Mine pass

[Cintronite]

I thought I only had to buy the mine pass once. I gave all the materials, paid for most of the cost and now I have to buy a pass every day? Why?

[ROORnNUGZ]

what kind of answer are you looking for here lol? Thats how the game is designed. Eventually you'll have more dinks than you know what to do with. Just wait until you find out the costs to get to the second level of the mine.

[JU1173]

You have to purchase a new pass every time you go down. You can make the cash back easy if you trap a few creatures down there. Don't sell the rubies, you will need them for the second level of the mine. You can break the rubies into shards while you are down there with a weapon, so you don't have to carry them back to the elevator.

We used to just sell the rubies before the last update, so between rubies and catching a few creatures you could make a ton of money from the mine.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

If you're balking at 25k per pass, you are not ready for the mines.

The amount is meant to serve as a deterrent to those who haven't hit the level of development to reasonably survive and thrive in the mine.

Once you hit the level of income where 25k isn't a big deal, then you're likely to survive and thrive down there.

[Mimilette]

I find the argument "the pass in a one time thing to prevent people who are not ready for the mine to go to the mine" kind of weird. If the goal is to make sure people are ready for the mine, then make the condition being, I don't know, to craft a copper weapon or some meal or something? Also I don't see the relation between being ready for the mine and having to pay every time. If you go the mine once, then you'll know what you're in for and can prepare accordingly, so the price of the pass is completely irrelevant...
Let's face it, that mine pass is just a gold sink to make the game longer, it does not serve any other purpose.

[AA]

The pass price tag actually dissuades me from making too many visits to the mine. Maybe it's meant to make it harder for players to get access to all kinds of materials easily? The mine certainly doesn't make it easy to get the resources you need without being attacked all the time (not to mention that you have to deploy new torches every time, which means you need mangrove on stock.)

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Originally posted by Mimilette:

I find the argument "the pass in a one time thing to prevent people who are not ready for the mine to go to the mine" kind of weird.

Did you see the players complaining how the mine was so hard and all they took was a basic spear and pickaxe, along with some uncooked fruit? They went in completely unprepared and got unsurprisingly mauled. The 25,000 serves as a subtle method of slowing down people who are not ready for the mine.

If the goal is to make sure people are ready for the mine, then make the condition being, I don't know, to craft a copper weapon or some meal or something?

I can't say it's the dev's goal as I'm not the dev, but it does serve as a good method of preventing people who are not teched up to regularly go into the mines. Furthermore, based on that logic, no one would go into the undergrowth mine as getting mobbed by 3-4 poison frillies will take down even the most hardcore combat oriented players. No one is prepared for that. A mob of 3-4 will take down a player with max health and full combat buffs should they choose to fight. But I think that's a design choice to remind players that no matter how far you are along in the game, there is always something that will kill you.

Also I don't see the relation between being ready for the mine and having to pay every time.

It's not about paying every time, it's the amount. If you struggle to generate 25,000 dink, that says a lot about how far you are in the game.

If you go the mine once, then you'll know what you're in for and can prepare accordingly, so the price of the pass is completely irrelevant...

Can you though? If you're struggling to generate 25,000 dink, do you really have the means to prepare? Again, it's not about the each time pass, it's about how much it costs. The mine isn't meant to be an very early game activity but lots of players are treating it like it is and having bad experiences with their basic spear and first level pick axe.

Let's face it, that mine pass is just a gold sink to make the game longer, it does not serve any other purpose.

Yes and no. The high cost is meant to serve as a goal, but also as a barrier from easy access to lots of ore. If the mine pass was free, the game would be a lot easier as ore would be plentiful early on. It's also a terrible money sink late game as my 308k in daily interest easily makes that a rounding error. It's sort of a money sink early to mid game, but 25k end game is irrelevant. The cost to prepare is actually much higher than the cost of the pass. I got four additional alpha hammers just for the undergrowth mine and eight additional battle shovels. That cost me 4.4 million dink.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Originally posted by AA:

(not to mention that you have to deploy new torches every time, which means you need mangrove on stock.)

You can create your own mangrove farm by transplanting mud. Give it time and mangroves will grow on their own. I made my own mangrove farm with no deep water making it super easy to harvest those.

[Mimilette]

Paying one time is fine, paying every time is not. And yes, it's a gold and time sink, the fact that in it's easy to make money in the end game does not matter, because it already increased the time you needed to reach said end game by forcing you to farm money over and over to have access to something basic you already unlocked.

So what if some people go to the mine unprepared once? They'll fail and come back better prepared later. And let's not even talk about the fact that you have then to repeat the exact same bs for the lower level by having to farm rubies this time (so that's 25k+the money you lose by not selling 2 rubies+25k again to access the lower level this time).

Generating money does not train you for the mine at all, you can make money by fishing all day... What trains you for the mine is going to the mine.

Stardew Valley was so much more better balanced about it, the mines were a fun adventure that make you feel like you actually progressed. First level are easy, and then it gets progressively harder. That's fun play.

It's not a matter of it being hard to make money, it's a matter of *fun*. Farming money to unlock new things is fine, farming money just to access something I already paid for, not fine.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Again, if you only had to pay once, it would open up a stream of easy resources that would make the game far less challenging. And if you can generate lots of money via fishing, you likely have a decent rod and have advanced in the game. Which is my point. Money generation itself does not train players for the mines, it is just an outcome of progress and that progress is what trains players, or at least equips them with better food and better gear. Can you generate enough dink that 25k isn't an issue? Then you probably have access to what is needed in the mines. If you're struggling to generate 25k, you're likely not far enough in the game to have what you need. That's really my entire point about this.

I agree with your ruby point, as that is just a mechanism to slow players down. Which is somewhat annoying as the undergrowth's rare stuff is already very rare. It's not like we're coming up every run with loads of berkonium. Player are lucky to get one or two and the improved tools require a whopping 50. That's a 100 ruby shards. The ruby thing is slowing down players with fully developed towns, which is probably why the dev did it.

[Cintronite]

I have money food and weapons, but I dont like staying in one place all day. I'd like to be able to leave the mine and come back later in the day. Plus I put johns store far from my house and the mine. I dont go to sell goods everyday, I stock up and take one or two trips a "week".

[LyaranTirel]

Let's be real: 25k for deep mine is NOT that much. The amount of ores you get on a full day run is on the 150+ IRON basis. With 50+ AT LEAST.
And that without taking account that one single ruby is worth more than 25k. And if you are lucky you can get 5+ rubies on a run.

So no. It's not a problem. It's a bother, maybe, because I have to keep some mine pass in a chest if I want to go deep mine on sundays, but not a real problem.

BTW, One of the first mods made on nexus was the 'one mine pass for all'. So your problem was solved long long ago by modders and I don't think the devs will actually take away one of the FEW things that make you re-currently use money on the game. It's a INTENTIONAL method to keep new players from being overwhelmed by the hard level of the deep mines and undergrove

[yyxyarden]

just with 25k and you got a lot of materials and 1-2 rubies which able to cover your expenses. it's not a mandatory for you to go mining everyday

[Zerschmetterling]

There is different aspect to buying the minepass. Why in the name off hell do i have to give money to John the Peddler, who's sitting all cozy in the shop that i built, gathered the materials for, friggin PAYED in full, so i can use the mine, that i also built, provided materials for, and ALSO payed in full.
It annoys me not from a gameplay standpoint, but story immersion instead.
I'm starting to see the villagers as lazy, greedy parasites and i don't want to interact with them anymore.
I'm losing hearts now if i don't suck up to them every day? Screw that, i don't like them anyway.

It's also annoying that you can only buy 1 pass per day. Money is not the problem, just let us "charge" the pass for multiple uses.

[Mimilette]

People who keep repeating that it's not a lot of money don't understand the point being made. I don't think it's a lot of money either, but it's still pointless busywork, on top of other busywork necessary to be ready for the mine: farming keys (yay going around all day to look for enough keys!), farming mats for food, weapons, etc, farming gold, get the mine pass, and pray that you'll find at least 2 rubies to ensure you'll be able to go to the lower level. So you'll probably spend the whole day in the mine to make sure you get the most of it so that means that every time you want to go to the lower level, you have to at least spend 2 days (1 to "prepare" and 1 in the mine) just doing the exact same stuff that you wouldn't need to do otherwise and which is not exciting anymore because you've done it repetitively, just so you can access the new more exciting stuff. Now, *personally* I don't think that's engaging gameplay at all. Other people might enjoy it and it's fine, but please stop assuming that people who don't like this kind of gameplay just "don't understand".
We understand just fine, we just don't think it's fun.

[weirdee]

The mines are not minecraft. Deploying torches is what you would do in that game, but in this one, finding a light that you can carry with you is much better. This is why you do not rush into it with those preconceptions.

I do think the whole key system is kind of silly though, yes. What with keys being found entirely at random, there's no real way to consistently gain them without mostly luck, which is then compounded by the luck of whatever you get in the chests themselves.