I am reading this thread and I can't help thinking that the change they made has worked PRECISELY as intended. They have made it harder to get rare ores, becuase they should be.... well... hard to get.
Arguments about how this has hurt regular players and only helped scripters is getting tired and... off topic. Every change, every little thing in UO is ruined by the scripters. Fact is you can only hurt the scripters by identifying them and banning their accounts.
They stated very clearly this was not meant to hurt scripters. It would be a stupid way to stop scripters, and was not intended as such.
Sooooo, it didn't hurt scripters, although I think by looking at the numbers presented by someone above, you can see that it has most certainly drastically reduced their intake of valorite ore. It drastically reduced everyone's intake of valorite ore - again, that was the intent.
I am also hearing in this thread that people are not happy about not being able to just go and get the ore they want anymore - which was the intent.
Fundamentally, the method for acquiring ore has not changed. You use a pickaxe, you target a spot, you get ore in your pack. Rinse and repeat. So when everyone complains that mining is not "relaxing" anymore, what you are really saying is you are mad that you can't get the ores you just want to go get anymore - wow, funny - THAT WAS THE INTENT.
Now, I won't sit here and say I am happy about it neither. It kind of stinks actually because having done a significant amount of mining after the change - I can't just go and get the ore types I want anymore.
Its fairly hard to acquire valorite ores. Probably too hard in fact.
So I don't think the system needs to be changed back, however it does need some tweaking. Here again the devs indicated that they did feel the system will require some additional tweaking down the road. Things like making spots that spawn with high end ores take longer to play out, and possibly making it so that ore smelts down without loss. Jeremy talked about all these things when they instituted the change. So the real fear may be having the ball get dropped with the change in guard.
With all that said, its really not that big of a deal. You just have to stop and reconsider the situation on how to mine efficiently and to derive pleasure from it.
You can use a Prospector's Tool on a spot, and then hit it with a Gargoyle Pickaxe. Thats TWO levels of increase! So essentially if you use the tools available in the game, any ore spot giving up Agapite or higher, can BE a valorite spot. PLUS, you just pray you spawn an elemental with that axe, because after you slay him and loot him, you get 25 free ore! (Except for the Dull Coppers, which I agree needs to be fixed)
You have a few chioces for a template for a miner. You can go the Mage weapon route (which I have not done, but others here have storngly advocated), or you can put mining on an archer template.
Frankly, I found it incredibly easy to put archery on a straight archer template and still be able to hunt with that character. You can get yourself a soulstone and swap Mining with Magic Resist. Its fairly easy, and is in fact the way I have run my mining operations for a long time (years before the change). The only elementals to fear with this template are the copper and valorite ones (I have to be careful because my Horselord does so much damage the reflections will kill me in two hits).
I like it because it does give me a bit of adrenaline not knowing when an elemental will spawn. If you are not into that sort of thing, then mining can still be a leisurely relaxing affair where you hang out in a favorite cave, strip mine it, and only use the Prospector's Tool to boost the ore levels. Its even more relaxing that the old way of mining a spot out then recall to the next - since you never knew what might be lurking at the far end of the recall.
Change is inevitable, the only choice you are left with is how you choose to deal with that change.
