it’s only an example. i’d say it’s enougth if only the highest quallity has an unique look or special states and the lower ones only have better values (more strangth or attack dmg or something).
But in the end, i think special looks or unique stats (abilities) are a surplus value that protects the materials from price drops. otherwise, if they can be replaced with higher tier materials they are not worth the time to develop them because in the long run noone will use them 
That sounds fun 
Ah yeah that doesn’t really make any sense.
Well I really like the idea of Common,Uncommon,Rare,and Epic.
So I’d like to keep that,but instead of this equals that
You just get better stuff until you move on to the next material. I think that’ll solve most of the problems, right?
Well if there’s crafting levels then maybe as our crafting increases our craft gets better?
I too have issues with “Gold” and “silver” being used to indicate higher quality weapons. Just because a substance is rare and considered valuable, doesn’t mean that an item made with it will be superior… just more expensive, and potentially expensive AND inferior.
I like the notion of quality materials, but to take the sample of the “rare” vs “epic” sword. If using lousy ore, it doesn’t mean the sword will be lousy. Just that you would need to use more ore and a more intensive refining process to generate your “epic” iron. e.g. more resources to refine, so if you have “common” ore, you can create common, uncommon, rare, or epic iron, but each stage would cost progressively more… a better furnace, more fuel, more effort (not certain how to express that in game terms), more waste by-products that need to be removed. So to make an epic sword from common ore is possible just costly, thus making the better ores more desirable, but not necessary.
Also crafting levels would have an effect: a high level smith could make epic iron or steel from common ore much more easily and cheaply than a novice… if the novice could at all… lack of know-how…
Other materials though like wood, or stone would potentially be common, uncommon, rare, and epic on their own… e.g. Hardwoods vs softwoods, and they’d also be harder to collect… a nice hard basalt may take a rare+ hammer to get it intact (the better quality tool extracts better quality material. lesser quality tools reduce quality of gathered high quality materials: common hammer -> epic stone = common stone (with small chance of gathering higher quality on occasion), but epic hammer -> epic stone = epic stone. Of course, epic hammer -> common stone = common stone…
Similarly a stone ax would ruin the large majority of a gathered “epic” tree’s wood.
To go back to gold or other “rare” ingredients, they do have a place in making specialized alloys… which may be better at conducting magical energy… but a gold sword out fighting a nice steel alloy sword… phaw. Unless it was enchanted… even then I’d like to see more fanciful alloy recipes… gold/molybdenum/titanium/steel for a magical conductor, but thats just me.
That would remove the point of it. even if that is what makes sense in ‘‘the real world’’
What he said was nothing else than converting with a penalty. Or did I miss something? If so, could you tell me how it’s different and how that would remove the point?
the way i read it was that you could directly put in x amount of common ore to make an epic sword instead of having to turn the common ore into uncommon into rare into epic. saying that you should be able to make it with an increased amount, i like the idea of refining the ore with a penalty, i dont like the idea of just using x amount of more common iron ore to make an epic sword (even though they might theoretically the same, for me it just seems less intimidating to say ‘‘you need to use 5 epic ore’’ than it does to say ‘‘you need to use common 5000 iron ore’’)
I read it as a even harder version of refining^^ So you may need multiple steps to refine the ore to the next stage.
it is possible i misunderstood it then.
i meant in many stages (as @KuroKuma interpreted it) . it’s also a possible time sink, like in guild wars 2 for ascanded materials.
but i didn’t mentiond a direct “penalty” because the drop-rate itself is random (like 1000:1) i think it’s already a penalty if it’s craftable with 1000:1 … but that’s only my opinion and i would be fine if there is / will be one.
I do like my randomization, which is why i suggested this.
however i also mentioned that the epic was the best not the only option. having a scale directly proportional to the chance of finding it seems wrong, because then there is not much reason for the random chance is there? if there is a 1:1000 chance of finding it, assuming you had the worst of luck and only gotten common, you are always ensured to get one per thousand try, due to that. however remember i mentioned 4 rarities, uncommon and rare would also drop, uncommon reducing the common ore needed by 10 and rare by 100. meaning we would get a way smaller number. which is why i suggest a slightly higher rate, after all, its an epic material, should be rare, like really rare, i like the idea of being able to sacrifice a huge amount of common materials to get better materials, but if they are the exact same rate then there isnt much fun to the randomness is there?
doing the math, statistically after 1000 tries you would have
1 epic
10 rare
100 uncommon
899 common
if you have a one to one ratio, this would mean you would statistically have
3 epic and 8 rare and 99 common
However the droprate should show the chance of getting it, meaning that it should be through luck and not just brute force that you achieve it.
The numbers might be a bit high ofc, depending on how you view the material in question and how many would be needed to craft something, if we use it as glyphs which requires 2 rare and can be placed on any tier weapon, then i dont think its too much, if its only useable on the low tier and you might need 5 or 10 ore, then yeah it might be too much.
The other answers made me realize that plain dmg isnt necessarily the best choice, i just like the idea of having rarer materials which would be worth more, rather than it being like ESO where materials were just flooding the markets (also depends on whether or not mining profession will be a thing or everybody can collect every material)
you meantion something here that made me crazy in guild wars 2 (the “mystical toilet”). Some people got a pre-cursor the 2 time they tried it and the 5th time … i tried it like 100 times and got nothing so i really like your idea there is an fix upper limit and if you reach it, you can be sure you get it. in this scenario i totaly agree with you, we need a penalty. but if it’s totaly “random” (like if you have bad luck you have 10k common iron and not 1 epic) i thing even the smalles penalty would be “unfair”.
EDIT: wow … your edit … 
… dodn’t worry about numbers … i’m sure they are only “placeholders” and they will be a point of balancing
Luck isnt fair. thats the definition of luck, defying the odds. on the other hand as i said multiple times, i do agree that a way to refine lower tier materials is a great idea, especially if the high tiers can still use them, in that way low tier materials would always have a certain value.
the thing i trie to say is not that luck is “fair or unfair”. maybe i expressed mayself clumsily here. let me reword my argument.
if the therotical upper limit is 1:1000 for the drop chance of an epic material, why should it be false to say the converting factor is 1000:1 ? because it’s already the upper limit, you had planty of chances to get it droped erlier. but if you don’t got droped it … you can at least create one epic with your “worthless” commons.
there is that one point that i hate when it comes to “random” in computer systems. there is no “real” randomness … and as long as the devs are not willing to use a source of entropy every random algorithim is pre-determined and not “random”. so in fact there will be people that have a good chance to never find an epic … (that’s a theoreticaly view, but it’s not unlikely some people will have more bad luck as others because of the random algorithm that is used …)
Simple, i even mentioned it for you
Maybe you see it differently than me, the conversion for me would be
Common → uncommon → rare → epic
meaning that you need 100 common for a rare, however if you have 4 uncommon already you only need 60, you see?
that’s all fine and not the point i’m talking about
i don’t see the need for an extra penalty (the upper limit should be a good converting factor). sorry if i skip the lower qulities for simplicity, i have them in mind.
But it is not the upper limit! the upper limit would be 1 : 1000 if you only got whites, but you didnt, chances are you got way others, i even did the math.
Dargh, @KuroKuma help me out here. (im gonna keep doing that whenever im stuck, hope you dont mind)
Ok, i see we are arguing about words … not “upper limit” but “drop chance” ?
No, we are not arguing about words, you just dont understand the math. now thats just rude so let me ask.
‘‘is your argument… that due to it being 1/1000 drop chance, its fair that you can get 1 per 1000 drops’’?
because that is what i see you saying, which is wrong, not the fact that you think its fair, but the fact that you think you only get 1 per thousand ignoring the randomness.