I applaud every downtime if it fixes any ingame issues... why would you now ? I mean seriously... being unwilling to suffer downtime if it fixes stuff is a childish reaction, no matter what one's age is
The statement "if you put enough monkeys behind enough typewriters... sooner or later one will produce the works of Shakespeare" has sadly been proven utterly wrong by the internet...
But I'm not holding my breath though. The devs seem oblivious to how all their heavy-handed fixes impact those of us not using exploits or outright cheating. It's like sitting front row at a Gallagher performance and not having a raincoat.
you aint supposes to find 50+ mats in V1 and VR2 zones, and you wont find it in VR3 zones either, they scale like others.
Once you hit VR4 zone you get start getting the mats again, or go back to coldharbour and farm mats there.
and for the towns, they nerfed the loots there for the farming of motifs would stop, and they finally got their status as rare loots which is what they are meant for, hence the BLUE color.