Thoughts on Ore Nodes, Rare Ore, and Jewelcrafting

[lime mango]

I think the way ore vs. rare ore nodes spawn could use a little rework. Seems a little incoherent, and I love coherency.

All ore nodes should share a spawn with their rare ore counterpart, with the normal ore having a chance to spawn as a rare ore node.

For example, all azurium nodes have a chance to spawn as platinum, rather than azurium and platinum having separate nodes.

I think the weight should be about 75% normal, 25% rare, but could be adjusted as needed.

My thinking is that normal ore is primarily used by one profession (blacksmithing), and the recipes generally take 4-8 bars.

Rare ore is primarily used in one profession (jewelcrafting) and the recipes take 1-2 bars.

The number of professions that primarily use those ores are the same, so same "weight" as far as how much the playerbase needs them.

Jewelcrafting recipes take 25% of the bars that blacksmithing does, so the "weight" is about 1/4th of what blacksmithing needs.

In theory, this would be about right as far as providing the ore that players need for both blacksmithing and jewelcrafting, as well as the few bars needed for other professions' crafts. Making all tier 4 nodes have a chance to spawn as either their normal or rare ore variant also makes gathering ore a more organic experience. Players wouldn't need to find one location for azurium, then another location for platinum, for instance. The node spawn chances would apply to all tiers of ore.

Lastly (and tangentially), I'm sure it has been brought up before, but the primary way to acquire gems for jewelcrafting is buying them from merchants. Doesn't feel great. If there were some way to prospect ore and receive gems, it would also make that profession a more organic experience. Through some manner (maybe the jewelcrafting bench? Blacksmithing bench is already pretty well used), ore could be destroyed and gems received based on the tier and rarity of the ore.

The tier of gem received would correlate to the tier of ore and the tier of jewelcrafting it is used in, and the chance to receive a gem would be weighted more highly for rare ore than normal ore.

Back to azurium and platinum as examples:
Azurium could be prospected with a chance to receive a gem. Because it is normal ore, the chances would be low. Because it is tier 4, and the jewelcrafting recipes that use it require either plain or brilliant gems, you have a high chance to receive a rough gem, a normal chance to receive a plain gem, and a low chance to receive a brilliant gem.

Prospecting platinum ore would have a higher chance to receive a gem and better chances to receive a plain or brilliant gem.

I feel like these changes would have a positive impact on these gathering and crafting professions (especially jewelcrafting).

[outer cipher]

I will preface it with I really like your type up and the reasonings behind it, but wanted to offer my personal thoughts on it as well.
I do like the idea of having ore spawns having a chance to spawn as preciou ore for flavour reasons. But I think for the balance reasons Jewelcrafting in this case is more difficult by design and meant as another gold sink.
It is a lot more difficult. (I've gotten Blacksmithing 40 a while ago, still grinding through JC atm) It definitely takes a lot longer, but here were some upsides from my perspective.
It's provided incentive for farming more mobs than just the Drakonium spots. Hellhound, Yeti etc.
It provided ores for others to barter with. I've given 2:1, even 3:1 exchanges for Leysilver etc, and given others what they need for t8 grind.
Gold sink: It keeps gold valuable for higher level crafters. While enchanting is a sink, the Jewelcraft Gem sink provided another way to increase incentive for high lvl crafters to trade. Enchanting is also one bottlenecked by Essence out in the market, and there's no way to efficiently farm the materials needed for it, so JC at the moment is filling the important role of aspiration goal for lategame crafters to grind towards.
There's not much high lvl crafters can justify charging gold for, but JC/Enchanting would be one. While I enjoyed being able to keep most craftings up to level with my combat, without JC/Enchanting being on a higher difficulty curve, a big drive to trade will be gone.
Currently you can target farm precious metals if you want to, and not compete for the same spawns. (I try to leave the best Drakonium spawns for other people, as those are often good for multiple resources. going somewhere only for Leysilver lets me not push them out of that spot)

I think the idea of making precious ore a variant with a chance to spawn works for many type of games, the role JC players in Ethyrial's specific economy isn't too conducive to that idea.

[lime mango]

Well, yes and no.

As far as ore/rare ore sharing a spawn, that depends on what the current number of nodes available is and I don't have access to that information. If the current spread for each tier is close to 75/25 for normal ore and rare ore, it would essentially be the same thing as far as total ore available in game. If spawns are currently skewed something like 50/50 or 90/10, it would affect the amount of each type of ore in the game.

Trading would still be a thing, maybe even more so. If everyone that is mining is getting a mix of normal ore and rare or, they'd still trade what they don't need for what they do need.

The whole tangential "prospecting" thing would definitely remove merchant competition and some of the gold sink. If that is the intended system, great. It just doesn't feel organic with other trade skills and it feels kind of empty. Whenever a new player asks how to get gems to level jewelcrafting and the universal answer is "grind gold then buy them from merchants", it's a sort of hollow answer and experience.

[outer cipher]

The volume of trade is not my concern, it's rather that with a chanced spawn system, the trade becomes mandatory, and JC itself would become inaccessible to Ironmen or anyone who doesn't enjoy the trade.
The current system of ores being separated enables the targeted farming of specific precious ores.
Currently the separation allows for Blacksmithing to be balanced individually at a comfortable rate, you can have it match the pace of leatherworking etc.
Jewelcrafting rate is slower is a much longer grind compared to blacksmithing, and it has an added purpose of serving as a gold sink at the higher level of Jewelcrafting. (The rate of gems goes up pretty decently at higher mining, but the disconnect comes ones you enter t6+ of JC, where there isn't enough gem to keep pace without buying)

Right now the 2 skills are very loosely related by mining level, but the economy of each is relatively separate due to the nodes being at different places.
If they were tied together, then there is a new host of balancing issue.

People who wants to focus on blacksmithing will now have to perform trade with Jewelcrafters.
Jewelcrafters can no longer focus on Jewelcrafting without mining for blacksmithing ores as there will be no way to focus their effort.
Best ore spots will be contested by even lategame players who maxed Blacksmithing long ago, and there need to be a balancing overhaul to every ore spot to adjust to this.

A Major one:
There will be a lot of people whose blacksmithing will way outlevel Jewelcrafting, and be sitting on a lot of higher level precious ore without anything to do with them. They will be able to BS and Mine T8, while they still need a lot of T4-6 Precious to get the levels before they can start using their T7-8 Precious ores.
The player answer then would be to mine a huge amount of lower tier ore that is no longer relevant to them, in order to get the Precious Ores they need. Or they have to convince multiple players to trade them their lower tier Precious ores.

On the Dev side there will be no good option other than moving to drastically readjust the JC difficulty, making it lose the identity, as just be another skill like BS/Leather/WW etc.
That opens up another layer of issue of gold sink they have to somehow solve.

[lime mango]

Keeping normal ore and rare ore spawns decoupled does allow for target farming the exact ore you need, which does make target grinding blacksmithing or jewelcrafting viable.

Counterpoints:

Having them share the same spawn points allows gathering ore for both professions more viable. It shouldn't affect ironman players, as they need to gather ore for both professions anyway. Doesn't make much difference if they are solo gathering normal or or rare ore. They are still gathering it. Having the nodes share spawns may even make it more friendly to ironman players.

The tangential point of "prospecting" would keep more gold in the game and remove some of the gold sink of camping merchants, true. There is not really an economy, nor I imagine will there be in the alpha. I'm not sure what else gold is spent on other than buying gems and enchanting reagents to level those two professions.

That being said, if the identity of jewelcrafting is grinding irrelevant ore nodes and grinding gold to camp a merchant for gems, that is not the best design. No other profession (perhaps in any game I've ever played) demands that you grind irrelevant resources, then money, then camp a merchant. Nor should the path through a profession require those things.

Merchants will still be available to speed the process along via buying needed gems, but an alternative method that is more fluid with gameplay should be available. You are simply replacing the grind for gold (which I hear is quite easy at higher levels) with the grind for ore (which is tedious at all levels) to reach the same end. One just flows more organically with trade skills than the other.

[outer cipher]

The gold sink at the lategame is very much needed, currently the game needs way more gold sink, and taking that aspect of JC out would cause very major issues.

Ironmen will absolutely suffer from what I mentioned above :
"A Major one:
There will be a lot of people whose blacksmithing will way outlevel Jewelcrafting, and be sitting on a lot of higher level precious ore without anything to do with them. They will be able to BS and Mine T8, while they still need a lot of T4-6 Precious to get the levels before they can start using their T7-8 Precious ores.
The player answer then would be to mine a huge amount of lower tier ore that is no longer relevant to them, in order to get the Precious Ores they need. Or they have to convince multiple players to trade them their lower tier Precious ores."

To the point where it would feel literally unviable.

My point is, I have plenty of problems with the current design, but having throughly explored it on both a personal and mathematical level, I understand why it is the way it is right now.

I am 100% for improving it, but wanted to point out the problems the idea for system change can cause.