Verdantis Could Use Some Attention

So I mine in Verdantis a lot. Its a creative scene and has a lot going for it, and Im sure a lot of hard work went into uncloning it. For me, its very frustrating. In fact, I think Im done coming to this scene for a while.

I like the art, the scene is pretty cool - for a dungeon - but doesnt make much sense to me as a mine. There is very little ore here, in fact, so little ore it doesnt make sense given the attention one must devote to the mobs and terrain.

Its a decent place for exp - if youre low enough level, and know which rooms not to go into. THat is, this scene encourages me to not explore, to "play it safe," and only use one-two rooms ever.

The biggest problem I have is those lava areas that, to me, are nearly impossible to see, yet kill my avatar in 2-3 seconds. I dont even have enough time to react before I realize I stepped one pixel too far into an area that looks exactly like the safe part of the ground, except you die. I feel like my avatar is so dumb he cant even feel scorching hot lava a few inches away.

So here is what I think needs to be done:

1) Please remove the "lava" or "fire" areas that look exactly like the rest of the ground completely. If this cant be done, then make it look more like lava, not just normal ground with a red streak in the middle. I am quite certain my Avatar would be intelligent enough to feel the heat coming off of it, and not step on it. This ground is like 2-3 pixels away from stairs, and its extremely easy to walk into, even when purposely trying to avoid it. I always lose more exp than I gain in this dungeon ("mine") due to the lack of visual and other in-game indications that its actually lava, and not normal ground. The actual lava nearby is quite obvious, and as a result, I dont haphazardly walk into it.

2) Add some copper. There is barely any copper in here. I can run around the dungeon ("mine") and gather all the copper, then get bored waiting for it to respawn (usually dying because of reason #1 above).

3) Fix the elemental AI. I know this is an ongoing thing, but as posted before, its just like listening to the Benny Hill theme all the time, and doesnt feel like I am really fighting or engaging with something. The elves dont seem to have this problem. Fire elementals do barely any damage at all, and take massive damage from me, and they just fly around accomplishing nothing but prolonging the inevitable. Its not a challenge, its just a time sink. Itd almost be "more fun" if you just gave them a hideous amount of hit points and made it take 5 minutes to kill them (pls dont do that, its just better than running around aimlessly). Finally, combined with #1 above, I inevitably step one pixel too far into the invisible lava on the ground, and die in 2-3 seconds.

4) If this is a mine, then why is most of the artwork / physical elements in the scene devoted to castle/dungeon/underground city stuff? Sure, "game lore" and all that, but this isnt a mine. Its an underground city that has a couple of ore nodes here and there. The visual aspects are probably the least likely to change, but I just want to point out that nothing about this place seems like a mine, it just all feels like a post-hoc design, as though the whole scene was an afterthought from a JIRA that someone needed to get off their Sprint quickly. I know a lot of hard work went into implementing it, it is the design itself that I criticise. The only room that actually feels like a mine is the dreaded room with invisible lava and a bunch of wacky mobs that just run away a lot. The whole rest of the scene is a dungeon crawl, which is pretty cool if it were a dungeon.

I find this scene to be really frustrating, but I need the copper. I hope you have plans to iterate on the above and make this scene make a bit more sense. Also, why do all the elves have permanent night vision? ;-)

In the meantime, can anyone else recommend a place to me for a fair amount of copper? I cant keep up with the changes that happen around the world (which is a good thing in its own right!). I want more copper, but I have a miserable experience 100% of the time in Verdantis, and I actually loved this place before it was uncloned. Im sure there is a better mine somewhere that is copper-rich. Its odd to me that gold is far easier to acquire than copper!

 

I agree, Verdantis Mines is an adventure zone and not a good source for ore. Now, I really do like zone as a dungeon. It has some neat design and was fun to explore. But problem is, it's not that good for hunting monsters either. After exploring it a couple of times, there is no real reason to go back. I would rather go the a zone with a reasonable amount of at least one of: exp/gold/ore.

If you need copper, as far as I know Graff Gem Mines is the best. Etceter Crag Mines 3rd level and Hilt Fortress around Lich room has a bit, but not much.

 

Thanks, I live on the complete opposite side of the map from Graff Gem, so havent been there since before persistence. I just simply assumed it was all gems ;-). Ill mozy on over to ol' Drachvald and try mining there! I also recall getting creamed every time I go past the first level of Etceter, but I might actually be high enough adventurer level for that now.

 

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, when the updated mine was first released, damage from "lava" was so low that I thought of it as "hot springs". I think I recall getting some small damage from it (Oh. That's hot. Ow. Whatever.), then they cranked it up such that even good fire attunement wouldn't help. There's that one pit in Epitaph that I fell into once, couldn't die (damage wasn't more than my normal HP regen), couldn't get out before the lava patch. (Yes, I know it's not lava, but IIRC it gives fire damage.)

I'm going to have to agree with you, it's not visible enough if they are going to count it as full lava damage. I would be fine with it being the "old" damage amount from before the lava change.

I basically don't bother with mines any more and take whatever is in the outdoor adventuring scenes (but I'm not trying to craft gear), and I realized that my big problem is a lack of iron. Copper nodes (and even silver, which used to be hard to find until they gave in and started adding it) are all over the place in my usual places. Gold is a bit hard for me to find outside of mines too, except for some encounter scenes. It doesn't help that iron's VFX is harder to see unless you see the actual glow, since the other three ores have bright stripes.

 

Wow, I havent been in Graff Gem Mines in about 10 months or so (I think?). This place rules! This is what I call a mine!

Also, the changes to Vauban Pass are pretty cool too!

 

Yeah, Verdantis and Serpent Spine Mines both have the same problem - far too much chasing things around and far too little actual mining. In Verdantis over the course of an hour I actually got more shortbows than I got ore (cumulative). Its a cool scene for fighting in, but the constant breaking floors and trying to orient oneself climbing up and down the towers makes it difficult to come up with an efficient route or plan and I find I spend most of my time running through empty not-yet-respawned areas . There are a handful of nodes here and there, but very rarely will you get more than 1 or 2 in a single area, and a lot of fighting is necessary to clear these.

I agree with your suggestions, but would also add that a few extra corridors near the entrance which are resource rich - mining tunnel style would make the place a lot more viable for actual mining. Serpsnt Spine really could use the same thing. A player should be able to go mining and spend most of their time mining, not wandering aimlessly looking for a somewhat randomly placed ore node while fighting repeatedly respawning monsters. These new mine zones are simply so enormous that having the "same number of mining nodes" spread out into an area over 10 times as large that can't be easily traversed without dealing with obstacles, traps, homicidal mining carts, pitfalls, and elementals. ...(what is this obsession with elementals in every mine anyway?) I understand the need for the mining player to occasionally need to kill something to prevent botting and limit multi-boxing or whatever but there's no need whatsoever to make it something that must be chased all over the place, that's just unnecessary, and frustrating.

Its a shame, because a lot of hard work has gone into making these really cool looking new scenes that nobody bothers with after a cursory exploration. In reality, if I'm getting my pickaxe and preparing for the slog of mining another 2000 ore to try and actually craft something that doesn't explode ,I want to do it as efficiently as possible.

 

My general experience with any mine that's been "redone" is that it is no longer useful for mining. I hear they are going to inflict Spectral Mines with a rewrite next.