Gem mining - easy fix

Suggestions
22

I JUST had this discussion with my wife. I’m not sure the trend of developers listening so closely to the community has been the greatest thing for gaming. It has its merits, but “back in my day”, games were released and we just played them. No one to complain to, or make demands of, or threaten. You either played the game and enjoyed it, or you didn’t.

So, I guess I’m a bit on the fence concerning “player feedback”. On the one hand, it could indeed help shape a game. On the other, it may compromise the development direction of a studio’s vision. While I have no doubt studios want our money, they don’t owe us anything. Sure, we can vote with our wallets. I’m just not sure the small, vocal community should really dictate anything.

9 Likes
23

i love gem mining — pls dont change anything (except update regen, introduce new planets maybe)
lol still got my stack of refined diamonds lying around somewhere untouched x3

i am really really happy that bomb mining got nerfed due to the horrible bomb holes on gem planets.

btw u can use tunnels of other people to ur advantage: just drill 1 block wide explorative shafts into the walls of ur predecessor and with only minor effort u can prospect a huge area of untouched ground

3 Likes
24

Who says it’s down? The game seems more crowded than ever.

1 Like
25

I’m so sorry @james ! We will put the blocks back!

2 Likes
26

The steam charts show smaller peaks. So is that fewer players or players playing less? Probably a combination. I do not think the game is dying. It is probably normal for games to lose some players after start or for players to play less after the initial euphoria.

I saw some other charts that had ps4 and pc players but I cannot find that link.

27

Have to imagine pc is always going to be a much smaller piece of the pie than compared to console. No real hard data, though, sonce Sony refuses to make tracking data public.

28

I need to find this other website it gives totals of all players on all planets at a point in time. If I can I will pm you the address.

Edit I think it uses an in game api so is not dependent on Sony.

1 Like
29

I’m okay with gems being scarce as a resource spawn. However i’m not okay with it being scarce because people mined it before me. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I don’t and they’re gone, giving 0 fun in the mining process. So more planets with gems would be great, but keep the spawns itself as rare as they are.
(and I find the gem mining totally rewarding and fun when the gems spawn as intended, I should add that, just to point out that it’s pretty much a problem of player amount vs. planet availability. We’re running out of room already!)

30

Roughly like I said in this thread?

31

Ah, but ‘back in our day’, games were actually released finished, and once it was released, the developer was already moving on to the next thing. There was no scope for voicing your opinion, getting things changed and for client feedback. You’d rarely even get post-release patches cause, you know, no internet reliance.

I’m all for game developers having a vision for the game that they are producing, and clearly describing that vision so that players can chose whether the game will be right for them before purchase.

I also don’t believe a large proportion of gamers can differentiate between ‘What I want’ and ‘What would make the game actually better for the most people’, and so our opinions should absolutely be taken lightly.

But this is a game that is most definitely incomplete. The vision and description for the game are ‘muddy’ at best (I mean come on, the closest official description of it’s playstyle I can find anywhere is ‘voxel sandbox MMO’, and that doesn’t in any way hint at survival elements, or which features of classic sandbox and MMO games are present and which aren’t). Most importantly, the goal posts have already changed since launch and the game arguably is already more grindy than it was.

People really should be expressing their concerns because developers need to know where people commonly think their game is failing. Then they can fix the game, or fix the expectations people have of it with official statements about intent and development direction. The last thing anyone wants if for Wonderstruck to become yet another game company that nobody trusts to deliver what people thought they were promising.

As to the topic. I think given that new planets aren’t going to be rapidly forthcoming, I’d have to agree with the suggestion that gems could be made more accessible to more players by making them spawn potentially anywhere.

1 Like
32

http://boundless.ninja ?

I usually see about 8-900 players if I check during the day, 4-500 during the early morning

1 Like
33

How would players know when last a chunk was edited? Or how many blocks were removed? Because these both affect regen afaik. Would be very interested if you know this

34

This is total unsubstantiated rubbish.

30 Likes
35

Simple, finding the edge of the chunk, then replacing 2 blocks with unatural ones. First is to check Regen. Such as if it’s a desert area filled with Ash, remove one block of ash and placing a soil or clay block instead. Second to check for Players, such as placing a refine gleam block down as well.

If you come back and the two blocks are still there, the terrain hasn’t regen. If only the Refine Gleam block is missing, or a few new mined holes in the area, another player has come by. And finally if both blocks are replaced by the original ash blocks, it means the area has Regen’d.

Do that enough times, recording the time you place the blocks, and each time you check back in an hour, taking in when another player seemingly visited as well, you can get a relitively accurate timetable of when the world Regens. Without even needing to access any game codes.

After finding a very close time frame of when the world Regens, (I think it’s 4 hours), you can estimate when to come back to mine again and again.

Sadly, this doesn’t solve what you pointed out, that Regen isn’t like Spawning mobs in an MMORPG, where it’s instant. The Regen is slow, and poorly designed. It should have a timer ticking down when players aren’t in the area. Then when it hits 0, EVERYTHING in the area should respawn instantly.

If it’s slowly Regen like it is now, Where Rocks fill in the wholes quickly, but Resources take much longer and keep stopping while people are in the area, People just keep coming back to the refilled holes looking for resources that aren’t there. Constantly slowing the resource regen down more and more.

I believe one of the devs even mentioned there was like 5 millions blocks queued to be Regen’d across the whole game, and I’m willing to bet, a lot of them are resources, and more than that, that a lot of them are gems and resources from the lvl 5 and 6 worlds. That is my guess, based on a lot of people making threads about going to search for gems but finding nothing even after a few hours of looking.

Can you really blame me for thinking that? You Removed Bomb Mining, because it was making the game too easy and people were getting many more resources than you wanted them to. Now they have to grind more with hammers instead.

Then you made many changes to Recipies, not to make them better, more fair, or to help the game. But because you saw that some people weren’t using some items and wanted to force people to use them. And instead of making those items used on a new unique recipie, you made them required for an item a lot of people were making a lot of, to slow them down and force them to grind more resources to do what they were already doing a lot of.

Each update is making the game more harder, requiring people to gather more resources in much harder ways.

It looks like you guys are just making the game more grindy, just to slow people down from hitting end game, not to balance the game or make it more fun.

36

i actually blame u for thinking that because taking every tweak and change in this game as a major personal offense is just cancerous.
Everyone gets that some stuff doesnt meet ur expectation but u dont have to accuse the devs of evil intent >.<

5 Likes
37

But I don’t do that. I just see the pattern. While there have been amazing bugs and stability fixes to help make the game run smoother. All the actual ‘Content’ changes have been negative. More work for players, making simple recipies more harder to complete, nerfing a feature that while indeed was a bug being exploited, no player knew was actually a bug and turned it into another way of playing the game.

I keep pointing out, but they could have created NEW content, and POSITIVE changes instead of negative ones.

Such as Bomb Mining. They could have nerf’d bombs like normal, but then add in a new mining bombs that work like and are on part with Hammers, and crafted nearly the same, if not a little harder. Rebalancing it, while bringing in an actual new tool people can use for mining, that was just a different flavor than hammers, but still on par with them.

And with Mud and Ash use, they could have created new decoration blocks with new textures which needed Ash and Mud, or one for each resource. Or could add them to the extractor and be able to extract a useful new resource from enough Ash and Mud. Such as Clay from Mud, and Peaty Soil from Ash. A new use for them, that didn’t force people to grind for them to do what they were already doing before.

There are many creative ways to go about it, and make the changes into positive changes, without even needing to create new assets for the game.

But instead, Bomb Mining got nerfed into the ground, and entire playstyles and builds were instantly destroyed. And Mud and Ash were added to an existing Recipie and forcing people to grind more to keep making those recipies for their builds.

38

next patch will come with new changes and new recipes. Theres no reason to have the bombs doing exactly the same as a hammer. Just make a hammer for this purpose

3 Likes
39

You also don’t need multiple colors for blocks, make them all 1 color, nor 3 different kinds of rock and wood, just Wood and Rock, no need for the other 2 versions. They all the same.

You don’t even need multiple weapons, just have fists. Heck, by your logic, you don’t even need multiple tools, just use the totem for all your gathering needs.

Nor do you need Multiple Coils, or even the concept of Advance coils either too, right? I mean they all do the exact same thing, why forced to have more of them and different versions that all do the exact same thing?

40

why shouldnt u need blocks of different color? would look boring, wouldnt it?
and the fist is an explorer weapon… and has lower range and speed than ur slingbow. everything has a purpose.

41

Mining with a Hammer can look very boring too. You swing, and you get a block, then you move and repeat. Pretty boring. With a bomb, it’s much more exciting, loud, and explosive. It’s the same thing, but a different ‘color’, a different ‘flavor’.