A little late to this convo. But I can't find a more active topic on it.

I've been feeling annoyed ever since whatever patch it was that made gemstones so rare and frustrating to pull up. As a goldsmith with a fondness for these shinies, it made mining just a way to fill up my inventory more or less. But I kept hoping that it'd get easier as I ranked up.

I am a r32 miner and I do my mining leves at Cedarwood and most of my regular mining in Coerthas, Camp Glory. Grade 4 nodes all, and if that means I'm mining over my rank - someone should tell my sp and class abilities that. I am feeling the same frustration as Tirion and Quicksilverfang.

Pre-patch, the sweetspot didn't really seem to matter at all. I could find anything anywhere, especially iron in Limsa's nodes. But once I knew what I had from the remainder bar, I knew where on the hot and cold game it would be 90 percent of the time. Not consistent of course, but at least reliable enough that I wasn't completely guessing with every swing.

Post-patch, with 100+ vit and using the proper level tool, the sweetspot still doesn't matter. I still get anything anywhere. But now the location on the hot and cold game is completely random. Which makes getting gemstones with their tiny little remainder bar even that much more impossible, and mining in general a lot more irksome.

I dunno what was so broken with it before that they felt they had to do this. Cause right now it feels more broken than ever. If its going to be so random now, might I suggest implementing a one swing hit or miss system and doing away with the mini game. At least then it wouldn't take twice as much time to get the same random result. -_-

So far, it feels like this patch has done the opposite of what it says, and is making gathering quickly go the way of crafting for me; something I used to enjoy but now just find too irritating to bother with.