Scaling up quality

[Gabe "the Glueman" Degrossi]

Hey! First off, just wanna say that the forum has been really helpful. Really happy to see that this very 'comfy' game has some chill guys around. I'm very grateful, especially considering how a lot of talk surrounding the community is a bit grim.

Anyways, I wanted to pick the forums' brains on how to start scaling quality up. I've done a lot of reading on the wiki trying to figure things out, but I'm having a tough time at making even the stone axe better.

I have a strength of 23 and masonry of 10 - the wiki suggests I mine stone in a cave to get a better quality rock, and then split wood blocks into higher quality sticks, rinse and repeat...

but I only get quality 10 from the walls I'm digging out. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? Insight is appreciated!

[havoc7777]

level up masonry to get better quality stone, level up Carpentry (alongside axe quality) to get better quality sticks from splitting wood blocks, level up intelligence to increase the soft cap of primitive tools. Use new more powerful axe to make a better quality axe to get even better quality sticks from chopping logs.

That aside mining spots have "nodes" as well like most things in your game that determine the maximum quality before caps from attributes/abilities/tool quality are taken into consideration.

leveling up quality is pretty much cycling between making a new tool, use the new tool to get better resources, use better resources to make a better tool.

Tilled land farming is a lot more straightforward though, just plant the seed and it will either increase or decrease in quality till it matches your farming level

[Gabe "the Glueman" Degrossi]

Originally posted by havoc7777:

level up masonry to get better quality stone, level up Carpentry (alongside axe quality) to get better quality sticks from splitting wood blocks, level up intelligence to increase the soft cap of primitive tools. Use new more powerful axe to make a better quality axe to get even better quality sticks from chopping logs.

That aside mining spots have "nodes" as well like most things in your game that determine the maximum quality before caps from attributes/abilities/tool quality are taken into consideration.

leveling up quality is pretty much cycling between making a new tool, use the new tool to get better resources, use better resources to make a better tool.

Tilled land farming is a lot more straightforward though, just plant the seed and it will either increase or decrease in quality till it matches your farming level

Hmm, okay thank you!
I will level up masonry more, I suppose 10 isn't enough to start getting stone above q10 yet... and same with carpentry. Thanks for the tips on that and the farming, I'll start focusing on increasing my skills

[Ichzilla]

item Q is based on 3 main factors, the item(s) current Q, the maps node Q and your skills.

in the case of water/dirt/clay(s) its based on map node(its the RNG that is built during map creation.) some areas (like acre clay) has a hard-cap set Q others can scale up based on your skills.

for creating items/buildings etc its based off your skills and the item Q used.

if you use Q10 acre clay to make a kiln but you have only rank 1 mason you will hard-cap the kiln to rank 1 so you will end up with like a Q5 kiln (as an example)

when your skills beat the Q used you get soft/hard capped based off item Q. so with rank 100 mason you will have a Q10 kiln with Q10 acre, as your skills will hit the Q hard-cap

and ofcourse the item Q it self plays a roll.

the Q of stone and stick used is going to cap your stone axe before your skill rank is accounted for.

that is why alot of people KoS new players near high nodes since having all rank 1 stats they ruin map nodes.(least it was the case in legacy)

farming is its own kettle of crazy lol. since your farming skill and random RnG effects if the new planted crop gets +/- 0-5 Q added or not.
ofcourse you will want to hunt around for Q dirt as well since better dirt helps with farming be it field or pot (least iv hit that alot in my play time.. wiki is very sparse)

rule of thumb is, ALWAYS grind your skills up before you try to make higher Q items. also dont get attached to items, since over time that Q5 nettle pants will end up replaced by Q20+ nettle or hemp/silk pants etc haha

when you have a secure base you can start grinding Q never grind Q without a safe base >>"

~edit, here is the direct link to the wiki on quality worth a read if you havent already~
https://ringofbrodgar.com/wiki/Quality

[Gabe "the Glueman" Degrossi]

Thanks so much for such a comprehensive reply!
I'll read up on it a bit more. I'm embarrassed to say, but it all feels quite a bit complicated to me. I'm only really just starting to get comfortable with the game, so this adds a whole new layer to grapple with on top.

[Ichzilla]

dont stress to much about it. enjoy the "noob" period while you have it lol.
if you start stressing about Q and stats the game becomes way more daunting and grindy.

to put in to perspective... most PVPers run alts with over 300 STR alone. while having worker alts with 150+ in most major stats for their roles lol

so when you look at trade posts showing Q300 items it seems like your Q30 that you spent a week on is worthless. while long term it may very well be, but when you are learning the game. its a god send to finally upgrade that Q10 axe to Q15 or Q20+ lol even if markets have Q200 stone axes.

so dont stress about it. as you play, be it each world reset or not. you start to learn more and more how to quickly level Q :)

when i first started i was soo excited to have a Q20 stone axe lol mind you that was in legacy so some stuff changed lmao

[havoc7777]

Originally posted by Ichzilla:

rule of thumb is, ALWAYS grind your skills up before you try to make higher Q items. also dont get attached to items, since over time that Q5 nettle pants will end up replaced by Q20+ nettle or hemp/silk pants etc haha

There's something I've been curious about, Is it really worth using other shirts/pants instead of Nettle since Nettle has built in stats (agility) while other clothing does not.

[Ichzilla]

4x nettle is the way to go early on. since it will get you 4x agi plus 4 buff slots (sometimes if lucky an extra one)

so you can quickly boost fighting foxes as well as boost per/explore stats for items.
later on you will have to swap out to actual armor. and maybe cloth clothes for other stats since nettle will only get you so far.

so players rock 4x outfits. one for exploring, 1 for farming. 1 crafting n mining etc...

[Portable Poultry Pasta]

There are precisely 2 effective ways to play this game and consequently up Q.

A) You use multiple accounts to specialize each on a profession.

B) You play in a group and assign specific roles (even then you'll likely still create multiple accounts for personal use)

Alternatively, what every noob does in the game, and what some people for whatever reason prefer to do is to play as hermit, which is to say they will play solo, most often comes in the form of a single character that shares stats spread out into all kinds of professions. Which isn't to say that having an all-rounder character (a main) isn't convenient and useful, but for most recurring tasks you'll need alts to get their stats anywhere, where they'll do anything.

The quality formulas differ for each loot, tool and object and are best looked up on the ring of brodgar. There are valuable resources that need a high base Q (water, soil, clay) to be of any use in raising Q. Water Q can artificially be raised via wells. Soil Q can artificially be upped as mulch. Clay is equally tedious to up, as you'll need to invest into the pottery class.

In H&H if you consistently want higher and better Q as time goes on, you'll need to build a so-called industry. Metal Q used to be increased during the production of wrought and cast iron, don't ask me if that's still the case.

The easiest way for beginners to start to up the Q of anything is to create a "forager" character, specialized in perception*exploration, survival and int. You'll naturally, by exploring the world for high-Q nodes (which move around automatically within the world and are like circles where the center of the circle has the highest Q) find more and higher Q foragables the higher your exploration*perception is and if your survival is high enough, it will no longer cap the Q down. Let's say your survival 32, you find a Q32 Nettle, this will tell you that this Nettle could have been higher than 32, but you do not know for sure unless you have more than 32 survival at the time you pick. By moving along a node, you should notice that the Q progressively in- or decreases, as you move closer or further away from its center.

Nettle shirts and pants are solid beginner clothes. As your character progresses, you'll eventually be forced to commit to agriculture, mass produce linen clothes which are meh to gild (add extra stats) into, but since they are mass producable very easily and at almost no cost, you'll use them for a long time for a lot of stuff. Very common is to create entire clothing sets for sewing, cooking, foraging, hunting and/or butchering, combat, mining, stuff like that.

Linen cloth can still be okay in the lategame if they have immense amounts of gildings. I think it's safe to say most hermit players never reach any aspects of lategame (due to the inherent disadvantages of hermiting) such as the dungeons, fighting mammoths or whales. But at some point if you hunt a lot, which you'll have to do to keep progressing, you'll have so many spare hides laying around that there'll be no reason not to use them for their added stats to some extend. And if you fight some of the more lethal enemies, you'll definitely want armor.

A tool's Q is added into the equation for creating many objects, so for example, if you happened to find a dead animal laying around that someone else killed, you get let's say Q80 Bones from it and craft a bone saw with it, your carpenter char will now create some Q boards with a little better Q with that saw, even if the wood log that's being sawed at is Q10. Conversely, if the tool you use is low Q, it'll degrade high quality raw materials. So you better make sure the stats of your char are high enough to not cap the Q of whatever you work with and make sure the tools you use, including any buildings used in the process such as ovens or smelters, are also as high Q as possible.

[Gabe "the Glueman" Degrossi]

Thanks for all of the help guys! Everyone has been super helpful. This game has quite the learning curve, but I'm plugging my way through it and starting to really try and scale up my production. Every time I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, there's another layer of depth to contend with

[Gabe "the Glueman" Degrossi]

Originally posted by Portable Poultry Pasta:

There are precisely 2 effective ways to play this game and consequently up Q.

A) You use multiple accounts to specialize each on a profession.

B) You play in a group and assign specific roles (even then you'll likely still create multiple accounts for personal use)

Alternatively, what every noob does in the game, and what some people for whatever reason prefer to do is to play as hermit, which is to say they will play solo, most often comes in the form of a single character that shares stats spread out into all kinds of professions. Which isn't to say that having an all-rounder character (a main) isn't convenient and useful, but for most recurring tasks you'll need alts to get their stats anywhere, where they'll do anything.

The quality formulas differ for each loot, tool and object and are best looked up on the ring of brodgar. There are valuable resources that need a high base Q (water, soil, clay) to be of any use in raising Q. Water Q can artificially be raised via wells. Soil Q can artificially be upped as mulch. Clay is equally tedious to up, as you'll need to invest into the pottery class.

In H&H if you consistently want higher and better Q as time goes on, you'll need to build a so-called industry. Metal Q used to be increased during the production of wrought and cast iron, don't ask me if that's still the case.

The easiest way for beginners to start to up the Q of anything is to create a "forager" character, specialized in perception*exploration, survival and int. You'll naturally, by exploring the world for high-Q nodes (which move around automatically within the world and are like circles where the center of the circle has the highest Q) find more and higher Q foragables the higher your exploration*perception is and if your survival is high enough, it will no longer cap the Q down. Let's say your survival 32, you find a Q32 Nettle, this will tell you that this Nettle could have been higher than 32, but you do not know for sure unless you have more than 32 survival at the time you pick. By moving along a node, you should notice that the Q progressively in- or decreases, as you move closer or further away from its center.

Nettle shirts and pants are solid beginner clothes. As your character progresses, you'll eventually be forced to commit to agriculture, mass produce linen clothes which are meh to gild (add extra stats) into, but since they are mass producable very easily and at almost no cost, you'll use them for a long time for a lot of stuff. Very common is to create entire clothing sets for sewing, cooking, foraging, hunting and/or butchering, combat, mining, stuff like that.

Linen cloth can still be okay in the lategame if they have immense amounts of gildings. I think it's safe to say most hermit players never reach any aspects of lategame (due to the inherent disadvantages of hermiting) such as the dungeons, fighting mammoths or whales. But at some point if you hunt a lot, which you'll have to do to keep progressing, you'll have so many spare hides laying around that there'll be no reason not to use them for their added stats to some extend. And if you fight some of the more lethal enemies, you'll definitely want armor.

A tool's Q is added into the equation for creating many objects, so for example, if you happened to find a dead animal laying around that someone else killed, you get let's say Q80 Bones from it and craft a bone saw with it, your carpenter char will now create some Q boards with a little better Q with that saw, even if the wood log that's being sawed at is Q10. Conversely, if the tool you use is low Q, it'll degrade high quality raw materials. So you better make sure the stats of your char are high enough to not cap the Q of whatever you work with and make sure the tools you use, including any buildings used in the process such as ovens or smelters, are also as high Q as possible.

incredibly helpful. Thank you for your wisdom

[BrightEyEs]

when joining the game late.

reckage on beaches are big time worth search and even aming for.. you will find high Q bones, stones and sticks. just getting that Q50ish stoneaxe before even start planting higher Q trees are a big help.