Looking back...

[Hayward]

It seems as though SE made a mistake gating off certain items via folklore tomes. Or, more specifically, making them so irritatingly expensive to obtain. 99 tokens is almost unrealistic to get without throwing the whole idea up in disgust and has caused a lot of 2* and 3* materials to become nearly unobtainable--whether due to expense and the risk associated with the synth or lack of supply--and a lot of 2* and 3* items to become needlessly expensive.

In my opinion, SE went a bit too far in catering to hardcore crafters. If nothing else, the folklore tome requirements should be cut to 26 blue tokens, at the most.

[alimdia]

The 99 token per folklore tome requirement was high, but they have been out for a year, many of the people who don't have them right now is because they don't want to put the effort into obtaining them.

As for

has caused a lot of 2* and 3* materials to become nearly unobtainable

Market prices beg to differ.

[Judah_Brandt]

I mean they were blue gathering Scrips. You can get like 2000 an hour. The cost seemed high but the rationality is that they have to manufacture some form of Market scarcity, sense of accomplishment, or equivalent system of effort for reward. 26 Blue tokens is literally like 15 minutes worth of work. Mine Red Quartz, mine Cuprite, wait , repeat. No, I don't consider the waiting part effort.

[panderin]

In my opinion, SE went a bit too far in catering to hardcore crafters. If nothing else, the folklore tome requirements should be cut to 26 blue tokens, at the most.

I can't even with this....they catered to us....they are giving away stats to people so they can catch up. No no we "the hardcore" are the least catered to in this game. Learn a gathering rotation and learn the clock and beat the crap outta it.

[OoglieBooglie]

The folklore books aren't hard to get. I knocked out an entire book in one weekend with miner/botanist nodes. They just take a while to accumulate enough scrips, Illuminati perch are also a very good way to get blue scrips, and they're always up, no windows or anything.

[ChameleonMS]

What is being asked for is the balance between hardcore and casual players. No matter how high the time commitment needed is the hardcore player will knock that is out in hours / days / maybe a couple of weeks.
The casual on the other hand, gets a few hours to play 4 or 5 days a week. After a casual gets through his DoW commitments for a week, 50-60% of all playing time is already consumed. The casual will still take weeks complete the Folklore tombs requirements even if they were less than 1/2 the current values.

[Judah_Brandt]

You don't have to be "hardcore" to get these things. They're extremely easy to get. It takes everyone the same amount of time regardless of commitment level. If a player has more time to play, in no way does that designate them as "hardcore." The nodes still spawn at the same time, and the exchange rates dont differ based on the particular character. The idea that they should cater to the lowest end of the spectrum depreciates the value of everything in the game. If everything could be acquired with little investment or effort then the game just becomes that much more shallow. Lower it? Why not just make it free?

[AskaRay]

I know before patch... 3.2 I think it was? I panicked and got the last two folklore books (from 0 blue tokens) in about three days...ish? (maybe more but those days were a blur...)
It was brutal. Gathering against the clock, praying for good fish. But I did it.
Especially now it isn't that bad.

[Hayward]

I posted this because, at least on my server, materials for 2* & 3* crafting are quite limited in supply. That makes synthing quite risky and, in turn, expensive. The scrip token exchange system does help the matter to a degree and allows more items like Vanilla Beans and Sun Mica to circulate through the marketplace. That might also help get more Adamantite and Aurum Regis Ingots into the market and bring the prices of now transitional tools/armor (i170 Primary & Secondary tools, in particular) to more affordable levels.

[vigioX-Sun]

Just get the books you need the most, no need to make the game more easy.
the effort invested by players is gonna fell worthless.