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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Miner Mini-Games?
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Nomistrav
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2012-03-16 12:40:51 UTC
First of all, Guidelines:

Please do not just post "no" or "-1". Explain why, ask questions, propose ideas.
Please do not just post "yes" or "+1". Explain why, ask questions, propose ideas.
Please do not make mention of the thread/discussion being previously brought up without becoming part of it. I'm sure this has been previously proposed; though if it were I am not aware of such.

This is a discussion being started in regards to an idea toward making Mining more intuitive, potentially more entertaining, as well as a proposal to assist in the War on Bots through the implementation of Mini-games during the mining of asteroids/ice etc. So here is what I have to ask the player community concerning the topic.

Do you feel that Mining needs a bit more immersion beyond activating the lasers/strip miners?
Do you think that it would help or hurt the way Miners perform their duties?
In what ways would this affect a player's interaction with Industry, if at all?
Should it be something simple (matching color schemes), something that requires moderate thought (sudoku-like), or something more complex and involving?
Should it affect the duration(s) of a Miner's mining modules?
Do you feel that it would honestly make a difference in the War on Bots?

"As long as space endures,

as long as sentient beings exist,

until then, may I too remain

and dispel the miseries of the world."

~ Vremaja Idama
Velicitia
XS Tech
#2 - 2012-03-16 12:56:10 UTC
1. no, not unless it doesn't completely deny afk or semi afk mining.
2. see 1
3. Mining =/= industry. They're intertwined, but not the same.
4. These three ideas won't fix mining. Bots can already do this stuff as well as (if not better than) humans.
5. Leadership skills already do this.
6. lol, no.

However, there are numerous "fix mining" threads with these same ideas (or at least very similar ideas) on the first page or three of this section.

As such, the best idea so far for "fixing" mining is making belts overly hostile environments (as opposed to how they are now). Exhumers/Barges (and to a lesser extent, the mining cruisers/frigs, and industrials) have a role bonus that allows them to mostly ignore the damage (think the gas clouds that damage your ship in some missions and the like); whereas vessels not tweaked for this environment (Rifter, Thrasher, Thorax, Talos, Tornado, Mael, Apoc, etc) will be hard-pressed to target mining vessels, and withstand the micro-asteroids and whatever else is slamming into the shields.

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Momoyo
Rivinshield Trading Inc.
#3 - 2012-03-16 13:25:09 UTC
Mini-games dont sound fun for mining. I like the idea of removing belts all together and instead having multiple easy to scan grav sites (better belts being harder to scan).
FloppieTheBanjoClown
Arcana Imperii Ltd.
#4 - 2012-03-16 13:30:29 UTC
Get rid of belts, move all ore into grav sites. Update the mining barges and exhumers with a probe launcher slot and introduce a low-skill specialized probe that can only detect gravimetric signatures. This will at least force bot operators to scan down sites before their bots can function.

Beyond that, I don't see where any sort of "minigame" would make sense. Any sort of puzzle solving will feel forced and I don't see where it would do anything but annoy real miners once the botters figured out a way around it.

Founding member of the Belligerent Undesirables movement.
Nomistrav
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-03-16 13:34:40 UTC
Some very helpful responses. Now where's the pesky button to delete the thread as it's now been rendered useless to a superior alternative =P

In all seriousness, I'm a combat pilot. I've tinkered with mining but I posted this up after reading the "war on bots" segment of E-ON.

Thanks!

"As long as space endures,

as long as sentient beings exist,

until then, may I too remain

and dispel the miseries of the world."

~ Vremaja Idama
Billy Kidd
Breaking Plaid
#6 - 2012-03-16 15:00:40 UTC
First of all, any changes to mining should be an addition to the current system instead of a complete overhaul. Mining as a semi-afk activity actually suits many people as a way to play EVE even if they can't 100% attention to the game. What's missing however, is a way to make mining more interactive for the people who can pay 100% attention.

In terms of minigames, it's not hard to find out what types of games are popular today. Flash games and apps like angry birds, tower defense, and puzzle games have a huge following and for good reason - they're addictive as hell. Considering how simplistic these games are, it wouldn't be too difficult to incorporate a variety of them into an "active mining" mode that would potentially double or triple your ore output.

Yes, implementing a gallery (or even updating gallery) of simple, addictive games into mining would break immersion a little, but I tend to play these games anyway while I'm mining. Why not make it so I earn extra isk instead of just a high score?
Simi Kusoni
HelloKittyFanclub
#7 - 2012-03-16 15:12:39 UTC
Well, it doesn't really "break" immersion. The concept of image based mini games quietly takes immersion out the back, shoots it in the head and urinates on the corpse.

Other than that, this is Eve, people obsessively min/max. If you say "ok you can still do it the old semi-afk way, but we'll earn more", they'll feel obliged to compete. Not to mention the fact that they'd have to, because you'd be saturating the market with double the amount of minerals as them.

[center]"I don't troll, I just give overly blunt responses that annoy people who are wrong but don't want to admit it. It's not my fault that people have sensitive feelings"  -MXZF[/center]
FloppieTheBanjoClown
Arcana Imperii Ltd.
#8 - 2012-03-16 15:22:59 UTC
Here's a thought: move from the "hundreds of small rocks" to having a handful of large asteroids and implement a PI-style interface (preferably in a window, not forced full-screen) where you scan for ore concentrations and get higher yields based on where you target your strip miners. Attentive miners would get the best yeilds, afk miners who checked back from time to time would follow after that and bots would get the worst, mining essentially at random--assuming they can't find a way to run that interface with a bot.

So if we did away with belts and moved all ores into grav sites, you could have miners scan down sites such as "Massive Veldspar Asteroid". They would arrive at the asteroid, run a survey scan on it, and target their miners on areas with the highest concentrations of ore. As those areas are depleted, they would rescan the surface and locate additional ore hotspots until the rock was depleted or their yield fell below what they would consider acceptable.

A bot could still be given bookmarks to various asteroids and spend all day doing low-yield mining, but their production could be reduced and the advantage would be given to those who do actual work.

Founding member of the Belligerent Undesirables movement.
Shobon Welp
GoonFleet
Band of Brothers
#9 - 2012-03-16 19:52:11 UTC
Mining 2.0 should be to regular mining what incursions are to belt-ratting: a more lucrative, more interactive, more co-operative alternative.