RPGWO Forums
General => RPGWO V4 / V5 => Topic started by: Mongo on April 24, 2012, 08:11:21 am
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Mining was a hugely popular part of RPGWO. It was fun but after a server had been up for a few weeks, most of the underground was just tunnels everywhere with all the major veins mined out. You have to wade through the sea of granite and dirt on the ground to find one or two ore that wasn't mined out.
I'm wondering what your plans are for mining.
I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) in V1/V2, when an ore vein location was created, it stayed there for the duration. Meaning, if you mined gold in position X,Y, then the cave filled back in, position X,Y would still have gold.
If mining is to stay at the same speed as V1/V2, then I think something has to change. Once you got to a decent mining level, you could just walk through walls without a care in the world (except stamina), plowing through the underground. This makes two problems:
1) The underground is now a horrible mess of ore no one wants
2) The server needs to work harder to do cave-ins and respawn all that ore no one wants
I think somehow mining needs to be slowed down. I remember there were underground graves that you could accidentally stumble on.. which almost always meant you would just die. I like the concept but I feel like something was off there.
Ore veins were neat.. was nice to know that if you found one copper, there were probably a couple more around.
So my thoughts, summarized:
Randomize ore spawn locations. Might make the veins harder to generate, for sure.
Cave-ins more often. Maybe players need support struts to prevent a cave-in.
Slow mining down to prevent a single player from mining across a whole sector in a couple minutes.
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Whenever implementing features, the only question a designer must
always ask is: "Is it fun?"
If a feature is not fun, then what is the point in implementing it in
a game?
What you are suggesting is called Balance Compensation and all successful
studios stay away from it as if it was nuclear waste.
While it is true that mining must not make a game too unbalanced,
the features that define mining (or any other aspect for that matter)
must not be set in place to limit a player, but to create alternative routes
from which the player can then choose from.
Instead of tweaking mining, the whole underground implementation
should be re-designed.
The UG should be in the same "mapspace" than the surface world.
Meaning, you don't need cave entrances or exits - you just walk into
a cave, if there is one.
This also means, that when you are mining underground and the ground
on top is in declining slope, you will reach the surface level when digging
out the cave wall that is one height level lower than the surface level.
This causes seamless transitions and enables monsters from caves enter
the surface world. This in turn enables night-prowling monsters to exit
caves at night and is a good feature for a horror survival game.
Mine veins should be generated once when the server generates the world.
After that, when an ore is mined and cave-in caused, the tunnel is filled
with the surface material the ground above has, meaning that the topmost level
cave-ins will be dirt, which can be easily removed with a shovel.
Mined ore is not regenerated with a cave-in.
Now, there should be multiple UG levels. Maybe 10, but should be easily configurable
in the server cfg. Having multiple UG levels increases the
ore available to the player, but, as the depth increases, the rock density increases,
and the player has to use better tools (and maybe more time)
to excavate deeper levels, making the player carefully consider if he should
mine horizontally in the easy upper level or mine down vertically into more
tough rock for, say, diamonds.
This system also means, that it is possible to create open-pit mines down
to the most bottom level.
Also, when there is a cave-in at lower levels, all of the unfortified stone above
will cave-in and cause the ore in, say, level 5, to fall down to level 7, if
that is where the cave-in originated.
This also allows to cause damage with earthquakes and other natural disasters
like volcanoes.
In conclusion, the whole underground levels implementation should be redone,
instead of just tweaking the classical system hoping for a better result.
The current classical implementation is sub-par for RPGWO reincarnate.
Also, this system provides enough ore, if the player is willing to put effort in it
and makes it tougher to mine new ore.
Also, to prevent server resets, ore veins should regenerate in land plots which
have not been mined for a long time, say 1 real time month.
This allows new players to find ore in the easy upper levels of UG, if they
wander around enough.
If there is going to be a newb town or island, the ore should always regenerate
for training purposes.
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This is one hell of a re-work. You're suggesting adding another axis instead of using the simulated depth with the 'levels'. Interesting.
How would you mine up? Would you carry a ton of ladders with you to get up/down levels? Could you fall/jump? This affects the entire game, not just mining .. and should be thought over very carefully before pursuing.
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@Zach who said anything about a horror survival game? RPGWO has never had any horror or survival aspects(except for maybe 2 servers and those weren't too popular), stop trying to turn this game into something it isn't. this isn't HnH where you get tons of ore from 1 spot, here its 1 ore per spot so underground has to respawn(as it always has) or there would be nothing left in a few weeks.
@Mongo I see your point, when you're in a highly populated area(usually near a town) everything will be dug out and take forever to respawn. faster respawns for minable tiles could fix that, or just cause a huge problem for people trying to build a house. the part about random ore respawning would fix the gold vein left unsurfaced in someone's house that they constantly mine(I've had several of those). I see no reason to slow mining down, most people who go straight across a sector are usually looking for a vein of some type of ore and zig zagging across a sector is usually the best way to find anything worth keeping...
as far as unearthed graves, those were the 1 thing implemented in this game that almost made me quit. as you said you find one you die. the thing about the economy of any mmorpg is that higher risk(such as fighting) gives more reward than safer things such as crafting, if theres an insta-death option for mining and you need to mine to smith(unless you buy your ore, and who would do that) it means you have far higher risk and still have the same reward...it makes no sense
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Cave-Ins + Unearthed Graves made mining horrible and not fun lol
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Cave-Ins + Unearthed Graves made mining horrible and not fun lol
pfft I liked cave-ins. find a good vein, mine it carefully with no support(straight line without mining the wall near it) then toss on some armor and force it to cave in and get more of the same ore...its how I got the gold for my mule land and trader in under 10 minutes way back on Arc Reborn(server where UT first added cave-ins).
but I think Mongo was referring to the minable area respawning, not an actual cave-in
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but I think Mongo was referring to the minable area respawning, not an actual cave-in
Both, actually.
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I never really got into mining mainly because i never get far but so far sounds good folks
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Instead of tweaking mining, the whole underground implementation
should be re-designed.
The UG should be in the same "mapspace" than the surface world.
Meaning, you don't need cave entrances or exits - you just walk into
a cave, if there is one.
This also means, that when you are mining underground and the ground
on top is in declining slope, you will reach the surface level when digging
out the cave wall that is one height level lower than the surface level.
Thinking about this more and more, I don't know why this wouldn't be possible. The biggest change would be you would have to allow people to dig in ways they cant in V1/V2. Before, players could only dig in such a way that the land would be sloping uniformly - you couldn't make a cliff/sharp drop. If players could dig in any direction or manner, you could dig into the side of the mountain and make it a sharp drop. Dig again to start going into the mountain. Now you have a tunnel.
The other change would be configuring the layers of the world. Already there were tons of layers.. just make it so you can dig below elevation 0.
Everything above elevation 0 would be dirt
Everything below would be ore (Or water, I suppose).
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Well, it sounds like a Minecraft type map. A 3D map, X, Y and Z, connnected and all shown together, not as seperate levels. I'll have to draw a picture and think about how to implement somethin glike that. It would be neat looking.
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Well how is it different from the above ground in V1/V2? You had multiple layers there, only difference is they were all dirt.
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Probably not gonna change much to the levels.
But what about the ore veins and locations. Right now you can find everyone every where. What about tieing ore to geological surface structures or something? Of tie them to world latitude or elevation or underground level?
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Probably not gonna change much to the levels.
But what about the ore veins and locations. Right now you can find everyone every where. What about tieing ore to geological surface structures or something? Of tie them to world latitude or elevation or underground level?
ewww...
though its more realistic I think its alot more work for the players. just imagine a guy with 10 quickness having to walk 3 sectors to mine a type of ore. I could see less of a certain type of ore in an area, but having an area completely missing a type would be rough.
using the underground level could be a fun twist also, less of the crappy ore the deeper you are, but less of the good stuff on the upper levels. since its harder to mine on the deeper levels it means finding a good ore on the upper levels will be more 'rewarding'.
looking at it that way, I'd like to offer another change to mining. currently your mining level decides whether you can mine something or not, I don't see how that would really work(you hit something enough times its going to break eventually). I'd like a change to mining level determining how much stamina it takes to mine an ore. for example an ore that takes 60 skill to mine, at 50 skill it may take 35(?) stamina while at 120(guessing double skill would be max bonus for mining) it would only take 5. I don't have a mathmatical formula for it, but it probably needs 1 :P
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The problem with the idea of the Minecraft style quarries is, as stated before, water. When you dig low enough, you hit water.
But I don't like the idea of being able to mine anything at any skill level. You say that you should be able to break through to the ore--well, keep in mind there are all sorts of different types of materials in the world, the ore could easily be hidden inside some harder to break ones.
Besides, I would much rather have an ore that takes a hundred tries to get out than one that BREAKS due to mining it wrong.
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Although, that is an option. Having the underground wall release a broken ore if your level's too low to mine it properly would help get an area dug out... and could possibly be made so that four broken ores would smith into a full one.
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you know, you can't really break ore. if you've ever seen a mining operation you'll notice depending on material being mined they take big chunks and dust. think about gold dust, you don't leave it just because its not a nugget, and iron powder is the easiest way to make steel(small scale not industrial megaproduction). also dirt may be packed really tight, but no way in hell its packed so tight you can't mine it. I can see having trouble getting through bedrock in some places, but most mining takes place above or below the bedrock. if its below they'll blast a hole through it for a shaft since bedrock is just stone, and stone can be more easilly obtained from a quarry on the surface.
easy way to realize this is modern mining techniques, they bring in machines that pretty much shred everything down to fine particles so they can be more easilly seperated...
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Maybe the ore in the world is all stuck inside the bedrock? You'd have denser bedrock around the harder ores, whereas when you just dig up dirt, that's all you're doing is digging dirt. (In the event of Rebirth, you're breaking up not-quite-bedrock rock)
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Maybe the ore in the world is all stuck inside the bedrock?
bedrock is solid rock, nothing in it...just rock.
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Maybe the ore in the world is all stuck inside the bedrock?
bedrock is solid rock, nothing in it...just rock.
Let me point out that this isn't our world we're talking about. What applies to our world may not apply to other inhabitable worlds. This is a world where magic and golems exist.
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Maybe the ore in the world is all stuck inside the bedrock?
bedrock is solid rock, nothing in it...just rock.
Keep in mind that "rock" can be just about any mineral or ore. But for our purposes, it either volcanic based granite or water born limestone. Either formed when the planet cooled or over millions of years of sedimentation. Anyways, rock covers it all, heh.
Granite I believe covers it for us.
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I get the feeling after all this discussion we're going to come to the conclusion that the best system is the one already in v2 :P
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If it aint broke don't try and fix it
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Been working on mining in V5. Gonna try the "work needed" idea where each ore will require a certain amount of work done before you can get it out. The higher the skill and better the pick/tool then the faster you get the ore out.
Example:
- Hessite ore requires 1000 work
- with a mining skill of 50 and an iron pick (mine power = 5) then each stroke gives (Skill / 10) * ToolPower = (50 / 10) * 5 = 25 work per stroke gives 1000 / 25 = 40 strokes to get ore out, costing 40 * 5 = 200 stamina and 40 * 2 = 80 seconds (plus stamina recover time).
- with a mining skill of 10 and an stone pick (mine power = 1) then each stroke gives (Skill / 10) * ToolPower = (10 / 10) * 5 = 5 work per stroke gives 1000 / 5 = 200 strokes to get ore out, costing 200 * 5 = 1000 stamina and 1000 * 2 = 2000 seconds (plus stamina recover time).
Keep in mind that V1/V2 skills are higher and raise faster. I want V5 to be lower and raise slower. So a skill of 10 is a newb and a skill of 50 would be like a level 10 - 20 player.
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I think you're going to kill mining that way...
maybe you shouldn't divide it by 10 a second time. (skill / 10) * tool power seems fair to me. at that rate if you are a proficient miner(since you said 50 is going to be a good mining level) that means it would take 20 stam to mine that hessite. I'm going to compare that to current versions of the game, getting to level 10 as a miner you can mine pretty much anything(might have trouble with artifact) and could mine the ore with a loss of 5 stamina(it would take 4 times as much with my suggestion or 40 times as much with your idea)...
the second problem I see is the time it takes to mine an area. if someone is trying to mine out an area to build their home and it takes over half an hour to mine 1 tile I don't see them sticking to it. I know 1 of the things you mentioned when starting V3, V4, and V5 was getting people interested in the game...thats not going to happen with 30+ minutes to mine 1 tile.
also this could play into the idea I posted(can't remember where) with a place being mined giving small amounts of different metals and those being combined to make a full, usable bar for crafting. if its all 1 metal with high mining skill its going to sit for a while, but if its maybe 10% of that metal and the rest is something easier to mine it gives players a chance to get those better metals a little earlier.
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the second problem I see is the time it takes to mine an area. if someone is trying to mine out an area to build their home and it takes over half an hour to mine 1 tile I don't see them sticking to it. I know 1 of the things you mentioned when starting V3, V4, and V5 was getting people interested in the game...thats not going to happen with 30+ minutes to mine 1 tile.
Have you ever played wurm online? They have around 600+ people online on that game usually and many pay for premium. It takes well over an hour to mine out a single wall and near 3 hours to make a 1x1 house chopping wood and collecting supplies in Wurm. Players work together to build houses and player owned land land takes a much longer time to fall apart. I ended up quitting the game though because everyone just brute force marcos to get anything done. If the time was more in the 5-10 minute range for RPGWO I think it would be a good balance. Or else just take current mining and keep it pretty much the same, except that it takes multiple ores to make whatever you are working on.
Ex) 10 iron ores to make a iron sword. 5 more iron ores to +1 or reinforce it, then 10 to +2 and so on.
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because everyone just brute force marcos to get anything done.
or that...if you want people to play a game it has to be fun, if you want bots and macros to play a game then it doesn't matter. when I play a game I prefer to play it myself I don't really see the point in botting and macroing:
if a game isn't fun I quit.
if the amount of time invested isn't worth the payout I quit.
if the game is ridiculously unbalanced I quit.
this is the way a lot of people do things, so 30+ minutes to mine 1 tile is crazy...
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Got it mostly coded. So far it seems to work pretty good. Probably need to lower stamina cost from 5 to 2 or 1 since it is now similar to swinging a weapon once.
I have no problem with a newb taking 30 minutes to get hessite, if they want it that bad.
The alternative would be a newb running around with a damon pick +100 mining, doing even worse damage I think.
I do want things to take longer than V1/V2 did but I don't want it to turn into endless clicking on a wall/tree/etc to finally get resource cuz then it does kill the "fun".
I can see using more than one ore to make larger items. I want to add more steps to making things for sure.
One idea I had last night was with armor:
- all metal armor needs some fabric base like leather or cotton
- metal parts attach to the fabric like chains, scales and plates using fabric straps
- different fabrics and metals give different armor ratings and protections
So maybe each metal part would come from 1 ore and like chest armor requires like 4 parts.
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I can see using more than one ore to make larger items. I want to add more steps to making things for sure.
One idea I had last night was with armor:
- all metal armor needs some fabric base like leather or cotton
- metal parts attach to the fabric like chains, scales and plates using fabric straps
- different fabrics and metals give different armor ratings and protections
:o do you know how hard it is to kill a cow with no weapon skills?
then again I guess that won't be a problem in V5...but not all armors need cloth or leather to hold them together. yes plate armor has most sections held together with leather straps and I know Japanese style scale armor is held together with silk(which is technically stronger than steel) but things like chain mail or ring mail are simply held together by being forged interlocked...but I like the idea of more steps for crafting ???