Erm, aren't material prices dropping a bit too much?

[Friday.7864]

It just seems to me that new maps shower you with more and more loot to make them more compelling to the point where the community doesn't have enough things to spend those materials on. I mean, it's not like I'm complaing, just kinda worried that even more materials are going to become kinda worthless. RN we're being showered with ingots in Drizzlewood - iron and platinum seem to be tanking. Ectos are also a lot cheaper compared to a month ago.Not sure what to think of this. Is it good, bad, normal, temporary?

[Khisanth.2948]

Good or bad depends on who you are.

With less need for gold(what is the next major use of gold if not to buy materials?) the value of gold goes down. That would make it cheaper to buy gold with gems. Great if you do that and might make it more appealing to do so. Meanwhile the flip side of that is buying gems with gold goes up which might push some people into spending cash for the gems instead of gold. If you are someone who prefers to gather materials yourself it is good as well.

It's also going to depend on how much things actually end up changing.

[Yasai.3549]

I don't see anything wrong with this.

There are still alot of people who do not yet own Legendaries of anysort, and whats stopping Anet from releasing a shiny new Legendary which people crave for in the future?

[mindcircus.1506]

@Friday.7864 said:It just seems to me that new maps shower you with more and more loot to make them more compelling to the point where the community doesn't have enough things to spend those materials on. I mean, it's not like I'm complaing, just kinda worried that even more materials are going to become kinda worthless. RN we're being showered with ingots in Drizzlewood - iron and platinum seem to be tanking. Ectos are also a lot cheaper compared to a month ago.Not sure what to think of this. Is it good, bad, normal, temporary?Worry about it in a week when that Fresh Farm smell has worn off.Keep in mind they are very likely setting us up for some massive material sink at the end of the season.

[Khisanth.2948]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Friday.7864 said:It just seems to me that new maps shower you with more and more loot to make them more compelling to the point where the community doesn't have enough things to spend those materials on. I mean, it's not like I'm complaing, just kinda worried that even more materials are going to become kinda worthless. RN we're being showered with ingots in Drizzlewood - iron and platinum seem to be tanking. Ectos are also a lot cheaper compared to a month ago.Not sure what to think of this. Is it good, bad, normal, temporary?Worry about it in a week when that Fresh Farm smell has worn off.Keep in mind they are very likely setting us up for some massive material sink at the end of the season.

Especially with that materials for commendation trade. The exact same stunt they pulled with the first BotW before they increased the refining cost of a bunch of things while reducing drop rates. In this case those have daily limits so it should not be the same degree but I would be wary.

[Algreg.3629]

not sure if the update is the reason. I noticed a considerable drop of VM bottom line already on the weekend before if I remember correctly. Maybe because there is a LOT of playing going on currently and many people have by now finished their crafting goals, now adding to the farming for money side of things (this is of cause pure speculation).

[Friday.7864]

Hmm, most things should be worth farming imo.We kinda seem to be heading the opposite route tho, where less and less things are worth fetching yourself or farming.Hope they do add some permanent sinks like some of you said.

[Jimbru.6014]

The markets will balance themselves out at some new level. They always do.

Still waiting on a proper sink for all this Eitrite and Eternal Ice Shards, though...

[Friday.7864]

@Jimbru.6014 said:The markets will balance themselves out at some new level. They always do.

Still waiting on a proper sink for all this Eitrite and Eternal Ice Shards, though...

Eternal ice shards you can trade for lw4 map currency, use that to get volatile and buy trophy shipments.

[thepenmonster.3621]

Prices sank the day Frostgorge became the pact supply week. Several weeks before both Mukluk and Cellofrag did an EZ Gold video suggesting to wait until then because of the piles of gold that map gives when you open there. It can't be a coincidence.

[Pifil.5193]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Friday.7864 said:It just seems to me that new maps shower you with more and more loot to make them more compelling to the point where the community doesn't have enough things to spend those materials on. I mean, it's not like I'm complaing, just kinda worried that even more materials are going to become kinda worthless. RN we're being showered with ingots in Drizzlewood - iron and platinum seem to be tanking. Ectos are also a lot cheaper compared to a month ago.Not sure what to think of this. Is it good, bad, normal, temporary?Worry about it in a week when that Fresh Farm smell has worn off.Keep in mind they are very likely setting us up for some massive material sink at the end of the season.

Yep, and the Festival of the Four Winds too. That's a sink and a half.

[Danikat.8537]

Another thing that might help: I can't be the only one reading this and thinking if material prices are dropping across the board maybe it's time to make a legendary, or at least stock up on materials for one.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Danikat.8537 said:Another thing that might help: I can't be the only one reading this and thinking if material prices are dropping across the board maybe it's time to make a legendary, or at least stock up on materials for one.

Bingo. Anet wants you to have legendaries so that you will buy the Legendary Armory when it is released soon^tm. Take the opportunity to craft some Legendary gear while you can.

[thehipone.6812]

I’m honestly not thrilled that they increased the lower tier material drops so much. You don’t need many t3 or t4 for a legendary and some of them were at least decent drops while playing lower level maps while mapping on an alt or whatever. More so with iron falling too. I Guess I don’t understand why make new faucets for nearly EVERY crafting mat . The t2 through t5 Wood, ore, scraps, and sections kinda make sense to take some of the “pain” out of crafting ascended gear. But the t1 and t2 blues? Who needs more small scales and the like? Those mats seem doomed if this map stays popular. Even t3 t4 fang, bone,etc. look to be in trouble without a new sink.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

The material prices, such as ecto and hardened leather, were dropping before the Episode launched on Tuesday. Don't ask me why that happened, but I've been storing resources since at least Saturday waiting for the price to rebound, which is unlikely to happen.

That said, as someone who has made 12 pieces of Legendary Armor and 1 Gen 2.5 weapon over the past 4.5 months, I do appreciate getting T2-T4 mats from the chests that drop in Drizzle. You may only need 50 Thick Blood, etc, per Gift of Blood etc, but they were hovering at 9s or so a month ago, and just inflated the cost, and as a material that has pretty much zero demand anywhere else, feelsbad.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@thehipone.6812 said:I’m honestly not thrilled that they increased the lower tier material drops so much. You don’t need many t3 or t4 for a legendary and some of them were at least decent drops while playing lower level maps while mapping on an alt or whatever. More so with iron falling too. I Guess I don’t understand why make new faucets for nearly EVERY crafting mat . The t2 through t5 Wood, ore, scraps, and sections kinda make sense to take some of the “pain” out of crafting ascended gear. But the t1 and t2 blues? Who needs more small scales and the like? Those mats seem doomed if this map stays popular. Even t3 t4 fang, bone,etc. look to be in trouble without a new sink.

You can promote those mats to higher tier mats.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@thehipone.6812 said:I’m honestly not thrilled that they increased the lower tier material drops so much. You don’t need many t3 or t4 for a legendary and some of them were at least decent drops while playing lower level maps while mapping on an alt or whatever. More so with iron falling too. I Guess I don’t understand why make new faucets for nearly EVERY crafting mat .

T5 mats were selling for 70c or so, while some T3 mats were selling for 7-9 silver. At one point at the start of May, Engraved Totems were selling for 15s each (!). The reason I know this is because it prompted me to park my Ele in Timberline Falls at the Grawl camp and farm them for 30mins a day, rather than pay that exorbitant price.

The issue of course is that max level characters rarely see these in their loot bags, unless they go to those maps, which is very inefficient anyways given how GW2 handles material gathering.

I realize it must be disappointing for those who like to sell on the TP, but there are many players who would rather just harvest materials in game, rather than farm gold and buy them.

With the Legendary Armory (reportedly) in development, there is an increase in demand for these materials as more players will work towards making legendaries. For those not making leg items, these mats can still be sold for a profit, as not everyone is going to farm Drizzlewood for hours a day forever - this is a temporary spike as everyone works to get their achievements completed.

The last thing we needed was to be bombarded with more T5 mats with a chance at T6, so I see nothing wrong with ANET adding T2-T4 mats to the table. These at least will serve a wider purpose, compared to ingots and eternal ice.

[thehipone.6812]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

I realize it must be disappointing for those who like to sell on the TP, but there are many players who would rather just harvest materials in game, rather than farm gold and buy them.

That's exactly my point - you could very easily go farm them in the mid-level maps. Before, the market was working just fine as shown by your own example - you saw the asking price for totems, decided that the effort to farm gold was greater than the effort to farm them and elected to get them yourself. And there may be a benefit to you being there, maybe you help out a newbie with something - one of the riftcrawler events, the Oooouo champ that someone needs for an achieve or collection, some random champ, or just some population so the zones aren't so dead. The gold per hour was competitive to top farms - focused farming generated about 200 fine mats per hour plus some random other stuff, which, at 7-10 silver per fine is in the neighborhood of the better farms. Now playing in those maps feels even worse on a relative basis compared to whatever the new 20-25g/hr farm du jour is. Are you still going to go farm the fines you need if they're 1 silver/ea? No, you'll buy them and perpetuate the M.O. of the second type of player in your example.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@thehipone.6812 said:That's exactly my point - you could very easily go farm them in the mid-level maps. Before, the market was working just fine as shown by your own example - you saw the asking price for totems, decided that the effort to farm gold was greater than the effort to farm them and elected to get them yourself. And there may be a benefit to you being there, maybe you help out a newbie with something - one of the riftcrawler events, the Oooouo champ that someone needs for an achieve or collection, some random champ, or just some population so the zones aren't so dead.

Er..no. When I went to farm Engraved Totems, I killed the same mobs, over and over again, in a tiny corner of the map. Some days I left with only 4 totems, other days I might have lucked out with 10. I didn't participate in events as I was completely focused on killing the same NPCs over and over and over again. If a riftcrawler event spawned, or a world boss was there, or if some player needed help with something - all would be ignored because I needed to kill the same mobs over and over and over again in hopes I'd get lucky and the trophy I wanted would drop, and avoid having to spend more time than necessary on such a mindless and boring activity.

This to you seems like a good system?

Players farming mobs for mats doesn't make the map 'populated', nor does having us play the RNG drop game for prolonged periods of time make the maps feel 'alive'. If that is a concern of yours, this isn't the solution.

@thehipone.6812 said:The gold per hour was competitive to top farms - focused farming generated about 200 fine mats per hour plus some random other stuff,

Yeah, I'm sure it was, given there was usually an afk Engy or Necro rooted nearby farming the wargs. AFK farming - another result of this system. This too you consider a good thing for the game?

I also don't care about the gold/hr as my point above was my goal isn't to sell these items, but to not have to resort to buying them.

@thehipone.6812 said:Are you still going to go farm the fines you need if they're 1 silver/ea? No, you'll buy them and perpetuate the M.O. of the second type of player in your example.

No, I will do neither. I will be playing on the Drizzlewood map, and those rewards will just come. I will neither be 'farming' nor resorting to buying them off the TP.

I would much rather have these types of rewards drop while playing current content. Let's not pretend that all of a sudden people are going to see max storage on T3 mats overnight. They will still get less compared to T5/T6, but at least now they are getting something. Focused farming will still exist, and those players will harvest those specific materials faster than others. But this simply acknowledges the imbalance in their drop system. If T2-T4 mats are required for end game crafting, which I'm fine with, as it helps to keep those materials relevant, than those materials should at least be obtainable while participating in end game content.

[Excursion.9752]

@Yasai.3549 said:There are still alot of people who do not yet own Legendaries of anysort, and whats stopping Anet from releasing a shiny new Legendary which people crave for in the future?Our skyscales need a new legendary saddle! :wink:

[Luthan.5236]

They need to be careful not to flood the market too much - by making mats more and more available. Otherwise it will be harder for new players to earn money. (And even for the experienced players it might get harder depending on which game modes they play. Not everyone plays fractals or raids.)

Might be their goal though. (More players buying gems to convert into gold to buy expensive stuff instead of easy farming an selling at TP.)

I mean: Money (gold) has to come from somewhere. You selling stuff at the TP doesn't magically generate gold. The stuff that generates gold is more rare. Dailies, selling to NPC, etc.

Then again: Players might be willing to pay more for other stuff. (If one stuff they need is getting cheaper and they have more money available for other things.)

[Kurrilino.2706]

This is the normal outcome i would think.This game is 476 years old. Everyone has everything in huge masses. There are very few meterials needed by people because they are time gated.Also less and less players play the game so the demand is shrinking, this is why time gating was introduced at all.

[kharmin.7683]

@Kurrilino.2706 said:This is the normal outcome i would think.This game is 476 years old. Everyone has everything in huge masses. There are very few meterials needed by people because they are time gated.Also less and less players play the game so the demand is shrinking, this is why time gating was introduced at all.

Actually, I believe that there are a lot of new players recently who have come on to GW2 during the pandemic. They wouldn't have all of these mats in any real quantity.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:They are killing alot of material prices. It has started with this saga as they add more and more ways to get lower tier ores/woods etc and now they are killing the t4 and t6 stuff. I mean you start farming this map and you like this is great but now it gets less lucrative if you sell stuff but it's better if your a hoarder type and plan to make legendarys. Idk if it's good or bad yet but with the repeatable traks you can stay here forever only to make legendarys

ANet started much earlier than that. Started with PoF's release in the form of trade caches. Thunderhead Keep also had iron and platinum nodes.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:They are killing alot of material prices. It has started with this saga as they add more and more ways to get lower tier ores/woods etc and now they are killing the t4 and t6 stuff. I mean you start farming this map and you like this is great but now it gets less lucrative if you sell stuff but it's better if your a hoarder type and plan to make legendarys. Idk if it's good or bad yet but with the repeatable traks you can stay here forever only to make legendarys

ANet started much earlier than that. Started with PoF's release in the form of trade caches. Thunderhead Keep also had iron and platinum nodes.

I'll agree with that. You might even add the salvage type things that could give you t3-6 mats like doric leather farm. I just think the insane amount of chests in Bjora and now this new map plus the 10 bosses after the meta is over saturating the market. It may lead to many players crafting legendarys instead of selling mats

Oh right ... those, so it actually started with LS3E1 because you get those from Bloodstone Fen too.