So, about Hardened Leather....

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

Y'all should have been playing a few months back before Anet bumped the t6 salvage rate on the bloodstone warped hides to 50% or more. Seriously. You also have to take into account all of the guildhall upgrades that require leather.

I'm not saying that the price of leather is in a great spot, I am saying that it is a much better than it was not long ago. Seriously. Count your blessings that leather is in as good a spot as it currently is.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said:

@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.

Well considering most of the leather is used in insignias, I’d say that large disparity you’re describing is a bit exaggerated. If players want the price to be lower, they can farm them in Lake Doric.

Medium exotic armor is only 8G more than heavy and 11G more than light. Not much of a disparity and especially since there are so many other alternatives to crafting in order to obtain exotic armor.

[AegisRunestone.8672]

The answer to every economic problem in MMOs is not: "go farm here for x mat." Not everyone has the time for that. Real life is a higher priority than farming Lake Doric.

When cloth was too expensive, and leather too cheap (thank you @Sojourner.4621 for reminding me of the expensive cloth prices back during HoT), Anet attempted to change that, they went overboard and so leather is extremely expensive. So, why not let them tweak the recipes instead of forcing players to waste their time and effort? Just because there's a good farming area doesn't justify the unreasonable requirements for crafting.

Also, note: Lake Doric's Leather Farm was nerfed before PoF. They added trebuchets so people could not sit in one place and farm the leather. Not the best solution, but it shows Anet is not interested in having a farming location as the only option.

Edit: Exotic named drops for leather and cloth are about 7-8 gold cheaper than the crafted variations.

[TheOrlyFactor.8341]

@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.

Same. I only crafted the heavy boots for the collection because I had all of the other heavy pieces unlocked and I wasn't going to do that crazy JP for a boot unlock. The price for the hardened leather sections I needed (9) cost me almost 3 gold. I don't see myself doing any additional armor crafting until I can find a more reliable means of getting those leather sections or until the price drops considerably.

Which sucks because I vastly prefer crafting/unlocking armor for skins versus weapon skins.

[Batelle.1680]

"Just farm Lake Doric!" is not a good enough answer. Not everyone has access to Lake Doric, and there's not a full 24-7 train dedicated to it. This morning I was trying to farm and we could only muster ~15 people, which isn't enough to take up the hill.

I sincerely don't understand people who are opposed to Anet making adjustments that would bring hardened leather to be more in line with other mats. It's a horrible outlier of their own creation, and they should fix it.

[Leablo.2651]

@Shaaba.5672 said: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.

I agree with you in principle, but not with your proposed solution. I think gossamer (currently at 32c) needs to be brought up a lot more than leather needs to be brought down, but I'd be satisfied to meet halfway. If forced to choose I'd rather that both be at 20s than for both to be 32c.

[OriOri.8724]

@Leablo.2651 said:

@Shaaba.5672 said: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.

I agree with you in principle, but not with your proposed solution. I think gossamer (currently at 32c) needs to be brought up a lot more than leather needs to be brought down, but I'd be satisfied to meet halfway. If forced to choose I'd rather that both be at 20s than for both to be 32c.

While it may take a while due to the huge surplus of gossamer on the market right now, lowering leather prices enough will encourage people to craft more in general, which will raise demand for gossamer slightly. In the (albeit very very very) long run, gossamer prices will increase a little bit if leather goes down.

[Rauderi.8706]

@Omar Aschi Popp.7496 said:I think that specific patch hit most people as a surprise. What was the rationale behind introducing patches?

Before then, leather, especially T5, was vendor stock. The 4:1 refinement rate and the move to patches as part of insignia was done to drain leather, and it feels like Hardened got caught in the crossfire.

[Kichwas.7152]

@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.

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:Well considering most of the leather is used in insignias, I’d say that large disparity you’re describing is a bit exaggerated. If players want the price to be lower, they can farm them in Lake Doric.

Medium exotic armor is only 8G more than heavy and 11G more than light. Not much of a disparity and especially since there are so many other alternatives to crafting in order to obtain exotic armor.

To address your points:

1: It's not exaggerated at all, unless you think 27 coppers for a Gossamer Scrap vs 22 silvers and 44 coppers for Hardened Leather Sections is not a significant difference (keep in mind that's a 3000%+ difference in price). P.S. when I spoke of disparity in costs between crafts, I was comparing the three armor crafts to other crafts, not to each other.

2: If farming in Lake Doric was reliable enough as a source of Hardened Leather, the price would already be significantly lower. But low/unreliable supply coupled with high demand keeps the price high. This is attributed to a number of reasons, one of which is, for example, not everyone having access to lake Doric (either because they don't have the living story season purchased/unlocked or because they don't have Heart of Thorns). In any case, why force players to play in one specific area to get one specific mat that is used across the entire game at every expansion level, when you can simply lower the requirements for said mat and let people enjoy the game more?

3: Medium armor only costs a bit more than the other weights because most of the leather cost required in crafting it is used for the Gossamer Insignias, which are required across ALL armor crafts. Emblazoned Shoulders, for example, only use 2 Hardened Leather squares for the components, and 10 for the Gossamer Insignia. Crafting Heavy Shoulders would thus only cost 2 less Hardened Leather Squares by comparison for a total of 10 used vs 12 for medium. What does this ultimately show us? That most of the costs involved in crafting ANY armor weight is spent just on Hardened Leather Squares and it's mostly because of the introduction of Gossamer Patches.

Again, this creates problems for these crafts. If you're given an option between buying armor or crafting it, and the answer is always to buy simply because crafting is far more expensive, then I see that as being unhealthy for the game, because it diminishes the value of a feature (I.E. crafting). Ideally, you'd want both options to be viable.

[Oglaf.1074]

Just cut the Square requirements in half, or even reduce to one third of what it currently is for most things.

10 Squares per armour piece for Lunatic is just insanity.

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

@"Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.2946" said:Y'all should have been playing a few months back before Anet bumped the t6 salvage rate on the bloodstone warped hides to 50% or more. Seriously. You also have to take into account all of the guildhall upgrades that require leather.

I'm not saying that the price of leather is in a great spot, I am saying that it is a much better than it was not long ago. Seriously. Count your blessings that leather is in as good a spot as it currently is.

Hardened Leather was not the only material added to guild hall requirements though. Some upgrades require hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of other mats, like Gossamer, Mithril, Ori, etc, yet those still remain cheap. The reason I doubt whether guild halls had too much of an impact is because guild upgrades can be spread across many players, so while one upgrade might require 100 hardened leather squares, each guild member may only need to contribute 1 or 2. But if that player wants to craft a pair of pants for themselves, then they'd be spending 10 at least. Also, once a hall is upgraded, it is permanent and requires no additional resources thereafter, for an indefinite period of time. If the impact of guild halls was as significant as you suggest, then wouldn't we also then see a much higher Gossamer price, for example?

That being said, I don't exactly have the numbers myself, so I can't say for certain how much of an impact it actually had. I still think Gossamer Patches are the main antagonist with regards to Hardened Leather Prices though, because crafting one full set of armor can cost as much leather as a guild upgrade as far as Hardened Leather goes.

[Oglaf.1074]

The patches are indeed the worst perpetrator here. I love how Anet made the recipe result in "5 Gossamer Patches" as a way to make it - on the surface - not seem so bad to blow 10 Squares on 5 Patches. 2 Squares per Patch? Acceptable!

... that is, until you realize that each insignia uses 5 Patches anyway so the fact that you make 5 of them is entirely irrelevant, lol.

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

@Oglaf.1074 said:The patches are indeed the worst perpetrator here. I love how Anet made the recipe result in "5 Gossamer Patches" as a way to make it - on the surface - not seem so bad to blow 10 Squares on 5 Patches. 2 Squares per Patch? Acceptable!

... that is, until you realize that each insignia uses 5 Patches anyway so the fact that you make 5 of them is entirely irrelevant, lol.

It becomes more wonky when you get those weird recipes that only require 3 patches, but you're forced to craft 5 at a time regardless. XD

[Ohoni.6057]

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.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

ArenaNet and Balance have a long lived love/hate relationship. By now I rather expect things to feel completely off. This is in regards to Skill balance as well as economic balance.

Other than that, I rarely dabble in the TP, unless it's really needed. Crafting my own gear? Why? Everything is Berserker anyway. and condi stuff takes way too much effort to make. And otherwise I'll just use suboptimal gear, use insignias to change ascended stats and use boxes and other drops to fill in my character's builds.

Crafting is not a good way to get your gear. And ArenaNet is not capable of making materials float in nicely.

They tried to balance prices back and forth and in the end they were like "We can't fix it so we're going to wait until it fixes itself." and later "It's not fixing itself fast enough because of "sticky"prices so we're going to make sure we annoy you with inventory problems for the first 3-4 weeks of the expansion."

I'm still waiting for leather to go back to better refinement (4 for thick and 3 for hardened is just feeling punishing to me) but on the other hand I just keep hoarding until I feel comfortable using my leather again.

[Astralporing.1957]

@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?

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:The patches are indeed the worst perpetrator here. I love how Anet made the recipe result in "5 Gossamer Patches" as a way to make it - on the surface - not seem so bad to blow 10 Squares on 5 Patches. 2 Squares per Patch? Acceptable!

... that is, until you realize that each insignia uses 5 Patches anyway so the fact that you make 5 of them is entirely irrelevant, lol.

It becomes more wonky when you get those weird recipes that only require 3 patches, but you're forced to craft 5 at a time regardless. XD

My suggestion to.change patches:Go from 10 Leather + 4 Cloth, output 5 patches to 1 Leather + 1 Cloth output 1 patch.

Two gains:1: Halved leather requirements for insignia and slightly increase cloth2: Lower tier armors (Rare and MW, yes they still exist) don't have to overproduce patches. Full set rare: 12 patches, full set MW: 6 patches - neither possible by current recepie.

[Tenrai Senshi.2017]

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:My suggestion to.change patches:Go from 10 Leather + 4 Cloth, output 5 patches to 1 Leather + 1 Cloth output 1 patch.

Two gains:1: Halved leather requirements for insignia and slightly increase cloth2: Lower tier armors (Rare and MW, yes they still exist) don't have to overproduce patches. Full set rare: 12 patches, full set MW: 6 patches - neither possible by current recepie.

This sounds reasonable to me. It would be an easy change to implement, relatively speaking, and then ANet can observer the impact on the economy from there. If the price doesn't drop enough, you can adjust further. If it drops too much, you can increase leather requirements until you find the right balance.

Overall, to me it seems like it would be easier to adjust demand, rather than supply, and preferably in an incremental manner, rather than the landslide approach they used before when Gossamer Patches became a thing..

[AegisRunestone.8672]

@Oglaf.1074 said:Just cut the Square requirements in half, or even reduce to one third of what it currently is for most things.

10 Squares per armour piece for Lunatic is just insanity.

I'm sorry for this...

But you might say it's lunacy. runs

But yeah, that was my base suggestion. At least cut it down to 5 squares.

@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said:

@Oglaf.1074 said:The patches are indeed the worst perpetrator here. I love how Anet made the recipe result in "5 Gossamer Patches" as a way to make it - on the surface - not seem so bad to blow 10 Squares on 5 Patches. 2 Squares per Patch? Acceptable!

... that is, until you realize that each insignia uses 5 Patches anyway so the fact that you make 5 of them is entirely irrelevant, lol.

It becomes more wonky when you get those weird recipes that only require 3 patches, but you're forced to craft 5 at a time regardless. XDOh my gosh, I HATE those recipes. "What do I do with the other two patches? Sell them?"

[Wanze.8410]

@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said: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.

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.

[Wanze.8410]

@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.

[Rauderi.8706]

@Wanze.8410 said:so i conclude that you would be fine with 20s each for ori, ancient wood and gossamer.

Considering how much Ori and Ancient rain down on the PoF maps?Yes. Yes I would.Of course, the method to get to that point would require absurd, unsustainable sinks that show obvious intent, rather than a smooth and integrated system that promotes those prices naturally.

Though...I figured that the trade caches would have done more to dent the leather prices. Maybe it needs more time, but I'm disappointed that both the Lake Doric farm (even after the drop rates were significantly bumped) and the trade caches have done little to move those prices.

It might be time to have better in-game sinks and exchanges to manage many of these flagging materials. A limited version of the Zephyrite traders could go really well, and with Amnoon as a bustling trade hub, would fit with lore. As a once/day thing, turn in 100 of an crafting material (also to include cooking mats and jewelcrafting) and pick a crate of a specific good or type of good. RNG it up a little, either on number of item given or as a class of good, tilt the drops toward what the player selected, but filter in other tiers of its type. As with the rep vendors in the area and their trade contract crates, switch out what gets sought and sold on a given day it's not a completely solved equation.

[Wanze.8410]

@Rauderi.8706 said:

I figured that the trade caches would have done more to dent the leather prices. Maybe it needs more time, but I'm disappointed that both the Lake Doric farm (even after the drop rates were significantly bumped) and the trade caches have done little to move those prices.

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.

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.

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.

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

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.