New Cave-in concept: Tommyknockers

[Headshotkill]

Suggesting the return of cave-in/collapses isn't something new, I've found several threads in the past which brought it up.
This one even has devs commenting in the thread: 

I really like the idea a cave could collapse at any time, but the basic routine in Terrafirmacraft of placing wooden beams and mining doesn't translate well into gameplay, destroys caves in an unrealistic way and got old pretty quickly.
It both adds another chore on top of what some already consider a chore itself (mining), and if you did it well you never ever risked a serious cave-in so the whole system was either too extreme or completely bypassed without anything inbetween.

That's why I suggest a new approach to the cave-in concept through the use of a new mob: Tommyknockers!
If you don't know what Tommyknockers are here's a good video: 

Or if you want to read about it, the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker_(folklore)

The cool things is these creatures are reported all over the world in different cultures, they can be both helpful or dangerous depending on their mood, even if they're happy they may decide to do some mischief.
Ingame the knockers would be invisible mobs that wander caves, they produce a distinct knocking sound which reverbs through the cave. They prefer to hang out around ore deposits so players could use their noise to get closer to ore veins. However there's a twist, you never really know if the creatures are helping you or luring you into a deathtrap, their way of attacking the player is making part of the cave collapse on them, burrying them alive. 
If you hear knocking sounds getting closer to you and they increase in intensity it may be a good idea to run out as fast as you can. 

There's a way to gain favor of these mischievious little buggers, build an altar inside the cave and leave offerings for the knockers on them. Miners all over the world actually did this to keep themself safe.
If you keep them very happy they'll help you locate rich veins, but there's still a small chance they may trick you and pull of pranks.
Besides directly killing you with cave-ins they could extinguish light sources behind you, throw a rock at you from a random direction, or collapse a part of the cave behind you thereby trapping you underground. 
All of this would best be combined with good scary cave ambience and a reduction of generic drifters roaming caves cause this may make caves too dangerous to make them worth the reward.
If you got a cave with knockers inside, don't spawn drifters and vice versa. You could make them appear as dark figures briefly before going invisible again to startle the player and add to the tension of mining.

What do you think?

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Headshotkill

[Thorfinn]

How does this improve the game experience? I'm not trying to knock it. I just want to understand what part of the game is lacking that you think this improves on.

Don't get me wrong. I can see you've put some effort into the idea. And maybe it would be the next big thing. I guess I lack the imagination to see what it is this fixes. 

[Headshotkill]

18 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

How does this improve the game experience? I'm not trying to knock it. I just want to understand what part of the game is lacking that you think this improves on.

First one of the top of my head is variation, the things that threaten the player are all kinda predictable melee/ranged enemies. I guess I want to see some more meat on the bones of this game, it's very good in terms of crafting and creative playing but I find fighting/exploring to be kind of  lacking at the moment. I read that thread about cave-ins which I linked and the devs seemed open to the concept of cave-ins but wanted to change it from the way it worked in Terrafirmacraft so I came up with this.

18 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I can see you've put some effort into the idea. And maybe it would be the next big thing. I guess I lack the imagination to see what it is this fixes. 

Haha, thanks for the compliment but this idea wasn't the most indepth idea I ever came up with by far, that would be my economy simulation concept for Crusader Kings 3: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/coinage-and-trade-economy-simulation-for-ck3.1585762/

As weird as it may sound I often derive more joy from imagining and proposing ideas for games than actually playing them, the discussion that follows keeps me engaged.
I understand this idea may seem unneseccary if you consider caves currently ingame to be fun as they are with the drifters/spiders/bells but I personally find them lacking, monotonous and a bit boring. That may sound rude but then again, the devs themselfs have mentioned they want to spice up caves and combat so they probably also find it lacking at the moment.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Headshotkill

[Thorfinn]

I mostly go into caves anymore only when there's a Very or Ultra High reading of something I want. Because of the size of iron deposits, I'll check even Decent if that's the highest reading I find. Now that I've seen all the lore I'm likely to see in this release,and because there's always enough to do without heading off to some random translocator somewhere to a map section to end up in another part of the world that is also generated randomly, I find them next to useless. I can't come up with a very good reason to go into caves most of the time. If they did collapse, I would be that much less likely to bother with them, and definitely not if I had to start carrying around posts and beams to shore things up.

I'm all in favor of variety. As a player, I'd prefer variety that makes me more likely to engage with a game's features than variety which makes it less likely. It would definitely add to variety to have 1 in 100 sheep be toxic to eat, but it would just mean I wouldn't bother with sheep anymore.

[Headshotkill]

26 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I mostly go into caves anymore only when there's a Very or Ultra High reading of something I want. Because of the size of iron deposits, I'll check even Decent if that's the highest reading I find. Now that I've seen all the lore I'm likely to see in this release,and because there's always enough to do without heading off to some random translocator somewhere to a map section to end up in another part of the world that is also generated randomly, I find them next to useless. I can't come up with a very good reason to go into caves most of the time.

This honestly sounds more like you've entered the late game and experience a lack of meaningfull things to do yet can't bring it to words, this is something I've also experienced in other games and it just may simply be time to start over and enjoy the early to mid game again.

26 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

 If they did collapse, I would be that much less likely to bother with them, and definitely not if I had to start carrying around posts and beams to shore things up.

I'm not suggesting beams or support structures to prevent cave-ins, I don't actually like that extra work myself. Instead if the knockers want to collapse a part of the cave it will collaps regardless of any playermade structures. The idea is to gain favour of these creatures so they 'tolerate' you wandering inside their caves and mining things. 

26 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I'm all in favor of variety. As a player, I'd prefer variety that makes me more likely to engage with a game's features than variety which makes it less likely. It would definitely add to variety to have 1 in 100 sheep be toxic to eat, but it would just mean I wouldn't bother with sheep anymore.

You're sort of obligated to decent into the caves and collect ores in order to progress through the game so it's inevitable you'll encounter these things compared to the sheep example.
One thing I don't understand is, where do you draw the line between things that are engaging and things that are annoying so you avoid them. Given your answers I'd be inclined to think you also find drifters lurking in caves annoying cause they interrupt you from safely mining ores.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Headshotkill

[Thorfinn]

20 minutes ago, Headshotkill said:

The idea is to gain favour of these creatures so they 'tolerate' you wandering inside their caves and mining things. 

OK.

22 minutes ago, Headshotkill said:

You're sort of obligated to decent into the caves and collect ores in order to progress through the game

Not really. When I find a Very High reading in something I want, I do a cursory look to see if there's any veins sticking out of the cliff faces. Then look for any caves. If not, that's fine. I dig straight down from there hoping to encounter a vein of ore. If not, climb back up, move over 15-20 blocks or so and dig another vertical shaft. It rarely takes more than 3 or 4, and that's much quicker than spelunking.

Granted that does not work for things like gold or silver, but you don't need those.

29 minutes ago, Headshotkill said:

Given your answers I'd be inclined to think you also find drifters lurking in caves annoying cause they interrupt you from safely mining ores.

Nah, I don't like drifters just because killing them is useless. They have absolutely no loot I'm interested in. At least bears have the decency to drop hides and fat.

It's not that I'm afraid of caves or anything. They are just almost always slower ways of making progress in the game, unless you are looking to find all the lore in this playthrough, or you really want to find a translocator.

[LJim]

3 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I'm not trying to knock it.

I see what you did there!