Topic

Post-Test Mining Feedback

TL/DR: the mining changes seem to have severely affected its usefulness.

So I spent a couple of game days this test period mining to see the effect the gem drop changes had on my gameplay. First I'd like to point out that mining is a relatively energy-intense activity compared to the other farming skills (nibbling/harvesting/croppery/etc...) but this has traditionally been offset by profit and earthshakers to negate the energy expenditures. Using earthshakers to negate the energy cost results in long farming periods (I normally do one to two hour runs) since it's more efficient to do it all at once since simply travelling to and from Ilmenskie takes a lot of time (what other reason is there to go so far away from the subway?). People consider mining to be a tedious process, but I don't find it to be any worse than the other skills, and certainly less tedious than squeezing those annoying chickens!

I found myself wanting to spend more time with my other skills than I have previously. I don't have any numbers, but the reduction in gem drops seems to have cut out a lot of the profit I made during these long mining sessions. Given, I don't have max engineering, tinkering, or Alchemy, but I do have admixing to make powders. The profit from Shrine Powder is ridiculously poor imo. After mining, crushing, compounding, and powdering, the amount of energy expended is liable to be in the realm of two to three thousand (without earthshakers/humababas/no-no) and sells for about 2500 currants. The gems have really been the "profit" in the mining endeavor for me in the past. With the changes to gem drops I spent hours mining ore and only netted a few thousand currants worth of gems. It seemed like a profound waste of time when all was said and done (3 hours, and not even 16 gems!). Especially considering I can harvest trees and animals much more readily, have a much greater chance of having random items drop (drinks, musicblocks, harvesting bonuses), rapidly craft those items into higher valued items (for much less energy) and sell them for more money. I don't feel that mining is worth my time in its current incarnation.

I like the idea of having a greater chance of gems dropping at the start of a mining expedition, but I am definitely against having the chance of gems dropping getting increasingly lower with every occurrence. I propose a floor on the drop rate of gems so that those of us who enjoy long mining sessions are not punished so harshly for doing so. I don't have a problem with lower the drop rates, or the amount of profit from mining (it was rather easy to rack up currants from mining), but I feel that this change takes it too far.

Posted 16 months ago by Skwid Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I'd agree with the floor idea. I can generally rack up a pretty good haul of gems early on, but it does wane a bit.
    Then again, I fill 3 Bigger Bags with rock chunks before I do anything with them, and I can spend up to three consecutive (game) days on mining alone, so having the gems trail off ofter a long session *really* bites into my profits.
    I dunno that you can only make a profit on the gems, though- I had a 7000c house and about 10k extra at level 11 from mining alone, sans Admixing and Alchemy.
    Posted 16 months ago by Djabriil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm not big on bumping threads, but I would like to see what some other players have experienced this go around!

    Thanks Djabriil!
    Posted 16 months ago by Skwid Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have Mining III, and I could not tell a major difference in the gem drops during this test versus the previous one (this is only my second test window). The first test seemed to give me more diamonds, while this most recent session seemed to give me more amber. I think I only collected one or two diamonds during the whole week of testing, but I had plenty of amber and a surprising number of sapphires. 

    I don't know about profiting from gem mining since I usually save gems to donate in order to get time reduced from learning skills. However, I do agree that the energy it takes to mine, smelt, crush, and rub is RIDICULOUS. I go through earthshakers and awesome stews like a mad woman, so much so that I have gotten the "getting full" warning quite a few times. 
    Posted 16 months ago by Tonya Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This was my second test. I have Mining III and all the Cooking skills except Master Chef II. I live in Groddle Meadows, so I have a pretty succinct resource route from which I gather all I need to make several earthshakers and humabas. I can get up to 2.75 rocks mined in a single earthshaker, and I can crush up to 300 units of rock on one humaba (two grinders). I'll mine and crush until my drinks are done, usually less than an hour. From this I will get anywhere from 6-10 gems. Not sure of the monetary value, since i just donate them all rather than selling them and I use shrine powder. 

    The drinks are definitely the way to go, since crushing energy is 4x units crushed, and a rock takes about 65 energy to fully mine. 2 Earthshaker + 1 Humaba = roughly 1550 energy. That only only costs me about 20c and maybe 175 energy to make, including gathering energy. Or you can buy that for 472c from the slug lady in Ix. I'm not sure what mining was like before the nerf, but it still seems pretty bada** to me.
    Posted 16 months ago by La_La Subscriber! | Permalink
  • rubeweed.
    Posted 16 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Do you guys feel you net more money/hr mining, or just running around collecting random other stuff? I just felt it was easier to earn cash just grabbing random things as I was earning my explorer achievements than deliberately going to the mines and hacking rocks to pieces while under the influence (both in-game and RL!)
    Posted 16 months ago by Skwid Subscriber! | Permalink
  • To the OP:
    I have never mined for hours on end (get bored) but with Mining 4 I didn't notice any drop in the amount of gems - probably as I only mine in short spurts. There seemed to be plenty going around every time I hit a rock.

    I am puzzled about what you say about long journeys to the mines. Ilmenskie is next to Eastern Approach, where there is a subway. It's right there! You can also mine effectively in the Heights, Alakol, Salatu, Bortola.
    Posted 16 months ago by Violet Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, as far as the mining goes, It has a very limited use in my opinion. Other than becoming elements or currants, Ores has no more usage, no? But Mining IV takes a long time to learn. Although, It's only 4 level unlike Animal Kinship (6 levels!). the effectiveness of Animal Kinship starts from IV-V, and Mining starts from III. Other than minor energy reduction and XP increase, IMO, Mining IV is not worth it. So, why don't the developers change the Diamond drop rate instead? AFAIK people aim for Diamond in mining. Let's say that Mining I has 5% chance to earn Diamond, what if Mining IV has around 20ish%?
    Cuz IMO AK V is already very imbalanced, no delay on nibbling/squeezing/milking?

    Another idea, What about adding sub-ability (exclusive for Mining IV) to mine a targeted rock until it's completely run out? We can bring out cookies while waiting and we don't need to check every 5 seconds :D
    Posted 16 months ago by Elise Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Minim IV is worth it...just go for it and you'll see.

    Yep, you will.
    Posted 16 months ago by MeherMan Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Unfortunately, I didn't get to play with it enough this test to make a valued judgment on the mining nerfing.  I think we'll really see the effect the most at reset when everyone is scrambling for currants to buy back their houses...
    Posted 16 months ago by b3achy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @ b3achy - good point. Ilmenskie's gonna be packed for the first week or so.
    Posted 16 months ago by Djabriil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Violet: A Fair point, if I'm going to complain about the length of time it takes me to get somewhere I can just mine somewhere else. I like to mine in Ilmenskie Deeps, there are fewer people, and its easier to get around in than Caverns. In fact, in at least one of the streets in the Deeps there are enough nodes that unless someone else comes along you can just loop around the same street for hours without having to leave. (I'd say where, but I honestly don't remember, I was laughing at Whose Line is it Anyway at the time!)

    In order to mine efficiently you really need locations like that so you can maximize your Earthshakers. Mining in locations where you have to change streets often ruins Earthshakers because of street change lag.

    And lets be honest, what other reason would you have to go to the cavers/deeps other than to explore or mine? There's literally just ore and guano down there! If the devs don't want us to spend a lot of time doing a single thing, I would recommend adding something to do in these two zones especially.
    Posted 16 months ago by Skwid Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes, mining IV is totally worth it.  I haven't noticed much difference in gems, although I typically teleport in to Ajaya Bliss for an hour, use earthshakers, and then go to the vendor to sell.
    Posted 16 months ago by Feylin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • How much do these calculations change if you mine collaboratively?
    Posted 16 months ago by Clumdalglitch Subscriber! | Permalink