(Lower-case letters just weren’t strong enough.)

Honestly, I don’t understand why they went with random digsites, with random fragment drops, with random puzzles. It’s like playing slots, except you have to take a five-minute break between each pull. I can’t count how many times I woke up to find myself fatigue-dead from auto-flying off the world.

I would LOVE if they would drop the random locations and fragments an surveying. Instead, make each site have a fixed amount of stuff, and make each dig a clue-game – dig here, and get a clue to where the good stuff is. As you learn how the digsites might be arranged, you get better at understanding that “clue X” means “go that way 10 yards”. Each dig has a chance to give you an item (forget fragments – every dig should reward a keystone or artifact). If you solve the clues, you find something good; if not, you end up with junk. Then just make each digsite have a limit / replenishment rate. Exhaust a site, and you don’t find anything until enough time has passed to restore it.

Aside from making it less random and more skill/effort-based than time-based, that would also have the effect of giving you a definite start and end – just like with everything else in the game. Exhausted all the Tol’vir sites? No sense looking anymore – you won’t find anything. Come back in a few days. Take a break. Relax. Or, go hunt through Dwarf sites for that pet you really want. It’s up to you, but there’s no more addictively abusive “try one more – the NEXT will be what you want. Promise.”

“Psyche!”

My changes would be the following: Similar to Beru’s specialization idea, I would modify it so new dig sites spawn in the zone you are currently in. In essence you choose your specialization by traveling to the appropriate zone. Beyond that, I’d also modify how the survey process worked by getting rid of the rings in favor of triangulation approach. Drop three survey beacons, and dig where the beams intersect.