Rare Minerals
Printed From: Illyriad
Category: Miscellaneous
Forum Name: Suggestions & Game Enhancements
Forum Description: Got a great idea? A feature you'd like to see? Share it here!
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=5137
Printed Date: 17 Apr 2022 at 02:40
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.03 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Rare Minerals
Posted By: Epidemic
Subject: Rare Minerals
Date Posted: 07 Jun 2013 at 18:13
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I'd like to see rare mines being able to be depleted and moved randomly elsewhere on the map. The reason I say this is because I see valuable mines, with sov claims or occupying armies, rarely being harvested. This is an abuse that needs to be fixed. It can be implemented several different ways. If a mine is rarely used move it, spread out the mines so a few players can't control one mineral, limit how far from a town that sov can be claimed, etc... I'm sure someone is going to comment 'Well just go and take the mine from them'. Game mechanics, alt accounts and politics makes that almost impossible. |
Replies:
Posted By: DeathDealer89
Date Posted: 07 Jun 2013 at 19:10
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How is that abuse that the devs need to fix? If you see someone who has a mine and doesn't use it, and you think the mine should be used then take it from them. No no game mechanics, alt accounts, and politics don't make that impossible. Besides devs don't have any affect on politics, or if someone has an alt account. Stop trying to have the devs fix all your 'problems' and fix them yourself. A great example is the general newb friendly environment of the various players.
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Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 07 Jun 2013 at 20:10
Not sure if the newb friendly environment is an example of a problem that needs fixing or a fix to a potential problem there, DD89. |
Posted By: Sir Bradly
Date Posted: 07 Jun 2013 at 20:31
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Whenever the magic release happens these rare mines will become very active. The very rare items will be quite valuable and some territorial wars will likely happen. I imagine some alliance will be open to sharing, while others will not. Epi, I guess you should ask them. You never know if they will let you harvest or not.
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Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 07 Jun 2013 at 20:40
| Perhaps you might contact them and offer a harvesting arrangement. That has worked for me in the past. If the owner really wants to constrict supply by hoarding or not mining, you can't really stop them. But moving mines randomly doesn't seem very realistic, and the friction caused by ownership is desirable. |
Posted By: Epidemic
Date Posted: 07 Jun 2013 at 21:00
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I have to disagree with you DeathDealer. Game mechanics, alts and alliance politics play a huge role in this game. If I decide 1 player doesn't need to hoard 7 Arterium mines or 3 Obsidian mines and I try to do something about it i'll have everybody in the alliance, their alts and their uncles knocking at my door. Game mechanics makes it take 1000 years to build up 10 towns and 2 days to destroy them... I'm sure someone will read my statement and say 'stop whining' or some other derogatory remark that has to do with their perception of words on a screen and nothing to do with a statement I made to a feature that I think is hurting the game. |
Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 07 Jun 2013 at 21:27
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To be honest, I wouldn't want the feature changed. It presently gives an advantage to diplomatic players like myself. =P The big players who grant me access to their rare resources are all very nice people. If you are building a harvesting focused town that will produce lots of rare material, they are usually willing to take a cut of the proceeds, accept crafted items, or just let you keep everything you harvest. Arterium mines are big. If you want it, contact the player and propose to build a mining camp that can collect the full 500 units in one shot (or as much as possible). People generally don't turn down free money. |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 01:17
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Epi, I think this would make more sense if crafted equipment that required mineral input played a more meaningful role in overall strategies. As it is, crafting equipment with rare minerals usually requires another input that is even more constrained, that respawns randomly and that cannot be effectively "claimed" by any single player or alliance. I speak of course of elemental salts. Having a mix of stationary and persistent and mobile and transitory resources can make the game more interesting. That said, I do think it would be more interesting if some rare resources moved around a bit more. Perhaps if herbs for example reset once a week? I can see where this would be highly annoying to some people who set up their city for specific production, but at the same time I think harvesting somewhat lacks an element of spontaneity and whimsy. It would be fun to wake up each morning (or at least once a week) with the question "I wonder what I'll find outside my city today." Even if there were just random treasure troves that could be collected with cotters that appeared every so often and people scrambled to collect them before they disappeared, I think it would be sort of fun. One could argue that this would make the game too "easy" or be too "random," but I personally think that harvesting as it is currently configured tends to feel an awful lot like having a job -- doing the same thing day after day for the same results. The solution is "just don't harvest," which is what many have chosen. But would there be a way to put a little more fun into it? I think spontaneous generation of transitory resources would add at least some element of fun. People could choose whether or not to participate.
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Posted By: Llyr
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 01:42
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I focus on harvesting with both of my accounts. The only useful mineral I have ready access to is iceheart, but there are lots of iceheart mines around. I have a trade deal with another player where I supply him with earth salts (common around my towns) and he provides silversteel, at what I consider to be an extremely generous ratio. I've never bothered with arterium or obsidian; arterium would certainly be nice but I don't miss not having it, and obsidian is currently useless. If I really wanted either of them I'm sure I could work out another private trade arrangement. None of the other minerals currently have any use at all.
I've given the same answer occasionally in GC to the same complaint: stop thinking that every player has any "right" to each and every rare resource. The whole point of the trade module is to trade. Harvest what you have access to, and trade it for what you don't. And yes, "politics" plays a huge role in all aspects of this game; generally players reap what they sow. A cooperative attitude fosters cooperation. A belligerent attitude fosters belligerence. Either attitude may be appropriate depending on circumstances. But politics is just the art of convincing other people to freely give you what you want, and leave them thinking it was their idea in the first place.
------------- http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/a/p/187558" rel="nofollow">  |
Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 02:54
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I agree, Llyr. I have enjoyed trading for rare resources. Rill, there are already mobile rare resources in the form of NPCs. Mines and herbs provide some stability, and given the commitment necessary to harvest at scale, I think that's fair. I'm fielding 171 miners in one town, 14 cotters in a second, and 90 herbalists in another. That isn't feasible if the resource vanishes out from under your ownership. There are already mobile herbs like desert flame and snow bells for quickdraw herbalists. |
Posted By: DeathDealer89
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 03:19
It was an example of a problem that the players fixed rather than whining to the devs. But you probably already knew that
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Rill wrote:Posted By: DeathDealer89
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 03:28
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I would say harvesting is already plenty 'click happy' there is no need to make it impossible to tell where you will harvest next. Even if it was to change, saying other players are better at playing the game than you is no reason to change the game.
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Posted By: Sir Bradly
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 03:33
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You have to focus what you have in abundance near your cities. I have no mines and no real good rare herbs either. However, I have lots of NPC's. So I harvest hides and send them to centrum. The proceeds are used to buy the items that are not near me. Pretty simple. I have a pretty diverse and deep collection of rare items. 99% of the items were purchased.
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Posted By: Epidemic
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 03:59
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I understand the idea of hoarding, price gouging and setting the market and I know it's pretty easy to do that in this game with some T3 items while the markets are still somewhat stagnant. I'm trying to make suggestions that'll partially eliminate them and help out in the short term and long term. Most of the T3 items in my inventory came from side deals or the market. |
Posted By: DeathDealer89
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 04:52
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Except that some of these resources were made so that a player could get a monopoly on them if they wanted. Why would would the devs put only a couple high yield mines of silversteel in the game, if they wanted everyone to be able to grab it whenever they wanted? They said themselves the point of crafting/T3 was to cause 'friction' You want to go and remove exactly what they intended.
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Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 04:55
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I personally believe that hoarding will lead to a huge price crash in the future. In most cases, the limitation on crafted item production isn't the rare materials. It's the production capacity, because the crafting buildings accelerate production on a much slower curve than standard items (2% vs. 4.5%). Sure, you can specialize to speed things up, but then you've eliminated capacity for all other item types. I've seen several attempts to corner the market. To date, all have failed. There's simply too much commodity volume on the sidelines, and too much new material flowing in. The only thing that I think has been effectively cornered is Silversteel, because there are only 5 known mines. But if the owners dumped their SS output into the market, the crafting would immediately hit a limitation in fire and earth salts. Also, I think price gouging, hoarding and market manipulation are great fun. We aren't allowed to do that in the real world. If it can be accomplished in a video game, I think that's kinda cool. |
Posted By: Epidemic
Date Posted: 08 Jun 2013 at 06:04
I excel at price gouging, hoarding and market manipulation...  I just didn't want to have to explore that here. |
Posted By: DDL
Date Posted: 12 May 2014 at 14:09
So you want the DEVS to set the game up for you and YOU only? Who cares about players that are in alliances, their alts and their uncles? Sounds pretty selfish to me.
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Posted By: Epidemic
Date Posted: 12 May 2014 at 19:56
You've got way too much time on your hands if you went that far back in the forums to open a dead thread to try trolling me. I would say you should actually reread what I said, but I know trolls only half-read and interpret everything the way they want to interpret it.  |
Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 12 May 2014 at 22:28
| Thread necromancy aside, I'd note that my prediction about Silversteel came true. Massive price crash. |
Posted By: Arctic55
Date Posted: 12 May 2014 at 22:42
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yep, I think we all saw it coming. ------------- I'm pressed but not crushed. Persecuted but not abandoned. Struck down but not destroyed. |
Posted By: Angrim
Date Posted: 12 May 2014 at 23:42
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Epidemic's suggestion is still a good idea. unless the mine is magical, it has a finite amount of ore or gemstone that can be drawn from it. once a mine is emptied, it could be reseeded much as herbs are. i would especially enjoy it if the discovery of the new mine (or for that matter, new herb) were made through the quest system, which is quite underused. |
Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 13 May 2014 at 00:32
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Isn't the quest system supposed to get 100x better with factions? I kind of like major mines being static. It gives alliances a reason to exercise zones of control over valuable resources (value being real or perceived). |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 13 May 2014 at 00:34
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I'm in favor of some "re-seeding" of rare minerals and herbs from time to time (other than the current mechanics for rare herb exhaustion). However, I don't think implementation through the quest system makes a lot of sense, since minerals and herbs have specific geographic distributions and rarity that is intentional. It seems like having them controlled by something players either do or don't do like quests would have the potential to disrupt this (presumably planned) distribution. And it would not do you much good if a quest led you to a really rare mineral parked 1000 squares away next to someone else's city. It seems like it's one of those things that sounds good but might not work out that well in practice, unless I'm misunderstanding Angrim's suggestion.
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Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 13 May 2014 at 01:35
| It wouldn't be unrealistic for quests to represent re-prospecting mines. After all, a square can hold millions of troops or an entire city. |
Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 13 May 2014 at 02:08
| My quibble isn't with the realism of questing for mines; it has to do with maintaining the distribution and scarcity of resources. So for example, if it worked so you had quests that prospected for mines and herbs that maintained appropriate geography and scarcity, I'd be all for that. But by the same token that would imply that some mines or herbs would need to "run out" eventually, or else the entire map would just be covered with rare herbs and minerals over time. As I've said before, I'm supportive of the idea of rare herbs or mines running out, but I'm not sure other players would agree. |
Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 13 May 2014 at 04:06
| In a prospecting model, I would fully support mines having a fixed amount, and that doesn't get renewed. |