Oil/Lithium claiming is a frustrating lottery

[Tiberius]

Right now claiming oil/Li nodes is just a lottery. Whoever is online and closest to the node just has to set a land claim on it, and it becomes permanently unavailable to anyone else. Destroying the node just draws another lottery ticket instead of allowing another player/group to use that node.

Some possible solutions:

Make new nodes spawn immediately after the destruction of an old one. Additionally, make the construction of a land claim within a certain distance of a node require 30 minutes or so to build; that way it becomes more of a "king of the hill" contested land type scenario, not just a luck of the draw thing.

Otherwise great game with lots of potential. I'd hate to see the game suffer because of cheesey game mechanics that are based purely on luck.

[ai_enabled]

Hello!

We appreciate your feedback and are considering the potential improvements.

Please note that currently the bombs are nerfed so exploding any claimed extraction spot is too expensive—not many players are willing to do so. When we restore the explosives balance (with adding PvE servers) it will be much more interesting. But you're right that claiming one is pure luck.

I will add just a few notes:

and it becomes permanently unavailable to anyone else

No, each deposit has a capacity which is reduced by itself within 12 days, but if actively extracted (24/7) it could drop to just 3 days only.

BTW, for the perspective, in the previous iterations of the game design for these resources spots, they were not even destructible and not depletable. Also, contesting them was (and still is) nearly impossible because of the land claim mechanic. And there were no public "towns" with free unclaimable spots, and Li was not mineable from salt minerals in the desert. It was much less fun than now...but we've listened to the players' feedback and improved it several times. We're still working on it, probably one more game design iteration and it will be perfect :-) .

Regards!

[Neoxion]

So, if people don't extract it, it can stay for 12 days? I see a lot of extractors and oil rigs not working, so they are just blocked for 10-12 days? Considering wipes every 4-5 weeks it's a long time to wait (25% of server lifetime resource is unavailable) - you will see more and more frustrated people, I saw people trying to build walls around the hill with public resources out of desperation. It should be changed to 2 days max and with a cap of resource for 2 days 24/7 extraction. Again - we have wipes and raiding doesn't exist - what's in a base is inaccessible (don't even say it is - we tried and c4 does no damage to STONE walls and 1 c4 costs more than an average player base), it's not an idle mobile game where people can wait progress forever. And I agree with king of the hill idea - it will also bring more cooperation. Seriously, 12 days is a horrible time for a monthly wiped game in a beta test, if you can change it without next big patch you should do it.

[ai_enabled]

@Neoxion, it will deplete within 3-5 days in average for the most players from our experience in the past few months in open alpha before the Steam EA release.
With Steam EA release we've nerfed the bombs 4 times (half the damage for double price) to take our time to work on PvE servers—so currently they're not economically viable to use against the most players...but this is a temporary measure.
BTW, right now C4 (primitive bomb) actually does damage the stone walls (aka T2 walls)—it takes 13 primitive bombs right now to destroy it.

I can assert that nobody will capture it and invest enough resources in defense just to keep it abandoned...owners will use it. Or other players will raid it as the bombs will have recovered (and probably even increased) power in the next major update (planned for early May together with PvE servers).

I understand the point about the resource contesting and we will consider the idea. But even current approach is pretty good (__if the bombs are not nerfed__) as it creates an interesting balance between offense & defense—investing too much or too little into defense doesn't make much sense, and keeping idle spots well-secured is making even less sense.

I saw people trying to build walls around the hill with public resources out of desperation

Yes, they've found an exploit in the current building restriction system which is not perfect and will be fixed with the next major update.

I agree that we should consider taking another iteration on the game design as the current system feels too random with the lucky player taking the resource first. But other than that it's pretty well-thought if you forgive us for the nerfed bombs :-)

Regards!

[Neoxion]

I was talking about t4 variation of a bomb, not just a primitive one. It takes 6 of them for a t2 wall, so now, based on your nerf description, I'm sceptical even about an unnerfed version of it. Please tell me what should be behind 5 layers of t3 defence that will make raiding viable? You already implemented safe storage - what else people need to make resource and base protection easier? There is no balance between offence and defence when it comes to raiding - offence blows (even unnerfed looks like it) and defence just wins without a doubt. Even pick bashing for 5 mins deals more damage to walls, so why do we need technology if we have steel pickaxes. From me and my ingame buddies - we cannot forgive you for the nerfed bombs, even though we know we can also be victims of them=)

[ai_enabled]

@Neoxion, T4 bombs? Do you mean "resonance bombs"? Right, they're the same as Modern bombs in terms of damage and defense penetration coefficient, but they have a very important difference—they're exploding like in bomberman—a cross-shaped damage propagation against walls and doors only (as written in the tooltip). 4 closest tiles to the bomb are damaged through dealing 100% damage, then if there is no free space it could damage through up to 7 tiles total (but the damage is reduced for every next tile after fourth). It's extremely effective against multilayered walls. Basically, you can 100% blow through 4-tiles thick walls (even if there is empty space between of them) like stone walls even now with just 6 of resonance bombs instead of dozens of modern bombs. When we will restore the previous balance, you will need only 3 such bombs for that case (thick stone wall)—and every one of them will cost half the price. So they're effective against higher tier walls too.

Please try CryoFall Editor https://steamcommunity.com/app/829590/discussions/5/1812044473314225973/ to check how all the stuff works :-).

Regards!

[Tiberius]

The node does become permanently unavailable once

Originally posted by ai_enabled:

Hello!

We appreciate your feedback and are considering the potential improvements.

Please note that currently the bombs are nerfed so exploding any claimed extraction spot is too expensive—not many players are willing to do so. When we restore the explosives balance (with adding PvE servers) it will be much more interesting. But you're right that claiming one is pure luck.

I will add just a few notes:

and it becomes permanently unavailable to anyone else

No, each deposit has a capacity which is reduced by itself within 12 days, but if actively extracted (24/7) it could drop to just 3 days only.

It is still permanently unavailable once another player or group puts an extractor down, since destroying the extractor destroys the node as well.

[Tiberius]

Ooooh- How about this - it should be easy to implelent and solve most of these problems:

What if destroying an extractor does NOT destroy the node, but instead destroys any land claims that are covering it?

[Tiberius]

Another option would be to have two types of land claims: conventional land claims (which cannot be built over a node), and resource land claims can be built over a node but are destructible and are lost immediately when destroyed.

Either of the above suggestions would eliminate the main problem, which is that there is little incentive do destroy someone else's extractor since doing so does not make it available to another player. (The resulting node spawn in several hours is not enough incentive, since that is still a lottery for who can claim it)

[Neoxion]

Just surround the node with 4 bases and you are done - people will just camp these nodes, not an option. Current mechanic is OK, just smth needs to be done with timers and easy capturing.

[Borthol1224]

im loving this game but people are greedy with the lithium nodes n i cant just find one its killing the game for me its sad that the devs trhing thats the way to go when people are selfish n want all the nodes for themselves this need to be fix its shame

[Borthol1224]

also people can build a huge base where all the mining nodes spawn blocking the nodes its sad n kind of stupid that u can just build a bse on every mining spot n just troll the whole server sad cuz i love this game i have almost 30 hours n more to come but pls fix this

[BanditWarBoss]

+1

[Neoxion]

The idea of fighting for rare resources in a PVP game is good, but it is implemented in a bad way. Huge timers and respawn waiting time, and of course inability just to blow everything up. I hope when PVE servers come, bombs and claim system will be reworked. In my opinion bombs should just one-shot walls 2 tiers below ( t3 - wood, t4 - stone) and claim must die immediately without timers releasing safe storage. PVP must be reworked to an actual PVP and all complainers can just go to PVE server.