Thread: It's long past time to adjust copper/tin respawn rates and nodes

I first leveled a prospector long before v3.2 (f2P) was released. It was bad then, with far too much copper and far to few tin respawns. The argument about jewelers doesn't hold, since metalsmiths & weaponsmiths need bronze while only jewelers need copper.

Now that f2p came out, far more people are prospecting both to level and to ah. It's insane that I've just found 142 copper and 17 tin!!! it's ruining game play for experienced players, what do you think it's doing for new players? It's turning them off from crafting.

Three things are needed, and needed yesterday:
1) more nodes
2) A more balanced respawn between tin and copper
3) faster respawn

And don't give any rationalizations about this being a short land rush and that it will settle down. The release of Mirkwood had mob respawn rates and LI drop rates turned up high as everyone rushed from 21st to Mirkwood, then they were adjusted lower after the first flood went through.

Do something about increasing the ability to get tin, and do it now!

142/17. Wow that's bad. I've never seen it bad like that. I usually don't have a problem seeing tin. One thing people need to make sure they do is to also mine the copper and harvest the rowan if possible. All three share the same node points so if nobody is harvesting the other 2, there wont be node points for the tin to spawn. If I'm looking to only harvest mats, I'll find an out of the way place where nobody goes and bring both a prospector and forester. I'll harvest with one for awhile then log into the other one and harvest with him. They both get more mats much quicker. Doesn't work well if you're competing with others in the area, they'll just jump on the tin when it pops up.

Andy

Respawn rates or ratios are not the problem. Prospectors cherry-picking tin nodes are the problem. The same thing is known to happen to mobs that share spawn points.

One thing that helped me quite a bit while mastering T1 Weapon/Metal Smithing was to use crit mats when making my Bronze Blades/Chain-Links. You can easily double the number of Blades or Chain Links you get out of your Bronze Ingots allowing you to get more skill points from making the final product.

Amen to that...newbie here finding it near impossible to find tin. I have piles of cooper but little tin. It's very frustrating and makes crafting very boring.

PS What do oyu mean by "crit mats"?

Most recipes have a chance to have a "crit" outcome. Usually it's a better version of the thing you are crafting, sometimes it's just more of the thing you are trying to craft. At a base level, you usually have a 5% chance for a crit. Most recipes have a crit material you can add to increase this chance. It's often about 50%. To be able to add the crit material, you need to be at least an apprentice of the tier you are crafting. To add the crit material to the recipe, look on the right side of the crafting window where the recipe ingredients are. There are two tabs, the upper tab shows the base recipe and the lower tab has a check box for the crit mat and shows what the crit outcome is.

Most crit mats are rare drops from mining, foresting, farming. When you mine copper you always get some copper but you also may get chunk of grey rock salt, a chunk of crude brimstone, or a crude whetstone. These are the tier 1 crit mats for jeweler, metalsmith, and weaponsmith. These things are also sometimes dropped by mobs.

Hope I explained it properly.

Andy

When you're gaining "Proficiency" in a tier you can't crit on a recipe. You just have to do it the hard way. Once you've achieved both Proficiency in the current tier AND have Mastered the previous tier you gain the ability to both earn Mastery of the current tier and to crit a recipe. To the right of the materials list of any recipe, are two tabs. When you can crit on a recipe, the lower tab can be used to enable the "optional" or "crit" materials.

If you want to get the most out of your Ingots, use the best tool you can, "turn on" the use of crit materials, and read a scroll of crafting lore just before you start crafting.

tdillman, you're missing a couple of key points.

First, yes, I understand that many noobs from f2p don't understand the issue of spawn points. I discussed it .That's not the problem. Eventually, they'll learn. In the meantime, Turbine needs to adjust rates and number of nodes to keep customer satisfaction up until people learn. As I mentioned, it's the same way the successfully managed the rollout of Mirkwood and they need to do it for t1 mats in the start zones.

Second, crit mats? You can't use them when first working on a tier. With almost no tin, and people selling it for close to a gold per 15 nuggets on my server, that's just not happening in a reasonable time and people are having to spend far too much time prospecting.

Try being a Scholar.

You don't start seeing any real nodes until you hit Moria at level 50.

Originally Posted by noradaddy

One thing people need to make sure they do is to also mine the copper and harvest the rowan if possible. All three share the same node points so if nobody is harvesting the other 2, there wont be node points for the tin to spawn.

Andy

I'm fairly sure this is not true. I've ran enough runs through Needlehole/Rushok Bog with:

Explorer who ignored wood
Explorer who took wood as well as ore
Prospectors with no ability to take wood

To know that they don't share any thing, much less a spawn point.

I am just a noob f2p, but I will tell you this: Spending literally (and I mean literally) hours doing nothing but running around the midgewood marshes and other areas that have plenty of copper, during times of day when there aren't many people on the server (so there isn't much competition for the ore), and only finding 3 or 4 tin nodes and 30 or 40 copper nodes....

... is frustrating to say the least.

Originally Posted by groucho42

tdillman, you're missing a couple of key points.

First, yes, I understand that many noobs from f2p don't understand the issue of spawn points. I discussed it .That's not the problem. Eventually, they'll learn. In the meantime, Turbine needs to adjust rates and number of nodes to keep customer satisfaction up until people learn. As I mentioned, it's the same way the successfully managed the rollout of Mirkwood and they need to do it for t1 mats in the start zones.

Second, crit mats? You can't use them when first working on a tier. With almost no tin, and people selling it for close to a gold per 15 nuggets on my server, that's just not happening in a reasonable time and people are having to spend far too much time prospecting.

Yes. Crit mats. When dealing with a rare/valuable commodity, some folks like to be frugal. To become a Proficient Apprentice you need, what, a whole 200 points. That's 20 items requiring 2 bronze ingots each. 40 Bronze ingots can be made with 40 Tin Ore. If someone is prospecting while leveling, this is by no means tough. The real challenge is the additional 80 Tin Ore you'd require to become a Master Apprentice if you choose to do without crit mats. Play smart, and you can cut your requirement of 120 Tin ore to closer to 80, saving enough to get an alt proficient in the other bronze using craft, or to sell on the AH for those silly prices.

Originally Posted by JeanCarlo

I'm fairly sure this is not true. I've ran enough runs through Needlehole/Rushok Bog with:

Explorer who ignored wood
Explorer who took wood as well as ore
Prospectors with no ability to take wood

To know that they don't share any thing, much less a spawn point.

Cool, thanks for clearing that up for me. I've only been playing for a month and it just seemed this way due to the way things spawned for me. I never actually looked at the exact spawn point on the ground and verified that it popped both. Glad to know I don't have to harvest one to increase the other. As for the tin/copper, definitely mine both.

Andy

Originally Posted by Whitenack

I am just a noob f2p, but I will tell you this: Spending literally (and I mean literally) hours doing nothing but running around the midgewood marshes and other areas that have plenty of copper, during times of day when there aren't many people on the server (so there isn't much competition for the ore), and only finding 3 or 4 tin nodes and 30 or 40 copper nodes....

... is frustrating to say the least.

I was harvesting in Rushock Bog last night and was finding it more like 1/2 to 1/3. Either I was getting lucky, you unlucky, or you need to come to the Shire...

Andy

Originally Posted by noradaddy

Cool, thanks for clearing that up for me. I've only been playing for a month and it just seemed this way due to the way things spawned for me. I never actually looked at the exact spawn point on the ground and verified that it popped both. Glad to know I don't have to harvest one to increase the other. As for the tin/copper, definitely mine both.

Andy

Np! The bolded part actually is the reason why. not every prospector can cut wood and if Devs allowed them to share, everyone will have to be an explorer (only voc that has both) or we'll have nothing but wood around

Originally Posted by noradaddy

I was harvesting in Rushock Bog last night and was finding it more like 1/2 to 1/3. Either I was getting lucky, you unlucky, or you need to come to the Shire...

Andy

Thanks, I had better success last night. I read in other places that maybe mining the copper as well even though you don't need it can free up the nodes for more tin to spawn. I checked out Ruchock Bog and Midge. Marshes and was getting tin about 1 in 5 times. There were 2 miners on horseback running around the Bog also, versus just me on foot, so they have cherrypicked some of the tin and skewed the numbers.

So I logged in last night in Needlehole and on my way to Hobbiton, I passed 5 ore nodes - 3 normal tin, 1 rich tin, and 1 copper. I wasn't looking to harvest at the time but I couldn't refuse. Right away, I thought of this thread. I think we are just getting random fluctuations over small sample sizes. (Yes even 100 nodes is a small sample size) This conversation:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...aw-of-Averages

probably applies here.

Andy

I am a new player and this was not a problem for me.

I think part of the issue (aside from cherry-picking nodes, which has already been discussed) is the *perception* that prospectors have, that the ratio is supposed to be 1:1. You want bronze ingots, so you try to get as much tin as you have copper to make them. As a result you always feel “short” of tin...or find yourself cherry-picking tin just to "catch up" to the amount of copper you already have.

An attitude adjustment helps a lot. Realizing that I was SUPPOSED to find extra copper (to sell to jewelers) was all it took to stop making me so frustrated.

That said, the Shire is really by far the richest mineral newbie zone, and I leveled there. Something could certainly be done to increase the nodes available in other zones. The Elvish starting zone in particular seemed devoid of nodes when I went through there. And while there are more nodes around Combe and Bree, the huge number of players leveling up there meant each node was immediately rushed by 3-4 players…not terribly fun.

Originally Posted by Evebel

That said, the Shire is really by far the richest mineral newbie zone, and I leveled there. Something could certainly be done to increase the nodes available in other zones. The Elvish starting zone in particular seemed devoid of nodes when I went through there. And while there are more nodes around Combe and Bree, the huge number of players leveling up there meant each node was immediately rushed by 3-4 players…not terribly fun.

Several factors conspire against collecting copper/tin in Breeland. It's the closest source of these nodes for those folks who are in the L15-25 range who are trying to catch up with their crafting skills. The Shire & Ered Luin quests dry up at L15 and move folks along to Bree. If folks have moved on to Lone-Lands or North Downs, Bree is still more convenient in most circumstances.

Bree is also convenient for anyone with the relatively easy to get "Return to Bree" racial or reputation skills.

No, I agree with that. However, *if* the other 6-15 zones (aside from the Shire) were a little richer in minerals, people wouldn’t need to “catch up” so much once they get to Bree. When I recently leveled an Elf with some friends, I found very few minerals to harvest around the Elf 6-15 zone. I found myself in the same bad situation – heading to Bree for quests but desperately needing more minerals to complete my Apprentice tier. So instead I took a day or two off and ran around the Shire, mining everything. That caught me up so I didn’t have to do circuits around Bree-land, which a lot of low-level players end up doing.

Lesson learned: If you’re a prospector, the Shire is the only way to level. Remarkably, it’s also the best zone for farming and forestry too. The only professionals that might want to go elsewhere are Historians, since both ruins and humanoids are in shorter supply than elsewhere. I just wish this recommendation wasn’t *quite* so rigid. As much as I love the Shire, the other zones are cool too, and need some love.

Originally Posted by Evebel

.. So instead I took a day or two off and ran around the Shire, mining everything. That caught me up so I didn’t have to do circuits around Bree-land, which a lot of low-level players end up doing. ...

Yeah, that is what I am having to do right now. Take a couple of days off from the normal play to get the ore. I don't want to complain, because everyone complains about everything, but it is a bit of a downer on an otherwise fantastic game. I guess it is a downer because everything is so great and I don't want to take a time-out from it to go run around all day.

Another thing that may make The Shire such a great place to level with a gathering profession is that it's such a large place and has so many FedEx quests. You spend half your time in The Shire hoofing it from place to place and tripping over nodes. The only time you can't harvest in The Shire is when you've got mail or a pie in your hands. The other starter zones are much more compact and seem to contain more slayer-type quests. You walk 45 sec. out of town, kill stuff, go home and perhaps found a node or 2 in the process.

Every time I went to Needlehole, I'd check out the hills above that little pond just east of town. There's almost always 2-3 nodes available for both a prospector or a forester. Given the number of trips you make to Needlehole this spot can add up.

I logged on yesterday, midday, for an hour, hoping that enough people would be at work, at school or running through the festival quests that I could get more. Well, it partially worked. In one hour, I ended up with 104 copper and 38 tin. That's the normal 3/1 ratio, but still far to few nodes. I've already prospected for three hours and it's going to take at least another 60-90 minutes to get enough to finish mastery. Add the smelting, refining and crafting portions, and it's far too much time to make mastery of the level an enjoyable experience -- and I'm speaking as someone who has other toons who are SM farmer and cook. The difference is that those are slow to craft, but steady and predictable. Mining tin is very slow, non-predictable and just the front end of a longer process.

As for wood and ore sharing a spawn point, I've never seen that and never heard of that from anyone. If you have a link to a dev diary entry, I'd love to see it.

No everyone can log on at odd hours. I still strongly believe that they both need more nodes and need to tweak the tables to get closer to a 2/1 or 1/1 ration just for tier 1 prospecting.

keep it like it is ...

... at least until I auction off the hundreds of tin I have

140 ore in an hour seems like a fairly robust amount. Did I read that wrong?

I hear what you are saying about a time investment. That is what I was saying in my above post: when I leveled OUT of the Shire, it was necessary to double-back and run around harvesting before I could proceed. And that was a pain. On the other hand, if you level IN the Shire, you’ll just trip across enough nodes to make the time investment to gather practically nothing.

And honestly, I know there’s a downside to every proposal. So even I am sketchy about increasing nodes all over the map. Do that, and all of a sudden the price of ore/ingots on the AH is going to plummet. That will make it easier for the high-level toons to quickly grind up a profession, but harder for low-level characters who are trying to gather with the Explorer profession in order to make much-needed silver. Cheaper mats on the AH also means that the sellable price for the crafted product would fall as well, meaning less of a profit to be made while leveling a profession. Again, that wouldn’t really impact a level 65, but would be hardship on a level 15 who can barely buy their own training as it is.

Originally Posted by Evebel

140 ore in an hour seems like a fairly robust amount. Did I read that wrong? .

I'm sure he is talking about 140 chunks of ore, not individual nodes. I'd say 140 is about right, for someone who is doing nothing but prospecting, especially if he is doing it on horseback. Last night I got roughly 120 ore on foot, and didn't pay attention to the time but it was something a little more than an hour.

Yes, it was 120 chunks.

As for the ah, prices need to come down. They've always been far too inflated, but f2p has made the prices for tin insane. They have a 2g gold limit and Nimrodel has 15 chunks for more than 500s. I, as a rich, older player, with lots of gold, could pay the usurious prices, but won't. F2p can't afford to and hence they must spend the excessive time.

Silver's easy to get. A simple loop in Bree-land. Even Khazad-copper is easier to get than basic tin, and it's used for LIs, some top end jewelry and the best hope tokens. That's a bit backwards, don't you think?

Yea! I finally found enough tin to master Tier 1. Now I can leave this problem behind. On the bright side, I made a ton of money off of all the copper I mined.

Why do people still want to master tiers now that you get critical items without mastering?

Since when does ore grow out of the ground randomly anyway? How about putting ore in places it would realisticaly be (like the mountains) and then put a lot of it there to mine ( like any actual mine). Maybe put it in a cave with mobs to fight through to get there. Or in the moors so you can fight creep over tasty mines.

Then make it so you can melt down all the useless loot you get and useless things you make, for ore.

Anyway my solution to the ore shortage is to make silver other ways and then buy rare ores off people who dont mind the grind.

Originally Posted by Darmokk

Why do people still want to master tiers now that you get critical items without mastering?

You can't craft critical items in the next tier until you have mastered the tier before it.