Why SALTPETER price to purchase from NPCs has been set so CHEAP ?
Considering how time consuming an activity it is, to mine for Saltpeter in the quantities needed to craft any decent amount of Charges and Fuse Cords, I find that the price set with NPCs to purchase it and, thus, save a whole bunch of time (and Mining skill/Luck suit necessary), is way too low.
For what it cost to buy it from NPCs, and compared to how much time one needs to invest in mining it, WHY BOTHER to mine it at all ?
I do not get it....
In order to have the 2 ways to get Saltpeter be balanced out with one another, eIther mining for Slatpeter should be much less time consuming OR the price for purchasing Saltpeter from NPCs should be a LOT higher.... I think....
For what it cost to buy it from NPCs, and compared to how much time one needs to invest in mining it, WHY BOTHER to mine it at all ?
I do not get it....
In order to have the 2 ways to get Saltpeter be balanced out with one another, eIther mining for Slatpeter should be much less time consuming OR the price for purchasing Saltpeter from NPCs should be a LOT higher.... I think....
Comments
I'm personally of the opinion that, even though ammunition spawns in ship holds in the form of fuses and charges, I also think there should be large quantities of Saltpeter that also spawn, and not 15 or 23 at a time, but 100s, it would only make sense that these things would be transported on ships coming and going throughout the market. Even though I like some of the High Seas changes, i think still @Kyronix and the others are being stingy with resources that common sense says, would absolutely be transported on ships between cities, but it seems they're so afraid that it will wreck and already wrecked economy. They will let PvPrs monopolize the most valued commodity in the game, Power Scrolls,(and before I get jumped on by PvPrs telling me to do spawns, I've done that, most of them solo, on the toughest shard to succeed on, and my characters are fully scrolled, it's not about that, it's about favoritism) but players that want to do High Seas based content only, might monopolize the Frostwood or Saltpeter market, oh we can't have that !!!, so a feared Dread Pirate who is so notorious that his name and evil deeds are spouted out of the mouths of every sea faring vessel and merchant/survivor, yet that same pirate doesn't carry a single Frostwood board in his hold, or a level 7 treasure map which was supposedly coded in 9 years ago and never happened. I could go on and on about how so many things have been left out of High Seas loot, but I won't, it's getting away from your original post which is about how Saltpeter isn't that easy to get for those of us that dont macro ship mine, or weren't lucky enough to buy it all up from the newly added NPCs at dirt cheap prices before it was driven up to unaffordable prices by most players (yeah Devs, how did you miss that this wouldn't happen), at least get up in the morning and add the code that resets the prices to normal every day. How hard is it to think of that ?
Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
To my opinion, it IS screwed up.
Why ?
Because, "if" it was balanced out, THEN, those with little in-game gold COULD also sell it to fellow players who have plenty in-game gold AND, thus, better their in-game finances in the process....
Instead, as it is, it is screwed up because it gives Saltpeter to those who can easily spend what it takes to purchase it BUT, instead, forces absurd and time consuming (and alienating) GRINDS in those who cannot afford putchasing Saltpeter....
Basically, at least as I see it, it FAVOURS those who are in-game rich and DISFAVOUR those who instead are in-game poor and cannot even get a reasonable return for their investment of TIME into mining for Saltpeter....
INSTEAD, if it was BALANCED out with either Saltpeter being more readily available (to reflect the cheap price on NPCs for it) OR, have it waaaay more expensive on NPCs to reflect the extensive time that it takes to mine for it, AT LEAST those willing to spend the time to mine for it would have a logical reason for doing it and spending their time mining for it.
But, as it stands, and with how cheap it is on NPCs to purchase, and how time consuming it is to mine for it, WHY BOTHER to actually mine for it ?
The time can be much better spent earning gold somewhere else and THEN spent on purchasing the Saltpeter from NPCs...
And all of the mechanics Deigned to mine Slatpeter would remain unused because there simply is no reason to spend the extensive time it takes to mine it, much better earn that time to make gold elsewhere and then purchase Slatpeter from NPCs...
I think the 2 ways SHOULD be balanced out with one another....
Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
I guess this is what you have decided is the topic for today's discussion. It is a non-issue.
It's not balanced now they are to expensive.
Either you hunt for gold and buy them at these extremely high prices or you spend the time and get them for free while gathering ingots.
I bought my stack of them for 5 gp each before they changed them to commodite resources so they always had 500 for sale. Spent some hours buying it up in quantity to 999 but after that it went rather quick and not to costly.
The more people that buy it from NPCs the higher the price will go, I bet people on Atl wish they had your problem on Cats and I can already see it 6 months from now you complaining that the price is to high and needs to be reset.
With some 1,000 Luck, in about an hour of Dungeon Mining and at GM Miner using the +5 Mining gloves, "on average" one can mine about 500 Saltpeter.
At 200 gp per, that would mean a return for 1 hour of gameplay, mining Saltpeter, of 100,000 gp worth of Saltpeter.
Now, wouldn't many players be able to get way more then 100k gold using 1 hour of their gameplay?
If this is the case, then either Saltpeter is too time consuming to get OR the Saltpeter sold by NPCs is sold at too cheap a price, IMHO.
Designing something like mining for Saltpeter takes time and resources, right ?
If one then is better off just purchasing it from a NPC because it comes cheaper as compared to the time invested in mining it on one's own, why would then a player want to bother minining it ?
Just earn that gold doing else in UO in that same time frame, walk up that NPC and purchase with that gold obtained elsewhere the Saltpeter and forget about mining it...
It would be more efficient of one's own use of time in UO, right ?
But then, if all players where to do this, who'd mine for Saltpeter and, thus, make good use of that Designed mechanics which took time and resources to implement ?
At least, that is how I see it.
I buy nothing I can get for myself. Buying stuff is no fun, it's the easy way out. I'd much rather dig my own saltpeter.
Believe it or not, some people LIKE mining. Buying everything isn't playing - not for me at least. I sheer sheep and spin wool too. With some thought I have created an EC macro that will use 3 spinning wheels at 2 second intervals and actually like watching them spin in sequence.
While I can understand that, from these 2 answers do I need to acknowledge that not all places are "same good" for mining for Saltpeter ?
That is, "some" locations are "more likely" to spawn Saltpeter ?
If so, what locations would more likely to spawn Saltpeter then ?
Never be afraid to challenge the status quo
Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
Never be afraid to challenge the status quo
At least, I gathered this from reading various sources around about Saltpeter....
Is it so or is that an unfounded Myth and Ship Saltpeter mining yields just the same as any other way to mine Saltpeter ?
Currently it’s 385 gold per on Atl.
Last week I finally ran out of the 2m saltpeter I bought the 1st week HS went live
Never sold any, all was used pirating
Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
Please make the Grizzled Mare a 5 slot mount, it's incredibly rare and deserves it. Some of us have been waiting a long time for this simple addition.
Or already has, several times . . .
Never be afraid to challenge the status quo