Mining and Smithing Changes

[Ariakan99]

Had a few ideas that I would like other thoughts on:

Mining - there seems to be a lack of active miners (at least I cannot find many) right now and coloured ingots are very hard to find. In order to increase interest in mining I though about implementing the following:

1. Reduce Ore Weight - idea from Eppy
2. Allow a double smelting chance on coloured ore at a decreasing rate as the ore level climbs (10% chance on valorite??)
3. Make the skill count for more then smelting - allow a higher chance to mine coloured or increase the yield from spot based on the miner skill (this could also make it a good idea to use gloves of mining more often)

Blacksmithing:

1. Allow runic hammers to add properties to armor - there seems to be a small demand for Dull/Shadow hammers - allowing them to make better than GM armor would increase the need/demand and also give newer smiths an a way into the market.

2. BOD collection - reduce/remove the need to sell items to receive a BOD. What is the point of this mechanic? Most seem to buy/sell from the vendor using tongs/ingots/sewing kits - this cannot be a huge gold sink? I have had to sell 20-30 items and it is pretty much just a time sink - is this intentional?

Just a few ideas I hopefully add a boost to the crafting areas, reduce the amount of time spent clicking (BOD collection) and not mess with the economy.

 

[Weland]

So my main is a smith and I haven't been on him much lately simply because I'm working a Tamer which is a huge time investment. Here are my thoughts on your suggestion:

Mining:

1) Reduce Ore Weight: I can agree with this but the fact that ingots hardly weigh anything kinda makes up for the ore weight. It's a time investment to get pack horses bonded but once you do ore weight becomes kinda null and void because you are mining faster than it is spawning. Reducing the ore would help young miners/crafters get a faster start but I don't know that it will be a real game changer.

2) This I think would be useful, but the only down side would be the impact on the economy. Once this becomes implemented it could potentially flood the market.

3) I think my above comment addresses my concerns.

Blacksmithing:

1) Yes this would assist the young smiths but it would also hurt them in the since that if you make smithing too easy and or powerful everyone would just make one of their avatars a smith and have no real need to rely on anyone else. The reason why your above comments would make getting the mats really easy and now they can make whatever they need with little time investment. So in the long run people who play UO for the crafting purposes this would take away from them because everyone just becomes that much more self efficient.

2) I agree 100%....having to sell ingots or whatever to get a BOD makes no sense but it is not that much of a time sink. I've yet to have to sell more than 7 ingots or so to get a BOD and that takes no more than 5 minutes.

So please understand my response is not a flame at your desire to see things changed. I do however feel that if it is made too easy, then the actual need for a player that has dedicated themselves to smithing, and that's their bread butter, you are hurting them. UO isn't well known for making the easy path the best path and if all of a sudden everyone can make all their own magic armor and weapons and do it in a timely manner, it would take away from the game. Also dungeon crawlers prob make a good living off selling the items they find in dungeons and the value of those items also drop for them as well.

Maybe one way they can help the young players is to make certain pets like pack horses and lama's not require 7 days to bond and make it only high end animals.

Also don't be afraid to ask for help on IRC. There are several helpful senior smiths that will help you with both items and advice to help you get passed that starting hump.

 

[Ariakan99]

Thanks foe the quick reply - I am beyond the starting point myself - have legendary crafter and a number of alts collecting my BODs etc.

My suggestions to improve mining and smithing were more targeted at newer players or those that want to use the skills as the main play style.

Recently I see a large number of posts wanting to buy ingots - and very few sellers. If this situation continues - prices will have to rise to as supply will not be enough to fulfil demand - this could price out the newer players.

The changes I proposed would have to be implemented together in order to balance the change on the economy. If mining is made 'easier' and the amount of coloured ingots coming onto the market increases, my theory was that the smithing changes of making runic armor available/attractive would balance this by increasing demand/use.

If the chance to double smelt coloured ore is scaled - then the largest impact would be on dull copper and shadow. Making the runic armor created from these metals usable should help to deal with additional ingot supply.

If mining skill becomes more important above gm for more than smelting - smithing gloves of mining will become more popular. These are mostly obtained by completing SBODS using dull copper and shadow ingots - again hopefully reducing the impact of an increased supply of these metals.

The ability to have 3 accounts means that everyone could have a smith and supply themselves - but there will always be those who would rather just buy from others and use the time in game to do what the want - factions and pvp etc.

 

[Weland]

You are more established than I am myself when it comes to smithing. I only have my one smith and I've started working more BOD smiths. I see where you are coming from as far as the demand not being being there and this could potentially create a demand. My main concern, and that is what it is a concern, is by creating the demand it will open the door for more people to become more self efficient in the process.

I know once my smith/miner acquired bonded pack animals, the doors flew open for possibilities. I can now mine 1 to 2k iron ingots in a hour easy, prob a lot more. I think for the young players simply reducing the bond time on pack animals would greatly benefit young players and us more established smiths helping the young with rune books with some mining spots other than minoc would help them.

As far as runic hammers creating magic armor, I thought we could already create magic armor it just had to be under special conditions. I think if the runic hammers up to lets say shadow could make magic armor but things like valorite still had to be made under those more strict conditions, it would be helpful. So I see where you coming from and agree. Young dungeon crawlers would have better access to starter gear but the best stuff would still be harder to acquire and maintain it's value.

 

[Torin]

Mining:

2) This I think would be useful, but the only down side would be the impact on the economy. Once this becomes implemented it could potentially flood the market.

Amusingly ingot prices are consistent as they've always been despite the fact that you only smelt one ingot per ore instead of two. I've played on other servers ages ago where this wasn't the case and the ingot prices were EXACTLY the same.

2) I agree 100%....having to sell ingots or whatever to get a BOD makes no sense but it is not that much of a time sink. I've yet to have to sell more than 7 ingots or so to get a BOD and that takes no more than 5 minutes.

You have one smith, so there's a chance you haven't seen it, but my personal worst is around 40 ingots to get one bod. It is not fun, even using a macro to rapidly sell ingots (and I buy them back manually one at a time). The average amount of ingots I have to sell to get a bod is around 15, if I had to guess.

I only have a few things to add myself. One is fixing the mining gloves bug that currently makes them damaging to chances to double smelt iron, and maybe making it so that the increased chance (up to 125 with +5s) helps you double smelt colored ore as well.

The other would be that an increased chance to make slayers (a very small increased chance) when using a runic hammer at the brit smithy would help make dc and shadow runic hammers worth more, and would increase demand for the above ingot types - making double smelting even more lucrative.

just my two cents.

 

[Weland]

You have one smith, so there's a chance you haven't seen it, but my personal worst is around 40 ingots to get one bod. It is not fun, even using a macro to rapidly sell ingots (and I buy them back manually one at a time). The average amount of ingots I have to sell to get a bod is around 15, if I had to guess.

I see where you are coming from. Like I said I agree it should go away since it is pointless. Now that I've hit the point I wanted with my tamer I'm going to be back into lvling smiths to start getting into the BOD game myself.

 

[amonseti]

I would also like to see new ore types / colors . But rares then the standard with a similar system to lumberjacking , where an ore vein has a chance to produce randomly one of the new ore types ...

 

[Tydeus]

I was told previously that higher mining skill benefits the ore harvesting process. Now that it appears that whoever told me this on these forums is mistaken, I'll no longer mine with mining gloves on. Higher mining skill should indeed allow you a higher chance to successfully mine colored ore on a colored vein, or even just make the veins last a bit longer before being depleted.

It was Halygon who said this:

http://uoforum.com/threads/lumberjacking-and-bowcraft.52682/#post-345840

"Actually, higher mining skill allows you to mine up more colored ores than otherwise, in addition it allows you to smelt them better and receive more ingots due to double smelting or from not failing to smelt into ingots.

I typically wear +5 ringmail gloves of mining when I mine to get that extra edge."

I've been using the mining tools you get from 10x weapon BODs to aid me in mining and noticed that Valorite and Verite elementals often destroy the armor/gear you're wearing if you get hit by them and even the weapon you're carrying. So, I've already lost +5 gloves due to that, because, for some reason, you're forced out of hiding when ore elementals pop up. I've also had two Valorite paragon elementals pop up, and that is just a huge waste of time for that to happen, making it almost not worth the effort to use a gargoyle pickaxe, because it often takes a good 5-10 mins to kill those things with a slayer bow, when you could complete mining an entire mine in that amount of time. The rewards on the paragon Valorite elementals seem to be nothing other than increased gold drop, which is not worth the time to kill them. My suggestion is to either make paragon ore elementals worth something, perhaps by just adding a paragon chest that gives you a treasure map depending on the ore elemental type (Lvl6 for valorite, Lvl5 for verite, Lvl4 for agapite, etc.), or remove the paragon variants from the gargoyle pickaxe spawn. If the paragon ore elementals were worth something, gargoyle pickaxes would probably come up in use/demand and so will the BODs used to get them. Currently, when I see a paragon Verite/Valorite ore elemental, I just think, "DAMN IT!" I'd rather get a good feeling over seeing those instead of feeling like I just had the next 10 minutes of my time wasted. Some people think turning in those weapon BODs for mining tools isn't worth it, but I have turned them in if they're of a good quality weapon type while crafting slayer weapons. I typically only do the 10x BODs of a good weapon type, because the 15x and 20x give the same reward but cost more ingots. I'm always using a prospectors tool, which gives me the chance of dull copper ingots most of the time, and if someone is hurting for shadow iron ingots, they can use a gargoyle pickaxe on top of that to always mine shadow iron on regular iron ore veins.

 

[Tydeus]

I would suggest tripling or even quadrupling the amount of ore found on ore elemental paragons, so that when those pop up using a gargoyle pickaxe, you don't feel like you got bad luck and have to waste your time killing it and most likely resurrecting and re-equipping a dead miner. The normal amount is 25 ore on all elemental types, and I think 75-100 ore would make the considerable amount of time it takes to kill those things more worthwhile. They probably already have a chance to drop a paragon chest, so that is just an added bonus.

It feels kinda cheap to make BOD collecting even easier by making NPCs offer you a BOD 100% of the time. There should be a bit of a time sink, and the way it currently is happens to be fine. You have to do all of the BOD collecting in town, so what about thieves? Don't they deserve a chance to get something? The players already get these BODs for nothing and they can be worth a lot.