Feedback: Counter the 1:2 strategy

[null]

In short, I loved your game, but the fact there's an obvious winning digging strategy removes the joy of exploration.

The game rules make it painfully clear how to find ores. You can essentially find all ores in any given area by making 1 tile tunnels and leaving 2 blocks between them.

If you have that figured out "exploration" becomes formulaic and digging turns into work.

I think the maze modifier needs to be part of base game. Maybe instead of being a full blown maze with unpassable areas some blocks need to be from the bottom of the world, so they are possible to get through (with bombs or lots of digging), but going around them is faster than digging through them.

Another alternative (possibly for another character) is sensing ores (like sonar, that gives you direction and rough distance, but no location), rather than seeing them, so that using a gameplay element is more rewarding than just dumb 1:2 tunneling.

[Wese]

Well, people are always gonna find an optimized way for anything, I figured this out as an optimal strategy pretty soon aswell. This strategy is directly tied to others such as pushing other ressources by grabbing one, for which you also want to have a straight tunnel.
I don't mind it and it makes mining more relaxed so for me personally, I hope it won't be a base game change. Maybe a seperate modifier than maze with the your mentioned changes could be an option so people can still choose.

The game seems heavily designed around making use of these strategies too, optimize digging and ressource pushing. I don't know if I could beat Brutal with no straight tunnels and no teleporter, probably not. Even using these tricks and optimizations the game is pretty challenging, isn't that part of the fun to optimize more and more in every playtrough and using/abusing certain gamemechanics?

[null]

I can see where you're coming from, but I think there's a difference between a community finding an optimal way and the optimal way presenting itself to most players within first 2 hours of gamepaly.

Far fetched example: figuring out how to auto-farm resources in Terraria takes imagination and effort. Most people can do it, but they first have to unlock the means, then learn to use them, then experiment enough to figure out how to do it. You get a method to break the game through progress and experimentation and it feels like a reward.

Originally posted by Wese:

...isn't that part of the fun to optimize more and more in every playtrough and using/abusing certain gamemechanics?

This right here is my biggest problem. On my 2nd palythrough the biggest element of the game got solved. I could try to optimize RNG gadget upgrade paths (very low variance here), but tunneling experience remained identical. The game's replayability became limited to the amount of gadgets/upgrade paths.

I suppose I can accept it as a 20 hour game, but I feel it can be much more.

[René - Bippinbits]

The 1:2 strategy is only optimal in the sense that you won't miss a resource. It's not very effective in terms of time per resource. I don't think you'll find the best players make a central shaft and then make these tunnels every third tile to the sides.
I think this is often something that is a bit of trouble for new players - they think they got the most efficient mining pattern, but struggle in the lower difficulties. The problem is that one doesn't experiment as much, thinking the perfect solution is at hand.
The different tile densities were introduced to encourage not doing a plain strip mining. I'm sure it can be improved, to further encourage different mining patterns (maybe smaller "formations" or an even stronger gap between soft and hard).
When new keepers and gadgets come, this will also change things up :)

[null]

Originally posted by René - Bippinbits:

...When new keepers and gadgets come, this will also change things up :)

Glad to hear it.

I think the fact there's no alternative method (other than probe) to reliably locate resources is what makes this the "optimal" method. It's also why I think alternative tracking methods (like echolocation) could break this pattern up.

By the way, you mentioned strip mining. I don't strictly mean horizontal lines. I mean close to 100% map visibility using any kind of tunnels that leave 2 blocks of dirt between the tunnels.

Anyways. I'll be eagerly awaiting new keepers and gadgets.
So far it has been one of the more unique games of the year.

[Mercurial]

If you're gonna ignore rock density, 1:3 is still better than 1:2. At deeper levels, you can do 1:4 too.

1:3 strip mining finds literally 95% of (3-block+) iron deposits. Sacrificing ~33% of your water/cobalt to mine iron 50% faster is better.

Best, is to actually priortize softer density while trying to abide by those margins.

[Kyang]

I've been using 1:2 digging method from the first time I played, but I'm having more and more variation in the way I'm digging recently. Those are the two factors affecting my digging direction:
1. If I'm digging out, I also want to dig my way back. It means I either decide to dig underneath to start digging my way back to the central shaft, or head to the side of the map where I can start digging up. Because YAFI timer is pretty short, I'm constantly making decision about when to head back, and where to dig towards.
2. The rocks have different hardness, so it's best to dig where it is soft. It doesn't matter too much when it's on lower difficulty, but YAFI without a starting gadget crucially requires you to invest in defenses as soon as possible, and I found it to be the most successful to straight up go for double laser for laser dome or an equivalent amount of weapons without investing any further than the first level on drill/speed/carrying capacity. And if you are staying with drill level 1, it's pretty important to control your pathing to dig all the softer areas before proceeding.
I'm still doing the 1:2 digging, but as you can see, the decision on where to dig changes every run and every time I head out to my digging site. And this changes once again vastly once I pick up a probe gadget, which I try to get whenever I am given the possibility as my first gadget.

[Dark Neuron]

When you get to "You asked for it" difficulty, 1:2 is not going to be a winning strategy: It's too slow. Sure you'll find all the resources, but you'll be dead.

[klh]

Originally posted by Dark Neuron:

When you get to "You asked for it" difficulty, 1:2 is not going to be a winning strategy: It's too slow. Sure you'll find all the resources, but you'll be dead.

I easily won small and medium on YAFI using 1:2.

[Kyang]

Originally posted by Dark Neuron:

When you get to "You asked for it" difficulty, 1:2 is not going to be a winning strategy: It's too slow. Sure you'll find all the resources, but you'll be dead.

Yeah I still use 1:2, doing smthg like 1:3 is just too tilting for me.
You might be overestimating YAFI difficulty since it's not that difficult if you start with an OP relic like a lift. I cleared it on my first attempt with a starting relic, so saying you have to use a particular strat for such a thing is an exaggeration.

[Mercurial]

Of course using a starting relic makes things easier.

That doesn't change the fact that 1:2 strip mining just isn't that ideal. It's better to ignore harder substrates and go deeper, or path around the hard area. It's better to do 1:3 in most depths, or 1:4+ at deeper depths if you don't need water/relics.

If you take those strategies into account, you'll win more often and with more cobalt remaining.

Obstinately making straight lines at zealous 1:2 intervals all the way to the border, regardless of whether it takes you twice as long to travel there and twice as long to remove that particular brick-rock, may feel organized, but that doesn't make it good.

[Kyang]

Originally posted by Mercurial:

Of course using a starting relic makes things easier.

That doesn't change the fact that 1:2 strip mining just isn't that ideal. It's better to ignore harder substrates and go deeper, or path around the hard area. It's better to do 1:3 in most depths, or 1:4+ at deeper depths if you don't need water/relics.

If you take those strategies into account, you'll win more often and with more cobalt remaining.

Obstinately making straight lines at zealous 1:2 intervals all the way to the border, regardless of whether it takes you twice as long to travel there and twice as long to remove that particular brick-rock, may feel organized, but that doesn't make it good.

You know what, you are probably right.
I have been doing the way I didn't feel uncomfortable about since it was enough to beat huge map YAFI without starting relic, but I've started adding maze on top of it, and the map itself is tilting, so doing 1:3+ wouldn't really change the amount of tilt.

[klh]

Originally posted by Mercurial:

Of course using a starting relic makes things easier.

That doesn't change the fact that 1:2 strip mining just isn't that ideal. It's better to ignore harder substrates and go deeper, or path around the hard area. It's better to do 1:3 in most depths, or 1:4+ at deeper depths if you don't need water/relics.

If you take those strategies into account, you'll win more often and with more cobalt remaining.

Obstinately making straight lines at zealous 1:2 intervals all the way to the border, regardless of whether it takes you twice as long to travel there and twice as long to remove that particular brick-rock, may feel organized, but that doesn't make it good.

No starting relic in my cases. I do however zig-zag the 1:2 if I got too deep for my drill upgrade and I hit a softer patch - straightening it out after the upgrade. Ofc at some point you don't need to upgrade anymore, then it's just straight down for the relic.

1:3 and 1:4 miss a lot of cobalt/water, so I guess healing with 1:2 offsets the speed of the others.

YAFI is no that hard, can't wait to unlock it again with bigger maps (lost the save) so I can try the huge one.