Just to put that out there. Materials in SK are no longer worth ANYTHING, barely a few crowns. So why not have the Spiral Order "confiscate" all the materials from knights? It works since it will drive up the prices for materials again and revitalize the market for it. Before they do that, they probably should have a huge CE sale to coerce people to transmute new items before the material reset.
Wild suggestion: Material Reset
People hold varying amounts of mats, no. I know "mat merchants" who sell mats on the AH for modest daily profits, they'd get their stocks ripped away. I hold a fair few SL mats and I'd be incredibly pissed off if I lost 50k worth of this stuff, espescially when you consider that I'd have to buy at increased prices to replace them. The same mat deflation thing would happen over and over again, but mats would be devalued even more toward the end of a "mat cycle" because people would know that the end was coming. If OOO wants to change the mat market, they will change the mat market. But from what I've seen, they don't.
you just have to sell the correct ones, green and blue shards always sell, admittedly green shards have dropped a little in price
but the mats for popular gear will always sell well, monster bones and bushy tales for example sell for considerable amounts, as do drake scales (1k cr each for something that you picked up randomly for free yes please)
taking away materials isnt the answer, making them slightly rarer would drive up prices but id rather not see that happen as most of my crowns come from selling mats in the AH (hey im greedy) it would also increase dependence on the AH for newbies when the are trying to gather mats for higher level gear - when they should be out there grinding the clockworks, using all their energy so they buy more so the dev team continues to work on SK
This is a short term fix, not a long term one.
Short term fixes just end up with people whining later again.
The only short term fix that is acceptable are accessory promotions.
Heck no. I've got 3 Everfrosts- that's SOLID GOLD, kid. And what about those lucky devils with Sparks of Life or Plasma Cells? Those are in huge demand and aren't found often (5 star mats from Shock monsters and Lumbers don't pop up in RJP or FSC), they sell for large amounts of money. Mugs of Misery are also big, as they're only really found on Devilites, which are in all of 3 missions in Tier 3. (Return of Ur has a lot, Weight of Darkness has some, and The Gauntlet has some that are annoyingly Shock based.) Silverweave is often used in Trinkets, is not often found in FSC (only 2 Silkwings there), and as such costs quite a bit.
Taking all these mats would be incredibly unfair.
Imagine working up your own business from scratch. You worked hard, long, and painfully; your blood and tears are in this business. Now imagine someone walks in and takes it away.
We would lose more people than we are already losing and the materials would reaccumulate within a couple weeks.