Mining - getting worse?

[Rigsta]

As WHM I hate subbing THF to farm beadeaux, so I mine gusgen. I have field tunica, gloves and boots on when I mine and I can usually get a pretty good yield of iron, darksteel and gold ore with the zinc ore going straight to the tenshodo guy in bastok, and everything else getting thrown (apart from coloured rocks).

Recently however I've had NO darksteel or gold ore from gusgen, far less iron ore than usual and if I get a coloured rock that now constitutes a "lucky" haul.

What the hell's going on? In the past week or so I have tried mining at each different moon phase (although I've managed to be offline for every full moon -_-) and I've still mined nothing but garbage from what used to be a nice source of income. It's got to the point where I struggle to break even on the cost of pickaxes.

Anyone know why my success rate has gone down so much?

[xShagratx]

because jesus hates us all

[Rigsta]

Thank you for that. Now, does anyone have anything intelligent or useful to say?

[Zafron]

It looks like in the last patch they may have nerfed some of the means by which players can earn gil.

farming nerfed

fishing nerfed

And i know NM drops have been nerfed, just by the frequency of which peacock charm is now selling and the fact that it is nearing 1M more now than before the patch><.

If they nerfed mining also...well...this is me shocked.

Its probably just a ploy to slow down people's progress in the game so they will continue to pay their $13 a month longer. It would have been smarter to do it more gradually so no one noticed. You know, the whole frog in boiling water trick.

[Rigsta]

Well that sucks balls. Nice one SE, real smart. I guess I'll have to get my alchemy to a sufficient level to HQ beeswax/black ink (I hear it's 56) instead of actually going out and mining with all my field gear on and feeling lucky when I manage to get enough ore to pay for the pickaxes (which I buy from the bastok NPC for 180 Gil each).

Thanks for replying, you pretty much confirmed my hunch that it was a success rate tweak from the mini-update.

So you all know, I mine Gusgen as my main source of income so I know all the mining points, I know which coloured rocks sell for more and where the next point is likely to spawn (and also which NMs to look out for ). In short I know the place rather well. I have never noticed moon phase make any difference to my mining results, and day of the week only affects which coloured rocks I dig up. Before the tweak I could go in there with 3 stacks of picks and not have to worry at all about being able to mine enough ore of value to pay for them 2-4 times over, or more if I got a lucky haul.

[Zafron]

coloured rocks eh? =P

I wouldn't give up on mining yet. If you are having these problems with mining everyone is, and there will be a drop in ore/rock supply. If the demand stays the same this will mean a new equilibrium price that will be higher than before. It will take a little time for it to set in, but if you have any rocks left try putting them on the AH for higher than you normally would and see what happens. People are going to have to get their rocks from somewhere.

Just an idea, i really have no experience with mining or the mining market. I get all my cash from gardening mostly. I'll find out if that got nerfed next harvest.

[goudaba]

Also noticed today, in the grottos, that I would get way more zinc and copper than Iron, hey Iron its not like darksteel or gold it's damn iron. I got 8 iron ore from 3 stack of pickaxes. And I'm approching the point where I need thons hundreds K's gil to keep myself updated.

[Rigsta]

Originally posted by Zafron
coloured rocks eh? =P

I wouldn't give up on mining yet. If you are having these problems with mining everyone is, and there will be a drop in ore/rock supply. If the demand stays the same this will mean a new equilibrium price that will be higher than before. It will take a little time for it to set in, but if you have any rocks left try putting them on the AH for higher than you normally would and see what happens. People are going to have to get their rocks from somewhere.

Just an idea, i really have no experience with mining or the mining market. I get all my cash from gardening mostly. I'll find out if that got nerfed next harvest.

Trouble is, the guilds sell them so the price won't rise enough to make up for the reduced numbers of valuable ores. Best price I can sell rocks for is 3K in jeuno, because the goldsmiths' guild sells them too.

Knock-on effect: Zinc ore price has gone up enough that there's no longer any point in me crafting bullets for gil. Unless the price of those goes up, but they're already an expensive hobby at 7K per stack via the AH. Which is annoying because I have 2 stacks of firesand waiting to be used, and it was actually a way to make some sort of profit out of my highest craft skill (I waited 41 skill levels for a nice synth like bullets, 59 if you include the goldsmithing levels - and just when I get it, it's gimped).

I did get a gold ore today though. Which even though it's gone up to 8K each, is still a big reduction in my income :/ (normally would've gotten that on top of a couple of darksteels). Everything else was pebbles, zinc (which I kept for brass ingots), a few coppers (also went into brass) and silver ores which I kept to sell. I used to throw those away too....

[Ghostraven]

something definitely got nerfed, 2 stacks of axes would give me like 20 irons, 10+ zincs in yughott, and 2-3 gold. now zero gold, half that iron, and lots of breakages on tin......

[RiceCooker]

yeah i went to the grotto today oh man i had a bad run... 3 stack of pickaxes i didnt get 1 gold i got 2 drksteels though got 4 zincs about about 8irons pissed me off so i went back to sandy and had a sulk

[Outaru]

Had not mined in a month, heard some talk about a full moon being good for mining so I was bored and decided to head out to Gusgen, got 6 darksteele ores and about 10 irons ores, 6 stacks of pebbles (lol) and threw away other crap, in 2 hours with 14 other miners, not bad for 2 hours work ~ 50k

[Karta]

hmm on Sunday I went out for 3hours to gusgen with 5 stacks of axes and came away with 1 gold, 7 darksteel, 13 iron ore and 10 zinc, using 4 1/12 of my pickaxes. Im not sure if anything has changed, or maybe it was my luck.

[efDisk]

An observation.

I mine in Gusgen rarely, because it's always so packed, and I'm 46, and those damn Feu Follets keep aggroing. And the mining there has usually netted me a total of a darksteel and maybe a colored rock on a good day.

Yesterday it was lightsday (waxing crescent) when I logged in, so I hopped over to Gusgen. Found a spot (the first area with three doors, the easy to get to spot) , and mined out a white rock. Found a second spot (deeper in), mined out a gold ore (second time I've gotten one EVER), got a number of zincs and irons, at the fifth I found a darksteel.

Then the day changed to Darksday.

5 pickaxes broke, got a bunch of copper and pebbles over the course of the day, and gave up and warped home to sell my goods (and craft my ores).

So I'd say Lightsday has something to do with it. I'm also wondering if subbing THF helped or not. Does Treasure Hunter work on mining?

[EverJams]

Rigsta is just Jealous of me.

Mining I don't know on average off of 36 pics I come out with 42k+ in ore. There are times where I may only come out with 1-2 darksteel ores and miscellaneous ores. I don't know I just go mine and get good ores. My trick is just to dig that's all I know.

[Ektarot]

Few things :
Mining works as good as always. I did 4 runs this week including one after maintenance, and they all were above what I consider as my average run.
Th1/TH2 has no effect at all on mining.
Days have a certain influence on the probability of drop of some ores (for instance on firesday in yughot you will get much more copper ore % than on other days). Days have an influence on pickaxe breaking rate (light day, they break much more rarely, for instance).
Days don't seem so far to have a big influence on rare drops (I have had drops of both darksteel and gold on all days of the week in yughot. Even frequency doesn t seem to vary from day to day).
Moon phases might have an influence on rare drops rate (actually it s very likely, but I don't have enough data to consider it sure).

I am still wondering about the possibility of a hidden mining skill, but have zero evidence so far (and if there is one, as far as I know it doesn't make enough of a difference to be really easily noticeable).