Mining mechanics

[Olrane]

As I understand it, mining and herbalism (and possibly other skills) attempt to gather resources from a slowly replenishing pool in each eligible location.

The problem is that it's not uncommon to find areas completely mined out, so regardless of skill you will get nothing more than pebble spam.

It's not so much that this is broken; it appears to be working as intended. It is, however, very unfun and bordering on unfair. Many players can not win the race to the mines or spend as much time there. Ultimately, mines support a very small handful of characters, and discourage inexperienced characters from taking up mining. The mining mechanics limit growth in the player base, because the resource pool is so limited and under such strong competition.

I'd like to see some kind of system revision that would allow characters to still harvest some resources regardless of other players' work. I don't know how to solve this problem, since resources to harvest are bound to locations and not to characters. If the replenish rate was increased, it would simply cause a flood to go to the same people monopolizing the harvesting locations.

Sadly, it seems monstrously difficult to code a system that would address this problem. It would probably have to involve spawning valuables in the mine feed even if there are none present, but only if the character had not mined any valuables in X amount of time. Some sort of bonus to compensate for empty mines, but tied to characters.

[Olrane]

I thought about it more and here's a possible design for a system overhaul to fix the problem. The goal, at least from my perspective, is to allow limited resources to be accessible to all, but not have them be flooded to players who can grind for hours on end.

Instead of using a fixed set of resources in any given location, have unlimited resources at each location, with difficulties and probabilities attached to any given product, as well as an attached but hidden internal value.

As a character mines non-pebble resources (or harvests uncommon herbs), a timed malus proportional to the value of those resources will affect that character. These small incremental mali will add up until mining is very ineffective for a long while. This would discourage grinding.

Such a system isn't hard to theorycraft, but it still seems too hard to code, so yeah.

[Mogwai]

It would be nice if the mines didn't get so depleted...

[Urlyth]

I agree about having the resources but the grinding as you put it is often necessary because the skill to learn for instance gem cutting is so very hard. So many gems are needed to get even one improvement. However that skill when learned has not really much advantage to anyone especially since the scribes have the knowledge to recharge tell rings now and buying gems for new rings is in decline.

A smiths guild for the dwarven brethren.

I think dwarves should be able to mine rocks that contain minerals that can then be forged out of the rock and used for a dwarf to be able to develop a skill of making custom armours,weapons and custom jewelry (containing mined gems).

Yes this would cut down the trade to the man in Elvandar that insists you are to be of good reputation before even taking your order but it would be a great boost for the dwarven population to have some useful skills of their own since every man in the world get pick up a shovel and train mining.

Yes the armours would still have to be 'description approved by the admin/wiz' but after approval given the order can be made and then handed over to the purchaser.

This also would cut down the need for every man in the world to need to mine since the dwarven smith guild would be digging and supplying the minerals themselves. Good and Evil could then get custom made items.

The other minerals used that are needed for various things eg. jade , amber, sulphur lime and salt should be able to be sold into a shop where its kept on the shelf for resale at a more reasonable price or again it can be purchased from the mining corporation of dwarves.

If the obvious question 'what if there are not dwarves around blah blah?' the man in Elvandar would still be there as he always was and minerals could still be mined but just keep the rocks with minerals in for forging as limited.

[lanyara]

I am still a bit too dumb with mining, but what I would like to have is a command or way to "assess" a given mining spot. Something like:

"You have a look around and think you could find some iron here, with some luck."

Or if it would be depleted, it could be something like:

"You have a look around and think you could normally find some iron here, but right now it seems as if the ore has been depleted, and it would take some more time digging to find new places."

By the way, there was once an idea to have mines completely dynamic, in that players could drive forward with tunnels, and dig stuff and so on.... it may be that it was too complicated back then or too much work...

What I would like to see would be rails into mines, or player-driven lorry and such... and selling nuggets could perhaps yield a bit more income too. Right now it seems as if scalping or singing in pubs is much better than mining.

[Phelan]

Small hint, you can mine each room a certain amount of times per room reset. It shouldn't be too hard to find out how many times.

I never had any problems with lack of resources, unless something was changed recently, after each room reset the full resources seemed to be available again.

[adanath]

I have never had that much of a problem with lack of resources, there are many many places to go on the game. Some more dangerous than others.

[Silentum]

Well this is my suggestion for this topic but it just a idea.

Geology skill
They are able to seek out veins of mineral through the geology skill and then survey this vein.
And if there is any mining guild they could sell geology kit wich have small hammer and other little equipment vials of acid that you can see what kind ore it is.

Ofcourse there could be abandoned mines around and where could be mining
cart what you can use carrying the ore out.

Then could use to Refine skill to furnace outside the mine and refine all the ore to bars and higher refine skill better quality bars. Once its lit you can then start to bellow air into furnace. If the temperature is hot enough the ore will melt in mold what you can cool down with water.
ofcourse you should have charcoal that you can lit the furnace.and that you could need log's,oil and burner.
but this is just my newbie idea.

[Loreen]

Another solution could be an added feature to the cave lore skill, by giving a hint wether or not the current spot has seen recent mining activity. Similarily the other lore skills could give a hint wether or not the area was recently searched for herbs.

[Urlyth]

I agree with what Loreen just said.

Sometimes I move about when mining and get disorientated where I have mined and not mined.

A command similar to the tracking where it shows recent activity would be a great feature like 'you think you could find minerals here , or you probably wont find minerals here, or no minerals left here. this could also be applied to herbing in the same way.

[lanyara]

Great idea indeed.

[luminier]

to help remember when i mined i usually just drop a pebble in the room i just "finished" mining in.

i consider something thats finished to be only yielding pebbles for around 30-45 seconds.

[Urlyth]

I use the same method especially in confusing areas. Its quite effective, unless you forget to pick them all up before you go there again

Doh! did I just leave that here recently or is it an old one?