Serpent Spine Mines

While it can be shaped as a fun little area, do not forget: we have 6 (six) mines, and 4 (four) principal types of ore. We still need to mine. If you want to make an adventure area out of Serpent Spine Mines, please provide a replacement --- a functional mine.

Another thing that sticks out for me: artificially difficult ways to go to other underground areas. @ldykllr has mentioned that the entrance to Spindrift Pass is a one way. Why??? Just because it can be?

BTW, I found out how I missed the entrance to Spindrift Pass. It turned out that part of visible wooden deck that leads to it, is one-way too (breakable). I jumped and broke through it, and missed it. Next times I couldn't get there by jumping. Again, why??? What is the point?

PS: I gathered that pipes + valves = some puzzle. I like puzzles. First two times. Then it is not a puzzle, but a nuisance. I understand a puzzle in an adventure area: we have a lot of them, usually we do not visit them multiple times in a row, we can enjoy repeating a puzzle. But the same puzzle in a place we go constantly to mine? Out of 6 places total? Please rethink.

 

The descent down the vertical shaft is pretty awesome! The high level undead down there are really nasty, wish that area had a few more tunnels to explore and more ore nodes. Any thoughts on ore nodes with more durability in higher difficulty areas? They could be mined twice before breaking?

Also would like to see more standard ore nodes on the top level for lower level players.

 

@DarkStarr any feedback on the node spawns? Just curious if this is intended. Just checked out new build and didn't see any difference. Will go back and test more extensively later.

 

There will be as much iron ore as there was before.

 

Okay....I will keep checking back then Thank you for the feedback

 

Just for feedback for this thread, for build 478 I found 12 iron nodes and 2 silver nodes. This doesn't include the last two levels down, as I went to the first level down and found only 1 iron node, which discouraged me from going further. The iron was spread out across the first level with some up above accessible via the walkways. I can't remember how many nodes were in the mine normally (I may go back tomorrow on live and look) but with these spread out so much it greatly reduces efficiency. It almost feels like an artificial way to slow down mining yields, without explicitly doing so. I do like the number of citrine spawns, so I will visit this mine for that...but wouldn't mine here for ore.

I will check back if there is another patch tomorrow and see what it looks like then.

 

this. puzzles i am trying to figure out with those breakable wooden slats in the area means every time i figure out something doesn't work and want to try something else, i have to reset the scene. i am not having fun.

 

I'm on a hunt for the two chests mentioned.

 

can be done with one person with sprint and a potion of wolf speed.

 

Don't even need to that. Just start on the OTHER far side of the pressure plate (not on it) and then start running at the door by running OVER the plate, don't stop. By the time the door activates you will already be past the plate and almost to the door and can simply run through it when it opens. If you try to start running ON the plate the door will always close by the time you get there.

 

Oh! I am going to try this, thanks for the tips!

 

Definitely will try this out. Great tip.

 

Love the aesthetics of this place, a fantastic job truly, really has an amazing feel .
However if I'm honest, I'll probably never visit this scene after the initial novelty if it remains in its current state without drastic changes to the efficiency of the scene.

The direction we seem to be heading with "mines" is a shift toward even more fighting for even less ore. We've been seeing this shift for some time in the reduction of spawn rates and the addition of harder monsters to existing mines.
Its already impossible to share your mine instance with a friend, let alone a party, as the node respawn is not even adequate for a single miner.
Now we have Serpent Spine, which has a plethora of new dangers - traps, falling to one's death, etc. etc. This, combined with the high level monster spawns, and low experience nodes, make this probably one of the worst places to get ore to date. If its going to have "as much iron as it did before" - well, that's really not enough to make me come here. The "iron it had before" was, as with all mines, barely enough for a single miner to not have to stand around waiting for the spawn, and now that place is 10 times the size and far more dangerous.

Risk vs. Reward is what we keep hearing, so, if we're going to have flame traps and arrow traps and a million ways to die, and elite skeleton mobs and the rest of it, I'd expect this place to be packed with ore, I'd expect full experience nodes. In its current state other than the novelty factor, I can't think of any reason I'd mine here as opposed to elsewhere.

Sadly, my main "take away" from this is to get as much mining done as I can in the existing mines before they too follow this same pattern.

 

Like most people in this thread I love the look and feel of the place but in its current format I won't even consider mining there. As already stated the mine is 3 or 4 times bigger than the current Serpent spine mine so simply filling it with the same amount of nodes artificially slows down mining as you have longer to walk between nodes and as a result do more fighting between those nodes.

To give you some stats on the current set up of serpent spine:
48 iron nodes total guarded by 24 mobs.
17 of these nodes are in the very top entrance guarded by 4 kobold in an area not much bigger than a city deed lot
15 of them are in the very bottom room guarded by 5 earth elementals again in an area not much bigger than a city lot.

Even at this current set up you can get maybe 200-250 ore an hour and crafting takes thousands when you consider breakage on enchants / masterworks to get something that you actually want.

With the new serpent spine the initial "top room" is maybe 3 times the size of the whole current serpent spine and has (from what I found) roughly 15 ores in it guarded by water elementals, landslides, slimes, earth elementals, kobolds, death falls from broken pathways and a cart that always seems to arrive in time to knock you off the platform. That is without going down the main shaft itself where the mobs get harder, risk of death increases and the amount of ore gets less.

Personally I think the amount of the ore doesn't matter if its the same or not, it needs to be about dispersion of that ore. If you put 10 ores in 1 spot (about city deed size) and had 3-4 of these spots scattered around it would become a functional mine rather than a novelty as it seems to be at the moment.

 

Personally I'd be satisfied with a single room (say the size of the village mine basement) with a handful of nodes in as long as the ore respawn was fast enough that I'm not standing around (or tabbing out of the game) waiting.
While the new mine is fantastic aesthetically, mining efficiency due to the above (scoffer itemizes this nicely) is pretty poor. If I want to fight things, there's better places to do it - you go to the mine to kill rocks, not monsters!

 

Now I think I found all parts of the mine, and related puzzles. My thoughts at this moment:

1) Ore mining.

It is possible to mine some iron, but like @Scoffer and @kaeshiva have mentioned above, it is about density/concentration --- how many ore nodes per square unit. Right now in new Serpent Spine Mines the proportion of mining is much smaller than fighting and generally adventuring. It doesn't feel like a mine, more like an underground adventure area.

2) Transfer to other underground areas.

With working elevators, it is possible to transfer to different passes (+ sewers) in relative safety. No need to jump, or cliffhanging like I did the first time. Yet you should know very well where you go --- some walkways are one way only, and breakable. It means two things: a) in some places if you broke a walkway, you cannot get through it again in any direction, and b) some walkways can be traversed only in the right direction even the very first time.

In some places that breakable sections are harmless, and arguably can add some element of a fun. But in some places they require to reset the scene. I still don't get the idea of that, and think that they should be removed, and replaced with normal permanent sections.

3) High-level mobs.

These guys are pretty benign: they are located very far down, they require a puzzle to solve to get to them, they sit in their area and do not venture outside, they have some decent nodes to mine, but they are not mandatory for anything. On top of that I still don't know how to get to them safely --- the simplest way is to die, walk to their ankh, and got resurrected in their lair.

4) Regular mobs.

Compared to the old merry Serpent Spine Mines, they got upgraded. It is not terribly difficult, but imagine that we got old mobs, added to them all mobs from both passes to other areas, and put them into one more-or-less well-connected area, so they can travel freely. Now we have kobolds of all sorts, air and earth elementals, and slime (I hate slime). Kobolds are mostly at their stations, and the rest is mostly on the ground (main) floor, yet they can travel vertically without problems, and venture in "non-traditional" territories. Sometimes they fight each other, sometimes they gang up on you.

An interesting moment I've observed (I still don't know if it is a bug or not): decided that fighting a slime is not worth it, I climbed three stairs up from the main ground floor to the top of a kobold structure only to discover that the slime follows me without any problems. So I ran from one station to the other using mine cart rails, which have a couple sections breakable. Now I was 100% sure that nobody followed me there. To my surprise the slime followed me there not deterred by missing sections. After killing it, I went back, and, of course, fell through those broken sections. I guess I am not a slime to pull that off.

To sum it up: the biggest issue is the ore concentration, and the amount of non-core activity to do in the mine by necessity (e.g., longer distances to cover means more fights, and more "adventuring"). The rest can be braved.

 

There is a way to get down there without dying

Spoiler

There is an area off to the right (have to climb up the rocks) where there are various valves protected by mobs. You turn these valves and it will flood the the area and the pit below with water. You can jump into the water.

 

Spoiler

I actually discovered how to flood it. It took me two attempts --- the first time I didn't find the third platform with the valve due to general darkness. The second time I used Night Vision, and opened all three. Yet when I jumped down I died. Now I think I might brush something on my way down, like a breakable section. Thank you for the hint --- I'll try again, jumping more cleanly.

BTW, I still don't know how to get back from that area, but I guess I'll learn in due time.

 

I don't think there is a way up...if there is, I haven't found it yet either, don't feel bad. And yeah, you have to jump cleanly

 

The only back up is if you DON'T flood the chamber.
Under the water is a tube you can use to climb back out. Can't access it if you fill it though.