Will the drill spawn algorithm ever be fixed

[Coach Mildew]

Im all for making the game hard, but making it unfair is another thing. 90% of my non seeded runs are ruined because of the drill; whether it’s because it’s directly above a shop or a kali altar, which pretty much eliminates my chance for a capalla. There’s been times where spike ball trap is triggered by an imp which destroys the altar in the previous level, making it so the drill gives me the ball and chain debuff. And of course, the classic lava pool it seems to always go through. I have zero control on how that drill spawns yet im punished for it every time. At this point i’d be fine with it going through lava. But shops and altars? Come on man.
And yes, I know you can bomb your way to vlad’s castle, but the game apparently finds it funny to give me useless clothes shops and pet shops in the dwelling, so I never have more than 4 or 5 bombs (thanks to quillback’s bomb bag) when i get to the drill level.

[Plan Z]

People complain about this a lot, but it's really not that bad. I mostly go to volcana and I rarely die to the lava on the way to Vlad's. Sometimes if it's really egregious and the whole floor of the bottom level is covered, yeah, but really all it takes is patience.

The times it spawns directly above an altar or shop are really not that common, lava happens much more often.

[Coach Mildew]

Originally posted by Plan Z:

People complain about this a lot, but it's really not that bad. I mostly go to volcana and I rarely die to the lava on the way to Vlad's. Sometimes if it's really egregious and the whole floor of the bottom level is covered, yeah, but really all it takes is patience.

The times it spawns directly above an altar or shop are really not that common, lava happens much more often.

It’s not the lava that gets me, even though it’s a nuisance, it’s the shops and altars which have been common for me lately, yesterday it was shop 3 times and altar 2 times, it’s ridiculous.

[<:)]

1 broken Kali alter by no means ruins your chances for kapala.
I had 3 consecutive runs yesterday end with drill spawn over lava / shop and thought 'screw it i'll try digging down'. I ended up bombing underneath a lava pit and chaining my way between TNT crates and it took 10 bombs to reach Vlad's castle. If you had a pickaxe i'm sure you could make it most of the way as well.

[Coach Mildew]

Originally posted by <:):

1 broken Kali alter by no means ruins your chances for kapala.
I had 3 consecutive runs yesterday end with drill spawn over lava / shop and thought 'screw it i'll try digging down'. I ended up bombing underneath a lava pit and chaining my way between TNT crates and it took 10 bombs to reach Vlad's castle. If you had a pickaxe i'm sure you could make it most of the way as well.

It pretty much does unless theres an altar in 4-2 where i can clone a pet 3 times and sacrifice them all. Sometimes she doesnt forgive me for 1 pet sacrifice. Also, im always carrying the bow since im doing a non seeded cosmic ocean run, so ill never have a mattock in that part

[grodgers923]

The other day one drill went through both the altar and the shop
I don't see this being changed but it is annoying it is mainly the lava it adds a chance to just instantly end the run even with good strats unless you bomb

[CarThief]

It's kind of stupid design if your run could be ended after like 10+ minutes because of the drill, which you basically need for a certain path. It should be ended by foolish actions, greed, not by playing the game as intended!

This is definitely something that needs a priority fix, either by relocating the drill to the bottom as some suggested (cuts down on lag/unwanted lava atleast), or ensuring no altar/shop is created in the drill's path.

Lava i can deal with, so can most people, after a while it stops flowing and it's safe to go through (bombs can accellerate that process), but having shopkeepers permanently mad or losing out on the Kapala? That's a HUGE no.

Although, it could still use improvements how it handles fallen-down lava. Does the door always spawn next to Vlad's castle, or was i just lucky lately? Because the exit door SHOULD indeed always be where his castle is in case there's no way to the exit after you get to his castle.

[Plan Z]

Originally posted by CarThief:

It's kind of stupid design if your run could be ended after like 10+ minutes because of the drill, which you basically need for a certain path. It should be ended by foolish actions, greed, not by playing the game as intended!

And I think this gets at one of the core arguments on these forums about the game's meta. There's "my run is now ruined because I can't do all the things I intended to do" vs. "This run has been altered and I now need a new goal."

How are you certain you're playing the game as intended?

I would argue that if the drill goes through lava, and you think you might not make it through, but still go for it and die, then the run was ended by greed.

It's possible to be forgiven on a shopkeeper drill death if you play your cards right, and not getting a Kapala doesn't mean you are locked out of a good run.

[Juno Brier]

Originally posted by Plan Z:

It's possible to be forgiven on a shopkeeper drill death if you play your cards right, and not getting a Kapala doesn't mean you are locked out of a good run.

I'd be inclined to say the Kapala is a luxury anyway given the common run-enders are the stuff that just kill you instantly from any health value or stunlock you to death. Shopkeepers potentially being the latter.

Anyway yeah the devs should alter the generation of a drill level to be more biased toward placing shops and altars to the sides rather than the center. Biased, not completely avoid, since that chance of RNG hating your guts should still be a thing.

[sothoth]

Today I got killed at 4+ minutes in by lava dropping down on me from the shaft mid jump to the other side of the drill and this isn't even the first time something like this happened. But between garbage like this or the bottom of the level getting so flooded with lava there's nowhere left to jump to, it's no longer amusing to restart runs due to pure randomness like this.

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Originally posted by sothoth:

Today I got killed at 4+ minutes in by lava dropping down on me from the shaft mid jump to the other side of the drill and this isn't even the first time something like this happened. But between garbage like this or the bottom of the level getting so flooded with lava there's nowhere left to jump to, it's no longer amusing to restart runs due to pure randomness like this.

How many times are you going to knowingly drill through lava, and then die from jumping across the shaft when you know lava is likely to fall? This is the important part. This is the learning. And, no, it's not pure randomness.

Here is how to severely increase your chances, and stop banging your head off of the exact same issue:

1. Look down before you launch the drill. Do you see lava? Do you see an altar? Decide if you are gonna go for it or not. Its okay to go for it, but just know what you are getting into.

2. IF you go for it and drill through lava. Wait for 1.5 or 2 minutes for most of it to drain. This helps BIG TIME. Most people hastily rush down and risk it. Big mistake. Took me a long time to learn this. Sometimes supplement this by tossing a few bombs down to make safe hollow points along the shaft.

3. If there is lava or shops/etc. Consider bombing to the castle. It takes less bombs usually than you'd think because there are often intermediate doorways.

I go for Vlad nearly every time, and yes, I still do die occassionaly. But I'd say 85% of the time its success, and I'm getting better each week. 10% of the time just violated one of my rules before or simply got too risky when I drilled through the lava when I should have just bombed or skipped. Maybe 5% RNG was bad to me.

Good luck.

[Barrelmaker]

Going to make this brief. Lava? Yeah, sure, dangerous, whatever. But you shouldn't have to wait 1 minute and 30 seconds for it to settle down. And while I'm okay with it spawning above shops (though granted mostly because I tear them to ribbons anyway), it really shouldn't spawn above altars.

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Originally posted by Old Man Henderson from Arkham:

Going to make this brief. Lava? Yeah, sure, dangerous, whatever. But you shouldn't have to wait 1 minute and 30 seconds for it to settle down. And while I'm okay with it spawning above shops (though granted mostly because I tear them to ribbons anyway), it really shouldn't spawn above altars.

Who sits idle? That's silly. Collect loot.

And again, you should only be drilling through lava if you ACTIVELY WANT to drill through lava, and accept the risk. Otherwise you are playing hamfisted.

[sothoth]

Originally posted by Ryan Dorkoski:

Originally posted by sothoth:

Today I got killed at 4+ minutes in by lava dropping down on me from the shaft mid jump to the other side of the drill and this isn't even the first time something like this happened. But between garbage like this or the bottom of the level getting so flooded with lava there's nowhere left to jump to, it's no longer amusing to restart runs due to pure randomness like this.

How many times are you going to knowingly drill through lava, and then die from jumping across the shaft when you know lava is likely to fall? This is the important part. This is the learning. And, no, it's not pure randomness.

Here is how to severely increase your chances, and stop banging your head off of the exact same issue:

1. Look down before you launch the drill. Do you see lava? Do you see an altar? Decide if you are gonna go for it or not. Its okay to go for it, but just know what you are getting into.

2. IF you go for it and drill through lava. Wait for 1.5 or 2 minutes for most of it to drain. This helps BIG TIME. Most people hastily rush down and risk it. Big mistake. Took me a long time to learn this. Sometimes supplement this by tossing a few bombs down to make safe hollow points along the shaft.

3. If there is lava or shops/etc. Consider bombing to the castle. It takes less bombs usually than you'd think because there are often intermediate doorways.

I go for Vlad nearly every time, and yes, I still do die occassionaly. But I'd say 85% of the time its success, and I'm getting better each week. 10% of the time just violated one of my rules before or simply got too risky when I drilled through the lava when I should have just bombed or skipped. Maybe 5% RNG was bad to me.

Good luck.

Imagine defending garbage design where there is a significant chance you might be stopped from progressing through the game for literally no fault of your own other than pure randomness because 'you can assess the risk and decide against trying to progress through the game' lmao

'Tough but fair' makes for enjoyable gameplay but 'tough and pray to rng jesus you don't get screwed over' is simply annoying and judging from the responses online people agree so hopefully this gets addressed.

[Plan Z]

Originally posted by sothoth:

significant chance you might be stopped from progressing through the game for literally no fault of your own other than pure randomness

Out of my last eight runs, 6 had lava under the drill, 1 was clear all the way down, and 1 went through a shop. I passed Vlad on each of those runs, it wasn't the lava that eventually ended me. I'm not even a good Spelunky player, I haven't beaten the game on Hard yet. The lava just doesn't seem like that big a deal, I guess.

[<:)]

Originally posted by Plan Z:

Originally posted by sothoth:

significant chance you might be stopped from progressing through the game for literally no fault of your own other than pure randomness

Out of my last eight runs, 6 had lava under the drill, 1 was clear all the way down, and 1 went through a shop. I passed Vlad on each of those runs, it wasn't the lava that eventually ended me. I'm not even a good Spelunky player, I haven't beaten the game on Hard yet. The lava just doesn't seem like that big a deal, I guess.

beaten the game of Hard? There's a hard mode?