Harvester medallion

[Vidriel]

Yep, they're definately still a lottery... I gotta gripe about this latest one...

 

JUST bought one about 40 minutes (RL time) ago, when I read this thread, and started harvesting titanium ore.

Well, my pick didn't break, but I got a big fat ZERO blessings, then it broke when I hit a teleport nexus.

 

Definately not worth it that time.

 

hmmm why titanium - many people have already said it's not worth it on ores and minerals - you have much more events on them according to flowers: caverns, radiation damage...

And I don't think new durability will cause less breakages on ores and minerals, flowers are still more save for harvester medallion.

 

@The_Piper: potion of greater healing from harvesting? haven't seen that yet

[HAWKfeather]

@The_Piper: potion of greater healing from harvesting? haven't seen that yet

 

At least Dung gives EMP and GHP sometimes now

[machevort]

Well, since today I love Radu for the new server update: "No stopping from mini events while wearing the harvester medallion."

 

I never considered harvester medallion to be worth it, until today! I wonder how other people feel about the harvester medallion now. Did any opinions change? Do you still think harvester medallion is not worth it? If so, why?

 

I dont have any figures on break rates, but every stopped "You stopped harvesting."- message nets me around 20 ores I guess . So for me, its prolly worth it. Ofc, if someone checks the screen permanently or more often than me, this 20 ores might be less.

[Gilrain]

the harvester medallion already reduced the mini event breaks to a very pleasant minimum, so i used them whenever i could afford it. Even better now that they reduce them completely :-)

[machevort]

Well, since today I love Radu for the new server update: "No stopping from mini events while wearing the harvester medallion."

 

I never considered harvester medallion to be worth it, until today! I wonder how other people feel about the harvester medallion now. Did any opinions change? Do you still think harvester medallion is not worth it? If so, why?

 

I dont have any figures on break rates, but every stopped "You stopped harvesting."- message nets me around 20 ores I guess . So for me, its prolly worth it. Ofc, if someone checks the screen permanently or more often than me, this 20 ores might be less.

 

Ok, changed my opinion already lol. Lost 3 of them in 10K SIlver and 2.4K Iron combined. So basically I need to sell 63% of my harvests #calc (3*7)/(10*2.5+2.4*3.5) just to make up for them...... Not really worth it IMHO.

[extrapolation]

Try only using the medallion when your harvest events astrology is low. Then your harvesting should hardly ever be interrupted, and the medallion hardly ever break.

[groomsh]

Ok, changed my opinion already lol. Lost 3 of them in 10K SIlver and 2.4K Iron combined.

Your problem is, that you use it on ores/minerals ... try it on flowers - you'll love it

[machevort]

Ok, changed my opinion already lol. Lost 3 of them in 10K SIlver and 2.4K Iron combined.

Your problem is, that you use it on ores/minerals ... try it on flowers - you'll love it

 

I have read people saying the same as you do earlier in this topic. You might actually be right .

 

However, the downside of flowers is the reduced value per harvest. If we assume the harvester medallion lasts a factor 3 longer on flowers (No, I dont know if this is true), I would still need to sell 63% of my harvests because the average flower harvest (1-3 gc) is worth around 33% of an iron/silver ore (5-7 gc) harvest. Of course, I do not have statistics of using harv med on flowers, so this hypothetical case might be totally off.

Edited November 4, 2009 by machevort

[Vidriel]

Ok, changed my opinion already lol. Lost 3 of them in 10K SIlver and 2.4K Iron combined.

Your problem is, that you use it on ores/minerals ... try it on flowers - you'll love it

 

Agreed with groomsh, excellent thing for flowers harvesting - no more ugly stops after each 5-20 flovers (more annoying than ores/minerals as you harvest them much faster and can take more in one load) \o/

Have tested it with bad astro and earned about 900gc in hour and half and first regular stop (common event) after 11.5k of flowers! Really loving this new feature.

 

#edit (after your reply): Tested it yesterday also with positive astro: 2kgc in hour and half! Was lucky, medallion is still alive... The amount of gold raised as I got some regular bag of gold which are multiplied by med - and of course, stops after all common events, so I had to watch it more carefully to continue with harvesting.

 

As extrapolation said, try it on bad astro when you have minimum events - I believe many people want continual harvesting of silver/iron and such, but it's more risky - remember you have more events here like cavern and radon. It's up to you - but must count with medallion loss then...

Edited November 4, 2009 by Vidriel

[eadricng]

Cavern and radon can be eliminated completely by armor...so..i guess it's about the same? ^^

[jim55]

Was under the impression that mini events did not destroy Harv Meds.

 

You found 18 coins.

You found 16 coins.

You gained 36 extra harvesting exp.

Your Harvester Medallion has been destroyed

Mother Nature decided to destroy Jim's Harvester Medallion. Don't you love Mother Nature?

You stopped harvesting.

 

red snaps harvin, was i incorrectly assuming minis do not break the med ?

[rauch]

From Twitter:

 

The Harvester Medallion will have less break chance after the next update.

[big_duo]

Finally a good reason to get back harvesting seridium! It was always useful, but didn't have much demand. I look forward to this increasing the seridium market, if only slightly (other than making up a bunch of matter congloms, which is a pain in my... )

Edited November 6, 2009 by big_duo

[thgilsrooc]

I bought my first medallion last night. It lasted 6k worth of harvest before it went bye. I bit the bullet and bought another one. I harvested 150 blue quartz, then two separate sessions on tree shrooms and it died. Not even 1k units. It broke on tree shrooms.

 

So yeah, what a waste of gold. 12k gone. That's alot of gold for a player of my level to dump on nothing.

 

I'll advise anyone in my guild to save his/her gold on something useful and to not fall for it.

[thgilsrooc]

What's the logic? After my second medallion breakage, I griped to some friends about the issue and it was suggested that it try it a few more times to get an idea about the break rate. It was suggested that my luck sucked and that I should try it ten times for a more accurate sample space. I read on the forums to only use them during xp periods, otherwise I'm just asking them to break. Prior to this, I had an assumption that there would be some benefit to wearing one, considering the high opportunity cost.

 

I've gone through ten medallions. Below is a breakdown over my experience. Unfortunately, I don't have any accurate xp or gold numbers because the client crashes quite often.

 

Medallion 1

• Broke the same day
  
• Survived 2 harvests of t.shroom. Broke on the third harvest of gold ore (wall caved in)
  
• I should've known better than to wear a harvester medallion while harvesting
  

Medallion 2

• Broke after 1 day
  
• Forth harvest on tree shrooms (nature decided I was having too much fun i guess)
  

Medallion 3

• Broke after 2 days
  
• Harvesting tree shrooms (teleport)
  

Medallion 4

• Broke the same day as med 3
  
• First harvest of shrooms (nature got pissed)
  

Medallion 5

• Broke 10 minutes after medallion 4
  
• Same harvest as med 4 on shrooms (I was pissed)
  

Medallion 6

• Broke 3 days later
  
• Bought it right after medallion 5 broke
  
• Harvested tree shrooms (Nature got pissed)
  

Medallion 7

• Broke 1 day later
  
• Harvesting sulphur (wall caved in for 30 damage)
  
• I wasn't surprised since tree shrooms are very effective medallion killers
  

Medallion 8

• Broke 4 days later
  
• Harvesting tree shrooms (teleport)
  
• I'm seeing a pattern here
  

Medallion 9

• Broke 3 days later
  
• Harvesting tree shrooms (hurt myself while harvesting)
  

Medallion 10

• Broke 1 day later
  
• Survived twelve loads of cotton harvesting, mini events galore. This probably brought the med to its doom.
  
• Harvesting tree shrooms (teleport)
  

Total Cost of medallions: ~80k (prices vary depending on http://bots.el-services.net)

Total XP from blessings: ~40k (liberal estimate)

Breakages: 8 times on tree shrooms, 1 time on gold ore, 1 time on sulphur.

 

Nature blessings happened five times (two within five minutes from each other). My counter lacks an accurate record due to the crashes. The blessings ranged within the 7k xp range. So, we're talking roughly 40k xp from blessings. This saved me 5 harvest periods with shrooms, or an hour of harvesting time (12 minutes per cycle). Considering the cost of the medallions at 7.5kgc/ea on average, the xp boost cost me 1.88 gold per point. That's expensive. I'd rather buy xp from an npc in exchange for gold, just kidding.

 

With the way the events play out, stepping away to take out the garbage or use the bathroom usually means that something will stop the harvest anyway. With my luck, it's usually seconds later, not minutes.

 

If the medallion is secretly meant purely for wealth distribution, I'd say it's doing the job efficiently. Otherwise, the marginal utility for the harvester medallion is negligible.

 

It seems that the harvester medallion is suitable for four types of players:

1. high level crafters (high enough to encounter a low crit rate)
   
2. players with excesses of game gold
   
3. players who come across a death bag
   
4. via item trade
   

[Zamirah]

It seems that the harvester medallion is suitable for four types of players:

1. high level crafters (high enough to encounter a low crit rate)
   
2. players with excesses of game gold
   
3. players who come across a death bag
   
4. via item trade
   

 

You forgot 5. players who don't harv tree shrooms

 

If you want to harvest something with recommended level 47 and your level is only 63 will they break often.

 

 

I have broken 60 in 910k harvests, most iron,silver, coal and low level flowers.

Got 64634 gold from bags

Got 494475 extra harvest exp.

I use them all harvests.

Edited April 19, 2010 by Zamirah

[dipi]

I had seeing that my breaks are more often in low level harvestables (such as BSF or sunflowers), maybe because the mini-events have more frequency. My last med lasted like 5 days harvesting a lot of high level flowers (such as poppies or henbane).

[wuffzel]

hello, just want to post some of my stats

 

i used up 75 harvester medallions

 

i got 1095203 xp from 258 blessings

 

and 105414 gc from 723 bags of gold

 

about 1.8 mio harvestables..

 

well, since i started to use it quite early in my el-life

and wear it about 95% of the harvest time it might be

a good overview.

 

what i realy don't get is the crit failiure rate when making them,

 

its about 25% failure on crafting level 55 for me

 

oh and i haven't a special thing to harvest or a special event when they breake.

 

today it was ...errrmm.... nice :

 

wuffzel was blessed by the Queen of Nature with 5820 worth of harvesting exp.

Your Harvester Medallion has been destroyed

Mother Nature decided to destroy wuffzel's Harvester Medallion. Don't you love Mother Nature?

You stopped harvesting.

 

but i also broke one without event...the medallion breaking was the event

Edited April 20, 2010 by wuffzel

[Gil_Manel]

My logs only go back as far as November, as I'd uninstalled EL during an illness...at the moment, they show 25 HMs destroyed, but, the truth is far different. When I first came back to EL, I simply put on the HM anytime I was harvesting, and during that period (a bit over a month), I lost 21 of the things.

 

Then, I started checking my Harvest astro numbers on a VERY regular basis. Now, if that number is above about a +5 or so, I simply do not wear an HM when harvesting; when the number is below that value, I wear an HM for ALL harvesting.

 

During that 3-4 month period, I have only lost 4 HM...and, as I say, I wear them no matter what I'm harvesting, and wear them through the harvest...i.e., whether I'm getting harvest points, or, not.

 

Over the period of November to today, I've got over 950k harvests, received over 210k in Queen of Nature Blessings, and, found 16 various stones.

 

Don't know if this experience is common, or, if Mother Nature is simply giving me a false sense of security...but, there it is....

 

Gil_Manel

[zalic]

It seems that the harvester medallion is suitable for four types of players:

1. high level crafters (high enough to encounter a low crit rate)
   
2. players with excesses of game gold
   
3. players who come across a death bag
   
4. via item trade
   

 

You forgot 5. players who don't harv tree shrooms

 

6. players who take time to get the ingreds

 

I've broken at least 25 harvester med's that were made by crafters in exchange for ingreds... (a BIG thank you to all the kind crafters  )

 

 

IMHO getting the ingreds for Harvester Medallion isn't that difficult and doesn't require that high levels - it's just a little time consuming

Edited April 20, 2010 by zalic

[Raz]

I don't harvest much but always wear the med.

 

I look at slightly differently.

I normally harvest when RL intervenes, and I have to go do other things as well as play EL. I click the harvest and go off to do the other things, and return periodically to check on my character.

 

Very often when I return, I have an inv full of harvested items, where as without the med, I would have stopped harvesting after 10-20 items. In this way I get ~400 extra coal per time

 

This to me is well worth it and if you add the gc value of the extra harvested item - harv meds are a huge benefit.

 

If however, you spend all day harvesting *and* actively watching your character every second, then the med makes little difference.

[Immortelle]

Well not sure how much luck you need in this matter but my first harv med broke after 2hours of in game playing, during which time i got 1 blessing and some gold and many mini events and 1 psy removal stone, my second harv med broke just after 25min of using, during this time i got some gold and couple of mini exp events.

 

Now what interesting is my third harv med...i noticed that during my HH i dont get really any events, while during my non HH i get lots of money and exp mini events and lots of blessing and 1 binding stone and 1 instinct removal stone.

 

So what i understand from all this seems that i should use the harv med no matter what ...and i will see what my luck is. I dont think that using it only on HH helps you but using it as normal item as any others in the game. At the end of the day is all about luck just like when you go playing instance or invasions.

 

At least that my 2 pence on this matter

[Entris]

I use harv meds alot and all i can say is that even though i break loads of em all of a sudden i think i make a profit from em or split even because some of the meds just sticks with you for a long time and those that do that gave me loads of GC (only counting the GC gain even though i got lots of other things too) that would cover atleast 3-4 new harv meds some that were less fortunant gave me 2-3 new harv meds and then we have the ones that pays themselfs wich is fine too so all in all i think the harv meds pays emself in the long term

[wuffzel]

some statistics :

 

i broke my 1st HM at july 12 2009 and - call me crazzy -

 

broke my 100 th at july 11 2010 ... so one year of HM using

 

i got about 1.47 mio xp from about 300 blessings,

 

i got about 130k gc out of bags.

 

don't know how many tools didn't break cause i wear it...

 

as i had about 3 days harvesting without HM i can say

 

about 2.3 mio harvestables with 100 HM's is an average

 

of 23000 harvestables per medallion.

 

so just for the gc earnings its not worth to wear it i guess, but don't know

how much the xp are in gc....and i got my crafting level up so i can make them

by my self.

 

my best was about 9 days harvesting with same HM...about 63 hours gameplay

my worst was .... 3 seconds !!!! yep realy sat down started and before i got 2 flowers it broke

 

ok, thats my stats for HM-using....btw don't know if moonsign and astro realy make a big difference

in the statistics

[DanRothar]

I found that harvesting with a harvester medallion is ~30% faster than harvesting without one, (unless you are either very attentive in which case it's only about 10% or don't pay attention in which case it's much higher)

 

Let's compare the value of the extra items harvested per hour to the cost of a harvester medallion.

Using wuffzel's figures, we need to harvest 5.7k (if we buy the medal at 7k and gain 1.3k gc on average) worth of extra items for each medal.

At 23k harvestables per medallion, and 30% extra per unit of time, we gain an extra 5.3k harvestables per medal, measured by the time used, so if the 5.3k harvestables can be sold at 5.7k gc, we brake even.

 

P.s. I have broken 255 harvester medallions so far, and will go on using them.