Why is farm uneven with leather?

Alharion

When I farm leather, I find the loot uneven, whereas we have to kill mobs to collect it, the others have 1 or 2 pickaxe moves to make. We pick up between 2 and 3 purple leathers, while the others can easily pick up 5/7 with a single pick, and even then, sometimes you kill 1 or 2 mobs at the same time and nothing comes of it...

What's more, I could be wrong, but I have the impression that the harvesting advantage given by champion points doesn't work for purple leather, the farm for this material is quite unfair compared to the others. Shouldn't this be reviewed to make it a bit fairer?

laniakea_0

probably because we already have to kill all sorts of low difficulty enemies anyway. you tend to get them so easily that you don't really need to farm them.

Alharion

it's not a reason why you should have less or a reduced chance of getting leather.

ghastley

They are the only resource nodes that will come tou you!

SeaGtGruff

@Alharion, I feel pretty much the same as you. I made a thread about it a few years ago-- "No love for Medium Armor?" or something like that-- but no one else seemed to see the problem. If one of the other resource nodes were to be changed to act similar to Medium Armor resource "nodes," such as some nodes were empty, and others contained only "trash" rather than actual crafting materials-- players would be through the roof. But everybody seems to just accept the way it is with Medium Armor material sources.

Munkfist

Going through my craftbag, I currently have nearly double as much Rubedo Leather as I do Ancestor Silk. Leather is abundant from nearly all natural sources (killing wildlife, enemy or not, and even drops from animals that don't have any sort of leather in their anatomy)

There are more sources for the leather materials than there are for plant, ore, and wood materials, which only have one node type for each.

The more sources available per material makes up for a lower yield of that respective material.

SeaGtGruff

Munkfist wrote: »

Going through my craftbag, I currently have nearly double as much Rubedo Leather as I do Ancestor Silk.

But do you spend as much time harvesting other resource nodes as you apparently do killing animals?

I do; I've been known to go way out of my way when I'm heading somewhere specific just so I can harvest every resource node that I see. And my experience has been that Light Armor Clothing plants are extremely common in most areas. Many have been the times when I ran to harvest what I thought was an Alchemy plant, only to discover that it was yet another Light Armor Clothing plant.

Munkfist

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

Going through my craftbag, I currently have nearly double as much Rubedo Leather as I do Ancestor Silk.

But do you spend as much time harvesting other resource nodes as you apparently do killing animals?

I do; I've been known to go way out of my way when I'm heading somewhere specific just so I can harvest every resource node that I see. And my experience has been that Light Armor Clothing plants are extremely common in most areas. Many have been the times when I ran to harvest what I thought was an Alchemy plant, only to discover that it was yet another Light Armor Clothing plant.

I specifically farm other resource nodes, and don't go out of my way to farm animals at all. The leather that I have is mostly from running dungeons/trials and random quests/dailies.

When I farm for resources (I love to just see the big numbers in my craftbag), I entirely skip animals and aggro and only go for other nodes.

disintegr8

Leather drops everywhere and crafting surveys were changed years ago to include leather (once upon a time they only dropped light armour resources).

spartaxoxo

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

Going through my craftbag, I currently have nearly double as much Rubedo Leather as I do Ancestor Silk.

But do you spend as much time harvesting other resource nodes as you apparently do killing animals?

I do; I've been known to go way out of my way when I'm heading somewhere specific just so I can harvest every resource node that I see. And my experience has been that Light Armor Clothing plants are extremely common in most areas. Many have been the times when I ran to harvest what I thought was an Alchemy plant, only to discover that it was yet another Light Armor Clothing plant.

Around a given quest you might get like 5 of the other mats but be tasked with killing 20 some enemies. So that even people who pick up things while questing end up with way more leather than cloth.

TaSheen

disintegr8 wrote: »

Leather drops everywhere and crafting surveys were changed years ago to include leather (once upon a time they only dropped light armour resources).

Yeah, I'd prefer the previous way. I have about 3 times as much leather as ancestor silk (on three accounts both PC megaservers). I'm the odd one out - while I farm all the time a character is out, I don't find as much silk as I'd like.... and as of now, I've had only 2 clothier surveys in the last 2 monts, one on PC NA, and one on PC EU. Annoying.

Braffin

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

Going through my craftbag, I currently have nearly double as much Rubedo Leather as I do Ancestor Silk.

But do you spend as much time harvesting other resource nodes as you apparently do killing animals?

I do; I've been known to go way out of my way when I'm heading somewhere specific just so I can harvest every resource node that I see. And my experience has been that Light Armor Clothing plants are extremely common in most areas. Many have been the times when I ran to harvest what I thought was an Alchemy plant, only to discover that it was yet another Light Armor Clothing plant.

But isn't that exactly the point? You literally can't run out of leather, as killing animals is part of almost every activity in this game, which earns you leather as side drop.

Silk on the other side, while nodes are quite common, has to be picked up on purpose. There is no other way of earning it.

TaSheen

Braffin wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

Going through my craftbag, I currently have nearly double as much Rubedo Leather as I do Ancestor Silk.

But do you spend as much time harvesting other resource nodes as you apparently do killing animals?

I do; I've been known to go way out of my way when I'm heading somewhere specific just so I can harvest every resource node that I see. And my experience has been that Light Armor Clothing plants are extremely common in most areas. Many have been the times when I ran to harvest what I thought was an Alchemy plant, only to discover that it was yet another Light Armor Clothing plant.

But isn't that exactly the point? You literally can't run out of leather, as killing animals is part of almost every activity in this game, which earns you leather as side drop.

Silk on the other side, while nodes are quite common, has to be picked up on purpose. There is no other way of earning it.

Not only that - leather writs only happen about 1 time to 3 of silk. And when I have a new mag character at CP 160, inevitably that's when I have almost NO silk. Which is not the case with a new stam character, ever.

I try not to whine. But paying for silk on the traders is enough lately to make me wish I could just bomb the traders out of existence and grab the goods....

*sigh*

Braffin

TaSheen wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

Going through my craftbag, I currently have nearly double as much Rubedo Leather as I do Ancestor Silk.

But do you spend as much time harvesting other resource nodes as you apparently do killing animals?

I do; I've been known to go way out of my way when I'm heading somewhere specific just so I can harvest every resource node that I see. And my experience has been that Light Armor Clothing plants are extremely common in most areas. Many have been the times when I ran to harvest what I thought was an Alchemy plant, only to discover that it was yet another Light Armor Clothing plant.

But isn't that exactly the point? You literally can't run out of leather, as killing animals is part of almost every activity in this game, which earns you leather as side drop.

Silk on the other side, while nodes are quite common, has to be picked up on purpose. There is no other way of earning it.

Not only that - leather writs only happen about 1 time to 3 of silk. And when I have a new mag character at CP 160, inevitably that's when I have almost NO silk. Which is not the case with a new stam character, ever.

I try not to whine. But paying for silk on the traders is enough lately to make me wish I could just bomb the traders out of existence and grab the goods....

*sigh*

Yeah, the traders...

Fortunately I sit on a good stock of both materials, as I farm nirncrux for analysis on my twinks (it's not necessary, I know 🙂). But I've at least 6x the amount of leather than I have of silk. That's why I also preferred the original system, which gave 6x silk per survey.

SeaGtGruff

Well, I must be the exception that proves the rule (a nonsensical saying if ever there was one), because I doublechecked and I definitely have more Light Armor material than Medium Armor. That's on my PC EU main, who rarely does crafting for other players, so about the only things he uses up any of his materials on are daily writs, master writs, and crafting pieces of L1 gear for my alts to research.

I haven't doublechecked my PC NA main, but he does occasionally craft for other players, and Medium Armor is more often requested than Light Armor, so that would be one possible explanation for why he might have less Medium Armor materials than Light Armor (if in fact that happens to be the case).

TaSheen

I guess I should admit that part of my problem is doing daily writs at max level on 11 characters (across 3 accounts both PC megaservers). Do I NEED to do that? No. I suppose not. But it's kind of a habit by now, so seems like somethng's wrong if I don't....

Must need to reframe my expectations or whatever.... Problem is,. I like the extra master writs.

Braffin

@SeaGtGruff

Need some leather for your eu toons? Just checked and I've 12k of that crap, not included unrefined material. Definitely won't miss some...

wolfie1.0.

Leather drops used to be more common, but were nerfed in patch years ago. I believe the reasoning was to combat mob bots, but not sure.

Beilin_Balreis_Colcan

I have roughly 6k ancestor silk and 7k rubedo leather, the last time I checked, but as others have already mentioned, it's probably due to my play style, writ RNG, survey RNG, etc.

Dagoth_Rac

I doubt ZOS are interested in the amount of resources gained by any individual but more about how much enters the game economy in total. For people who actively farm resource nodes, yes, you will indeed end up with more cloth/wood/ore than leather when you go on a farming run. But for the people who ignore resource nodes, and that is a lot of players, they will still farm leather as a side effect of normal questing and gameplay. If ZOS made leather farming as efficient as farming other resources, the game would be oversaturated in leather due to all the leather that "normal" players accumulate without even trying.

Basically, people who actively farm resources end up with less leather than other raw mats, while people who do not farm resources end up with more leather than anything else.

SeaGtGruff

Braffin wrote: »

@SeaGtGruff

Need some leather for your eu toons? Just checked and I've 12k of that crap, not included unrefined material. Definitely won't miss some...

Wow, thank you for the generous offer, but I already have a good bit of my own-- 31.8k of Rubedo Leather. I've never hurt for leather, I'm just saying that I personally have more Ancestor Silk than Rubedo Leather-- 47.6k of Ancestor Silk.

Zabagad

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

31.8k of Rubedo Leather. -- 47.6k of Ancestor Silk.

My stats: 37,1k of Rubedo Leather. -- 15,7k of Ancestor Silk.

If more post the stats we will see if that is almost even or not....

The_Boggart

I can't get rid of the leather the RNG of clothing crafting writs tends for the cloth not the leather

laniakea_0

indeed. I really wish that quest would let you choose between one or the other...

rpa

If one avoids unneccessary fighting and makes habit to collect nearby nodes, one gets more cloth than leather. If one aggroes and kills everything and ignores nodes one gets more leather and less cloth. It is a matter of play style.

Zodiarkslayer

The point is that you have to see not just the availability, but also the consumption of these mats.
Most players will have an excess of leather, because the surveys roughly give the same amount of raw silk and raw leather. Whereas the daily writs will consume leather once in 3 days and silk twice.

What is ZOS supposed to do about this leather problem anyway? Make new leather nodes, so that we can farm them just as we are silk? Okay...

In that case we need to get rid of the leather from monster drops and shift leather to ressource nodes. I mean it could be something like the critter traps from the surveys. No problem there.
However, this would create a situation, just like with ore and seams, where two types of ressources compete for the same nodes. The reason why you'd have to do it this way is simple. You cannot add more nodes for an additional ressource, in this we are forced to use what already exists in game.

But that would only serve to artificially shorten general supply of both. Take a look at the current guild trader prices for platinum ounces and ask yourself if you want that for ancestor silk too.

Kiralyn2000

Killing mobs =/= "harvesting a leather node". You get other loot drops, you get XP, etc. There's a lot more "animal" nodes than there are resource nodes. They respawn a lot faster. It's not remotely equivalent. That's why you don't get 5-7 leather per "node".

freespirit

I don't farm nodes or leather dropping animals but I do pick up/kill as I go.

I do crafting dailies on eight characters per day and rarely craft anything other than for myself and these days that's not that often either.

I am pretty lazy, so only really do surveys when I want some potential of gold mats to sell, consequently I have 100's of them.

I never sell cloth or leather and I ALWAYS have at least three times as much leather as I do silk!!
Atm I have close to 50k leather and around 15k silk.

Edit:- I was just thinking I do decon everything green or above that I pick up. I wonder how balanced drops are between cloth and leather? I always have high amounts of ingots too but find I run low on wood sometimes which is weird.

SpacemanSpiff1

i always have more leather than cloth. probably due to writ dailies being light armor pieces 2/3 of the time.

peacenote

Perspectives are funny sometimes. I haven't had to farm leather for years, but I greatly enjoy it compared to clicking on nodes, which is extremely boring.

Finding animals and farming them, which are a great source of leather, is much more satisfying, in my opinion. I get other loot, I get XP, I level abilities, I can use characters I may not use for other, harder content. Even the humble mudcrabs drop leather, which are also great for chitin - something else I often need for writs. If you go after goats, you're potentially working towards achievement and they don't even fight back!

Anyway. Regardless of who finds what fun which I agree is subjective (trying to be a bit playful here), leather is so plentiful, if you know where to find it, that I personally feel it really would be imbalanced if it was also bolstered as a node or dropped more per kill. And I like the small realism of leather coming from animals and fish coming from fish/fishing holes/water in this game. I would hate to see leather move to "nodes" to simplify the game and resource gathering.