Dark Legacy MUD Forum

this is a serious post. isabelle, dont delete it.

this is copied and pasted out of a text file that ive been keeping notes in about the new mining system. please feel free to flame me/tell me it works fine/tell me im wrong/whatever.



maybe im old fashioned, but cele, im getting rather irritated in saying this and you not seeing it:

>YOU CAN NOT USE BIG NUMBERS IN STUFF LIKE THIS.<

explination will come later.

however, lets start from the beginning: learning mining skills.

paper: havent noted any changes on it from your or isabelle
practice: it is so ..how can i say this without swearing? STUPID.

it took me two days of good hours mining to raise my skill up to where i actually pull stuff out of the ground. One thing i think i see with the code is you have to have a skill in a lesser gem (say you want to raise skill in diamond. you appear to need skill in mining a lesser gem to be even able to dig the stuff up successfully).

how do you expect us to raise skills in minerals we dont have if the only way we can get skill ups is by actually pulling minerals down? i have only found a few instances (mostly in rocks) in where you'd get skill points for failure.

another thing i found is i have 0% in mitrill mining, and i hit a full wall (M). i got 77 mitrill ore off of that.

and earlier today i found a series of meteorite and got like 25 ore off of it, with absolutely no skill in meteorite.


why is it that we are able to mine up stuff that we dont have skill in if we have even a % in mining?


i unlearned copper on meh to see what skill raising would be like cele, and i am truely disappointed. it starts off really, really slow. have you tried it yet? i found it to be more profitable to mine straight down to granite because then id at least have a chance of digging out adamantite and meteorite (in which i have no skill in)

so here i am, after two days of free mining, and heres what i pulled out of the mines sofar:

When you look inside, you see:
An extradimensional portal contains:
(small) Copper ore (920)
(small) Iron ore (880)
(small) Uncut carnelian (89)
(small) Uncut citrine (35)
(small) Silver ore (630)
(small) Adamantite ore (35)
(small) Mitrill ore (164)
(small) Gold ore (17)
(small) Meteorite ore (25)


if it wasnt for this new mining system, i would have never ever seen meteorite and adamantite. and personally, i think that it should be changed back.. what are you guys going to do about the people who mined this stuff up for months? i can run down to granite with no skill and freely dig it up while eating cereal. i know people who have maybe 10x as much ore as i do spending FIVE MONTHS down in the mines. and i go in and dig out 25 meteorite in 15 minutes.

just for the records, and since i had a friend proofread this:

1) i used meh the entire time.
2) i got the adamantite, and most of the silver with 100% copper skill
3) i got the rest of it with anywhere from 0% mining skill to now:

Mining................ 82.78%
| Stone Mining........ 52.99%
| | granite........... 37.68%
| | sandstone......... 1.10%
| | clay.............. 1.30%
| | shalestone........ 5.00%
| | limestone......... 7.91%
| Ore Mining.......... 25.97%
| | bronze............ 12.93%
| | silver............ 0.88%
| | meteorite......... 4.05%
| | mitrill........... 6.36%
| | iron.............. 1.50%
| | gold.............. 0.26%
| Gemstone Mining..... 3.82%
| | jade.............. 0.02%
| | carnelian......... 1.80%
| | citrine........... 2.00%


EDIT 1: I love what you have done with the mines. suggestion to fix is to fix the skill problem and lower the number of stuff dug up per round. looks good on paper to me

Its been about a day since the patch has come out...I have mined up over 100 uncut jades, 20 uncut diamonds, countless garnets/zicons/sapphires/obsidians, about 30 meteorite ore, and maybe 70 adamantite ore.

This is completly unreal.

Kiasyn claims to have mined her 50ish meteorite ore with a 100% STONE miner.

Meh claims to have mined his 25 ore with a miner that was 10% copper mining.

Other people are mining meteorite with similiar results, all with little to no percent in even ore mining.

I don't get it Celeborn. Is this intended!?!??

My (somewhat worthless) opinion about the new mining system:

1. I have to say, I LOVE the way the map is done, i think it's been beautifully done. I like how the symbols change according to the size of the mine (e.g. @ for stone, etc)...its really cool

2. Call me a newbie (because i am a newbie ), but could someone please explain about the percentage skill when you mine up a resource? I only have skill in mining up bronze, i have 0% in mining mitrill, yet i managed to mine up about 300 mitrill ore in about 2/3 hours yesterday. I don't think I should be able to mine mitrill with 0% in it, I don't think it's all that fair on those who have spent ages adepting mitrill (although it sure is nice )

Is your % meant to rise when you destroy a resource? Just that mine doesn't seem to, and I'm mining ores that I have absolutely no skill in...

3. Gems. I had 0.08% Citrine, 0.04% Garnet and 0.02% Carnelian (before the new patch). I can mine a fair bit of citrine, some carnelian, but NO garnet...and again, none of my % have risen in any of them. Is mining gems determined by your previous gem skill (before the patch)? As in, to successfully mine gems, you need to have started off with some gem skill in the first place?

I need to make clear: I like the new mining patch, it's cool being able to mine anywhere on the world map, and I'm not trying to rubbish the patch or anything, I'm just a bit confuzzled :S

Anyway, could someone please explain about the % when you mine (and how to raise your %)? I'm a bit messed up, just a leeetle slow in the head

Thanks,
--a confuzzled newbie miner

*title editted so that caretakers might read it

If the post was serious, you should have rethought calling the mine update a circlejerk in your title.

if you want to get celeborns attention by flaming him -- that rarely works

aside from that, i would agree with those who think the amount of resources be lowered.
As for skill percentages, while i don't agree that they should be increased, its possible that they arent working perfectly as intended, and may need a tweak.

Isabelle wrote:*title editted so that caretakers might read it

If the post was serious, you should have rethought calling the mine update a circlejerk in your title.

if you want to get celeborns attention by flaming him -- that rarely works

aside from that, i would agree with those who think the amount of resources be lowered.
As for skill percentages, while i don't agree that they should be increased, its possible that they arent working perfectly as intended, and may need a tweak.

wasnt trying to flame anyone. that was to get YOUR attention , and it worked

so youre trying to make it so i have to run over 500 walls worth of anything to get a skill over 10% of something? what about people who are new? they have absolutely no chance of gaining skill while the people who have been mining before this patch basically can go and pull anything out of the ground on demand

Concerns:

* I Log off only to log on another character and mine claim has disappeared. Perhaps increase the 'mine claim' time to five minutes?

* I am left reinforcing the same rooms again and again and again. I think this happens because of the time of 'mine claim'

* Is it possible to have two mine claims at the same time? Ran into another character (thought that was to be nearly impossible), and he said he had 'mine claim' as well. Isabelle witnessed this and asked me to post.

* Miners who aren't adept at certain resources are mining large quantities of those resources. I can use one alt and get more resources than I ever did with the old mines with an adepted miner. This now makes 'adepting' useless in my opinion. Why continue building my admanatite miner skills when I can go mine up 34 adamantite ingots on a stone miner from one dig? O.o I have dug up nearly 100 adamantite ore thus far, in a two hour span on a non-adept miner. Not to mention the abundant amounts of gems that I am mining up that I am not even ADEPT in!!!! O.O This leads me to a very serious concern....

* ECONOMY OF ALORA: O.O Where do in the WORLD do I start? The amount of resources that are being mined up by non-adept miners - you are looking at the destruction of Aloran as I speak. I am digging up resources that took miners MONTHS (including myself) to mine up and now they are readily available as if I were to go to a store deciding which candy bar I want off the shelf for only 50 cents. O.o There will also be less incentive to go to epics now. Yes, there will be the usual people who go to simply to level, but many eagerly anticipated finding gems with the hopes in mind of selling them for cash or stack them to craft eq. Who cares about the chests now? They are now a waste of time unless you are going into the epics for gold chests (ex. Kobolds). Then you say, well what about the locked doors? Well frankly, the whole point of going into that portion of epics is to GET the chests. I see fewer people choosing rogues now. Having talked to many...uncut diamonds are being dug up at rates that will leave them being worth no more than 5k - if that.

* The mine map is waaaayyy too small. I understand that dwarves and gerps will view the larger map...but the maps are too small for non-dwarves/gerps. It's easy to get lost down there and retrace your steps. Which leads me to the next problem....

* There are open paths EVERYWHERE. The old mines allowed for you to mine your own pattern and alts could be easily switched and the location of where you were just mining easy to find. I have 6 mining alts....trying to keep them all in the same area is nuts. Even laying down mushrooms so to retrace the steps...well, if you mine for hours, there are mushrooms everywhere and it's crazy. O.O

* Why place mobs in the mines? Don't get me wrong, they SHOULD be there, but correct me if I am wrong...are the mobs based on the level of the alt who mine claims? I mine claimed with a higher level alt and my lower alt got its rear kicked majorly (died). But then I logged out, mine claimed with the lower alt and she had no problems killing the mob. So if this is the case, of the level of the mobs based on the alt who 'mine claims,' then I will just mine claim with my lowest alt and who cares about the mobs? No challenge in my opinion

* Color Coding: I think this is awesome. I know what to hit, and what not to. But the symbols to express the quantity of the resources makes the mines appear more complicated than need be. There are so many symbols, it's like...where do I start?

* Crafting: Crafting jewellery will no longer be considered as a special craft, again messing with the economy. Jewellery prices will be forced to fall for those who spent months on adepting the craft. The rise of new jewellery crafters will be phenomenal. I am very irrated by this fact, I have to be admit. Not to mention, you can't differentiate the prices between the gems any longer because you can get them all a dime for a dozen. *cries bitterly*

Listen, I understand that the intention of the new mines - to make mining easier and resources more available. But omg...you are handing everyone on this game resources in a bowl made of blue diamonds!! I KNOW that people will always complain when there is change. But this isn't a change...this is a complete renovation of a system that wasn't entirely bad, it just needed improving. I am sorry to say, but I am disappointed completely. That's one thing I most enjoyed about this game - mining, because I felt I was working hard for something and getting something in return. The hard work paid off, but now...I am left thinking...if i am having everything handed to me easily, I will get bored with the game and mining was the one thing I had left to keep myself from FEELING bored. Don't know, I just know that a lot of people aren't happy. *cries*

addressing meh and shira, thank you shira for posting that information, but both of you are under some strange idea that once a patch is created, then that is the end all of discussion - its a new patch, and as such, just like every single other thing in the game, will require adjustment.

meh, you might be missing something here, the players who are new-- are happy!
they can now mine up lots of cool things, and sure, im not arguing with anyone, there needs to be adjustment, but there are no newbies complaining, they are getting lots of cool gems and ore, and even though the 'numbers' may not be raising like they should, does that even matter right now?

and no meh, i read everything, so flames do not get my attention more than anything else

Shira wrote: * I am left reinforcing the same rooms again and again and again. I think this happens because of the time of 'mine claim'

I believe Cele did this intentionally and that it has nothing to do with mine claim.

Shira wrote:* Is it possible to have two mine claims at the same time? Ran into another character (thought that was to be nearly impossible), and he said he had 'mine claim' as well. Isabelle witnessed this and asked me to post.

Mine claim only takes an area on the same floor as you, you cannot claim multiple floors.

Shira wrote:* The mine map is waaaayyy too small. I understand that dwarves and gerps will view the larger map...but the maps are too small for non-dwarves/gerps. It's easy to get lost down there and retrace your steps. Which leads me to the next problem....

If the map was increased then there would be no point for dwarf and gerp 'mine smell'. If you were to increase the map i would say that every thing after x squares becomes a stone/passage. example...
For a dwarf. for a non-dwarf.

Shira wrote:* There are open paths EVERYWHERE. The old mines allowed for you to mine your own pattern and alts could be easily switched and the location of where you were just mining easy to find. I have 6 mining alts....trying to keep them all in the same area is nuts. Even laying down mushrooms so to retrace the steps...well, if you mine for hours, there are mushrooms everywhere and it's crazy. O.O

If you are trying to avoid the paths, go slightly deeper... the resources stay mainly the same and there are less paths. Of course this is up to you .

Shira wrote:* Color Coding: I think this is awesome. I know what to hit, and what not to. But the symbols to express the quantity of the resources makes the mines appear more complicated than need be. There are so many symbols, it's like...where do I start?

a comma usually represents 'minute traces' of a gem.
a semi-colon usually represents 'mediocre traces' of a gem
a percentage symbol usually represents 'obvious traces' of a gem.

A capital A means obvious chunks of adamantite, a small a means mediocre
A capital M can mean obvious chunks of either mitrill or meteorite, a small m means mediocre.

This is just general. There are many others represented by other things... ie Topaz represented by an O.
Do not rely on the map entirely, resources can 'hide' behind other ones.

Isabelle wrote:shira, thank you shira for posting that information, but both of you are under some strange idea that once a patch is created, then that is the end all of discussion - its a new patch, and as such, just like every single other thing in the game, will require adjustment.

Yea, I know you guys are going to make adjustments - the main reason of my post. Geeez...I hope the mines won't stay this way O.O I know not all of my concerns may be changed, but I just wanted you to be aware of them and consider them.

And kiasyn, thank you for the information. Most of the info, I knew...I just wanted to express that I didn't like it =)

Technical problems with the system:

For one, it seems that either the hit roll (the roll to see if you pull any resources) has gotten a huge overall bonus, OR the difficulty check of each resource has been significantly lowered.

Furthermore, previously the biggest advantage to being specialized (being able to pull more at once) has been killed off, because each room only holds a set amount of resources, meaning that somebody who is less skillfull than I might still pull all the resources, just might take them a few more hits. If it was always like this, it must have been in such a way that it was very easy to destroy the materials, keeping it a huge bonus to be able to pull many at once, in conjunction with there being a difficult hit roll.

If I think of anything else ill post more.

I can only deliver a sufficiently tested piece of code with a big budget or months of spare time. Since I have neither, that just isn't possible.

Most concerns will be fixed in next patch, so enjoy the short boost of mining gains. If you wish to improve patch quality in the future, come test on codeport. (or if you are like some people, be a bit more descriptive than THIS SUCKS! Wheeeeee.) (Races are next on the agenda, BWOEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, er, mehownzu, what is your favorite character race? I want to, erm, /reward/ you for your extremely diplomatic posting, that doesn't make me feel like you are attempting to insult me. BWOEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA).

Intended Fixes:
- Unskilled miners not properly destroying resources, causing unintended resource gains.
- Reinforcement issues will be looked at.
- A fix for the 'breadcrumbs requirement' issue.
- The mine map is small due to memory and performance issues. The world map is too big for me to store into the memory available to me, so I need to swap it out on disk. A bigger map means more disk activity. I might tweak things later but for now one room is all you'll get.

Hey Cele, before you make any changes, just some observations -


the number of people who mine now, well, it's up about a thousand percent

General idea from 'new miners' is that its fun, they can get resources now.

General idea from 'old miners' is that they don't want people getting resources like them. (and are now cranky)


So, the fix you mentioned will no doubt correct most of that, but hopefully it wont be as harsh as having new miners not get anything

Right now, player participation in mining is at an all time high, so i guess i will just have to save anymore comments until after the fix.

You'd be cranky too if you spent months adepting something only to watch stone miners and copper miners pull vast quantities of it.

Though handing out money at the bank would get a lot of people standing there, it'll also crash the economy in no time. I rather find a middle way.

cele, in no way was that post trying to insult you. sometimes when i get really wound up i use a little too much emotion in what i say. i am sorry please dont kill me


like i said, i love what you have done with th emines..minerals are too abundant. and anyways, every time i tried to connect to code port (either IP) i got 10061 errors. maybe if you would have the server up when i try to connect id actually be able to

ill do everything i can to help test the next patch. i owe it to you for all this bitching i did.


oh, one thing i like a lot about the mines is the encounters. please dont change them. it forces people to actually level before they go and wander into the mines.

I thought the whole point of the encounters was to prevent botting, not encourage levelling. And as Isabelle has stated, the encounters ARE messed up. Only one of the intended monsters is spawning in the mines, the rest are world map mobs.

nope, botting wasnt really a consideration

my motives are along the lines of future questing, which may involve storylines involving encounters, and involving gathering of certain items from the encounters to finish a particular quest.

They're fun, thats the real reason why they are there

And, if in the process, it helps people to level up their level 1 toon, so be it

*laughs at vogar*

I really don't think you know half as much as you think you do, Vogar.

Did you not read what I said? No, not ore...people can mine up meteorite with a /STONE MINER/. I don't care if it's even a little bit, the very fact that it's happening right now, probably right as a type this, is enough for me. Jades are being mined with /citrine and carnelian/ miners.

You seem to think this system is working a lot better than it actually is. Sure, if a 100% copper miner could mine a very very small amount of meteorite, very inefficiently, I wouldn't have that big a problem with it.

But when STONE miners can do it, and people with no more than 10% in ore, thats crossing the line.

Meteorite is a high level mining skill. People are not pulling 'normal' amounts of it. They are pulling tons of it. You only need 156 ingots for an entire reforge, and meteorite is the second best metal in the whole game. Damn right, it should be a hell of a lot harder to mine than 50 ore a day with a stone miner.

Mining up 50 ore in a day with a stone miner is about the equivilent to making an e400 exceptional three socket metal sword with a 100% metal cuirass forger.

And you would like to know how much I pulled? Okay, let's go.

Huge bag of mining picks contains:
a carnelian Templas
Meteorite ore (460)
Meteorite ingot

I started with approximetly 415 ore, before this new patch came. So since this new mining patch, I have mined approx 45 ore? Wow. Envy me and all the glory of an 83% Meteorite miner.

Vogar Eol wrote:Well, maybe reforge is the problem then? How about we just remove that whole craft skill completely? My Mitrill miner can pull 250 ore of bronze in one try if I am lucky. Are you against that too?

So, instead of proposing fixing the problem itself (mining too much meteorite) you propose to kill reforge. Good idea...No.