As posted below - I've looked at more than just the goblin & level 1-9. OP: I've noticed that when I send out my Gathering Goblin, on all of my characters, they return with the standard common mats & usually one or more rare mats. I have noticed that is has been AGES since they have returned with even one "Copper Cluster" (level 1-9 soft metal rare). I have not yet confirmed, but I presume this may also affect the Pack Pony and/or other tiers rare soft metals if I were to send the goblin for them.
Almost a month & a half on, & STILL not getting ANY copper clusters from my goblins... Maybe I should submit a /petition so someone will actually see this... I don't care if nobody else cares, it's a bug. It's a SIMPLE bug. WTF is so hard about people trained to code, who supposedly love games, actually writing good code for a game they work on????
None of my goblins have ever returned with rares, only my ponies do that. You must be a lot luckier than I am.
Are you sure? I know it's my goblins, because I send them & ponies out for different level mats. I send goblins out for & use the level 1-9 mats to make large quantities of amalgamations as cheaply as possible (cuz I'm poor as a mouse in Norrath), but send the ponies out for various higher level mats to keep boxes stocked up. Maybe you should test your minions to check!
Goblins and upgraded ponies both bring back rares. Ponies that haven't been upgraded do not. Your goblins should be bringing back rares; is it only copper clusters that have been missing, or other rares from that tier as well? I haven't really done a scientific comparison, but it feels as though upgraded ponies bring back more rares than the goblins do. That may be subjective, however; I think that at some of the higher tiers, there are rares that the ponies will get that the goblins will not, because those items weren't on the loot tables at the time that the goblins were programmed.
Across all my goblins (11 of them), the ONLY rare that doesn't come back is the copper cluster. I've verified it daily, several times a day, for many many weeks now. While all the other level 1-9 rares keep adding up, the copper cluster slot in my inventories stays woefully at just one. At this point, my harvest box has a few hundred copper (if I recall atm), while the various other rares are approaching 1k each rapidly. Since I re-roll one new toon on all my accounts quite a lot for low level quests, I go harvesting for them, but that's much more tedious & time-consuming than just getting them from my goblin/pony, which is sort of the point of having those little guys. I've never really compared for any differences in what the two bring back, but I have noticed that is seems some rares are more rare than other rares in the highest/newest tiers. For example, I get plenty of most of the PoP rares from my ponies, but the Ribicite Ore I only get very rarely. The strands, pelts & wood I get by the dozens to just one or maybe two ore rares. Casiun Roots in CD, and Prime Luclizite from BoL/RoS are also uber-rare returns from my pony. Extremely rare isn't as much of an issue for me in the last few expacs, however. At least I get one or two now & then.
Ok this is NOT just a goblin problem. After going through my toons this morning, and checking my harvest boxes, I've noted that I haven't EVER gotten a Casiun Root from my ponies. EVER. I've amassed nearly 270 total of the other CD rares, but not even one of the Casiun Roots. After the downtime today, I will be swapping my ponies back to harvesting this tier and continue to track how long the level 1-9 copper clusters continue to be missing from the gather goblins returns, as well as Casiun Roots not showing up in the bundles from my upgraded pack ponies (I have 11 of each, so you'd think I should be getting AT LEAST ONE periodically...). There has got to be some sort of flaw in the rare returns tables for the goblins & ponies. I can't think of any other explanation.
I wish this would get fixed. Cannot imagine that it would be very difficult, tbh. Plenty of folks depend on their ponies & goblins for rare materials...
There's your biggest problem, right there. The ponies and goblins were never designed to be a replacement for harvesting, just a bonus addition. And if you're relying on them for rares with their very low return rates you'll never have any! Go out and do it yourself and you'll pick up more in an hour than the pony will get in weeks.
In the past few months I've noticed the required levels to get a rare harvest seem to be changed for the newest server (PvP). The servers max level is only 70 so it's hard to tell. We harvest with no pony or goblin. You have to be level 60 to even get ANY rare harvest in TT zone, in Bonemire you will not get any harvests at all until lvl 70. can still skill-up but no harvests..... On the pvp server the bushes never drop roots at all in any zones. The rare foods are even more rare, a lvl 70 harvesting low lvl zones it takes about 1k harvests for 1 food rare. (pony and goblin never return food rares anyway) As a lvl 70 on pvp server- I get plenty of the tier 1 stone rares in the baby zones. Morts problem could be a bug with the changes made to harvests for the newest servers OR Mort could be opening his harvest pony and harvest goblin in zones with NO RARE stones on the loot table? and/Or the pony and goblin may not be of the Level to get the highest tier 'rare root'
It's not a problem, at least not for me. The problem is that they simply NEVER return certain rares, EVER. I'm well aware harvesting manually is far faster & more efficient than just depending on the pony & goblin, at least for most tiers. I don't just depend on them, I said that some people do, and I've known a few of those people. Even then, if any given rare was needed for a spell upgrade, or particular piece of furniture, they would either buy it on the broker or go harvesting. At the same time, there are some tiers that are a complete pain to harvest (like ore in the 50-59 range).
My guess is that the former is the issue with this bug. I've never seen any differences in where I'm at when I collect the harvests from the pony or goblin. It's has always been dependent on what I send them out for. As for the highest tier rare root (Casiun Root), I'm not sure how a level factor would be involved, since I do get all the other rares from that tier semi-regularly from the pony & goblin. So, again I surmise it's an issue with the tables.
