Elizabeth Gold
Grandmaster
In it's current state, mining is a considered a boring profession that's easily automated and attracts a lot of botters. As such, I think an overhaul of the current mining system would be a good thing.
Current problems:
Current problems:
- Too little risk: No PVP or PVE is required to mine. There are so many remote locations where you mine for days without getting in any kind of trouble.
- Too little competition: There are about 30 well known valorite locations that are often contested by several miners at once but they don't bother to 'eliminate' the competition since ore respawns so fast.
- Too little reward variation: Doesn't matter if you are mining an empty cave or inside a dungeon full of dragons, the yield is the same regardless the challange.
- Too little use for in between ores: Right now, you need iron and valorite. The other ores are only used to fill the occasional bulk order deed, so there is virtually no demand for them.
- Currently only gargoyle pickaxes allow ore elementals to spawn, but their loot/effort is not in proportion. If a character kills any of these, the ore on it's corpse should scale with the character's mining skill.
- Increase the ore respawn timers. Currently it's about 25 minutes between the respawn of ore. If want people to venture and explore newer and more dangerous locations, increase the respawn time to 25 hours or something. That way, if a cave is mined, it's empty for the rest of the day and you need to look elsewhere. There sufficient landmass available to keep every miner going. Also, valorite nodes will be much more contested!
- Prospector tools/fornestic skill could be used to have a rough indication when a node got last cleared.
- Make certain outdoor caves only minable to members of the owning kingdom (For Minoc!)
- Reduce colored ore ratio on a colored nodes. If you mine on a colored node now, you get about 50% colored ore and 50% iron ore returned. Reduce that number to 10% colored if you are mining outside the world. Since that number is rather low, add some booster effects: +10% inside a dungeon, +10% in kingdom, +10% for legendary miners, +10% for using specialized tools, ...
- Specialized tools: When crafting a pickaxe/shovel, you can use various materials. If you craft a bronze pickaxe/shovel, you get +10% chance of getting bronze when mining a bronze node. Perhaps even add the effect of a gargoyle pickaxe when used on the appropriate node.
- Double ore mining only works inside dungeons. Tripple ore mining (currently limited available with factions) only works in RDA's.
- Upon mining have a small chance for random encounters:
- Uncovering a hole to a cave (non markable area) which stays open for an hour.
- The noise attracts a nearby orc party to investigate.
- You dig up a forgotten treasure chest.
- You just hit a burried internet cable, a random EQMS online member now disconnects for 5 minutes.
- You just found a beautiful rock and decided to keep it as a decoration.
- You found a sulfer rock which breaks down to sulferous ash as you try to loot it.
- Your mining activities have awoken Eppy, you should expect a visit from him soon.
- First month, all existing piles lose 25% (e.g. a 60.000 iron ingot stack becomes: 45.000 iron ingot stack)
- Second month, all existing piles lose 33% (e.g. a 45.000 iron ingot stack becomes: 30.000 iron ingot stack)
- Third month, all existing piles lose 50% (e.g. a 30.000 iron ingot stack becomes: 15.000 iron ingot stack)
- Last month, all existing piles lose 100% (e.g. a 15.000 iron ingot stack becomes: 0 iron ingot stack)
- After that the new mining changes are published so everyone starts equally.