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Clatius

Is Mining The Problem?

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I know it's not really 100% related but that fact that mining straight ahead (instead of up and down) results in a slight gradient downwards by about 2-3 slope drives me absolutely nuts! I know it's not really that big of a deal, especially since the addition of leveling and flatten but at the same time I can't think of there to be any reason for this to be the case in the first place, couldn't mining straight ahead just result in a nice flat tile.

My OCD will thankyou devs.... 

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I mean i guess it could be part of it. But theres tons of other factors like how the population is spread so thing across so many servers, and how combat is literally the worst combat out of any game ive ever seen. And thats coming from someone who does literally nothing but pvp in this game.

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I have mined through a mountain 3 times now including a tunnel from water level to peak.  Once you level mining up and take time to invest in woa and high ql speed pick (when going fast) it really is not that bad.  I can break a tile in less than 4 1/2 minutes if i rem correctly.  I was mining with someone with similar skill and we were breaking wall in just over 2 minutes...which make a tunnel through a medium mountain take about 3 hours.

 

Now i switch to low ql pick and ya, takes forever, but then there is motivation to put the 20-30 hours in to level to 70ish. 

 

You can make a house without nails btw, takes a little more prep and materials, but iron is not required as a material. really only thing need iron for on house is the locks

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5 hours ago, Outlaw said:

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

 

This is the biggest factor with anything in this game. I love mining and would love a high mining skill, but to do that you must mine higher ore types than you need or if you can use you will ruin with the proper tools. It simply makes no sense to sit and mine out great ore veins just to get the skill up. I try to do things that I need to do rather than grinding on stuff for no point other than to get a higher skill.

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Iron rock can be found via rummaging on rock tiles, (found as 3kg lumps, smelts into 0.2 kgs) which does serve a fair purpose of starting out, it's possible we could look at making these possible to be found foraging on grass, or simply increasing the amount of iron smelted (with a cap on ql obviously).

 

I'm aware that mining gets easier at higher levels, and motivation, and all those things, but the main question raised about this (and indeed is a common complaint on WU too) is the difficulty in starting from scratch with the need to find iron.

 

Mining is definitely not THE problem, but it might be an area we can improve on to make starting easier

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21 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

Iron rock can be found via rummaging on rock tiles, (found as 3kg lumps, smelts into 0.2 kgs) which does serve a fair purpose of starting out, it's possible we could look at making these possible to be found foraging on grass, or simply increasing the amount of iron smelted (with a cap on ql obviously).

 

I'm aware that mining gets easier at higher levels, and motivation, and all those things, but the main question raised about this (and indeed is a common complaint on WU too) is the difficulty in starting from scratch with the need to find iron.

 

Mining is definitely not THE problem, but it might be an area we can improve on to make starting easier

As I said, lowering the skill requirement for analyzing from 20 prospecting to 10 - 15 prospecting would help immensely and would be an extremely simple solution.

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1 hour ago, JakeRivers said:

 

 It simply makes no sense to sit and mine out great ore veins just to get the skill up.

You don't need to mine ores to skill up, I did a majority of my skilling on rock.

I think the problem is finding iron and timers, some spots have almost no iron for tiles and it takes a long time to get enough for what you need when you're a newbie...

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2 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Iron rock can be found via rummaging on rock tiles, (found as 3kg lumps, smelts into 0.2 kgs) which does serve a fair purpose of starting out, it's possible we could look at making these possible to be found foraging on grass, or simply increasing the amount of iron smelted (with a cap on ql obviously).

 

I'm aware that mining gets easier at higher levels, and motivation, and all those things, but the main question raised about this (and indeed is a common complaint on WU too) is the difficulty in starting from scratch with the need to find iron.

 

Mining is definitely not THE problem, but it might be an area we can improve on to make starting easier

 

It's not so much the houses as the fact that you need iron for tools. Building with stone is not an option until you have found iron and can make a chisel and trowel. Stone structures, of course, don't need nails but iron tools are required. There is also the 30 masonry hurdle that requires metal tools to reach. You can't even make a grindstone to imp for skill until you have a chisel. The additional hurdle is that foraging iron scraps on rock tiles takes a lot of foraging to make anvils required to even make the tools. Building with wood can be done with the starter tools and an easily made mallet which also can be made with the starter tools except you need nails (edit: for the house, not the mallet). Making and imping armor without iron for tools used to be an issue but now we can spawn with a set of leather armor. We also spawn with a better weapon.

 

I'm not saying to add a chisel or trowel or anvils to starter packs. Just be aware that until iron in enough quantity to make an anvil and some additional tools, the new player is going nowhere. It's not so bad in WO because you can buy these things from the community and many people will give new players low QL basic tools or iron.

 

Xanadu days: Even being experienced with WO and finding iron from the surface, that iron turned out to be too far under water to mine to. Lesson learned was do not deed until the iron is exposed but... if not for friendly neighbors who had iron on hand, Xanadu would have sucked hard.

Edited by Audrel

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how about a new wooden house type that uses pegs instead of nails and change small barrel and bsb from nails to pegs.

That way all the starter things that are really nice to get early on (house, small barrel, bsb) dont require iron.

 

 

" edit "

 

i just realised that bsb still needs a ribbon

maybe just add a new bsb, a small one with less space that requires 15 planks and 4 pegs. something like that

 

 

Edited by elroth
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12 hours ago, Retrograde said:

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?

 

Honestly it is pretty simple, if your serious about making mining less of a grind for new players then the first place to start is the 30 second long action timer.....  Its funny how a 90QL pick 90 Cast of Botd and decent skill can bring the action down to around 1 second yet the new player next to you with his 20 QL pick and no mining skill nor enchant goes to the bathroom grabs a drink checks whats on tv and manages 2 actions as you have done the other 48 to break the tile?!?

 

Once again the biggest issue with wurm has always been action timers... 2 Minutes to meditate, 30 seconds to mine... the list goes on and on....

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Personally its pretty quick to get mining to a decent level in both WU/WO

 

Hard part for new players is just how much iron they need since large Carts, FSB, BSB, and nails are required almost immediately plus tools, and the fact that players usually try Free option first usually impact mining negatively since they can't command cart teams

 

WU Current maps sux for new players do to the lack of rock faces that aren't part of steep mountains, Wurm should do a player contest to replace them

 

A lot of the grips is tunnels can be filled with mobs, and few people like the current Combat system, the lack of decorations for caves & no buildings or multi levels add to the bleakness, and the fact caves look like the original wolfenstein add to the plight.

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With bulk iron mailing now back in play I don't see mining as crucial as it used to be, also village life is strongly encouraged at the start of wurm for such a reason. I used to mine for the town and the people who hated mining used the iron. They imped my tools becaused I hated blacksmithing, it worked out well.

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13 hours ago, Emoo said:

I know it's not really 100% related but that fact that mining straight ahead (instead of up and down) results in a slight gradient downwards by about 2-3 slope drives me absolutely nuts! I know it's not really that big of a deal, especially since the addition of leveling and flatten but at the same time I can't think of there to be any reason for this to be the case in the first place, couldn't mining straight ahead just result in a nice flat tile.

My OCD will thankyou devs.... 

 

Hmm... How about making this depend on skill, with up to 0 error at 90 mining?

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13 hours ago, Eobersig said:

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

 

I agree with this. A great example is Vrock Landing. The nearest Clay is "miles" away and there is lots if newb eating mobs on the way :)

That is if he is lucky enough the get someone in local to point him towards where the clay is to be found.

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19 hours ago, Nomadikhan said:

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.

 

And this attitude towards the game is part of the problem also. "If I had to suffer then everyone for all time has to suffer". Yeah, that will sure attract people. Mining has been the same for 8 years and for 8 years it has been sheety. I don't care what you did, when you did it, how you did it, why you did it or who you did it with. I'm talking about noobs which you are plainly NOT. Rolf is trying to get new people into WO and keep them for more than a day. Some current things make that difficult at best. At the same time you have to be careful not to change things too far because the game will lose it's 'flavor'.

Edited by Clatius
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In my opinion mining speed is good as is.  At low skill it is quite bad yes but later not an issue at all.

Slow mining for starter players is good - avouding big damage to their mine (dropshafts, accidenral floor mining,long adhoc  tunnels or not well thozght entrances that will block their mine on the long run). The learning curve this way will finish affecting a much smaller mine area.

I've skilled up 4 toons in mining including one total new on Xanadu whrb opened and another on wu recently.  I very much enjoy the hard times...

Wurm online is about community ,should emphasise for new players to interact with others. The iron man types will still want to do all themselves but will enjoy hardship. 

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1 hour ago, Pingpong said:

With bulk iron mailing now back in play I don't see mining as crucial as it used to be, also village life is strongly encouraged at the start of wurm for such a reason. I used to mine for the town and the people who hated mining used the iron. They imped my tools becaused I hated blacksmithing, it worked out well.

Bulk mailing? You mean a 64kgs lump is still 1c to mail now?

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15 hours ago, Emoo said:

I know it's not really 100% related but that fact that mining straight ahead (instead of up and down) results in a slight gradient downwards by about 2-3 slope drives me absolutely nuts! I know it's not really that big of a deal, especially since the addition of leveling and flatten but at the same time I can't think of there to be any reason for this to be the case in the first place, couldn't mining straight ahead just result in a nice flat tile.

My OCD will thankyou devs.... 

Its because wurm is on the inside of a sphere.

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Once again I see people saying mining isn't bad "once you get the skill up". It's the 'once you' that is the part that has to be dealt with. I'm on a WU server that has everything set as low as possible to emulate the Online version. And still, while my character was noobish, mining is the most difficult chore to have to face. I've tried these games where one or two whacks and you're done. I've done instant mining on WU. Either of those are not good ways to do it. Mining should take time. I don't know what the answer is but it is one of the most, dunno i guess painful things in Wurm. Everyone in this thread has already been through it and they are still here so they were ok with putting up with it. These are not the people who need to be addressed obviously because they are here. It's the ones who did not put up with some of the work like aspects of Wurm who need to be thought about. 

 

Also, someone someplace or places said the tut needs to be reworked and that is very true. Force people to go through it and to heck with the people who whine because their alt has to go through the whole thing again. Show noobs the tools they need to make. That they need a pelt and what animals are easiest for them to take down for that pelt. A file for imping. A whetstone. A mallet. Show them what they need that first week. That they can use a cow for milk so they can move away from water. And make them prospect and mine before leaving the tutorial so they know how to go about it. So yeah, better tutorial would help. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Jaz said:

Wurm online is about community ,should emphasise for new players to interact with others. The iron man types will still want to do all themselves but will enjoy hardship. 

Mining is not problem at all.

Buy high ql imps from smiths, if you don't like it.

Mail cost is almost "nothing" now. You have the opportunity to not care about smithing at all and focus on something else.

Edited by Urvel

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54 minutes ago, Clatius said:

Once again I see people saying mining isn't bad "once you get the skill up". It's the 'once you' that is the part that has to be dealt with. I'm on a WU server that has everything set as low as possible to emulate the Online version. And still, while my character was noobish, mining is the most difficult chore to have to face. I've tried these games where one or two whacks and you're done. I've done instant mining on WU. Either of those are not good ways to do it. Mining should take time. I don't know what the answer is but it is one of the most, dunno i guess painful things in Wurm. Everyone in this thread has already been through it and they are still here so they were ok with putting up with it. These are not the people who need to be addressed obviously because they are here. It's the ones who did not put up with some of the work like aspects of Wurm who need to be thought about. 

 

Also, someone someplace or places said the tut needs to be reworked and that is very true. Force people to go through it and to heck with the people who whine because their alt has to go through the whole thing again. Show noobs the tools they need to make. That they need a pelt and what animals are easiest for them to take down for that pelt. A file for imping. A whetstone. A mallet. Show them what they need that first week. That they can use a cow for milk so they can move away from water. And make them prospect and mine before leaving the tutorial so they know how to go about it. So yeah, better tutorial would help. 

 

 

Speaking of tutorial, I'm making some newbie videos for people who choose to "skip" the tutorial in-game.  Hopefully this will help point some of those folks in the right direction.

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Mining is fine, I don't see why things in-game have to be changed until everybody enjoys that thing.

There are many things to do in Wurm, if you don't like mining then do something else and barter for your iron. That's exactly how I think Wurm should work.

 

 

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The iron found from rummaging could be increased to a larger lump I think, 0.2 is not enough to make a large nail, and for a new player to even make that nail he needs to make a small anvil first (10 rummaged shards), if there are not enough rock tiles around to rummage enough iron to make a small anvil and 4 large nails (18 rummaged lumps at the very least, if he fails enough making stuff the count goes up) there is no way he is going to be able to easily make his starter home.

 

A stone house is really not an option for a new player as the masonry skill is too high to start with for this and certainly out of the question for a non-premium player, as it should be I think. Most starter houses built are abandoned as the new player moves on. The amount of rock shards and clay and sand needed is a lot for a new player, and you still need the carpentry skill to plan the house in the first place.

 

Perhaps a decent idea I have seen in the past is a new wall type, made from logs, no nails required and a new player would be able to build a secure home with nothing more than trees easily found anywhere in wurm. (a lighter limit would be required for the construction logs, as a new player would need to be able to carry the log to use in building his home). I would also suggest a wooden latch for locking the door, simple enough to fool trolls and goblins, but nothing more till a iron lock could be made to replace it.

Edited by JakeRivers
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1 hour ago, JakeRivers said:

The iron found from rummaging could be increased to a larger lump I think, 0.2 is not enough to make a large nail, and for a new player to even make that nail he needs to make a small anvil first (10 rummaged shards), if there are not enough rock tiles around to rummage enough iron to make a small anvil and 4 large nails (18 rummaged lumps at the very least, if he fails enough making stuff the count goes up) there is no way he is going to be able to easily make his starter home.

 

A stone house is really not an option for a new player as the masonry skill is too high to start with for this and certainly out of the question for a non-premium player, as it should be I think. Most starter houses built are abandoned as the new player moves on. The amount of rock shards and clay and sand needed is a lot for a new player, and you still need the carpentry skill to plan the house in the first place.

 

Perhaps a decent idea I have seen in the past is a new wall type, made from logs, no nails required and a new player would be able to build a secure home with nothing more than trees easily found anywhere in wurm. (a lighter limit would be required for the construction logs, as a new player would need to be able to carry the log to use in building his home). I would also suggest a wooden latch for locking the door, simple enough to fool trolls and goblins, but nothing more till a iron lock could be made to replace it.

 

 

You mean like a Timber framed house

 

 

Or pottery roof'

 

 

one can already build an entire house with only an axe you would have the skill for the roof in an hour of grnding.  *the* only thing in a house that requires iron is a lock and rummaged iron will work for that on freedom

Edited by ClericGunem

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6 minutes ago, ClericGunem said:

 

 

You mean like a Timber framed house

 

 

Or pottery roof'

 

 

one can already build an entire house with only an axe you would have the skill for the roof in an hour of grnding.  *the* only thing in a house that requires iron is a lock and rummaged iron will work for that on freedom

 

Access to clay. No cart if no iron. That means inventory carry, sometimes over large distances, with no strength, a herd of things wanting to eat you as you crawl home, better armor and weapon than before but still no fight skill to speak of. A 1x1 house with 4 walls will be more weight in clay for the shingles, mortar, and walls than a new player can carry without crawling like a snail. And chances are they die before they make it back home at half a kilometer per hour, log out, and never come back. The game is bleeding players. It's beyond about how hard you had it when you were new. It's to "we need a player base that stays to play and pay before Wurm Online goes the way of the dodo."

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