A better way to get Obsidian Shards and Ectoplasm?

This is an idea that I came up with yesterday and posted on another thread (that thread apperaed to have reached a point were hijacking was appropriate) so here goes:

ANet needs to add a new item to FoW and UW that you get besides glitter dust but is just as common in there. Then add a trader who will give you a shard (custom) or ectoplasm (custom) for all 250. The custom part is that they can't be used by any other player or sold for money. This way I would have lots of ectoplasm as I have gathered about 2K glittering dust in like 10 runs in fissure now 80% of your runs gain a shard is the equivelent and this would be a nice ratio.

I like this idea because there are times when I have cleared out FoW with 4 people and not a singel one of us got either a shard or ectoplasm but had a bunch of worthless glitter dust.

As much as I hate the price of obsidian and ecto at the rare materials traders and as much as I hate the lack of drops of these materials, I don't think the price should be dropped so dramatically. I would say about 1k per piece. That's enough where it will still be a challenge to most (considering you need a good group to get to the armor crafter anyway). I imagine the people that have completed their fissure armor played a lot in UW and FoW and probably took a long time. Think of how much longer it will take people to complete the set now that drops have been nerfed.

That is my point with the nerfs the shards and ectoplams drop so rarely that no one new stands much of a chance of getting the armor. I will even take my idea farther and make it so that the (insert name here) pices (the new glitterings dust stuff that the collector will take) is custimized so that it can't be used by another player. Then the armor is allowed to be made with any combination of the regular and custimized materials. This stops the farmers from making money at this but still allows there to be a market in the shards and ectoplasm. My idea would ony reward those who play the FoW and UW a lot but still never seem to get those drops needed for the armor and at ~~4K per piece the armor becoms very expensive withut being as effective a gold sink as it could be.

I honestly think you're on to something here. Okay, how about this? Said npc materials crafter would be hard to get to in UW to keep the challenge there. And that this crafter would make ecto for glittering dust and a charge (I get the feeling there's one of these already, I dunno, it's really late where I am, forgive my sleepiness). This, combined with player associated materials would force people to be proficient at playing in UW and FoW so they can get the materials themselves instead of running it for other people and charging them. I think this would give a little hope to those that want said armor yet still keep it hard enough to where it's actually earning it.

I'm on board for this idea...for 250 piles of glittering dusts...that would translate to over 50 drops of this other "item" which...uh...kinda sucks. I'd say that this new item should drop in singles only and it should only take 5 to craft a shard or glob +1000 gold. That's how I'd like to see it at least.

I like the ideas but the key to this whole thing is that the shards and the crafting item (good idea having it drop in singels but make it like you need 10) are customized to the character that they are made/droped for. This stops the rushers and people from making any money on this. It just adds a better and more reasonabel way to get the supplies that you need since the nerf. This way there are no farming worries as the items are worthless to anyone except the origional person (make it so that you can sell them to a merchant/outfitter NOT the rare materials trader for like 25 gold each so if you find this crafting item drop you arn't stuck with something worthless).