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Clatius

Is Mining The Problem?

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I've seen noob after noob having a great time playing Wurm Online and Wurm Unlimited. And then they have to mine. They are never seen again. It is so slow it hurts for a noob to do. Yeah I know, all you old guys don't give a crap and it's not really that bed blah blah blah. It is that bad for new people. It's also one of the things you HAVE to do, like it or not. So they quit.

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I think there is actually more to it than just the painfully slow noob mining. They mine at a snail's pace and never find the iron they saw from the surface, if they even know they can prospect on the surface. The old tutorial used to cover mining (and digging and making a tool and a fire) but the new one covers not much of anything. Popups when you step on sparkly tiles. I just did it to make sure it was as bad as I remembered compared to the one that was here when I started Wurm.

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How is it fine for the old guys?  How is it hard for the new guys?

 

Mining has been the same for nearly 8 years... WE ALL have done it...  if the new guys can't cut it, then it's just not for them.

 

 

I surface mined a hillside on chaos for 8 real months... straight.... with a 40ql pickaxe... with no woa... alone...for 8 months... find a real topic to complain about.

Edited by Nomadikhan
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i cant do excessive mining. i can manage 20 tiles then im done for atleast two months. iv abandoned many projects because i dont like mining

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It is (obviously) one of most repetitive actions, but... Is there any better possible alternative other than altering timers/actions needed? :)

 

I think that some big mining changes could change this state - stuff like multilevel mining and building below ground are long awaited features and would surely bring more life into "underground" living. I wouldn't complain about smaller tiles (like 1/2 of current ones) as well (so for example you can walk in 1/2 tile tunnel, but to drive cart you need to make it wider, veins shapes could be more natural as well, more details in shaping would be possible this way as well).

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Everything sucks when you'r lazy.. but if you work a bit to get it higher..it will be fine.

 

I'm sure every one of those of new players come from games where in month of two of full playing 6 hours a day.. they have it all..well wurm aint about that and never was!

If all of us old players say the same thing..well its becouse its true :D

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when i first started this game, i had 9 toons on to do mining... so yeah that was a sad experience to have.. at the start... 

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When I first started mining, I didn't understand the idea of the keybind, so I did a lot of clicking and developed my dislike for it, but there was a whole village working on a project and that made it bearable.  Once I learned that little keybind trick, I didn't mind it so much because I would catch up on movies or chat with friends on the phone or skype or in local while pressing the m key three times every few minutes.  I'm not a mining fan, or a digging fan for that matter, but I think the mechanic is necessary, maybe even a necessary evil LOL  

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14 minutes ago, Warlander said:

It is (obviously) one of most repetitive actions, but... Is there any better possible alternative other than altering timers/actions needed? :)

 

I think that some big mining changes could change this state - stuff like multilevel mining and building below ground are long awaited features and would surely bring more life into "underground" living. I wouldn't complain about smaller tiles (like 1/2 of current ones) as well (so for example you can walk in 1/2 tile tunnel, but to drive cart you need to make it wider, veins shapes could be more natural as well, more details in shaping would be possible this way as well).

 

Dwarves!

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Meanwhile, mining is one of the easiest skills to grind in the game.  (Set your Keybind):  Queue > Netflix > Repeat

Edited by Slickshot
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I understand the point that Clatius is making however I suspect that some people who 'find' Wurm expect almost instant gratification / reward. Wurm is most definitely not that sort of game and will therefore turn some people off by its very nature.

 

Mining is a grind but is as Slickshot states above a very easy skill to work on and I enjoy it in the present format. I hope that the number of clicks per tile is not changed.  Multilevel mining as mentioned by Warlander is something that I would love and would take mining to a new level- no pun intended :) 

Edited by Spolmit
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The part of this post that I don't get is the Implied you must mine!  Everyone must mine???

 

That's simply not true, you do not have to mine at all.....  You could buy your equipment, a village mate could make your equipment, you could get your Iron from a BSB that a village mate mined for you!

You could farm all day and sell your crops to make silver to buy iron!  If you don't like to mine then don't do it..... There are other options....  

 

 

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1 hour ago, bangzuvelis said:

when i first started this game, i had 9 toons on to do mining... so yeah that was a sad experience to have.. at the start... 

 

I've known and seen quite a few people do this when wanting to mine a tunnel or knock out a few veins.

I'd like to see a way to remove veins without mining out all the ore...like a separate right-click action to remove a vein in 50 hits or so, that requires 70/90/whatever mining to do, so as to avoid griefing. 

 

15 minutes ago, sulfurblade said:

The part of this post that I don't get is the Implied you must mine!  Everyone must mine???

 

That's simply not true, you do not have to mine at all.....  You could buy your equipment, a village mate could make your equipment, you could get your Iron from a BSB that a village mate mined for you!

You could farm all day and sell your crops to make silver to buy iron!  If you don't like to mine then don't do it..... There are other options....  

 

Except then you miss out on a lot of characteristic gains.

Also, a lot of players enjoy the whole 'do everything yourself' (ironman) style gameplay, which makes mining a necessity.

 

I've always hated grinding mining, but loved having high mining skill.

I don't mind mining when I have a goal in mind, but simply mining for skillgain is something I cannot do.

Maybe it is a sign that mining skillgain is too slow? Or it is overly tedious.

After progressing past mining stone for skillgain, much of what you mine is simply discarded or becomes 'creation metal'...not very useful byproducts of your time spent skilling. At least with stone, you will probably need a few thousand shards anyway depending on how you are planning to build your deed/home and any walls/forges/misc stone stuff you need to build. Once you begin mining low ql iron though, it's just a fruitless grind for the most part.

 

Maybe if skillgain was changed, so you received skill upon mining max quality ores, at least then all of your grinding could be done with a high quality pickaxe and the resulting ores you mine would hopefully be useful to you or others.

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Certainly an interesting thought. I have found that the search for iron, while logical, does take some time, especially starting out and not using a public min. The need to mine down half a dozen tiles with about 10 or so minutes spent on every tile can be frustrating.

 

Iron is also completely necessary for starting out, in nails, tools and all sorts of things, so we're not really looking at grinding mining, as that comes later.

 

What are some ideas to make mining less of a roadblock in new player experiences? Promote rummaging for iron rock a bit easier/more abundant? Or something else?

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4 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

What are some ideas to make mining less of a roadblock in new player experiences? Promote rummaging for iron rock a bit easier/more abundant? Or something else?

 

Some way to rummage for iron, maybe a 'crude iron lump' that can only be used for certain bulk good creation, such as for making those first nails/ribbons etc.

Or, a way to build without using nails. That could mean a new wall type that takes increased decay, or alternate versions of common items like BSBs that don't have ribbons on. This could result in for example a lower cap on it's max contents or again, an increased decay rate.

 

This way, iron would still be a great thing to have, however not necessary. A player could get established and build a home (maybe give a max size of 2x2 without nails or something) that they can operate from while tunneling out their first mine.

 

It wouldn't be a good idea to remove iron too much from the newbie experience, although being able to create lesser versions of the most common tools/buildings/objects without it would certainly remove the whole 'first thing to do -> find iron' part of Wurm that is pretty intimidating to new players and even a lot of long term players should they be in an unfamiliar location.

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Building without nails is a good option. You can make a boat using non metallic materials so using wood for buildings should be possible. I must be honest though and say that I would not enjoy Wurm as much if I did not mine from time to time.

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A possibility is a low-grade (low capacity as QL wouldn't much matter) form of a crate made with pegs. Maybe holds 50 times. It can be carried and put into a small cart (which could be altered to use pegs vs nails). A form of torch that doesn't require moss, though moss is a fad lately and it's everywhere these days. Say a shaft with some tar soaked cotton (cotton + shaft + tar) that burns for only a couple of Wurm hours, enough time to maybe not mine in darkness before having to make a new one. We have a house that doesn't use nails, timber framed, but maybe a new wall set that uses pegs or even a frame with sod. American Pioneers headed west used sod houses often.

 

Just some ironless ideas for your, Retro.

 

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I very much agree, I have decent mining skill on freedom, but when epic started I wanted to try it out. It was acturaly the feeing of slow mining progress that made me decide there was no point in me staying there.

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Mining any type of ore or rock should be based on QL and amount of time needed to mine it.

Poor should mine faster then Utmost.

Poor QL rock wall should brake open faster then high QL ..

 

Finding ore was easy for people who knew the basics to prospecting.

As for ore types  , that was a search and luck thing.

 

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Easier solution for finding iron or other ores:  lower the required level for analyze function to detect ores.  Currently the function kicks in at lvl 20 prospecting, so I'd suggest lowering this requirement to level 15 or possibly level 10 if need be.  Just my two cents.

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The mining timers are simply too long, even in WU. I agree they should be reduced *further. The only way I can stomach mining in this game and its offspring is to do it on a second computer while playing my other character doing more active tasks on the main comp. For a few other boring repetitive things I use the same approach. Fortunately in WU many of the other timers are more tolerable and playing one account alone attentively is not too bad.

 

Yes too, mining is pretty much a necessity when playing this game if one wants to create even the most basic items for use. Not too hard to figure that out. Yet the timber framed houses/walls can be built without the need for iron nails but they are a minor part of iron mining avoidance. My philosophy within this game has always been to take the easiest approach available to accomplish most anything, avoiding any processes (e.g. creating concrete) which are just too tedious and time consuming to be worthwhile. Which of course makes WU the much better alternative for game playing enjoyment for those likeminded.

 

=Ayes=

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WU default maps for the most part aren't great on finding rock faces that aren't super steep also make it hard to generate Iron for New Players

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1705 Virginia: "As everyone who came over to the plantations needed to build a house, iron nails quickly became a highly sought after commodity and were often used as change. Nails were so scarce that individuals were often forced to build using wooden pegs in place of nails, needless to say, a time consuming operation! Iron nails were the primary product produced at the Hammersmith iron foundry in Saugus, Massachusetts, which opened in 1629, but there was no similar operation for the Virginia plantation. Nails were so scarce abandon(ed) houses were often burnt down just so the nails could be retrieved. In order to stop this wasteful practice Virginia passed a law in 1646 offering to pay an owner the cost of the nails so a vacated house would not be destroyed."

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From my experience mining isn't the problem. It's very easy to tell a new player "find a rock surface, rummage a bit and soon you'll have enough iron for your nails and anvil". Deal with everything else later.

 

What is a problem though is making starting "towns" without a town and located away from rock surfaces and clay.

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