thoughts on the new serpent spine mine

1.) Not enough nodes. Especially when having to deal with slimes and water elems constantly.
2.) Now it's too dark. I mean really why is the game so dark now lol Unity 5.5 artifact? lol

 

If the mine is significantly larger yet the number of nodes are the same, it does increase effort per ore node quite dramatically. I've not been there yet to see. As a tailor, I tend to need silver which is already frustratingly slow to acquire. I'm sure I'll have similar complaints after Verdantis and Elysium are uncloned.

 

Serpent's Spine mine is a lot of fun, but not so good for actual mining. If you whisper me in game I'll happily accompany you to Spectral mines.

 

OH NO...hope they leave Verdantis alone. OOOp sorry that wasnt the one i was thinking about. LOL. Verdantis is on the board for unclone. Hmmm I am so confused

 

I've come from another game currently in EA.
The mining and material gathering there is great.
Abundant, and the maps tell you where and what is in the area.
Players are left to get on with it.
I am not even a gatherer, but I came across the materials and so started collecting.
Before long I had recipes and manufactured my own starter gear, sold a bunch on the auction to other players as well.
The amount of players gathering and crafting was massive, I ran across many others doing the same thing everywhere.

Sadly not in Shroud of the Avatar.
The materials are so hard to get except for a small minority of well levelled players.
It is just another game mechanic that will cater to a select few.
I kept asking myself, how come in SoTa I don't see as many players, this other game was overflowing.
Simple answer..... I was having fun.

I want SoTa to succeed and have a large player base.
At the moment I feel SoTa is set for the very hardcore gamer, not the casual player.
That is fine, SoTa will have its own niche, just like the guy selling " Snail Paste " sandwiches.
The taste may not be for everyone, but someone will like it....... right?

 

Yes there is a lot about SOTA that really...makes me ask what is the reason to play?
Its grindy as hell I dont mind grindy but there needs to be a carrot at the end of the stick (and often there is a crafter ready to complain that they cant make a better carrot than the one that dropped)

None of the thing I normally enjoy (clearing zones, questing, even the end result of grinding) is "fun" right now, I spent all of yesterday trying to find fun in dungeons and went back to just grinding again.

I was willing to excuse all of this as "game in progress" but the closer we get to the "release" the more I wonder how much will actually change.

 

The music is too scary. I won't even be able to sleep tonight.

 

I had a lot of fun in the new mine, but as others have said... its not a great resource gathering scene. Actually the number of ore nodes is rather small for the space... but the number of crystal nodes seems good in many areas. As a solo adventure scene its pretty cool, but the easy death falling down the central shaft seems like its not a good party scene.

 

Dare I say it.
I actually had fun until I fell through the world.
I found 3 silver nodes, 4 Iron nodes, a bunch of slimes that gave me some gold coins, then I exploded a barrel and fell through the world.
It is a nice adventure area for a solo player mid level.

I suspect this is not a high yield mine, the environment is too hostile.
Water elementals are annoying I hate chasing things I made a promise that after my wife, she was the last chase.

I had a lot of fun here, mobs were green, it was perfect for me and the cart was hilarious.
Only negatives would be:

No gem stones, only fragments after 2 hours of mining, even from large crystals seems lame, boring.
Elementals only drop coins? Earth don't drop gems?
Cant run on cart rails ( fell through and died )
A lot of risk for very small returns, felt underwhelmed which eventually led to my boredom and leaving. ( water elementals are a real pain, spend 3 minutes chasing them for 10 gold...no thanks )

 

I feel bad they put in such time and effort to create a new mine that I will NEVER visit again. The only novelty was riding the cart, but I set aside that time to mine, not ride around. I don't mind fighting if the yields were as before. They should put this scene somewhere else for those who choose it, but give us back the clone.

I can only hope that this isn't part of a larger effort to effectively lock out relatively new players from crafting, so that the old hands have a monopoly.

If that isn't bad enough, I got stuck in a couple different places, the second time I had no choice but to let myself be killed by a slime.

I apologize to the developers, but if this is intentional, I have to say that it took a significant chunk of the fun out of the game for me.

 

I love the redesign... feels like a real mine now. Also, I felt that the current mine design was too easy to farm. A level 39 should not be able to farm a 5-skull or even 4-skull area with little to no consequence. That was me... 239 HPs melee able to farm a 5-skull at level 39.

Farm... barely kill one... run to entrance when overwhelmed. I did it... and it felt cheesy as fugg. There are plenty of other places for lowbies to get resources... I did for a long time, before I found cheesy.

The redesign is no issue for the character level it is designed for even with the slimes.

 

I think you just nailed it!

 

There is nothing to dislike about this zone except for the lack of ore.


Edit: ....and falling through the world.

 

Okay, I said I'd never go back, but I went back today to give it a fair shake. If you ride the cart to the next stop, it's an area with a few nodes and the worst to deal with are earth elementals. It wouldn't be bad with a decent node respawn, but even after killing everything nearby, after a certain point there was no node respawn.

Thus I came to the conclusion that farming iron in the foothills outside would give a much better yield per hour, not to mention no kobold stench. This is what I recommend to all who are just coming for the iron. The mine is definitely worth a look, but for serious mining just run around the foothills.

 

to the hills

 

You don't like bronze? That's what I use my copper for.

Is anyone in favor of balancing this on the back end, e.g. lowering the ore requirements?
1. Make smelting produce more ingots (preferably level based).
2. Make more quest/other options for advancing craft levels that do not require ore.