Resources and Skills

[Zyon Rockler]

I feel there is a large flaw with the simple randomized system. The simple changing of the system has caused what appears to be an oversight of the skill.

Working with 4 miners all at different levels, I found they had the same ability to mine ore that I did at the highest level. If I would mine gold then they also had the same chance of finding gold and mining the exact number that I had at a higher level.

This becomes most apparent with iron ore. Some of the lower level miners were able to mine more than I was at the highest level. This is what I needed to understand more clearly.

Also, they were able to pull more colored ore, which was even more mind boggeling. I was able to mine 4 val igs and they were not because their skill was not high enough to mine val. It did not change the fact that what we were getting was completely random, not based on skill at all.

This does not seem right. The old system worked in its' own way because a miner simply could not mine a higher level than their skill level and a GM Miner could mine as much of any type of ore they wanted to. This is the biggest difference.

To help the miner regain the skill factor should be implemented.

A miner at 10 skill should receive 10% more than a miner at 0 skill all the way up to 100% at gm level.

What does this mean exactly? If the vein has 10 ore and a gm miner digs they should be able to receive 20 ore.

Also, the skill should give them a chance of finding a higher level ore. For example: If there is a low level ore then a gm miner should have 100% chance of finding a colored ore along with iron. Never just iron ore.

This is simply because a gm miner should have more experience in finding higher level ore, and should not pull iron ore all the time, simply because it is random and the most common. The skill should be more involved in deciding the types of ore and amount given.

This is true in all types of gathering resources and skills.

This is not a gripe, just a simple observation.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

I'm afraid most of your post goes right over my head (what changes are you referring to? publish link please), but if I understand this right, it's currently possible mine a certain colored ore regardless of whether you have the skill required?

To my understanding, the only factor as to whether you'll get colored ore from a colored vein is whether you're a human or an elf.

 

[Connor_Graham]

If there is a low level ore then a gm miner should have 100% chance of finding a colored ore along with iron.

We already have this. It's called a Prospector's Tool.

There's also the nifty Gargoyle Pickaxe too. Give it a try. Tell your friends!

You'll be the life of the next miner party!



Disclaimer:

Void when necessary. Not legal in some states. Names have been changed to protect the ignorant. While supplies last. Limited to stock on hand. Offer ends the day before you need it to.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

We already have this. It's called a Prospector's Tool.

There's also the nifty Gargoyle Pickaxe too. Give it a try. Tell your friends!

You'll be the life of the next miner party!

Er, if I use a Prospector's Tool and follow up with a Gargoyle Pickaxe, I do NOT have a 100% chance of digging up colored ore. In fact I've completely dug out some veins I know to be colored, and completely failed to get any actual colored ore out of them.

I think you're confusing "finding a colored vein" with "actually digging up colored ore".

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Er, if I use a Prospector's Tool and follow up with a Gargoyle Pickaxe, I do NOT have a 100% chance of digging up colored ore. In fact I've completely dug out some veins I know to be colored, and completely failed to get any actual colored ore out of them.

I think you're confusing "finding a colored vein" with "actually digging up colored ore".

He is assuming that you will use the prospectors tool and garg pick on a GM miner.

 

[Wenchkin]

I'm afraid most of your post goes right over my head (what changes are you referring to? publish link please), but if I understand this right, it's currently possible mine a certain colored ore regardless of whether you have the skill required?

To my understanding, the only factor as to whether you'll get colored ore from a colored vein is whether you're a human or an elf.

I'm a bit rusty, but I think I know what the OP was talking about.

Please nobody shoot Wenchy if she's wrong on this...

As a newbie miner, if you attacked a valorite vein with a shovel, you'd only get iron.
As you trained up, you could eventually mine the higher ores until the magic day you could get them all. But initially, you'd only get what your skill allowed, and where say a GM would pull 50:50 iron to coloured ore, your newbie might just pull 1 coloured ore for ever 20 iron. Hope that makes sense
Your quantity hauled also increased as you progressed in skill. Though I don't remember that as much.

Now if you're a newbie, apparently you can go up to a mine with 10 skill, pull any ore (which you shouldn't be able to) and in the same high quantity as the GM miner. I haven't tested with a newbie miner to verify the OP's comments, but I think that's what he meant.

Which makes me wonder if lumberjacking has also changed in this way. And was it intended?

Wenchy

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

And my GM miner has had the double-bump deliver zero colored ore even tho the first bump stated I could dig some. not even a small. This happens more often in guard zones, but has also happened in the wilds - well outside guard areas.

 

[Black Sun]

Which makes me wonder if lumberjacking has also changed in this way.

Wenchy

Not that I have noticed. I am currently training a lumberjack, he's mid to high 80's currently. The highest wood he's been able to pull is ash. I realize that the higher woods are difficult to find to begin with, but I've gotten a pretty even spread of regular, ash and oak so far. Plus he's an elf on top of it, so he get's the bonus when it comes to finding the higher resources.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I would say, and ahve always said, the random ores/resources are only making life better for the scripter. Who else has the time? Much easier now to buy em from the script's vendor, than to spend all my gametime doing the crapshoot now known as mining, etc.
Perhaps an idea would be to let em be random, okay, but whatever they do spawn, stays that color for a week, before respawning as something different? Would give a bit of continuity to things for the casual player anyway.

*waves to Zyon and CoS*

 

[Black Sun]

I can see where you're coming from Uriah, but since the randomization, I find myself mining/logging more often than I used to. And now I find it as a rather relaxing experience.

Before I had all my runes marked for different colored ore veins. When I was crafting, and I needed a particular type of ore, it was a chore for me to recall out there, mine the amount I needed and then get on with my crafting. Now that I am no longer able to do that, I find that about once a week, I am going out and gathering resources for an hour or so. Without any real purpose (other than to have a stockpile on hand for use when I need it) it takes a lot of the work out of it. I chat in guild talk, I scribble ideas down in my UO notebook about changes to templates I want to make, I wander around in the woods and mountains, and find new house design ideas.

But that's just me, and I have been called many different things over the years. Normal was never among them.

 

[Uriah Heep]

*laughs*

Normal, is any UO player normal? *grins*

 

[Black Sun]

Good point.

 

[Zyon Rockler]

Sorry that my posts are so long and don't pin point on a single problem. I'm trying to refer to everything that I see it affecting.

Another example would be a miner at 60 skill level can only mine for example gold. I'm not really sure but for example, we'll say gold. We'll call this miner a. and miner b. will be a gm miner.

Miner a. mines gold and fills his pack with gold. He smelts his ore into ignots and now has 20 golden ignots.

Miner b. begins digging and finds iron. He digs 30 iron ore and gets 30 iron igs.

Miner a. starts digging and digs gold. He now has 40 golden ignots.

Miner b. starts digging and randomly finds iron ore.

At the end of one hour the GM miner has less colored ore than miner a. who only has 60 skill.

There are some perks for a gm miner. They can mine gems and rarely they can find higher level ore, such as valorite. This is based on the random vein. It has nothing to do with skills. The skills should also determine what will be in the vein and how much. It would be nice if a gm miner was able to mine 100 ore max in 1 vein where a miner with 60 skill level would only be able to mine max 60 ore. This could also be random but should be no less then the percent given at that skill level.

60%=60 possible no less than 10
This is possible at 60 skill. You have a 60% chance of getting 60 ore from that vein and can never receive less than 10

Iron ore at gm skill=colored ore random
When you find an iron vein it checks the skill and gives you a 100% chance of getting a colored ore along with the iron.

Random vein percent of skill=type of ore
Veins are randomly placed but once you begin to dig your skill is checked, determining what chance you have of receiving valorite versus iron. Kind of like always using a prospector's tool once you gm so that your skill can change what is in that vein, also giving you a better chance to receive the higher end ore at gm level than someone who has 0 skill (meaning the vein is randomly moved even for someone at 0 skill).

 

[Zyon Rockler]

Yes you are correct and I felt that the game should always maintain the skill factor. The randomization is an excellent idea but it should co-exist with the skill system. If random veins were created with 2 or maybe 300 ore then scripters would have to compete with hunters. I remember that's how mining was and I hope it will stay that way as far as skill is conserned.

Thank You for your help.

 

[Jhym]

I hope I'm misunderstanding what you're implying.

You are implying that the current system allows low level miners to mine higher level ore than they are supposed to. If this is true, then it is a BUG. Miners are supposed to gather ore colors based upon their skill level only after... I believe it is 70 or so and then every 5 points you get the next level up. 99 is Verite, 100 is Valorite.

If this is no longer true then something really is wrong.

Currently the way the system is supposed to work is that there are resource 'boxes' everywhere in the map. These boxes have some set random number of 'hits' of resources. Some of the non-minable boxes get combined with those that are nearby, thus some minable areas near the coast or the small rock patches may have large amounts of mining 'hits'. These boxes reset on semi-random intervals, whether you have mined them (or chopped them) or not.

The big difference between what we have now and what we USED to have is that now every single time you hit a vein for the first time after it has reset, there is a chance it will change the type of colored ore it can produce. Before that patch, the colored ore veins were set by the FIRST miner that hit them. Which is why many town ones were iron only -- low level miners hit them FIRST, before us GMs could get to them.

Scripters could then just keep hitting the same veins over and over and get the same ore types. When elves came into the picture, they got a slight bump in the chance that the ore they mine would be colored, but only on veins that had been spawned that way.

AFTER the patch, the chance of getting a colored ore vein has changed. You may get a colored ore vein for every single attempt at a newly dug vein, but it may not be the color it was five or ten minutes ago.

The chance of you getting colored ore is supposed to be 50/50 for humans, I believe 60/40 for elves. However, you cannot get colored ore of a level higher than you can mine it; thus if you mine a verite vein and only have 80 mining, you should get 100% iron.

Thus, if you do this and are getting verite on a character with 80 mining, something is VERY broken and needs to be fixed.

 

[Basara]

I've encountered one of the things that the OP mentioned - Mining a spot that was definitely a colored ore spot (used PT & GPA on it) and got no colored ore from it. Typically, the worst spots will produce 10% colored ore, but at 15 or less ore, it's possible to not have that 10% chance kick in.

Something that appears to be true (but not got confirmation), is is that all resource squares have a set percentage chance per swing of giving up their colored ore. This could be a spot that gives colored ore normally, or one elevated with a Prospector's tool to DC (with or without a GPA to go to shadow iron). Based on my own note and experience

• The percentage chance of colored ore stays constant, regardless of the ore type given. if a site has a 70% colored ore chance, then it will produce 70% colored ore on average, be it a Valorite spot, a copper spot, or an iron spot elevated to DC with the PT.
• Ore spots also have a constant range value for number of swings (though a much greater variability than one would wish). If a mining spot gives me 20 swings, as long as it hasn't been mined in the last half-hour, it will always give me about 15-25 swings on a return visit (sometimes astronomical amounts, but this could be from the spot's timer resetting during the mining - which was how the "magic trees" of old would give infinite wood).
• Any bonus that an Elf may get is a multiplier, not an additive bonus (so if an elf gets a 20% bonus, and the site normally gives 70% colored ore, they have an 84% chance (120% * 70%), not 90%)

Because of this, I've kept my rune books for random mining, because when they were for specific ore types, I had weeded about 50-64 runes per ore down to 16-32 spots that always produced 12-30 ore (in trammel & malas), and averaged 50% or more colored ore. I might not know what ore the spots are currently producing (and I can tweak that with a Prospector's tool & GPA), but I know that what colored ored the site is currently giving, I will get a LOT of it (even more if I pop an ore ele).

IF I run into a spot that is producing 30% or less colored ore (or only allowing 8-10 swings per visit) - I make the point of never mining there (on purpose) again.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

That's really interesting. Do you think the chances of getting colored ore are tied to what ore the spot gave prior to the randomisation of types?

For example, a spot which previously gave valourite every time would likely give a smaller amount of colored ore, and now still gives just a small amount even if it's now changed to dull copper.

On the other hand, a spot that used to always give dull copper would likely give lots of colored ore, and now still gives loads even if it randomly changes to valourite.

Does any of that fit in with your observations?

 

[Basara]

My observation is that if a site averaged 70% valorite, before randomization, it would give 70% on average of whatever colored ore it is currently producing either naturally or through manipulation with PT and/or Gargoyle Pick.

The percentage of colored ore return appears to be a static percentage value for every resource square (but varying from square to square), totally independent of the ore type randomization. If a high-percentage site, it will always be a high-percentage site; if it was lucky to give out 1 colored ore every 10 swings before, it will remain that color-poor, regardless of ore type.

I've mined one spot west of Trammel Trinsic, in a mining cave, that routinely gave me 90%+ copper before randomization, that has given me similar ratio amounts of nearly every ore type since, and always gives 18-30 ore to a human (unless recently mined - which is obvious cause the only miner I've seen in the area only keeps his colored ore, and dumps the iron on the ground, strip mine style)