The fundamental flaw in gathering this game

A player leveling a gathering class has to pull up 2-4 times the materials needed by a DoH class to level through each 5 level range. This means that alone, if players level DoH and DoL classes 1-to-1, there will already be a huge surplus in materials until you're at the cap. This isn't even counting the fact that a good percentage of the gatherers are RMT running bots 24/7 and surplussing the market even more.

What this means is that DoH will quickly become a level and done thing. There will be almost no market for lower level ore or logs for DoL classes to farm as a source of income like DoH's at level 50 can go back and mass produce HQ lower level items.


tl;dr: Do something to improve the prospects of future gathers by reducing the huge surplus in materials mined compared to those used by a single player leveling both 1 gathering class and one crafting class

In my case, I'm currently leveling botany and carpentry concurrently. After going from level 20 to 22, I've already farmed enough wood to get me past that stage in carpentry, so now I've got to power through 3 more levels of grinding botany just so I can farm the next level wood for carpentry. I now have to pause my crafting to spend another 20 hours mining to get to the next level. Again, this means all of this extra wood being created now relies on an economy where there are 2, 3, or 4 people leveling carpentry that'll never level botany (or else they'll create an even larger surplus).

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Originally Posted by Spald

In my case, I'm currently leveling botany and carpentry concurrently. After going from level 20 to 22, I've already farmed enough wood to get me past that stage in carpentry, so now I've got to power through 3 more levels of grinding botany just so I can farm the next level wood for carpentry. I now have to pause my crafting to spend another 20 hours mining to get to the next level. Again, this means all of this extra wood being created now relies on an economy where there are 2, 3, or 4 people leveling carpentry that'll never level botany (or else they'll create an even larger surplus).

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I think you never really leveled your crafting side. There is a huge incentive for crafters to craft lower level items then their main teir.

1 teir down, and you can HQ maybe 40-60% depending on gear and sj, 2 teir down and you're 95% easily. With the market and incentive for triple leve (which beats single leves almost 15 levels over at times)...

Most likely your DoL is being hindered by your DoH

There is no surplus if anything it's the exact opposite. lower level raw mats are selling at a premium because most DoH have out grown them.

I would triple leve a lvl20 even at 35, because recipes are so cheap, and prices for their HQ...are so crazy in demand.

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Originally Posted by Spald

A player leveling a gathering class has to pull up 2-4 times the materials needed by a DoH class to level through each 5 level range.

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Well - considering there is about two to two and half (not counting fisher really as a full one) DoLs and 8 DoHs it sounds just about right then ;)

I know what you mean. I was leveling miner alongside goldsmith. My goldsmith is now level 50 while my miner is 39. I ended up skipping electrum completely because I'd gathered enough HQ mats for peridot earrings to breeze through those last 10 levels on GSM and I still can't gather electrum ore. I also got ~350 electrum ore from leve rewards which adds to the surplus.

That is if you level DoL and DoH 1-to-1. I leveled Botany to level both Carpenter and Weaver so I spend half the time gathering for each of the DoH classes.

It all works out if you are leveling everything at once like I am. I generally only have to do 3-4 fieldcraft leves each for BOT and MIN to hit my next gather range, and I only gather what I need for my DoH classes. IMO, the system is properly balanced when you look at the big picture.

I spy with my little eye someone who isn't over level 30 in a gathering class!

No seriously, you're forgetting that post 30 xp to level starts to increase dramatically while xp gained for a successful gathering attempt remains fairly stagnant while XP per craft increases at a decent rate.
1000 Flax -> 500 Linen Thread -> 200 Linen cloth(+100 thread) -> 100 Linen Chausses(conveniently a triple leve item) -> leve turn ins is about 15 levels of crafting. Not even going hard core on HQing the pants either. Could probably get another level or two if you really pushed it on the pants. That's 3.5 levels of botany for 15 levels of weaver. THREE AND A HALF levels. Oh that's WITH an XP scroll for all of it. And while Weaver is sort of a corner case, having more efficient raw material usage than most other crafts, the disparity gets much worse as you level. You'll easily gather all the raw materials you need to move up a crafting tier in 2 levels of gathering for the other classes. And that's just turning the raw materials into processed materials. Logs to lumber, ores to ingots. You get easily 3x as much XP crafting as you do gathering the materials to craft and that's just with a basic 15line crafting macro, no optimizations.

For every hour spent crafting be ready to spend 5 mining and not leveling.
Shard farming is going to murder the crafting system in this game.

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Originally Posted by Zetonegi

I spy with my little eye someone who isn't over level 30 in a gathering class!

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I laughed reading the original post, as I'm sure Zetonegi did. You need piles and piles more than you'll ever use to craft of the highest level things. Everyone raising their DoL's have to dump those materials on the market as well; we just don't have the retainer space for 1000 mahogany logs or 4000 shards to convert it all to more compact lumber. This leads to our most coveted, high-level materials being dirt-cheap while lower level things sell high. The only reason the first-gen crafts (Ingots, lumber etc) sell high is from shard costs added into the price.

Perhaps SE just didn't expect so many people to grind through the DoL's? It seems like a reasonable assumption that many people could level through the relatively easy DoH's and just not spend the time on DoL; but obviously there are plenty doing it anyway.

A couple things I've learned to maximize my xp for gathering. 1) As pointed out already, level with the evaluation leves and get the highest excellency bonus and 2) Use survival manuals from you grand company. I do not go gathering anymore without some manuals onhand. The 50% rest bonus stacks with the manual bonus for a whopping 100% xp bonus when gathering.

But yeah, it does take a relatively longer time to level the gathering, and is a bit boring with having to farm shards/crystals.