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Those of you who are more concerned with mobile resource nodes than stationary ones can skip this thread. The rest of you, read on!
Here's what you need to do followed by why:
What:
On your dedicated crafter, refiner and combatant, pick a single gather skill (preferably Miner, Forester or Scavenger) and train it to rank 6 (or 4 or 2, if you are a real mizer with your exp.)- but NOT- absolutely NOT rank 7. Ever. Period.
For reference, here are the cumulative Exp costs for each rank (days in parenthesis):
25 (0.0)
224 (0.1)
894 (0.4)
2,483 (1.0)
5,587 (2.3)
10,950 (4.6)
I recommend Rank 2 across all gather skills in all your non-1,000 exp characters simply because it will save you a lot of time in actually sitting through the gathering animation.
If you want to get serious about it, then train one all the way to 6. Miner is good for combatants as it will add an extra 0.261 points to your Constitution score (which is hard to come by no matter what role you are!) and it is vital for our access to coal and iron.
Why:
In 2 words, Tier 2. When we hit Tier 2 crafting, our global demand for Tier 1 raw materials is going to double in a lot of key resources, not drop off. To give some examples:
Yew Stave +0 requires 5 Yew and makes 2 staves
Composite Maple Stave +0 requires 5 Maple and 10 Yew and makes 5 staves
Steel Wire +0 requires 10 Coal and 10 Iron and makes 25 units
Dwarven Steel Wire +0 requires 10 Lodestone, 20 Coal, and 20 Iron and makes 25 units
Don't let the fact that Composite Maple Staves make 5 units instead of 2 fool you. We are going to need WAY more T2 Bows than we ever will need T1 bows because the vast majority of the player base, at any given time, will be in T2 (remember, it only takes 1 month to get fully out of T1!). And don't even get me started on apothecary mats! (WE NEED MORE TANSY LEAVES!)
By contrast, those of us who have dedicated gatherers and are taking those gatherers into T2 range (Rank 7 and higher) are seeing our T1 gathering PLUMMET- anywhere from 1/2 to 1/4 what it was before hitting T2.
That creates a huge deficit (gap, whole, crater, chasm, kobold) in the economy where we need- and I mean really NEED- more T1 stuff but find ourselves harvesting far far less of it.
And that creates a wonderful opportunity for your dedicated characters out there to seriously earn some coin AND help keep the cost of T2 gear low (aka affordable).
So do it! Then go gather stuff! We need it! You need it! And you'll thank me later, I promise ;)
(And yes, gushers will help with this; but since we do not have a timeline for those and we are on the verge of T2 crafting, I'm thinking waiting is a bad idea.)
Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not convinced it's a problem yet. But if gushers don't fix it, supply and demand will.
If rank 7+ gatherers are producing lots of T2 materials but there is a a growing demand for T1 materials, then those who need T1 materials can provide incentives for rank 6- gatherers to provide those resources.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The issue has to do with being rank 7+ suddenly cutting in half or more the amount of T1 materials you can gather.
Two things can help with this. Make some hexes T1 resource only. Hexes around NPC settlements are a good start, but I am not sure of the metal/coal availability around NPC settlements.
Second is jigger the ratio of found materials so it is not as significant a drop.
If the "solution" to a problem is to NOT increase a skill, then there is a problem with the design of the skill/mechanic.
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The nice thing about Tier 1 materials is that almost anyone can gather them to some degree without any training at all. The general pool of possible Tier 1 gathers should always be a lot bigger than the pool of Tier 2 and eventually Tier 3 gatherers.
That said I'm already halting my secondary gathering characters and have only allowed my primary hauler/gatherer into Tier 2 for the time being. Gushers may very well change some of this up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The issue has to do with being rank 7+ suddenly cutting in half or more the amount of T1 materials you can gather.
Two things can help with this. Make some hexes T1 resource only. Hexes around NPC settlements are a good start, but I am not sure of the metal/coal availability around NPC settlements.
Second is jigger the ratio of found materials so it is not as significant a drop.
If the "solution" to a problem is to NOT increase a skill, then there is a problem with the design of the skill/mechanic.
I can't say for certain, but could it be that this drop of T1 resource gathering could happen because the T2 mats in any given hex would be at or near 100%, while the T1 mats are farmed to a lower rate?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The nice thing about Tier 1 materials is that almost anyone can gather them to some degree without any training at all. The general pool of possible Tier 1 gathers should always be a lot bigger than the pool of Tier 2 and eventually Tier 3 gatherers.
That said I'm already halting my secondary gathering characters and have only allowed my primary hauler/gatherer into Tier 2 for the time being. Gushers may very well change some of this up.
That's how I feel it will sort itself out. There is probably no profession that will have as many "dabblers" as gathering. It's the job of the dedicated gatherer to get the high quality resources and the army of dabblers to get the lower ones.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can't say for certain, but could it be that this drop of T1 resource gathering could happen because the T2 mats in any given hex would be at or near 100%, while the T1 mats are farmed to a lower rate?
I remember seeing a dev quote indicating exactly this, but I can't find it now.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The issue has to do with being rank 7+ suddenly cutting in half or more the amount of T1 materials you can gather.
Two things can help with this. Make some hexes T1 resource only. Hexes around NPC settlements are a good start, but I am not sure of the metal/coal availability around NPC settlements.
Second is jigger the ratio of found materials so it is not as significant a drop.
If the "solution" to a problem is to NOT increase a skill, then there is a problem with the design of the skill/mechanic.
I'm fairly certain that any of the hexes that have the grey mountain near the minimap (the NPC patrolled ones) have either only T1 or extremely small amounts of T2. I spend 30min or so gathering down east of TK with Forestry 7 and never got a single T2 item in those hexes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can't say for certain, but could it be that this drop of T1 resource gathering could happen because the T2 mats in any given hex would be at or near 100%, while the T1 mats are farmed to a lower rate?I remember seeing a dev quote indicating exactly this, but I can't find it now.
If that is the case, then it seems like GW is keeping an eye on global supply. It just seems like a significant drop in T1 materials because of lack of T2 gatherers and the current over abundance of T2 materials yet to be harvested. So as more people harvest T2, the ratios will normalize over time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Both T1 and T2 should be at max it close in 98% of hexes.
The current formula allows for resources to regenerate from 40% to 100% in a single day. We would notice much more inferior material harvested if hexes are truly stripped of resources.
I have seen it early on in the mountain pass next to Kreux Bernstein and at the Emerald Spire hex - but haven't gathered any inferior goods since.
Once you strip mine you notice as then it won't grow back up that easily, but the early resource rush is over and player density is too low to have hexes to deplete right now.
I haven't even yet seen it in the coal fields south of Zmarchmont which I would regard as a prime region which will strip harvested eventually.
I can't say anything about hexes close to Golgoths or Brighthaven. I did notice one member traded inferior material and I don't know where this originated from.
Long story short, gushers are not in, we do not know when they will be in, and even when they go in we do not know that they will, alone, solve this problem.
In the mean time, we are on the eve of Tier 2 crafting and refining.
In the grand scheme of things, even 5 days worth of exp on a dedicated whatever character is a paltry price to pay to position that character to help keep the economy stable in the coming months and beyond. I'm confident that 5 days worth of exp in a gathering skill will pay for itself many times over for the player.
NPC hexes specifically do not have T2 mats AND have lower resource ratings than non-NPC hexes. They also are not a good place to go if you are looking for a specific raw material due to their tendency to drop a wide array of mats rather than a select few mats.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can't say for certain, but could it be that this drop of T1 resource gathering could happen because the T2 mats in any given hex would be at or near 100%, while the T1 mats are farmed to a lower rate?
Found it!
I'm not sure precisely what logic is in place to make sure you only get lower-tier stuff if that's all you can gather, even if the node could give you higher stuff. But the basic idea is:
- Hexes have different piles of materials that get depleted as they're gathered.
- Normally, T1 items have much higher starting numbers than T2 (and T3 is even smaller).
- The chance to drop something, if you can gather all Tiers, is proportionate to the numbers remaining (e.g., if there's 8000 points of a T1 item and 2000 points of a T2 item, you have an 80% chance of getting the T1 and a 20% of the T2).
- If you can only gather T1, it'll only give you T1, even if T1 has been depleted sufficiently that there's actually a really good chance of getting T2.
- That means that a lot of T1 gatherers hitting a hex can deplete T1 drop chances until they're less than T2 drop chances (because nothing T2 is dropping to get depleted).
- Thus, once a T2-capable gatherer comes along, the chance for T2 is very high (because they're no longer forcibly being replaced with lower-chance T1 items).
At least that's my guess as to what's going on. Easy way to tell should be that the T1 items in hexes where you're mostly getting T2 come in at heavier purities than the T2 items (indicating that they're starting to get mined out).