Frustrated by mining / lumberjacking this release

Is it just me or does this seem more difficult now?

It's not just the skill system (which I'm generally enjoying and will love once balance issues are fixed *cough*)

It seems like the accessibility of resources is off. Almost every tree or mining node I've found has had some mobs next to them so I have to fight every time I mine - which is annoying since I'm an archer and am mining/lumberjacking to make the arrows I need to fight.

When I've found a node without mobs it seems to be a higher level one, and my chance of success drops to nothing.

 

That sounds par for the course regarding the intentions of the devs. An unguarded resource node has virtually no risk involved, so to compensate they make the node extremely difficult to limit its usability.


Personally, for wood, I simply stick to lower difficulty forest scenes. There are plenty to choose from, and being low-level the harvest chance is high, and beating off the occasional wolf/bear is quite simple.

As for mining : The best location this release is the Etceter Crag Mines. Once you sprint through the excessively difficult surface map, the mine itself is filled with easy to kill low-level thugs and slimes, and plenty of copper nodes.

 

The way I used to play UO was to gather resources to make my own gear, the lowest level stuff, and then take that gear to go slay ratmen or some such.

I wish it felt like I was able to be self reliant in Shroud, but as it stands it is just absolutely not feasible. You need at least a full set of epic armor of some sort to survive the dangers of mining iron ore.

It's a little silly.

I'm all for risk vs. reward, but there's got to be a starting point. Make us fight rabid rabbits under the mind control of a local evil wizard! Give us something to fight that can be killed by someone with a bridge defender's sword and no armor so that they may craft themselves the armor they need to go fight a skeleton or two. Progression.

Right now it kind of feels like crafting is an exclusionary thing. It's not very welcoming to be slaughtered by two dozen spiders every time you walk up to an iron node.

By the way, OP's av is 10/10.

 

Actually the best place to level mining is Owl's Nest, the nodes are tough (55% when I started there), but there is no critters... Even "fails" count towards skill increases... Just keep trying each node until you succeed, you won't get much ore, but your skill will go up... I left when I hit 61% chance and started Graff mine, once you kill the critters, the mine is all yours...

 

Friend me in game and PM me for some free arrows... been killing a lot of elves lately and have 800 arrows just lying around now.

 

I agree that there should be some low, low level mining spots that give limited ore but mobs are rats and the like.

I'm thinking of younger kids from the Minecraft generation who would just like to mine for hours on end without the fighting. I feel like that when getting home from work sometimes.

This release is very much a grind for resources. It's painful and I'm sure the devs know that... all they have to do is look at the gathering/crafting statistics compared to the other releases.

 

I tired yesterday, but i couldn't get pass the critters alive, the minute I zone into that area, i am attacked by a bear and 2 spiders that seem to stun me, and then wha la, poisoned, and dead.... I am an archer btw wearing leather.... my adv lvl is 15 ..... so I just gave up ....

 

You could always run the Sewer gauntlet instead. You will have to run quickly past the ghost and better have a pickaxe for bashing down the wall. But it should be slightly easier than the entry scene for Owls Nest.

Or check if I'm online and I could get you in somewhere and clean out the scene for you so that it you could get down to business.

 

TY spoon, but I was hoping to accomplish this on my own, sense of achievement .... Is there a special lvl you need to be to tackle that darn place?

 

Totally understood about the accomplishment bit.
Not really a level. I ran there at level 3, but you gotta be lucky with those spiders. If you learn their pattern then you can hold down the keys to go even before you can see yourself in the scene. I don't remember right now but I think it starts with holding WD, then double sprint along right until the stone, then switch.

 

North Valeway, South Valeway and Kingsroad are all Tier 1 resource areas, with the lowest level of Brown Bears, Grey Wolves and Wolf Spiders.
That is where I would start.....

 

You need to run by all those critters, straight in and turn right at the sign into the cave entrance... I know it's a tough one to get by them all, the spiders are placed to hit you from behind were there's no armor protection... There's two more spiders as you run up the path and two at the end, but they're behind trees, so don't worry too much about them... When inside the bandit cave don't attack them and they just "smack talk" to you, if you do attack one, then they all come running.... And there are two wolves inside where the ore is, but they don't re-spawn after they die... I wouldn't go through the sewers unless you can fight ghosts, I tried going through to exit the cave and they got me every time.... @ level 32...

Good suggestion, I would start at south valeway, then Kings road, then north valeway (unless you like to watch the skeletons / spiders fight, they gank each other good)... West ranenwoods is pretty easy too...

 

Ty SmokerKGB

 

Yes, West Ravenswood is a Tier 2... So, if the other 3 seem "tame", then the next step would be West Ravenswood.

 

I know this isn't the absolute best solution OP but maybe consider setting yourself up with "farming" gear when you go hunting for resources? I do this myself as to alleviate the costs of keeping my good stuff repaired, in your case I would suggest a secondary easy weapon skill like 1-h swords or something so when you are looking for trees to chop or ore to mine and you get attacked by a bear/spider/whatever you simply fight back with your blade instead of your bow.

 

Also, note that all of those "Artisan" tools does not break/reduce in durability.
So getting a set of gathering Artisan tools really help. Plus they weigh half of ordinary tools. (1 vs 2)

(Contact me in game to barter for a set, don't have many left, or check out the vendor in Lux Sanctuary)

 

In addition, the Artisan tools will give you a greater chance at harvest than using the basic tools, and the Prosperity tools even better yet.

 

My issue with gathering wood mats is that I have a 56 % chance in Mysterious Swamp but attempts at harvesting fail way more often than that. I timed 13 minutes to get one maple tree. The next one took 9 minutes. Lumberjacking seems off to me since R21.

 

I've tried some mining this release. It seems to me that I either have to run around and look for the one or two nodes in the easier areas (killing all the wildlife), or I will have to enter areas where nodes are more abundant but I have like 15- 20% chance of getting the ore. I know that I now get mining experience even when I fail, and I could just keep on hitting the nodes in some mine over and over again. But last I checked it took me 40 seconds to fail at a hard node - that is a lot of time if I have to do this over and over again. So I either have to run around like crazy or stare at my character's butt for hours if I want just some training or ore - it's excruciatingly boring or frustrating!

A good thing this release is that I can get metal scrap from rusty weapons. This makes up very well for the scarcity of metal nodes material-wise! However, salvaging items only trains the salvage skill (which makes sense). I still need some ore and I still need training in mining, and getting that training isn't easy. If there are fewer metal-nodes compared to other gathering nodes, then they need to give more experience in comparison.

Bottom line is, plain skill-grinding is boring. There needs to be more to it. Train and gather resources - get better gear - go to new areas with harder nodes; that is one good option. Having harder nodes yeald more resources is another. Get rid of the long time spent on hitting a node (or at least make it very easy to train and cap it)! Instead let people spend time on training "meticulous collection" or make another skill that let me find rare metals more often (call it "mineralogy") and have me train that, because training those rewards me. Now I just train to ease the boredom of training.

I myself would want to someday experiment with all those lovely recipes, smithing quick daggers, stunning two-handers or plate or chainmail of various smart design. Maybe one day people would even like to buy them, and then i would get money to buy the ore that they have mined. But how would I even get there? First I need to learn mining to get the resources to learn smithing. There's going to be a lot of butt-staring ....

 

I have followed Smoker's advice and have something like 35 copper and 40 iron ore in just a short time, which with scrap will turn into ingots each.

However, with that in mind, I agree leveling is a bit out of whack. Consider base attack in any weapon. You can select the skill and weapon, attack and if you are starting at 1 go up to 10 in a few minutes and up to 20 in perhaps 30 minutes or less. BUT, with mining, if you start at one, it will likely take you many hours to level to 20. If skills are gained each time it is used, attacking can happen every few seconds, while mining (and all harvesting) take up to a minute. So, as expected, these skills level perhaps 10 to 20 times slower than combat. As with so much, it needs to be balanced and tweaked.