A miner adjustment

Inuad

So, it's been over a week now, and I think it might be good to have a discussion about the changes to mining. If it's not apparent from my last post, I think the changes are, honestly, awful. When they were first introduced, I mentioned to other people OOCly that the only thing this change will do is make people prospect more (possibly on rote, possibly pushing up on automation issues), and engage with the game less. So far, that has largely come to pass: numerous people have noted that they have prospected 20, 30, even 40 times in a RL day and found nothing, or only found coal and iron.

Worse, an unexpected consequence of these changes has been MASSIVE drops. Where we used to see lodes cluster over the course of a few IG days, we now see what seems like the entirety of a given commodity type appearing at one time. So instead of making things fairer, the changes seem to benefit whoever is lucky enough to find a new spawn and alert their city or friends that 'X commodity is appearing!' And (granted this is still a small sample size), but we seem to still be seeing a fair amount of these comm drops happening around the Serenade/US hours. Overall, the current changes seem detrimental to player engagement, and do not seem to address the underlying issue of eliminating the ability of groups of people to claim an entire spawn of stone or gems or <comm> for that IG year.

@Makarios I already sent you these suggestions, but I feel like it wouldn't hurt to put them out here for other people to see and offer feedback on.

1) Split commodity lode generation across multiple months. This seems like the best way to ensure 'fairness' and allow actual participation from a larger number of the player base.

2) Have lode generation skew more heavily towards smaller sizes. E.g. tiny - 5%, small lode - 40%, medium lode - 25%, large lode - 15%, huge lode - 10%, massive - 5% (adjusted further as necessary for comm type)

3) If 1 is not possible, have lodes generate at dawn like they previously did (and have the dawn that they generate be randomized).

EDIT:

If lode generation is skewed more heavily towards smaller sizes (aka more lodes and more mines), stone generation would need to be increased proportionally.

Ilsefi

Everything is just dumped in one go now, and always at or around Serenade. But where in the past those of us who live in the rest of the world had fair chances of finding good lodes during our waking hours, that has changed because nothing drops except iron and coal, and everything decent already dropped at Serenade, which means nothing else. Lode sizes have changed as well; one large ice lode as opposed to three small ones, one medium gems as opposed to three or even four small ones etc. Removing dawn drops means that for those of us who want to find a lode have to keep on prospecting until we find one, and thirty to forty prospect runs later we have to give up out of sheer exhaustion.

It's really soured the game for me. Mining was something I loved, and both Pleak and I spent/spend money on the game, but now we can't mine any more because it's either run forty times a day and find nothing, repeatedly, day after day, or just accept that every waking minute will be spent prospecting at the cost of absolutely everything else. I don't understand why dawn drops are such a bad thing. It's still competing to find lodes, prospecting in a disciplined fashion, and mining what you find. Why was this even changed? It's deeply ironic that a change that was projected as making it fairer for people has actually just ended up being massively unfair.

Svenson

I thought I would like mines appearing at all times of the day but I've found that it has made it more difficult for me to spend time in Achaea. I mine a lot (when I'm awake) and the morning bell to go out and prospect was nice to have so I knew when I was on the job... and when I could go out and do something like foray or hunt for essence. That being said I also like the idea of some random lodes popping up throughout the day... So the bulk would show up at dawn but if you prospect in the late afternoon it isn't a complete waste of time. I guess I want to have my cake and eat it too.

As far as the other points that Inuad brings up: I agree. Spread out lode generation across multiple months. Break up some of the more valuable/rare lodes into smaller sizes.

As a side note: I'm finding that it was easier to get people into mining when they knew you just needed to prospect at dawn... Now I think you need to just tell them to go all the time.. but they don't find anything over and over and decide mining isn't for them.

Postscript: Like I said before I thought I would like lodes popping at all times of the day but I don't. What I do like though is calories being burnt on trying to make mining better. So thanks to the appropriate folks for that.

Post-postscript: Ilsefi, I know I told you I would completely troll you on the boards but I just can't bring myself too. Sorry!

Andrayas

I don't understand the dawn comment. While lodes definitely spawned at dawn, they also spawned at at least 3 other points during an Achaean day.

The only two options that seem fair when it comes to lode spawns during an Achaean month are: 1. Make it completely random or 2. Weight it in line with the number of players online. (Having approx 70% of lodes spawn during the "dawn of the month" when the fewest number of players was online was advantageous for a few, but unfair for the rest). My understanding is that option 1 was taken which still gives an advantage to those who are awake when the fewest number players are. If it's not that way, maybe bug it?

In regard to lode spawns times within each Achaean day, I don't care, but I don't mind the current complete random way. I actually prospect less because now there is no possible way to have any idea when a lode will spawn.

I agree with the massive bunches of lodes that appear at a single time. I thought the plan as per the announce post was to really spread things out. An iron ore here, a couple coal there, a silver here, a gems there, etc. That way they were spawning more frequently and the chance of someone finding a lode or two when prospecting at any given time would be higher.

Inuad

By dawn, I mean the dawn of each day. So once every hour.

If the bunching of lodes is broken up, then randomly having lodes 'spawn' at dawn each day (chance to spawn ever RL hour) then more players who want to mine would have a shot at better lodes.

I've had mixed responses to the current completely random lode generation. Some are like you, prospecting less, or feeling less pressure about prospecting at a given time. Others feel more pressure to prospect more often to find good lodes.

I wouldn't mind a mix, where generation is weighted towards each day's dawn, but there is a chance for lodes appearing at any time. The biggest thing is just eliminating the clumping, as you suggested.