The problem of overmining

[MonkeyBoy]

This is a subject that burdens many the moderator across all servers. What do you do when someone refuses to stop overmining? Well... first you try to talk to them to get them to stop, but what if they dont speak english or are not otherwise able to respond? Its a bit of a tricky subject as no one wants to get kicked for something so trivial , but it has to be done as to not squander the fun of everyone else on their team.

I propose we have a discussion here in this thread about alternative ways to tackle to mining system. As in my eyes, the system is flawed in its current state.

Ive come up with a few suggestions of my own, but i encourage everyone to share their own ideas, and together, we as a community can solve this problem !

As people suggest new ideas to tackle the problem, i will post the best ones here to be discussed.

1. We use a "priority mining" system. What i mean by this is that when mines are placed in what will be pre-designated as "priority" areas ( building entrances for example) , they will be unable to be overwritten by new mines that are outside of the priority area .

An example of this is as follows ;

On walls, everyone agrees that the building entrances are the best places to mine , but there are enough miners out there who persist in mining the entrance with 40 mines and letting the sbhs in and eventually lead to the loss of a game. With the priority mining system, the server owners will be able to select all areas near building doors where mines are typically placed, and give any mine placed there a priority status. This would mean that as the mine limit is filled up, the mines outside of priority areas will be erased first. Instead of the current system where first mine to be placed is the first to be overwritten.

[Truxa]

1. We use a "priority mining" system. What i mean by this is that when mines are placed in what will be pre-designated as "priority" areas ( building entrances for example) , they will be unable to be overwritten by new mines that are outside of the priority area .

An example of this is as follows ;

On walls, everyone agrees that the building entrances are the best places to mine , but there are enough miners out there who persist in mining the entrance with 40 mines and letting the sbhs in and eventually lead to the loss of a game. With the priority mining system, the server owners will be able to select all areas near building doors where mines are typically placed, and give any mine placed there a priority status. This would mean that as the mine limit is filled up, the mines outside of priority areas will be erased first. Instead of the current system where first mine to be placed is the first to be overwritten.

I like such an idea, but with an addition: assigning numbers per area.

Typically 5-6 mines per door entrance will keep 2 SBHs away, a team of 3 might overcome 6 and a team of 4 surely will, but this is not the reason why I choose a number.

Lets continue with your example on walls map for GDI:

Barracks has 2 doorways (NOTE: the sandbags turn it into 1 but walking up the roof will make entering possible) + 4 ramps ending in 2 on the top of barracks

WF has 2 doorways and a single roof entrance ramp

Ref has 2 doorways and a roof ramp (broader one)

Powerplant has 2 doorways and a single roof ramp

Now lets say there is a mine limit of 30 (default) there are 8 doors in total meaning a total mine count of 3 per door (thus 24 total) leaving 6 "undefined" mines, perhaps designated for the tunnel entrance or roof acces

A mine limit of 40 allows for 5 mines (40/8) per door (but none for the tunnels or roof acces)

A mine limit of 80 allows for 10 mines per door, but we all can agree thats a little too much.

Problem:

1: If you want to make it a function of the total mine limit, the above may be the results.

2: If you want to set a certain number of mines per area, some people may agree or disagree with the amount.

3: We are forgetting the roof acces ramps.

4: Part of the tactic could be assessing the importance of a building, in my opinion, the barracks is more important to me than the refinery. You would want to have a higher mine limit to defend the barracks instead of the refinery.

5: Following problem 4, who is to say(as server owner) what building is more important than others, significantly influencing gameplay tactics.

6: Other maps have more buildings with a higher total door count, resulting in an even lower mine count per area

7: If you do not want to limit the "priority area's" to set amounts of functions of mine limit, you'd still experience overmining on servers with a lower mine limit (30;40 some might presume 3/5 mines per doorway is not enough, therefor plant more resulting in overmining of other doors)

8: Following 7: We are forgetting the roof acces ramps

I suggest the following:

Since we have a voting system in place anyway, add a vote option (team only) to "silence" a player from using proxies. It wont inhibit their gameplay other than proxy mining and this is not so much gamechanging or game interfering as adding priority area's. I recall this "area" issue with the airstrike topic being unacceptable by the Devs as it limits player freedom.

[isupreme]

Great thread i hope it bears much fruit.

I am still new here so i dont have all the workings of things.....

Why doesn't the game stop/disallow more mines once the limit is reached?

~would that be a good thing?

[MonkeyBoy]

1. We use a "priority mining" system. What i mean by this is that when mines are placed in what will be pre-designated as "priority" areas ( building entrances for example) , they will be unable to be overwritten by new mines that are outside of the priority area .

An example of this is as follows ;

On walls, everyone agrees that the building entrances are the best places to mine , but there are enough miners out there who persist in mining the entrance with 40 mines and letting the sbhs in and eventually lead to the loss of a game. With the priority mining system, the server owners will be able to select all areas near building doors where mines are typically placed, and give any mine placed there a priority status. This would mean that as the mine limit is filled up, the mines outside of priority areas will be erased first. Instead of the current system where first mine to be placed is the first to be overwritten.

I like such an idea, but with an addition: assigning numbers per area.

Typically 5-6 mines per door entrance will keep 2 SBHs away, a team of 3 might overcome 6 and a team of 4 surely will, but this is not the reason why I choose a number.

Lets continue with your example on walls map for GDI:

Barracks has 2 doorways (NOTE: the sandbags turn it into 1 but walking up the roof will make entering possible) + 4 ramps ending in 2 on the top of barracks

WF has 2 doorways and a single roof entrance ramp

Ref has 2 doorways and a roof ramp (broader one)

Powerplant has 2 doorways and a single roof ramp

Now lets say there is a mine limit of 30 (default) there are 8 doors in total meaning a total mine count of 3 per door (thus 24 total) leaving 6 "undefined" mines, perhaps designated for the tunnel entrance or roof acces

A mine limit of 40 allows for 5 mines (40/8) per door (but none for the tunnels or roof acces)

A mine limit of 80 allows for 10 mines per door, but we all can agree thats a little too much.

Problem:

1: If you want to make it a function of the total mine limit, the above may be the results.

2: If you want to set a certain number of mines per area, some people may agree or disagree with the amount.

3: We are forgetting the roof acces ramps.

4: Part of the tactic could be assessing the importance of a building, in my opinion, the barracks is more important to me than the refinery. You would want to have a higher mine limit to defend the barracks instead of the refinery.

5: Following problem 4, who is to say(as server owner) what building is more important than others, significantly influencing gameplay tactics.

6: Other maps have more buildings with a higher total door count, resulting in an even lower mine count per area

7: If you do not want to limit the "priority area's" to set amounts of functions of mine limit, you'd still experience overmining on servers with a lower mine limit (30;40 some might presume 3/5 mines per doorway is not enough, therefor plant more resulting in overmining of other doors)

8: Following 7: We are forgetting the roof acces ramps

I suggest the following:

Since we have a voting system in place anyway, add a vote option (team only) to "silence" a player from using proxies. It wont inhibit their gameplay other than proxy mining and this is not so much gamechanging or game interfering as adding priority area's. I recall this "area" issue with the airstrike topic being unacceptable by the Devs as it limits player freedom.

On TmX where i play, there is a 45 mine limit. On walls , there are 8 doors , so that equates to 4 mines per door totalling 32 mines. Plus 4 for the wf ramp and the base is sbh proof with 9 mines to spare ( that i think should be saved for remote c4s and possibly extra mines at wf back door and ref back door ) .

Walls is the map which has the most entrances to protect. 8 building entrances, wf ramp, ref ramp and pp ramp. A map like goldrush or mesa has 5 buildings, but no ramps at all and bar only has one entrance so that equates to just 8 entrances for 5 buildings instead of the total for walls which is 11.

4 mines will kill pretty much one of any type of infantry, and thats all we should be aiming for. Making the base impervious to infantry infiltrations by having too many mines at each door forces people to use the only other strategy available ( vehicles) , which makes the game predictable and boring.

But i like your proposal of silencing people from mining, but on the whole i am against restricting the players options with how they play the game. I think that if they want to place mines in a silly area or put 50 remote c4s on their vehicle, they should be able to do it, but not at the expense of their teams defenses. The priority mine system has the best of both worlds, where idiots can continue to be idiots , and the base will continue to be mined properly for all of those who know how the game works.

Part of the problem is that unlike old renegade, a lot of people here are new to the renegade experience and dont understand how it all works yet. In old ren, everyone that played it has been around since the early days and thus know everything, so overmining was rarely a problem. The quicker we can get the noobs up to date with stategies and how the game works, the sooner they can be an asset to their team ! And seeing as how this is a team based game, the actions of just one person who doesnt know how to play properly ( the overminer) can greatly hinder a teams efforts to win. The rest of the team should not be punished for the inadequacies of a new player!

As for the location of the "priority" areas, this will be entirely up to the server owners themselves. If players dont like it, then there are other servers out there!

[MonkeyBoy]

Great thread i hope it bears much fruit.

I am still new here so i dont have all the workings of things.....

Why doesn't the game stop/disallow more mines once the limit is reached?

~would that be a good thing?

I too hope we can get a good discussion going on here. Im sure there are players out there with a better solution than my proposed idea, so lets find that solution!

As to your question, that would be a bad thing. Imagine the game is just beginning and a new player discovers mines and puts too many in the wrong place, if they didnt get overwritten by the overmining system, then they would only disappear after the enemy blew them up or disarmed. This wold be horrendous for base defense as you would have to get mining right the first try and there would be no second chances! the overmining system is necessary, but flawed in its current state. Thats why were here to try to find a better way.

Anyway welcome to ren x! make sure you pop ingame at TheMatrixRen.NET AOW and com have a play. Im a moderator there with nearly 10 years of renegade experience and knowledge im willing to share !

[Truxa]

MonkeyBoy,

in terms of leaving it up to the server moderators to designate priority areas, isn't that game modification instead of server modification? Because in essence, you are changing a small bit of a map.

The silencing can also last for just 1 minute, when the player finds out he cant mine, he can ask, we respond and tell him what he's doing wrong aka teaching him. I didn't mean to silence him for the entire game, that would be abuse sensitive

[MonkeyBoy]

In my moderating experience, when someone is team hampering and refuses to stop, its probably because they dont speak english or are just assholes. Either way, they will not stop unless they are kicked. My proposed method means that those team hamperers dont have to be kicked. Hopefully they will learn soon enough why the mines have to go in certain places and not randomly strewn across the map. I dont like kicking people because they tend to get pissed off with the server, and nobody wants that.

Silencing is a good idea, but what will you do if they dont speak english or just refuse to play nice?

[Truxa]

Silencing is a good idea, but what will you do if they dont speak english or just refuse to play nice?

Stacked silencing, when in 5 minutes time a 2nd vote passes to silence him, he will be silenced for 5 minutes instead of 1. If he still refuses to play nice, a 3rd vote in 10 minutes time (note, 5 are already gone after the 2nd vote passed) leading to a silence duration untill the end of the game.

Important is that rejoining the server will reset this feature, but he will also lose his accumulated credits if he does, so he cannot continue mining until he has $$ again.

Sadly, nothing can be done against non-english speakers, that has always been an issue in online gameplay

[MonkeyBoy]

Sadly, nothing can be done against non-english speakers, that has always been an issue in online gameplay

Whereas my idea solves the problem of non english speakers

[Truxa]

Sadly, nothing can be done against non-english speakers, that has always been an issue in online gameplay

Whereas my idea solves the problem of non english speakers

Agreed, but I'd suggest a maximum count of 3 per designated area to allow the freedom needed for normal gameplay.

When there are 3 mines in the area, additional mines can be placed but when the limit is reached, only a few are removed untill the limit of 3 is reached.

Problem:

What if ALL mines are in the designated areas and not exceeding the max count (lets say 5 because a server mod decided that) on a mine limit of 45 mines.

Designated areas being 5 for doorways and 3 for roof ramps. ((5x8(=40)) + (3x3(=9)) = 49 thus 4 mines too few for the designated areas)

[MonkeyBoy]

Sadly, nothing can be done against non-english speakers, that has always been an issue in online gameplay

Whereas my idea solves the problem of non english speakers

Agreed, but I'd suggest a maximum count of 3 per designated area to allow the freedom needed for normal gameplay.

When there are 3 mines in the area, additional mines can be placed but when the limit is reached, only a few are removed untill the limit of 3 is reached.

Problem:

What if ALL mines are in the designated areas and not exceeding the max count (lets say 5 because a server mod decided that) on a mine limit of 45 mines.

Designated areas being 5 for doorways and 3 for roof ramps. ((5x8(=40)) + (3x3(=9)) = 49 thus 4 mines too few for the designated areas)

That sounds like a plausible compromise.

As for the problem, i dont really understand it lol. if a server only had 45 mines then you wouldnt put 5 at each door as there wouldnt be enough , 4 is the typically accepted normal amount at each door

[Truxa]

4 mines do not stop 2 SBHs thus failing at that goal.

5 mines stop 2 SBHs but not 3 (2 SBHs taking the dmg of 2 mines and the last one taking the last dmg) I believe 3 mines do not kill an SBH though.

The SBH infiltration tactic require a minimal of 3 to destroy a building so the weakspots should aim for that infiltration, leading to the ref back door and WF back door needing atleast 6 mines. To the above suggestions, 2 will be removed through the overmining principle, unless the server mod can set a value per designated area.

However, reading the patchnotes for Beta 3, SBHs will be easier to spot thus these infiltration tactics won't be that viable anymore.

[RoundShades]

I always suggest giving players a personal limit of 6-8 mines, and a team limit of 20. A single person can still mine roughly 30, and multiple people get a very generous mine limit. At the very least, each individual can mine 2 structures lightly.

With 2 people, you could at least make sure there are some mines at every necesary point.

I am just suggesting something that might work with the unreal engine from what I know of it.

Then again, areas should work with unreal engine, and making the inside of each building have a special individual limit of 6 so one can at least put a few mines a door. That would even work with my idea, giving each structure a limit of 6 and each individual person a limit of 3. That covers the base and that covers personal usage.

Oh, and I suppose "tunnel entrance" should count as a structure.

[cncforever]

Another thing to bear in mind is that from my experieince, crawling into mines as an SBH allows you to survive a lot more. It may have been luck or a bug but Ive crawled through about 4 mines and lived.

[MonkeyBoy]

i know what you mean ive been killed by 2 mines before from full health. not sure why but there is definitely something dodgy about the mines!

[cncforever]

i know what you mean ive been killed by 2 mines before from full health. not sure why but there is definitely something dodgy about the mines!

Mines always do the most damage if you are running. Have you tried crawling into any before? I do that as a disarming tactic sometimes.

[djlaptop]

4 mines will kill pretty much one of any type of infantry, and thats all we should be aiming for.

This is why I prefer a higher mine limit. 55 is sufficient for a non-base-defense map like Walls (48 for GDI doors, plus a few the WF ramp and a little bit of leeway). Or, a future version of the game could be patched so that mines don't trigger through walls.

[AkillerNXC]

Lawl. If you could mine every door, it would completely take away the concept of sneaking. You pick and choose the most vital to mine, and then you actually have to defend your base.

[SFJake]

The illusion that you can defend your base via mines alone is a dumb one. Getting 3 SBH in a base will never be stopped by 5 mines (none of them have to die), almost ALL of the insane mining effort goes only to 2 things:

-Serve as a warning for entry

-Delay or deny 1-man infiltration

And that is ONLY when you have a competent hots/tech doing his job properly. Gets harder when multiple people try to the job simultaneously.

There is NOTHING I hate more than trying to take on that dedicated job and then people start mining my spots. Then I will never be able to tell my team when people get in, because the other guy putting the mine is too dumb to yell out when his mines get a kill.

The simple truth of the matter is the current mining system as a whole is BROKEN. It needs too much understanding from everyone in the game to work properly, and is also too important for a base to have chance of remaining alive.

The warning is alone the most important part yet I will see many, many bases fully mined die anyway, because you'll never actually know by the hots/techs that people infiltrated.

Personally I've grown quite sick of it. The job is too important. Its fine from a competitive stand point but when you get in pubs, its nothing but horrible.

I think mines should be a tighter part of base defense, including giving automatic warnings to people in the team when they are destroyed (not disarmed, however). Like I said, this is actually their #1 role. I think it should be emphasized. Otherwise, without a competent tech/hots in pubs, to be blunt, the games sucks.