Silicate Loam Woes

Sigrdrifa@Lucan DLere wrote:

Dizok Emblazoned Plate on Nektulos is at a low of 25 gold per piece. 40-60 gold for the Chest/Leg pieces. Yah, it's really holding value, right. Pardon me for not seeing the fantastic profits here as compared to Adepts. I must be blind, and stupid, right?
But excuse me. I must be wrong, SOE never makes a mistake, and the crafting world is full of bunnies, butterflies and happy thoughts.. absolute perfection. Mea Culpa.
Oh, and going from the statement you made above.. how much cheaper and easy to get do you want Incarnadine to be? I walk to the broker now and buy all I need for less than 10 gold ea. You contradict your own argument with your own statement.
The ratio is wrong. Silacates should drop at a higher rate to reflect actual demand. Higher drop rates would lead to less node mining pressure and hopefully lead to less oversupply of Incarnadine, and an eventual balance between the two rares price wise.
Rare hides and wood are retaining value, those nodes are not being exhaustively harvested in search of a second rare. Mahogany and Rare hide are not surplus byproducts flooding the market.. and the value of the goods produced by those rares remains decent vs Incarnadine made goods. Common t8 hides and loams are also holding higher value than common ores and loam, again, these single rare nodes are not being strip mined in search of a second higher value rare.
The dual purpose node and the failure to reconcile harvest ratios with use ratios is a failure.. proven over and over again.

Meirril wrote:

Ok, I'll say it once again....
What about the other uses of emerald and tynnonium? This isn't only about adept 3's, you know. Rare loam is only used for adept 3's - nothing else. Tynnonium and emerald, on the other hand, are already used for priest/mage adept3's, jewelry and carpenter items.
I think that also needs to be taken into consideration.

Lasai wrote:

Don't forget, the problem also reappears in all previous tiers when everyone moves out of the old level cap and
into the new one.
Take a look at the price of the T1-T3 / 4 rares. On Mistmoore they're absurd, some T1 going for 40g each. The
rarity of the drops coupled with the fact there aren't many people farming them locks the few on the broker at
unreachable prices for new players (those without a rich main to funnel cash down).
It wouldn't be so bad except that since any tier under the cap is predominantly solo (ie: lack of groups), you're
almost required to have the best spells possible or suffer absurdly high resists and subsequent deaths.
IMO when the level cap is raised and a new tier is added, all previous tiers should have the drop rate of rares
increased by X%. This would allow new players (or even alts) to successfully progress through content and catch
up with everyone else at the higher tiers.
Again, super rare drops wouldn't be a problem if AD1 spells were sufficient. I respectfully disagree with people who
say they are. Sure some spells you can get by with an AD1 but certain spells are a necessity to have at AD3 or better.
In fact, just today while leveling an Inquisitor on the starter island (level 8 with all AD3) I was getting 5 to 6 resists
in a row on mobs 3 levels below me. So much so that several heroic opportunities fizzled on me. I got so frustrated I
went through to level 10 using nothing but melee.
And that's just spells... now toss in 7 pieces of gear, a weapon and shield and a new, solo (ie: lack of groups) player
is looking at either a truckload of plat. or weeks of farming just to keep themselves in decent gear.
I think in the beginning of EQ2, the rare drop mechanism worked fine. The game is too old now however and it really
needs a revamp (similar to how advanced tradeskill books all but vanish from the market). I wish you could buy a
"no-trade" version of rares using status. I wouldn't even mind farming 100k status for one rare. Sure, farming 100k
status may take the same amount of time as running from node to node for a week but at least you feel like you're
getting something done. You can earn a little cash from drops as well as slayer titles.

Add an alchemist quest in to change 10 ore in to one rare loam.

T1 is so ridiculously easy to harvest I dunno why anyone would pay 40g for the rare. LDL has all T1 rares available in pretty goodly numbers for about 5g. That's a fortune for a newbie, but the newbie can harvest their own for free, so it all works out.
I hear thru the grapevine that Domino has been busily thinking about some harvester love. Saw this item from a beta tester now that the NDA is lifted:


My PVP character is a tiny little halfling so she can hide inside rock nodes when foes pass near, so I imagine being able to pretend to be a rock might be handy too!

Lasai wrote:

Weird pricing then. Lucan D'Lere sees a steady demand, with good prices at a plat or higher. But still, if you pay 10g for the incarnadine then sell the piece for 25, you more than doubled your money /shrug.
Lasai wrote:

So are you just so insecure that any disagreement with you results in this sort of sarcasm? I'm pretty sure I have not said anything to you yet that deserves this level of hostility from you. But -- being as I don't care if you like me or not -- carry on! Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare. Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.
Lasai wrote:

Um, no. I think the current harvesting is just fine and needs no adjustment. Loam falls in a 1:1 ratio with the metal clusters, and at my current skill as a harvester I see a return of about 1 rare per hundred common harvest. I don't think that's unreasonable.
Lasai wrote:

I don't think so. No one ever said you HAVE to have Adept 3s. The theory is that the game should be balanced so you can do solo hunting in treasured, group hunting in legendary, raid hunting in fabled. Given the massive upgrades to low tier treasured gear, I think this holds true still.
On the other hand, I like my life to be easier when I hunt, so I level-lock and harvest for about a week to get all the rares needed to twink that character for the coming tier. I usually harvest with the toon I am equipping because I need to level their harvesting while I am at it.
The "pressure" on silicate loams is actually not as bad as for spongy loam when Kingdom of Sky first came out. And y'know what? Eventually we all got our Adept 3's for T7 and even /gasp! many managed to get all masters before T8 appeared.
I see no need for there to be a "balance" for incarnadine. I would not, however, object to some more spiffy carpenter-crafted furniture that uses the stuff. But that's because I am an insane interior decorator.
Lasai wrote:

I am unclear what you are on about here. People harvest a node until all three pulls are performed on that node usually. You don't get a rare then walk away from the node. And you can't "exhaust" a node anyway, it respawns!
Rare hides are pretty cheap, mahogany lumber is high right now due to pressure for guild hall decorating, but it was cheap before that. Common hides and wood are always in demand because almost everybody uses hides and carpenters/woodworkers use tons of wood.
There are plenty of ore nodes to harvest. There's lots more places you can harvest wood or bushes with zero aggro (Traitor's Pass for example). But all the good ore locations have mobs thick about them. At level 80 you can harvest in at least one of these (the yeti caves) with only one creature in there being aggro, though, so it's not that it's impossibly difficult to harvest rocks.
So there is no "pressure" on nodes. There are just people too lazy to get out and harvest the approximately 3000 nodes it takes to get the loams they need. /shrug
Lasai wrote:

I must disagree. I think it's fine the way it is.

WastedChances wrote:

IMO making it easier for new players and alts to catch usp with the higher tiers is a bad thing. I like having alts spread thoughout a wide range allowing me to do different things according to my mood. I dislike the effects of the recent increase to levelling speed. The game is more fun below the level cap.
My jeweler makes most of his tradeskill profits from T4 adept IIIs - ones that do not get upgraded which people will upgrade later on if they can't afford to when in T4.

Amphibia wrote:

It is. THAT is why loam is used for 2 archetypes while the soft metal and gem are used for one each. There is NO OTHER use for rare loam (not counting tinkering).

WastedChances wrote:

In essence, that's what already occurs.
When your skill is above the skill of the area by a significant margin, you get an increased chance of harvesting rares. The lowest level areas have the highest chance of harvesting rares with that chance lowering as it gets to higher level ranges.
If the rare rate on T1 was increased any more, you'd be practically guarenteed a rare every pull IF your skills are capped and max.

Actually, something I've been discovering and toying with recently since I've been dealing with health and medical issues in the past few months. I noticed that a level 2 harvester was pulling more rares than a character leveling up with a skill rate flucuating. So, I tried it with a purely harvester character (my level 12 solely from discovery provisioner on Venekor). When he is at skill cap for his level, even if he is at minimum skill for an area, he pulls in more rares than when he is building up skill to be able to go to the next area. I've got him higher level than any of my adventurers on Venekor expressly for the purpose of obtaining the rares I'll want for the adventurers. I've been trying to hold him at x8 for as long as I can, harvesting the next area for a while, stockpiling. I clear cut 'cause I use every type of harvest across the characters therek, so I'm not counting successful rare on just one type only, but I was able to get nearly every one of my bruiser's adept IIIs for T4 (the few I didn't, I wasn't worried about adepting at this time). I wasn't as successful for T5 but more because of the shift in my health issues reduced my playtime to much shorter intervals more conducive to crafting than harvesting. I didn't keep him "locked" at 38 as effectively as I had 28. Plus, the lowered chance for rares of T5 vs t4 BUT, I pull A LOT of rares with him.

In all my incidental harvesting (I've never invested hours in just harvesting T8 since all the mobs are still agro), I have gotten ONE silicate loam. That's probably in about 2 hours of harvesting.

Sorry but it is not worth my time to harvest 2 hours to get 1 silicate loam. I've gotten more feysteel clusters in the same amount of harvesting and I didn't think that was possible.

It took me about 3 hours of harvesting T7 to get the three xegonite clusters I needed to make my mender bot. (You actually need 5, but get 2 back).

By the way, on my server here are the pricing although of course it varies a lot:
silicate loam 3-4p
tynnonium cluster 1p25g-2p
fire emerald 85g-1p25g

Whenever someone has silicate loam on the broker for 2p50g and I can visit their house, I run there and buy it. I've gotten maybe one silicate loam for 2p right around the time of the Guild Hall Construction quest drove all the rare prices down. I also bought a tynnonium cluster a few weeks ago when for some reason there were a few for 1p on the broker.

I made most of my plat by making spells for people with my Sage and Jeweler and selling the dusts (sometimes people tip well, but not always). But now that dusts are only worth half what they were, I'm not sure how I'll buy that many rares for my next character who levels up.

Spyderbite@Venekor wrote:

So since you have the time to harvest for 8 hours a day then that should be the standard for everyone? Sorry there pal, I have this thing called a life.
This is a game, not a job.

Thunndar316 wrote:

So, what constitutes a reasonable time for finding a rare?
should the time be cut to half of what it is now?
what is someone plays 10 hours a week, should it be 1/4 what it is now?
what about someone who plays 5 hours a week? 2 hours a week?
5 hours a month? what about them, should it be made easier for them?
What about the raiders? How about the people trying to tradeskill and spending time for that?
Where do we set the limit? At what number does it have to be set that everyone is happy with?
Maybe the people who have time to play the game more then others should just harvest for those who do not have the time to play the game, maybe that will be the answer to the problem the OP has.
How far should we go to change the game to accomidate every person who plays and how often they play?

Quintilianus summed this up nicely, 'Facilius est multa facere quam diu.'

1rare rar·er; rar·est
Etymology:
Middle English, from Latin rarus
Date:
14th century
1: marked by wide separation of component particles :<rare air>
2 a: marked by unusual quality, merit, or appeal b: superlative or extreme of its kind
3: seldom occurring or found

Sigrdrifa@Lucan DLere wrote:

Your ignoring the cost of fuel which I believe is 10g a piece other then the chest and legs which means your making less then 5g per a piece if the incarnadine is 10g. The Chest and Leg are imbued which increases the fuel cost and adds another rare.

surepaw wrote:

All they have to do is stop sharing rares between different classes. If fighters could use Incarnadine Clusters instead of Silicates then the prices would equal out. As is, one is in high demand, and the other is basicly resorted to vendor trash.
Rare indeed.

Thunndar316 wrote:

Hmmm that was kinda an unfair shot THIS IS A GAME FOR EVERYONE!!!!!
What makes you so special we all have lives and have ALREADY gone thru what you are but most of us just did the mining and lived with it sure it took along time but i have done it with 2 scouts now but it was my choice.
You have 2 choices here either do the mining or buy the loams its that easy and sorry if i came off rude did not mean to but man like you say its just a game

And let's be serious here, even at 3p, that's really not a lot of money in T8. One master drop can cover your costs for loams for the entire tier. I recently just brought another toon up to 80, entirely self-funded. Not only did he harvest most of his own loams (basically just running around playing whack-a-rock while doing quests), but he has more money than my main does now. Money means virtually nothing at end-game, and unless you just don't know what you're doing, you'll end up with more than you can possibly spend unless you're being ridiculous (like paying 50p for a frostfell globe or something along those lines).

Kenban wrote:

True on the fuel - but the level 77 mastercrafted is not imbued. It has built in bonues per piece, and the chest uses a chromatic essence instead of an incarnadine.
It's still a profit.
But honestly, I'll tell you of the crafters who seems to make money - provisioners and carpenters. Any crafter CAN make money, but for whatever reason, carpenters and cooks seem to be the moneymakers!
And yet, I make armor. Hmm why? Because I like it. Because being an armorsmith is part of the RP for that toon. And I make my actual money harvesting rares and shinies mostly.

Thunndar316 wrote:

No where did Master Spyderbite suggest YOU should harvest 8 hours. Only that these were his results when he harvested 8 hours.
This is a game. If you do not like the game, find another. Since you want everything easy, I'd suggest a console game with well published cheat codes available so you can superpower your toons with no personal investment of effort.
In Norrath, if you want rares you must buy them or harvest them. I've explained several means of making good money so you can fund rare purchases. If you cannot or will not do any of these things, then you are not gonna get your rares. Period. Well, unless you cheat via plat buying or some such.

This topic needs to simmer down or I'll be forced to close it. People are getting too heated in your arguments and throwing around insults and snide remarks is not how a good debate is conducted. So leave the derogatory comments at the door please.