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[thekillman]

Pixelated, on 09 November 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

How someone can disregard the rest of your (wordswordswords) post.



This is not a bad thing.
This was never a bad thing.

This is on the tier of Achievements. BullShyte ­ that isnt needed because all it does is make you feel good about yourself.
(WOW, YOU COLLECTED WOOD.)

There shouldnt be a pop up that says
PRESS W TO WALK FORWARD.
WOW YOU DID IT. GOOD JOB.

There shouldnt be a dedicated time (when starting a new world, or somesuch) for someone new to learn basic (and I mean extremely basic) controls, what mobs do what, or "HOW I MINE 4 FISH"

No you are wrong. There should be some form of tutorial. The wiki is something community-maintained. nowhere does Mojang actually show how to make that workbench. Yes you COULD go online, but if you play Crysis, Battlefield, C&C, Simcity, there always is some form of tutorial for the people who DIDN'T search all about it on the internet.


This has nothing to do with stupidity. If you didn't know about every recipe in the game already, you'd have no idea how to craft a workbench, or that you can punch a tree. BECAUSE IT MAKES NO SENSE. It makes no sense that you can punch a tree and get wood that way.

[WunderWaffleHD]

When you 'punch' a log, the animation should change to an animation of 'snapping' as if you are snapping of branches to make planks. It would take like 8 branches for 4 planks and there could be between 1-4 branches off each log. Once fully collected, the log acts like bedrock.

[thekillman]

WunderWaffleHD, on 10 November 2012 - 09:15 AM, said:

When you 'punch' a log, the animation should change to an animation of 'snapping' as if you are snapping of branches to make planks. It would take like 8 branches for 4 planks and there could be between 1-4 branches off each log. Once fully collected, the log acts like bedrock.

All i can say is: Hell no.

I would rather go the way of most survival mods, and simply make dead shrubs and leave blocks drop sticks

[WunderWaffleHD]

thekillman, on 10 November 2012 - 03:29 PM, said:

All i can say is: Hell no.

I would rather go the way of most survival mods, and simply make dead shrubs and leave blocks drop sticks

Don't be so lazy. All it would do is make the first stage, that everyone more than likely knows, a little longer and harder to progress through.

[klitri]

I agreed even with your last thread. Especially about the community.

[thekillman]

WunderWaffleHD, on 10 November 2012 - 04:43 PM, said:

Don't be so lazy. All it would do is make the first stage, that everyone more than likely knows, a little longer and harder to progress through.

If there's one thing i hate in games, it's the "resource node" thing. Your idea falls under the same thing

[Rafe]

thekillman, on 05 November 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

I personally like the 3D paint aspect. I think you want to go a couple of notches further than me. I personally would already be happy if the current game got improved, and i think it doesn't per se need such a thorough overhaul.

I certainly agree plenty things need improving if the game is to "feel" like a survival game. Personally i like the idea that the initial stages of the game demand manual work but as you progress redstone and advanced blocks provide a subtle movement away from manual survival tasks to automation.

Still i don't see any reason to maintain block painting and call it building other then performance reasons or because no real system is in place as of yet to make building "feel" like circuit logic puzzles of redstone, survival games are after all in their infancy. The painting system is simply an aesthetic tool and offers nothing in terms or survival.

thekillman, on 05 November 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

As to survivalling:  I think a simple biome and altitude check could fairly easily create some environment-based damage, although i'm not sure to what degree it needs to be done.

As far as environmental based damage, if we are talking about surviving hostile weather condidtions i think you would need an entire fluid dynamics system to simulate a blizzard. Altitude check would be easy enough to circumvent as a person inside of a log cabin should be better insulated then a person outside of a log cabin. If altitude is the only variable then the exploits would be numerous.

[thekillman]

Rafe, on 10 November 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

I certainly agree plenty things need improving if the game is to "feel" like a survival game. Personally i like the idea that the initial stages of the game demand manual work but as you progress redstone and advanced blocks provide a subtle movement away from manual survival tasks to automation.

Still i don't see any reason to maintain block painting and call it building other then performance reasons or because no real system is in place as of yet to make building "feel" like circuit logic puzzles of redstone, survival games are after all in their infancy. The painting system is simply an aesthetic tool and offers nothing in terms or survival.

As far as environmental based damage, if we are talking about surviving hostile weather condidtions i think you would need an entire fluid dynamics system to simulate a blizzard. Altitude check would be easy enough to circumvent as a person inside of a log cabin should be better insulated then a person outside of a log cabin. If altitude is the only variable then the exploits would be numerous.

First of all:  i think different systems can/should be used as a guide. In BTW, these are the multi-block systems (kiln) and the mechanical power systems. Also, most mechanical blocks emit noise, and with the new sounds that only has become a louder, more annoying noise. The aim of this noise is to encourage people to build villages etc in stead of smacking it all down in a square meter.


Secondly: I do not really see what this "survival building" adds, as the simplest defense mechanism remains a wall, and nothing suggested really "nerfs" that aspect. You could have a massive, physics-driven cathedral built that is 100% structurally sound, but it could already keep creepers away with a 3-high wall with an overhang for spiders.

[Rafe]

thekillman, on 11 November 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

First of all:  i think different systems can/should be used as a guide. In BTW, these are the multi-block systems (kiln) and the mechanical power systems. Also, most mechanical blocks emit noise, and with the new sounds that only has become a louder, more annoying noise. The aim of this noise is to encourage people to build villages etc in stead of smacking it all down in a square meter.

Multi-block systems are a great idea and i play BTW and build such systems however the noise level is largely resolved by placing your mills far away. I've never felt any reason to make a village.

thekillman, on 11 November 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

Secondly: I do not really see what this "survival building" adds, as the simplest defense mechanism remains a wall, and nothing suggested really "nerfs" that aspect. You could have a massive, physics-driven cathedral built that is 100% structurally sound, but it could already keep creepers away with a 3-high wall with an overhang for spiders.

Well as i said the initial few nights of terrafirmacraft demonstrate how such a system could work. Building a wall is very difficult initially without the correct tools as long as you don't use dirt. As you increase up the tech tree better materials become available and instead of laying logs into a grove to make a log wall you can cutt the logs into planks and create materials that are easier to work with.

Low tech building limitations also would force you to initially use terrain to defend yourself, Moving near water, or to the top of a cliff so you can see anything approaching your position better. This sounds like survival to me. As your tools and tech gets better and you can create better walls you have the luxury of living in more dangerous environments. There is potential here that could match the redstone aspect of the game but it's completely untapped because we are stuck with 3d mario paint for now.

[Midipopo]

If Mojang make Tutorials as long as they can be switched off or accessed like the achieves are then it wouldn't bother me, but if I had to go through the same set of do this do that at the beginning of a new world I'd go mad, cause I know all the crafting recipes (yes I'm sad and can remember stuff).

It's not hard to work out and remember them, granted trial and error is involved tho if you can't work out how to make a pick etc your either too stupid or young to play this SANDBOX game,

But seriously in the real world most people ignore instructions anyway. I know I do cause it's not rocket science unless you building a rocket.......

I sort of agree bout the graphics, but I think I like more the fact that everyone's game looks different to them and like the fact I control how it looks. So as long as they don't remove that option I'm happy, tho I doubt they care bout my happiness.

Totally love the idea of actually swimming and crawling etc I think there's a mod that does that stuff can't remember the name of it tho.

I like the Biomes as is really they make Minecraft, Minecraft. Tho more random buildings like temples etc would spice up other areas, like Log Cabins randomly generated in Taiga & Extreme Hill's Biomes would be cool. then there be something in each biome ..I think.

I do like what you have to say, but the fact we all have different opinions and aren't afraid to share them is what's good about the MC community, tho trolling can be a pain in the ass from time to time, I guess we just have to live with it.

[Insurrection]

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Survival is about survival. It's why it´s called SURVIVAL. Like i said before, if they didn´t want it to be survival, they should´ve called it Farmville mode.

Personally, I'd like to rename the current "survival" mode to something different- something like "Journey" mode, or something, then put in an actual survival mode with limited map size, and you slowly get more and more mobs- a sort of "Waves of enemies and you need to survive" mode.

Still, there's a lot of untapped potential with the idea of surviving in a world that's completely procedurally generated. It COULD be really, really good and immersive... but it isn't.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Actually, i'd opt for: Peaceful/easy: current mode
Normal: All difficulty improvements in, but at their low level (IE, mobs digging short distances, low pathfinding)
Hard: Mob powers at level 2: Mid-range digging, mid-range pathfinding, more complex behaviour
Hardcore: (no longer World delete upon death, it's silly): Mob powers at max.

Eh, like I said, it's better to just throw all the "optional" stuff in creative mode. Maybe a "More world options" thing to pre-emptively turn all your options to be like those of classic survival mode.

As for hardcore mode, I like the idea. It's specifically for those who want it- similar to nuzlocke runs, or etc.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Sand falls. SoulSAND does not. Gravel does. But many weak blocks do not (wool?)  

MC structural integrity is arbitrary.

Yeah, kinda. I'd like to see a bit more consistency- things like wool, dirt, and a few others should be able to drop. I'd also like to see cobblestone being less of a super amazing building material.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Anyway, played some Patterns, it has what you suggests. However i noticed a massive performance dip when building stuff near breaking point. Basically every block you place causes a massive cascading check for integrity.

Dunno what Patterns is (I assume a mod), but that's likely due to poor optimization. Proper mechanics like structural integrity shouldn't cause too much of a dip in performance, as it shouldn't be making constant "checks" to begin with.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

I think  again, a handful of simple rules might do.

1: Define "magiblocks" or, maybe simpler, structurally weak blocks.
2: Structurally weak blocks, i'll call em Weak blocks for short, have structural checks.
3: these structural checks are not very far-ranged, to prevent thousands of blocks from structure-checking, but still preventing huge structures being made from them.

Something like this, yeah. I'd probably have blocks check their integrity whenever nearby blocks are placed/destroyed. It'd run a line of code that "asks" if it should drop (with increasing chances to do so depending on how poorly built the structure is- IE: if you make a really high pillar), and then drop appropriately (or just not do anything if it's in the clear). This gives a bit of pseudo-integrity logic without needing to rely on "ticks" to do the job, which should help performance by a fair bit.

Obviously, there'd need to be more to it than that, but yeah.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Then i'm curious, what DOES in your mind? I don't think we should have mobs for the sake of variety,

Something like a goblin digger, or something more typically humanoid. A troll also works, as suggested earlier in the thread. I just don't see undead mobs as something you'd typically expect as a "digging" mob, haha. Zombies that break down doors, or ghosts that flat out phase through blocks? Sure, but not digging.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

TBH, i want both. I don't want to walk a largely empty world. There should be a fear for the night. I'd rather have an arbitrary and non-sensible "mobs spawn at night" than walking an empty world at night with no threat, and just doing whatever you want regardless of the lightlevel.

That's kinda the idea, actually- in place of peaceful being removed, you'd be able to live in relative peace aboveground if you wanted. It wouldn't quite be "empty" still, as you'd ideally have MANY more natural threats to deal with. However, you wouldn't be facing what you face the rest of the game straight off the bat. It gives a much more sensible method of progression this way, rather than relying on gimmick-y crafting requirements and tiers.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Personally, i hate thirst and such. Hunger i can cope with, as food is fairly available, but thirst would just be...pointless.
I'd rather keep the amount of bars on my HUD to a minimum.

I came up with a pretty good solution to make it work, actually:

-Remove the armor bar, because it's kinda pointless.
-Place hunger bar where it was.
-Add thirst bar where hunger bar was.
-Add a stamina meter above the thirst bar. Stamina is only drained when you sprint, jump, or do many of the things smart moving lets you do.
-Hunger no longer drains when running/jumping/etc- it goes down at a flat rate, instead.

From here, stamina would be affected by thirst- you'd typically be able to sprint for a pretty long time if you're fully hydrated. However, if you're low on water, you'll not be able to sprint for more than like 5 seconds- and if you're really low/out of water, you'll not be able to sprint at all.

Essentially, thirst/hydration would replace hunger. Unlike hunger, you wouldn't instantly start to be hurt upon being out of water- you will, however, be debuffed (mostly, you'd be unable to do a lot of actions introduced in smart moving, as well as sprinting and etc). MAYBE you'd start to be hurt after 3 ingame days of no water, but I'm a little iffy on even that.

Hunger would instead debuff you- at first it'd be minor things, but eventually you'd be slower at mining, slower at attacking, attack weaker, and so on.

Basically, you'd be encouraged to keep your hunger/thirst at bay, but you wouldn't be annoyingly punished by basically dying so friggin quickly. Furthermore, it'd actually be a lot easier to keep these things high- water is much more prevelant, and hunger wouldn't drain so annoyingly quick.

So in the end, it'd actually be less annoying than the current hunger system.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

I am not sure how much Minecraft should borrow from RPG stuff. MC's power is the building system, not the mob combat, and it would need a supermassive overhaul to make it anywhere worthwhile.

Which is precisely what I plan to do- I don't want to introduce RPG mechanics per se (fun fact: Notch flat out said he wanted RPG mechanics, hence enchanting and levels), but I do want to improve combat in general by a truckload. It's basically just about bunnyhopping and having the best gear, right now.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

I would opt for Deserts doing damage by sun exposure. This only kicks in after a while, so it's beneficial to seek shelter. To borrow on your water idea: water would be a more efficient means of cooling down, making it more valuable. and yea, Buckets should no longer pick up sourceblocks. I've been playing with that for a while now and it works just fine. It's only weird when it's enabled in a world where you previously COULD pick them up.

Yeah, this was my thought. Make deserts more of a NATURAL threat- maybe even have more natural mobs, like scorpions and snakes. Both would be able to drop beneficial items, too.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Again, it should be possible in regular difficulty, but then again, i would not make the difficulty switchable in-game. (to prevent exploits). Maybe, in this "tutorial mode" difficulty should be switchable so a newby can learn the game, but once a new world starts not in tutorial mode, difficulty is permanent. (and tutorial mode would force you through the entire tutorial each and every time, to prevent exploits).

Ideally, the tutorial would be fused with the regular game, and be optional in of itself. Because there'd no longer be such an annoying rush to get materials/a shelter, you could do such a thing much easier.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Well, simply put, without armor you'd be able to survive just fine, but it would require a far more careful, anticipating and evading style of play than wearing armor. So no, being armorless would not be a rapefest. But being caught without proper anti-arrow armor in the middle of a desert, surrounded by skeletons armed with bows (and in 1.4, with swords and armor and whatnot too), that would mean you're screwed. Which again reinforces my initial statement: you can survive fine without armor, but you should NOT get caught in real combat. Once you start taking on a small horde of zombies, you need armor, and the proper kind. Iron is not exactly rare or so, so it's not that much of a pain to actually get armored.

Yeah, I'm alright with this- it's somewhat how I imagined armor should work, anyway. A skilled player would do fine without armor, and if anything would have more tools at their disposal because they'd be able to get around the world in a much more agile fashion. However, there'd still be significant advantages to using armor- so unless you're really pro, you'd very likely get your face transplanted to the back of your skull if you weren't wearing appropriate armor in certain situations.

Basically, make sneaking/stealthy/avoidant a style of play, but not make it THE style of playing.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Another note: there would be no need for a dozen sets or so, my mind was more on 2 sets or so.

I suppose that works, but I still hate making players feel like they NEEEED to carry additional armor sets. There certainly shouldn't be a "one-size-fits-all", but having such a huge gap between the effectiveness of certain armor types vs others in one situation or another can be annoying (and rather arbitrary feeling).

That being said, I'm not against people making very specialized armor sets and carrying multiple of them around. I just feel people should also be able to make more "general" armor to fit more situations (but not be as effective as specialized armor), so they don't need to carry so many sets if they don't want to. Basically, let people choose between "jack of all trades, master of none" armor, or extremely adept armor that's crappy at anything other than what it's good at (and all the possible choices in between).

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

And furthermore: i don't think there should be safe zones. Well, there would be more and less risky areas. I'd count a jungle as a high-risk area (Am playing on Huge Biomes, walking through a 1k or so blocks jungle, and all i could think was "please no creepers, please no creepers". A jungle limits movement, making the fast or AOE mobs deadly. Being out in the open makes ranged mobs deadly. On hills, a good climbing or flying mob would be deadly.

If you keep mobs spawning everywhere, it makes the game much more annoyingly difficult rather than making it more of a "choice". I've been playing around with internal testing where skeletons, creepers, and zombies only spawn underground- it works surprisingly well. If anything, you get MORE mobs underground- I might be mistaken, but it probably has to do with the fact that the mob placement goes by chunks rather than 16x16x16 areas (AKA, every block between 0 Y and 256 Y is subject to having mobs placed on them). It just feels much more... I don't know, natural. It's hard to explain, but you'll see when I get a public release of the mod out.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Which is why i want the mobs to spawn as i outlined. Creepers and poisonous spiders would be a hell to fight in a jungle, but skeletons are just laughable there. On the other hand, you can spot a creeper a mile away in a desert, yet a skeleton or spitter spider would be a hell to fight because you can't hide.

I'm not against having specific mob spawning in certain biomes, but having the majority of the mobs generate right away in the world takes a lot of the tension away. Again, though, I'm not against more "natural" mobs- bears, snakes, huge plants that can grab and bite you, etc. Plenty of ideas to work with for above-ground threats, without relying on existing mobs to do the job.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

i do understand your concerns. I would consider Enchanted armor having a scaling system similar to mechanical armor, but at a higher base level so the highest-level enchanted armor is better than the highest level mechanical armor, but it would not be necessarily orders of magnitude better.

I'd flag this as a "to be investigated", it would have to be tested through gameplay.

Yeah- I'll play around with stuff ingame when we get to doing armor and enchantments, but I've seen far too many games fall victim to the "Gotta get the BEST equipment!" mentality- it ruins a lot of the feel of customization that would otherwise be presented to you due to the amount of choices. Plus, it's inherently imbalanced, so yeah.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Note: better than wolves has Soulforged Steel armor as the highest tier. It costs a ton of materials to craft, but to enchant it costs even more, and a rare resource for the correct enchants. So while it is very, very powerful, it's not something you casually wear, or can achieve without the highest levels of technology. And finally, Mobtraps, the only method to properly get THAT much XP, loose effectiveness in SMP due to multiple players being online, so getting a full enchanted set would cost a week to produce or so.

I'm okay with this for really specialized armor, or something that helps against something really threatening (IE: Armor that could make you immune to lava)... but not armor that essentially gives you the best of everything, or is far superior to "basic" stuff. Like I said, I'll play around with it, but on principle, high costs are not a balancing factor. I've had far too many mods and game projects go downhill because I/we thought it was a good balancing factor.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Again i would flag this as a "to be investigated". I myself do not want to encourage people to just toss a large variety of things together and hope they cover everything. I want the gambit of more specialized armor to pay off, not be discouraged. But as i mentioned before, i think this needs to be tested.

Absolutely. I want there to be the perfect balance between the two. I want it to be possible to look at all of your choices, and feel ALL (or at least more than 75%) are viable and useful.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

There's not per se a need for a "magical" bonus. Think of it as this: You wear this awesome chest piece with massive blast protection. You take an explosion in the face. Your head is gone, your arms are gone, your legs are gone, yet your chest is perfectly fine. did you survive? no. Same with sharp protection etc etc etc. You might have this awesome helmet, but someone could just stab you in the gut. Or cut your arms off. Again, minecraft combat is too simple to cover this, which is why i thought of a full set bonus, or as i prefer to call it, "making the armor actually WORK".

Haha, towards this end, I was thinking it just reduces damage vs certain things by %'s- so the chestplace removes... I dunno, 35% damage. If it's still enough to kill you, then whoops, that wasn't very useful- but if you're juuust enough out of the creeper's range, it could very well save your life to have that little bit of protection.

Not quite realistic, but this is one of those cases of "It's a videogame, who cares?". It helps make things a bit more balanced this way.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

I personally am for a better, more varied set of weapons, but i'm against having a Flan's weapons pack.

Never used that mod- I don't intend on copying existing mods verbatim, haha. There might end up being similarities (I doubt it's possible to be 100% original these days), but yeah. Whatever faults mods might have, ideally they wouldn't exist with mine.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Combat in MC is fairly simple, and i dont really mind. I think the amount of weapons we need is fairly limited. I certainly am against something like a "dagger", since it's basically a small sword, a sword is sharp and thus good against bare skin. Minecraft balances weapons via the resource investment, and i only seek to expand with more resources, especially a greater variety used in the same weapon.

I dunno- it could be expanded a lot, and I really like the idea of different damage types towards this goal. Daggers would be effective stabbing weapons, have high attack speed, but lack in sheer power, and possibly lack in range as well. As a secondary effect, it could be thrown.

Compare this to a sword, which would have fairly modest damage, attack speed, and range- furthermore, it can block. A much more well rounded weapon than the dagger, but not necessarily "better".

Of course, I don't want to overcomplicate things, but ideally you'd be able to pick up any weapon and be able to use it anyway- because they'd all be balanced. So if anything, it'd still retain its simplicity.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Mojang doesn't have to use it, they just have to know what it does and do their own version.

Yeah, supposedly they're going to prioritize optimization. I don't hold any hopes for this happening (it's in the same vein as the Mod API now, it seems), but it'd certainly be nice if things like the lighting engine, block renderer, and so on got a revamp.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

I understand your motivation, but this is a point where our visions and ideas differ. I think it's fine as it is, as mass-crafting stuff (and you  NEED that in BTW) would be hell with a minigame.

I'd like to keep mass crafting a possibility, actually. I was thinking on this earlier- perhaps you could choose (later in game, of course) to mass-produce items, but their quality ends up as "average" at best, rather than the better quality you'd get with personally crafting it yourself. Things like food, metals, weapons, and etc could be affected by quality, which in turn, would affect how good their "end result" products are.

So a person who really wants to be a dedicated farmer could still do so- and they'd still be useful. However, if someone didn't want to bother dedicating their time to being a farmer and just want a lot of farmed goods, they can have a more automated system to do this for them. Again, choices.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

In case it's just tools and armor.... well i am still not sure. i am not really a person for minigames. I'd flag it with "investigate". I do know that Terrafirmacraft does this.

Yeah- it'd need a lot of testing and such, but ideally (as outlined above), you'd be able to choose between high quality, low quantity or high quantity, low quality (well not "low", but lower than the potential).

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

BTW allows you to melt down your (metallic) tools at no loss of (metallic) parts. IE, an iron chestplate gives back it's 8 iron. Diamond is not metallic, so it can't be melted down. And Soulforged Steel, the highest tier of metal in BTW, usually requires more than just metal and thus it's loss is in those other parts. For example, a mattock (Shovel/pickaxe combo) requires 3 hafts, and each haft requires wood, slimeballs and tanned leather (Which requires leather and dung, the latter requires wolves while the former requires cows).
So melting down a mattock only gives back the steel, not the hafts. SFS armor requires padding and straps. Padding requires feathers and fabric (which requires hemp).

That's a pretty neat idea. It'd be nice to be able to recycle certain equipment, especially if it's low on durability- but the process takes time and requires a lot of setup for a sort of "recycling" center, so it might not always be practical to do so.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

1: i think "team mentality" is not really needed, though the "attack one Zombie pigmen, all in the vicinity get angry" mechanic being transferred to all mobs would just work. BTW does this for Endermen and it makes them.... a hell to fight. like it should be.

Something like that would be nice. Maybe not for "all mobs", because that'd make mob fighting feel too generic, but definitely for some. I'd just like zombies to hear action going on, and then be attracted to it and start swarming the player- make 'em feel like actual zombies.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

2: I don't really feel for mob infighting, i think it's fairly obvious that you're in a world dominated by some evil, which is dominated by the Enddragon. I do wish wolves would kill sheep, as i have a hard time finding wolves but find plenty of sheep to the point where it's uberannoying

Eh, that's just trying to attach story where none really exists- Notch just threw in a bunch of mobs to fight and tacked on a boss. There isn't much more to it than that. I'm not saying every mob should hate eachother, or something, but it'd be nice to see spiders be a more "neutrally aligned" and instead attack anything that comes near them. Other mobs would just ignore spiders until they're attacked, or something. Y'know, make creatures feel like creatures, not just moving obstacles.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Yes it needs more work. no it doesn't have to be more restricted. I think the surface should be just as dangerous as underground, it's just a different challenge.

I'm against it being "just as challenging"- this is obviously something we disagree on, but with my overall plan, it works pretty well if you have mobs get progressively harder the deeper you go. If you want a break, you can just hop back up to the overworld. Of course, the overworld wouldn't be sunshine and rainbow farts, but it'd certainly not be as annoying as it is in the current game.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

My thought for spawning is WIP, but i was thinking that at least the undead could use a "crawl up from the dirt" animation. I think it would be fairly awesome to see skeletons come up out of the sand as you walk through the desert, although it should not be like Dead Island, where any zombie in "getting up" mode is easy pickings. It should happen fairly quickly.

Now THIS is a neat idea. I'd love to see a rare occurance- something like the blood moon in Terraria- where zombies and skeletons will rise from the ground at night, and actively search out anything living and spread terror across the land. To add to this, neither should burn in the sunlight- I always thought this idea was a silly and lazy way to make things "peaceful" again at daytime. Given that mobs won't spawn everywhere at night anymore anyway, you have more freedom to do stuff like this with the game.

This would make zombies and skeletons feel like proper undead creatures again.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

well, it would work a whole lot better if there was an actual "poof", not just *sudden appearance*. Again, different mobs could do with different "spawn animations". A zombie crawling from the dirt, a skeleton crawling from the sand, etc.

Oh man, you have no idea how much I hate the "poof" thing. MMO's do this WAY too often, and I hate it. Naturally, I agree- there should be spawn animations.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Then i would opt for "bang for buck" implementation first. I think adding a bunch of simple AI modifications and some mob powers will do a VAST improvement job for the game. I'd hold off more complex interactions till this has been done, but i think scribbling down a few "rules" per mob is enough. If a skeleton only spawns in open places (IE, deserts but also think about things like Ravines), walks a bit around when firing (evading), keeps it's distance from the player, has a bow draw mechanic AND a distance-based shooting mentality (close: rapid, low power, far: accurate sniping), it would already be a mob far, far better than the poor excuse we have now.

Agreed- I'll likely not do super advanced mob AI 'til later in the mod's development, anyway. I'd rather have all the AI be bearable and feel more natural, than have a few who are good and the rest be crap. Ideally, all of them would be amazing and well thought out, but I should be realistic and not try to push out super amazing mob AI for every mob.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Similarly, a zombie that spawns only in groups at a minimum of 5, with no spawn restrictions would make it that sort of thing you must always expect, and try to evade. Maybe zombies should have a chance of inflicting the Hunger effect. (only when unarmed).

Yeah. Things like that would aid the game- more unique spawning mechanics, on principle, is much better than just... randomly spawning everywhere just because it's dark.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Zombies and zombie types only burn in sunlight.

I feel this works better for vampires, rather than zombies. Zombies wouldn't be everywhere aboveground to begin with (with my plan, anyway), so you'd still be able to see ravaged villages even during the daytime. This kind of dynamic difficulty adds a lot to the game- it'd be silly if a village was raided by zombies, then was suddenly saved because sunlight. This way, you'd have to actually look at your surroundings- not just feel "Oh, it's daytime, I'm fine now". Oddly enough, because mobs wouldn't be everywhere aboveground at night anymore, things like this would be much more appropriately shocking.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Skeletons do not. Spiders become less aggressive (not as passive as now,  but basically they're "blinded" by the light).

I feel like spiders should actively seek out dark areas when not on the trail of the player- so during daytime, they'll crawl back to a hole or underneath a tree or something. Y'know, like actual nocturnal creatures.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Spiders get a new varient. I also thought of it's look: a zombified spider, essentially. an "undead" spitting spider. Burns in sunlight. Similar ranged mechanic as the Skeleton. Long-ranged: splash attack. Short ranged: rapid-fire, regular projectiles.

Haha, this would be neat! I wouldn't be against them burning in sunlight, because something like this isn't as well-defined as zombies are- so you'd have more room to work with.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Wither skeletons should now spawn in the overworld. Skeletons remain ranged, WIther skeletons are the melee version (Skeletons pick up ranged weapons, wither skeletons pick up melee weapons).

I'm indifferent about it- I don't see a need to have them aboveground, but don't see a need to have them only in the Nether, either. I do like the idea of melee-centered skeletons, though.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

New zombie: Ghoul. Can dig through dirt and structurally weak blocks. Optional: Undead stick around Ghouls. Ghouls would act as the "Siege engine" of the game, destroying your simple survival huts. Of course, proper defence makes it not as dangerous.

Like I said before, not quite feeling the "Ghoul=block digger", but I adore the idea of a sort of "siege engine" mob that has more "basic" mobs follow it to destroy and invade the player's structures. Things like this would spice up the game a LOT.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

New enemy: Troll (or whatever you wanna make it). archetype: bigger, slower mob. can pick up blocks, and throw them for damage. damage based upon block thrown. It's a creeper-type mob, in that it's aimed at destroying player creations. It's why i consider the Creeper the only real successful mob (and even then only has weak results). A creeper can easily end you, or do massive damage to what you made. It instills fear. Similarly, a Troll would do damage by ripping out blocks from your wall, your house, from the ground, and tossing it to you to do damage. it would prefer heavier stuff first, so a nice stone bricks wall might end up as your cause of death.

Definitely. Mo' Creatures has Trolls (if I recall), and they were one of the cooler mobs. I'd love to see something like this ingame.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

It would not be super-overpowered. I'd give it inherent resistance to arrows and crush damage, so you need some equipment to take it down. It should be rarer than regular mobs. Kinda like the Endermen. When you see it, you should wish to avoid it. It should be relatively well-defeatable. But when a troll spawns with armor, you have a proper fight on your hands. It wouldn't be ravaging for the sake of ravaging, by the way. So your place would be safe if you had a troll walking around while it doesn't see you.

Yeah, I like this. Maybe work in trolls with the previous idea of "siege engine" type of mobs- instead of having a "siege" kind of mob being the one others follow, trolls would follow something of a "troll commander". Or, they follow goblins, or something. So on their own, trolls would be avoidable and not TOO much of a threat (but still dangerous and caution should be taken). However, in a group of mobs, they'd become a major threat to deal with.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

I like to touch upon my "navigate around a tree" argument  again. Based upon this, a Zombie would be able to navigate a maze. It would simply only go short distances. So if you were to toss it at one end, and you're on the other end, it gets lost. If you walk inside and it chases you, there's a good chance it will keep up and it's still on your tail at the end of the maze. I think it's silly that a mob could navigate a maze on his own, but a shorter ranged pathfinding would pretty much achieve this. In fact, i right now think we're pretty much talking about the same thing.

Yeah- limiting their pathfinding would be ideal. It's silly you only have the choices of "Super dumb and can't even turn" or "Really smart and able to navigate as if it has GPS".

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Ah, you mean like that. Well yea. I just wouldn't make it "mad dash at whoever shoots", but rather "investigate in direction of arrow", whilst also activating "anger" mode. Actually, yea. I think all mobs should be able to get angry. When not angry, mobs have a reduced aggro range. When angered (by attack, for example), their AI goes up a notch and they try to find who shoots. In anger mode, Line of Sight would be greater for these mobs.

Something like this is what I had in mind, yeah. I'd like to see the base line of sight be improved to begin with- possibly to 64 blocks or something. 16 is FAR too low. Then, if they're hit even from that distance, they move in the direction they were hit from (depending on the mob- others might take cover, like creepers).

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Thinking about your earlier comment on team work, a simple notification to neighbor evils of where the player is would do a good job already.

Yeah, this is what I want. I want it to feel like zombies "hear" action going on, and they all start coming in from various corners in a cave, or something.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Personally i think this is fine. BTW alters chickens so they need to eat seeds before they hatch, so any significant wheat farm always ends up with it's seeds excess to chickens. Also, chickens only spawn (at a certain, semi-random rate) from their own eggs, so you actually need a load of seeds to get any proper amount of chicken.

Hm. Well, if there's a good use for seeds, then I suppose I'm not against keeping seed return rate higher. I just always end up with SO MANY SEEDS in the current game, it's ridiculous. Allowing chickens to breed with seeds was nice, but not enough.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Although i understand some of your annoyance can fairly easily be taken away by making them drop 0-2 seeds in stead of 0-3. I commonly find myself running dangerously low on seeds at small farms, so i think dropping 0-2 would only make large farms seed-efficient (since the expectancy, at equal probability for each seed, is 1 in stead of 1.5). This would make breaking even the goal, in stead of getting more.

Yeah, that works, then.

thekillman, on 04 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

My last thought on structural integrity:

I think it's bad to make everything structural, as i think it would be both a performance hog and a collapse would amount to a game crash. I think your main focus is on the survival part of it, which is precisely why i want it to be semi-arbitrary. Stuff like cobble, dirt, basically every early-game and "stuck in the middle of nowhere" fortress is made from. By the time survival-by-shelter is arbitrary anyway (and this inevitably happens), such structural integrity checks needn't be made for the purpose you want.

It would make a dirt wall behave exactly as expected: crap, but it sort-of works. It's just ammo for a troll, but it works against a zombie. Then, once you're properly set up anyway, you can make the whole thing from stone bricks and be done with it.

Like I said, it's possible to do without massive performance drops. Anyway, I mostly want to stop the following "tactics" that work insanely well right now:

-Pillaring straight up (this makes caves a joke most of the time)

-Making magical floating fortresses with just plain dirt or cobble. I'm not against the idea of floating islands (quite the opposite), but they should be powered by rare materials at least to do so.

-Cobble being the most friggin effective material to build with. Seriously, this is flat out dumb- cobblestone should be used primarily for roads and walkway or something. Not the most efficient building material. Stone bricks should be the "go-to" building material, but even then, there should be others that offer advantages and disadvantages. Wood should also be much more encouraged.

-and many others.

I'm not obsessed with realism, but I do want to stop a lot of the silly building tactics that currently exist (and work annoyingly well) in Minecraft.

Rafe, on 04 November 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

I'de love to see perishable foods(screwing up food stacking)

I'm not too keen on perishable foods, but I may consider it if there's ways to sell off your food easily (Villagers that specifically buy food) and make use of the tons of food you'd end up with. Especially since I plan to redo hunger, anyway.

Rafe, on 04 November 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

finite liquid and drainage of your base during heavy rain. Actual fluid dynamics in the atmosphere as well as heat transfer so somebody that is standing on top of the mountain in a blizzard would freeze to death even if they are insulated with layers of wool/leather while somebody who is  practically naked and standing at the bottom  of a ravine under  same the blizzard does not experience the same wind chill and heat loss.

Yeah, I want proper fluid mechanics, heat mechanics, and freezing mechanics. Again, this would make the world feel more... natural.

Rafe, on 04 November 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

Performance issues aside the building system in minecraft simply is not a building system it's a 3d paint tool. As far as survival elements are concerned 3d painting detracts from the feel of survival, it doesn't challenge us except aesthetically which is meaningless to survival.

Funnily enough, even for 3D painting, Minecraft kinda sucks. You're basically painting pixel-by-pixel... which is laughably lacking. Compare to even MS Paint, where you have a myriad of (basic) tools to do various functions.

Rafe, on 04 November 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

Some of the most absurd offenders are cobble bridges, holding shift to elongate construction, pillaring up. I mean i really don't feel like i'm building when i'm doing these things. I feel like i'm exploiting.

Agreed. I want to make building more sensible, and encourage the use of the various materials.

Rafe, on 04 November 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

Also digging mobs do not need to destroy the terrain, they could phase through blocks rather then destroy the block they move through.

Why not have both? Ghosts that phase through terrain, and then the trolls as discussed before. If they're appropriately placed (read: not everywhere), it'd be fine, anyway.

Rafe, on 04 November 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

I'm not a big fan of floating blocks but sometimes i want to transmit a redstone signal vertically and i place a plank ontop of a torch or a will have a plank basically connected to nothing but a repeater, the powered plank now transmitting it's signal to redstone below. I don't really think we need magical blocks to do this. I think basic wood should accomplish this however the wood would have provide no structural support if it's floating.

Basically you could not make a platform in the sky and support it via torch, plank, torch, plank. Other structural elements would have to provide support for that platform as well as the plank

Oh, well, yeah. Vertical redstone should've been something in the game a long time ago, and the silly "physics" of Minecraft place more of an emphasis on arbitrary (geez, we've been using this word a lot, yet sadly it's been appropriate) mechanics than doing anything sensible.

Rafe, on 04 November 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

As for a magic block that allows you to build actual floating platforms that would be interesting but i think needs to be something high in the magic tech tree.

Yeah, definitely. I don't want people getting access to floating platforms right away.

thekillman, on 05 November 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

I personally like the 3D paint aspect. I think you want to go a couple of notches further than me. I personally would already be happy if the current game got improved, and i think it doesn't per se need such a thorough overhaul.

I suppose this is just where preferences differ. Ideally, though, you'd still be able to enjoy the game just as much (if not more) if all my changes were implemented. You'd still be able to explore caves- maybe not in the same way, but you'd have more movement abilities and stuff like grappling hooks (ideally) to move around the terrain. This'd effectively replace the current tactics such as pillaring, extending ledges, and so on. A lot of equivalent functions would still exist in the game. There'd just be more to do.

thekillman, on 05 November 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

As to survivalling:  I think a simple biome and altitude check could fairly easily create some environment-based damage, although i'm not sure to what degree it needs to be done.

Yeah, something like this would work best. A constant "check" to see how hot or cold things are based on nearby factors would definitely kill performance.

Pixelated, on 09 November 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

This is not a bad thing.
This was never a bad thing.

This is on the tier of Achievements. BullShyte ­ that isnt needed because all it does is make you feel good about yourself.
(WOW, YOU COLLECTED WOOD.)

But that's literally what the game currently does. Its achievements system is what people consider the "tutorials". Plus, I don't recall saying the tutorial needs to cater to idiots who want to feel special for picking up dirt. I'm very against that sort of mindless pandering.

Pixelated, on 09 November 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

There shouldnt be a pop up that says
PRESS W TO WALK FORWARD.
WOW YOU DID IT. GOOD JOB.

That's quite an exaggeration. For one, tutorials would ideally be optional. Furthermore, what's wrong with explaining to the player basic mechanics and waiting for them to do so? I'd rather that than a huge .jpg image explaining how to do everything. Progressively introducing players to mechanics is what makes tutorials a superior teaching method than 90's game manuals. It lets you have much more complex mechanics without worrying about overloading the playr.

Obviously, the "MEGAMAN HEY MEGAMAN DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN PRESS W TO MOVE FORWARD" approach is pants-on-head-retarded, but again, I'm against that in the first place.

Pixelated, on 09 November 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

There shouldnt be a dedicated time (when starting a new world, or somesuch) for someone new to learn basic (and I mean extremely basic) controls, what mobs do what, or "HOW I MINE 4 FISH"

Again, I agree. A sensible tutorial is best, not one where it babies the player. Furthermore, it should be optional, so if you want to go in all manly-style, you can do so. I'm highly against forcing tutorials down people's throats.

Pixelated, on 09 November 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

Why do you assume anyone who downloads the game is stupid?

Given that someone who works for Mojang literally could not understand how to WALK in the game when she posted up youtube videos on playing the game, I can't help but feel Minecraft attracts a certain kind of audience.

Unfortunately, the current idea of making mechanics never explained in the game to ward off dumb players didn't quite work as planned- now they infest the community because of that (they got almost all their info by asking around, and their stupidity was enabled by being answered).

I would rather just quickly and concisely get it over with, explaining the basic mechanics (keeping them far away from the community), then making the game appropriately difficult and complex anyway. If they keep playing, yay! They'll get a taste of actually good gameplay, because if all my changes were added, you'd have a way more complex and yet cohesive game. They would then be converted to understand what actually good gameplay is like. If they don't keep playing, yay!

This is kinda why I keep saying the whole post is necessary, instead of splitting it up into multiple, smaller posts. All the ideas work together in harmony, and are equally needed as one another to improve the game.

Pixelated, on 09 November 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

And besides, the time dedicated to adding something this useless after you create your first world is a waste. Much better and bigger things to work on.

Again, it'd be optional. I'd probably even have it so that after you complete the tutorial, it automatically turns it off by default, so you wouldn't be bugged by a tutorial if you accidentally forgot to turn it off when starting a new world.

I figured things like this were a given, but I guess not.

WunderWaffleHD, on 10 November 2012 - 09:15 AM, said:

When you 'punch' a log, the animation should change to an animation of 'snapping' as if you are snapping of branches to make planks. It would take like 8 branches for 4 planks and there could be between 1-4 branches off each log. Once fully collected, the log acts like bedrock.

I'm not really feeling this idea. I'd rather leaves and dead bushes give you branches, and maybe even add actual branches to trees. Trees need a huge overhaul, anyway- stumps, roots, having them all fall when the blocks below it are removed, etc.

Rafe, on 10 November 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

I certainly agree plenty things need improving if the game is to "feel" like a survival game. Personally i like the idea that the initial stages of the game demand manual work but as you progress redstone and advanced blocks provide a subtle movement away from manual survival tasks to automation.

Yeah, I'd like to keep this idea- just expand the gap a little. Make it harder and slower at first- not annoyingly so, just more sensible. Dirt should take longer to dig up, wood and stone would be unbreakable by hand, etc. Blocks of ores should take longer to mine out, and instead of dropping at a 1:1 ratio, you get multiple ores from a single block (ore items being non-placable, obviously). So rather than ravaging the land and every cave you can find, you're encouraged to mine out a single cave for materials- slowly, over time. Things like that.

Once you tech up enough (which would require a lot more materials and resources), you'd be able to mine things out easier than the current game- things like drills (done in steampunk style, preferably) and etc would be nice.

Rafe, on 10 November 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

Still i don't see any reason to maintain block painting and call it building other then performance reasons or because no real system is in place as of yet to make building "feel" like circuit logic puzzles of redstone, survival games are after all in their infancy. The painting system is simply an aesthetic tool and offers nothing in terms or survival.

Agreed. I'd keep the "painting" feel for creative, but have survival/etc be much more logical.

Rafe, on 10 November 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

As far as environmental based damage, if we are talking about surviving hostile weather condidtions i think you would need an entire fluid dynamics system to simulate a blizzard. Altitude check would be easy enough to circumvent as a person inside of a log cabin should be better insulated then a person outside of a log cabin. If altitude is the only variable then the exploits would be numerous.

Ideally, altitude wouldn't be the only variable, yeah- but if you were outside in high altitude, you'd ideally start to freeze.

thekillman, on 11 November 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

First of all:  i think different systems can/should be used as a guide. In BTW, these are the multi-block systems (kiln) and the mechanical power systems. Also, most mechanical blocks emit noise, and with the new sounds that only has become a louder, more annoying noise. The aim of this noise is to encourage people to build villages etc in stead of smacking it all down in a square meter.

Meh, that feels like just an annoyance rather than encouragement. There's better ways to encourage people to make proper "zones" for certain things. Something like encouraging villagers to be used by the player (especially for labor), then have villagers hate living around noisy equipment/factories/etc. This would encourage the player to build houses in separate areas from "industry" areas.

So basically, once you tech up to that level, you'd have a more "Sim City" style of gameplay.

thekillman, on 11 November 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

Secondly: I do not really see what this "survival building" adds, as the simplest defense mechanism remains a wall, and nothing suggested really "nerfs" that aspect. You could have a massive, physics-driven cathedral built that is 100% structurally sound, but it could already keep creepers away with a 3-high wall with an overhang for spiders.

Actually, a "Cathedral" in the current game is DISCOURAGED because you need way more torches and light coverage. Anyway, there are various things to sort've "nerf" or at least discourage extremely simple defenses:

-The troll suggestion would make you want to appropriately barricade up, rather than just making a high enough wall/box structure. Ideally, there'd be more ways to defend yourself, anyway, but yeah.

-The proper physics thing would make it so you actually couldn't just build a 3 high wall out of cobble or dirt- you'd need bricks at least. Even then, there'd still be trolls, climbing mobs (Spiders, potentially others... I want to see mobs that make use of the grab/climb mechanics from smart moving), and so on to discourage just a basic wall.

-If it's structurally sound, as opposed to technically functioning but not structurally sound, you'll not have to worry about your base falling apart if a troll/creeper/etc destroys something. Ideally, you wouldn't have just "It either falls, or never falls"- it'd be more like terrafirmacraft (Cave ins), where it's more of a risky maneuver than necessarily "falls or doesn't fall". This would encourage you to make more than just one pillar- even if you CAN support a structure with a single pillar, that's not a great idea if that pillar falls.

-A cathedral would hardly be an appropriate defensive structure, anyway, so yeah.

Rafe, on 12 November 2012 - 04:46 AM, said:

Well as i said the initial few nights of terrafirmacraft demonstrate how such a system could work. Building a wall is very difficult initially without the correct tools as long as you don't use dirt. As you increase up the tech tree better materials become available and instead of laying logs into a grove to make a log wall you can cutt the logs into planks and create materials that are easier to work with.

Which is what I'd like- right now, as soon as you get cobble, you're basically set for life. Cobble defends plenty against creeper explosions, and there's no physics in the game to make you think about anything other than "Make a shelter, put in door, done".

Maybe not go about it the same way as Terrafirmacraft, but I'd like to apply the same principle- early on, you just can't use dirt to make a super fort, and need to tech up to better materials and work around the physics to make an appropriate structure.

Rafe, on 12 November 2012 - 04:46 AM, said:

Low tech building limitations also would force you to initially use terrain to defend yourself, Moving near water, or to the top of a cliff so you can see anything approaching your position better. This sounds like survival to me. As your tools and tech gets better and you can create better walls you have the luxury of living in more dangerous environments. There is potential here that could match the redstone aspect of the game but it's completely untapped because we are stuck with 3d mario paint for now.

Definitely. I want early game to encourage people to seek shelter in more natural areas- small tunnels/caves (that aren't inhabited by mobs, obviously), waterfalls, etc. Making your own shelter should take effort, planning, and actually be fun and relaxing instead of tedious.

Midipopo, on 12 November 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

If Mojang make Tutorials as long as they can be switched off or accessed like the achieves are then it wouldn't bother me, but if I had to go through the same set of do this do that at the beginning of a new world I'd go mad, cause I know all the crafting recipes (yes I'm sad and can remember stuff).

Yeah, they should most certainly be optional.

Midipopo, on 12 November 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

It's not hard to work out and remember them, granted trial and error is involved tho if you can't work out how to make a pick etc your either too stupid or young to play this SANDBOX game,

I don't think the crafting grid thing is necessarily "hard", it's just... unnecessary. I used to feel like it wasn't too bad, but you have to wonder "Why even keep it?". There's better ways to do crafting- minigames, and such, come to mind.

Midipopo, on 12 November 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

But seriously in the real world most people ignore instructions anyway. I know I do cause it's not rocket science unless you building a rocket.......

If people ignore instructions that are optional and made to help them, then that's their fault if they die or get frusrated as a result of their own ignorance. I won't hold their hand or dumb down the game for people like that.

Midipopo, on 12 November 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

I sort of agree bout the graphics, but I think I like more the fact that everyone's game looks different to them and like the fact I control how it looks. So as long as they don't remove that option I'm happy, tho I doubt they care bout my happiness.

I'm not against texture packs. I just feel like the default should be way better- it's literally programmer art.

Midipopo, on 12 November 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

Totally love the idea of actually swimming and crawling etc I think there's a mod that does that stuff can't remember the name of it tho.

Smart moving, by Divisor. It's fantastic, though recently you have borderline cheats with it now because you can improve your speed to ridiculous amounts... but eh, it's not like Minecraft doesn't already have its own built in cheats. The concepts of crawling, grabbing, proper swimming, climbing, and etc are just plain fantastic, regardless of any problems it may have.

Midipopo, on 12 November 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

I like the Biomes as is really they make Minecraft, Minecraft. Tho more random buildings like temples etc would spice up other areas, like Log Cabins randomly generated in Taiga & Extreme Hill's Biomes would be cool. then there be something in each biome ..I think.

I'm not against the current biomes, there just need to be more of them. Way more. Steppes, savannas, highlands, proper mountains, proper hills, arid deserts, etc. All of these I've recently been working on, actually. It... really isn't that hard to add.

Midipopo, on 12 November 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

I do like what you have to say, but the fact we all have different opinions and aren't afraid to share them is what's good about the MC community, tho trolling can be a pain in the ass from time to time, I guess we just have to live with it.

Having different opinions isn't exclusive to the MC community- that's sort've the default for every community ever, because it's human nature. The problems with the MC community lie elsewhere (as outlined by my post).

[JTTCOTE2]

Speaking of different opinions, my opinion is that this thread was made by the impossible person: Someone who is mature in commenting but wants every game to be like COD. Seriously. You're saying that because you can make a wall out of dirt, the game is not challenging?

I guess our difference here is on your first assumption: That Minecraft Survival is supposed to be about surviving against mobs.
I've got news for you.

IT'S NOT.

What it is about is building fantastic structures with limited resources. Mobs were added entirely as an optional sidetrack, and continue to follow that path. You don't have to beat the Wither to advance, but you can as a side goal, because it gives you a cool, but not required, reward.

Minecraft Survival has never followed the path of "let's make people rage by having them suddenly killed by a tunneling mob", but rather that of "hey, let's add different colors of wool, because it'll let people make cooler buildings!", "hey, let's add an enchanting system, so that mining isn't so tedious."

Nothing about Minecraft Survival currently or has since Beta 1.2 taken the path of a forced difficulty increase. What you're proposing is not only ludicrous, but it won't be added.

[dashashfell]

Great ideas here, but isn't this borderline Suggestion forum?

"Adding Tutorial!"
"AI improved!"
"Player movement improved!"
"Terrain improved!"
"Difficulties improved!"
"Art improved!"

The team may tackle some of these half-heartedy, but there's the bad news here for you:

There are many people with your opinion and a ton opposing it. Mojang will only listen to those in large numbers.



Minecraft has gotten to the point where the icing is being laid. The basics are well known, it's been two years and there is a huge bin of players to choose from. All that is being added are decorative, like items and creatures.

The game itself is pretty much survival, all of the basics are in there. gathering, fighting and creating are connected like a triangle; collect resources to make a basic home, farm and tools, use it to fight off the hazards and collect more materials to make better items, which ends up to endgame materials However, once you get to the endgame, the top gear wears down, and the process repeats, with only building in excess.

Survival is pretty much the game itself, any major changes need to be balanced. For instance, you suggested more and better weapons in 5b. This just is terrible, what kind of new pointy stick are you trying to jam in? This is not like Chivalry, where weapon choice determines gameplay. The new weapon has to be an obvious form in the tiny 3x3 grid, good luck getting fancy spears and maces in with shovels, axes and hoes.

However, three things myself and the majority agrees on, terrain difficulty and enemy AI. The good facts you laid out about these need to be heard. Terrain is simplistic, difficulties are only for damage and combat is "spam weapon until enemy is dead or you are".

I'd be a fool if I said those idiot words "Minecraft is okay as it is," which it is not. This is why Mojang is still adding, fixing and tweaking the game, because somewhere, some person can pick at the surface and find something lacking, game breaking or absolutely impossible and people will jump on it. Sure it is quite inefficient and shoddy, but we're not dealing with some huge company with the money to buy all the game testers who know what's good or not before release. We deal with Mojang an unfinished game and the community, don't expect any miracles before the end.

[Insurrection]

JTTCOTE2, on 16 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Speaking of different opinions, my opinion is that this thread was made by the impossible person: Someone who is mature in commenting but wants every game to be like COD.

By this I assume you mean I want to turn it into ACSHUN EXPLOSUNS CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE, but no. Absolutely not. I don't want to dumb down the game in the least.

Furthermore, "every game"? Come now.

JTTCOTE2, on 16 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Seriously. You're saying that because you can make a wall out of dirt, the game is not challenging?

It goes far deeper than that. The lack of challenge stems from a huge variety of factors- most notably would actually be the magical peaceful button. The "wall of dirt" thing is dumb in of itself, though.

JTTCOTE2, on 16 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

I guess our difference here is on your first assumption: That Minecraft Survival is supposed to be about surviving against mobs.
I've got news for you.

IT'S NOT.

I never said it was, nor did I say it "should" be. However, it already has mobs that are ubiquitous in nature. Why not make them actually serve the gameplay more?

JTTCOTE2, on 16 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

What it is about is building fantastic structures with limited resources.

...Structures that mean very little because they're effectively the same as a 10x10 dirt house with all of your necessities in it. Oh sure, it looks prettier, but who cares? That's what creative mode is for.

Besides,

Insurrection said:

Pointing out what Notch, Jeb, and/or Mojang "intended" is rather irrelevant. Even if you provide proof of where they actually said what their intentions are, this thread is a criticism of flaws. Generally speaking, no one ever intends to create flaws. That's why they're called flaws- why they're synonymous with accidents. Most of the time, flaws are unintentional. However, if it's an intentional flaw, then it needs to be changed even more.
If you want to argue on whether or not something is a flaw, feel free. That's what this thread is for- to figure out what is and isn't flawed. Just be sure to be objective about it- simply because you enjoy the flaw doesn't mean it's perfectly fine. That goes against the whole idea of criticism and objective analysis.

Furthermore, it's worth nothing that I'm not suggesting they gut the entire game- I'm saying they should expand it. There's not that much I want removed in comparison to things I want added. Seriously, what would be bad about:

-More biomes
-Taller biomes (Ideally, with no performance issues)
-More equipment choices
-More mob variety
-A more sensible difficulty that is determined by your location, not a magical button you can use to turn off the meanie bad guys at any time.
-A sensible, well laid out tutorial (not an obnoxious one, obviously)

And so on.

JTTCOTE2, on 16 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Mobs were added entirely as an optional sidetrack, and continue to follow that path. You don't have to beat the Wither to advance, but you can as a side goal, because it gives you a cool, but not required, reward.

You flat out need to kill a number of Endermen in order to get to "The End"- which contains a boss fight. How is the game not about mobs? How is that "optional"? If anything, it's gone more in the direction of "HEY GO FIGHT MOBS" than before.

JTTCOTE2, on 16 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Minecraft Survival has never followed the path of "let's make people rage by having them suddenly killed by a tunneling mob",

Nice strawman. That's not what I'm saying they should do at all. If anything, I'm suggesting they make the game more sensible and relaxing,  by removing mobs spawning everywhere aboveground (and instead relegating mobs to more specific areas- such as the underground, the Nether, and etc).

JTTCOTE2, on 16 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

but rather that of "hey, let's add different colors of wool, because it'll let people make cooler buildings!", "hey, let's add an enchanting system, so that mining isn't so tedious."

The different colored wool thing was... okay, I guess, but it didn't particularly add to gameplay. The enchanting system literally forces you to fight mobs to make use of it. Again, how is that optional?

JTTCOTE2, on 16 November 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Nothing about Minecraft Survival currently or has since Beta 1.2 taken the path of a forced difficulty increase. What you're proposing is not only ludicrous, but it won't be added.

I don't quite see what you're getting at here. Because they've never done X, it shows they never should or will...? That's faulty logic.

Again, I'm not saying they should make it a "forced" difficulty increase- unless you were referring to the removal of the magical peaceful button, but can you seriously defend that? Are you genuinely willing to say the magical peaceful button is a good idea when even the Xbox 360 version- a market that is even less tolerant of difficulty than your average PC gamer- has no ability to switch difficulty mid-game?

That's honestly the only thing I can think of that would "force" difficulty in any way. I'm actually more inclined to give players the ability to avoid mobs, if they're smart.

I would say it's silly to consider my suggested changes "ludicrous" when you haven't even tackled any of the other issues I've brought about- you've really only talked about the "difficulty" part. If you're going to call them ludicrous, at least point out what all is and isn't.

dashashfell, on 16 November 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

Great ideas here, but isn't this borderline Suggestion forum?

I would have, but they all kinda work together to form one cohesive ball of improvement. It'd be difficult to talk about... well, difficulty for example, if I had to have a completely separate post for talking about mobs, or something.

dashashfell, on 16 November 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

There are many people with your opinion and a ton opposing it. Mojang will only listen to those in large numbers.

I'm aware- hence my point about the community. They shouldn't listen to the vocal minority, or the extremely vocal majority just because they're the minority or majority. They should listen to logical, well thought out ideas.

They seem to be content adding nonsense like cats and calling it a day, though.

dashashfell, on 16 November 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

Minecraft has gotten to the point where the icing is being laid. The basics are well known, it's been two years and there is a huge bin of players to choose from. All that is being added are decorative, like items and creatures.

Right, this is the problem with their development- it's stagnated an extreme amount. Ever since mid-alpha, the game just hasn't really improved, and if anything has gone downhill.

dashashfell, on 16 November 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

The game itself is pretty much survival, all of the basics are in there. gathering, fighting and creating are connected like a triangle; collect resources to make a basic home, farm and tools, use it to fight off the hazards and collect more materials to make better items, which ends up to endgame materials However, once you get to the endgame, the top gear wears down, and the process repeats, with only building in excess.

The problem is that it's extremely basic- there's very, very little content. There's so much potential, and it doesn't even take that much work to add more. It doesn't need to be overly complicated and be like fighting games, where extreme levels of practice and learning are required to do virtually anything. It can be simple things, like more mobs, more biomes, and etc.

dashashfell, on 16 November 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

Survival is pretty much the game itself, any major changes need to be balanced. For instance, you suggested more and better weapons in 5b. This just is terrible, what kind of new pointy stick are you trying to jam in? This is not like Chivalry, where weapon choice determines gameplay. The new weapon has to be an obvious form in the tiny 3x3 grid, good luck getting fancy spears and maces in with shovels, axes and hoes.

"has to be"
Why does it "[have] to be"? Why can't they scrap the 3x3 grid in place of a better system altogether?

Spoiler:

Answer: Because people are used to it, and they don't want to upset those people. AKA, blatant pandering. See point #7

Besides, there's still plenty of mods that do that kinda stuff anyway. It's not because "oh no it won't fit in the grid", it's sheer laziness at this point.

dashashfell, on 16 November 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

However, three things myself and the majority agrees on, terrain difficulty and enemy AI. The good facts you laid out about these need to be heard. Terrain is simplistic, difficulties are only for damage and combat is "spam weapon until enemy is dead or you are".

How do you speak for the majority?

dashashfell, on 16 November 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

ISure it is quite inefficient and shoddy, but we're not dealing with some huge company with the money to buy all the game testers who know what's good or not before release. We deal with Mojang an unfinished game and the community, don't expect any miracles before the end.

Mojang has made hundreds of millions of dollars. Money they almost exclusively have, because they independently published the game.

They have so much ­friggin' money to hire testers, a good art director, and so on that it isn't even funny.

Instead, they seem to be content buying this:





Why try when minecraft already sells, right?

[Sheltered]

Insurrection, on 16 November 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:

Why try when minecraft already sells, right?

Tell us Insurrection, if you had a winning lottery ticket. How much effort would you put into attempting to change the numbers on it?

[thekillman]

Sheltered, on 22 November 2012 - 06:36 PM, said:

Tell us Insurrection, if you had a winning lottery ticket. How much effort would you put into attempting to change the numbers on it?

This is why i did not suggest a massive overhaul. I think that implementing the tweaks as i described them, will not have an individually big impact, but the overall game improvement is massive.


The thing is: Minecraft is heading more and more to a "you can walk! have a diamond". What i try to propose, is not making minecraft worse. It's not making minecraft different. It's making minecraft of the difficulty level it had, in stead of the current "do anything to get anything". It also adds a bunch of awesome new features, immersion, yet while maintaining challenge

[Insurrection]

Sheltered, on 22 November 2012 - 06:36 PM, said:

Tell us Insurrection, if you had a winning lottery ticket. How much effort would you put into attempting to change the numbers on it?

That doesn't quite work as an analogy for Minecraft's success and subsequent decline in development.

The problem is that, if anything, they now have the freedom to do whatever they want- with their overly rabid fanbase, chances are highly likely they would eat up virtually everything they gave them, anyway. It's not a subscription-based game so at worst, they don't gain sales as rapidly as they were- oh no, the thing that happens to every game ever made anyway.

With this freedom, though, they've basically chosen nothing. They could turn Minecraft into something really amazing... but they choose not to, despite the amount of money and freedom they now have.

I would say a more accurate analogy would be of a man living in the care and kindness of another family's home. They feed him, give him water to drink and bathe with, and so on. Then he wins the lottery, and he hotfoots it out of there and never speaks to them again.

[thekillman]

Might i add, that with the "adventure update" and beyond, any challenge the game had has pretty gone out of the window? it used to be: Mine for materials, farm for food and fight for loot. Since the Adventure update, it has gone to a "do anything to get anything" model.


That's my problem with MC, and while Inssurection wants to go a little bit (a lot) further than me, at the core a lot of players crave for that pre-adventure sense of accomplisment. When i play vanilla, i just accumulate XP in a meaningless fashion. I just get it, and after a while of playing i invest it in a sword or so, and i just play the game and it accumulates. There.'s no challenge. I even replenish my food bar just by fighting.

Notch at least had a vision of what he wanted it to be, and clearly separated the tasks and challenges in the game. Under Jeb, it's essentially a convulted mess.

The Better Than Wolves mod has had tons of complaints for removing Bed-skipping-the-night system, despite the fact that it's not even that old, and removes a lot of the "hey it's dark" stuff. Basically, it makes mobs non-existent, even when they're a good part of the game. It just makes the game into an eternal day, even though the night cycle and the "mobs come out at night and fight" thing was a feature Notch deliberately aimed for.

[Sheltered]

Insurrection, on 23 November 2012 - 01:25 PM, said:

The problem is that, if anything, they now have the freedom to do whatever they want- with their overly rabid fanbase, chances are highly likely they would eat up virtually everything they gave them, anyway. It's not a subscription-based game so at worst, they don't gain sales as rapidly as they were- oh no, the thing that happens to every game ever made anyway.

They are doing exactly what the community wants in the pace they are able too. The fact that Minecraft still have increasing sales after 2 years should be solid evidence.

You put very little faith in the general gamer. You make it sound like all of us are stupid sheep just following the lead of Mojang. You have no respect for what other players enjoy and act extremely high and mighty about your own view.

I wouldn't mind that some things where slightly more tuned or required a little bit more effort, but just like Notch was forced to, you and I must also respect what the community at large is looking for in Minecraft. I've said so before. Notch wanted exactly the same game as you portray. A hard survival RPG kind of game. At least he respect the wishes of the community and give us what we want instead of calling us stupid sheep.

[Monbaa]

I agree with most of the things but endermen encasing you in obsidian is a bit silly. But two zombie types is a good idea but the second type with 3x the health? That would mean 30 hearts! Maybe 2x the hearts? Cave spiders should only spawn in deeper depths when you first destroy a cave spider spawner. Water mobs that are hostile would be pretty swell too, like sharks or piranhas. Sharks should only spawn in ocean biomes and if you are on a boat should destroy the boat then attack. Piranhas should spawn in water that is inside a jungle biome and spawn in groups of 10 to 15 and when you are in a water block should become hostile. When you first loot a jungle temple they should spawn in all rivers, making a essence of danger when loting a jungle temple. They should also attack passive mobs, like real piranhas. Sharks should hunt seals, which should drop blubber. Also there could be great white sharks and blue sharks, great whites being stronger and having 4 armor points. Ask if you want more explained.