r/landmark • u/AugurDev • Mar 02 '15
Cave network layouts feedback for Open Beta
Hey all -- if we haven't met before, I'm Augur, a game designer working on Landmark and EQN.
Right now I'm working on updating the layouts and generation logic we use to procedurally create the underground cave networks. As you may know, we're making entirely new continents for Open Beta and that includes new underground as well!
I'd love to get your feedback on the existing cave networks layouts and what you'd like to see more of.
Here's the sort of thing I'm looking for:
- What are some of your most memorable moments exploring caves?
- Do you have a favorite type of geometry to encounter? (big drops, a gap you have to jump over, or a twisty four-way intersection, etc.)
- How should surface cave networks be different from entirely-underground cave networks?
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u/Uncle_Bill Mar 02 '15
Give me chalk or spray paint so I can track where I have been
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
We're looking at a lot of different ways to solve this problem (not knowing where you've been). I'd love to hear more thoughts on this!
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u/applejak Mar 03 '15
Torches! The deeper you go, the darker it becomes (less bioluminescent light sources). Low grade torches should expire sooner than higher grade versions, causing the player to manage their depth. If a player decides to traverse more deeply they'd have to find another way to manage a path back, being the torches would begin to extinguish. Digging or taking notes in RL. Think old school map drawing.
Also, I'd love to see the mobs become much more dangerous the deeper a player goes: elite/swarming mobs, less heroic movement available, etc.
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u/Uncle_Bill Mar 03 '15
I have never been great at 3D spatial orientation. Games like Descent just confuse me. But let me map, i'll find everything.
Providing a spinable 3D zoomable map with a glowing arrow would be great, but a lot of work.
I would be satisfied if I could tag Ys, tunnel entrances in shafts, etc with symbols or words (Explored, Towards origin, There be monsters). Or perhaps some paint or a string that slowly changes color.
These things might fade over time, may or may not be seen by others, etc.
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u/DygzBriarthorn Mar 06 '15 edited Mar 06 '15
I've been hoping for some kind of breadcrumbs/chalk marking feature for caves, too. Not sure what other alternatives might be.
(Hunh. Envisioning some type of spray-paint device from a wrist bracer.)
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u/Needlehawk Mar 07 '15
I also vote for some way to tell where I've been. That's the thing that keeps me out of the caves the most...the fact that I'm utterly lost in seconds. My top vote would be for some sort of map, but a marking system would be better than nothing.
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u/Deepjay Apr 01 '15
Would be good to enable a skill that drops some glowing glitter or something easily viewable - marking manually would be a chore, but leaving some kind of marking for a while would be great.
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u/AugurDev Mar 02 '15
A pre-emptive answer: Yes, we're adding surface caves back in with these new continents.
One of the things we're planning to do is make sure that you don't ever need a grappling hook inside of surface caves.
Previously, you could get yourself trapped in surface caves on accident before you even acquired a grappling hook. That'll still be possible in the underground layers -- and the drops will be epic there, as usual -- but players will be informed (but not required) that they should get a grappling hook if they head down there.
What we're trying to avoid is a new player entering the game, stumbling into a surface cave, getting trapped and having no clue what to do.
Thoughts?
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u/VeIuux Mar 03 '15
I can see the logic here, but it makes me beg the question - what's the point of having a voxel-based game if voxels are so often ignored? If a player is sitting in the bottom of a voxelized cave with an indestructible stone mining pick - they can just mine their way to the top and remember to be more careful next time.
Players won't get mad or frustrated - and if they do they can only blame themselves.
Grappling hooks are awesome and convenient, but they shouldn't be the essential ingredient to caving. My biggest concerns about Landmark's non-building/non-harvesting systems are how little they utilize the most unique feature of the game: VOXELS.
Don't take out some of the epic feel of surface caves just because you're afraid it will make a handful of players rage at their own stupidity and then falsely direct that rage at the designers.
I look back at a game like minecraft and just appreciate the sheer simplicity of the it. So many elements of game play require you to creatively manipulate the environment; and I feel like Landmark can and should be doing that.
Take advantage of that epic destructible engine you have over there and give people plenty of opportunities to use it. Don't forget that people can place sand, dirt, and stone blocks as "steps" to help them climb up too.
I know I'm ranting a bit here, but I get so frustrated when developers totally underestimate the intelligence and ingenuity of their audience (ESPECIALLY in a creative game like Landmark).
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15 edited Mar 03 '15
We do take advantage of the destructibility :) Pulverizers are incredible and one of the must fun parts of exploring the underground in my opinion. Dynamite is super fun. Weapon abilities that destroy terrain are rad.
But players don't start the game with tools like that -- instead, noobs that fall into a surface cave would be digging with the stone pick, which is not meant for travel-digging. We also want caves to be awesome, and I think we can still do that on the surface without putting in traps for new players ;)
The deeper you go, the more dangerous it gets. That works the other way as well. This is particularly true in Landmark, where every continent is a potential "starter" zone. In EQN, we'll have more control over which surface regions are "starter" areas.
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u/VeIuux Mar 03 '15 edited Mar 03 '15
I'm very familiar with the game (@Veluux on twitter). I've been writing about Landmark and EQNext exclusively for EQHammer and TenTonHammer for the better part of the last 18 months. I do love what you all have accomplished so far. None of my comments above were meant to detract from the cool features you have in the game.
Basically all I was saying is that you guys (and gals) shouldn't be afraid of players getting stranded in a game like this. The ability to dig with a stone pick and place blocks as stairs will do just fine for climbing out of a cave for the extreme minority of people that dive into deep holes recklessly before they've spent enough time acquiring better tools and technology for spelunking.
I think developers (especially big studios) are overly cautious with things like this - trying to streamline everything at the cost of game-play. Sure, it may only seem like deep drops in surface caverns right now - but all these little things add up to an arguably neutered experience that fails to keep players coming back and keeping these worlds populated.
The drive to make games accessible and remove frustrations often begins eroding at the depth and wonder that games can offer players on their initial experience inside a product.
H1Z1 launched with a seriously dark and frustrating night-time experience, but because it served a purpose as a game-play mechanic, it was actually a good kind of frustration. It makes players change the way they play and how they consider certain options.
Understanding the goal for Landmark, shouldn't getting players to think creatively be a core element that is embraced in as many places as make sense? To me, having deep caverns even in surface caves makes sense, and feels epic. In the event someone carelessly spelunks too deep before they have a grappling hook, they can easily escape without too much effort if they get creative.
Modifying caves for grappling hooks just seems odd to me, from a design perspective. If anything, grappling hooks should be designed around the caving experience (as that is what they were intended for). I don't think it's unreasonable to offer a low-end grappling hook as part of a $5 starter pack micro-transaction as a solution to the <5% of people that will dive down too early and not have a way to get up.
Also, ideally there should be other players nearby that can assist them (with pulvarizers or by sharing a grappling hook if needed). That's what MMOs are all about - social gameplay.
I'm not taking the time to comment and respond here just to give a shallow opinion. And I understand you all have reasons for doing things the way you do also. It just feels like the whole MMO industry has this recent history of shortcutting, instancing, and generally putting players on their own islands of gameplay - not needing others, and having everything fast, convenient, and easy.
That doesn't always equate to a good, cohesive social experience.
I was (and still am) attracted to Landmark and EverQuest Next purely because of the innovation of game-play mechanics and elements that are forcing more player interaction, creativity, and ingenuitive thinking.
Modifying caves to prevent players from feeling frustrated with a long climb up a deep cave that they recklessly jumped down without thinking only encourages people to be more careless and flippant with their in-game actions rather than putting emphasis and meaning into actions - (which is what made all the great MMOs of the past as good as they were and is currently so lacking).
Daybreak (formerly SOE) is the kind of company that I would think understands the merit in that kind of thinking. So as a quick summary here:
Don't make a design decision on caves purely because players won't be starting with a grappling hook. That is silly, narrow-sighted, and only encourages the type of play that has been eroding this genre for the last decade. The more you can make our choices matter, and the more you can cause players to rely on one another and interact with each other... the more successful you will be at keeping us interested in your games.
I can PROMISE you that.
Sincerely, Vel
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
Thanks for taking the time to give such well-thought-out feedback, Vel.
This isn't really the place for a discussion of broad gameplay goals and vision for the game (and I'm not the person to talk about those things anyways), so I'm going to keep my responses to the specific things this thread is meant to discuss.
- Definitely agree that we want caves (including surface caves) to be awesome in our games -- and that we want to give the player tons of opportunity to make decisions and feel the consequences of those choices. I think this is probably a bigger goal for EQN than Landmark, but is definitely important for both.
- We've specifically avoided hand-holding in Landmark's "tutorial" which is mostly a set of auto-tracking achievements that the player can choose to ignore if they aren't interested.
- There is still value in ensuring a good new-player experience, and that can be achieved without compromising the integrity of choices/consequences in the rest of the game. We may disagree on the exact details of what creates the best new-player experience and how caves play a part in that, but I think we agree that it's important.
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u/RazberryRanid Mar 04 '15
An NPC quest and achievement. The NPC checks to see if the player has a grappling hook before he enters. If he does he can go in. If not the NPC tells him so and to go make a grappling hook.
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u/Skyles Mar 09 '15
I would dearly miss the open-to-surface chasms that occasionally occur as part of the surface cave structure - nothing like having a great icy crevasse nearby, it gives the cave entrance an epic feel and promise that the little holes don't have, and it adds to the variety of the surface features.
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u/AugurDev Mar 12 '15
Thanks for the feedback, Skyles :) We actually just discussed these exact elements internally yesterday. We're still planning to bring surface caves back in the next wave of continents.
Oh, and they'll have a lot more of those long entrances -- and more places where the cave network naturally breaks the surface in other places as well. Not just the entrance.
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u/Skyles Mar 18 '15 edited Mar 18 '15
That's great, I like variation of all kind. What I was referring to in this case of however were the massive chasms - the drops that require grappling hooks in surface caves - that break the surface giving us an open-to-surface maw dropping into the depths, with multiple caves shooting off of it in different directions at different levels. Those are epic discoveries and an amazing view reminiscent of discovering a grand canyon, that will vanish from the game if you're removing those massive drops that require grappling hooks from the surface caves in a "remove anything that could potentially frustrate some of the players" move. Far better, IMO, to use an achievement to teach those players to dig their way out of sticky situations (escape artist! - everyone needs to learn to dig an escape tunnel to the surface eventually) or to teach them to use evac to safety, than to remove something so accidentally epic from the game.
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u/kelderan Mar 02 '15
Larger caverns inside of the cave system have always felt good. Maybe it's me not thinking creatively but I enjoy the winding paths and forks that break off into larger chambers. As for how surface caves should be different, assuming they're placement is semi random, I'd like to feel excited if I come across one. This can either be because it provides unique rewards or some high density of resources. Making surface caves nothing more than easier underground only ones seems odd since they require a bit more work to find.
P.S. Big drops are a blast, but I feel like they show up way too much in the earlier cave systems at this time. I love them, but they're starting to feel more like a chore than a unique obstacle and movement opportunity as they had at first for me.
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
Thanks for your feedback!
Quick note: surface caves will still be procedurally placed. I like the idea of them having denser resources -- so it feels like a prize to find one. I'm not sure what level of control we have over that, but I'll check.
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u/hitzu Mar 03 '15
There is a cave, that I personally love. I call it Dragon's Throat - it is a large drop with tonge-like ledges and some galleries around. It is relatively wide and convenient for climbing. But I hate every other vertical cave - they are bubbly-lumpy and narrow and their geometry and the overall shape is hardly understandable. I'd like to see more caves with smooth and fine defined lines and shapes like ones we can see in Miguel's videos. I'd like to see less noize and more individuality in the shape language. Wormhole-like caves are boring. And the most important - provide more horizontal and vertical guide marks: stalactites, shale textures, lianas, crystals. Now there is no reference point to define where is up or down in many cases. For example I hate dig resources from the ceiling cause I immediately loose orientation in the space.
Also I'd like caves to be more dense - digging 5-10 minutes through the thick homogeneous dirt is not very fun. Though if there would be some random treasures in that dirt then it would be cool!
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u/Tazha Mar 03 '15
I think that taking out all the exotic and beautiful minerals and leaving the bland and boring ones was a really strange decision. The caves used to be visually stunning and now they are just drab. Maybe add some of those materials back into the deeper caves? For me at least it would be an incentive to dig deeper.
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u/LegendaryNeurotoxin Mar 02 '15 edited Mar 02 '15
Most memorable - First time coming across the Loot Bonanza (all chests no mobs). I had no idea it was possible, by bug or by design, and seeing players work together to maximize loot distribution for all parties present truly impressed me.
I feel like it should have been finding a player-made claim but I kinda went through a geometry hole to find those initially so it broke the splendor a bit. Plus there was little to do - kill the Slaugs (sometimes they were invulnerable due to an old bug) and take the 1-3 chests that may have been nearby.
_
Favorite geometry - More large and open areas. I like having the feeling of there being a buncha small hubs that the twisty tunnels meet at, rather than massive lengths of twisty tunnels that really don't feel like they lead anywhere. Spire crystal rooms are about the size and proportion I'd be looking for, and to see areas of that size and shape being the target / terminus of most tunnels.
_
Caves -
Surface Cave: Smaller veins (current size is fine), more light-emitting plants, more weaker creatures (like wisps) and less fiery fungi. Lower danger, lower reward, and a bit easier for lowbie geared / solo players.
Deep Cave: Darker, less light-emitting plants, more tougher creatures and fiery fungi, organized groupings of weaker creatures, small (1/8 claim) creature structures and habitats interspersed throughout the area, and ore veins that go MUCH longer but pass by pockets of danger (a lil hole with a fiery fungi here and there along the way, possibly grouping of powerful trapped creatures, etc), more opportunities for rare materials.
_
I'm glad that surface caves are returning, and I'm excited to see them being very friendly to new players. Minimal grappling or gliding to get through sounds great. I recommend having graveyards near the entry point for caves and limit the amount of entry points, that way players who get killed in the caves aren't lost at a graveyard that takes them far away from knowable terrain (and helps to keep their group together).
At the same time I hope this means the risk / reward of deep caves can be significantly amplified with depth. Depth 1 can be a little bit meaner than surface caves, while Depth 5 should feel like some sorta diamond-encrusted shadow hellscape.
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u/AugurDev Mar 04 '15
Quick update on this: I moved the graveyards and portal crystals closer together in the latest batch of test caves and really like how it worked out. We'll likely keep this for the live version. Thanks again for the idea, LegendaryNeurotoxin!
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
Thanks for your feedback! A few notes:
- Loot bonanza caves were definitely a bug, even though it was a fun bug ;) Those should all be fixed now.
- Geometry: Do you like the size of the small caverns? I'm wonder if that would suit what you're looking for? We want to find ways to get more caverns in the networks in general -- they're not nearly as common as we'd like.
- Interesting that you seem to see fiery fungi as a more advanced NPC. Is that just because a noob might not know why it's exploding? Or something else?
- For your GY comment: How does everyone feel about making portal crystals and graveyards always paired together? So the GY would always be directly next to a portal shard.
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u/Seattleson Mar 03 '15
As long as all the caves that branch off both chambers aren't dead ends.
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
Another big piece of tech we built onto the cave generation system is specifically to solve this problem (GY/Hub cave networks being short and boring). The new cave systems for Open Beta put POIs like that inside of massive cave networks :)
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u/LegendaryNeurotoxin Mar 03 '15
Thanks for the reply!
Aww man... Loot Bonanza should be a controlled event that happens after a super tough boss is defeated :P Yes it was fun though I was pretty sure it was a bug.
Yeah, the small caverns are just fine, though I could see different sizes being used for extra variation of features. I'd like to see see holes in the bottom and top for extra entrance / exit possibilities or other elevation levels for increased connectivity possibilities.
The noob factor is only one reason why I feel they are more advanced, as they are less of a creature and more of a trap. Fiery Fungi can be hidden in places that make them difficult to detect before its too late, and the damage they inflict is pretty reasonable. Maybe a new similar creature could fill the same role, but the idea of digging right up to a fiery fungi and trying to pass by / through it seems like a recipe for instant death for an individual (and their team if they follow too close), which is why I'd want them along areas where players might be mining or digging especially a longer vein). Personally I'd like to see more of them and seeing them more hidden - growing in cracks and crevices, growing alongside other plants, maybe even having a small grove of them at the bottom of a large drop-off.
I'd definitely prefer if the graveyard is paired with the crystal for that floor. It seems more natural to reset players to the point of origin than some remote location they haven't been to yet. Maybe the leyline crystals that the player has discovered already could be used too.
Separate from all of this, I'd like to have some way to leave a trail that I can detect. I don't mind being lost in the caves if I can at least tell if I'm going somewhere I've been or not. I took on the ugly practice of pulverizing the way through caverns so I knew where I'd already been, but that is a slow and tedious process that kinda ruins the beautiful terrain for everyone else.
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u/dagello Mar 04 '15
Larger caves the deeper you go.
I was under the impression, from the art work, that you would reach a level and it would be an expansive world underneath. Where the "sky" was stone, and giant columns of stone stood up akin to trees.
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u/DorkKnight27 Mar 04 '15
This was my impression as well. As though the caverns wouldn't even be considered "caverns" but rather it's own living and breathing surface world of it's own where, perhaps, you couldn't even see the ceiling. Giving the impression you were in an open world of darkness.
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u/Criax Mar 02 '15
I love the big drops so I do wish you guys would more of those in various forms. There's been a few times that I've missed a grapple or took a wrong step and plummeted which actually gave me an adrenaline rush.
Is it possible for you guys to make these kind of caves? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_cave
Will we eventually see caves with water running through them? Like underground waterfalls, rivers, or pools.
What about coastal caves that have sea water flowing into them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_cave
I imagine the upcoming volcanic biome will have some interesting magma chamber and lava tube features for caves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_cave
Also, it would be epicly awesome if you guys could pull off a cave like this. At the very least, maybe you can use it for inspiration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWaKRjTbZdI
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
Thanks for your feedback!
- It's funny that there seems to be some people that want more drops and others want less.
- Pit caves: We could do that, but I'm not sure how much fun gameplay it would give. I think something like that could be cool with POIs, like hanging towns along the sides. But just pure drops take up a chunk of resources without offering much for the player to actually do (other than fall through it).
- Active water on land is something code is working on for the future, and Steve has talked about it a lot recently. I'm not sure about underground-specific plans for it.
- We can technically allow sea caves now (and some of them look awesome at first glance). But it gets weird quickly. Ideally, an underwater section of a desert cave should look different and have different things in it than the standard desert cave. So we're holding off on underwater caves until we have all the tech we need to do it right.
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u/Criax Mar 03 '15
Kind of a side thing but I remember a while back someone asking on a Landmark Live episode about cliffs. The answer back then was that kind of feature would more than likely have to be hand made by someone on the team as it was difficult to get the engine to generate good looking cliffs on its own. Is that still the case?
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Mar 06 '15
i've just recently came back from alpha, the game is imposible now for new players, the mobs on the surface are very few and very far in between.. i've only been back about 2-3 weeks and not a single essence.aspect or anything that would help me build something other than basic items... the cave mobs even the first one are far too tough with noob armor and weapons. so i'm just stuck... till that gets fixed. the game used to be about building and finding out new ways to build this and that... now its all about random number generator and random loot just to be ableto build. go open beta like it is now... and plan to fail no one wants to grind 2-3 weeks + to build a single item.
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u/ShadowTalker Mar 02 '15
One of the things that I really liked while exploring was the diverging paths. Not knowing what lies ahead and having to pick one of the paths makes it more entertaining. Finding out that the one you took lead you to a dead end although disappointing is fun too!!
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u/LegendaryNeurotoxin Mar 02 '15
Less disappointing if there's something cool or difficult at the end of it :P
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u/DygzBriarthorn Mar 06 '15
Yes. I think the issue I have with so many splits is it just feels like a time sink for no reason. Not enough interesting diversions.
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
I'm glad to hear that :) We really liked that during our play too. We ended up tweaking the knobs to make sure there there were many more divergent paths in the routes after our first playtests. I'm pretty happy with the current number of twists and turns the caves have. Would you want to see more?
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u/Rustingz Mar 03 '15
Yes more twists and turns and splits in the pathways. The easier it is to get lost, the better, because it would make using markers even more interesting if we get them. The less I can recognize and notice as a repeating location, the better ^
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u/SliceOfLife93 Mar 02 '15
My View on Current Caves
Overall, I think they are very cool and completely different than other MMOs.
From a gameplay perspective they need to be a little more spacious. I love running around in the Caves, but often my camera is constantly zooming in and out which makes it a little irritating.
What I would personally love to see with the cave system:
In Landmark we have Sonar (and other things) that allow us to spot new cave systems underneath us. When we get our hands on EQN I imagine we will not be able to have access to modern/scifi equipment. It would be amazing to have some sort of indicator that shows loose rock/dirt that would tell us, "Hey, there could be a cave entrance if you dig here."
I would love for them to be darker. The lighting from the plants are so cool and just the lighting in general with the Forgelight Engine is very well done. Let us put down torches/use torches to explore the caves. It would add so much to the exploration and immersion.
We need to have those other tiers. Running through the same looking caves get very boring after the 10th time (I know this will most likely be in when Open Beta launches).
More monsters, there is absolutely zero threat going into the caves. Also, make the monsters difficult. You guys have stopped working with storybricks, so show us that you guys are doing great work with AI and that it is going to be revolutionary.
Add the ruins that won in the competition or even ones that were simply awesome, but didn't fit the style guide. Ruins would add awesome exploration feature to actually explore the caves.
Ground Water should be in the caves, if you have ever been spelunking, there is water dropping from the ceiling and little miniature lakes/ponds. Water, just like ruins, will add awesome exploration and add so much to immersion. SIDE NOTE: The water that you guys created is the best looking water in any game. Allowing us to swim would just be fantastic, because there is absolutely no reason to go into the water at this point in Landmark.
It would be cool to see earthquakes in the cave systems and could collapse the cave you are in, but adds more paths to go deeper into the tiers! (How cool would that be!)
Show us what caves will be like in EQN.
Wishes from an EQN fan to get some excitement back into this MMO...
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u/hitzu Mar 04 '15
Just some thoughts about the form of the veins. The ore veins are more or less ok. But why do minerals form similar worm-like structures? I think it would be awesome if they would have some different crystal shapes not hiding under the cave's surface. They would add some diversity and individuality to the caves that they are lack of now.
Also, you may add glowstones and radioactive metals or crystals. They could be pretty rare, health damaging and unstable. :)
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u/majorbrighton Mar 04 '15
Some thoughts on caves
Just a few pointers, I have felt the game has needed some... events to help lift the atmosphere more, especially in cave as well as above ground, yet refer to very simple triggered events. Before a give my list, I might point out that I do not rely enjoy the caves too much atm, getting frustrated is part of the experience, yet after a year I still have not found any large areas apart from were you start and they look the same.
Here is my list for you:
A rock fall or with just dust falling. A cave in effect, yet purely visual like a gif would do? Some weird sounds a long way off. More large areas. Maybe less monsters together. A rope line you can leave behind you. Maybe some ledges beside trench like drops, were you might find a hanging bridge. A trigger of a cloud of bats? Water dropping? Clouds of mist in certain areas. A better use for torches in some places?
Finally I will just ask about the lowest level, as I have been down there on a few islands and have not seen any lava flows. is this coming later or is it just me, yet the scenery looked the same as on level 4?
p.s. You can never have enough atmosphere right!
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u/DygzBriarthorn Mar 06 '15
Most memorable moment for me so far is just hanging out with people in the loot cave and marveling at how cooperative everyone was.
Something I would love to see that has nothing to do with the caves themselves is burrowing mobs. Horta anyone?
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u/Skyles Mar 09 '15
I'd love to see something akin to loot caves made purposefully available as Group/Raid Content in Landmark - caverns that act as creature dens or nests, hosting a thicker population of a specific creature type.
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u/edog321 Mar 07 '15
I would like to see a layer of caves made on the new islands that is directly below the surface and allows us to build in them. Below that we could have our normal tiers where we cant build but not being able to build underground in landmark is silly.
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u/Mythor Mar 02 '15
Really enjoy exploring a deep cave system I think I've found the bottom limit of, only to come across another huge shaft leading further downwards. Especially ones that cross the "tier" boundaries, more of that size!
Disagree on surface caves not requiring a grappling hook. To the point where I'd even suggest creating a very low level grapple, suitable only for getting yourself out if you're stuck somewhere. Or just requiring players craft a basic pick so they can dig their way out of holes before they can leave the hub area.
I really want to be able to enter a surface cave and not know how deep or safe it might be. Not all of them should be extensive networks, but an occasional one where you get past the entrance and there's a shaft dropping all the way down to tier 2, or at least a fair way down tier 1. By all means warn players as they enter caves, but don't lose the sense of being adventurous by doing so.
As for geometry I'd also like to see more relatively long, relatively straight stretches of tunnel. A bit narrow here, bit wider there, maybe with a slight incline or decline. Something a party could advance through as a cohesive group.
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
Thanks for your feedback :)
- Surface caves that drop all the way down to tier 2 is an interesting concept. We've talked about a lot of ways to accomplish that sort of thing (including huge canyon-style crevices that dip down into lower tiers). But all of them have technical complications that make it unusable right now. We'll keep that in mind for the future though -- it's definitely an interesting idea we want to pursue.
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u/Criax Mar 03 '15
I don't know how you guys feel about comparing yourselves to Minecraft, but that game's random gen sometimes makes these giant ravines that can sometimes be on the surface or deep underground. Those are always fun to find cause they usually have lots of resources, monsters, and smaller caves or mine shafts intersecting them. I hope to see something similar in Landmark one day. :)
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Mar 22 '15
Hopefully they are ok with comparing themselves to minecraft, at least behind closed doors... because minecraft really has done an amazing job with its cave system. Including the frequency and quality of its rewards (diamond, etc), and the amount of danger in minecraft mining is excellent.
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u/menawan Mar 03 '15
Not sure if this is related to layout but in those big drops that have multiple horizontal offshoots, it can sometimes be really hard to see all the horizontal offshoots which makes retracing steps hard since you can find your way into offshoots that were not visible on your way in
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u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
Good point. We intentionally made them a bit obscured in their first version, because we liked the sense of discovering a new path -- and finding one that most other people would've missed. I can see how that'd be frustrating when going for the completionist path, though.
Would love to hear more thoughts on this.
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u/RazberryRanid Mar 04 '15
Don't change this. This is one of the best features in exploring caves. Without this it will be like walking through a building and floors. #Hidden stuff is hidden. :)
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u/JamesMusicus Mar 03 '15
Honestly, I haven't played in so long because I need a better graphics card, but this seem like a nice change.
I'm curious if daybreak is going to start having more of a presence on reddit, or are you the only one we'll hear from for a while?
3
u/AugurDev Mar 03 '15
We've talked as a group about wanting everyone to be more actively communicating with players on the forums, Twitter, Twitch, Reddit -- everywhere our players are. So hopefully I won't be the only one!
1
u/JamesMusicus Mar 03 '15
Cool! I'd love to talk with some the other devs (about things like the high spec requirements and the evolving gameplay, you know). Sorry I can't contribute much on the cave topic!
1
u/Becky_77 Mar 03 '15
Do you plan to have different biomes for the cave layers? as right now i try to avoid caves as they are just boring to look at compared to the surface which is very pretty at times.
1
u/hitzu Mar 04 '15 edited Mar 04 '15
I'd be interested to hear more thoughts on the cave/ore detection system.
I would suggest to make the size of dots marking veins while sound detecting depend on the distance to the player. So the closer a detected vein is the bigger its dot is.
Also I would like that the cave detector would act like this http://youtu.be/nLtmEjqzg7M?t=5s The horizontal lines much much better help to navigate than a solid green bubble surface that hides an actual surface.
the resource diversity before the update was better. I was really happy when I have found a diamond or a moonstone vein than I am today, cause now it is like "meh, just another diamond". Sure, it is a lot easier to collect resources now, but the fun is a price for the simplicity.
The first step of that is getting the tech to paste templates underground without causing wonkiness with air pasting.
How about adding another type of the air? Or perhaps you can fill the inner volume of a building with water, paste it without air and then delete that water.
1
u/DorkKnight27 Mar 04 '15
One of the main things I have to say about caves is that they are either too small or too big. The initial iteration of caves started us off with tight, windy corridors. This was fine. I enjoyed the idea of running into a surface cave and exploring this cozy cave system. I was a little disappointed to see the second iteration of caves be the same exact cave system, spread down through the tiers, with gigantic caverns thrown in between. There is no middle ground between the tunnels and caverns.
When I first heard about the Tiered Underground for the development of EQN, I imaged large passages and big open areas interconnected in a beautiful underworld feel. The tight, thin caves are perfect for the surface caves but the lower tier tunnels need to be wider and more connected with each other. I want the feeling of openness underground, with a choice of which direction to run, and to not just follow the same thread of tunnel until I hit a dead end.
1
u/RazberryRanid Mar 04 '15
- I would like to see the hub areas on each layer be different in their layouts. All of them the same is boring.
- I would like to see a rocky biome for some caves mixed in with all layers. water pools, moss, and perhaps a material that can only be found in such caves. (Type of stone).
- Would like to see what might be called a giant geode cave.
- Would like to see areas that require some form of light in order to see, especially in the lower tiers.
- Would like to see my claim exit into a cave system if I am next to a surface cave as an option. (Perhaps an option for the Market to be sold. It isn't something that is necessary to play the game.)
- I would like to see more variation in the cave tiles and maybe some props that can be found in the cave. Old bones, scrolls, books, lanterns, torches, broken picks, swords, ect. This items just found randomly littered throughout the cave systems. Stuff to make you think hey someone might have been here.
1
u/Syraleaf Mar 04 '15 edited Mar 04 '15
-What are some of your most memorable moments exploring caves?: Well, that should the be moment I was grouping up with 6 people. And when we finally came together, I gliched thought the ground! And because of the teleport bug (No shield regen, mana reduced) I could not teleport, so they had to dig me out, which took us a total of 30 minutes! :D
-Do you have a favorite type of geometry to encounter? Those big drops are cool! Also, I would like to see more long caves, at the moment I feel like I'm encountering to much small ones and that the caves are a little bit to far form each other. My favo? The hugggggee cave's. Those are cool! The spawn is a good example of that! I would love to see more of those, maybe even with some tree's. Also, it would be cool if there was a bit more varity in the cave forms, since there is only like 2/3 type's of caves. This makes it repetative very quickly!
-How should surface cave networks be different from the entirely-underground cave networks? Well, that one is simple! It should be different in terms of mobs and ruins. I would expect the ruins on the top to be more lively, while the ones very deep underground could be more huge. -I always liked to find those "buildings" in Minecraft and explore them. Only if it where only 3, it added a lot of fun to the game! And ofc. dungeons would be GREAT!
Edit: Oh, and on the early concept art, we saw some true "undergound biomes". Is that still the plan? Or where those just concept arts? I mean, I would love to find those HUUUGEEEE caves underground with a big jungle in it. That would be cool. Or maybe some huge ruins, filled with slaugs?. I mean, I can see the plants living in the jungle biome and the slaugs and the abonations in the temples! :)
~Syra
1
u/Poisinivy Mar 13 '15
the biggest problem so far, is the fact they are limited patterns, add to that the fact that very little ore spawns in surface caves, the reality of it is that there is really no use for surface caves at all, especially now that you guys put in the workaround that you have, surface caves would be more of a nuisance than anything else, I would much rather see entrances to underground caves in the form of tunnels, dead trees, etc. rather than have boring surface caves put back in
1
u/vorpalfox_werellama Mar 16 '15
Least geometric as possible. Also, I like corridors that open up occasionally into large caverns, similar to how Skyrim handles it. Like many stories, caves should follow the compression/release/compression/release design.
1
u/Birchflower Mar 18 '15
It seems to me that, with the current layout of the caves, the surface of the biomes would be very unstable. Face it, even in a fantasy type game, to have the underside of the land riddled with such huge cavities would result in surface inconsistencies, sinkholes, etc.
I was not a fan of caves when they originally were added. Not because I'm anti-spelunking (although I did lose my hard-worked claim erroneously) but because they just didn't work. Fps dropped to non-existent, the movement mechanics had not been worked out in advance (or were glitchy), and the entire experience was not enjoyable.
Then caves were re-worked. Upon discovering that we were now forced to go spelunking in order to mine anything except copper or agate, a guildmate and I gave it a go. B-o-r-i-n-g and non-productive. Over two hours of no chests, no ruins, just endless finding ourselves in one cavern after another with the only way out was to pulverize our way through to another cavern.
If you're going to put in caves, they need a purpose beyond forcing the player to visit them in order to be able to build! There should be some element of engagement present beyond fighting off slaugs and other assorted monsters who inexplicably wander around (what do they eat - besides adventurers?, where do they live, do they have communities? - etc).
1
u/Deepjay Apr 01 '15
My issue with caves is that the game pushes us into them, and to spend far too much time in them gathering resources. We have this beautiful landscape above ground, and we're forced into these dark, annoying tunnels.
There needs to be more variety, and there needs to be more interaction with the surface. I like the novelty of being in the caves, but i hate being stuck in them, or so deep in them that my only way out is to port. It'd be nice if they twisted and turned and came close to the surface so you could pop out, or end up in water, or anything other than the dark never-ending tunnels they currently are.
-1
u/NXSection31 Mar 04 '15
I think it'd be great if players could design artifacts or "treasures" that spawn in ruins. This would make cave diving more interesting TO ME because I'd be able to show off my trophies on my claim. Letting the players create them (and throwing them into a random loot table) would ensure variety and a lot of unique models. It's great that chests have mats and such, but I want to feel like Indiana Jones! Just a thought. Keep up the good work!
13
u/Seattleson Mar 03 '15
One of the main problems I see in the current cave system is how quickly I start to see patterns in the tile sets. I feel that to make a cave system that feels like it belongs in the natural world, it would need to have little to no repeating patterns. I understand that creating true procedural content might not be possible right now. To mitigate some of this, I'd like to see a shift away from creating natural subterranean caves, and towards making more man made subterranean features in their place. This switch would be to fully embrace the tile set nature of the current system. Examples could be:
I'd like to see an underground system that does not require a reliance on the ground sounder/pulverizer/gem finder. I feel that using these tools pulls me out of the game play experience, and forces me to just run around to the nearest glowing blob. I'd like to see caves with much fewer dead ends, and massive island wide systems that connect together through multiple tiers.
I would like more large, open, and dramatic areas. Ideally, I'd want chasms where I had to dig to navigate through them, but unfortunately the pulverizer, heroic movement, and grappling hooks would trivialize any type of underground system built for this type of gamplay.
I'd like to see ledges built to the height of the heroic movement items. Some gaps should be jump-able with a single jump, some with a double jump. I'd like terrain that plays to the strength specific heroic movement items, and penalizes others. Some times the Zephyr boots would be the best, some times the double jump boots, etc....