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Brash_Endeavors

Were "iron rocks" removed from foraging tables?

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Just started a new singleplayer map with no mods and noticed I am no longer finding any iron rocks at all while foraging.

 

Before one of the last two updates, there was at least a small chance of finding these while foraging. I can understand people looking for the new 1.3 herbs/cooking items getting frustrated by finding unwanted  "iron rocks" when they don;t need iron rocks because they already have an iron mine. However, my understanding is that the entire reason these were initially added to foraging, was so that new players would have a chance of scavenging enough for a couple nails for a cart or fenced pen if they had no local rock faces to rummage and were having difficulties learning to start a mine. That way if they could at least find clay, they had an option to build a Timberframed house and could scavenge enough iron for a pen and a couple tools.

 

It should not be that hard for more experienced players to simply drop these if not wanted much as they do other unwanted items  like "branches" which also have little use to many (but can still have a use for some).

 

Iron rocks were often a big help to new players or people starting from scratch on a map and I don;t think they should have been removed from foraging loot tables.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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I understand your point, if that isnt working now you could make a beginner-mine beside your starter town with an iron vein inside,  or a little quest npc where new players can get 1 iron ore

 

Eject

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Yes, i have an iron mine now however for new players who do not understand GM wands and waving an iron mine into existence, let alone installing an NPC just to hand them 1 iron ore, and are just learning the game, the removal of "iron rocks" from the foraging tables is a step backwards.

 

Experienced Wurm players do not have issues and can get by,  but this is not a beginner-friendly change to the game and should be reverted in the next update. 

 

What we seem to get now and then is, one dev gets an idea to add some change to the game and a few updates later, another dev gets the idea to remove that change, and there seems to be no "system" behind the changes.

 

This is very frustrating way to run things for players, both new and old, when things just seem to randomly change from one update to the next.

 

Also it means Wurmpedia is now once again showing incorrect information.  The entire reasoning behind having "a higher chance at lower skill"  was to help newer characters without overly annoying older players. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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25 minutes ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

Yes, i have an iron mine now however for new players who do not understand GM wands and waving an iron mine into existence, let alone installing an NPC just to hand them 1 iron ore, and are just learning the game, the removal of "iron rocks" from the foraging tables is a step backwards.

 

Experienced Wurm players do not have issues and can get by,  but this is not a beginner-friendly change to the game and should be reverted in the next update. 

 

What we seem to get now and then is, one dev gets an idea to add some change to the game and a few updates later, another dev gets the idea to remove that change, and there seems to be no "system" behind the changes.

 

This is very frustrating way to run things for players, both new and old, when things just seem to randomly change from one update to the next.

Also it means Wurmpedia is now once again showing incorrect information.  The entire reasoning behind having "a higher chance at lower skill"  was to help newer characters without overly annoying older players. 

Just before you get too angry.

[01:56:50] You find a rock!

They were not removed from the forage tables and are more commonly available at lower skill.

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My foraging skill went from 1 to 16 (which is certainly qualifies as "lower skill")  without finding any rocks and I found every other herb, seed, rare coins, branches, orange/hazelnut/hops sprouts, and all other items.

 

Were you testing on WO or on WU?

 

 

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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on WU.

 

You can also forage > resource or rummage on a rock tile.

 

There's a lot on the forage table nowadays, but if you were finding herbs, you were botanizing, not foraging.

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Hey Brash!

 

I recently did a do-over in WU myself and found that foraging seemed a bit off. Budda reminded me that we had changed the way foraging works so that you usually find what you need based on some criteria. So if you're hungry, you'll find more food. If you're hurt, you'll find more healing items.

 

When I started eating the food I was finding, I noticed branches and iron rocks became more plentiful in my foraging.

 

Edit

That said, I do think this should be made a little more obvious to the player perhaps and will bring that up.

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22 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

on WU.

 

You can also forage > resource or rummage on a rock tile.

 

There's a lot on the forage table nowadays, but if you were finding herbs, you were botanizing, not foraging.

 

 

I have [ and ] keys bound to forage & botanize so I do both on every tile. Many areas do not have access to a rock face, which I mentionned in the original post.

 

I will try another 100 to 200 tiles and report back but it sure looks to me like they are not there.

 

 

Thanks, Keenan. I had already cooked several casseroles and already planted a farm from all the seeds and had a full tummy. The item i needed most was ... iron rocks.

 

I will continue foraging and see if I ever do find one but it sure looks to me like they are gone now.  I used to get at least 1-2 per 100 tiles or so.

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: ok, I finally found one, so they are not completely gone but they do seem extremely rare.  

 

I imagine the foraging table is so huge now, that the odds of finding an iron rock are just very very very slim now.  I am not sure there is any easy solution for that one.

 

Well, at least people not finding any iron rocks and searching forums,  will now know it's just much rarer now due to the huge foraging table.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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26 minutes ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

EDIT: ok, I finally found one, so they are not completely gone but they do seem extremely rare.  

 

I imagine the foraging table is so huge now, that the odds of finding an iron rock are just very very very slim now.  I am not sure there is any easy solution for that one.

 

Well, at least people not finding any iron rocks and searching forums,  will now know it's just much rarer now due to the huge foraging table.

1.3 did bring a lot more in, and some may be able to be removed now they are more common (the new crops)

The introduction of the berry bushes are part of this, and we'll continue to look at improving how things can be foraged.

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26 minutes ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

 

 

I have [ and ] keys bound to forage & botanize so I do both on every tile. Many areas do not have access to a rock face, which I mentionned in the original post.

 

I will try another 100 to 200 tiles and report back but it sure looks to me like they are not there.

 

 

Thanks, Keenan. I had already cooked several casseroles and already planted a farm from all the seeds and had a full tummy. The item i needed most was ... iron rocks.

 

I will continue foraging and see if I ever do find one but it sure looks to me like they are gone now.  I used to get at least 1-2 per 100 tiles or so.

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: ok, I finally found one, so they are not completely gone but they do seem extremely rare.  

 

I imagine the foraging table is so huge now, that the odds of finding an iron rock are just very very very slim now.  I am not sure there is any easy solution for that one.

 

Well, at least people not finding any iron rocks and searching forums,  will now know it's just much rarer now due to the huge foraging table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like I said, to be fair I had the same issue. Specifically I was looking for cotton to start a farm, and ended up just throwing myself off a cliff so it became the most important thing I needed at the time!

I think this could use work, and appreciate you bringing it up. We probably shouldn't encourage people to fling themselves off of cliffs just to forage the right things.

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Thanks Keenan, I think top of the list for brand new players ought to be: cotton, wemp, pumpkins and .. iron rocks :D  With just those four, you can get pretty far, so they should probably all turn up in the first 20-40 tiles  Maybe also a couple of healing cover items even if its just red mushrooms and nettles or something.

 

Most starting players do not care so much about things like paprika (they likely do not have any planters yet for herbs, or a mortar to grind spices) or more exotic crops like cucumbers or strawberries...

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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50 minutes ago, Keenan said:

Budda reminded me that we had changed the way foraging works so that you usually find what you need based on some criteria. So if you're hungry, you'll find more food. If you're hurt, you'll find more healing items.

This is a interessting change and its very cool, but why was there no information about that? Or have i missed somethink?

 

Eject

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The problem is how to give new players stuff they need, without annoying vets with endless useless junk.  Perhaps give a newbie forage buff (or link it to one of the existing newbie buffs) that wears off after 12 hours of play or something?

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which of the forage items are useless?

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I think you need to start new players off with crud tools and crud pickaxe would mine the rock iron on a rock surface and maybe a crud sickle would help you find cotton better etc.... could say if hand is selected as tool when foraging you find more sticks and iron rock. Just a thought to make it simple and make them crud tools worth something other wise I'd say you might want to delete crud tools and free up there id's cause there wasting away.

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Actually, that suggests one other possible solution:

  • if "correct tool" (sickle) is equipped when foraging/botanizing, you find  items an "advanced" player might want (cocoa, garlic, nutmeg, tomatoes, black mushrooms) and quality close to your foraging skill level.
  • If  no tool is used, foraging/botanizing is "cruder" and you find items from a more limited pool (a short starter items list: potato, pumpkin, nettles, sage, cotton, wemp, iron rock, branch, 2-3 other things at most) and those items are capped at 25%-50% of your foraging skill level.
  • Also allow sprouts etc to be snapped off a tree by hand BUT their quality then is always  1Q, they have damage (bruises), and you only get one half the times you try

(Similar to how you CAN cut grass or butcher without the "proper" tool  but the quality and odds for success suffers)

 

I would like to see "Crude Tools At Start Only" for an Iron Man Challenge Start toggle, but i think for people new to the game that is going to be a little too challenging.

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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I was recommending something specifically for the resources needed by a new player.

 

My personal opinion is that the foraging system has always annoyed me. We say in common speech things like "foraging for some food", or our tribal ancestors may have foraged for berries. I don't think I've ever had anyone say they need to forage for a stick, rock, or piece of cotton.

 

Yet a system like foraging isn't something we can just completely revamp. There's a lot of other things needing attention, but for the new player experience, I would like to see about doing something to help with this. I was playing with a friend who has never even tried Wurm and he found it confusing to forage for these things. We do not direct players to this feature at all for these supplies. So a new player is quite literally left scratching their head.

 

I've already documented all of this, so I do hope we can make some changes to help. Retrograde has some plans to help with the latter part as well, so together I hope we can improve the experience. :)

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What was wrong with rng items when foraging?
There's foraging for certain resources as the skill is being leveled up.. that options could use something like coin flip.. to find or not.. the resource that the player is looking for.. with some limitation.. if that is making it too easy to get certain resources.. in addition.. less useful items from certain type could be given a boost.. so.. rare foraged resources remain 'hard' to find.

 

Without natural spawns of certain resources.. foraging is how a new player could start farming, resupplying with cotton, etc..

New way to gather water should probably be implemented tho.. people could find food relatively.. anywhere.. but water is a pain to get at random locations.

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6 hours ago, Keenan said:

 We probably shouldn't encourage people to fling themselves off of cliffs just to forage the right things.

Hahah lol 

 

i find that the orange and hazelnut sprouts are very hit and miss. Rock ironreally isnt used for me, i prioritise, by getting a mine going firdt before anything else.

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Personally, it doesn't make sense to have iron rocks be the highest rng of finding when foraging. If anything that's usually the rarest item you'd randomly find in the woods or grassy fields.

 

My credentials: Geology graduate. :)

 

Teach people about mining, over giving them too easy of a start because of your 100-200 tile test.  Rng can be a b... Sometimes but it's better than too easy.

 

 

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I do want to add, if you forage near rock that is showing our of the dirt, you have higher chance there. Which makes sense. :) So if you don't find iron on a flat plain near clay, move to higher elevations.

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I'd agree to disagree.. why shouldn't you be able to find a rock in the woods?

It's useful to make starter crude tools or pile them up.. and get things going.. with no mine around. Not everybody's good at digging, etc.. some of that rock and iron could be really useful, I know I've gathered some iron to kill some time before unique slayings a few times.

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Nothing against finding a rock in the woods, but the need to increase iron rocks randomly in the woods lacks rp.

 

Rocks are in woods all over the world. Iron rich rocks are vary rare in large quantities able to be smelted for metal iron everywhere in the world.  They are localized and not evenly distributed.

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Simple solution There is a sprite rock that can be found all over the place. Just turn this sprite into a low poly model and make it a mineable object of a few iron rocks and remove it from the forage table.

Branches solution make a right click option on a fallen tree to collect branch and drop a random 1 to 3 branches and remove it from the forage table.

 

Removing some objects from the forage table and throwing them some where else where they make better since to be collected from can help the forage table a lot better.

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Ark if you start over with no tools.. how do you make crude tools than?

No branches, no rocks, you'll EVENTUALLY find a mountain and rock surface to rummage, how do you get your first branch?

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