What a pass actually buys

The pass used to be explained as a key. There were richer grounds, and paying opened them. That sentence was true of a build we killed. There is one field now. Everybody digs it. A free hunter and a hunter on the top pass stand on the same soil, see the same signals, and can start the same holes. If a page still tells you a pass 'opens richer ground', that page is out of date and we should be ashamed of it.

What a pass buys, then, has to be worth buying without a door. It is. It is also smaller than a door, which is why we say it plainly instead of dressing it as access.

Silence, a coil, luck, a bag

Free play shows an advert on the field after a few holes. Not over an open dig, not on sign-in, not on these notes. A pass turns those off. That is a real product. It is also the one we will not pretend is content.

The pass lends a detector. Explorer: silver, forty-second holes, a bit of luck, a quieter coil than bronze. Archaeologist: gold, twenty-five-second holes, more luck, wider, choosier. No hole count for as long as the pass runs. That lent coil is the reason most people pay. The ads being gone is the reason the rest do.

Luck is a multiplier on the roll in the hole, not a shorter hole. Explorer adds half again. Archaeologist adds one and a half again. You still have to finish. You still lose to a faster coil. You just come up rare more often when you do finish. The bag grows with the pass — twenty slots on free, a hundred on Explorer, no ceiling on Archaeologist — because a luckier hunter who cannot pick up the piece is a joke we already told and did not enjoy.

What it does not buy

It does not buy a private field. It does not buy a chest. It does not convert shop dollars into Treasures. It does not skip the ten-dollar Lightning floor or the identity check. It does not make other hunters leave your hole. It does not make bronze hunters unable to start the hole you are on. First to finish still settles it.

It does not make the game require a card. Free play is the full game on the Common Fields. We mean that. The dirt is not a demo. The catalogue is not gated. The sealed chests are not a premium drop table with a free consolation. If we ever lock a find behind a pass, the sentence on this page becomes a lie, and this page should be deleted.

How to decide

Pay if you hate waiting, or if you hate adverts, or if you want the bag to stop being a problem. Do not pay because you think the ground is empty without a receipt. It is not. Walk it on bronze for an evening. Lose a few holes. Sell a few spoons. Open a chest, or don't. Then look at the pass as kit, which is all it is.

The hunters who do well here are not the ones who bought the loudest coil on day one. They are the ones who learned which signals to drop. A pass makes that lesson cheaper. It does not teach it.