Request: Crafting feedback

Dear Community Reps/Developers:

I love to craft. It is my favorite thing to do in game. I enjoy making money that way, and I love watching the little .1 skillup event occur. It is, undoubtedly, what I enjoy most about FFXI.

I'm mildly concerned about the current levels of supply of crafting materials for synths above 105-106 in virtually all crafts. Some of these supplies (Scarletite Ingots, Serica Cloth) only come from the Prov Watcher path, either drops from a radiance or from Watcher itself.

Some of these supplies (Ormolu Ingots, Staghorn Coral) only come from legion.

I understand the need to limit the quantity of supplies coming into the marketplace. It creates demand, moves gil around the system, creates competition for events, drops, and prestige. For years, the only source of Behemoth Hides was....Behemoth. I understand why these supplies are limited and we can't farm drops off regular monsters.

The Devs added weakening items to Prov Watcher, I think in part, to ensure that these supplies continued to enter the marketplace even though some players had gotten everything they wanted from the mob and would be moving on to new challenges in new areas released with SoA.

I'm wondering if the Devs are content with the rate that materials are being added into the marketplace? It seems low to me, and getting lower. I have been attempting to buy Serica Cloth to skill up Clothcraft since roughly December 15th, and I have only been able to purchase 70. That seems like a lot, until you realize that it is going to take roughly 200-250 to skillup from 106-110, and their are less Serica Cloth on the auction house lately in my opinion. That means it has been 5 months, for 70 cloth.

I had hoped that high-end SoA content would include some of these items, but Skirmish is starting to get fleshed out now and none of these materials appear to drop from these fights yet. It could be early and it still happen, but it seems unlikely at this time.

What is the plan for crafting? Is there going to be an increase to 120 with new recipes to bypass the current lack of supplies for skilling up? Is there going to be new recipes using SoA area supplies that can be used to reach 108-110? Is there going to be a redistribution of where high-end crafting materials come from (one idea would be to add them to Bismark/Ig-Alima which are also done for riftdross/riftcinder or Ziliart T3 of VW which are still done for Heavy Metal Plates)?

Some information would be wonderful.

Signed,

Buffy of Slyph
Cooking 110, Wood 110, Cloth 106, Gold 101, Leather 101, Smithing 99, Bone 96, Alchemy 95.