Mining - Please Relook

[Bad_Bud]

Some time ago, perhaps over a year, a screenshot was posted on the forum by Unana showing ore that had exploded all over a room from a critical hit from a heavy pickaxe.  Due to this screenshot being posted, mining was rebalanced.  However, it has since been discovered that what had transpired in that picture was actually a glitch: stacking an alchemist's fire and any on-hit spell effect (in the case of Unana's Sivius, it was darkfire) would cause a rock to explode with ore.  This bug has since been fixed, but the mining rebalance (nerf) remains.

I would hope that mining could be placed back to how it originally was, but it should at least be looked at.  Right now, mining is supposed to be a damage/strength based endeavor, but I hardly find that to be the case.  My barbarian has 22 strength and improved power attack.  Here is a video of me mining only three ore: http://www.xfire.com/video/247872/

Every time I travel, everyone seems to mine more than I do, but stat-wise, my character should be the ideal miner.  I use a pickaxe, improved power attack, and sometimes rage/bull's strength, but I get assy amounts of ore, generally in the range of 0-6 per ore-rich rock.  I see people mining with a pickaxe in each hand, elves with 10 strength, or people whacking the ore-rich rocks with weapons like halberds and fists, and they generally end up walking away with more ore than I do per rock.

It's sad to spend a lot of time in the silver mine only to end up getting a few nibbles of ore per rock, when your character is as focused as can be at mining, and has the right tools for the job.



Please reconsider the mining values.

[marlewebber]

Are you using a pickaxe or a mining pick?  I never had any great success  unless I was using the smaller "Mining" pick... may need to check on my end.

[Bad_Bud]

I'm using the smaller mining pick, because I carry it in a bag at all times, and it doesn't take up much room.

Here's an update: I went back to the mine and said "bump dis", and started mining with my greatsword.  My ore output went from 0-6 to 4-16.  I feel really stupid mining with a greatsword, but I'm going to until using a pick is no longer a penalizing thing. 

[Purist]

Think mining is bad? Have you tried lumberjack? Ridiciulous hard to get anything without any buffs so far.

[DM Tarokka]

*Silently reads and keeps mining and cutting trees with all the difficulties aforesaid*

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

Perhaps your mining pick is bugged? Does it give you that special yellow feedback message when hitting the ore with it?

[Bad_Bud]

I get the yellow message, yes.

Using pickaxes, we got about 22 pieces of silver ore from the silver mine, from about 7 ore rocks.

[Ravenous]

I was kinda surprised that buffs no longer factor into crafting. Understandable from a certain point of view, but not very logical.

[Little Lotte]

My minor, dual weilds small pick axes and I dont really have a problem with the amount she mines. She just goes into power attack mode, uses magic weapon on the axes and goes to town.

[Mcskinns]

Perhaps your mining pick is bugged? Does it give you that special yellow feedback message when hitting the ore with it?

would note however, if you have anything in your off hand you will not get these messages.  I've on occasion held a shield opposed to my pickaxe to "shield from falling rocks" in the dawrven mines, but it cancels out the yellow text.

I don't consider 22 ore a bad haul myself... but it does appear that using something like improved power attack offers really nice criticals, but destroys the placeable ten times faster, removing any hope of gaining a lot of ore.  Would note that from what I have been hearing, the smaller picks yeild more than the larger, which isn't exacly logical, since the larger pick would break the rock down faster.


It might be worth changing the system someday, where the ore initially spawns in the placeables inventory, and upon a successful "hit" it is removed and deposited nearby on the ground.  Then when the last ore is removed the placeable is destroyed... then the dev's could decide what range of ore they wanted to have available per node and set it to spawn in randomly each time.  Everyone would have the means to aquire the same ore from the rock but some would simply get it faster.

[Vespertilio]

I was kinda surprised that buffs no longer factor into crafting. Understandable from a certain point of view, but not very logical.

Buffs allowed pcs with no aptitude for a particular craft, even negative ability, to become masters quicker than those who had the ic requirements and advantages, with no effort.

[Bad_Bud]

Averaging 0-6 ore per rock is what I would call a bad haul; it used to be substantially more.  Also the concern that the gathering systems (mining and woodcutting) were revamped with the intention of giving proportionally larger yields to strength based characters and less to the other characters.  But in the end it seems that everyone gets around the same amount, and that that amount is terrible.

And from a logical perspective, dual wielding picks doesn't make sense.  The off-hand weapon gets a half strength modifier on damage, not even full damage.  Basically you're just wasting energy flailing around pretending to be ambidextrous.  What miner would ever actually mine with a pick in each hand?  I recall seeing some kids at school talking about how fast they could erase a white board, and they would grab two erasers, like it was supposed to make a difference.  Really they were just erasing crap with one hand while the other hand slid around the board uselessly.  I imagine mining would be mostly similar.

It might be worth changing the system someday, where the ore initially spawns in the placeables inventory, and upon a successful "hit" it is removed and deposited nearby on the ground.  Then when the last ore is removed the placeable is destroyed... then the dev's could decide what range of ore they wanted to have available per node and set it to spawn in randomly each time.  Everyone would have the means to aquire the same ore from the rock but some would simply get it faster.

I like this idea a lot.  To go further on it, it might even be nice to have the ore become harder to get as there becomes less of it left.  That would be where the higher strength characters would have a better chance of getting more.

[Zedrik]

Averaging 0-6 ore per rock is what I would call a bad haul; it used to be substantially more.  Also the concern that the gathering systems (mining and woodcutting) were revamped with the intention of giving proportionally larger yields to strength based characters and less to the other characters.  But in the end it seems that everyone gets around the same amount, and that that amount is terrible.

And from a logical perspective, dual wielding picks doesn't make sense.  The off-hand weapon gets a half strength modifier on damage, not even full damage.  Basically you're just wasting energy flailing around pretending to be ambidextrous.  What miner would ever actually mine with a pick in each hand?  I recall seeing some kids at school talking about how fast they could erase a white board, and they would grab two erasers, like it was supposed to make a difference.  Really they were just erasing crap with one hand while the other hand slid around the board uselessly.  I imagine mining would be mostly similar.

It might be worth changing the system someday, where the ore initially spawns in the placeables inventory, and upon a successful "hit" it is removed and deposited nearby on the ground.  Then when the last ore is removed the placeable is destroyed... then the dev's could decide what range of ore they wanted to have available per node and set it to spawn in randomly each time.  Everyone would have the means to aquire the same ore from the rock but some would simply get it faster.

I like this idea a lot.  To go further on it, it might even be nice to have the ore become harder to get as there becomes less of it left.  That would be where the higher strength characters would have a better chance of getting more.

So you're telling me that if Ulfga mines with her hammer instead of pickaxe, she'll get more than 4 ore per rock?
Once of the main reasons i stopped playing her so much was the incredible nerf mining got. That plus the fact that I can't really store my ore anywhere. I still say Dvergeheim should have a vault for PCs to store ores and ingots. And a barn outside for oxes to stay without chance of theft or death by crag cat without having to "claim" it.

[Purist]

I also find the whole dual pick axe idea very lame. There shouldn't be those "mini-picks", all picks should be the big, heavy, two handed ones. Same as lumberjacking, you don't see a skilled woodsman chopping wood with two tiny axes, rather a big one or even a saw.

[Bad_Bud]

I also find the whole dual pick axe idea very lame. There shouldn't be those "mini-picks", all picks should be the big, heavy, two handed ones. Same as lumberjacking, you don't see a skilled woodsman chopping wood with two tiny axes, rather a big one or even a saw.

lol, but mini-picks do exist, and they have uses.  But no one puts one in each hand.

Averaging 0-6 ore per rock is what I would call a bad haul; it used to be substantially more.  Also the concern that the gathering systems (mining and woodcutting) were revamped with the intention of giving proportionally larger yields to strength based characters and less to the other characters.  But in the end it seems that everyone gets around the same amount, and that that amount is terrible.

And from a logical perspective, dual wielding picks doesn't make sense.  The off-hand weapon gets a half strength modifier on damage, not even full damage.  Basically you're just wasting energy flailing around pretending to be ambidextrous.  What miner would ever actually mine with a pick in each hand?  I recall seeing some kids at school talking about how fast they could erase a white board, and they would grab two erasers, like it was supposed to make a difference.  Really they were just erasing crap with one hand while the other hand slid around the board uselessly.  I imagine mining would be mostly similar.

It might be worth changing the system someday, where the ore initially spawns in the placeables inventory, and upon a successful "hit" it is removed and deposited nearby on the ground.  Then when the last ore is removed the placeable is destroyed... then the dev's could decide what range of ore they wanted to have available per node and set it to spawn in randomly each time.  Everyone would have the means to aquire the same ore from the rock but some would simply get it faster.

I like this idea a lot.  To go further on it, it might even be nice to have the ore become harder to get as there becomes less of it left.  That would be where the higher strength characters would have a better chance of getting more.

So you're telling me that if Ulfga mines with her hammer instead of pickaxe, she'll get more than 4 ore per rock?
Once of the main reasons i stopped playing her so much was the incredible nerf mining got. That plus the fact that I can't really store my ore anywhere. I still say Dvergeheim should have a vault for PCs to store ores and ingots. And a barn outside for oxes to stay without chance of theft or death by crag cat without having to "claim" it.

Not really.  If she uses a weapon she's better with.  Sedrik is a lot better with a greatsword than a pickaxe, and I guess the damage difference was so great that the ore output was more than double that of a pickaxe, which I thought got a boost, but it must not be much.

[Kendric98]

I also find the whole dual pick axe idea very lame. There shouldn't be those "mini-picks", all picks should be the big, heavy, two handed ones. Same as lumberjacking, you don't see a skilled woodsman chopping wood with two tiny axes, rather a big one or even a saw.

My poor little druids back would snap with giant axes!

[Psyche]

I thought mining damaged weapons in the same way as black puddings do?
If not that'd kinda make sense - using a tool not hardened and designed for mining will blunt it, warp it etc.
I'd only advocate this, however, if improvements were made to the pickaxe - a little variable modifier somewhere or whatever.

[Minstrel]

Out of interest, have you tried mining with a weapon similar to the Pickaxe but not, well, a pickaxe?

For example a Quarterstaff or something.

See if there's any noticable difference.

[Purist]

That also sounds lame Minstrel, I mean of course, using it for test, but the mining placeable could(if it don't yet) have a +10 resistance do blunt and imunity to slashing.


@Kendric98 Your druid is a lumberjack?

[Mcskinns]

There shouldn't be those "mini-picks", all picks should be the big, heavy, two handed ones. Same as lumberjacking, you don't see a skilled woodsman chopping wood with two tiny axes, rather a big one or even a saw.

This all depends on your perspective.... they aren't so "mini" in the hands of a gnome or hin who likely can't weild the larger version. 

[Bad_Bud]

There shouldn't be those "mini-picks", all picks should be the big, heavy, two handed ones. Same as lumberjacking, you don't see a skilled woodsman chopping wood with two tiny axes, rather a big one or even a saw.

This all depends on your perspective.... they aren't so "mini" in the hands of a gnome or hin who likely can't weild the larger version.  

The silly thing is that the larger version is only one-handed, so gnomes and halflings can still wield it.  In fact, since it's two-handed for them, it's more effective.  The top miners are halflings!

[DM Tarokka]

There shouldn't be those "mini-picks", all picks should be the big, heavy, two handed ones. Same as lumberjacking, you don't see a skilled woodsman chopping wood with two tiny axes, rather a big one or even a saw.

This all depends on your perspective.... they aren't so "mini" in the hands of a gnome or hin who likely can't weild the larger version.  

The silly thing is that the larger version is only one-handed, so gnomes and halflings can still wield it.  In fact, since it's two-handed for them, it's more effective.  The top miners are halflings!

So the trick is simple! Polymorph into halfling and mine!

[Kendric98]

That also sounds lame Minstrel, I mean of course, using it for test, but the mining placeable could(if it don't yet) have a +10 resistance do blunt and imunity to slashing.


@Kendric98 Your druid is a lumberjack?

LOL no she was being taught to make bows ic and had to get beech tree so she rped it as pruning and cutting dead wood ect. But us low str classes have enough trouble with weight dont make axes and picks bigger.

[DM Tarokka]

Maybe this is worth of a check too... the ores flying in spots where one cannot pick them...

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

Will check up on this when I next get by the toolset