Harvesting - Am I the only one?

[Sacha]

<DIV>Seriously, am I the only one who thinks the increased rate is insane? I really wouldn't recommend letting this change go live as it stands. The last 2 days I have spent maybe 3 hours harvesting. (Not much, I know, but I had other things to do, like write my new book "1000 innovative ways to kill a Huuptic". :p )</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyway, in the first hour (EL and Rivervale) I found a Ruby, a Ruthenium and a Rough Opal (plus 2 luminous).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The second hour (TS) I found 3 Palladium Clusters and 3 Jasper.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The third hour (Rivervale) I found 2 Rhodium Clusters (plus one luminous).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I have always been lucky with finding rares. People have looked at me in disbelief sometimes when I list my day's findings. But with these changes everyone on Test Server has been tripping over rares. "Scuse me mate, I think you dropped something" "Oh, its just a Ruby, my pockets are so full, you have it lol" Scale this situation up to the live server and rares will be useless, not at all rare, and pretty much worthless.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And yes, I do play my son's character on Live from time to time, and yes, a spellbook of Adept 3s would be lovely, but I would rather see them kept special, you know....<STRONG><EM>rare</EM></STRONG> <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>

[Evadne]

Actually, I am also a very lucky rare finder....but had no change with the changes.  I harvested all day yesterday, two rares and a few flowers in Zek.  Not unusual for me. ~Eva <div></div>

[WuphonsReach]

I'm on the fence.If they increased the drop rate 10x over what it was... that's probably too much. If it was only a 2x-3x increase, that's probably about right. On the other hand, you can look at it as a way that they're trying to tackle the time-sink issue where players spend days and days and days harvesting. (Personally, I think players are naturally greedy, and will continue to spend days and days and days harvesting. Not so that they can get 1 rare, but so that they can get 10 rares.)Lower tiers should have higher odds of finding rares. There are more characters in those ranges, you spend less time in those tiers (adventuring and harvesting), so it shouldn't take you forever and a day to find enough rares to have 1-5 legendary items. A rare rate of 1:500 would not be unreasonable for T2 (and maybe 1:1000 for T3). But I don't know what the old rare rate was (I've heard 1:5000 bandied about).Most of my characters have always had about 3 Adept3s per tier. A rare weapon was a luxury, rare armor a wistful thought, and usually a pair of rare hex dolls from different tiers. The 3 Adept3s were the biggest benefit to me, followed by a rare weapon. With a few Adept3 spells, things suddenly get a lot easier in the game.With the increased harvest rate, I now suspect that 5-7 Adept3s per tier are not going to be uncommon. Nearly everyone will be running around with rare weapons. Rare hex dolls will be the norm (you only need to find 1 rare root, every other tier). Rare armor will be much more common (not hard to find 1 or 2 rares every 10 levels).A side-effect from all the rare spells entering the market: <b>rare loams</b>. This is something that the devs will need to look at closely, because there are a few rare "misc" poisons that can be over-powering en masse. (Such as stun/stifle poisons.) Under the old system of rares, the loam was hard to find in quantity. That limited the amount of abuse of the rare poisons. But now that loam is going to be much easier to find, those rare poisons are also going to become much more common. (To do the math... 24 classes need upgrades, but only 4 classes can use poisons. Some loam will get used for rare potions, but it should still be easy for poison-using classes to obtain multiple vials per tier.)

[Kaknya]

guess im still on the minority of unlucky harvesters.. spent most of the weekend harvesting and only found 1 rare.. and i dont even really call it a rare,.. just another one of those stupid glimmering things that i cant use for spell making.. oh well.

[Sacha]

<DIV>I should have been clearer. I think <EM><STRONG>stones</STRONG></EM> are giving way too many rares. The chance-rate was doubled for stones a long time ago. Then chance was scaled by tier: the lower the tier, the easier to find a rare. Now overall chance has been again increased. These three things together are making spell rares too common, but that's just my opinion.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you are truly harvesting only stones and coming up empty-handed after a whole weekend, when I can fill a bag in a few hours, then that's screwy and wants looking at.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Zindicatt]

At the same time, Master spells are also dropping more.  So maybe this is all part of the plan to increase player power to be prepared for new content?

[Kwoung]

<DIV>Keep in mind, Master 3 spells will be craftable in the very near future, Adept 3 will be considered the *fall back* when that happens and using apprentice spells will be a joke. The drops for Adept 3's need to be pretty common when that happens or they are going to have a lot of very inferior feeling players, and making players feel inferior is not condusive to keeping them paying their monthly fee.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Sacha]

<DIV>I had considered that. I just remember the devs saying time and time again that you can't keep making everyone more and more uber because one day there is nowhere left to go. You can't keep scaling upwards. Wasn't that the point of the revamp?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hey, if this change is in, then I'll go with it. But more Masters, Adept 3s the norm, everyone in Ebon, where do you go after that?</DIV>

[goboy]

<DIV>I have a feeling they are balancing the combat revamp around Adept 3/Master I. </DIV>

[EtoilePirate]

<span>Hearing of this great new rate, the first thing I did when I logged in yesterday was run to the Feerrott and start harvesting. Now, a few things: I often harvest for 2-3 hour stretches 2-3 times per week.  My entire haul of harvested rares from February 23rd to August 29th was: 3 severed bone, one sisal, one lapis, one T4 pelt, and one rhodium.  That's it.  Everything else I had came from raiding, from the broker, or from trades -- and most of everything else I have are low level rares (bronze, alder) that I use in my house. In most 2-hour harvesting stretches, before now, I get 1-3 luminous/glimmering/sparkling items, on average. That's the past.  As for the present: Yesterday I harvested for exactly two hours in the Feerrott and filled up a 20-slot bag and a 14-slot bag with stacks of raws.  In a third bag I stowed the rares: 2 Luminous Stones, 2 Luminous Teeth, 2 Strange Black Ore, </span><span>1 Figwart Root, 1 Rhodium Cluster, and 1 Rough Ruby. Given how utterly horrendous my rare-harvesting luck is, I almost feel that yesterday's two hours started to make up for the previous six months.  At least I'll finally be able to upgrade a couple of skills. Several guildmates have much better luck at rares than I do, in general.  In the same length of time harvesting, they'll pull 2 or 3 things worth having, and I'll just keep getting raws for crafter friends.  I've been extraordinarily frustrated until now, because I could practically kill myself harvesting and yet not come across a single rare.  I mean, a sisal, a lapis, a pelt, and a rhodium, in <b>six months</b>?  (Bone, when I found it, came from its own nodes so I don't feel like it counts, hehe.) But that said, I probably shouldn't be able to find two spell rares in two hours, either.  /lament </span><div></div>

[Reebwen]

I don't see anything diffent other then getting more of the stones,flowers and such. As far as regular rares it seems still the same, and they are still quite rare. <div></div>

[EtoilePirate]

I've just seen this (delayed, I know) in the thread on the Combat Changes board about the Master II options: Moorguard said: <p><i>For those of you planning to invest in spell upgrades, keep in mind that the market for them is going to change <strong>drastically</strong> with Live Update #13. While Master I scrolls will continue to be very rare and expensive, the new Training upgrades may soften prices for some of those spells a bit. But more than that, rare harvests used to make Adept III spells are going to become *<strong>much</strong>* easier to obtain. I would expect prices for Adept III spells to go down considerably once the market adjusts to the influx of Legendary harvests.</i></p> So I guess they really are tuning towards everyone having a half-dozen Adept 3's in their book. <div></div>

[Kaknya]

 heh.. I'd be happy to have 1 or 2, right now everything i have on all of my alts are either apps or the occasional adept 1. been harvesting in el and everfrost every morning and night, stacks of fulginate/dimondine etc. and still havent seen a rare.. i sware theres a super secret setting somewhere and im set at a 3 % chance on my account of ever getting a rare. ive recieved 1 glimmering stone since they changed things last saturday and thats it. I play pretty much all day on weekends and usually 6pm to 12 edt everyday during the week.. course im generally totally unlucky anyways, so i guess it just goes with my life.. <div></div>

[Grimsore]

I'd say they are too common at the moment. Doesn't feel like the word "rare" applies to them anymore. I've harvested 4 ebon, 1 fig, 2 t5 spells in a pretty darn short amount of time. Before this I would find some rares but it would take hours of work for one.How about a medium.I might also point out that with the combat revamp the change in how useful a spell is based on its tier was increased.

[Sacha]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Kaknya wrote:<BR> heh.. I'd be happy to have 1 or 2, <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Check your pms then :smileytongue: :smileywink:</DIV> <P><SPAN class=time_text></SPAN> </P><p>Message Edited by Sacha on <span class=date_text>09-01-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:04 AM</span>

[BMark]

<DIV>Some people are getting 3+ rares an hour, some are getting maybe 2 or 3 a day. Do I think the increase is rediculous? no. But do I think getting 5 rares an hour is rediculous? yes. What needs to be done is not lower the rate of rares from its current situation, but instead make it a little less random, Shorten the scale. rather than 0-200 rares a day, make it 10-20 rares a day or something. lower the max observed rate, but also implement a sort of GGS (in uo, guaranteed gain system) so you don't have people that go months without a single rare.</DIV>

[Sunrayn]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> BMark wrote:<BR> <DIV>lower the max observed rate, but also implement a sort of GGS (in uo, guaranteed gain system) so you don't have people that go months without a single rare.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Egads no.  god I hated that system in UO.  I am on the unlucky side when it comes to harvesting rares.  I still have only found 2 rares in the past three days, wife has found none.  Thats ok though, the lucky ones will find the rares and put them on the market if they dont need, price will drop, they will sell to us unluckies.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Will there be some price gouging in the beginning? probably.  Will prices come down to a reasonably low level in time? yes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I now look forward to harvesting, I get EXCITED every time I see a node knowing there is a chance that I can get a rare.  And by Tunare, if something gets people excited about harvesting and playing again, that is a *Good Thing*</DIV>

[WuphonsReach]

They seem to have pretty well nerfed this back to nothingness in the T4 and T5 zones. I'm hearing that T1 rares are still pretty easy to obtain (which is good), but the T4 and T5 rares have gone back to being very rare.(Of course, with the changes to the con levels... it would probably be easier for me to kill the T4 contested epic mobs using a single group of players, then to continue to harvest for rares.)

[Kwoung]

<P>Its all about being in the Zone that the rares are currently popping in Snab. Wrong zone, they are very rare, right zone, they drop like mad. I tend to move around until I find the zone they are dropping in that day. As an example, 2 hours in LS, no rares.. moved to Feerrott, 3 rares and a few semi-rares in 2 hours. Next day, nothing in Feerrott, moved to Rivervale and they drop like mad.</P> <P>It is a combonation of luck and the correct zone as far as I can tell, but when its all working, you can get a lot.</P><p>Message Edited by Kwoung on <span class=date_text>09-07-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:36 AM</span>