I saw a thread or two about folks and the lack of interest in the caves at a certain point. What if we were given the option to change caves, or even expand the caves? Allowing for rarer or new items to be found and harvested?
Just to clarify, are you talking about the little cave by the north entrance to the farm? Or are you talking about the mines and the other dungeon caves in the game? Either way, I'd like to hear some more specifics about what might be changed or how an expansion could be utilized.
What could be done is this, due to the fact that the floor limit as of now is 120 and gives you the key to the skull cavern. Around the time the giant rock next to the mine entrance is released, it also causes a shift within the mines and leads to floors below 120. With this, you would have older, stronger, more ancient variants of creatures with more unique abilities. Liches, Corrupted Dwarves, Ghasts, Ancient Pillars (stationary objects that fire status debuffs or damage spells at the player, but can easily be destroyed by a pickaxe), and many other creatures could also roam these ancient ruins. Since this is a new overhaul to the mines with tougher challenges, new gear can be added within the game and made to work for you in the struggles ahead. However, due to the fact that the mines have shifted, not adding a ladder to the floors below to the Ruins, you would drop down, taking fall damage before entering it. Instead of ladders taking you up, every 5 floors will have a rope that will give you a chance to leave the Ruin (and the mines respectively), but your progress in the ruin will not be saved, just like Skull Cavern. Maybe after every 10 floors there is a save position, and by the time you get to floor 160, there are 3 pillars that are not attacking the players, walking in between them with the galaxy sword or any other galaxy weapon will upgrade the sword/knife/hammer into a stronger variant as well. Upon upgrading your gear though, it will spawn a horde of creatures to fight against you.
I was mostly referring to the cave on your farm. being able to either change it from one to other would be nice. Could take a month to change it even to reduce potential abuse. But the expansion would allow you some customization options. being able to put items in the cave to use with the some of the items maybe. Or allowing you have more boxes, in reference to mushrooms. Maybe being able to get some materials to produce rarer or higher quality of these types of items. Similar for bats, being able to find or make something to encourage them to appear more often, bring back better things Or something, just a small idea I haven't thought much beyond it.
Maybe have it to where if you place a certain item within the cave, it has a chance to either increase or decrease quality based on the item and type of cave.
Issue is Demetrius is a biologist, not a geostructural engineer. Sure the player is a demolitions expert but we need to blow things up intelligently. Robin might be of use, but I'm not sure she'd approve
We could always mine it out hand? Need to have gold or higher and set up a quest to just mine the expansion out.
Just hire the Dwarf to help dig out the cave. He lives in the mines and it would stand to reason that he knows how to expand on caves. He could either do it alone, get some assistance from the player or even Robin... chances are, he'd be fine all on his own.
I 2nd this idea, using the Dwarf to commission cave upgrades using a parallel system to house upgrades (gold + materials + bombs?) sounds like a good idea. possible cave upgrades? Stage 0 --> Empty Cave Stage 1 --> Demetrius approaches you once it is detected that you have harvested some mushrooms (similar to the clint furnace event). He offers you the recipe to craft a "Mushrom Box" which works as current, production a steady supply of mushrooms when placed in either the Cave or (latter) the Cellar. Stage 2 --> Cave Expansion 1, accessed once you reach at least 3 Hearts with the Dwarf. The Dwarf offers to expand your cave in exchange for gold and raw materials (Metal bars/ore + bombs?). This expands the amount of usable space and grants access to one of two different side-upgrades Stage 2A --> Bat Habitat, Once your cave is upgraded to Stage 2 you will be contacted by Demetrius who offers to convert the newly uncovered side-room into a bat habitat, quoting you a cost in gold + materials. You can then search the habitat to occasionally be rewarded with random fruit, fertilizer (guano) and seeds. Stage 2B --> Mineral Vein, The Dwarf informs you that he heard the sound of running water while digging out the cave and thinks it connects to the mines. Choosing this upgrade causes the extra room to generate rocks/ore (like the quarry) as well as provides access to a stream with frequent panning opportunities Stage 3 --> Final Expansion, accessible once all bundles/community improvements completed, expands the size of all rooms as well as access to an all-new room in the back that opens out into what looks like an abandoned temple with a ruined alter at the back. Stage 3A --> Altar, both the Wizard and the Witch will offer to fix up the ruined altar so you may begin making offerings to the spirits, this is mostly a cosmetic difference with the Wizard seting up a happy, nature-themed altar and the Witch setting up a dark and 'spooky' one. There are two altars inside, a "main" altar where you can offer things like produce or monster drops to manipulate your luck for the better or worse based on what kind of item is offered. The 2nd alter allows you to control if monsters spawn on your farm at night and how aggressive/frequent the spawning rate is. Rates range from "no monsters, ever" to "Monsters spawn constantly day and night". Thoughts?
Called the Skull Mines. Not everyone likes that cave, I'm one of them, because of the harder mobs in it. It's not a fighting game, the hostiles that it has already is great and not too too difficult ( Except the Dragon Worm thing that flies.. It hits so hard when you can't get armor except pretty weak boots.. ). It wouldn't be a good idea to make a farming game have even harder mobs. Maybe for a completely optional expansion for the Skull Mines, but certainly not to the main one.
