One thing I've noticed Silk use in writs appear to come up more often than Rubedo leather.

Also, I wish Clothing surveys gave 100% Ancestor Silk. I don't need any more Rubedo Leather or worms.

The only Keen Eye passive I have is clothing 3/3. Just to be able to spot Ancestor Silk from a distance.

I made the stupid mistake of moving from Tailoring 9/10 to 10/10 the other day, and immediately facepalmed. After spending 8k on a stack of Silk I said 'right, this won't do longterm, there go the writ gold profits'. So now I harvest it myself.....hence the Keen Eye. But I really wouldn't want to have to supply more than one character (my master crafter) with the stuff. All my other characters will stay with 9/10 Tailoring for their writs.

Imagine if we could finally get rid off the bots, those prices would go even higher (mostly rubedo).

I think Zeni should consider decreasing the loot chance on all these mats.

So simple to make economy running

Remnants of a Magicka Meta

Ravingar wrote: »

Of course the price of ancestor silk is really just simple economics. But if it spawns as much as all the other mats, then why is it significantly more expensive. In my opinion I reckon it's because the stuff is incredibly hard to see. Its the smallest mat, and sometimes it can be buried in the bushes, or hidden in the grass. Is this really the only reason why its so expensive, cause we can't see the damn thing? Or is there another reason? Either way, its interesting to see real life economics at play in ESO.

Basic economics. You are only taking into account the supply side. You are overlooking demand. Very simple.

TheValkyn wrote: »

The Argonian slaves that we sent out to harvest are on strike right now.

Well, perhaps not so much of a strike as an induced euphoria, and lack of work desire created from Skooma in both drink and and relaxing smokes, introduced by those crafty Khajiit drug pushers.

Almost all such Argonians are now little but Lounge Lizards! Observe these two young Argonians too relaxed to work:

Giraffon wrote: »

You guys are all wrong. It's because of people like me doing writs and not noticing the broken mechanic where it jumps to CP160 instead of the CP 150 you had set on the last thing you crafted. So you burn through 10x the materials for a friggin writ and then you gotta go buy some more. You might not even know why you keep running out of silk and leather, but that's why. It doesn't happen on the blacksmithing stuff.

I thought perhaps I was doing exactly this, but I wasn't. Because I do max-level writs on four characters, I thought I could have accidentally crafted cp160 gear for my light armor crafting writs (mistakes happen), so I started paying very careful attention when doing the writs. I watched very carefully and I wasn't mistakenly making cp160 gear for my writs. But it was pretty clear where all my ancestor silk was going.

You're definitely on the right track as to one of the various reasons ancestor silk is so insanely expensive. The different clothing crafting writs are skewed and the price of ancestor silk has been going up since housing dropped.

Specifically, there are three potential clothing crafting writ assignments:
1. Shoes, Hat, Sash
2. Robe, Breaches, Epaulets
3. Helmet, Arm Cops, Bracers

1. and 2. use ancestor silk while 3. doesn't. The writs always happen in the same order, so you'll be doing clothing writs that require ancestor silk two days out of three. I'm always running out of ancestor silk while I have at least 1.5k rubedo, rubedite, and ruby ash. I don't make light armor for anything other than crafting writs, so I'm 100% certain that's where my personal ancestor silk sinkhole is located.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it has been my subjective observation that ancestor silk prices uptick whenever something VERY expensive is added (or about to be added) to the Master Crafting Writ merchant. I noticed a slight increase in the price of ancestor silk after target centurions were added, then again when the Hlaalu tub and Indoriil candles were added. The recent Clockwork City DLC brought us the Transmutation Station, costing a WHOPPING 1250 writ vouchers. So now stacks of ancestor silk are selling for 12-14k. Consider all of those sweaty-try-hard-completionists who do max-level crafting writs on all 14 characters so they can be the first to put all the fancy new furniture in their house before anyone else. Think of how many people were grinding master writ vouchers for the entire month after the 1250-voucher price was announced. Now consider how much ancestor silk they go through in a week.

If the developers would either add a 4th clothing writ assignment that uses rubedo or remove the Robe-Breaches-Epaulets clothing writ, then it would reduce the overall demand for ancestor silk, which will drive down the price.

They fixed the alchemy writs. I'm no longer constantly out of nirnroot. They can fix this imbalance as well.

Ravingar wrote: »

Of course the price of ancestor silk is really just simple economics. But if it spawns as much as all the other mats, then why is it significantly more expensive. In my opinion I reckon it's because the stuff is incredibly hard to see. Its the smallest mat, and sometimes it can be buried in the bushes, or hidden in the grass. Is this really the only reason why its so expensive, cause we can't see the damn thing? Or is there another reason? Either way, its interesting to see real life economics at play in ESO.

For that you can thank ZOS for cutting the collective throats of the crafting community. While dropped gear is automatically CP 160 (assuming you have at least 160 CP) crafted gear is only "cheap" to make up to 150 CP. To CRAFT CP 160 gear it literally takes ONE HUNDRED more pieces of Ancestor Silk than it does to make CP 150 gear. That's every single piece. So MAKING CP 160 gear is prohibitively expensive in terms of the mats required. And THAT is why Ancestor Silk (and its medium and heavy counterparts) is so expensive in guild stores.