Resource Collection

There is a fundamental issue with mining in this game or any resource collection and @Chris really needs to look at resource collection with a birds eye view. In order to get an Ingot you need 4 ores. Let's take Elysium for an example, with high end skills and a full run of the mine. You will probably come out with about 60-63 silver ores. That's about 15 ingots, and enchant is 5 Ingot. Assuming you have already created your armor and you have exactly what you want, you can possibly put 3 enchantments on to that armor with 1 round trip of Elysium mine.

This is assuming everything goes well, RNG fell into place and no failures. Sounds good right but imagine if it doesn't. Currently we have no way to get our material whether it's Ingot, Silver or any material that it takes to get back the armor/weapon we made back instead we get crap back.

If @Chris could look at resource collection and give us the ability to recover materials used in making an item and also materials used to enchant/mastercraft on salvage. If I am a Master at creating say cloth armor I should be able to get back my cotton or even 1 beetle I used to create that piece of armor. Why do I always get crap back as a Master tailor. Let's be even fair lets say at 130+ you are able to get your materials back, lets up it a bit since anyone can GM a skill nowadays. Make us work for it @Chris but allow us to get some even as little as possible material back that we put into making that armor.

You can spend hours mining or collecting other resources and when it comes to crafting, when you begin to craft that perfect piece of armor. What are we supposed to do with the armor we deemed useless, the ones RNG didn't fell into place, the ones that didn't get that exceptional roll. Selling the items to NPC vendors is not worth it and salvaging it is even worse. So please I beg you @Chris give us the ability not to waste our time and make resources collection an amazing experience lets us not waste these resources as we are doing now. Make playing meaningful like you always say on your streams.

 

One of the fundamental flaws of the crafting system.
Been making noise about this for about 5 years now...
Basically something needs to change, either in the amount you can collect, the amount you waste (remove RNG), or being able to salvage/recycle failures for meaningful return.
Until then, crafting is a giant time/money sink of frustration and pain.

 

I hear you on this, myself though I like how hard it is to get resources which feeds some player who farm for a living in the game. myself I prefer to buy from those that take that time pending the pricing. it is a pain that is for sure but once you get to my levels and become an established trader/vendor money is no problem and you can feed your crafting with gold coin rather than harvesting. with the increase in xp though even myself I find in the mines more often to help expand my pool more. I 100% agree though that as a master in salvage the gains on deconstruction of what we make should be better and return some of the value invested in them as its very costly.

 

Salvaging is, in general, pretty useless for crafted goods. RNG can ruin high-end craftables and it's painful to simply vendor them. Getting some of the materials back, with the chances improving with higher skill and the buff using the Obsidian potion, would be nice.

 

I generally get more then 1 ingot per four ore. I also tend to leave mines with far more then 60-63 ore, more like 150-200. That said, I haven't needed to replenish silver in a while.
Silver isn't used for Enchantments. Gold is, so if you're in Elysium for enchantment, you're definitely doing it wrong.
I have done gold-mining recently, and looping around third and forth floors of Crag generate gold at a reasonable rate.

I believe this was supposed to be how we got Silver/gold scraps. I'd love someone to take a look at that.

I get the impression you've never actually made clothing. There's really not a way to get a contiguous yard of fabric out of a dress, and getting the resources out of the fabric is not realistic. That's just not how life works.

With the addition of rerolls now, even the RNG limitation isn't as bad. Most importantly, you don't need perfect armor. So you have a bit with low durability? Use it for a bit till it fails then make another, your next will benefit from you having the higher skills because of the prior.

 

Since this was implemented i collected like 20 gold and 10 silver scraps... just one more year and i can make a few cheap ingots XD

 

I wasn't even aware it was in!


Obviously these don't come up enough.

 

The recipe to actually make gold and silver from scraps is in the game currently.

What hasn’t been added was a way to economically acquire the items needed to obtain the Gold and silver scrap.

 

That's my mistake, I should of refer to Masterwork rather than Enchantment. Crag has 4 floors so yes you can come out with over 150 gold. Elysium is only one floor and with good amount of points in Efficient Refine Materials you will get more out of smelting.

If I make Carapacian cloth chest why is not reasonable to get a Carapacian cloth back or the threads for it. Does that not make sense?

Have you not played the game recently or done any high end contents, armor durability is crazy now. I am constantly repairing my armor every 2 days. Within 2-3 month I will need to replace at least 1 piece of armor.

To make a Epic Carapacian cloth chest it takes 10 Carapacian cloth at 100 durability non exceptional. Bolt of Carapacian cloth is two Spool of Carapacian Thread, the thread are 4 Cotten Thread and 1 Beetle Carapace.

I am a fire/life mage and at my level I am not looking to be wearing something that just about cut it. I want to pack as much needed stats that I need for my specific build in order to get the best return.

My last batch of armor making was 20 Carapacian cloth chest(400 Beetle Carapace) with only 5 Exceptional and my tailoring is only 135. All of the exceptional was deemed rubbish to me because of the rolls and only 4 came out with that stats I needed with 35 durability left. The rest I can't salvage or sell to NPC vendor as it's a waste. I keep those for the days we might get a overhaul on the salving skills so we can perhaps get something back.

Maybe if the game actually gives us an incentive to do real group play and not feel that you get more out of solo attunement rather than group armor durability wouldn't hurt as much.

 

The recipe has been in forever, but apparently they drop in low quantities now. shrug

Just did a run to collect silver. I left with 168.

It does not make sense because, you if you scrap an article of clothing, you do not end up with with a contiguous piece of cloth you can use to make a new article of clothing.

If you want to talk about recent durability changes, that's a different matter. I am displeased with them, to put it lightly, as it appears to be simply a way to favor heavy armor more then it already is (and it already is favored, coming from someone who has characters who are both heavy and light armor users).

My point exactly, you are only accepting a perfect piece of armor, you're free to do that, but it's going to be extremely expensive, as well as unnecessary.

 

See, I am not disputing that this is absolutely true - you don't need perfect gear, in fact, for most of what I do, I can get away with doing it in my dance party outfit and still be successful.
That's not the point.

A big part of the MMO experience is gear progression, and the systems in Sota are designed in a way to encourage people to accept mediocrity, or "good enough", and to be disposable.
If my goal was get "good enough" and be done, then well, I 'won' this game years ago, and there's simply no reason to continue.
There has to be a goal, the quest to get better and shinier things, otherwise you're logging in to do what? Accumulate gold and resources so you can replace your mediocre gear when it wears out? That's a hamster wheel of effort going round and round and round and leading nowhere.

So if we accept that there's no gear progression,
And there's no longer any experience progression beyond a certain point, another 50 million to my pool just doesn't make a dent with what stuff starts costing,
And there's no real wealth progression (or the most efficient way to do is by just grinding trivial stuff...)
Is that it? I win? Why am I still going to play this game?

I'm not saying this lightly. I'll give an idea of the scale.
Through in-game gold acquisition I have earned enough gold to convert to cotos to accumulate about 20 tax free properties mostly villages since they are still the most efficient.
My husband and his farming empire has worked to upgrade his quest-reward row lot deed all the way to a CASTLE. It took him a couple years to do it.
So he has a castle. And he immediately filled it with more greenhouses....Now what?
Between us we have every crafting skill at 140+ and still can't make anything consistently or make a profit crafting - better off selling raw materials.
Storage boxes bulge with ingots and beetle carapaces and spare artifacts and things to replace our gear when it wears out.
There is quite literally, no reason for me to log in and do anything.
The actual acquisition process isn't "fun", its "work" with frequent touchpoints of "disappointment" or "well, that was a waste of time."

So if gear doesnt matter,
And more levels don't matter
And more gold isn't going to buy you anything you've not already got 10 of,
what's left?

I'd happily sink another 10,000 hours into faction work, meaningful pvp games with their own progression, or trying different things, lateral advancement, working up other skills/builds (if there was only a way to change on the fly....), making up more gear sets and experimental gear sets (if I didn't have to fight RNG to do it...). I see the potential for a lot more time (and money) to be spent playing Sota. There's certainly more I'd like to do. But not going to grind just for the sake of grinding.