Kon a solution you might like.

[Black Mamba]

we all know about the lack of jewel drops but i might have a better solution than raising drop rates..

how bout when u unravel jewelry you get jewels...

works like this...
instead of essence u get jewels

so
white (no diamonds + rubies)
1 jewel random
green (no diamond)
3 jewels random
red
5 jewels random
pink
10 jewels random
if for some reason you decide an orni is sucky...
purple
15 jewels random...

green and white exclusions are so that the best jewel and most used one are harder to get.

this means everyone will have to unravel red jewelry to get things which means hunting... who does most of that? newbs... who an sell their jewelry thats red to older players... knowing they'll get 5 jewels... = win win for the whole crew... no more crying about jewel drop rates from older players no problem for younger players... i mean killing a swoop or two isnt hard.

[Maggdalena]

Other than having pink and purple backwards, I think this is a nice alternative.

[William Darkage]

By doing that you take away easily 1/3 if not more of the essences / residue that people get from hunting. Sure you get more gems but now your having a harder time to get the other things needed.

I think that would just fix a problem by creating a new one. Not the way to go in my opinion

[Ely]

An interesting idea, but mabe script it so that insted of essence from unraveling jewels you get a random gem, but plz not star saphires

[Maggdalena]

Maybe if we had a chance to get essence OR gems from jewelry?

[Black Mamba]

that sounds good to me mags... btw this doesn't apply to all items just jewels so u could still break reds and get essence... if its armor or a wep... plus seriously their's a shortage of essence of this server? are u joking?

[Cuemif Sampset]

I love this idea lets make it happen WOOOOOO

[Cuemif Sampset]

I have an idea of how to make this work. What if there was a recycle bag  that when items are put in it instead of "unraveling" and getting ess and relics and residue you would get gems (mambas scale seems to work) . We could always put a timer on this bag to make it so gems are not made easy. And making the bag a pcoin item that is not cheap that will help as well . Let me know what you guys think of this .

[Minogue]

I think the simplest solution, without thwarting our ability of getting residues etc from unraveling, would be to add a small chance of getting a gem on every unraveling, on top of getting our dust from unraveling.

I'm sure these numbers would need to be reworked, just an example, and off the top of my head...

white: 2 residue, 4% chance of 1 gem.
green: 2 residue, 8% chance of 1 gem.
red: 3 residue, 1 essence, 10% chance of 1-2 gems...

etc etc.

[riven]

best idea yet!

  Put the gems back in as intended? yeah good ideas always get discarded.

[Valacia]

"no more crying about jewel drop rates from older players no problem for younger players..."

I am all for any new ideas that increase the ability to get gems. Schlee and I were talking and realized before the patch, you could just buy them so the older players have super elite armor and didn't have to work quite so hard for them. while i understand the reason to change it from that, now as a new player its much too difficult to get armor at that same level. I spent 4 hours farming poison elementals and didnt see any gem and its very discouraging. it almost feels like those people who hold onto that armor have an advantage and can hold it above everyone elses head. im sure schlee will post further detail about the game mehcanics stuff we talked about. im also confident that kon is making changes to the game that encourage a stable economy as well as rewards from tough gameplay. the idea is good, is just needs tweaking lol

[Kronen]

"no more crying about jewel drop rates from older players no problem for younger players..."

I am all for any new ideas that increase the ability to get gems. Schlee and I were talking and realized before the patch, you could just buy them so the older players have super elite armor and didn't have to work quite so hard for them. while i understand the reason to change it from that, now as a new player its much too difficult to get armor at that same level. I spent 4 hours farming poison elementals and didnt see any gem and its very discouraging. it almost feels like those people who hold onto that armor have an advantage and can hold it above everyone elses head. im sure schlee will post further detail about the game mehcanics stuff we talked about. im also confident that kon is making changes to the game that encourage a stable economy as well as rewards from tough gameplay. the idea is good, is just needs tweaking lol

gems weren't needed at all under the old imbuing system, so i doubt many vets have vast stocks of these gems, everyone just sold them to npcs or didn't bother looting them in the first place.  i got lucky in that i'd been making tinkering jewels and happened to have a small stock, which is running out fast.

the super elite armour some of us have is a result of spending dozens, if not hundreds of hours working with the old imbuing system, and losing countless items to breakage in the process.

also, your in game luck seems to make a HUGE difference on the gem drop rates.  should be able to get 10 in 1-1.5hr, with decent luck (say 1200+), varying a bit ofc depending which monster you're hunting and where.

[UOAddicted]

i say put them back on npc's problem solve  

[Valacia]

"also, your in game luck seems to make a HUGE difference on the gem drop rates. should be able to get 10 in 1-1.5hr, with decent luck (say 1200+), varying a bit ofc depending which monster you're hunting and where."

if this is the case then thats definitely the problem im having. i dont have much luck at all at the moment, only 775. I may have been misinformed about the way the imbuing system works or worked before being as im only 10 or so days old and all the information ive gathered is through forums or from someone in game telling me things so i apologize if that was inaccurate assumption.

 I do know from experience that "There is a 20% chance that you will break your item when you fail on properties 8, 9 and 10, Roll the Dice if you would like. Items up to 8 props cannot break at all." is interesting. we tried to imbue a low level white item that had next to nothing on it as far as magical properties and it ended up broken and disappeared. maybe old players worked hard for what they have but you cant argue at the large gap between new players and old. ive seen old players beat up greater dragons with no pet assistance and new players with 700 skill points gm in fighting and stuff still have trouble with small things like mummies in the newbie dungeon. so the new gem system i assume is in place to help prevent people from farming high level gear that like that otherwise im sure it would not have been implemented in the first place. like i said, i dont think it needs to be removed or anything... just maybe a slight tweaking... or maybe its working perfectly as intended... lol

[Ely]

I find the problem not the actual drop rate, which seems like 1 in 10-20 on a good day, but finding the critters that drop them, all spawn too slow and in too few numbers.  I cleared out shame lev one today, anf thats the most eleys you can find in one place.  Last week I had a run round the so called elemantal area in Ish the place is empty once you kill the 2-3 that spawn in each small area.  I guess this is down to the premium spawner system freeshards use, as in the underworld dng which has been custom done by Pan devs the respawn rate is great, just as you`ve finished looting one the next is ushally ready to go.

If gems are to remain as a rare drop, and to keep the bordom of farming to a minimum then I would sugest tweeking the min & max respawn times, upping the number of mobs spawned and adding new locations to go farm them.  (theres alot of things in ice dng, but not alot of ice eleys)

Also while were discusing drop rates am I right in thinking that fairy dust only spawns on fairy dragons which pretty much only spawn on the early levs of the wyvern mini champ, looting/checking for dust before the next wave is a nightmare for such a highly wanted prop as LRC.