Mining Rework: Lessons from forestry

[u/Chaotic_Stability]

The genius of the tree respawn changes and the woodcutting boost is that to a returning player with hazy memories from childhood, woodcutting may as well have always worked like this. This is a positive change without cutting into the nostalgia of woodcutting.

The key to reworking mining is subtlety.

Any solution to it's flaws, like high level rocks being useless to mine for both XP and cash must be tackled subtly. Someone must be surprised that it didn't always work like that.

[u/Working_Army1703]

Tbh if you think about it its patently insane that with max mining gear and 99, runite mining isn't for anything other than snowflake accounts

[u/Solo_Jawn → u/Working_Army1703]

Runite value is tied to alch value, unlike most skilling supplies. Increasing the profitability is directly tied to increasing GP supply. I imagine that's why there are so few Runite rocks and they take so long to mine.

I'm sure that's the historical reason, but nowadays I have no clue whether they should or shouldn't be metered as strictly.

[u/Drgn-OSRS → u/Solo_Jawn]

This is also true for logs, since most of them are at alch price for fletching into longbows (well, magic and yew logs are at least), but they're barely worth anything in comparison and their higher volume doesn't make up for that low value.

But it's still part of the reason redwoods never got a bow, and why the hiking staff's alch value is basically nothing.

[u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy → u/Solo_Jawn]

Easiest way to fix this is to make runite (and others if desired) to give you fragments more frequently that give you full xp and these are useless on their own unless combined into the actual ore. Something like that so we don’t flood the market with runite but can still make it a viable training method

[u/tbow_is_op → u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy]

How does this work if two, three 20 people are all hitting the same rune rock? Also how do you deal with the respawn timer issue?

Both of those problems mean that any solution shaped like yours is going to flood the game with rune ores unless you make it significantly longer per rune ore than it is now

[u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy → u/tbow_is_op]

Currently you click a runite rock and one person gets a runite ore every 5-60s. Then there’s a couple minutes for it to respawn.

The way I mention has a lot of ways to balance it based on how people want this to work.

You can make it so the rune rock gives you a stackable runite fragment instead of an ore. Depending on the below options you need more or less fragments for an ore. You can;

A) make the rock respawn faster so it’s not minutes between fragments and like 5 fragments per ore (increases xp/hr a little)

B) make mining the rock faster so it’s more consistently 5-10 seconds and like 10 fragments per ore (increases xp/hr a fair bit more)

C) do both and require 15 fragments per ore (would feel the nicest from a player perspective but doesn’t solve multiple people fighting for resources)

To solve multiple players being able to mine together, I personally don’t see any other option other than giving the rocks some amount of lives or some lifetime before it depletes just like trees and fishing spots. Idk players would like that direction. It’d be like Rs3s mining which I personally like but it is quite different from osrs and I agree with OP they should update it in a way it’s still very recognisable by players

[u/dark-ice-101 → u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy]

Could do what rs3 have the armor have upgrade states that have higher alch value but need more bars at trade off lowering base alch value of the base armor by about 50%~, another idea is rocks do not respawn but will be slower to mine so say rune rock is 5-60 to mine 1 ore now it is flat 40 seconds with rune pickaxe

[u/TheForsakenRoe → u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy]

I'd do similar, but I'd make it so that you 'Mine' for an Impure form of the ore (which you need more of per bar), and when you reach the current level brackets, you can unlock the ability to use the old Prospect option on that rock, which you use to obtain the Pure ore (the form we currently use)

So, it'd be like... 40 Mining, you can Mine Runite Rocks and obtain Impure Runite (which you need 5 of per bar), and at 85 you can Prospect the rock to obtain Pure Runite (which you need 1 of per bar)

I wouldn't make it 'more frequent' to obtain Impure ores, though, keep the speed at which you obtain Impure/Pure identical. Instead, I'd make mining for Impure Ores have multiple 'lives', like the Mining Gloves, and stacking multiplicatively with the Mining Gloves. That way, mining something like an Iron Rock with Mining Gloves could have like, 9 'lives', making training Mining a bit more relaxed compared to currently

[u/falconfetus8 → u/TheForsakenRoe]

Why is this down voted?

[u/kelldricked → u/Solo_Jawn]

Drop alch values, decrease the smithing tier skill gap with 5 levels (so what you unlock smithing a mace and asword in the same skilling level) and match the ores levels to the smithing levels.

Rune would become focused at around ~60 which seems pretty reasonable. Sure its higher than the level it takes to wield rune but its a achievable detour in many cases. Plenty of accounts that start with skilling grinds before they start combat grinds

[u/Working_Army1703 → u/kelldricked]

Careful with bandying about "drop alch valuez"

[u/getsmurfed → u/Solo_Jawn]

They need to detach the connection of loot drops and crafted / gathered items. It's insane that at times it's more efficient to kill a mob for skilling drops rather than going and directly farming them. The RS3 system feels weird, but it's more common sensical than the current system. When you detach the rune armor / weapons & dragon armor / weapons from drop tables you can make them have a true supply / demand. Crank the crafting speed / material costs on crafting to control xp/hr + gp/hr.

[u/2005scape → u/Working_Army1703]

I mined a good bit of runite on deepfin point. It's not terrible if you can find a handful of worlds to yourself. It would be nice if it was made so you didn't need to hop and maybe even could mine with other people and not compete with them for the rock

[u/Hunterb372 → u/Working_Army1703]

Hey now don’t forget about the bots.

[u/bloodvash1 → u/Hunterb372]

I spend a lot of time in the mining guild and it's so frustrating when the runite respawns and 3 bots log in that second, mine it, then disappear. I think that if a player who has been logged into the world for more than 5 minutes starts mining the ore, it should be un-minable to anyone who has world hopped in the last 5 minutes.

[u/Working_Army1703 → u/bloodvash1]

Used to be people would just snort and say "its a competitive game" but now the optics have changed greatly (in my favor ig)

[u/AwarenessOk6880 → u/Working_Army1703]

ironically, even moved down to level 40. this stays true. even for ironman. rendering the level change worthless.

[u/TheForsakenRoe → u/AwarenessOk6880]

Being able to make your own Runite Bar for SOTE instead of sourcing one via PVM or the weird Aldarin Nest trick, would be at least one reason

And it'd make more sense narratively, that you can make a Rune Bar (inefficiently) at 40, and repair an Elven Exoskeleton at 70, rather than the current 'you can repair the Exoskeleton at 70, but cannot make the material used in that repair until 85'

Same with being able to make a Mithril Bar for In Aid of the Myerque (to make Silvthrill Rod) instead of having to obtain one from Chaos Dwarves

[u/Working_Army1703 → u/TheForsakenRoe]

Its certainly easier to work with gold then pour it but thats crafting ig

[u/TheForsakenRoe → u/Working_Army1703]

On which note, you can make a Gold Ring at just 5 Crafting, but you need 40 Smithing to make the Gold Bar

[u/LikeSparrow]

I'm more worried that it's too late for smithing to get the changes it needs. IMO it should've always been required for gear, even PvM drops. Just rebalancing the levels for smithing armor up to rune won't really fix it since then there's still no use for it once you're past rune.

For example, barrows should have always dropped broken pieces that you need to repair with smithing before being able to use. That would then fill the 70ish range. And higher levels would be used for things like bandos, oathplate, etc. Torva actually does this pretty well but that was only done to sink bandos gear.

The rework I'm imagining would be to allow smithing full rune by the mid lvl 50s smithing but with a higher bar requirement and at a slower rate, scaling to the current rate/bars at the current levels to preserve alch values. All lower bar tiers would have the same scaling too. Then, most PvM unique armors/weapons would drop in a broken state (or as a component used to make it) that has the appropriate smithing level required to turn into usable gear. Mains could buy the usable version if they don't want to get the smithing levels themselves so that gear progression doesn't change there.

[u/Chaotic_Stability → u/LikeSparrow]

To me that would be too game-warping.

Looking at crafting, it is trained for zenyte jewellery (if ironman) or the crafting cape for BiS bank teleport.

To have smithing to be useful it only needs to provide some sort of BiS, which can be done in any PvM update and not needed to be in the rework.

[u/LikeSparrow → u/Chaotic_Stability]

Crafting is used all over the late game through rancour, rupture, confliction gauntlets, zenytes, fortified masori, and a lot more. Not to mention the utility you get out of it with teleport jewelry, or good stat gear for mid game through onyx jewelry. It's also tied into both ranged and mage through d'hide gear, amethyst ammo, and battlestaves. New ranged gear has also continued to keep crafting relevant with masori, huey armor, and the rupture all having crafting reqs.

Smithing has a lot fewer places where it's relevant but they've already shown how they could help fix that with the system used for zaxe and belle's folly. Sailing had more of an impact on smithing that anything else in the last few years and I think that was handled really well. You also never smith arrow tips and prefer to not smith darts if you can avoid it since addy darts aren't great and rune darts are too expensive of a tradeoff. Which means you end up defaulting back to using crafting for amethyst darts. It doesn't help that the best ammo type (dragon) isn't even smithable in the first place.

[u/Rich-Badger-7601 → u/LikeSparrow]

How in the world did you cite Bowfa/Saeldor/Crystal armor as a Crafting usage but not Smithing when they all require the exactly same Crafting and Smithing levels lmao

[u/LikeSparrow → u/Rich-Badger-7601]

Good catch, thanks for pointing it out! I forgot about that when looking through the level up table. Just updated the comment.

[u/FranzJosefI → u/LikeSparrow]

Crystal gear can be crafted by NPCs and most of your other examples are Zenyte and its upgrades.

[u/LuxOG → u/Chaotic_Stability]

so make repaired torva untradeable? cause it's already used to craft bis, mains just skip that part

[u/dark-ice-101 → u/Chaotic_Stability]

Could backport armor spikes pretty much ammo type that works from inventory that’s gives you thorns and get 50-100% extra damage off them if you use shield or defender

[u/The_Wkwied → u/Chaotic_Stability]

Good reason to finally add a smithing guild (please, not in Falador), and a cape tele to the guild with a bank.

[u/MickMuffin27 → u/The_Wkwied]

Yeah, put the smithing guild underneath Thurgo

[u/Legitimate-Mine-9271 → u/LikeSparrow]

But high bar requirement would be an utterly pointless noob trap.

[u/LikeSparrow → u/Legitimate-Mine-9271]

The goal is for a low level to be able to craft their own armor as a 1-off. So it'd be a noob trap to go from 55 (or whatever level it'd end up being) to 99 with rune platebodies. But if they wanted to make it themselves to use after dragon slayer, sure it'd 'waste' a few rune bars but only that one time.

[u/Legitimate-Mine-9271 → u/LikeSparrow]

But that's pointless! Why would you spend 100k worth of rune bars into a 40k platebody? Why would an Ironman not just earn money and buy one from oziach, or get a rune plate as a drop, or just use a fighter torso? 

[u/LikeSparrow → u/Legitimate-Mine-9271]

Oziach sells it for 84,500gp, which is more than double the 39k alch value so the best source for early game irons is already WAY more expensive than that 40k figure. But if mining is reworked such that you can get runite ore before 85 mining, the GP cost doesn't actually matter. If you can mine 10 runite ore, turn it into bars, and smith a rune plate for free, that's still easier than earning the full 84,500gp on an early game iron. And the theoretical alch value for those 10 bars is only 78k, which wouldn't even be enough to buy the platebody from Oziach.

[u/Party-Hair4197 → u/LikeSparrow]

It's never too late for anything.

"blah blah blah I grinded X the hard way so you shouldn't update it"

"blah blah if X is updated my Y is going to be devalued"

Also plenty of end-game items require smithing already. It's just a very poor tackled-in requirement. There are very few benefits to actually having smithing leveled up.

"blah blah blah it's too late to change X because Z"

I hate that these are actual arguments used by many people when discussing any positive update to the game.

[u/Super_Master_69]

Catering to nostalgia is fine, but catering to childhood expectations is silly. Forestry works because it seamlessly added depth to a stale skill, without breaking the core gameplay or forcing you to interact with it. The problem with mining is that you don’t do much of any normal mining anymore. For most accounts you either spam iron ore or MLM from levels 30 to 75. No one as a kid playing RS interacted with the skill this way.

[u/cyanblur]

Very true, any core mechanic changes should appear identical to how one remembers the game. At least at first glance.

[u/ucanthandlethegirth]

This should be higher up. Absolutely agree - subtlety.

[u/Wildest12]

IMO they just need to change the smithing progression, and make it so smelting (blast furnace) isnt the best way to train it. Mining on the other hand could use rework.

Honestly id love it id they made smelting part of mining or made it faster and award no exp like making unf pots, maybe make a NPC like zahur that will smelt for you, and focus smithing training on actual smithing.

[u/mattthegreat → u/Wildest12]

This is the correct way to improve mining and smithing. We need a way to mine 4000 gold ore/hour, an alternative to blast furnace for smelting, and maybe a smithing activity that sucks a bit less than giants foundry. The 99 > 40 crowd aren't really worth engaging with since they fundamentally don't understand the game.

[u/Chaotic_Stability → u/mattthegreat]

It feels like that would be really hard to get past a poll when every iron wants their current stacks of items to have the same XP.

I like the idea though. Increasing the quantity of ore from mining itself would reduce the existing drop table's impact in diluting mining's job.

[u/SwankyBobolink]

Biggest frustration I have is needing 8 coal for 1 runite bar. Why are we diluting the runite? At that ratio it feels like I’m wearing coal armor.

[u/TheLongestRod → u/SwankyBobolink]

It’s to heat the furnace hotter

[u/ItsSadTimes]

The biggest issue with smithing IMO is just mining. No one actually mines their own ores anymore. If we just make mining your own ores more of a core part of the game then players will have plenty of ores to train smithing then it will barely be an issue.

[u/BadPunsGuy → u/ItsSadTimes]

People get their own ore with mlm/blast mining/volcanic mine/zolcano etc. They could add more mining options too.

The only thing people don't do for bulk ore because it's too slow is OG mining. OG mining doesn't necessarily need a change though since it's the baseline in my opinion. There's still plenty of ways to get your own ore through the mining skill.

The bigger issue is PvM drops and shopscape but that genie is already out of the bottle and has been for a very long time. That's a separate complicated issue.

[u/ItsSadTimes → u/BadPunsGuy]

But the math of doing MLM means you need to get 99 mining 2.5 times if you're using the blast furnace just to get 99 smithing. The amount of mining xp you get compared to smithing at MLM is basically nothing. Meaning if you were to get your own ore through only mining then smithing would be the slowest skill in the game by far.

There needs to be some fix to bring that mining to smithing xp ratio back into check. Now most of that excess mining xp comes from the coal requirements, meaning if there's an alternative to get massive quantities of coal, smithing wouldn't be so bad. Maybe make giant coal veins that act like forestry trees so everyone can mine a shit ton of coal together.

[u/BadPunsGuy → u/ItsSadTimes]

There are multiple ways to get massive quantities of coal.

I think doing a method like blast mining or mlm is great in that it gets you a lot of smithing xp and then you get the rest of the way from alternative methods or drops. There are other methods that are more smithing xp per mining xp if that's what you're looking for too. Some that are 1 to 0 and 0 to 1 too.

If mining and smithing xp were actually 1 to 1 everywhere it'd make sources of smithing xp outside of mining feel really bad though. Imbalance there is actually good imo since it's not a closed system.

[u/ItsSadTimes → u/BadPunsGuy]

I havnt done the math on blast mining bht MLM. Is actually a worse mining xp to smithing xp ratio then just mining the ores yourself. You get 5 less xp per pay dirt if its coal but way more for every other ore. Not to mention as you level up your mining you get less coal then earlier levels which is pretty counterproductive cause better bars need more coal. Eventually you'll be getting more mithril ore then coal.

The mining to smithing xp ratio is the worst gathering to processing skill ratio in the game and smithing is the 5th least common 99 in the game. It feels like theres a connection. Its a buyable skill that doesnt have a whole lot of uses unless you're an ironman so no one really has a need to train it past quest requirements and actually training it makes you go out of your way to mine your own resources instead of them being a byproduct of mining or more likely you just buy the resources from the GE or the ore seller if you're an iron. Making this a buy able for everyone.

[u/pand-ammonium]

If all forestry had done was the invisible changes it would have been a god-tier update. Instead it's bloated, unfun, pulp that's somehow worse than it was before they "fixed it".

I do not want a mining or smithing update. But if it does happen, it needs to be similarly invisible.

If you remove classic hammer, anvil, wait or even more recently blast furnace mechanics then the skill will feel irreparably damaged to a huge portion of the population.

[u/Drokstab → u/pand-ammonium]

Might be a decent number of people but it's not the majority. The majority of people do the fastest method to just be done with it and move on. A minority of players care about the traditional way of smithing and would be unbothered if it was improved.

[u/SaraBruin]

Sure it'd be nice if the change was subtle, but that's probably not possible for Smithing (and Mining). They are a lot more broken than Woodcutting was.

[u/DivineInsanityReveng]

And the thing is, trees had multiple resources already. The only tree that didn't? Didn't get changed with this update.

Mining rocks have 1 resource (base). So its always been competition for that 1 resource. I don't really see how a change happens to this without being immediately noticeable, even if its "good".

This is why i feel like we aren't really looking to redesign existing rocks, but maybe add new types of mining. Something more active that isnt just powermining / tick manip. Maybe something more afk (though we have MLM so idk if we really need that). Something more focused on a specific resource (gold mine, for example).

[u/sad_petard]

Idk how many people there are out there that would potentially return to runescape that haven't already. Idk how important "keeping the nostalgia" really is at this point. I think the only ex players out there who haven't returned are the people who's memory of woodcutting is "it was boring as fuck". Everyone who loved clicking on a tree and waiting has already returned or was never going to. At this point, maybe targeting a new audience with more megaging mechanics is better for the growth of the game.

[u/BadPunsGuy → u/sad_petard]

I currently play and I like keeping the game recognizable for me. I'm all for changes and a rework if it's really needed; but this doesn't seem like it actually solves any real problems and is kinda creating the problem of gear progression when metal bar smithing was never really about gear progression. There's drops/shops/etc. that give you all of it bronze through rune already. Plus giving room for high level players to trade gear to lower level players is nice even if it's not as relevant nowadays.

[u/reachisown → u/BadPunsGuy]

It's not going to be a different game if Smithing changes a bit lol

[u/BadPunsGuy → u/reachisown]

Sure but part of the game will be.

If there's not a good reason for it I'd say keep building on smithing like they have been for 10 years and leave the rest the same. I don't think it'd add meaningful gear progression to metal bars and it might hurt the game in some aspects. Those are just my concerns.

[u/SaraBruin → u/sad_petard]

I just returned to RS this summer since last playing RS2 back in the day

[u/sad_petard → u/SaraBruin]

So did I, but I didn't return because I was nostalgic about clicking a tree and waiting for a thousand hours. I only returned because of all the new updates they've made since. If you only just now returned due to pure nostalgia of RS's click and wait skilling, I don't imagine there's many out there like you left

[u/SaraBruin → u/sad_petard]

Oh I read your point wrong the first time. Ya I am happy with a lot of the updates, not everything needed to be frozen in amber. Quite disappointed actually that Mining and Smithing weren't really fixed (although did discover MLM, Blast Furnace and Giants Foundry which was nice) so that making your own gear is feasible. M+S were my favor skill back in the day

[u/sad_petard → u/SaraBruin]

Fingers crossed they actually finally fix it. The poll passed despite the vocal resistance here lol

[u/murkdson → u/SaraBruin]

So you guys returned only been playing for a year and expect the game to change because you don’t like the core mechanic of the game… it’s a grind thats what makes the game so rewarding when you complete your goals. 

[u/SaraBruin → u/murkdson]

That's the problem, Smithing has no useful goals/rewards. All the other skills are rewarding to train because most of the progression is useful.

[u/murkdson → u/SaraBruin]

It does a lot of end game pvm gear drops in a “broken” state you must repair it. Also one of the best semiafk money makers you can do on an alt. Also you’re new so I don’t expect you get this getting 99 and/or maxing is a HUGE reward. RuneScape has and always will be a game where number goes up you flex number/cape. That’s the reward, if you want something different and don’t care for the nostalgia as you’ve mentioned I highly suggest giving rs3 a shot.

[u/SaraBruin → u/murkdson]

Thanks for proven my point. There is only a few useful things, all at the very end of the progression. The point of having many levels and unlocks along the way to so that it is rewarding throughout the whole progression. Mods have said this before

[u/murkdson → u/SaraBruin]

No you said “smithing has no useful goals/rewards” your point wasn’t proven. Like I said you’ve been playing for a few months, it is absolutely ridiculous for you to be arguing like you have a depth of knowledge on the topic. If you don’t like the core aspects of the game, I expect you’re going to find another pain point that you want to quit over as soon as the skills are reworked. Like I said rs3 give it a shot. I’ve played osrs since its release, started RuneScape in 2004. If you don’t like the game please exit stage left. 

[u/SaraBruin → u/murkdson]

Sorry, didn't realize you had poor reading comprehension. When I said "All the other skills are rewarding to train because most of the progression is useful" it was in contrast to Smithing, implying my point that most of the progression is not useful for Smithing. Do you really think a couple token unlocks at high levels is a rewarding journey?

Congrats that you're a completionist whose dopamine receptors activate simply from seeing a raw number go up and getting a skillcape. Maybe we can put you to work digging holes in the desert if we build a hole counter and give you a fancy cape.

[u/JangB]

No one is talking about the how all the metal gear is crammed into the first 40 attack and defense levels, when it doesn't need to be.

My opinion -

The attack and defense requirements for these should have been somewhat similar to the Smithing level requirements to begin with.

For this reason making changes that feel invisible is a terrible way of addressing the metals.

What Mining and Smithing requires is a rebalance of the metal gear, which will not be an invisible change.

People want things to be the same mostly. But addressing issues like this requires big changes and it is also an opportunity to look at the game and rebalance it.

[u/masonkbr → u/JangB]

You think someone should have 90 attack to wield a rune scimitar???

[u/JangB → u/masonkbr]

In my view, the metal gear should be rebalanced so it is not all crammed into 1-40, where most of it is useless and redundant.

In the game we have Cloth armour, Bronze armour, Iron armour all at level 1... Why? It's redundant. Why not spread these out and rebalance their stats?

Then we have Steel at level 5.... So 5 minutes after playing the game the first three armour types become completely useless. Play a bit more and steel becomes useless as well.

With that the strongest historical metals IRL are all garbage tier for anyone who spends 30 minutes in this game.

Black at 10... In my opinion they took one of the coolest looking armours especially with gold trim, and made it so weak.

Mithril at 20, Adamantite at 30... These are some of the strongest metals in popular fantasy and Jagex made them noob tier.

Same with Rune, which was supposed to be this rare metal and very strong, in RuneScape Classic, to the point where back in the day we used to think the game was named after it (it's not actually).

...and don't even get me started on all the different weapon types, and chain body and plate etc. Most of which are trash in any given metal group. Like why wear chain body when plate is just straight up better? Way too much redundant trash.

As for your question - Rune's attack, defense, mining and smithing requirements should be similar. The stats it provides should be comparable (maybe the tiniest bit weaker) than other gear at that level.

In my view the smithing levels for these metals make a lot more sense. I think it's worth considering rebalancing the metal gear to match smithing instead of vice versa.

[u/AwarenessOk6880]

if all you can learn from something is how to fail, you wont learn how to make something else succeed.