Hey again!

As I said in the other post I made today, I'm playing for about two weeks now. As such, I'm still low on advancements and on artifacts. I'll still take every single artifact I can get my hands on.

Now, I saw the "Dig Sites" button on the "Mines" tab today for the first time, whether because it's new or by oversight, and in this menu there is a hint that not digging at some site is no big deal, as digging sites will also be on other maps. While this is technically true, with very few advancements, having the money to pay the digging is only really possible in the later stages of a map. Because of this, I delayed finishing a map twice already (I started Siege of Feldmere today for context) in order to start every single digging.

What I want to propose now, is that you can queue up digging sites: If you have an active digging site, another digging site already conquered, and enough money to pay for the second digging site, and you click on "Start Digging" (or then better something like "Queue up Digging"), the game will take your precious money and remove the digging site from the map and add it under the current digging site (or in the "Dig Sites" menu), into a queue where you can collect digging sites that will be processed after the current digging site is done and the artifact is claimed. I already tested, that currently no new digging site can be started before the artifact is claimed, so this would work exactly as before (claim one artifact before the countdown of the next digging site starts), just that you could finish maps without having to wait for the second to last digging site to finish (or to miss out on artifacts). In this queue you could then cancel digging sites (if a later added digging site gives you a better quality artifact) but to minimize the coding effort, I'd be totally fine if you weren't able to reorder the digging sites. Either let them proceed in the order they were added, or cancel one you don't need to have. In the same way, the game might offer the option to cancel active digging sites, but honestly why should a player do this voluntarily.

From my experience and from what other (more advanced) players would do (or so I expect), I guess while I'd prefer this queue to be technically unlimited (or perhaps expandable in form of advancements?!?), a limit of three or so should be sufficient for most occasions. New players can't finish maps really quick, so most of the time, there would be hardly any site in the queue (except for the occasions where you can then dig two or three sites nearly at the same time). And more advanced players will probably skip all of the "100% Common" digging sites entirely. And as you would still have to be online to claim every single artifact (and to essentially start the next digging) as soon as it is done, no-one would probably want to queue up more than a few at a time (let's create calendar reminders for when I need to claim my artifacts over the course of the next weeks ;) ).

Any thoughts on this?

Edited 1/2/2021 01:08:07

having the money to pay the digging is only really possible in the later stages of a map

In the update that just came out, you'll find this isn't as true anymore. There will tend to be one or two cheaper dig sites now to get you started faster.

Let's see if I notice this the next days. Still, I think K-PX took me around three days and had three digging sites with I think two of them being 24h or more of digging time. The "100% Common" one took the most afair. So do the math, how early you'd have to spend money, that you then can't invest in army camp upgrades. While I finished this (and almost every other level before) with tons of money in the end.

Edited 1/2/2021 01:34:35

I like the queuing digging site idea because then I don't have to be online at the finish times of the digs to avoid losing dig times.

I'd suggest all dig queues be canceled once the level is finished though. So when we finish levels quicker than the digging (which is usually the case), we have to make the decision of whether it's more beneficial to optimize AP growth rate and just end the level, or spend some time to wait for dig sites. Having more decisions to make is always nice for Idle games.

I too think that queueing dig sites would be an asset to the game, and that they should be cancelled if the level is finished. However I think that the next dig site should be diggable before you claim the artifact of the previous. I feel like this would be more time efficient.

... because then I don't have to be online at the finish times of the digs to avoid losing dig times.

Actually not, that was one aspect where I planed to not deviate from the current state. Currently, you can only start a new digging after claiming the artifact (I tried to do it the other way exactly for this post and got the message saying I had an active digging site). And I intentionally planed to stick with this to not make this more powerful than necessary. But if the next site would be dug before claiming the old one I wouldn't complain either. ;)

... all dig queues be canceled once the level is finished

Sorry, but with this addition, the whole advantage this construct had for me, would collapse. My intention was to have this feature in order to finish a level with more than the one active digging site and to make use of the earlier stages of the next map to finish all queued up sites while I most likely won't have enough money to start a new site.

There will tend to be one or two cheaper dig sites now

I also missed to think about the Multi Level Power (as I haven't used one yet). Even if the digging sites are more evenly distributed over the course of a level, if I start a second level in parallel (whether the next one using a Skip Level Power, too, or just repeat an older one) I will make similar progress in both levels but I will have twice as much digging sites to wait for. I guess the digging times would ALWAYS exceed the level times in this situation. But as Multi Level Powers are single use, with a digging queue I could wait for them all to finish as soon as I'm back to "Single Level Mode".
And regarding cancelling digging sites when a level is finished, this would mess up the queue in case you do a Multi Level, as some queued up sites would be canceled (if you first only finish one of the two levels) while the digging sites of the still active level would remain and move up in the queue.

Again, I would like to propose this as an advancement. That way, this won't be just free for all, but based on the APs you would be comfortable to spend on this, you could expand your queue. As I have experienced this problem before reaching phase 2 advancements I'd like to have this in phase 1, but phase 2 would be a compromise I could still live with. Unlocking the advancement would give you a queue of size one, each upgrade would add one to the capacity. Assign AP-cost as you see fit to not break your overall advancement value-scheme.

Hi,

with the Idle App came a free multi game reward. I've been playing Scandinavia and Asia (Pop Density) in parallel for about a month. I started a dig as soon as possible and almost always had one dig site active in either game. I could have finished both maps about a week ago but there were so many dig sites left. I think dig sites are scaled ok with respect to a single level but I would not invest into multi level as you will have quite some time in the end were you just wait for the all the piled up digs to start and finish.

Maybe we could start a second/third/... crew for a higher price - currently I really wouldn't care for price x2 or x3...

2 things.

1)
Queueing up digging sites isn't going to happen. Given the mechanics of the game, this is "Automation" or would fall into an "Auto"-AP advancement at best. So maybe this might make an appearance to "Auto-start artifact digging site" AP advancement ... and if I were to take a guess what it might look like:

- Cost 100 AP - Auto-start a new dig 120 mins after current dig ends.
- Cost 150 AP - Auto-start a new dig 100 mins after current dig ends.
- Cost 200 AP - Auto-start a new dig 80 mins after current dig ends.
- Cost 250 AP - Auto-start a new dig 60 mins after current dig ends.
- Cost 300 AP - Auto-start a new dig 40 mins after current dig ends.
- Cost 350 AP - Auto-start a new dig 20 mins after current dig ends.
- Cost 400 AP - Auto-start a new dig immediately after current dig ends.

Where "a new dig" would need to be defined as some criteria such as the "next available cheapest dig that you can afford" or "next shortest duration available dig that you can afford".

2)
If you're finishing off artifact digs at the end of the level, that's up to you for sure whether to finish them or not. Fizzer's point is that each level has dig sites. So how you spend your time is up to you. You can finish off all digs on the map, or just go to the next map which will also have more dig sites. The perceived advantage of finishing off all the digs on a map is that you don't miss out on any artifacts on that map. BUT ... you can only dig one at a time, so you're wasting time that you could be spending on the next map earning more AP, so if you just skip to the next map, you still have more artifacts and you're earning AP at the same time. The net result doesn't change, is that for the most part, for 90%+ of your game time you're conducting artifact digs. So it's just a matter if you choose to slow down your progress and just do digs and put your progress/earning AP on hold, or if you move forward and continue to both dig artifacts and accumulate AP simultaneously. Dig sites respawn on maps on re-playthroughs, and they're on all the maps, so you're not going to run out of dig sites.

As a metaphor, imagine walking down a road to reach a destination, but there's money littered on the road. You can pick up the money and deposit the money into your account, but you can only pick up 1 money stash at a time, and there's a delay for the banking to confirm the money transfer before it's available for use in your account, and they'll only confirm 1 stash a time. You can stop walking and get every single stash, or you can keep walking towards your destination, picking up the stashes that matter (the dig sites with high %'s for uncommon, etc - or minimally the ones with the lowest %'s for poor+common) and actually reap the benefits of achieving your goal (getting AP for finishing the level).

Edited 1/15/2021 18:21:27

@Hi

Paying for additional dig teams - now THAT is a great idea. This could be a suuuuuuuper useful AP advancement. I'd definitely spend AP on that. That would be a better solution than inventing a "Queueing" option tbh.

On a related note . . . even using a Multi-level power doesn't get around this. If you an ML, you can still only start 1 dig collectively for both levels you play! So MLs are not very useful when the Artifact limitation is taken into account.

Hey,

I wanted to add my current status here for some days now but postponed it over and over because every day I play more gives me a better impression of what changed lately. But, here you go:
I think I can tell what Fizzer changed with the latest update, because there really are early digging sites that you can start within - let's estimate - two days on a week-long (or slightly more) level. The problem with the former version was (and this one triggered my post) that I'd need probably four to five days on the week-long level to even start the first digging. Sure, this all comes down to my personal playing style but with just the most basic advancements, money is hard to come by (because spending it for army camps or mines is way more important in the long run than spending the result of two days saving into a digging that won't speed up your level progress). So, I'd for now - let's see if my impression stays the same - agree that the latest update improved the situation. I'd even guess that some digging times were reduced with this update. So, definitely some improvements with the last update.

To recap, the whole deal with my proposal was that the digging crew tends to idle around from time to time (mostly in the first half) while working overtime the rest of the level. And each advancement as well as each artifact reduces the time a level takes but the digging doesn't get faster (so what about an (passive) artifact to speed up digging?!?). So the time the crew idles stays roughly the same, while the overtime part only gets shorter and shorter with each improvement you acquire. (At least before the update, the current state is better but definitely not perfect, to be fair).

I'm not really spending my powers if I don't have to (maxed out and found another), therefore I haven't done a single ML session yet. But in one of my additional comments here I think I done a good job of describing what I think would happen in ML. And that pretty much aligns with what pr0z4c commented. And I guess I get what krinid is saying, but given the old version of Idle, that's hardly a fair comparison. If finishing a level means that I won't start another digging for say three to four days (because no money to spend), it isn't just AP vs no AP, it gets more complex, because it becomes AP but less artifacts vs no AP but more artifacts. And then, what would you prefer? It's a tough call for new Idlers as they at the same time have very few AP and very few artifacts.

Now concrete about your comments, krinid:
1.) I won't mind such an advancement. Similarly to my argument to Hodop's and Mathematician's comment, this would in fact totally change the game. Because currently no new digging site can be started before an artifact is claimed, thus no way an automation can work if it requires a manual action. But again, I would appreciate this addition to Idle.
2.) Where is this place with money lying around, I want to live there. But seriously, I handled this part already.
sort of 3.) I would immediately buy myself a second full-fledged digging crew if it was available! And this would definitely be superior to a queue solution because the digging would become twice (or more) as fast as before (a queue wouldn't speed up the actual digging). So, I'd support this idea wholeheartedly. I just feel that Fizzer doesn't want to introduce my proposed queue and even more so no additional digging teams. At least this is what his comment makes me believe at this point. But still, Idle is in beta, so who knows what changes we will see before it comes out of beta.

Yeah, I don't think that a queue fits the WZI model. You'd either get an AP upgrade that auto-dug, or a powerup that let you multi-dig.

TBH, my only real complaint here is that multi-level play doesn't allow multi-digging. It should give you a separate team for each map you're playing on.

@Phoenix
Agree with what you've said. Queueing doesn't really matter much to me b/c as you said, it's just a queue instead of actually changing the speed or simultaneity, so just saves a few hours at most between digs which I can already manually manage. Anything that actually increases digging progress whether speed or parallel digs, would be a great addition. Could be an AP advancement or an Artifact to speed up dig times (would love to have this!), or enable multiple digs. But unfortunately, I have a sneaking suspicion that it might instead end up being like the Supercamp upgrade (a paid non-coin money only upgrade). Though honestly, I would like to see WZ membership play a role related to this. Currently WZ membership gives 0 benefits to WZI which just doesn't seem right.

Btw, the place with all the money ... it's Canada. Come on over and share in the easy wealth.

@Alsadius
Agree, MLs should provide a 2nd dig team. It makes the ML seem like a discount power b/c it's not giving the full experience.

With the latest tech updates, I dont have to queue up any digsite. I have to spend all my money on mines to get enough ores to complete the techs, so I dont have money for digsites. I dont even have digsites to dig, since I cant afford to upgrade camps either, so my progress is very slow.

The ore requirements on high end bars are too high to be playable, and I currently have 4 high end items unlocked that are not being used in the techs. Maybe replace some of the crazy bars with a few items or something.....