We are working on the resource balance to try and improve a few key areas: their rarities and identities. Here is an overview of what we are trying to achieve in terms of resource location:
Amethyst - shallow water areas
Emerald - deep water areas
Sapphire - inside hills
Topaz - inside mountain
Diamond - deep bellow mountains
Ruby - below sandy deserts
Copper - mid altitudes
Iron - lower-mid altitudes
Silver - mid altitudes
Gold - low altitudes
Titanium - deep under mountains
Fossils - scattered bellow the surface
Tech - higher altitudes
Hopefully this is an improvement in diversify resource locations slightly and making it more interesting to hunt down the items you need.
We have made a mistake with the balance on the player servers. The resource data comprises of two parts: where resources are and how much there should be. We have updated the “where resources are” part on servers without updating the “how much there should be” data. I suspect this is partly to blame for the issues you are seeing. We hope to get the most up to date resource balance out early next week. We are sorry if this affects your enjoyment of the game until then.
Thank you for bringing this issue to light.