What you are saying is hindsight. When map is open it’s easy to say “should have gone counterclockwise”.
If you deny “follow the left wall” rule you should offer other rule/rules instead for this to be a good guide. Or are you suggesting just randomly TPing around?..
I did quite a bit of Meph runs and in 80-85% left wall rule works. There are exceptions, and sometimes I can “feel” them instinctively but I cant point out a definite rule of it.

No, what I explained just now is basically the same language as the OP. If there's something I could make clearer, please let me know. But I feel like you're just not following the OP or what I'm saying in further explanations.

I think your OP is a little confusing, but I think I get it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

If you walk out of the waypoint towards the South East, the entrance to the Durance level 3 stairs will be North East. That's following the red arrows you made in the picture.

If you realize that you cannot walk towards the North East, but the stairs will be towards the North East, then you should find a location that allows you to find the stairs.

Is that right or no? I think I understand your guide, and I really like it.


If we were to make another example, you could take any direction from the WP, rotate it 90 degrees counter clockwise, and the walkway up to the stairs has to be that way. Right?

He's not denying follow the left wall hes just giving abit more info so you don't have to blindly follow the left wall

Really useful post and explanation, I find Lvl3 twice as fast now with these tricks!

I'm not 100% sure, but it looks to me like this guide is to help you with that other 15-20% of the time.
In the example he had, it looks like you could follow the left wall and then realize that it's not going to work out after exploring for a bit and realizing that you cannot get to the exit in the way that you're running, you can know to switch instead of running around the entire outside wall.

If you know you have to run NE to get to the exit, it might help you have that 'aha' moment earlier instead of running SW, then NW, then NE.

With the knowledge of this post about what direction you have to go, you can think about the green arrows I made here. So when you get to where I stopped my purple line, you might go, "aha!" and skip the left half of the area.

this comment really cleared it up to me. so is this true 100% of the time for this map? if so, that definitely changes how i approach this map, knowing which way the entrance to lvl 3 is oriented!

You got it I think! At least, the way into the Durance Level 3 entrance TILE has to face that way. The example in the post shows it isn't always located in that direction though, right?



Yes, the map generation always follows this rule.



This is exactly what I was getting at in the OP. Thanks for the additional image!

This post was edited by Kerygma on Oct 13 2021 10:26am

And sometimes you get “aha” moment, start going in other direction only to discover that you should have kept going and entrance was just a little further.
Orientation rule does work everytime, that I can confirm. Problem is, exit room can be attached to map in some very very strange ways..

another helpful one