At what rate should medium armour materials drop?

Tavore1138

With crafting writs now in place it is becoming, to me at least, more apparent that medium armour is very much the poor relation in drop rates.

For all other weapon/armour crafts you get 3 or more drops per node and nodes are plentiful and do not generally require a fight to subdue the node before looting.

For provisions and alchemy you only get the one item, per node but you can make up to 4 items with each one.

With enchanting you only need one of each per useable item - although this is not ideal at times.

But for medium crafting you are not even guaranteed a single scrap of material per beast and are forced to kill at least 1 levelled beast per scrap of raw material.

I strongly feel that medium armour needs to be treated on a pare with other types and any kill of a hide wearing beastie should guarantee a drop of 3 pieces.

AlexDougherty

One scrap per beast is fine but it should at least be guaranteed.

Ideally you should get more hide than you currently do, but it shouldn't be every fight (i picked this one because it would be closes to the average I feel is right).

If it's every fight then it becomes an overabundant source (posh way of saying you get too much). I think it should average out to just a bit less than one piece of hide for every beast you kill, with maybe a higher drop rate for the tough beasts (such as Wamasu in ep)

Nestor

The current way is fine.

There are mob grind areas for each level of crafting where you can get lots of raw medium armor mats. I have a plethora of those. The Drop Rates are fine.

AlnilamE

The current way is fine.

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

For all other weapon/armour crafts you get 3 or more drops per node and nodes are plentiful and do not generally require a fight to subdue the node before looting.

I don't know. Some of those voidsteel nodes in Upper Craglorn are pretty feisty...

On the other hand, for medium armor mats, if more than one player is attacking the "node", each player has a chance to get the mats, which does not happen with the other nodes.

I can't complain because I have a tendency to kill everything that crosses my path, so I have plenty of mats.

Aett_Thorn

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

My other problem with gaining leather materials is that you can get get them ahead of time if you're trying to do even a majority of the content. I can often find the next tier of crafting materials for ores and plants in the current zone I'm in (though at a reduced rate usually), but for leather and hides, you will never find them because the mobs aren't of the right level. Even when you make it to the next zone, sometimes the mobs that drop hides are still of too low of a level so you need to go further into the zone.

If you're trying to do content, it's easier to just buy the medium armor materials that you need, then sell the extras once you're done with that tier.

Tavore1138

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

I think that having medium pieces drop at a similar rate to those of any other craft is unlikely to lead to an overabundance - or at least no more so than it does with ingots, cloth or wood.

But more than anything it is writs that is driving this - I am a '50 in all crafts' player but primarily I play PvP right now or PvE in group - the reality is I don't run around killing random monsters for hours to get void scraps.

If I want to do a blacksmithing writ then I can run around... say The Rift.... for an hour and gather more than enough ore without needing to unsheathe an axe to do so... in the same hour I can also get enough cloth, wood, runes and flowers to do at least another 3 missions...

However even if I kill everything I meet in that hour I am unlikely to end up with more than 30-40 scraps from 50-60 beasts, not to mention I will probably return with a couple of hundred in armour repairs even if none of them really lay a paw on me.

Essentially I am having to spend a lot more time, effort and gold to harvest this one resource than on any other. Today for probably 3 hours of this I got 602 gold and an almadine... to offset 3 hours and whatever my repair bill was...

Before writs it was annoying but tolerable as it only mattered when I needed to make a new suit, no I have to burn a stack per writ or just accept that I don't do that writ because apparently rare metals are easier to obtain than useable animal skins.

Falmari

The current way is fine.

I think it is fine as it is just levelling will get you leather scraps, mobs are also more numerous than the other crafting nodes like ore and wood. I have more top tier leather than any other mat.

Also the clothing crafting writs can be cloth or leather. So on average 50% of the crafting writs will be cloth though in my experience I seem to get more cloth than leather writs.

PBpsy

The current way is fine.

Leather is already the easiest material to acquire in the game. You do not even have to intentionally farm it. I just end up wit a stack of scraps in my inventory.But I am one of those players that doesn't leave anything left standing in his path. I mean all Welwas must burn . Disgusting 4 eyed wolf rat vermin.

Preyfar

For me, I just go hunt mudcrabs and other lowbies in VR zones. If you just run through and kill everything in site you can find a metric ton of leathers with little effort. This is especially a great way to get Dreugh Wax. Just run along the coast killing mudcrabs and anything else you see. You'll get scraps out the whazoo.

Pyatra

The current way is fine.

AlnilamE wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

For all other weapon/armour crafts you get 3 or more drops per node and nodes are plentiful and do not generally require a fight to subdue the node before looting.

I don't know. Some of those voidsteel nodes in Upper Craglorn are pretty feisty...

On the other hand, for medium armor mats, if more than one player is attacking the "node", each player has a chance to get the mats, which does not happen with the other nodes.

I can't complain because I have a tendency to kill everything that crosses my path, so I have plenty of mats.

You mean the infinite wasp voidsteel nodes don't you? Those are really fun when the wasps just spawn when you start harvesting.

KenjiJU

I think the level 1 critters should have a chance to drop zone/level appropriate scraps as well.

AlnilamE

The current way is fine.

Pyatra wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

For all other weapon/armour crafts you get 3 or more drops per node and nodes are plentiful and do not generally require a fight to subdue the node before looting.

I don't know. Some of those voidsteel nodes in Upper Craglorn are pretty feisty...

On the other hand, for medium armor mats, if more than one player is attacking the "node", each player has a chance to get the mats, which does not happen with the other nodes.

I can't complain because I have a tendency to kill everything that crosses my path, so I have plenty of mats.

You mean the infinite wasp voidsteel nodes don't you? Those are really fun when the wasps just spawn when you start harvesting.

I was in Upper Craglorn for a few weeks fishing and looking for Nirncrux stones (without much luck). I learned exactly which nodes you can sneak up to and which you can't.

Those wasps taught me some good 1vX strategies by killing me mercilessly until I got the hang of it.

PBpsy wrote: »

Leather is already the easiest material to acquire in the game. You do not even have to intentionally farm it. I just end up wit a stack of scraps in my inventory.But I am one of those players that doesn't leave anything left standing in his path. I mean all Welwas must burn . Disgusting 4 eyed wolf rat vermin.

Yes. One of my friends' greatest joys in game after he got the Volcanic Rune morph is to play "pop the Welwa".

Woolenthreads

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

My take on this is that, unlike ores and plants, you have to fight for that leather. Sure, you get XP but you take damage which reduces your armour slightly. The Plants and Ores drop up to four mats as opposed to the critters "up to one" mat.

You are therefore expending effort to have a chance at gaining 1 mat, a chance at enough gold to cover your armour degradation and a chance at an item. The value of fighting is mostly balanced by gold and a possible item but the need to get mats is not served by a 50% chance to get one material.

Lord_Kreegan

The current way is fine.

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

Tavore1138

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

No I am saying why should non-medium wearers like you always have easy mode so you can feel superior while being a little less than that.

Lather is only easy if you PvE all the time - shockingly not all of us play 'your way' and we'd like not to be penalised.

Lord_Kreegan

The current way is fine.

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

No I am saying why should non-medium wearers like you always have easy mode so you can feel superior while being a little less than that.

Lather is only easy if you PvE all the time - shockingly not all of us play 'your way' and we'd like not to be penalised.

I play EIGHT characters: repeat, in case you are dense, EIGHT characters: two Templars, two Nightblades, two sorcerors, and two Dragonknights... with appropriate armor.

Your PRESUMPTION is the typical self-serving BS.

Qyrk

The current way is fine.

It is fine as is. I am actually having trouble getting rid of my leather scraps and refined leather materials because I always save them (and I barely grind). What is more problematic for me up in higher levels is getting voidstone and sanded nightwood, which I actually have to farm especially after every crafting writs that exhaust my resources.

Tavore1138

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

No I am saying why should non-medium wearers like you always have easy mode so you can feel superior while being a little less than that.

Lather is only easy if you PvE all the time - shockingly not all of us play 'your way' and we'd like not to be penalised.

I play EIGHT characters: repeat, in case you are dense, EIGHT characters: two Templars, two Nightblades, two sorcerors, and two Dragonknights... with appropriate armor.

Your PRESUMPTION is the typical self-serving BS.

Perhaps - but whichever way you look at it you came into this thread and insulted someone you didn't know from safe behind your keyboard. Archer I presume?

Tavore1138

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

Qyrk wrote: »

It is fine as is. I am actually having trouble getting rid of my leather scraps and refined leather materials because I always save them (and I barely grind). What is more problematic for me up in higher levels is getting voidstone and sanded nightwood, which I actually have to farm especially after every crafting writs that exhaust my resources.

Wow - I find the cloth/metal/wood ones much easier within a sensible time frame. I also save the leather but burnt through it within 4 sets of writs.

Lord_Kreegan

The current way is fine.

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

No I am saying why should non-medium wearers like you always have easy mode so you can feel superior while being a little less than that.

Lather is only easy if you PvE all the time - shockingly not all of us play 'your way' and we'd like not to be penalised.

I play EIGHT characters: repeat, in case you are dense, EIGHT characters: two Templars, two Nightblades, two sorcerors, and two Dragonknights... with appropriate armor.

Your PRESUMPTION is the typical self-serving BS.

Perhaps - but whichever way you look at it you came into this thread and insulted someone you didn't know from safe behind your keyboard. Archer I presume?

Nope... only one character out of eight is an archer...

Tavore1138

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

No I am saying why should non-medium wearers like you always have easy mode so you can feel superior while being a little less than that.

Lather is only easy if you PvE all the time - shockingly not all of us play 'your way' and we'd like not to be penalised.

I play EIGHT characters: repeat, in case you are dense, EIGHT characters: two Templars, two Nightblades, two sorcerors, and two Dragonknights... with appropriate armor.

Your PRESUMPTION is the typical self-serving BS.

Perhaps - but whichever way you look at it you came into this thread and insulted someone you didn't know from safe behind your keyboard. Archer I presume?

Nope... only one character out of eight is an archer...

OK - so, do you actually have anything useful to add other than being rude about the motivations behind my post?

Do you make much medium armour? Do you PvE or PvP? How do you find the drop rates? If you have anything but random insults to offer I, and I am sure others, would be interested.

FYI - just harvested for 40 mins in a vr9 area ... killed 50 potential hide creatures, got 17 bits of hide... plus 57 metal, 46 cloth, 32 wood and a bunch of flowers and runes...

PBpsy

The current way is fine.

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

No I am saying why should non-medium wearers like you always have easy mode so you can feel superior while being a little less than that.

Lather is only easy if you PvE all the time - shockingly not all of us play 'your way' and we'd like not to be penalised.

I play EIGHT characters: repeat, in case you are dense, EIGHT characters: two Templars, two Nightblades, two sorcerors, and two Dragonknights... with appropriate armor.

Your PRESUMPTION is the typical self-serving BS.

Perhaps - but whichever way you look at it you came into this thread and insulted someone you didn't know from safe behind your keyboard. Archer I presume?

Nope... only one character out of eight is an archer...

OK - so, do you actually have anything useful to add other than being rude about the motivations behind my post?

Do you make much medium armour? Do you PvE or PvP? How do you find the drop rates? If you have anything but random insults to offer I, and I am sure others, would be interested.

FYI - just harvested for 40 mins in a vr9 area ... killed 50 potential hide creatures, got 17 bits of hide... plus 57 metal, 46 cloth, 32 wood and a bunch of flowers and runes...

So in conclusion you have got 63 raw mats that can possibly give you tanners, 57 that can give tempers and 32 resins. If we consider this to be close to the average ratio It still means that you still get more tanners than tempers or resins. Let's face it the upgrade materials are the only thing that matter since a full V14 medium armor set requires 129 shadowhide.
This means 30 min of killing welwas,or 30 minutes of farming your proffered V9-10 public dungeon for decons or maybe 2k gold to actually buy that shadowhide from guild shops.If that is really such a huge issues I really do not know what to say to you.

When it comes to the important stuff purple -yellow tanners are actually much more easy to find then tempers and resins since they have two sources. The very abundant to find cloth flowers and the animals that pretty much fill many dungeons.In my experience I get about double the number of tanners compared to tempers and about four times than resins.

Yes this thread does indeed have the stink of the special snowflacke stamina user that so needs to be persecuted. Now that they become pretty much on the same level as magicka builds I expect the amount of whines and cries about really stupid unimportant bs to rise. How else will they feel like special lil victims

Valen_Byte

Results please!

Crabs...all the loot you want.

Iluvrien

One scrap per beast is fine but it should at least be guaranteed.

PBpsy wrote: »

Yes this thread does indeed have the stink of the special snowflacke stamina user that so needs to be persecuted. Now that they become pretty much on the same level as magicka builds I expect the amount of whines and cries about really stupid unimportant bs to rise. How else will they feel like special lil victims

I've never played even one stamina user, or medium armour wearing character, yet I agree with the OP. Where does that leave this statement? You know, the one that has "the stink" of an ad hominem about it?

One of the reasons I decided, early on, that I wouldn't run a medium armour wearing character (quite apart from having little interest in any of the classes that seemed geared towards it) was the strong suspicion that the method of delivery of the mats translated, pretty much, to a level requirement/gate.

Light and Heavy armours do not have this issue as the nodes are inanimate (mostly ) and so the only thing you need to be able to do to get them is to keep your eyes open enough to:
a) Spot them.
b) Not blunder into any mobs in the area.

This isn't true for the medium armours. These require that you fight, and win, for the uncertain possibility of a material drop (Oh goodie). Or buy your way out of the situation by getting gold together (possible, but much less interesting in the way of exploration and rewards than trekking through the first portion of the new map yourself).

If this situation could be made a little easier by upping the drop rate so that, at least, you would get a scrap for each creature (or two) that you killed then I think that it would be a little more balanced for crafters.

Tavore1138

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

PBpsy wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

No I am saying why should non-medium wearers like you always have easy mode so you can feel superior while being a little less than that.

Lather is only easy if you PvE all the time - shockingly not all of us play 'your way' and we'd like not to be penalised.

I play EIGHT characters: repeat, in case you are dense, EIGHT characters: two Templars, two Nightblades, two sorcerors, and two Dragonknights... with appropriate armor.

Your PRESUMPTION is the typical self-serving BS.

Perhaps - but whichever way you look at it you came into this thread and insulted someone you didn't know from safe behind your keyboard. Archer I presume?

Nope... only one character out of eight is an archer...

OK - so, do you actually have anything useful to add other than being rude about the motivations behind my post?

Do you make much medium armour? Do you PvE or PvP? How do you find the drop rates? If you have anything but random insults to offer I, and I am sure others, would be interested.

FYI - just harvested for 40 mins in a vr9 area ... killed 50 potential hide creatures, got 17 bits of hide... plus 57 metal, 46 cloth, 32 wood and a bunch of flowers and runes...

So in conclusion you have got 63 raw mats that can possibly give you tanners, 57 that can give tempers and 32 resins. If we consider this to be close to the average ratio It still means that you still get more tanners than tempers or resins. Let's face it the upgrade materials are the only thing that matter since a full V14 medium armor set requires 129 shadowhide.
This means 30 min of killing welwas,or 30 minutes of farming your proffered V9-10 public dungeon for decons or maybe 2k gold to actually buy that shadowhide from guild shops.If that is really such a huge issues I really do not know what to say to you.

Luckily I know what to say to you - you are missing the point.

Don't care about resins in this context. Making armour every couple of months... again don't care.

I care about the relative effort spent gathering the stack of materials needed for a leather based crafting writ vs. that of a blacksmithing writ. Since these writs are daily that means daily killing of 2-300 beasts vs. farming 3-40 nodes.

Do you see now?

PBpsy

The current way is fine.

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

PBpsy wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

I'm sorry, but this appears like a medium armor wearing player is grousing that his personal playstyle isn't being catered to...

Nothing more and nothing less...

BS.

No I am saying why should non-medium wearers like you always have easy mode so you can feel superior while being a little less than that.

Lather is only easy if you PvE all the time - shockingly not all of us play 'your way' and we'd like not to be penalised.

I play EIGHT characters: repeat, in case you are dense, EIGHT characters: two Templars, two Nightblades, two sorcerors, and two Dragonknights... with appropriate armor.

Your PRESUMPTION is the typical self-serving BS.

Perhaps - but whichever way you look at it you came into this thread and insulted someone you didn't know from safe behind your keyboard. Archer I presume?

Nope... only one character out of eight is an archer...

OK - so, do you actually have anything useful to add other than being rude about the motivations behind my post?

Do you make much medium armour? Do you PvE or PvP? How do you find the drop rates? If you have anything but random insults to offer I, and I am sure others, would be interested.

FYI - just harvested for 40 mins in a vr9 area ... killed 50 potential hide creatures, got 17 bits of hide... plus 57 metal, 46 cloth, 32 wood and a bunch of flowers and runes...

So in conclusion you have got 63 raw mats that can possibly give you tanners, 57 that can give tempers and 32 resins. If we consider this to be close to the average ratio It still means that you still get more tanners than tempers or resins. Let's face it the upgrade materials are the only thing that matter since a full V14 medium armor set requires 129 shadowhide.
This means 30 min of killing welwas,or 30 minutes of farming your proffered V9-10 public dungeon for decons or maybe 2k gold to actually buy that shadowhide from guild shops.If that is really such a huge issues I really do not know what to say to you.

Luckily I know what to say to you - you are missing the point.

Don't care about resins in this context. Making armour every couple of months... again don't care.

I care about the relative effort spent gathering the stack of materials needed for a leather based crafting writ vs. that of a blacksmithing writ. Since these writs are daily that means daily killing of 2-300 beasts vs. farming 3-40 nodes.

Do you see now?

No, you are missing the point.
1. Crafting writs are somewhat random so in the end you must craft both light and medium armor equally if you want to do it daily as a clothier. It does not matter if you are using medium or light.
2. The upgrade mats for clothiers are already much more abundant than that of the other crafting mats since there are two sources.Upgrade mats are the only thing that is important and in the end also the main reason for actually doing the writs anyway. If the drop rate on leather would be tripled the inequality between the crafts would be even larger.
3..Leather can be farmed faster than nodes already by anyone who knows what they are doing. It is much easier to kill hundreds of things in an instance with short spawn times than running around after nodes .The price of repairs usually equals what you get by selling the other junk also. This is again is independent of armor use since AOE farming with Steel Tornado is at least as efficient as AOE farming with Impulse and has been for much longer than 1.5.

Tavore1138

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

1. So far I have had about 3 of 5 as medium.
2. Mats are not the issue, if you are reasonably active you should have plenty already. That is not a reason to make leather harder to obtain. Plus all the writ maps point at cloth mats anyway, I have yet to get a map to a particularly skin heavy set of Welwas.
3. Not sure where you would farm in top areas as a DC starter with the same returns as you would somewhere like Elden Root. Overland re spawn rates are pretty slow in places where wolves roam or similar trash mobs you might mass kill for scraps but if you know of somewhere please share.

Overall the point is not that one cannot get scraps at all but that the level of 'work' is much higher than the equivalent number in other crafts.

Tavore1138

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

PS yes steel tornado is fine especially if you have the siphon tree to buff it.

Aett_Thorn

Agreed. For equality every kill should score 3 scraps of hide of the right level.

@PBpsy,

I think that you are coming at this from only an end-game standpoint, or at least that is what it seems like. While leveling up, though, and playing through normally, I tend to end up with about twice as many light or heavy armor raw mats as medium armor mats, even if I'm killing animals along the way (which has the additional side effect of usually causing me to out-level areas even faster than I otherwise would). If I have to farm for medium mats when I don't need to for other mat types, doesn't that show exactly the problem that the OP is talking about?

Falmari

The current way is fine.

Gathering leather mats is both easier and quicker than gather other mats.

Easier because it is the only raw mat than can be gathered through normal game play with out actually going out to gather it. While levelling my all leather wearing NB gathers the leather to make her armour. She has never had to go out and specifically gather leather to make her armour. Also leather bearing mobs are a lot easier to spot and more numerous than the other nodes.

Quicker as my Templar who is my main now can kill a mob of welwas in about the same time as it takes to harvest a node netting between 2 and 5 hide scraps.

Honestly if you can't gather leather as fast as other mats you are doing something wrong. Also leather is the only raw mat that's acquired with out having to go out and gather it.

I just wish that I got more leather crafting writs than cloth as I have around 1500 shadow hide on my bank char but no I end up getting a cloth writ so I have to go out and gather.

AlexDougherty

One scrap per beast is fine but it should at least be guaranteed.

Falmari wrote: »

Gathering leather mats is both easier and quicker than gather other mats.

It can be, especially if you are in an area with plenty of animals attacking you, But on several occassions I've been gathering level 2 leather mats to refine and run out of animals to harvest. (mainly because I researched a trait on an alt who can only craft the first two tiers of clothing, and wanted to pass it on to an alt that could craft upto vet1-3 levels)

Not saying it's a huge issue for me, because I only wanted 20 raw hides to refine, and just waited for the beasties to respawn. But I do get why for some levels it's an issue.