Mining Suggestions ("Bait" and Widgets)

[RyanGo]

Recently I started trying to mine rare gems and it's been a frustrating experience, to say the least.

After going through Fishing I was amazed at how much easier it was to get exactly with what you were looking for and was so disappointed that mining wasn't the same way. As far as I can tell the best suggestions for getting rare gems is to buy resource drop chance and resource boosters (along with a smeeta), which is probably most worth it to hardcore miners who make plat by selling the gems. Apart from that, wait for plague star or just buy them from other players. 

I was hoping to make two suggestions to alleviate some of the frustrations, inspired by other mechanics already in the game.

1. Mining "Bait" - Fishing, in my opinion, works really well right now. Sure you might have to fish certain fish to create the bait needed to get the fish you need, and then use that fish to make the bait for the fish that you actually need, but nothing is really left up to chance. You know exactly what you need to do to get what you need. If mining had a similar mechanic where you could "bait" underground mines which would expose special veins that have a higher chance to drop the exact gem/ore you need or even just a guaranteed drop on either sentirum or nyth.

As it stands now it feels like a massive crapshoot to get a particular gem. I raided 12 different caves and only came away with 1 Nyth (what I was looking for) and 7 sentirum (which I don't need right now). So I had a ~27% chance for a rare gem, but even then it seemed like it was a 50/50 chance for one or the other rare gem. And clearly, I was unlucky.

2. Widgets for the mining cutter, similar to simaris's widgets for the synthesis scanners. This could be any number of buffs, though one particular thing I'd like to see is a widget for the advanced nosam cutter that marks ore and gem veins different colors on the mini-map (seriously, why not just red circles for ores, and blue for gems? I was sad to see that this wasn't already the case.)
Another widget could be a chance to double the yield. I'm sure there are plenty of useful QoL buffs you could add in the form of purchasable widgets and upgrades.

 

The Plains have come a long way since release and a lot of great work has been done to alleviate the grind, but I feel that Mining is probably the most frustrating aspect, even with the buffs. Wisps I can fly around lakes for and I've already sung my praises of fishing, but it's so hard to try and get exactly what you want in mining, and I'm worried that it may only get worse with Venus.

Bottom line is that Mining doesn't feel very good to me, and I really think DE can do a better job of this.

[Catacomb]

Instead of calling it rock bait you could call it a sonar or i'm sure there is a specific name for those things that scan underground irl. Gameplay wise it has a chance of making new ores/gems pop up (maybe specific ones), lore wise it shows you ores that are slightly under the surface but not visible. Have them work only inside caves or something.

 

I also agree with the widgets, i just want a bit more to mining.

[Blakrana]

24 minutes ago, RyanGo said:

seriously, why not just red circles for ores, and blue for gems?

Hmm...Perhaps Red Squares for ore veins, Blue Circles for gem veins. Helps mitigate issues for those like myself with Colourblindness.

3 minutes ago, Catacomb said:

Instead of calling it rock bait you could call it a sonar or i'm sure there is a specific name for those things that scan underground irl

Can't say for what might be used IRL (radar maybe?), but considering the "pinging" that goes on with the cutters, perhaps it could be dubbed something like "Frequency". So it blanks out the responses from anything other than the targeted frequency...so...Devar Frequency would point toward Devar veins, Crimzian Frequency Crimzian etc.

As for widget ideas, perhaps something to give a bit more range to the "effective distance" (when the white ring appears) as there's been -far- too many times I've spotted a mining point in the ceiling or wall nowhere near anything to stand on to try and cut it, and there's no way in heck I can aim-glide long enough to harvest the vein.

And, in so much as the notion of Frequencies and Widgets, it'd give Old Man Suumbat more items to sell. After all, Fisher Hai-luk has Glappid bait as her final tier Bait offering at Kin, whilst all Suumbat has is decorations and a Captura scene...so, for Kin, perhaps Suumbat would have Sentirium and Nyth Frequencies? Whilst Widgets...not sure, but perhaps spread out across the tiers, whilst anything that'd increase/improve Yield would mostly be another Kin tier reward.

Either way, just sort of pitching in a bit. Hope might be useful spring board any rate.