Many minecraft players (Especially ones that you see on YouTube) mainly specialize in one area of the game, whether it be building, redstone, pvp, etc. I'm an average Minecraft player who tends to dabble in a lot of different things. My building skills are OK, my redstone is mediocre, my pvp skills are kind of meh, I've made some somewhat cool things with command blocks, I even tried out speedrunning. The problem that I seem to have is that I just can't seem to find one thing that I'm good at and can enjoy doing a lot of. I love the game, but I just feel like if I found one particular thing that I'm good at and that I could mainly spend my time with, then my experience with the game would be a lot more enjoyable. Does anyone have any advice for finding my niche?
I'm like you and I enjoy the fact I don't have a niche because I like variety, I would be bored out of my skull playing the game for one thing only. Not to mention how that wastes all the other things, or the money you spent on them.
I find variety to be the best experience with the game. I'm not good at anything other than understanding how mods work. XD So if a knowledge skill counts then that would be it, but otherwise I don't really have anything I excel at and I'm fine with that.
I've built a few puzzle & parkour maps with basic command block commands people would use [teleport, effect, give] (or including datapacks from other creators, which I've covered in spotlight videos in the past for some extra gameplay benefits). Building I just do to move to exploration/mining, only sometimes I get a feel for building or expanding a Desert Temple. Redstone I understand a fair amount but not how to make contraptions or be in the mood to, and my Combat skills are very much below average.
I enjoy just approach anything in the game to keep things interesting and with mods or modpack making besides doing spotlight videos (and bug reporting) I get a fair amount of fun and do my part in the community for players and creators so I'd say that's more my niche (and being someone that covers 'niche' mods too) rather than being really good at the game in particular areas. I don't find a need to be good at anything in the game or think being knowledge enhance the game experience that much but it's what I've noticed with my time playing the game since 1.4.5 up to 1.16
Thanks, it helps to know that there are people like me in the community. I'll try out some new things and I think I will keep some more variety in what I do.
I don't think you need a niche to be able to enjoy the game, I'm not that good at most things in the game, but I enjoy it by doing whatever I feel like doing in my world. I enjoy every aspect of the game except for PvP.
Same here, except I like PvP ish and know less than zero about mods. (Scared of breaking the game)
Anytime I'm in a group online, I always am the gatherer. Caving, mining, logging or making expansive crop farms... I'm all about filling chests with everything you can find.
Oh, and making organized storage rooms with a theme.
Literally everything else I fall flat on my face and I don't mind. I've been playing since mid 2010 and haven't stopped. As long as you're having fun, that's all that counts.
Anytime I'm in a group online, I always am the gatherer. Caving, mining, logging or making expansive crop farms... I'm all about filling chests with everything you can find.
Oh, and making organized storage rooms with a theme.
Literally everything else I fall flat on my face and I don't mind. I've been playing since mid 2010 and haven't stopped. As long as you're having fun, that's all that counts.
Caving has a large aspect of adventure to it though. Adventure is my main thing but I don't like how caves are essentially infinite as it means I have to go farther and farther out to explore them and there's no given boundaries other than ravines for setting gates/stop points.
Caving has a large aspect of adventure to it though. Adventure is my main thing but I don't like how caves are essentially infinite as it means I have to go farther and farther out to explore them and there's no given boundaries other than ravines for setting gates/stop points.
I have the exact opposite thinking - I basically only explore the world by going from one cave system to the next underground (meaning not even digging around for new caves nearby); for example, this is an animation of what I explored over about two weeks in TMCWv4, along with a full-sized version of the last frame; for a sense of scale, the distance from the northernmost to the southernmost extent of the area I've explored is around 1100 blocks and the separate bit to the far left is a stronghold I found with Eyes of Ender, my only exception to only exploring the world away from spawn by caving, you can also see the branch-mine I made to get my first resources in the upper-right, where my main base also is:
Also, I solve the distance issue by periodically building new secondary bases as I explore further out, as seen a few frames in, with a railway linking it back to my main base; otherwise, I mark where I had to stop due to lack of inventory space with "return points", cobblestone pillars with their coordinates written down when I plan to return to them later, I may return to the same one multiple times until I'm satisfied that I've completely explored everything around them, which also explains why I often explore widely separated areas in the same day.
I found the following over the same period, all by caving underground, aside from a witch hut I spotted from a surface opening (a lot of the things listed are from my mod, not vanilla, which only has dungeons, mineshafts, and ravines):
Structures/caves found (by number):
37 normal dungeons
14 ravines
12 mineshafts
4 large caves (larger than vanilla, not including giant caves)
3 large cave systems (the sort of swiss cheese cave found prior to 1.7)
2 maze cave clusters
2 ravine cave clusters
2 vertical cave clusters
1 circular room cave cluster
1 combination cave system
1 double dungeon (combined with a normal dungeon for 3 spawners)
1 fossil
1 large ravine (larger than vanilla)
1 network cave region
1 witch hut
(83 individual structures/caves)
Highest terrain found (y=128 or higher, highest peak in an instance of a biome):
145 (Flower Forest)
134 (Mountainous Desert Hills)
Other:
1 skeleton in diamond armor
1 zombie in diamond armor
These are screenshots some of the more interesting things I found over that period (many influenced by mods, for example, mobs are quite insane with 400-500 killed per day, many with highly enchanted gear or other special attributes that are extremely rare in vanilla, even on Hard, and this is just on Normal):
A "triple" dungeon (actually a double dungeon since the two spawners on the right are part of my own mod's "double dungeon", which has 2 spawners and 2-3 chests, identifiable by the chiseled stone bricks in the floor), and yes, the spawner in the middle is a creeper spawner, along with zombie and spider spawners, all spawning mobs much faster than in vanilla (this was basically impossible to defeat normally even with my mod's "attack penalty" system allowing you to attack as fast as you can as long as you do not miss or hit damage-immune mobs too often, especially with the creepers, I had to dig along the outer wall and place torches down to stop them from spawning):
A quadruple cave spider spawner (I mined one before I saw the others, it wasn't visible from this position anyway; "quadruple" means that all were close enough to be activated at the same time. An "Empty Monster Spawner" is a decorative block that drops when you mine a spawner with Silk Touch, which I collect):
A couple mobs in full diamond armor, plus two in full iron at the same time, which I see multiple times a day, along with things like skeletons with Punch and Flame bows (even both):
Some of the more interesting/larger caves and ravines, which can get MUCH larger than these - caves and ravines can reach up to 336 blocks long and up to 85 blocks wide for caves and 39 blocks for ravines, both vastly larger than anything in vanilla. There are also "underground biomes", where the surface layers of biomes like deserts extend below sea level:
These are all of the same ravine, which was about 200 blocks long, twice as long as vanilla:
Due to a "network cave region", which has very long and relatively straight tunnels, I was able to cover ground fast enough to come across a mineshaft before it caught fire (I've never seen this outside of Creative/teleporting in vanilla as any fires will have burned out long before I reach the area):
This is an example of what I regularly collect in a more or less typical play session:
Of course, there is also more than just caving; I came across these interesting mountains (terrain in TMCW, as well as the biome layout, is much more interesting than in vanilla):
A desert mountain reaching y=134, which is quite rare in default worlds in vanilla outside of Extreme Hills and Savanna Plateau M, while most non-flat biomes in TMCW can exceed y=128 due to increased height variation (much less than Amplified though, with multiple variants of many biomes so some are relatively flat and others mountainous, including deserts):
An enormous mountain reaching y=145 that takes up nearly all of a Flower Forest:
A view of my base from the top of the mountain, with a quite large ravine next to it (much longer than vanilla, extending under the entire mountain, including the water, which doesn't stop them from generating underneath like in vanilla, I haven't explored it yet as I will only do so once I find caves that lead to it, and in the improbable case that none do, I only go down unexplored surface caves once everything else around them has been explored):
And some people say that caving is monotonous/boring! Mods are one reason why I've been able to do this for over 7 years, and without updating to newer versions for nearly as long (1.6 was released on July 1, 2013 and 1.5 is the only other version I've played on), though most of my playtime has been on my first world, which is more or less vanilla and dwarfs any of my other worlds:
I agree with what everyone else is saying--variety is good! Even people who have really solid "niches" like to branch out and do something else while they're playing.
I'm going to put this out there, and I'm not sure this is quite the answer you're looking for, lol. But, most people who have a "niche" didn't necessarily fall into it because they were born good at it (that's not really a thing), they fell into it because they liked doing it, and so they kept doing it. Over time, they get better at it. My point is, that's just their playstyle, which grew from doing the things they liked. If you like more than one thing, you go and do more than one thing! You'll have more fun that way than trying to restrict yourself to just building, or just redstone, or just minigames.
I agree with what everyone else is saying--variety is good! Even people who have really solid "niches" like to branch out and do something else while they're playing.
I'm going to put this out there, and I'm not sure this is quite the answer you're looking for, lol. But, most people who have a "niche" didn't necessarily fall into it because they were born good at it (that's not really a thing), they fell into it because they liked doing it, and so they kept doing it. Over time, they get better at it. My point is, that's just their playstyle, which grew from doing the things they liked. If you like more than one thing, you go and do more than one thing! You'll have more fun that way than trying to restrict yourself to just building, or just redstone, or just minigames.
I have to disagree on the idea that people aren't born good at things. Talent exists, it does have to brought out but after some work you can tell whether you're ever going to be good at something or not as a person who gets good in that same time. It's rare but possible for people to like something without being good at it though, for instance with me and PVP.
Many minecraft players (Especially ones that you see on YouTube) mainly specialize in one area of the game, whether it be building, redstone, pvp, etc. I'm an average Minecraft player who tends to dabble in a lot of different things. My building skills are OK, my redstone is mediocre, my pvp skills are kind of meh, I've made some somewhat cool things with command blocks, I even tried out speedrunning. The problem that I seem to have is that I just can't seem to find one thing that I'm good at and can enjoy doing a lot of. I love the game, but I just feel like if I found one particular thing that I'm good at and that I could mainly spend my time with, then my experience with the game would be a lot more enjoyable. Does anyone have any advice for finding my niche?
I'm like you and I enjoy the fact I don't have a niche because I like variety, I would be bored out of my skull playing the game for one thing only. Not to mention how that wastes all the other things, or the money you spent on them.
I find variety to be the best experience with the game. I'm not good at anything other than understanding how mods work. XD So if a knowledge skill counts then that would be it, but otherwise I don't really have anything I excel at and I'm fine with that.
I've built a few puzzle & parkour maps with basic command block commands people would use [teleport, effect, give] (or including datapacks from other creators, which I've covered in spotlight videos in the past for some extra gameplay benefits). Building I just do to move to exploration/mining, only sometimes I get a feel for building or expanding a Desert Temple. Redstone I understand a fair amount but not how to make contraptions or be in the mood to, and my Combat skills are very much below average.
I enjoy just approach anything in the game to keep things interesting and with mods or modpack making besides doing spotlight videos (and bug reporting) I get a fair amount of fun and do my part in the community for players and creators so I'd say that's more my niche (and being someone that covers 'niche' mods too) rather than being really good at the game in particular areas. I don't find a need to be good at anything in the game or think being knowledge enhance the game experience that much but it's what I've noticed with my time playing the game since 1.4.5 up to 1.16
Niche Community Content Finder, Youtuber, Modpack/Map Maker, Duck
Forum Thread Maintainer for APortingCore, Liteloader Download HUB, Asphodel Meadows, Fabric Project, Legacy Fabric/Cursed Fabric, Power API, Rift/Fabric/Forge 1.13 to 1.17.
Wikis I Maintain: https://modwiki.miraheze.org/wiki/User:SuntannedDuck2
Thanks, it helps to know that there are people like me in the community. I'll try out some new things and I think I will keep some more variety in what I do.
Same here, except I like PvP ish and know less than zero about mods. (Scared of breaking the game)
not really, if you like command blocks then stick with command blocks
My "niche" is resource gathering.
Anytime I'm in a group online, I always am the gatherer. Caving, mining, logging or making expansive crop farms... I'm all about filling chests with everything you can find.
Oh, and making organized storage rooms with a theme.
Literally everything else I fall flat on my face and I don't mind. I've been playing since mid 2010 and haven't stopped. As long as you're having fun, that's all that counts.
Caving has a large aspect of adventure to it though. Adventure is my main thing but I don't like how caves are essentially infinite as it means I have to go farther and farther out to explore them and there's no given boundaries other than ravines for setting gates/stop points.
I have the exact opposite thinking - I basically only explore the world by going from one cave system to the next underground (meaning not even digging around for new caves nearby); for example, this is an animation of what I explored over about two weeks in TMCWv4, along with a full-sized version of the last frame; for a sense of scale, the distance from the northernmost to the southernmost extent of the area I've explored is around 1100 blocks and the separate bit to the far left is a stronghold I found with Eyes of Ender, my only exception to only exploring the world away from spawn by caving, you can also see the branch-mine I made to get my first resources in the upper-right, where my main base also is:
Also, I solve the distance issue by periodically building new secondary bases as I explore further out, as seen a few frames in, with a railway linking it back to my main base; otherwise, I mark where I had to stop due to lack of inventory space with "return points", cobblestone pillars with their coordinates written down when I plan to return to them later, I may return to the same one multiple times until I'm satisfied that I've completely explored everything around them, which also explains why I often explore widely separated areas in the same day.
I found the following over the same period, all by caving underground, aside from a witch hut I spotted from a surface opening (a lot of the things listed are from my mod, not vanilla, which only has dungeons, mineshafts, and ravines):
These are screenshots some of the more interesting things I found over that period (many influenced by mods, for example, mobs are quite insane with 400-500 killed per day, many with highly enchanted gear or other special attributes that are extremely rare in vanilla, even on Hard, and this is just on Normal):
A quadruple cave spider spawner (I mined one before I saw the others, it wasn't visible from this position anyway; "quadruple" means that all were close enough to be activated at the same time. An "Empty Monster Spawner" is a decorative block that drops when you mine a spawner with Silk Touch, which I collect):
A couple mobs in full diamond armor, plus two in full iron at the same time, which I see multiple times a day, along with things like skeletons with Punch and Flame bows (even both):
Some of the more interesting/larger caves and ravines, which can get MUCH larger than these - caves and ravines can reach up to 336 blocks long and up to 85 blocks wide for caves and 39 blocks for ravines, both vastly larger than anything in vanilla. There are also "underground biomes", where the surface layers of biomes like deserts extend below sea level:
These are all of the same ravine, which was about 200 blocks long, twice as long as vanilla:
Due to a "network cave region", which has very long and relatively straight tunnels, I was able to cover ground fast enough to come across a mineshaft before it caught fire (I've never seen this outside of Creative/teleporting in vanilla as any fires will have burned out long before I reach the area):
This is an example of what I regularly collect in a more or less typical play session:
Of course, there is also more than just caving; I came across these interesting mountains (terrain in TMCW, as well as the biome layout, is much more interesting than in vanilla):
A desert mountain reaching y=134, which is quite rare in default worlds in vanilla outside of Extreme Hills and Savanna Plateau M, while most non-flat biomes in TMCW can exceed y=128 due to increased height variation (much less than Amplified though, with multiple variants of many biomes so some are relatively flat and others mountainous, including deserts):
An enormous mountain reaching y=145 that takes up nearly all of a Flower Forest:
A view of my base from the top of the mountain, with a quite large ravine next to it (much longer than vanilla, extending under the entire mountain, including the water, which doesn't stop them from generating underneath like in vanilla, I haven't explored it yet as I will only do so once I find caves that lead to it, and in the improbable case that none do, I only go down unexplored surface caves once everything else around them has been explored):
And some people say that caving is monotonous/boring! Mods are one reason why I've been able to do this for over 7 years, and without updating to newer versions for nearly as long (1.6 was released on July 1, 2013 and 1.5 is the only other version I've played on), though most of my playtime has been on my first world, which is more or less vanilla and dwarfs any of my other worlds:
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I agree with what everyone else is saying--variety is good! Even people who have really solid "niches" like to branch out and do something else while they're playing.
I'm going to put this out there, and I'm not sure this is quite the answer you're looking for, lol. But, most people who have a "niche" didn't necessarily fall into it because they were born good at it (that's not really a thing), they fell into it because they liked doing it, and so they kept doing it. Over time, they get better at it. My point is, that's just their playstyle, which grew from doing the things they liked. If you like more than one thing, you go and do more than one thing! You'll have more fun that way than trying to restrict yourself to just building, or just redstone, or just minigames.
My Youtube channel! You have a downright fantastic day!
I have to disagree on the idea that people aren't born good at things. Talent exists, it does have to brought out but after some work you can tell whether you're ever going to be good at something or not as a person who gets good in that same time. It's rare but possible for people to like something without being good at it though, for instance with me and PVP.