Mining & Rock Slopes (pvp)

[Iberis 856]

While I have not confirmed first hand whether or not this is true I have been reading on the discord that there was a recent fix which will now have a large impact on Chaos. I realise this thread may confuse many players who are not (or have never been) part of the Chaos or PVP community so I'll try to explain for everyone.

 

On Chaos you can only mine slopes 1x your skill level. On freedom this is 3x allowing you to create up to 300 slope tile borders in the rock layer if you are lucky enough to have 100 mining. On Chaos it is 100 slope maximum with regular mining. Yet this very old server despite this I would go as far as to say there probably isn't an active deed on Chaos without a rock slope somewhere on the deed that is more than 100 slope. Whether that is because they have 300 slope token pits or perhaps giant trenches. Dirt walls can be dug down - that is why the best deeds are carved into the rock layer. You cannot dig down rock. Over ten years Chaos has been used as a pvp server and now the map is littered with ruins of deeds with pits and trenches not to mention some amazingly solid capital sized deeds still active today.

 

How were players for all these years able to create these deeds if they can only mine 100 slope maximum? Two methods are used to shape the rock layer past 100 slope and that was Mag mining (the process of opening a tunnel and then strongwalling it closed again) and shuffle mining (or run mining). Shuffle mining is where you start the mining action a tile back on the top of the slope then move half a tile forward allowing the action to complete. Any active player on chaos knew about this mechanic and it became more widely used after the mine door update that would level the upper tile border.

 

Well firstly that levelling automatically of the upper tile border might make things look neater on pve servers and allowed the wonderful mine door graphics to work correctly when a minedoor was placed on them. But it added new complications to strongwall mining on Chaos. Fortunately we could still use shuffle mining so even if things might take a little bit longer to build a token pit or flatten an area of rock the point is that it could still be fixed eventually.

 

Now the point I am trying to make here is that shuffle mining has been removed from the game. I really do believe this is going to have massive knock on effects which might not really change much on Chaos now - but it will certainly kill it's future.

 

While strongwall mining can still be done providing there are no mistakes and the rock slope flows downhill and in your favour - you can still kind of do some deed building. But if you wanted to build a capital or strong deed from scratch you will have absolutely no hope. 90% of new deeds on Chaos are built over the ruins of old deeds. Most ruins are either griefed and damaged from when they were disbanded (or from looters since the disband), were poorly built and need improving or simply unfinished. How on earth are players meant to turn these ruins and fix them if they cannot shape the rock layers? They will have rock slopes that they literally cannot touch or do anything with.

 

The update will now prevent any new groups or kingdoms forming on Chaos as they will be able to build or create from ruins a deed that will be able to compete with the deeds that present active kingdoms own.

 

It will also make gameplay on Chaos stale (more so then things have been with the lack of a playerbase). No need deeds. Doing things like flipping across to the other side of the map is now ruled out. Basically people are stuck with the deeds they have now or if they want a new one will have to settle with something that won't be as good.

 

Also what is to stop the enemy from using this new change to grief other kingdoms? Someone could strongwall 100+ slopes around enemy deeds and if they cannot be flattened and fixed... well flat land is required for longhouse or farms or even access. You could really mess up an enemy deed if you wanted and they now have absolutely no way of fixing the damage done.

 

My last reason as to why this is a bad change is due to raiding. While rock walls are way harder to breach it is not impossible. Enemies can still mine ramps into the rock. I've seen one group bring down one corner of a rock wall so that when it was rebuilt with dirt they could repeat raid more easily. Changing the rock layer of an enemy deed is required for raiding and raiding is already hard enough as it is. Removing the ability to touch or terraform the rock layer of some of the largest deeds on Chaos now makes them unraidable. A huge buff that makes raiding utterly pointless.

 

Now I realise that the fix was done because Chaos had always been intended to be a server where the rock layer was only carved into 100 deep, but ten years later you cannot change the deedbuilding/terraforming mechanics now at least not without another solutation. A change to terraforming should be implimented on a fresh new map - not one where every deed and every ruin now has slopes that can no longer be fixed or touched.

 

My suggestion therefore is that this fix gets reversed and that the shuffle mining mechanic gets put into wurmpedia with it's on page. Let it become public knowledge and continue to allow deed building and raiding to continue on as normal.

 

My second suggestion if the first is not accepted is to allow 3x mining on Chaos like it is on freedom. That way those with high mining skill can still fix the rock layer just like those with high digging can fix the dirt walls. It will give an extra purpose to having high mining skill (since with runed pickaxes going past 90 these days isn't really a big deal).

 

Anyway thank you all for reading sorry it was such a long post. I realised I'm currently not a Chaos player but deed building on Chaos was perhaps my favourite thing in this entire game. It is something I am passionate about.

[kochinac 1,396]

Tbh allowing 3x mining actions on Chaos seems better solution than reintroducing some dubious tactic I barely understood from reading if this is problem... Also didn't understand this strongwalling tactic but my point of view is if server is intended for 100 max rock slope to be made, maximum of 100 slope can be made by player, period. Everything other should be banable offence or prevented through game mechanics.. Since from what I understood that ship is sailed and will cause inbalance if such thing is done, unless map is reset to original unteraformed state(chaos is really good map, only option for potential reseting chaos should be this imo) I guess allowing 3x slope is better option. My 2 cents

P.S. Haven't stepped foot on Chaos longtime and while I was playing there didn't really build deed from scratch so this is very vague point of view made from general good design logic should be and with very little experience on practical implications 

[Iberis 856]

I agree they were shoddy mechanics, but I think a fix at this point is creating a huge imbalance. I agree if they want this to be intended it shouldn't be on a map already heavily terraformed but something fresh instead. What is has created now is a map where vast areas of the land and peoples own deeds can no longer be terraformed.

 

People could say; just make a fresh deed. Those deeds will never be as well built as any active deeds. Also most ruins are built on stratgeic locations. LoA picked the ruins of HAP to turn into Hellsgate because it was a chokepoint. Avarga is a good deed location because it was again a choke point, same with scale collection agency. Then you have deeds around hota, built there with the intention of being hota deeds. You'll find very few areas of untouched land on Chaos where you can drop a fresh brand new deed that has a strategic purpose.

 

When we deed over the ruins of HAP the token pit and walls were not even flat. The ruins were from back in the day when buildings were not even required to be flat. It took a lot of work to fix that token pit and walls so we could even build a token house and longhouses on the walls. If we go back a year and this update happened - the kingdom of LoA would have never have been founded.

 

While Chaos might not be the most active right now, this change is really pushing away any possibility of a new group deciding to form on the map. A huge nerf to any new groups and a huge buff to any estbalished group. I'm not really too fussed how the matter is addressed but something needs to happen to allow terraform to continue the way it has been for over ten years on this map.

[whereami 564]

While I understand where your concern lies, I do not understand what you are basing it off of, as personally at first glance it would seem you are simply making an oversight... Nay, for me to put it another way;

 

Can you actually present me with a situation where, having a 300-slope rock face on your deed, actually provides you with any sort of tactical defense advantage that could not also be obtained via the utilization of another layout of deed?

 

Do some thinking here. My bet is that's going to be a "no". And if you refute that claim you're welcome to chuck a deedplanner map my way of your proposed situation, and I'll show you what would be done to both penetrate the defenses and what else could be done to achieve the same end result.

300-slope rock faces cannot even be minedoored, so you will almost never see them surrounding a token pit- The defenders need easy access from inside in the event someone gets close enough to drain.

Even when staggering the slopes, or having a 7x7 of 300-slope with an inner 5x5 ring of ~80-slopes that can be minedoored, the same can just as easily be done with the dirt layer.

A perimeter trench or moat, is the more likely scenario that you're referring to then, surely.. But those can just as easily be made out of dirt as well, and in fact there are now several nice alternatives to having a trench at all, that not only promote PvP but usually end up giving the defending side kills in the process of impeding an attack.

 

You also make the point that the rock layer is(was) harder to modify than the dirt layer. Why is that? Likely because of the fact that, digging actions are faster and surfacemining actions aren't guaranteed to lower a corner. But aside from that? There's no difference really, only the slope mechanics you now refer to having been fixed were what set them apart.

 

The issue with existing slopes does stand to be potentially troublesome with this fix having been implemented now, of all times. I think the best course of action in that case might be to maybe allow concrete to be used on corners that are in holes/trenches like that so they can be "mended" but not heavily altered or repurposed. Requiring GM intervention to fix rock tiles with slopes over 100 would become quite the tedious task for staff.

 

Finally, I do want to point out that this change was made for a reason. The same reason that minedoors cannot be placed on slopes above ~80, and why the slope limits were introduced in the first place. It's because of deeds like Ye Olde "Pizza", which if you've been around long enough to remember it, was an absolute hellhole of a deed. Quite broken, so much so that a GM character was even instakilled while attempting to investigate the use of game mechanics there. The people that have been using these side-step tactics of strongwall-mining and shuffle-mining, were abusing known bugs that, as happens quite too often, the Devs had full knowledge of but until now were too lazy to fix.

Edited October 4, 2018 by whereami

[FranktheTank 1,901]

I think the main argument that this will boil down to is the fight between "Original Intention and Balance vs. Current Mechanics and Windows of Opportunity."

 

The deeds you mention that I can best describe as "toxic deeds" have always been a problem that can be overcome by a large enough raid force. However that does not mean that these deeds should even exist on the map at all. One that comes to mind was "Pizza" which was an absolute deathtrap to raid and would not have been done successfully with defenders online. The deed itself was impossible to raid and clear, and in my opinion nothing in wurm should be truly "unraidable". 

 

Which again strikes up the question, "are the changes now to how things were intended more beneficial for the future of the game?" To that I say yes.

 

However "will the new changes added have a negative impact by allowing those who built before the change have an advantage?" Again to some degree, yes.

 

I also saw your concern about making deeds un-fixable by strongwalling, that is also a concern of mine as it could make a deed completely unlivable. However, I also see it as a way to "destroy" deeds using this window of opportunity, or at least cripple them. 

[TheShawv 164]

 First off if you do not live on Chaos, then this discussion is not for you. Just like the huge changes to Epic, which is still dead, I have no right to say anything about Epic. I would hate to see changes like this effect the future of Chaos. Granted the change in step mining will not kill anything immediately but adding more hurdles infront of new people who would like to come to Chaos and form their own PMK is not the direction Chaos needs to go. Like was mentioned befor, reclaiming strategic points on the map and old deeds being reused for a new purpose is the name of the game. Some of the older deeds just need some tweeking and they would be ready for new people to move in and jump right into pvp. 

 

 I must agree with Iberis on this, it may seem like a fix for a cheating way of mining when sitting on freedom because no one can kill you, steal your stuff and leave you homeless, but on Chaos it means a bit more to us to be able to fix and improve the basic structure of a deed.

 

 For those that do not pvp, the total slopes needing to be climbed is a basic deffense when the attackers run out of stamina they are more vulnerable to deffenders. So tall dirt walls are good and pits for deed tokens makes more slopes to climb in and out of.

 

 Not mentioned was the change of dirt not dissapearing into mines when dropped, also effecting raiding on chaos, livable change but what to do with all that dirt from the deffenders walls once you have dug it down, surely you don't want to leave it for them to rebuild with. So yes many changes on Freedom servers sound good, like pretty mine door animations, but some changes result in unintended consequences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FranktheTank 1,901]

I agree that high dirt walls offer if anything the basic protection from people being able to climb over, that is good.

 

If anything lowering the average height of dirt walls forces players to physically defend more often, makes raiding easier, and may reduce the amount of deeds overall. 

[Iberis 856]

2 hours ago, TheShawv said:

First off if you do not live on Chaos, then this discussion is not for you.

I may not presently live on Chaos but that does not mean I do not travel there or have intentions to return. I think anyone who has the best interests of the server in mind and wishes to make suggestions to try to benefit the server (not trolling) should post and have their say. I also know that I am not the only one that shares this viewpoint. Many of the points I've mentioned have been discussed just this morning on discord and again many months ago when we first thought this update had happen.

 

Whereami, no the mine doors are not put into the walls. They are put on another slope beneath them. Just using Sarnath as an example - had 300 slope rock wall around the lower portion of the token pit with a 40 slope rock slope at the base for mine doors... rock is far better than dirt because with dirt you just need to dig it down. With rock you have to clear all the dirt off all the neighbouring tiles before even tampering with the rock in the first place. It forces most enemies to climb the wall or find ways to ramp over it from the outside at least.

 

I think the main point I'm making here is that making changes to how terraforming works is a bit too late on an old server like Chaos. It's going to make so many areas untouchable, unfixable. Griefing is possible now which cannot be fixed. Raiding will be harder and  shawv is right. A new group on chaos isn't really great idea i guess right now (a merge would be better) ... if that group couldn't join any exisiting group for whatever reason then surely having more players on chaos is better then not having them at all. Why take away options of getting Chaos more population...

 

At this point terraform changes should really be released on a fresh map for the sake of fairness and balance. Everyone seemed happy with the way terraforming was on Chaos, there really was no need to change it.

Edited October 4, 2018 by Iberis

[armyskin 930]

I will always support the removal of the mining restriction set on chaos and the limits set on concrete there as well.

[Roccandil 959]

16 minutes ago, armyskin said:

I will always support the removal of the mining restriction set on chaos and the limits set on concrete there as well.

 

I'd like to see that on Epic as well.