Serious talk about mining on open fields

[NecromancerX69]

I am not going to beat around the bush, I will go straight to the point...

 

Mining is downright bad / boring / annoying to farm, sometimes I even think is worse than hunting for wisps.

Not only that, it's full of issues and I am impress I don't see many people talking about it, specially with Venus coming out with also, big surprise more mining...

 

I am not here to hate on mining, no, I am just here to post the problems I have with mining using screenshots from the game and how mining could be fixed / improved / become as fun as going fishing in PoE (maybe, we all have different likes / dislikes).

 

Problem 1.- The Mini game

Tracing sometimes doesn't work (Most of the time), even if you draw the pattern as it ask's you 2. Screenshot can't do justice, but believe me, I do the patterns as they appear.

Spoiler

( I will talk more about this screenshot ahead ).

(I did the pattern, and it marked me nothing for extra gems).

 

Problem 2.- Finding Mining Spots

Almost everyone and their grandmothers know that the best path to take in order to find a decent load of ores on PoE, is to take the path of the grineer beach camp with the caves along the way. BUT, sometimes even if you do the same run over and over again, you might find that the ores sometimes just don't spawn at all on the path you usually take. Forcing you to leave the plains and enter again hoping ores will spawn. Sometimes even less ores spawn.

The point I am trying to make is that mining is inconsistent, unlike fishing, if you go to a fishing spot, you will always find fish. But when you try mining, you beg to Rngesus for ores to spawn, that is not fun. Caves should always have mining spots.

 

Problem 3.- The Mining Spots Size / Colors / Environment

This is the worst problem in the game, the mining spots are just way 2 small is annoying to try and find them. Sometimes they even blend with the environment you can't see them and not even the best mining cutter can help you find them. Here are some screenshots showing the problem.

Spoiler

  Sometimes the mining spots can be seen.

The problem is moments like this.

Can you see it?

Closer Look, another good point, can you even see the pattern?

Mining spot

What are you doing?

Mining Spot

Please

Stahp!

I said Stahp!

These are the ones I hate the most...

Just in case you don't see it or think I am joking...

 

Problem 4.- Mining in caves can sometimes not even be reachable with the laser of the mining cutter... Screenshots can't do justice, but believe me, I can't reach the mining spot in order to cut it, I even try wall latch only to find it doesn't work if you are using the mining cutter.

Spoiler

I seriously can't reach this one (The black spot near the center of the screenshot).

Or this one...

 

Problem 5.- Mining spot size again, but this time is the big bug that is not fixed.

Thanks to the size of the mining spot it can become a pain to find, specially if it's 2 small it can end up inside the rock or in middle of 2 rocks, this has happen more than once.

Spoiler

Moments like this grind my gears.

But this takes the cake, can't you see it?

You must be blind it was there all this time...

Yep, it's real...

 

Now that I show the problems, how can DE fix the problem to make mining more enjoyable that people will actually want to go mining and not complain about it.

 

Fix for problem 1.-  Dots

DE could simply use dots on the pattern (like dot drawings), if people at least manage to connect the dots they get more gems / ores. The more complex, the more dots it needs.

 

Fix for problem 2.- Sure Mining Spots on Caves

Simple and clean, make always mining spots appear on caves for sure, there could still be some random ores around the map outside of caves, but if you really want ores, you can always count with them being found on caves. Just like fishing, we all know if you fish on a small place you get less fish, but if you fish on a good place, you know there will always be the fish you need. If DE could make this, people will like mining.

[ If people think this is 2 easy, DE could simply add a guardian inside the caves or something to protect the mineral spots. Idk, to be honest it's not fun to farm for minerals, I don't think we need to make it even harder. Fishing is already annoying with the random patrols (I like fishing btw).]

 

Fix for problem 3 & 5.- Make mining spots bigger or even solid crystal looking

If mining spots are bigger, it will solve most of the problems we have in trying to find them. But if they where also solid crystal looking it will be even better and less annoying to try and find them. Say all you want people, other games do this and even if it's grindy it's more enjoyable to farm for them on other games than warframe, one really, really good example is Monster Hunter.

Don't tell me you don't want this.

I am pretty sure DE can do it ( Argon crystal anyone? )

Fix for problem 4.- It's just a bug

DE could come up with something to fix this small problem by simply not allowing mining spots to spawn above the player height or something.

 

That is all, thanks for your time. If you have other suggestions or ideas, let me know.

 

TL;DR

DE needs to make mining enjoyable or it will become a huge problem on other future open world maps.

There are also bugs that need to be fixed.

 

[ReinAxefury]

8 minutes ago, NecromancerX69 said:

Tracing sometimes doesn't work

I don't have this issue, may be a bug? Try recording a video, that would be helpful. I mine really often and never had this happen to me.

 

9 minutes ago, NecromancerX69 said:

you might find that the ores sometimes just don't spawn at all

A current bug, i found out most of the time it fixes just by using transference. Idk why but works for me.

 

10 minutes ago, NecromancerX69 said:

mining spots are just way 2 small

This i agree, sometimes i can't see them even if im just 1 meter from them. I like your idea for bigger Minning spots.

 

11 minutes ago, NecromancerX69 said:

Mining in caves can sometimes not even be reachable with the laser of the mining cutter.

In most cases it requires a really specific place to reach those, but i found like 1 or 2 instances where this happened, i would like the cutter's range to be increased to 15 mts, that would fix this.

[Hobie-wan]

I've only had a couple of unreachable spots way up walls in the big cave under geyser lake, but yeah, a few spawn areas need to be tweaked. As for some of the other problems, maybe they might be related to some graphical fidelity settings?

[Jicematoro]

There is a single fix I need for Mining: Instead of looking at a wall with the cutter and tracing a pattern right then and there, I believe it'd be best if the Ore in the Wall was an Interactive object, and when you interact with it, much like with the hacking minigame, a menu opens that leads to a Tracking Minigame.

We use the Cutter like it's a gun, which means we are limited to the way the camera for shooting works, meaning Ores that are either on the floor or the ceiling are immediately harder to trace. What looks like a simple tracing job is ruined by the camera refusing to go up, or down, and most of the time it means you'll have to settle with less rewards.

I'm not saying "Make mining easier", I'm saying make mining feel consistant, fair, have us feel like we failed when we screw a pattern, don't make us feel cheated because the camera refuses to cooperate.

Alternatively, making mining an interactive object might help with the out of reach ores problem, just bullet jump and interact with the spot mid-air, then you can play the Minigame even after you fall back to the ground.

[NecromancerX69]

42 minutes ago, Jicematoro said:

We use the Cutter like it's a gun, which means we are limited to the way the camera for shooting works, meaning Ores that are either on the floor or the ceiling are immediately harder to trace. What looks like a simple tracing job is ruined by the camera refusing to go up, or down, and most of the time it means you'll have to settle with less rewards.

 Can't believe I forgot about this, yeah, another huge problem with mining.

[Buttaface]

Have done lots of mining, over 1000 of each of the two rare gems, and several thousand of each lesser gems. Agree with some of the visibility/positioning issues, but not with the RNG issue. For anyone who buys resource and resource drop chance boosters (and then makes their whole cost back on a single trading session with folks who don't mine) mining is absurdly easy. My informal estimate on my runs is 12-15p every five minutes, and this can be continued anytime anywhere without a team and without combat. There are surely more efficient ways to farm plat, but none as easy and mindless. I do it while watching TV or listening to tunes.

Protip... everyone and his mother does -not- know that this or that route is best. Personally, I stay far away from caves and just run the big lake with the mining camp at the top. I don't want a bunch of nodes in one place, I want a predictable amount of nodes per run (10 or so with boosters) that are very close to the path , a path that is close to the entrance, and that are on small rocks mostly as opposed to large or in caves. I get wisps at the same time as doing this.

[DrBorris]

I just want another option to mine with one of these...