MINING IS BROKE?!?!? WHEN will it be fixed?

Discussion in 'Crafting & Gathering' started by Humblemeister, Jun 18, 2017.

?

How Long will it take to become a GM Blacksmith and Masterworker under the current Ore available?

  1. It will probably never happen in my lifetime

    38.9%
  2. I will be old and grey IF it ever happens

    22.2%
  3. In a few years while I enjoy playing the overall game

    41.7%
Multiple votes are allowed.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Humblemeister

    Humblemeister Avatar

    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    3
    "..where the best gear is made by the players..."

    How can we make it if we don't have a decent supply of ORE?!?!

    Why have you (Portalarium) screwed this up so bad? Listen, I joined the SotA community and game because I especially loved crafting (particularly blacksmithing) and because I loved making things to sell and to help other players. YOU are messing it up! I work for a living (in my real life) and do not have WEEKS to spend in the mines. I use to spend DAYS (mainly weekends) and I thought that was ridiculous but NOW its ALL ridiculous. You have destroyed VERDANTIS and SERPENTS SPINE. Don't you want an economy in each area of the map that has good mining? They are beautiful artistic creations but not the slightest bit practical. I even tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and thought that the "mother load" was behind the Litch in Serpents Spine Mine, after figuring out how to flood the hole, and STILL there was nothing behind the Litch worth the difficulty. Now they are BORING instances where the nodes are fewer and spread out so far apart you spend a LONG time in them without much gain. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK, HELLO?!?!?! Oh and WHAT are you planning to do with the mine in Twins Foothills.. we (the community I know) are all cringing and hope dearly that you don't screw the mining up THERE.. it is the last spot where we "masterworkers" can get a descent amount of gold and silver. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK, HELLO?!?!?!

    I am a life time fan and supporter of Ultima and Richard Garriot. I stated playing his games in 1980 (I was 15 years old) on my fathers Apple II. Great times with my Dad. I now live in Fortus End. I moved up here because the location was great (near these mines). I am disappointed in the game right now. My dreams of becoming an awesome blacksmith have been pushed out SO FAR AWAY that I am beginning to think about moving again.. I MEAN moving out of the game ENTIRELY. PLEASE HELP. I cannot get enough ORE in a respectable amount of gaming time!!! If I stay here, I may die (real life) before obtaining my goal and dream! I don't mind the labor of mining in the game, but you have added a TIME vs. LOW YIELD of ore scenario I CANNOT CONTINUE with.

    Sincerely,

    Sebastian S.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 19, 2017
  2. Boedy Arc

    Boedy Arc Avatar

    Messages:
    147
    Likes Received:
    218
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Germany
    ITs stil to fast gaining until GMs so thats what i say for it......

    [​IMG]

    so hold on and let chris all do harder....
     
  3. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

    Messages:
    13,289
    Likes Received:
    23,380
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Caer Dracwych
    I'm going to come at this from a different angle and make an observation.

    I suspect that Portalarium is trying to balance based on their vision of a completed system. Which includes more crafting skills currently not in-game. Specifically, refining skills.

    We can assume within some reason that the current output of refining skill trees such as smelting is based, well the one skill we have. Where additional to be added are 0. I know that seems pretty obvious.. of course there are no more skills. My point is that when refining skill trees finally get new skills, the output potential of those skills will go up.

    I recall the devs saying we might have refining skills similar to meticulous collection or something else that will increase output. Otherwise there won't be much point in those skills existing. The current skills are likely balanced with that in mind.

    In other words, there is still the potential for an increased availability of refined materials without increasing ore availability. The question is when we will see the refining skills come in.

    That all being said I'd like to make another point. The more abundant raw materials are, the lower prices will be.
     
  4. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    What are you expectations exactly? How long do you think it should take someone to GM Blacksmithing? How would you balance this so everyone in the game wasn't a GM Blacksmith? (otherwise no one would buy anything from each other, they'd just make it themselves)
     
  5. Bow Vale

    Bow Vale Avatar

    Messages:
    1,729
    Likes Received:
    4,699
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Pericaliya

    How long do you think it should take a NEW player who hasn't the advantage of easy ore to GM Blacksmithing? How would you balance this so that new players will not always be so far behind the early players with their advantages?(otherwise no new player or someone who hasn't reaped the early game advantages will be making anything anyone else wants to buy. Early players who have already GM'd mining/manufacturing skills are already at the head of the tree and never likely to be toppled or even matched if the rules get changed to make it harder for new players)
     
    Whitestag, FrostII, zyxe and 2 others like this.
  6. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    You're not answering my questions. You're creating a strawman and beating your fists against it.

    You can't just fix this problem by making it easier for new players. You have to think about the realities of the game we have. If you make it easy for new players, how does that not make it even easier for the old players? Too often players identify a problem only to expect the solution not to create more problems.

    There's a lot of nuance in game design. Your attack of old players is not helpful to finding a good solution. Before we find a solution though, it's important to understand what the expectations are. Is this new players expecting to be a GM Blacksmith in a few hours? A few days? Weeks? Months? What exactly does he/she expect? That's a pretty important thing to understand before we start changing things, don't you think?

    And if the new players expect to be able to compete with older players that have been doing this for almost a year, what does "competing" look like? If the answer is, they have to be "the best" as something like GM Blacksmithing....I don't see how that's going to work in our game. Because there's a larger problem that goes way beyond "new players getting a lot of ore". The way the crafting system is designed, there's no "player skill" involved, and that means that whoever has the most skill points is "the best". That's the ACTUAL problem here.
     
  7. redfish

    redfish Avatar

    Messages:
    11,366
    Likes Received:
    27,673
    Trophy Points:
    165
    You know, if they made the crafting requirements smaller, it would work just as well as giving you more ore, with less of the grind.
     
  8. mike11

    mike11 Avatar

    Messages:
    1,588
    Likes Received:
    1,562
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I never liked any of the mines I thought they are were terribly designed, at least what I saw. I never understood why people flocked to them.
     
    Chrystoph Reis likes this.
  9. Stundorn

    Stundorn Avatar

    Messages:
    3,790
    Likes Received:
    5,677
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Estgard/ Cologne
    just want to say - 10 trees for a stool is ridiculous :rolleyes:
     
    Gregg247, StarLord, Solazur and 3 others like this.
  10. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

    Messages:
    15,680
    Likes Received:
    19,463
    Trophy Points:
    153
    i think the high material requirements for the masterworking skills are a good way to balance the fact that's it's possible to gm blacksmithing without making so much as a single hilt, just salvaging loot.
     
    Sorthious and Sara Dreygon like this.
  11. The Banker

    The Banker Avatar

    Messages:
    97
    Likes Received:
    214
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Skills should be locked so you can only have 1 GM and there should be significant advantages to being a GM scaling higher the more points u have in it.


    Also the mines are broken. They should take a look at the yield difference between the mines.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2017
  12. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

    Messages:
    6,194
    Likes Received:
    12,076
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Holy shamoly! How many tries did that take?
     
  13. Bow Vale

    Bow Vale Avatar

    Messages:
    1,729
    Likes Received:
    4,699
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Pericaliya
    I didn't think they were directed at me, i wasn't involved in this thread....

    I'm included in the 'old players' and i likely have more xp in combat and crafting than yourself and am not 'attacking'...Don't be so dramatic! I am not blind to my own advantages in the game, less than some, sure, but a lot more than most and that's not even including the new players who will need patience of a saint to get anywhere close to older players in being able to make items people will actually want to buy.

    You cant have a fix all solution for all players. People are individuals and all after different goals but generally i would 'imagine' that new players with regard mining/crafting will want the 'ability and chance' to be able to get to a position they can produce items as efficiently and as good as the top producers, else what is the point of even starting that journey when no one will want to buy their goods., With less ore being mined then enchanting/Masterworking is going to be even more expensive in money and time for players against those already there or close with less ore being available.

    Being in a position to be able to make similar items for the same cost in money and time? At the moment they will always be behind and the journey to get there forever being lengthened.

    That's a shame. Personally i would never entertain looking at a game of this type if its been out a while and i could not conceivably catch up with older players. Add to this the problem of making it even harder for new players....I'm quite sure I'm not alone in that outlook, but time will tell.

    Agree..But how can u change it to mean player skill matters.....Of course in real life two people with the same years xp in a field say in making tables could have vastly different quality of output. Be great to see something like true skill added to the crafting process but I'm not sure of any games out there that have managed more than the generic skill points=best model. Would certainly be attractive to new players if they could come here and compete with older players on their skill alone and not by time served in game, especially when older inmates had a cushier life in a category C, compared to their cat A.
     
  14. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    There's a lot of issues with our crafting/economy in general that go way beyond "competing with older players".

    For example, right now if Boedy Arc makes a +19 item, no one is going to be able to "compete" with that, including Boedy Arc. :)

    The reality is that it's just one item and someone can only buy it once. Will Boedy Arc have better items than most other people? Sure, but he still needs materials and time to make those things. Yet with our low population he could conceivable dominate the market place and provide cheaper and better items than anyone else. Yes, that's a problem but it's not THE problem.

    The real problem is that Boedy Arc has no incentives or risks to endlessly making high end stuff. He can hoard all his resources and finished goods without any risk. He can sell as much stuff as he wants until the market is flooded with +10 items and until other people are at his crafting ability they will be hard pressed to keep up and "compete".

    This isn't a byproduct of not having enough ore. It's a byproduct of our crafting and economy systems not having enough depth. We need more player skill to be introduced into crafting, and part of this is already planned. Right now we have the moondials that show the position of celestial bodies. The future plan is to allow ALL players the opportunity to read celestial events that will impact crafting.

    For example, sometime when Boedy Arc is not even online there may be an event that allows players to make 200+ durability items. It may require you to use a special crafting station that is only located in one region of Novia. The event may only last for 1 hour and may not reoccur for 6 months. That means that having the most skill will no longer matter, and being in the right place at the right time will be the only thing that matters. In this example, if a new player were in the right place at the right time, even if their crafting skill was considered sub part, they would still get to create items that other players may not.

    I think we need to do more than this to improve crafting and the economy, but I think this will do a lot to help the problem you're talking about. And I don't think increasing ore in mines is going to help without also creating new problems.
     
    Elwyn and Numa like this.
  15. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

    Messages:
    13,289
    Likes Received:
    23,380
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Caer Dracwych
    Such as?
     
    FrostII likes this.
  16. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    I already talked about it above.

    If you make crafting easier for new people, it in turn makes it even easier for old people. If you put more ore in the mines, make the mines easier to access, then you flood the market with ore and the older people have that much more of an advantage.

    If your goal is to create an economy where there are only brand new people and GM's, well then you have to ask yourself who the hell is going to buy anything that the GM's make? Because it's certainly not going to be them.
     
    High Baron O`Sullivan likes this.
  17. King Robert

    King Robert Avatar

    Messages:
    522
    Likes Received:
    1,501
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Gender:
    Male
    Trying to humble the successful is imprudent. We should all strive to be the best we can be, and hope neither the devs nor any game glitch deprives us of that which we earned. We don't need to change the game to hurt the successful; we need to stop trying to change the game to discourage good players. Why reward failure? If you do, this game will be a game for losers. No thanks. Don't change the game to force the results your beliefs demand [removed political statement - Berek]. Results speak as to the net results of actions taken; changing the rules to force a result you 'feel' should (but does not) occur will cause unintended consequences. The mortgage meltdown of 08 was largely fueled by government programs which demanded poor people with bad credit able to buy homes. Demand for real estate increased, prices went up and we had a bubble. But when those who historically did not pay their bills did as they always have, viz., stop paying their bills, the market crashed.

    Leave the SOTA economy (producer and adventurer) and let the players be rewarded by his or her efforts. Some will have 150 GM's; others none. But to tax winners (death penalty that failed) or cap winners (nerf mining) is a fool's errand. Markets always adjust; leave them alone and we are all better off.

    Please.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 19, 2017
  18. Bow Vale

    Bow Vale Avatar

    Messages:
    1,729
    Likes Received:
    4,699
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Pericaliya
    I do like this and i have hoped for a while they will bring something like it into the game, i believe they mentioned on a video that it was in planning which is great.
    But issues still arise in this scenario as this rare crafting station is likely to be in the depths of some dungeon, meaning a player will need high this & that to even have the chance of getting there and resources or skill needed is likely to be high, but its a start of having player skill/knowledge matter so i wont grumble too much.

    This is why we need specialization. When i started i 'thought' we could only really get good at a number of skills. For crafting we have 3 areas, gathering/refining/producing. I had hoped people would have had to chose an area that they would have specialised in. Not to say they couldn't have done both mining and blacksmith but as they were in differing fields/areas then they wouldn't have been as good as someone that just specialised in one. I had decided i would chose gathering as i enjoy being out and i thought i could pick up items and mine etc and thus supply the refiners who would then supply the producers. This would have allowed people to choose an area and be reliant on others, a more real economy that what we have now, where everyone can do everything, dependant on time. But now enforcing limitations on resources gathered they are trying to slow down the ability for one person to be self sufficient, but this puts people who have already levelled up and are self sufficient at a big advantage.

    I would make it that people can only pick X amount of crafting skills. Give everyone back their xp and let them choose where it goes. If you only choose resource gathering skills, you get a 3* multiplier for gathering, if you pick other areas as well then then that drops to normal rate of 1. This could also be used in refining, only refining skills, 3* multiplier....and producing a double critical chance...figures not perfect but u get my idea.....More specialisation means more need of friends and a proper economy....Getting off the more ore thread here but it all ties in together imo....
     
    Whitestag and Numa like this.
  19. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

    Messages:
    13,289
    Likes Received:
    23,380
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Caer Dracwych
    You seem to be forgetting everyone in between here.

    Not seeing your point here.

    First off.. right now people feel compelled to mine and do things themselves because they can't afford or just don't want to pay the insanely high prices. When they'd rather be out doing something else. If ore is abundant who cares if it makes things easier for old players? How is that a bad thing in this scenario? If ore availability is high enough that people who want to be harvesters can supply the demand several things will happen. First, prices will come down and more people will be able to afford what others make. People who don't want to mine, won't because they won't need to if they can afford what others make.

    If you're goal is a free market system, you have to allow the system to work. Who's going to buy what people make? People who don't make it themselves.

    Consider the law of least effort. If you don't enjoy crafting, the only reason to do it is that's it's less effort to craft than it is pay for goods. If it's easier to just buy finished goods you're not going to waste your time crafting. Lower prices means fewer crafters and more people buying. How long the crafter has been playing is irrelevant. What's important is 1: are they having fun crafting.. and 2: are they able to sell their goods.
     
    FrostII and Aldo like this.
  20. Sara Dreygon

    Sara Dreygon Avatar

    Messages:
    1,678
    Likes Received:
    5,830
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    If the game was too easy I'd have stopped playing. Crafting professions should take time to level up so there is meaning to GM.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.