Copious Kobolds

"It's supposed to be hard" and "It's supposed to be realistic" aren't justifications for obtuse game design. Bears are hard. You can learn from your mistakes by fighting them differently. Avoid them. Use water. Kite. Climb cliffs. Hunger is realistic. You can learn that your current food situation isn't enough by reading your health bar. Prospecting is obtuse in a way that many players cannot correct simply by observing. The number of guides giving out false information that some of you rightly pointed out are proof of this, not proof that "you're just doing it wrong." I say all this because I love every other aspect of this game and I want it to be better. Everything else in this game is "Hard" in a way that feedback is immediate. Prospecting is not.

I agree. A mechanic that players can't understand without a youtube video, and doesn't even guarantee success when you do, is a broken mechanic. I love almost everything about this game, but I genuinely don't know how I can continue enjoying it with progress locked behind this frustrating mechanic. My biggest problem with it is that it's just so unnecessarily time-consuming. You have to dig out 12 dirt blocks just to take a reading. Then you have to do it like 20 more times to chase the chunk with the highest density. 50% chance that chunk isn't even above 0.03%, and your time is wasted. Then you have to find the deposit underground. Sure, the pick will tell you it's within 6 blocks, but do you know how many blocks there are in a 13x13x13 cube? 2,197! That's a lot of blocks to search! Sure, you could triangulate it, but that doesn't even work if there are more than 1 deposits nearby, which there are, a lot. Your readings will lead you directly between the deposits. I've even seen people compare prospecting to a full-time job. Having spent 12 hours and still not found any zinc, I agree.