing leather, but they have done it in a healthy way compared to their hammer approach with HoT launch. I'd much rather they be a little (or excessively for leather) slow, but adjust it in a healthy way (notice the price never swung from one extreme to the other after HoT launch, its been coming down slowly ), and that's what they have been doing.

I expect that they'll introduce a few more small things with leather in the next few patches that will help bring it down some more. But I still think the healthiest solution overall would be to reduce the amount required for crafting entirely, even if they have to nerf some sources of it to do that.

I know someone who bought stacks a few weks ago when mats nosedived. This looks profitable.

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:I dread on when I get enough cobs to do the heavy lunatic outfit as... I don't think I have enough of this leather to finish the collection for that backpack.

This tho.For real.

@Oglaf.1074 said:Also maybe not make a SINGLE INSIGNIA use 10 FRIGGIN' SQUARES, Anet.

This is my thought. The introduction of cloth patches and requiring to have an unreasonable amount of leather is disheartening. I think if the recipes were modified (say 5 Cured Hardened Squares instead of 10, or even lower), it would make it less expensive to make Ascended and even Exotic armor. My guildmates have told me that, in the long run, Ascended is cheaper to make than Exotic right now due to the cloth patches. That's really, IMO, sad.

Leather shouldn't be more expensive than its respective tiers of other mats. Right now, the rare, named, exotic drops (like Nikka's Leggings for example) are incredibility cheaper than a non-named Exotic Beserker's Leggings. If the recipes, especially for the cloth patches, or if the cloth patches were removed entirely, this would lower the cost, crafting wise and buying wise, for Exotics alone.

@AegisRunestone.8672 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:Also maybe not make a SINGLE INSIGNIA use 10 FRIGGIN' SQUARES, Anet.

I think that specific patch hit most peoplecas a surprise. What was the rationale behind introducing patches?

@Omar Aschi Popp.7496 said:

@AegisRunestone.8672 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:Also maybe not make a SINGLE INSIGNIA use 10 FRIGGIN' SQUARES, Anet.

I wish I knew.

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.

@Coldtart.4785 said:The implication is that they did pick medium but hardened leather still dominates the cost for the other two weights.

Exactly. It is all about the insignias.

The medium is just extra stupid for demanding leather on top of that.

@AegisRunestone.8672 said:

@Omar Aschi Popp.7496 said:

@AegisRunestone.8672 said:

@"Oglaf.1074" said:Also maybe not make a SINGLE INSIGNIA use 10 FRIGGIN' SQUARES, Anet.

They weren't happy about the cost of leather vs cloth, but it sorta backfired and full swung the other way. It used to be that silk was around 7s per scrap, gossamer was a lot higher as well, though not as high as silk. Cotton and a few other lower tier mats were also well over the cost of even silk. In the mean time Hardened leather, a t6 mat, was sitting around 6-8c per piece, and several of the other tiers you couldn't even list because they were so common and under-utilized, resulting in "1c" default listing prices, lower than the value of just selling to a merchant.

That was not the only issue though: The Raid meta has also had a role in the increase in leather costs, as Druid/cDPS Ranger has occupied top positions in raiding groups basically since HoT launch, increasing the demand and thereby the price of crafted medium. (The fact that HoT stat sets are basically only craftable, and viper has been the meta have compounded the issue further) The Raid meta also influences a lot of other costs as well (cost of Commander recipes and in particular light pants vs other stat sets for instance).

@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.

While I agree with you in theory (that market prices should be driven by players), I can't agree in this particular instance. There should be no difference between the cloth and the leather prices at similar tiers. The difference in price reflects specific design choices of Anet that make little sense. I have no problem with leather/cloth being more expensive than ore/wood as they are acquired differently. Cloth and leather are acquired in the same way (leather farm aside) and are main ingredients in a basic commodity (armor) so I feel that they should roughly mirror each other in market value. I wouldn't think the high price of leather is an issue if cloth were similarly priced, but that's obviously not the case and thus why I think there is an underlying problem with the market. (obviously I wouldn't like the high price of leather, but if cloth and leather were equal, I'd understand that it was intentional)

@Shaaba.5672 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.

I find tiers meaningless. Just because they are in the same tier does not mean that they should be the same price. For that matter, if someone were to argue that all materials within a tier should be around the same price, one could just as easily argue that the prices of the cheaper ones should increase just as one could argue that the more expensive ones should decrease.

Leather and cloth are not the same since leather has other uses while gossamer does not.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:Leather and cloth are not the same since leather has other uses while gossamer does not.

This is essentially the crux of my argument. Leather and cloth are used for the same thing (armor) which is a basic necessity in the game. Ore and wood are also used in quantity for weapons, so needs more ways of obtaining it. I'm not complaining that the lodestones are unbalanced because those are used for crafting luxury items/skins. I didn't even mind the price of mystic coins because those are for extra special items. Armor is a basic necessity and thus the reason I think the fault it with the way Anet implemented the recipes.

You do realize that gossamer has less uses solely because Anet says so. Two scraps per bolt, four bolts per patch - 8 scraps total. Three leather scraps per square, ten squares per patch - 30 total. That's nonsensical. I'd love for insignias to be completely balanced across the materials used - maybe add a metal thread embroidery so we use all three core components of an armor weight. With that, of course, even out the recipes so that that leather isn't used so disproportionally.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

I find tiers meaningless. Just because they are in the same tier does not mean that they should be the same price. For that matter, if someone were to argue that all materials within a tier should be around the same price, one could just as easily argue that the prices of the cheaper ones should increase just as one could argue that the more expensive ones should decrease.

Leather and cloth are not the same since leather has other uses while gossamer does not.

No-one's saying they should be exactly the same, but when there's a thousand percent or more difference in price, then there is a problem. It creates a large amount of disparity between the costs of certain crafts vs other crafts, which isn't healthy for the game. In some cases, it can even render crafting as a whole useless, after all, who is going to spend tons of gold crafting armor at a tailor or leatherworks, when they could simply buy it for a mere fraction of the cost?

The price of mats has implications beyond simple economics. It can even make or break certain features of the game. This is why it needs to be amended.

Also, the entire reason the price inflated so much to begin with was because ANet added gossamer patches to recipes for armor crafts. It was their attempt to increase the value of leather, which at the time was very cheap, but it completely overshot in that regard. So, leather never used to have as much use, that use was artificially introduced and the consequences were quite severe. Now I think it's time to tone down its use a bit to bring things more into balance.