Pickaxe mini-game

[AlphaFox]

Can anyone explain to me how this game is suppose to be done? I honestly feel stupid trying to figure it out. The tree game, to my knowledge is just hit it when its dead center. Yet the pickaxe I assume it was wait for the circle to be as small as possible cus after all the one time I tried it I actually won. Then try again and nothing.

Some kind of cue or such I am missing?

[Ashelia_Ferron]

You're wrong for both games.

The tree cutting, one random spot on the tree is the "sweet spot". It can be anywhere, the middle, the very top, the very bottom, in between, etc. That's why it shows you where you hit last, because if you hit it and it says you're close, you can try to find the exact spot.

Same for the mining. A random radius circle is the sweet spot. Your job is to find it. It always shows your last attempt as a dark circle so you can experiment and find the spot

[Ageofwar]

i'm going to take a wild guess that the OP was not around for 1.0 or doing DOL during 1.0 (oh the memories, oh the pain)
the 2 mini games act the same way as gathering during 1.0

As Ashelia_Ferron said, the "Sweet Spot changes with each try"

[AlphaFox]

Ah okay, makes more sense. They honestly give no instruction for those games, so do appreciate it.

And no, i was not in for 1.0, though i wanted to.

[Zorlinta]

For tree, wich is easier and fun,
- you first choose the speed wich will depends on where u hit slow = green and with cactuar image, medium = brown with morbol and fast the dark with titan.
- then you will have the angle, wich will have miss, good, great and perfect hit depending how close of the random point you hit. Also the log bar will be decreasing in the ammount of small, medium or totally depending on your scoring (good/great/perfect).
when log bar is depleted you will have the choice of end or go for double or nothing with the remaining time.

For mining, is similar way but instead of have angle you will have a circle from small to big. Also you have less hits in mining but the time will reset each double/nothing. You have to guess where is the right place, very small, middle or very big circle.

[Leowilde]

There is a brief explanation in the HUD while you play the minigame, at the same place FATEs and dungeons have their info text.
But in any case, the pickaxe minigame works like this:

- There is a random sweet spot, somewhere in the circle. That spot will remain the same until your session of 6 (at most) attempts end.
- Before the pickaxe minigame itself, you get that vertical spinner bar with three colour zones. The largest one, cactuar, yields the least awards but gives you 6 attempts. Yellow, malboro, higher rewards but less attempts. Red, titan, the highest reward and fewest attemps.
- So, you hit a spot of your choosing. It indicates wether you are close to, or far from, the sweet spot. Then you play hot and cold until you either find it or run out of time or attempts.
- Below the circle is a horizontal green bar, with a crystal icon. Everytime you use your pickaxe and are close to the spot, thar bar will decrase. If you're very close, it will decrase a lot, if you're not so close, it decreases just a little. If you manage to depleate it before you time or attempts run out, you win.
- And of course, you get a marker circle showing your last attempt, so you can aim for the same spot or nearby at you next pick if you find the sweet spot.

[Niwashi]

- Below the circle is a horizontal green bar, with a crystal icon. Everytime you use your pickaxe and are close to the spot, thar bar will decrase. If you're very close, it will decrase a lot, if you're not so close, it decreases just a little. If you manage to depleate it before you time or attempts run out, you win.

Thanks, I'd recognized the basic hot/cold pattern, but had been really confused as to why some times when I'd ended on "Great" I had lost while other times when I'd ended on "Good" I'd won. Somehow I'd missed that bar underneath when I first tried playing that. So it comes down to whether you find it soon enough to have a few good hits left, and not just whether you can find it.