[PMC] Grinders and public access

[Guest]

I think we should have a discussion of grinders and public access.

 

In general all grinders should have some sort of public access, though this is poorly referred to within the rules. However it is nowhere said what this public access should be nor what portion of the goods should be available. Generally it has been working well, since most people on the server are courteous about it, but then of course there's always someone pushing the spirit of the set rule, which is the reason I'm bringing this up.

 

There's currently a guardian grinder that has a majority of the output going into the owners' personal chests. I can only guess but probably over 90% of the resulting drops go for them if not more. I've never yet seen such a split on the drops between the grinder owners' and public access chest. Also the split doesn't change when someone goes there to AFK which is another generally accepted method.

 

Now, it being a guardian grinder this isn't a huge problem since there are several temples on the map, but since padmins ruled this as an acceptable splitrate and saying we're following the "letter of the law" instead of the spirit of it, it does create some troubling scenarios. Mainly I'm a bit worried that this will be infectious. If one is allowed to do it, there's nothing preventing from others going to ridiculous 99/1 split rates on grinders. Lets say the builders of the overworld special spawners decided to do this. Slimes, gunpowder, magma cream and what ever else sort of special spawners there is would essentially become private, since with such a split rate they're not truly public, since it wouldn't be worth the effort to get those items that way. Even with the sea temples it could eventually come down to a race of getting them secured so you can guarantee access to those items for yourself. The question is, is this really what we want?

 

My solution to this problem is, that since some people seem to want to stretch the boundaries, we'd rewrite the rule to be clearer and indeed make it a proper rule. Something that says that either it needs to have the mechanics to reroute the drops when someone is there afk or fully public chests or a minimum of 50/50 split automatically routed.

 

 

[Guest Former Staff]

Thanks for bringing up this discussion Zomise and for answering some of my questions on irc about how some of these grinders are currently set up, in a bit more detail.

 

My first thoughts are that whoever takes the time to create a grinder, does deserve the satisfaction of profiting from it. However, from the concern you have highlighted in regards to the ratio of drops going to someone using the grinder or private chests, it would be a much more unpleasant experience if all grinders required people to spend vast amounts of time simply because they are only able to receive say, one in ten drops.

 

I'm hoping that someone else would have a fair solution to counteracting that issue creeping in but I would be interested in seeing something established to help curb this a bit, even if only as a trial run.

[Weazol]

I agree with zomise. With the way the rules are now, one could easily follow the rules and get 99% of the drops.

If I made a grinder in which the items fell into a dropper. The dropper had a button wired up to redstone in such that a player could only press the button every minute and the dropper spits out one drop. The rest of the drops feed on through into my chests. This would be a 100% dick move, but it still follows the current rule of allowing access to the drops of my grinder.

[buzzie71]

Some context on where the grinder access rules came from (yes, I'm telling the story with my own biases and understanding; yes, I was a Padmin both times; no, I have not operated a unique spawner grinder or iron grinder before this rev):

There were two catalysts for required public access to grinders and public output for iron grinders specifically. The former has to do with a second, access-restricted End grinder going up (rev 10-ish?) and subsequent complaints about its exclusivity for certain players and impact on the existing public grinder's spawn rates. Shortly after that the Padmins (of which I was one) forced open the second grinder and enacted the new rule that grinders had to be publicly accessible. My understanding of it at the time was that players needed only be able to physically reach the grinder, without having to pass through any access restriction checks, to punch mobs and that it was not a mandate for public grinder drops other than XP. Since then I have heard stories that another Padmin had taken it to mean a mandate for other public grinder drops (eg. zombie/skeleton) and have forced those to be public for players before.

The second one was regarding public output for iron grinders - a player in rev 10 had brought an iron grinder to our attention that was completely private, that is, no way to reach the golem drops at all, and argued that because the inside was sealed off from the outside, that the grinder violated the "map must be open to exploration" rule. The decision we made was to insert a new "rule" in the sense of explicitly clarifying where iron grinders stand in relation to the exploration rule - which was that the killing zone must be made accessible, but it is legal to seal that off only if a portion of the output chest was public. In practice, this meant that the public must be able to access the iron drops one way or another - either by intercepting the drops from golems before they are collected, or by accessing the collection chest itself. Since then I've heard this rule defended as an anti-lag measure, to prevent too many iron grinders from being constructed due to the colossal number of villagers (and worse, collisions) that might be required of it - which is a fair point, but to my knowledge this was not one of the reasons presented for the new rule at its inception.

Now, during my time as a Padmin since then, despite the rules being ambiguous about what proportion of iron grinder drops is considered legal, the proportion open to the public was not a huge issue. Most grinders on the low side were around 50% or 25%; lowest I've heard word of was a 10%, none of which action was taken against unless the proportion was 0%. Iron grinders were also plentiful enough on any given rev that if one grinder had an extremely unfavorable public output, there almost certainly existed another somewhere on the map that was more generous.

I think that for ocean monuments, unless there ends up only being one on the map (and it is probable; I am estimating the demand for prismarine to be much less than the demand for iron), the same thing would most likely pan out (unless of course the grinder operators all colluded to restrict output). Word would spread about it and the more generous grinder will probably get more traffic, a better reputation, etc., all of which would benefit the generous grinder and probably harm the less generous ones. For some, that is probably motivation enough. (Side note: from eyeballing the live map I can count 2 possible grinders on the current rev 17 map; there are several more that have not been developed yet.)

For the unique spawners I am on the fence about. Mandating the output of those, or a noticeable portion, to be public would be fair to all, in that the public would be able to share in the fast resource gathering. Probably the only kind of player who would lose out on that is someone who wanted to stockpile the drops as many and as fast as possible.

Alternatively, not requiring a minimum level of public outputs would not be the end of the world - it can be argued that the public can still get the drops by going out into the wild, or visiting a darkroom grinder, etc. faster than they would by afk-ing at the grinder. Staff would have less jurisdiction over the grinder build, and the private drops would discourage unwanted visitors. But the inequality between them and the grinder operators who are obtaining the drop quicker is obvious, and monopolizing unique resources like these runs counter to the openness spirit of P and tends to incite public social uneasiness directed at the operator. Again, for some, that is probably enough motivation to open up the grinder already.

A cursory glance at the text above would suggest that I favor the former - less overall losses, sketchy acts, whatever else they are designated, to the server in general. This is perhaps true, but the flipside is that players would be required to incorporate a particular feature in their build, which is not something that I liked to enforce on individual players. Like I mentioned before, I'm still on the fence - not to mention that I've also not operated such a grinder before and don't have much experience on the other side of the coin.

Edited January 26, 2016 by buzzie71

[Sapphric]

I'm not speaking for the other Padmins here, but these are my thoughts on the matter.

 

As far as I'm concerned, unless the grinder is a special, one-of-a-kind one like a creeper or slime spawner, then the drops should absolutely be completely, or mostly-completely publicly accessible. But for other grinders, like your run-of-the-mill zombie or skeleton grinders, there's so many of them that if those are completely private, who really cares? As for iron/guardian grinders, I personally feel if someone is going to go through the effort to build one, they deserve to get the vast majority of the output. There are plenty other temples that can be made into grinders, and iron grinders are similarly easy to build.

 

As buzzie said, the main problem I have with limiting the amount of drops the builder can keep for themselves is that they have a right to do what they want with their build, provided it follows the server rules. If they don't want other people potentially AFKing at their private build 24/7, then they shouldn't be required to facilitate them by giving up half of their grinder's output. As long as there's a way to at least get SOMETHING from it, I have no issue, as there are other grinders that can be used. Sure keeping most of it may be a bit of a dick move, but it's not like guardian grinders are scarce.

[Silversunset01]

I agree with Sapphric - the special spawners should be available to everyone but common ones really don't make much difference since they're almost everywhere. And I know (mostly) how many temples there are this rev, honestly I'm not worried. If you find one grinder that isn't producing move to another - there is always someone who enjoys creating public-access builds to make up for those who are stingy.

It may be worth it to clarify the rule a bit if people find they are confused by it.

Also now I am feeling the urge to zip through the special spawners and make sure they are being used...

[Narissis]

I just need to make friends with a guardian grinder builder... so many sea lanterns I wish to use. XD

[schererererer]

Honestly, I think some percentage value needs to be placed on things that do require some public split. Otherwise, you're just asking for brinkmanship over what is permitted. A maximal 50/50 split is easy to setup and reasonable, considering the builder is likely to be on site more often to pull drops out of the public chest - thus it's a 50% minimum take for the builder in this case, even when other people are putting in all the afk time.

 

Also, if iron grinders require a public portion, guardian grinders certainly should. I'm not so sure how many ocean monuments are still out in the wild, but from the live map it seems like most of them are claimed. There's an active disincentive to sharing, so what is likely to end up happening is a number of maximally private guardian grinders and a mere one or two public grinders for the entire rest of the server to share. The scarcity is still an issue. They're perhaps not as limited as a unique spawner, but at a certain not-too-distant point, they become impossible to circumvent by building a new grinder, just like the unique spawners.

 

Additionally, I'm going to expand on buzzie's mention of "social uneasiness". Would padmins allow denunciations with any level of hostility toward those with less-public grinders? This happened in the past, and things got pretty heated over it. Blacklisting of less-public grinder builders is one way that non-staff can voice disapproval, but it could start a spiral of disgruntlement contrary to the nature of the pve server.

[Flumper]

I have an issue with any type of grinder with such an imbalanced split of drops. While it's certainly a bigger issue when it's a unique or rare spawner, I believe all grinders should have a roughly even split of drops. If a particular grinder ends up being 60/40 in favour of the builder then that is not a big deal, but I do not believe a 90/10 split (if indeed it is that) is in the spirit of the server. There is also no reason a public chest cannot be emptied by a member of that region when nobody else is using the grinder. And any time anyone uses the public portion of the grinder, they are helping to contribute to the private chest too by keeping chunks loaded, so it's not like the builder isn't profiting from their work with the 50/50 split.

 

Temples may not be so few in number this rev, but they aren't especially common either, compared to skele spawners and the like. Even if I did agree with allowing a skele spawner to be imbalanced, I still don't think I would support the same rule for temples.

 

I think in this particular case, the grinder should be assessed to verify its output split and if it is as imbalanced as people have claimed, then they should be asked to amend the design to solve the issue.

[Silversunset01]

the challenge I am seeing with imposing set percentage splits is enforcement. I don't know of a good way to measure this, short of being required to inspect every grinder on the map.

[Flumper]

the challenge I am seeing with imposing set percentage splits is enforcement. I don't know of a good way to measure this, short of being required to inspect every grinder on the map.

 

That's a good point, but I don't think it would require inspecting every grinder, simply investigating them in cases where people have complained (such as the one Zom is referencing), would probably suffice.

[Silversunset01]

That's a good point, but I don't think it would require inspecting every grinder, simply investigating them in cases where people have complained (such as the one Zom is referencing), would probably suffice.

/me gets out devils advocate hat

That essentially forces people to hide their grinders if they don't want to share at all. No grinder access = no questions asked. Thoughts?

[robr]

A suggestion - why mandate a split at all? Let any afk-type collection be collected by the creators any way they see fit - BUT, mandate (in the spirit of p map openness) that the collection and/or kill area of any grinder be public ally accessible... We've seen this in practice at a number of iron grinders in particular over the last several revs (vinhaven' where you had to move around to collect, we had one that was redstone pressure plate based in alias rev12, etc) .. That way if someone wants to actually take the time to collect resources they can, and whoever builds it benefits from any time the chunk is loaded or afking.. ?

[Silversunset01]

Robr I think that is essentially how it's worded now. Apparently that is not clear enough for some players which leads to situations like this where people begin to demand percentages and ratios baked into their rules.

And then we get flack for being too strict.

[Guest]

A suggestion - why mandate a split at all? Let any afk-type collection be collected by the creators any way they see fit - BUT, mandate (in the spirit of p map openness) that the collection and/or kill area of any grinder be public ally accessible... We've seen this in practice at a number of iron grinders in particular over the last several revs (vinhaven' where you had to move around to collect, we had one that was redstone pressure plate based in alias rev12, etc) .. That way if someone wants to actually take the time to collect resources they can, and whoever builds it benefits from any time the chunk is loaded or afking.. ?

 

This usually indeed is the case robr. The grinder used as an example does not have that though, which leads to the follow up on the public access of the drops. So all in all a grinder without access to killing area and has barely any public access to the drops is still allowed.

 

Everyone seems to be pretty hang up on the percentages, when I mentioned the other options on my post.

 

Most grinders like this are enclosed (killing area not available).

 

I didn't mean to post before I can answer others as well, but would be great if people wouldn't get too concentrated on the mentioned percentage split method.

[robr]

right, but i guess that's my point - is that either a grinder has to be accessible to the kill box/fully collectible by player or some sort or user interaction to collect all while actively there - and only dump into private chests as a fall back/default chunk load.. no acceptable percentages or anything, just attention based - this can easily be done with a fully enclosed grinder by way of some simple redstone/pressure plate work(stop a hopper from draining the dump chest while someone's on a plate, as soon as they go away it goes back to dumping into the builder's chest.. (granted, we do all of our grinders in solace fully public, so i don't have a particular interest in filtering to private, but still, seems like it could be a relatively simple clarification.. ?)

[robr]

checked out that grinder - wow, that's screwed. it'd be one thing if the drop channel was accessible, but it's completely enclosed... [redacted]

Edited January 1, 2017 by Silversunset01
redacted for move to public forum, coordinates removed.

[Guest]

Bump. So you don't forget. :) Perhaps we can have a decision regarding the custom spawners for next rev.

[redwall_hp]

My opinion is that all grinders should be mainly public (though if someone wants to skim off half, I don't particularly care) because the creation of excessive duplicate grinders is generally undesirable. This goes especially for guardian ones, which have a nasty habit of spawning insane amounts of mobs and *hopefully* killing them as fast as they accumulate. Couple that with a metric ton of hoppers and redstone to sort and store the ocean of resulting items...and it has a notable impact on server resources.

[SwitchViewz]

I thought I put my opinion in this thread already but apparently I didn't. This is just my opinion and not the views of the padmin team. We hope to have something much clearer laid out for next rev.

 

To me there are 2 types of grinders and spawners. The first are the ones that you can pretty much find anywhere, such as Skeleton Spawners, Gaurdian Temples, Zombie Spawners, etc. They are very common throughout the map and there are often multiple grinders all over the place. These types of spawners and grinders I don't think we should care if they are private or public. If someone wants to use a skeleton grinder in a mob maze or instead make it a grinder, it's up to them. They found it, and there are so many of them they should be able to decide what to do with them. There are so many of them that it's not worth the energy trying to enforce that every one of them be public.

 

The second type is the custom spawners that we place around the map. The witch spawner, creeper spawner, slime spawner, etc. There are only 1 of each spawner. Since they are special and they are only one of a kind I feel that they should be public. The design of the grinder and style is up to the person that found it, but it ultimately has to be public. If we let people keep a custom spawner to themselves they pretty much have a monopoly on that resource. Sure you can go kill creepers in the wild, or you can guy buy a chestfull from the guy with the spawner. Everyone should be able to have access and use the special spawners as that's there purpose. We add them to the server for everyone to use and share, not for one or two people, or even a town, hoard the spawner to themselves.

 

For those of you unaware, last rev we had planned on keeping the slime grinder private to ourselves for a week or two before announcing it. Forever_Steve found out and make a shitstorm out of us trying to keep it to ourselves and hoard/sell all the resources and have a monopoly on it. I don't want another instance of that as it's not healthy for the environment of the server.

[Trooprm32]

I thought I put my opinion in this thread already but apparently I didn't. This is just my opinion and not the views of the padmin team. We hope to have something much clearer laid out for next rev.

 

To me there are 2 types of grinders and spawners. The first are the ones that you can pretty much find anywhere, such as Skeleton Spawners, Gaurdian Temples, Zombie Spawners, etc. They are very common throughout the map and there are often multiple grinders all over the place. These types of spawners and grinders I don't think we should care if they are private or public. If someone wants to use a skeleton grinder in a mob maze or instead make it a grinder, it's up to them. They found it, and there are so many of them they should be able to decide what to do with them. There are so many of them that it's not worth the energy trying to enforce that every one of them be public.

 

The second type is the custom spawners that we place around the map. The witch spawner, creeper spawner, slime spawner, etc. There are only 1 of each spawner. Since they are special and they are only one of a kind I feel that they should be public. The design of the grinder and style is up to the person that found it, but it ultimately has to be public. If we let people keep a custom spawner to themselves they pretty much have a monopoly on that resource. Sure you can go kill creepers in the wild, or you can guy buy a chestfull from the guy with the spawner. Everyone should be able to have access and use the special spawners as that's there purpose. We add them to the server for everyone to use and share, not for one or two people, or even a town, hoard the spawner to themselves.

 

For those of you unaware, last rev we had planned on keeping the slime grinder private to ourselves for a week or two before announcing it. Forever_Steve found out and make a shitstorm out of us trying to keep it to ourselves and hoard/sell all the resources and have a monopoly on it. I don't want another instance of that as it's not healthy for the environment of the server.

 

The second point would also apply to the End Grinder. Since the mechanisms of how they work make having only one be beneficial to several, it should also be public. 

 

As for Iron grinders and Guardian grinders; I still think they should have a degree of publicity towards them, as to avoid mass resources hoarding in the case of guardians, and town exclusivity vs solo player for iron grinders

[buzzie71]

I might have more thoughts later, but wanted to bring this up:

 

As a possible hedge against special spawners intended to be public but falling into private hands - what about seeding a second copy of the spawner on the map?  It would mean trading off the uniqueness of the spawner but having more than one of the type would lessen the probability of them all being closed off to the public.

[Guest]

I might have more thoughts later, but wanted to bring this up:

 

As a possible hedge against special spawners intended to be public but falling into private hands - what about seeding a second copy of the spawner on the map?  It would mean trading off the uniqueness of the spawner but having more than one of the type would lessen the probability of them all being closed off to the public.

 

In the end people might just be even more for just keeping them private them knowing that admins will just add another to the map. So I can't really see it working.

 

I'm kinda pissed that special spawners that haven't been seen/found for revs are under private hands without publicising it. Sure I can see the appeal of it, but it's a waste and in my opinion takes away from the reason they're even added.

[SwitchViewz]

I'm kinda pissed that special spawners that haven't been seen/found for revs are under private hands without publicising it. Sure I can see the appeal of it, but it's a waste and in my opinion takes away from the reason they're even added.

That is the problem I have always had with them. What is the purpose of putting them into the map if they are just going to be kept privately away from everyone else?

 

 

I might have more thoughts later, but wanted to bring this up:

 

As a possible hedge against special spawners intended to be public but falling into private hands - what about seeding a second copy of the spawner on the map?  It would mean trading off the uniqueness of the spawner but having more than one of the type would lessen the probability of them all being closed off to the public.

While we could do this, I feel like this would kill the appeal a bit of custom spawners. Part the reason they are so unique and special is because there are only one of them in the entire map. If we start adding more of them it takes away from the one being special and they loose your appeal.

 

What fun would it be to say "Whiteoak found and built the only creeper spawner on the server!" if there is another one build by someone else on the other side of the map.

 

 

The second point would also apply to the End Grinder. Since the mechanisms of how they work make having only one be beneficial to several, it should also be public. 

 

As for Iron grinders and Guardian grinders; I still think they should have a degree of publicity towards them, as to avoid mass resources hoarding in the case of guardians, and town exclusivity vs solo player for iron grinders

Iron grinders are so easy to get for the first few levels that almost any small group of players could get there own. If a group of players want to invest the time and resources for a better iron grinder, especially if we increase the cost of them for next rev, they should be able to keep most if not all of it's output.

 

As for the End Grinder, I'd say that that's a special case. You can build more of them but as you stated it is better to have just one. Is this something we want/should to regulate as padmins?

[Guest]

This one was resolved in the rev18 info post. Please archive.