So, I have been trying to get people together to go out and hunt some adamantine. On two occasions I have been told its not worth even bothering because you will either get pvp'd by pirates that always seem to be on the seas, or you will find Zinc in the one spot where it can be found on the main island because there is a big rush to circle grind it after the reset which makes the mine deteriorate. I don't know if the second half of that is true, it's a scary dungeon and since both times I've tried to get a group together I was told it was not worth it, I haven't been able to test the theory. I will speak some on adamantine veins deteriorating in the second half of the post, but first I want to focus on what I was able to test alone; Renting a boat and setting out to sea.
The Pirates
So I got my boat for 2500 coins, had about 1200 left over in my pocket, and sure enough not even ten minutes later I was boarded. This supports what people were telling me, that you can't go out to sea without running into pirates these days, but I figured there was no way all of them are as bad as described so I waited to see what would happen. A few minutes after being grappled the buffed crew hops on, and demands all my gold. Immediately I'm thinking great, this is how I envisioned the pirates to be in my mind, a bunch of bandits and not the pvp hungry slobs they were described as. Unfortunately, since I was only out there for less then ten minutes and hadn't even found a place to land yet, I only had about 1500 gold to hand over. Apparently that wasn't enough for these guys, which I guess is fine, but now my options are down to get kilt, become a slave, or portal out of there if it even works. Spoiler alert, it did work, but it left me feeling a little bummed that that is what the encounter came down too. I had no problem handing them all of my gold, I even would have had no problem working some other debt out along the way, but what I can only assume is a need for instant gratification beat out any desire for a long term story.
Now I get that not everyone is super creative, and when you are amped for pvp its easy to loose track of what's important, telling a good story. Even the best of us have been there. But if you have people saying that its not worth it to sail the seas (which is an amazing part of the server) because pirate encounters are too frequent and tend to leave little wiggle room for anything but pvp, that's not good for anyone including the pirates because the only non pirates who will be at sea will be war parties that will kill them. Add to that the fact that anyone who pays close enough attention knows that they are also grinding out adamantine at obscene rates made obvious by the fresh supply in a certain store every day, and they are going to be geared up to a point that he power gap will grow even larger, ensuring that it is not actually Cordor that rules the seas, but the pirates.
So as its against my nature to present problems unless there is a potential solution, here are two suggestions;
1) A setting through the navigator to actually try to avoid pirates that would make boat on boat encounters far less frequent. It shouldn't guarantee that there will be no pirate encounters, but it will actually happen at a bit more realistic level then just being a guarantee if pirates are on.
2) Boarding a pc ship triggers a high chance of a super powered spawn of Cordorians attacking the pirate ship, the more ships you board in a reset period the higher the chances are, making them decide if its actually worth the risk. This one would be a bit more tricky as you would need to figure out how to stop them from just hiding below, but it might be interesting if done right.
Adamantine Veins
Now I have no idea in practice how the deterioration actually works, but what I was told is that if a vein is mined 3 times or so in a reset period it deteriorates to a lesser metal, until it is eventually zinc. I get it, I really do, you don't want adamantine to become unexciting and flooded. But if this is how the solution actually works, then its creating another problem since its clear that the same groups over and over are getting to it before anyone else can.
Now, I don't know how hard this would be to script, or if its even possible, but I would suggest instead of having the vein deteriorating have it spawn upon entering the room its in with a check to see if anyone in the group has been there this reset or not. If yes, give them the zinc. If not, give them what they came for
. Sounds simple, but like I said I have no idea how much work would actually go into that. It would stop it from being grinded into oblivion after a reset though, if it is possible. Thanks for reading, and just to be clear because its so hard to determine mood in text I am not angry at anyone in regards to the pirates I encountered or those that spam the addy mines as soon as they can like its a race (if this is actually a thing, my info on this is second hand!), I just wanted to make some suggestions that make the server better for everyone as a whole.
