Mining Changes / Adjustments

Wanted to give some constructive feedback for mining since I think it could use a bit more polish, and from those I could talk to believe the same. I wanna start by saying the current system is really chill and relaxing, and it’s a lot better than the old system, but I think there’s a few more steps that need to be taken before it’s where it needs to be.

1: Material Value: The ore (Once processed) is worth far too little for it to be even remotely profitable. I’ve got a pretty fair amount of uncontested, target mining (Specifically targeting high value ore) and would be lucky to make $500.00 an hour. [This may be resolved in the future when some of these materials can be refined in a future update and crafted into things such as cut gems, or jewelry.] But the present value of the materials are honestly pitiful. I think it’s well and good to have different tiers of value for ore, but prices across the board should probably be doubled across the board in order to make this profession more appealing.

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2: Reputation Gains: I feel like this could be a bit less of a grind tbh, It appears you can only gain up to a maximum of 5 skill points, or ‘trust’ per category, per-storm. I feel like there should either be no cap, and just make it a bit more ‘rare’ to gain skill points, OR it should be increased significantly (Probably something like 10-15 points per storm.) Given that we have other systems in the new civilian update (Like fitness for example) that are virtually 'uncapped’ - just limited - I don’t see why mining skill / trust should be soo heavily limited.

Another possible / healthy alternative to this would be allowing the local foreman at the oil fields, provide a ‘daily’ task (Or task per storm) [Something random per-person per storm] where the foreman will request a certain type of ore like “Bring me 20 Silver Ore” and he’ll give you 5-10 skill / reputation in a random skill category you don’t have already maxed out. This could also potentially be made repeatable for smaller value gains.

This task could also be made to produce more RP in the server by including something like Coffee for the foreman as well, for example say have the foreman request “Bring me 20 Copper Ore, and 10 Italian Coffee.” That coffee obviously comes from Louies and is just an example. Doing something like this will create more RP and generate more money for businesses as well. (once again, something like this could be made repeatable, but I think just being able to do something like this once per storm would help provide a better sense of progression.) This task, or the following task I am suggesting below, could be done either through an extra dialogue option through the NPC itself.

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3: Reputation Losses: I think actions should have consequences, but I believe this system is honestly WAY too hardcore for the current system. Reputation is already really hard to get / build up. IF we’re going to try to keep this system in-place, I think there should at least be some form of recovery system in-place… We should able to regain lost progression, up to whatever your maximum may be / may be for that day; Or even something like being able to ‘bribe’ the local foreman at the oil fields (Such as giving him a large sum of cash to recover lost trust - say maybe $1,000.00 to recover all progression lost that storm, or a task / repeatable task where we turn in a large sum of a certain processed ore desired by the local prospector (Such as 40 Diamond Ore)

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3: Reputation Tracking: This one is pretty simple but, it would be really nice to be able to track our progression through an app on our phone instead of being forced to go to the foreman to check on your progression. (This could also be done through the F-1 menu akin to Fitness, but I think an app would be a better fit for this.)

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4: Ore Scarcity: During main storm, Davis Quartz is pretty heavily contested by both civilians, and gangs, making it pretty difficult even to just get some low value ore, not to mention higher value ore. It’s not a big secret that gangs need iron ore, for the sake of no meta I won’t get into much more than that here… However, it’s seemed to have created a pretty hostile / aggressive environment of monopolization of iron ore / high value ores - apparently this is especially prevalent during main-storm. (Apparently Staff increased the spawn rate of some nodes, which helped slightly, but didn’t change the monopolization going on.) Given it’s a ‘civilian update’ - it’s not like Civilians are going to ‘beef’ or start a fight with gangs who are harvesting the ore, as a result Civilians are just kind-of left over with low-value ore / whatever ore they can manage to acquire that’s not heavily contested.

My suggestion(s):

A: Increase nodes in the starting mining zone from 1 deposit, to 2-3 deposits of each ore. (This should help make it less hostile / contested if there’s more nodes to mine from instead of just 1.)

B: Create another low-tier mining zone for players to use. (Maybe the flat delta area near the dam, Senora Desert.) Just a few ideas for spots but, could really be anywhere that’s generally accessible so there’s less of an early-game bottleneck / arms race for ore.

C: Make it so any given node, can respawn as a different type of node (For example, if you mine Stone, a minute later the node can respawn as Silver.) [This will make it so everyone, is mining everything, and not just sitting camped at the iron node spawn and ‘claiming it’] {This I would say would be the least desirable of the 3 possible resolutions, since this could lead to unpredictability and frustration with bad node respawns.]

Appreciate the time to read. Feel free to comment with your own experiences, feedback and suggestions below for Mining!