ORE AND WOOD

Tyrath

 And can we return ore and wood locations back to static and make LJ and Mining not just a scripter only activity. 

Kyronix

We've talked about this at great length.  One of the biggest downsides to static ore/wood locations is that it opens the door for higher end ore & wood locations to become monopolized, which was often the case before the randomization.  That being said, we've talked about some alternatives to the base resource collection simulation to address all the concerns (repetition, scripting etc) involved but nothing concrete to report.  We welcome discussion on the topic though!  

Captain_Lucky

Would be nice to be able to craft sandstone building parts. Sandstone ore?

Tyrath

Seems to me once static locations are located they would be hard to monopolize as sooner or later everyone will know where they are and just like before they were randomized the resource would be split between anyone hitting it.  Plus the fel spots were fun to camp and kill the scripters.

Larisa

Yeah would rather not have static back..I still have all my old mining runebooks...the fact that a script can just recall and mine out one particular resource is not good...the way it is now is not good either! lol but with the prospector tool and other things we have available to us to at least upgrade while gathering helps...even if it's only a little bit.

I'm not sure how the coding works, but maybe just even small interruptions while gathering....to potentially ~break~ a script...though I don't know how those work either...something like..after so many digs with a shovel or swings of an axe you get tired...or you need to pee lol or you're thirsty so you have to stop to take a break..have a pop-up that gives you options...are you thirsty? Then click on ~Drink Water~....something to deter the scripts...maybe I have no idea just throwing ideas around.

Drakelord

Larisa, I like that idea.  

Tyrath

Larisa  Jagex tried those interruptions way back and they were universally hated, don't know how it turned out I left and went back to UO.   As it is now the scripter just fills a runebook with random spot and presses play on the recall script and runs for 23 hours.  I pretty much quit mining except for salt peter and started farming merch ships where you get val, verite and ag about 200X faster than trying to mine it.   I have Zero interest in all the junk added to make mining less painful.  I started UO as a miner/crafter and would at least like to still be able to enjoy mining since crafting is dead when compared to loot items.

Drakelord

I also kept my old mining books in hopes of one day they would be useful, but with imbuing these days metal armor is a thing of the past for most players.  And only Stone is needed today.  I like the idea of sandstone, maybe get a rock when digging up sand?

PapaSmurf

I sure would like mining to go back to the way it was, as I also have all my mining books 

Larisa

LOL us resource gatherers....we all kept our mining books..I didn't keep mine in the hopes they would turn it back to the way it was, because even if they do, there is no guarantee that the spots would be the same...I kept mine for posterity and the memories of things long past

Garth_Grey

Kyronix said:

We've talked about this at great length.  One of the biggest downsides to static ore/wood locations is that it opens the door for higher end ore & wood locations to become monopolized, which was often the case before the randomization.  That being said, we've talked about some alternatives to the base resource collection simulation to address all the concerns (repetition, scripting etc) involved but nothing concrete to report.  We welcome discussion on the topic though!  

Yeah we wouldn't want ore locations to be  Monopolized...sincerely, Power Scroll locations.

Merlin

Garth_Grey said:

Kyronix said:

We've talked about this at great length.  One of the biggest downsides to static ore/wood locations is that it opens the door for higher end ore & wood locations to become monopolized, which was often the case before the randomization.  That being said, we've talked about some alternatives to the base resource collection simulation to address all the concerns (repetition, scripting etc) involved but nothing concrete to report.  We welcome discussion on the topic though!  

Yeah we wouldn't want ore locations to be  Monopolized...sincerely, Power Scroll locations.

Apples and oranges. 

Tyrath

Merlin said:

Garth_Grey said:

Kyronix said:

We've talked about this at great length.  One of the biggest downsides to static ore/wood locations is that it opens the door for higher end ore & wood locations to become monopolized, which was often the case before the randomization.  That being said, we've talked about some alternatives to the base resource collection simulation to address all the concerns (repetition, scripting etc) involved but nothing concrete to report.  We welcome discussion on the topic though!  

Yeah we wouldn't want ore locations to be  Monopolized...sincerely, Power Scroll locations.

Apples and oranges. 

Not really, both are a resource when you get right down to it.  

Maximus_Neximus

I would prefer static locations vs what we have now.

Drowy

I dont see why static higher ned ore and wood locations would become monopolized. Everyone can go to trammel spots and mine without much trouble. You can even block scripter recall spots. Spots in Felucca could even bring a small portion of PvP which was fun in the past. I was mining and lumbering a lot in the days of static Ore and wood spots, but after the change i went mining and lumbering about 10 times in 10 years, because its not really worth. If we talk about monopolizing, the scripters got the ore and lumber monopol atm. I would like to destroy it with static ore and lumber spots and give us active miners and lumbers some fun back.

Cookie

I don't think going back to Static is a good solution, having fixed spots got rid of the entire point of it once people had all the runes marked in their books - which I do also, and I still have the books.

I think Mining seems to be working fine, I can mine manually now, it's random, and I stand a small chance of getting higher end stuff.

My issue is mainly lumberjacking - I've done a lot of lumberjacking over the last year - and the 3 highest types of wood - I have never got. That makes either the odds, or the system a bit ridiculous. I physically cannot get hold of the higher end stuff. Maybe if I scripted it I could, not tried.

Overall - I like the system, but the odds of getting higher end materials seem infinitesimally small, and sometimes, you may actually want to use some of the higher end woods. It's so rare right now, you are scared to even use it.

Tyrath

Post removed

Mariah

May I draw your attention to the Terms of Service link at the foot of this page, in particular

9. No Posting In Breach Of Games’ Terms of Service - You must not post, or link to materials that are, in breach of the games’ Terms of Service. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Advertisement or promotion of unofficial servers.
  
•  Information on exploits of bugs in sufficient detail to allow others to perform said exploit.
  
•  Cash sales of in game items.

Garth_Grey

I just don't understand why Valorite was added to Merchant ships but not Frostwood. Yeah Yeah I know, pub 220 "might" have High Seas updated content.

Tyrath

<Deleted by Moderator>

Tyrath

Garth_Grey said:

I just don't understand why Valorite was added to Merchant ships but not Frostwood. Yeah Yeah I know, pub 220 "might" have High Seas updated content.

 LOL they will probably remove valorite from ships instead of adding FW

Tyrath

 There we got rid of the Cash sales of in game items part.  And as I said........... I suspect as with other things, they don't want to upset the hard working RMT scripter community that has ZERO problem obtaining a endless supply of 60K stacks to offer for sale.

Feigr

If it's random, I'd like the higher end versions to have a higher chance at spawning.  That would be my request.  At GM mining you've worked hard to get that skill and then you have to continue working hard for drops.  Spawn locations should be 50% iron and the other 50% should just have an even chance spawning any other ore.  Maybe also increase how much each vein drops.  

Tired of having to have less fun in game because of policies made to deter cheaters.

Tyrath

Feigr said:

If it's random, I'd like the higher end versions to have a higher chance at spawning.  That would be my request.  At GM mining you've worked hard to get that skill and then you have to continue working hard for drops.  Spawn locations should be 50% iron and the other 50% should just have an even chance spawning any other ore.  Maybe also increase how much each vein drops.  

Tired of having to have less fun in game because of policies made to deter cheaters.

 Setting mining and LJ aside literally everything they have done over the years to deter the scripters has had the exact opposite effect and simply caused the not scripters to stop participating and making it something no sane person would engage in without scripting.  Used to be a legit miner or LJ could make a decent UO living.  What we asked for back then was the scripters to be dealt with, Not the entire Mining and LJ to be broke and turning into a scripter only activity.   And then things that hace ZERO to do with mining or LJ added to try to compensate for fixing what was not broken.

Deraj

I have a challenging time commenting on this because the fixes as I see it reach into other aspects of the game because of how interwoven and complex the gameplay is. The problem as I see it isn't the scripters - the scripters are a symptom of the problem, which is that resource harvesting is overly monotonous, overly simplistic, fundamentally flawed by virtue of other parts of the game mechanics, and the resources themselves have very little value making the whole exercise somewhat pointless. That being said here is my response to the resource problem:

1. All resources need to come from their respective skill only, or primarily - ores from miners, wood from lumberjacks, etc. Gold elementals in the BT dungeon are a problem. Ore from trade ships are a problem. When it comes to ores, miners should be king. When it comes to wood, lumberjacks should be king.

2. Fire beetles are a huge problem. They destroy the logistical challenge of having to smelt ore at a forge. They need to be nerfed or their ability removed. My solution: rework the way smelting works, so that instead of losing half the ore upon failure, it smelts each unit one by one, with the chance of success being affected by the quality or location of the forge. A fire beetle could still provide smelting but at a much lower chance of success. The point is, players should need to carry their ore back to their house or to town or a mining camp or whatever to get the maximum yield.

3. The same principle of #2 ought to be applied to lumberjacks. Instead of using an axe to chop logs into boards, they should need to bring it back to some kind of wood mill to process it into boards until a similar process as mining. Both #2 and #3 would indeed result in lower overall yield for everyone, which is a good thing if we want to restore value to these resources and make them worth the time to harvest and sell.

4. Mining and lumberjacking should be automatic processes - once you start harvesting a spot your character will continue harvesting until the spot is either depleted or you stop the process. Having to hit a key for each individual harvest of a spot is incredibly monotonous and mind-numbing. It serves no purpose against scripters but only makes the activity more aggravating.

5. Runebook mining needs to be nerfed heavily - this is big cause of many woes. I'm not sure I had a good answer to that. Increased weight of ore? Increased weights for rare ores? A modifier to the ore weight that is only calculated for recall attempts? (example, an ore weights X, but when recalling, it weights X * 3 or something). Completely treat harvested resources as non-recallable objects? I'm tossing around ideas but the point is, if people cannot agree that runebook harvesting is one of the central problems, I guarantee you, mark my words, that this problem will -never- be solved; it won't matter if the resources are static or dynamic because scripters will always be able to power through and win out over sheer numbers alone. Runebook mining has got to be nerfed.

6. Resources need more use. Some ideas: fix BODs, implement some kind of resource need in cities, make repairing require resources. The point is, a lot of resources as they are now have a fairly limited use.

Just my 3 cents.

Bilbo

BRING BACK STATIC RESOURCES...  All this did was hurt the honest players.

DO AWAY WITH FAIL RATE ON SMELTING.  This is the only resource gathered that has a failure rate, everybody has a 100% success rate.

Kyronix

Thanks for the incredibly thoughtful & thought-provoking response!  You touch on a number of issues, the #1 being that this is a multi-faceted issue without a single "silver-bullet" solution.  Let me preface this response by saying this is merely a discussion and anything I say here should be considered highly "in-concept" and not concrete in any sense.

1. All resources need to come from their respective skill only, or primarily - ores from miners, wood from lumberjacks, etc. Gold elementals in the BT dungeon are a problem. Ore from trade ships are a problem. When it comes to ores, miners should be king. When it comes to wood, lumberjacks should be king.

I tend to agree with you, however, from the perspective of rewards from other activities resources play a vital role.  It's easy to "throw in some resources" as rewards for content without having to worry about powercreep, balance, rares etc etc.  That being said I think in some respects it makes sense to get resources from non-harvesting activities as plundering trade routes or resources caches enhances the simulation and the immersion.  I'd of much rather seen rare resources or specialty resources available from non-harvesting activities, but alas we are at the stage we are and going backwards is always tricky.  That said, it may be worth a balance pass and further discussion.

2. Fire beetles are a huge problem. They destroy the logistical challenge of having to smelt ore at a forge. They need to be nerfed or their ability removed. My solution: rework the way smelting works, so that instead of losing half the ore upon failure, it smelts each unit one by one, with the chance of success being affected by the quality or location of the forge. A fire beetle could still provide smelting but at a much lower chance of success. The point is, players should need to carry their ore back to their house or to town or a mining camp or whatever to get the maximum yield.

I think fire beetles (the de-facto portable forge) enhanced the user experience for the better overall.  While using a herd of pack animals to transport large weights of resources, or dropping/dragging may have been more realistic to the simulation, I think it presented a huge UX downfall.  I do, however, like the idea of mining/lumber camps and the thought of how to implement them is something I often think about.  Providing a bonus to refined resources would be a good way to promote their use.

3. The same principle of #2 ought to be applied to lumberjacks. Instead of using an axe to chop logs into boards, they should need to bring it back to some kind of wood mill to process it into boards until a similar process as mining. Both #2 and #3 would indeed result in lower overall yield for everyone, which is a good thing if we want to restore value to these resources and make them worth the time to harvest and sell.

See my response to #2

4. Mining and lumberjacking should be automatic processes - once you start harvesting a spot your character will continue harvesting until the spot is either depleted or you stop the process. Having to hit a key for each individual harvest of a spot is incredibly monotonous and mind-numbing. It serves no purpose against scripters but only makes the activity more aggravating.

This would probably be pretty easy to implement and would go a long way to promoting the UX of resource harvesting overall.

5. Runebook mining needs to be nerfed heavily - this is big cause of many woes. I'm not sure I had a good answer to that. Increased weight of ore? Increased weights for rare ores? A modifier to the ore weight that is only calculated for recall attempts? (example, an ore weights X, but when recalling, it weights X * 3 or something). Completely treat harvested resources as non-recallable objects? I'm tossing around ideas but the point is, if people cannot agree that runebook harvesting is one of the central problems, I guarantee you, mark my words, that this problem will -never- be solved; it won't matter if the resources are static or dynamic because scripters will always be able to power through and win out over sheer numbers alone. Runebook mining has got to be nerfed.

I think you touch on a larger issue that plagues any resource gathering operation, not just as it relates to UO.  Most of the time, it is inherently un-fun.  We try to "fancy" it up by adding random events, rare item recovery etc. Anything to trigger the reward center in an otherwise mundane loop.  That's not to say some don't enjoy the relaxation of harvesting, but for the vast majority I don't think it appeals.  The solution then, from the end-user's perspective, is to automate the process.  This results in some NPC driven resource gathering system (meh) or resource-scripting.  We can take steps to deter the latter while not punishing those legitimately harvesting, but I think at its core the process needs to evolve to something more meaty and less mundane.

6. Resources need more use. Some ideas: fix BODs, implement some kind of resource need in cities, make repairing require resources. The point is, a lot of resources as they are now have a fairly limited use.

Could you elaborate, what's wrong with BODs in your opionion?  The other suggestions you make and the core point of a lack of need definitely are valid as well.  You still need resources to craft,. but I agree expanding their need would help to revitalize an otherwise lost profession. 

Thanks again for your thoughtful feedback!

Arroth_Thaiel

Deraj said:

I have a challenging time commenting on this because the fixes as I see it reach into other aspects of the game because of how interwoven and complex the gameplay is. The problem as I see it isn't the scripters - the scripters are a symptom of the problem, which is that resource harvesting is overly monotonous, overly simplistic, fundamentally flawed by virtue of other parts of the game mechanics, and the resources themselves have very little value making the whole exercise somewhat pointless. That being said here is my response to the resource problem:

1. All resources need to come from their respective skill only, or primarily - ores from miners, wood from lumberjacks, etc. Gold elementals in the BT dungeon are a problem. Ore from trade ships are a problem. When it comes to ores, miners should be king. When it comes to wood, lumberjacks should be king.

2. Fire beetles are a huge problem. They destroy the logistical challenge of having to smelt ore at a forge. They need to be nerfed or their ability removed. My solution: rework the way smelting works, so that instead of losing half the ore upon failure, it smelts each unit one by one, with the chance of success being affected by the quality or location of the forge. A fire beetle could still provide smelting but at a much lower chance of success. The point is, players should need to carry their ore back to their house or to town or a mining camp or whatever to get the maximum yield.

3. The same principle of #2 ought to be applied to lumberjacks. Instead of using an axe to chop logs into boards, they should need to bring it back to some kind of wood mill to process it into boards until a similar process as mining. Both #2 and #3 would indeed result in lower overall yield for everyone, which is a good thing if we want to restore value to these resources and make them worth the time to harvest and sell.

4. Mining and lumberjacking should be automatic processes - once you start harvesting a spot your character will continue harvesting until the spot is either depleted or you stop the process. Having to hit a key for each individual harvest of a spot is incredibly monotonous and mind-numbing. It serves no purpose against scripters but only makes the activity more aggravating.

5. Runebook mining needs to be nerfed heavily - this is big cause of many woes. I'm not sure I had a good answer to that. Increased weight of ore? Increased weights for rare ores? A modifier to the ore weight that is only calculated for recall attempts? (example, an ore weights X, but when recalling, it weights X * 3 or something). Completely treat harvested resources as non-recallable objects? I'm tossing around ideas but the point is, if people cannot agree that runebook harvesting is one of the central problems, I guarantee you, mark my words, that this problem will -never- be solved; it won't matter if the resources are static or dynamic because scripters will always be able to power through and win out over sheer numbers alone. Runebook mining has got to be nerfed.

6. Resources need more use. Some ideas: fix BODs, implement some kind of resource need in cities, make repairing require resources. The point is, a lot of resources as they are now have a fairly limited use.

Just my 3 cents.

Nice ideas. One of the more well thought out arguments I've read concerning resources.

Margrette

If you do things to decrease the yield from mining and lumberjacking and/or to make the process more painful, the people that will be most affected are newer players and older players who aren't sitting on tons of already-collected resources.  Many older players are sitting on a lot of resources that they collected at IDOCs or bought from third-party sources.  Do we really need to have further changes made to UO that end up making more people use RL money to buy UO items from third-party sources??

One change that I would really like to see is removing the timer from the maps and cauldrons from Vela and the BOD reward system so that they can be used over a longer period of time and/or sold to other players.  

Maximus_Neximus

Kyronix, I like and agree with what you said. My biggest thing is that I do not find resource gathering to be fun in any way. With static resources I was able to go mine for what I needed in a relatively short period of time, limiting my boredom/frustrations. Also, the fire beetle is a huge help and should remain the same.

The only time that I ever farmed one resource hard was to get higher end wood to donate to the Vesper Museum. It was a crafter's version of doing the roof for a specific item. Since we can't reliably get those high end resources, and the rewards are considered low-end now, all of the museums sit near empty. But even if the rewards were upgraded, there's no way that I would take the time to farm 800,000 plain boards to donate.

Kyronix

Maximus_Neximus said:

Kyronix, I like and agree with what you said. My biggest thing is that I do not find resource gathering to be fun in any way. With static resources I was able to go mine for what I needed in a relatively short period of time, limiting my boredom/frustrations. Also, the fire beetle is a huge help and should remain the same.

The only time that I ever farmed one resource hard was to get higher end wood to donate to the Vesper Museum. It was a crafter's version of doing the roof for a specific item. Since we can't reliably get those high end resources, and the rewards are considered low-end now, all of the museums sit near empty. But even if the rewards were upgraded, there's no way that I would take the time to farm 800,000 plain boards to donate.

I think you are joined by the majority of players in resource gathering mechanics in any game.  Resources by their very nature are always a means to an end.  A lot of times we set arbitrary goals for ourselves which help define a firm objective, and that can help break the monotony...I'm going to mine 20k ingots so that I can do X.

One of the downsides of static locations is that while yes, you could go out and be sure to find valorite in the same spots every day, the very same people who are script-mining now can easily monopolize that resource so that by the time you get there...there is no valorite to be had.  I not-so-fondly remember this being the case when I finally got enough mining to get some valorite only to find those spots monopolized by other miners who had beaten me to the vein.  Yes, we could share it once the resource egg respawned, but waiting around for a respawn wasn't exactly my idea of a good time either.

Regardless, I think the core of what you are saying is you want to be able to go out and get the resources you desire without having to spend a ton of time doing something boring before you get to do whatever it is you really want to do with your resources...whether it be crafting, donating, etc, etc.