The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
2/11/2013
Posts:
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Comments on area Abridged:
Nice job, whoever did this. I always love snow areas, and the mobs
here make it a step up in difficulty from the Walkways. Suffered yet
another serious gear loss due to combination of a small lava pool and
too many invisible zombies! I'd consider it an even challenge the whole
way through rather than being partially easy/partially very hard.
However, that one "exploding" room with the shard near the end is a bit
wild. I've gotten six or so spawners out, still have to go back to see
if there's anything else there. Gear continues to be quite plentiful
enough despite my losses. At the moment I'm not working for anything but
food.
Some leftover comments on Walkways:
Never did find the three bows, only found one (beneath green glass).
Even going back in spectator mode and flying around didn't turn anything
up, except for a shard I missed. (I miss lots of shards. Some of them
are pretty obscure. Not a problem unless the rewards ever become
really necessary to do well.) So maybe make this a little easier? I
don't know. I'm not sure how exactly you were supposed to turn them in
either; I was going to put them in the dispenser and hope. Maybe make
that clearer, if I'm wrong.
General stuff:
There's a pig in Intersection 2 named "*****". That should be changed
for general release. Along the same lines, some of the signs at the
disc rooms are a bit weird and obscure to the point I don't think they
add anything for the player.
Adding Temple of Decay --
Easier than the last area due to the layout and lack of truly difficult mobs -- early open area is the most difficult part of it (the archers are brutal), tunnels are easier. End section could kill you if you're not either careful or quick. I like these classic branching dungeons every so often. It's such a nice feeling of progress.
There's a spot near the beginning of the tunnels where you can hear lava. I dug to it, because why not, and found myself in the lapis area off of intersection 3, whoops.
I LOVED the "you know what to do with this" lever, and I did indeed.
Finally. EIGHT emeralds?!? I didn't blow one up, did I?
Halfway through, still enjoying the map. If there were one overarching criticism that's starting to take place for me it's the uneven difficulty curve, both within and between areas. I suppose that's to be expected given how the map got put together and I don't think that as a player I mind it. It just makes the map feel a bit less polished than it might, despite all its good points.
Nice job, whoever did this. I always love snow areas, and the mobs
here make it a step up in difficulty from the Walkways. Suffered yet
another serious gear loss due to combination of a small lava pool and
too many invisible zombies! I'd consider it an even challenge the whole
way through rather than being partially easy/partially very hard.
However, that one "exploding" room with the shard near the end is a bit
wild. I've gotten six or so spawners out, still have to go back to see
if there's anything else there. Gear continues to be quite plentiful
enough despite my losses. At the moment I'm not working for anything but
food.
Some leftover comments on Walkways:
Never did find the three bows, only found one (beneath green glass).
Even going back in spectator mode and flying around didn't turn anything
up, except for a shard I missed. (I miss lots of shards. Some of them
are pretty obscure. Not a problem unless the rewards ever become
really necessary to do well.) So maybe make this a little easier? I
don't know. I'm not sure how exactly you were supposed to turn them in
either; I was going to put them in the dispenser and hope. Maybe make
that clearer, if I'm wrong.
General stuff:
There's a pig in Intersection 2 named "*****". That should be changed
for general release. Along the same lines, some of the signs at the
disc rooms are a bit weird and obscure to the point I don't think they
add anything for the player.
Adding Temple of Decay --
Easier than the last area due to the layout and lack of truly difficult mobs -- early open area is the most difficult part of it (the archers are brutal), tunnels are easier. End section could kill you if you're not either careful or quick. I like these classic branching dungeons every so often. It's such a nice feeling of progress.
There's a spot near the beginning of the tunnels where you can hear lava. I dug to it, because why not, and found myself in the lapis area off of intersection 3, whoops.
I LOVED the "you know what to do with this" lever, and I did indeed.
Finally. EIGHT emeralds?!? I didn't blow one up, did I?
Halfway through, still enjoying the map. If there were one overarching criticism that's starting to take place for me it's the uneven difficulty curve, both within and between areas. I suppose that's to be expected given how the map got put together and I don't think that as a player I mind it. It just makes the map feel a bit less polished than it might, despite all its good points.
RE: Walkways - For some reason that I honestly cannot understand, it seems at some point while we were polishing the map, the Villager you were intended to trade to straight up vanished. I'll be trying tor recreate him as soon as possible. I'm hoping to have the time to get the updated copy out by next Thursday or so.
RE: Pig - Will fix. Never noticed that ;_;
RE: Temple - Might consider buffing this zone a bit. You share my worries with this zone then, in that I was concerned it was a bit easy. Will see what I can do about that, especially considering Abridged can be quite challenging. Might see if I can block off the lava, but it's not a big concern to me. And yes, 8 emeralds <3
Great area! My favorite so far. The best part is the sheer scale of the place -- it just keeps going and going ... And it's so varied. Vertical walkways, open areas, labyrinth, poison, even a little fire/lava -- everything!
If I had to change anything I think I would either do more with the potion creepers at the start or just don't use them at all. They feel weirdly out of place, being only two of them, and then they never show up again. I'm not sure if the invisibility/wither is intended to wear off before the creeper dies or not; as it is, after a while they are visible.
And maybe (maybe) make the very last bit more difficult. Right now there's almost zero risk of a careful player falling off (which is fine in itself), so maybe it should be harder to make that safe progress. Even replacing the vanilla skelly spawners with something that can do more than a half heart every other hit against the gear you have here would make a big difference in effectively harassing the player. As it is I could almost ignore them completely while I built a back safety rail and a bridge to the spawners.
I took it nice and slow Zisteau style, and maybe made one to many mob farms (for infinite steak, and armours eg combining a ton of dropped Protection 2 chain armour for level 4).
I had one death at the beginning from 2-3 creepers dropping on my head in the "Mineshaft B" or something section.
I'm sure it would be the most important part, but I can't really comment on the difficulty on the map. I found it easy, however I since I did take it slow, farm up OP gear, and I'd consider myself close to a CTM veteran.
I'd like to give a big thumbs up for the gear progression and the non-overkill on command blocks.
The gear I had at the end of Discordancy was similiar to the gear I had half way through a CTM map I played recently. You can guess how absurd the gear was by the end of it, meaning lots of command block mechanics were needed for areas to give a different level of difficulty...which led to bosses dropping wool glitching out, and my world lagging heavily or crashing (a lot).
Discordancy loaded smoothly with practically no lag, and having a fly through in spectator, I can see how closely everything was packed together, very good job on that regard.
A few other notes:
3 bows:
"Never did find the three bows, only found one (beneath green glass).
Even going back in spectator mode and flying around didn't turn anything
up, except for a shard I missed." - RenataRuns
I have to agree, I spent a long time flying around for those bows (after spending an even longer time walking around searching for them) in spectator just to be a completionist. One bow was buried very high into the roof of the map. It's incredibly hidden for a very bad reward.
"Bonus" Monument:
I like the idea of a side objective, I think Waking Up was the first to do this. It gives you a reason to take the areas slow instead of bolting through the map skipping basically 50% of it, and getting to the wool as quickly as possible. Although Vechs hid some of them a bit to hard and I only found them through watching his Dev Com. Some of the prismarine was hidden too well, but most were not. After completing an area entirely (all spawners pacified, all areas explored, disk + loot stored outside the are) I would fly around to see what I missed. I would say I missed a notable amount of prismarine, which could be countered easily with like a free prismarine block at the very last disk (maybe, for those who wont want to go back and find them). As for the rewards, it's hard to balance rewards, but aside from the boots and the bow I didn't really make use of the rewards. Iron was handed out way before the enchanting table, so it just stacked up in a chest as prot 2-4 chain armour would be better than unenchanted iron armour.
I also suggest giving a book or something with the first Prismarine shard explaining what it is. I generally skip the rules at the beginning due to usually being the same generic things. At the start, Mineshaft A had the disk, and Mineshaft B had a prismarine shard. Mineshaft B was significantly harder than A. I was pretty confused/salty (especially after my only death in the map) after my only reward for Mineshaft B was some shard I had no clue about.
Maybe Anvil-numbering the shards, and/or listing how many shards each area has will also help people. I kept a notepad of the shards I found to be sure I didn't miss any (until I finished the monument, then I skipped the ones I missed).
Cool items & OP items:
I really liked the nice bow you got early on that made you incapable of moving, it was interesting and a decent balance for it. I used that bow and the bow from the bonus monument together for a decent bow which I used for most of the map.
A nice combo of items I found was the Tank Pants (that slowed you but gave you 100% knockback resistance), and the Pristine Stone Pick (that gave a massive speed boost). In dangerous areas I would wear those pants and quickly switch between the pick and torches constantly, so that I could place a torch every 5 blocks yet still cancel out the speed lost from the pants.
But, some items did make all other items redundant pretty quickly.
The Aurian Manly Axe, E7 U8 wooden axe. Lasts a very long time and instantly mines basically all wood blocks. I used this item from start to finish, making all other axes through out the map useless. I suggest nerfing it so when you receive an axe as a reward in the future you don't go "urgh..."
Pristine Stone Pick is wayyyy to fast early game. I used this pick (and up'd it to E5 U3) for most of the map until I started to get other speed items. It has a 40% speed boost which is obtained pretty early. And although quickly switching from sword/torches to pick just for the speed boost is a cool concept, it gets pretty tedious, and 40% speed is to much to pass up. Also makes all other picks redundant until the need for speed can be replaced else where.
Tank Pants, I think it was the first knockback resistance item in the map, which it gives 100% of. For the entire I used these when I needed knockback resistance, making all other knock back items worthless. I suggest maybe nerfing this to 50-80%.
Boots of Butt Kicking, used these since I got them, either nerf speed on these or the pickaxe. Together + speed potion, you can run so fast you confuse the AI. Kinda game breaking.
Wither Skeleton Skull, although an End Game item, it has Prot 5, Fire Prot 10, Blast Prot 10. The last area has a LOT of fire and lava, with super charged creepers falling on your head. This helmet makes you immortal to all these things, effectively making the last area a walk in the park.
^This might be different for those playing with other people or dying and losing everything. But for me these items did stand out a lot and help me through the map a bit too much.
To sum up:
This map is best comparable to Pantheon (a really great map), but with a much better loot distribution. Pantheon had a lot of *look in chest, hover over items, close chest, walk away*, this map only had a few instances of this (more for me due to farming gear). I'm assuming one person did the loot, or gave strict restrictions to everyone else. It's definitely noticeable! Great job.
I think after a few command block fixes, those bonus challenge things finished (good luck on those, might try it one day when it's ready), a few hidden prismarine made less hidden, and maybe a few difficulty tweeks, this map should be good to go!
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
2/11/2013
Posts:
60
Member Details
Gunkoid Falls:
Nice! Not quite as perfectly put together as the previous area (less intuitive which way to go), but it's good. I liked the mobs here quite a bit. Good theme, good challenge. Those green tank guys (anti-knockback, lots of health/armor) were downright horrifying with the gear I went in with. (Note: my punch bow did send them flying; I suspect a knockback sword might have as well, but I wasn't using one. They were much easier once I ran out of food, went back to base, and equipped that plus-attack minus-health item. Went from 12 hits with no crits to like five. Big difference!) At any rate not a ton to comment on, good area, can definitely kill you.
Sporeblight Laboratories:
Something needs looking at here. It seemed most of the spawners did not do the usual thing and spawn when you first come into range. As a result, what might have been a challenging area became almost trivial. You could run right up to a spawner and break it. It was so easy in fact that I was suspecting a sort of brown wool troll for a while! (The teleport didn't help, heh.)
Given the spawner issue it's almost impossible to assess the real difficulty here. The bottom area with all the potion-mob spawners was slightly more challenging, but the layout is favorable to the player (narrow, easy to take one spawner at a time) until near the very end, and even that wasn't much. One single solitary charged creeper spawner with speed and some skeleton/blaze combos that in the final room could be ramboed quite easily -- eh. (Are those custom skeletons supposed to have missing-texture heads, by the way? They look cool.)
Oh, one last thing. I have no idea what would happen if a natural-spawn creeper went off in the area where there's lava over your head.
Intersection 2&3 deaths (I have not yet located intersection 4):
Walkways of Abandon: 0
Abridged: 1
Temple of Decay: I can't remember; at most 1
Prison of Forgotten Cries (love this area!): 0
Gunkoid Falls: 0
Sporeblight Laboratories: 0
I always do better once I have gear enough that not literally everything can 3- or 4-shot me at worst, but it's objectively easier than parts of Intersection 1 too. (Only place so far that I think might actually be too hard on the player is the last part of Shame of Adonis.) Abridged and Gunkoid Falls are hardest parts of Int 2&3.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Canada
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Location:
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I've been tempted to start this for a while now but I felt like waiting for the full release. Any guesstimate for how long that would take? These positive comments are really getting me excited.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
2/11/2013
Posts:
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Member Details
Quote from undefined »
Tank Pants, I think it was the first knockback resistance item in the map, which it gives 100% of. For the entire I used these when I needed knockback resistance, making all other knock back items worthless. I suggest maybe nerfing this to 50-80%.
Not quite the first.
One of the creeper-meat drops from Grove of Starlight gives 100% KB resistance. I used it on my second trip through the Shame of Adonis end area, when all I wanted was to find the exit, not fight anything. I tried to use it again on my unintended third trip after discovering the teleport problem, but a creeper fell on my head and ruined my day anyway.
I've been tempted to start this for a while now but I felt like waiting for the full release. Any guesstimate for how long that would take? These positive comments are really getting me excited.
Looking to get a bugfix update out this upcoming Thursday or so, if I'm not too busy!
I took it nice and slow Zisteau style, and maybe made one to many mob farms (for infinite steak, and armours eg combining a ton of dropped Protection 2 chain armour for level 4).
I had one death at the beginning from 2-3 creepers dropping on my head in the "Mineshaft B" or something section.
I'm sure it would be the most important part, but I can't really comment on the difficulty on the map. I found it easy, however I since I did take it slow, farm up OP gear, and I'd consider myself close to a CTM veteran.
I'd like to give a big thumbs up for the gear progression and the non-overkill on command blocks.
The gear I had at the end of Discordancy was similiar to the gear I had half way through a CTM map I played recently. You can guess how absurd the gear was by the end of it, meaning lots of command block mechanics were needed for areas to give a different level of difficulty...which led to bosses dropping wool glitching out, and my world lagging heavily or crashing (a lot).
Discordancy loaded smoothly with practically no lag, and having a fly through in spectator, I can see how closely everything was packed together, very good job on that regard.
A few other notes:
3 bows:
"Never did find the three bows, only found one (beneath green glass).
Even going back in spectator mode and flying around didn't turn anything
up, except for a shard I missed." - RenataRuns
I have to agree, I spent a long time flying around for those bows (after spending an even longer time walking around searching for them) in spectator just to be a completionist. One bow was buried very high into the roof of the map. It's incredibly hidden for a very bad reward.
"Bonus" Monument:
I like the idea of a side objective, I think Waking Up was the first to do this. It gives you a reason to take the areas slow instead of bolting through the map skipping basically 50% of it, and getting to the wool as quickly as possible. Although Vechs hid some of them a bit to hard and I only found them through watching his Dev Com. Some of the prismarine was hidden too well, but most were not. After completing an area entirely (all spawners pacified, all areas explored, disk + loot stored outside the are) I would fly around to see what I missed. I would say I missed a notable amount of prismarine, which could be countered easily with like a free prismarine block at the very last disk (maybe, for those who wont want to go back and find them). As for the rewards, it's hard to balance rewards, but aside from the boots and the bow I didn't really make use of the rewards. Iron was handed out way before the enchanting table, so it just stacked up in a chest as prot 2-4 chain armour would be better than unenchanted iron armour.
I also suggest giving a book or something with the first Prismarine shard explaining what it is. I generally skip the rules at the beginning due to usually being the same generic things. At the start, Mineshaft A had the disk, and Mineshaft B had a prismarine shard. Mineshaft B was significantly harder than A. I was pretty confused/salty (especially after my only death in the map) after my only reward for Mineshaft B was some shard I had no clue about.
Maybe Anvil-numbering the shards, and/or listing how many shards each area has will also help people. I kept a notepad of the shards I found to be sure I didn't miss any (until I finished the monument, then I skipped the ones I missed).
Cool items & OP items:
I really liked the nice bow you got early on that made you incapable of moving, it was interesting and a decent balance for it. I used that bow and the bow from the bonus monument together for a decent bow which I used for most of the map.
A nice combo of items I found was the Tank Pants (that slowed you but gave you 100% knockback resistance), and the Pristine Stone Pick (that gave a massive speed boost). In dangerous areas I would wear those pants and quickly switch between the pick and torches constantly, so that I could place a torch every 5 blocks yet still cancel out the speed lost from the pants.
But, some items did make all other items redundant pretty quickly.
The Aurian Manly Axe, E7 U8 wooden axe. Lasts a very long time and instantly mines basically all wood blocks. I used this item from start to finish, making all other axes through out the map useless. I suggest nerfing it so when you receive an axe as a reward in the future you don't go "urgh..."
Pristine Stone Pick is wayyyy to fast early game. I used this pick (and up'd it to E5 U3) for most of the map until I started to get other speed items. It has a 40% speed boost which is obtained pretty early. And although quickly switching from sword/torches to pick just for the speed boost is a cool concept, it gets pretty tedious, and 40% speed is to much to pass up. Also makes all other picks redundant until the need for speed can be replaced else where.
Tank Pants, I think it was the first knockback resistance item in the map, which it gives 100% of. For the entire I used these when I needed knockback resistance, making all other knock back items worthless. I suggest maybe nerfing this to 50-80%.
Boots of Butt Kicking, used these since I got them, either nerf speed on these or the pickaxe. Together + speed potion, you can run so fast you confuse the AI. Kinda game breaking.
Wither Skeleton Skull, although an End Game item, it has Prot 5, Fire Prot 10, Blast Prot 10. The last area has a LOT of fire and lava, with super charged creepers falling on your head. This helmet makes you immortal to all these things, effectively making the last area a walk in the park.
^This might be different for those playing with other people or dying and losing everything. But for me these items did stand out a lot and help me through the map a bit too much.
To sum up:
This map is best comparable to Pantheon (a really great map), but with a much better loot distribution. Pantheon had a lot of *look in chest, hover over items, close chest, walk away*, this map only had a few instances of this (more for me due to farming gear). I'm assuming one person did the loot, or gave strict restrictions to everyone else. It's definitely noticeable! Great job.
I think after a few command block fixes, those bonus challenge things finished (good luck on those, might try it one day when it's ready), a few hidden prismarine made less hidden, and maybe a few difficulty tweeks, this map should be good to go!
Thank you so much for this hugely valuable feedback! Gonna go through each thing to make sure I address them:
- First and foremost, I'm so glad the gear progression worked. I got very strict on what could be given out where, and by and large it seems to have worked out for the best, with areas being designed with gear accessibility by that point in mind. A lot of zones didn't have mobs complete as we neared Beta, which meant we got to tailor those specifically for what we wanted!
- The Bows are currently bugged, as the Villager intended to trade you the quite nice Chestplate seems to have vanished for some people. I will be moving the ceiling bow elsewhere though. That one just isn't good.
- By and large I'm happy with most of the Prismarine rewards. Adding the numbers in each zone is done in the next update so players know how many to expect. Don't want to overload Prismarine shards though, and want it to be truly hard to get every single block down, as they're all based around being a challenge to complete, similar to Ragecraft's Emerald Monuments. I do have the Prismarine note in the Intro book, but might copy that section over to Shard 1.
- Regarding those items, I'll likely be digging into each of those to see what I can do to get them a bit more in line with other zones. A lot of the speed items that were given out were likely made a bit wrong, and balancing them out to be considerably less speed is definitely for the best. Tank Pants will likely go down to 40-50, and Butt Kicking will be dropping to a 25% speed, and the pick likely to around 10. I'll drop that protection on the Wither Skull down significantly, as honestly it does just counter everything.
- I'm glad the lessons I learned from Pantheon's ending development shone through here! Loot was something I really wanted to fix as Pantheon was a huge issue with that. It helped that a lot of the development of Discordancy was done together, rather than having 16 of us split off and do our own thing, and it allowed for a lot more aware areas based on those around them. Loot was done mostly by creators, with strict requirements, and then combed over and rebalanced by myself and several others.
- Beyond that, command block fixes, some difficulty touches up and item fixes, and some more info on the Prismarine Shards in visible spots are all things I either have ready or plan to get done for the next release! We're still chatting about the challenges internally, but it's very possible they'll end up cut, simply because we had the idea to make them, but not enough strong ideas to pull them off. It's likely something we'll consider revisiting in Disclarity once that project starts up though, with some more fresh ideas.
Thanks again for taking the time to write all that out, and I'm so glad you enjoyed the experience! Thanks for playing!
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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One area left.
Suspended Exodus:
Hardest and scariest area yet. One death near the fake disc box, lost most of my stuff to blaze fires. I was surprised to take fall damage the one time I took the long fall into the lava pit -- not deep I guess? Lost about 9.5 hearts of 13, survived due to my almost infinite supply of fire resist potions. IF I hadn't been such a packrat way back in the sewers of Shame of Adonis (slime balls), I would have had a harder time.
But it was hard as it was. Rough areas: ground floor of big castle, due to mob swarms. It's hard to break in there quickly at least for me; looking forward to watching other people try. This was the one area, if anything, that could hypothetically be nerfed; even taking the punch away from the chain mail skellies outside would more easily enable a quick approach. Approach to the "disc box" was also chaotic, but it's so short it's fine.
Finally, of course the void area. Oh lord. I didn't even notice the void the first time I went in there. It had been so hard already I thought it would be short down there and then it wasn't. I got stuck with low supplies, had to claw my way out, how did I not fall, I have no idea. Was in and out of walls my second time in due to punch bow terror. Scary place, very hard.
I have to say I liked it a lot. I've never seen anything quite like it, and it was certainly a challenge. Just harder by quite a bit than anything else I've encountered in Discordancy and a huge shock after the easy Intersection 3 stuff.
Shrine of the Last:
My new favorite area! This place is so great. Fire resist again made it easier than it might have been without it but still, amazing. I had so much fun with my random-enchant blast protection IV diamond helmet (got the diamonds in Suspended Exodus) here, running around killing ghast spawners. Got knocked in lava three times in the end section. Good times, tons of ideas in various rooms that all seem to work out. Also feels an approrpriately large, tough place for its spot on the map, probably as long as Suspended Exodus but without a fake-out giving you a grrr moment.
One thing: the larger of the two diamond traps near the front of hte castle blew up the gold ore there. I'd already placed a golden block thanks to zombie pigmen so it didn't matter, but I'm assuming still that there's plenty of gold in the last area yet to be found. There's certainly a ton of diamonds (with fortune), probably more than there was iron.
An ender chest at the start of the last area would be very very welcome. Or a teleporter for that matter.
Hardest and scariest area yet. One death near the fake disc box, lost most of my stuff to blaze fires. I was surprised to take fall damage the one time I took the long fall into the lava pit -- not deep I guess? Lost about 9.5 hearts of 13, survived due to my almost infinite supply of fire resist potions. IF I hadn't been such a packrat way back in the sewers of Shame of Adonis (slime balls), I would have had a harder time.
But it was hard as it was. Rough areas: ground floor of big castle, due to mob swarms. It's hard to break in there quickly at least for me; looking forward to watching other people try. This was the one area, if anything, that could hypothetically be nerfed; even taking the punch away from the chain mail skellies outside would more easily enable a quick approach. Approach to the "disc box" was also chaotic, but it's so short it's fine.
Finally, of course the void area. Oh lord. I didn't even notice the void the first time I went in there. It had been so hard already I thought it would be short down there and then it wasn't. I got stuck with low supplies, had to claw my way out, how did I not fall, I have no idea. Was in and out of walls my second time in due to punch bow terror. Scary place, very hard.
I have to say I liked it a lot. I've never seen anything quite like it, and it was certainly a challenge. Just harder by quite a bit than anything else I've encountered in Discordancy and a huge shock after the easy Intersection 3 stuff.
Shrine of the Last:
My new favorite area! This place is so great. Fire resist again made it easier than it might have been without it but still, amazing. I had so much fun with my random-enchant blast protection IV diamond helmet (got the diamonds in Suspended Exodus) here, running around killing ghast spawners. Got knocked in lava three times in the end section. Good times, tons of ideas in various rooms that all seem to work out. Also feels an approrpriately large, tough place for its spot on the map, probably as long as Suspended Exodus but without a fake-out giving you a grrr moment.
One thing: the larger of the two diamond traps near the front of hte castle blew up the gold ore there. I'd already placed a golden block thanks to zombie pigmen so it didn't matter, but I'm assuming still that there's plenty of gold in the last area yet to be found. There's certainly a ton of diamonds (with fortune), probably more than there was iron.
An ender chest at the start of the last area would be very very welcome. Or a teleporter for that matter.
I'd definitely say I need to up the difficulty of I3 more than I need to nerf I4, for sure. I'm glad the areas here held up their toughness and the like, and felt interesting and varied in the process. The outside spawners for SE would be fine to remove, and I'll see how that feels.
Regarding a teleporter at the end of Shrine, I might have to consider a one-way into the area, as I don't want a player to get to just teleport out with their stuff, but don't want to make things too wild. An Ender Chest might be a better solution.
Kinda glad I ended up too busy to get a patch ready, as this feedback was especially valuable!
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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I'm thinking mostly for purposes of taking extra supplies into the last area. I wound up filling my entire inventory with various stuff so as not to have to make two trips there and still didn't have as much as I'd have liked to. I don't travel light!
Anyway, still working on it but have comments
on the spawners here. The potion-topped mobs tend to spawn in walls when the spawners are hidden. I don't know if that's intentional (I'm figuring it's intended to hide them and not be able to disable them by light since the potion they're all topped with does almost nothing but I don't know if most of the mobs suffocating is intended).
Secondly, in the area with the spaghetti of lava/stone brick paths above lava, it seems many of the spawners, like in Sporeblight Labs, don't spawn on approach. I was able to run right up and break most of them. I don't know if this is intended either.
At any rate, this has meant that while the beginning area feels "normal", the interior and "spaghetti" bowl areas have been a weird mix of totally unthreatening (when mobs don't show up) and utterly terrifying (when they do), and feel bit odd. I"m not sure what the area maker was going for.
Also, the magma cube things are by far the worst mobs to deal with so far.
More once I finish.
Edit: I am done! I was about 30 seconds from spotting the disc box where I left off and didn't realize it. Nothing to add now, have a few odds and ends of thoughts to put together when I can.
I'm thinking mostly for purposes of taking extra supplies into the last area. I wound up filling my entire inventory with various stuff so as not to have to make two trips there and still didn't have as much as I'd have liked to. I don't travel light!
Anyway, still working on it but have comments
on the spawners here. The potion-topped mobs tend to spawn in walls when the spawners are hidden. I don't know if that's intentional (I'm figuring it's intended to hide them and not be able to disable them by light since the potion they're all topped with does almost nothing but I don't know if most of the mobs suffocating is intended).
Secondly, in the area with the spaghetti of lava/stone brick paths above lava, it seems many of the spawners, like in Sporeblight Labs, don't spawn on approach. I was able to run right up and break most of them. I don't know if this is intended either.
At any rate, this has meant that while the beginning area feels "normal", the interior and "spaghetti" bowl areas have been a weird mix of totally unthreatening (when mobs don't show up) and utterly terrifying (when they do), and feel bit odd. I"m not sure what the area maker was going for.
Also, the magma cube things are by far the worst mobs to deal with so far.
More once I finish.
Edit: I am done! I was about 30 seconds from spotting the disc box where I left off and didn't realize it. Nothing to add now, have a few odds and ends of thoughts to put together when I can.
Oh, and I want fireworks.
Congrats! Regarding mobs not spawning, that's just an issue with spawners priming that are all just accidents honestly. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I will try and find one ASAP.
Once the monument is fixed, the finish sequence should go off properly, which does involve fireworks
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Hooray for fireworks!
Okay, my random thoughts on various stuff.
First off, I really enjoyed the map. The few technical and balance issues I mentioned aside, the whole thing played enjoyably and looks great. I think a lot of people will have fun with it.
The overall difficulty feels about as advertised too. While a few areas or sections of areas are easier or higher, over the "medium" rating works for me. It's certainly easier than RCIII, for example, but neither is most of it a cakewalk. (I play on Normal, btw.) Hopefully my impressions as to each area's relative difficulty are typical.
Gear --
As a general rule I agree with the previous poster who said it works. The very first area felt light on gear, maybe the second as well (doing it out of order it was hard to tell). But certainly from the third area I never felt a shortage, nor that what I had was either vastly inadequate or (for the most part) OP. I do have a few comments on particular items.
Supplies --
Only thing I really had to farm was food. I think multiplayer groups may have to work a bit harder than me, but seriously -- never running out of arrows? Finishing the map with tons of blocks and wood? For people like me who find each interruption from the "battle" mildly annoying, this was so very very nice. I didn't even use an infinity bow until the second-to-last area. So nice.
Diamonds were available in ridiculous luxury once they started showing up. Iron markedly less so, but I think there was still enough for larger groups of players. Not positive though.
I'd sure have loved a bucket or two around Intersection 2, but that's just me. Twice I put one together from limited zombie drops only to lose it to explosion/lava/death almost immediately. Woe.
Potions --
Plenty of the regular kind, certainly for one player. I never used any of the special potions aside from the short-duration fire resist you get early on. Potions with serious negatives like slowness and nausea are not appealing to me.
As I think I mentioned once, fire resist potions are available in ridiculous luxury if you're a packrat back in Intersection 1 (which I am) -- I think that's an appropriate reward for thinking ahead, myself!
Location of netherwart feels appropriate.
Enchants, including books --
Fine for one player; I have a feeling that multiplayer groups may feel the pinch, or rely much more on the "regular" gear found in chests than I had to, with or without anvil combos. The gear that has (for example) both protection and fire protection is a mixed blessing, since you can't upgrade it as readily. Location of the enchantment table was also fine. My final armor in the very last area was 3/4 put together myself with regular enchants and an occasional book; so too I think was my sword. So you don't really need anything special to complete the map: this, plus the plethora of diamonds, should spare people who lose gear late in the map some frustration.
This map is designed for single player, and if gear was thrown out to fully suit up 4 players, it would be way to overpowered in single player.
And anyway, 4 players in full leather and stone swords will last longer and do more damage than 1 person in full iron with low level enchants.
Food is easy to farm.
Generally, use the bones on potatoes (obtained from zombies relatively easily), and get a nice stock of them.
In this map, early on creepers dropped uncooked beef. I farmed x2 as much as I needed for the entire map.
Gear is good.
There's plenty of monsters from custom spawners (this could of changed) who drop nice gear. Instead of rushing every spawner, see what they drop, maybe spend 2-10mins farming them if you're really struggling on gear. Can easily obtaining protection 2-4 iron/chain armour.
Iron/diamonds.
I had a bucket since white wool. There's plenty of zombies, and iron isn't that rare from them. Should have enough by intersection 2 to have a bucket for entire party. Sharpness 1 stone sword = unenchanted iron sword, so no need to waste iron on gear until you find decent books.
There really doesn't need to be more iron. I ended up finishing the map with more then I'd ever use.
As for a ton of diamonds, it's a gear check. It's the map telling you "for the last few areas, use diamond armour, you'll need it. Here's plenty so you don't have to worry about falling in void/lava."
Books:
It was paced well for single player.
You have to imagine, if the map design is to have protection 1 at that stage, and you lay out x4 protection books for multiplayer, single player people can abuse that to obtain protection 3 on 1 piece of item.
My opinion anyway, glad you had fun. This map needs to get popular!
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Hey folks,
Thanks to all the contributors for creating what so far has been a very pleasing and challenging map. Here's the first episode of my playthrough:
So far I'm finding the difficulty level spot-on, and I'm guessing things are only going to get harder from here on out. Keep up the good work everyone!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
As long as you have a pick you'll be fine. Just keep running...
My opinion anyway, glad you had fun. This map needs to get popular!
Thanks! I hope it does, it's got a lot of promise. Most of the stuff you responded to from me isn't criticism per se, just me rambling on about my impressions and how I think other people playing might experience the map. More in the sense of 'here's how I found it, so if anything here wasn't the way it was supposed to be, now you know'. I didn't actually have trouble with gear after the first area and never had to farm anything worth mentioning except for food.
Couple more comments I didn't have time for before:
Prismarine Shards:
I wound up with five blocks out of seven, and maybe 3 or 4 shards left over. I am a moderately thorough player, in that I won't deliberately skip any obvious areas (I even dug into a couple of unintended honeypots -- mapmaker-created but completely blocked off small areas containing nothing but bunches of mobs). But I don't go into every nook and cranny or spend any amount of time just searching.
I don't remember all the rewards but wanted to comment particularly on two. First the "Chesticle". Assuming you realize what to do with the Chest named Chest? (I didn't!), that Protection III iron with bonuses is way, way way overpowered for where you get it. I love this piece of armor. I adore it. Since I missed it for so long I didn't start wearing it until probably around Intersection III. I slapped Unbreaking III on it immediately and didn't give it up until it ran out of repairs partway through the very last disc area. It's that good. I'm not sure why it is where it is, but it might be better off later on.
Second, that "Mom's Spaghetti" thing that is the fourth reward. Did I miss something particularly strong about it? If I didn't, this seems like the opposite of the Chesticle, way too underwhelming for the point in the map where you get this.
And a few more notes on items/gear:
At the end of intersection 3 I was wearing the following:
Raging Chain Helm
Chesticle
Labpance
Well-built boots
And I felt well-nigh indestructible. The extra attack on the helm more than makes up for its weakness defensively, and the chesticle and boots more than balance out the health debuff. Two items of extra speed -- nice. I really loved this set and only wish I3 as a whole had been more of a test for it. Only a whole lot more punch/knockback or a whole lot more long falls could have ruined my day at this point. (I was using the Blade of the Ancients with its partial knockback protection, though, making up for its lack of OP-ness otherwise with the raging helm bonus. And of course, not-netherstorm)
In contrast, at the end of the map I was using half unnamed items I had enchanted and anvilled together myself. I had the boots of buttkicking (speed again! gotta love it), to which I'd finagled a FF IV addition, and the wither mask (I agree that's a bit OP). And I had the Power VI bow. The other two pieces and the sword were just ordinary maxed out diamond gear. If there was more cool named diamond stuff in the final area I didn't notice because I didn't need it.
Finally! I just watched TJ's first episode and there's a couple of beta-feed-back-worthy things in there for sure, so you should check it out. He also notices one more minor instance of the unprimed spawner thing I mentioned.
Huge thanks for all the posts and feedback guys Really glad to see so many people enjoying the map. I'm noting down everything I can and am hoping to get digging in to the fixes/balances sooner rather than later. Been working a lot (a lot a lot) recently, so my time is more limited than expected, but fixes are coming as soon as I can
Comments on area Abridged:
Nice job, whoever did this. I always love snow areas, and the mobs
here make it a step up in difficulty from the Walkways. Suffered yet
another serious gear loss due to combination of a small lava pool and
too many invisible zombies! I'd consider it an even challenge the whole
way through rather than being partially easy/partially very hard.
However, that one "exploding" room with the shard near the end is a bit
wild. I've gotten six or so spawners out, still have to go back to see
if there's anything else there. Gear continues to be quite plentiful
enough despite my losses. At the moment I'm not working for anything but
food.
Some leftover comments on Walkways:
Never did find the three bows, only found one (beneath green glass).
Even going back in spectator mode and flying around didn't turn anything
up, except for a shard I missed. (I miss lots of shards. Some of them
are pretty obscure. Not a problem unless the rewards ever become
really necessary to do well.) So maybe make this a little easier? I
don't know. I'm not sure how exactly you were supposed to turn them in
either; I was going to put them in the dispenser and hope. Maybe make
that clearer, if I'm wrong.
General stuff:
There's a pig in Intersection 2 named "*****". That should be changed
for general release. Along the same lines, some of the signs at the
disc rooms are a bit weird and obscure to the point I don't think they
add anything for the player.
Adding Temple of Decay --
Easier than the last area due to the layout and lack of truly difficult mobs -- early open area is the most difficult part of it (the archers are brutal), tunnels are easier. End section could kill you if you're not either careful or quick. I like these classic branching dungeons every so often. It's such a nice feeling of progress.
There's a spot near the beginning of the tunnels where you can hear lava. I dug to it, because why not, and found myself in the lapis area off of intersection 3, whoops.
I LOVED the "you know what to do with this" lever, and I did indeed.
Finally. EIGHT emeralds?!? I didn't blow one up, did I?
Halfway through, still enjoying the map. If there were one overarching criticism that's starting to take place for me it's the uneven difficulty curve, both within and between areas. I suppose that's to be expected given how the map got put together and I don't think that as a player I mind it. It just makes the map feel a bit less polished than it might, despite all its good points.
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Retired StaffRE: Walkways - For some reason that I honestly cannot understand, it seems at some point while we were polishing the map, the Villager you were intended to trade to straight up vanished. I'll be trying tor recreate him as soon as possible. I'm hoping to have the time to get the updated copy out by next Thursday or so.
RE: Pig - Will fix. Never noticed that ;_;
RE: Temple - Might consider buffing this zone a bit. You share my worries with this zone then, in that I was concerned it was a bit easy. Will see what I can do about that, especially considering Abridged can be quite challenging. Might see if I can block off the lava, but it's not a big concern to me. And yes, 8 emeralds <3
Scum.
Prison of Forgotten Cries --
Great area! My favorite so far. The best part is the sheer scale of the place -- it just keeps going and going ... And it's so varied. Vertical walkways, open areas, labyrinth, poison, even a little fire/lava -- everything!
If I had to change anything I think I would either do more with the potion creepers at the start or just don't use them at all. They feel weirdly out of place, being only two of them, and then they never show up again. I'm not sure if the invisibility/wither is intended to wear off before the creeper dies or not; as it is, after a while they are visible.
And maybe (maybe) make the very last bit more difficult. Right now there's almost zero risk of a careful player falling off (which is fine in itself), so maybe it should be harder to make that safe progress. Even replacing the vanilla skelly spawners with something that can do more than a half heart every other hit against the gear you have here would make a big difference in effectively harassing the player. As it is I could almost ignore them completely while I built a back safety rail and a bridge to the spawners.
Again, loved it!
!!! DONE !!!
Great job, loved the map.
I took it nice and slow Zisteau style, and maybe made one to many mob farms (for infinite steak, and armours eg combining a ton of dropped Protection 2 chain armour for level 4).
I had one death at the beginning from 2-3 creepers dropping on my head in the "Mineshaft B" or something section.
I'm sure it would be the most important part, but I can't really comment on the difficulty on the map. I found it easy, however I since I did take it slow, farm up OP gear, and I'd consider myself close to a CTM veteran.
I'd like to give a big thumbs up for the gear progression and the non-overkill on command blocks.
The gear I had at the end of Discordancy was similiar to the gear I had half way through a CTM map I played recently. You can guess how absurd the gear was by the end of it, meaning lots of command block mechanics were needed for areas to give a different level of difficulty...which led to bosses dropping wool glitching out, and my world lagging heavily or crashing (a lot).
Discordancy loaded smoothly with practically no lag, and having a fly through in spectator, I can see how closely everything was packed together, very good job on that regard.
A few other notes:
3 bows:
"Never did find the three bows, only found one (beneath green glass).
Even going back in spectator mode and flying around didn't turn anything
up, except for a shard I missed." - RenataRuns
I have to agree, I spent a long time flying around for those bows (after spending an even longer time walking around searching for them) in spectator just to be a completionist. One bow was buried very high into the roof of the map. It's incredibly hidden for a very bad reward.
"Bonus" Monument:
I like the idea of a side objective, I think Waking Up was the first to do this. It gives you a reason to take the areas slow instead of bolting through the map skipping basically 50% of it, and getting to the wool as quickly as possible. Although Vechs hid some of them a bit to hard and I only found them through watching his Dev Com. Some of the prismarine was hidden too well, but most were not. After completing an area entirely (all spawners pacified, all areas explored, disk + loot stored outside the are) I would fly around to see what I missed. I would say I missed a notable amount of prismarine, which could be countered easily with like a free prismarine block at the very last disk (maybe, for those who wont want to go back and find them). As for the rewards, it's hard to balance rewards, but aside from the boots and the bow I didn't really make use of the rewards. Iron was handed out way before the enchanting table, so it just stacked up in a chest as prot 2-4 chain armour would be better than unenchanted iron armour.
I also suggest giving a book or something with the first Prismarine shard explaining what it is. I generally skip the rules at the beginning due to usually being the same generic things. At the start, Mineshaft A had the disk, and Mineshaft B had a prismarine shard. Mineshaft B was significantly harder than A. I was pretty confused/salty (especially after my only death in the map) after my only reward for Mineshaft B was some shard I had no clue about.
Maybe Anvil-numbering the shards, and/or listing how many shards each area has will also help people. I kept a notepad of the shards I found to be sure I didn't miss any (until I finished the monument, then I skipped the ones I missed).
Cool items & OP items:
I really liked the nice bow you got early on that made you incapable of moving, it was interesting and a decent balance for it. I used that bow and the bow from the bonus monument together for a decent bow which I used for most of the map.
A nice combo of items I found was the Tank Pants (that slowed you but gave you 100% knockback resistance), and the Pristine Stone Pick (that gave a massive speed boost). In dangerous areas I would wear those pants and quickly switch between the pick and torches constantly, so that I could place a torch every 5 blocks yet still cancel out the speed lost from the pants.
But, some items did make all other items redundant pretty quickly.
The Aurian Manly Axe, E7 U8 wooden axe. Lasts a very long time and instantly mines basically all wood blocks. I used this item from start to finish, making all other axes through out the map useless. I suggest nerfing it so when you receive an axe as a reward in the future you don't go "urgh..."
Pristine Stone Pick is wayyyy to fast early game. I used this pick (and up'd it to E5 U3) for most of the map until I started to get other speed items. It has a 40% speed boost which is obtained pretty early. And although quickly switching from sword/torches to pick just for the speed boost is a cool concept, it gets pretty tedious, and 40% speed is to much to pass up. Also makes all other picks redundant until the need for speed can be replaced else where.
Tank Pants, I think it was the first knockback resistance item in the map, which it gives 100% of. For the entire I used these when I needed knockback resistance, making all other knock back items worthless. I suggest maybe nerfing this to 50-80%.
Boots of Butt Kicking, used these since I got them, either nerf speed on these or the pickaxe. Together + speed potion, you can run so fast you confuse the AI. Kinda game breaking.
Wither Skeleton Skull, although an End Game item, it has Prot 5, Fire Prot 10, Blast Prot 10. The last area has a LOT of fire and lava, with super charged creepers falling on your head. This helmet makes you immortal to all these things, effectively making the last area a walk in the park.
^This might be different for those playing with other people or dying and losing everything. But for me these items did stand out a lot and help me through the map a bit too much.
To sum up:
This map is best comparable to Pantheon (a really great map), but with a much better loot distribution. Pantheon had a lot of *look in chest, hover over items, close chest, walk away*, this map only had a few instances of this (more for me due to farming gear). I'm assuming one person did the loot, or gave strict restrictions to everyone else. It's definitely noticeable! Great job.
I think after a few command block fixes, those bonus challenge things finished (good luck on those, might try it one day when it's ready), a few hidden prismarine made less hidden, and maybe a few difficulty tweeks, this map should be good to go!
Gunkoid Falls:
Nice! Not quite as perfectly put together as the previous area (less intuitive which way to go), but it's good. I liked the mobs here quite a bit. Good theme, good challenge. Those green tank guys (anti-knockback, lots of health/armor) were downright horrifying with the gear I went in with. (Note: my punch bow did send them flying; I suspect a knockback sword might have as well, but I wasn't using one. They were much easier once I ran out of food, went back to base, and equipped that plus-attack minus-health item. Went from 12 hits with no crits to like five. Big difference!) At any rate not a ton to comment on, good area, can definitely kill you.
Sporeblight Laboratories:
Something needs looking at here. It seemed most of the spawners did not do the usual thing and spawn when you first come into range. As a result, what might have been a challenging area became almost trivial. You could run right up to a spawner and break it. It was so easy in fact that I was suspecting a sort of brown wool troll for a while! (The teleport didn't help, heh.)
Given the spawner issue it's almost impossible to assess the real difficulty here. The bottom area with all the potion-mob spawners was slightly more challenging, but the layout is favorable to the player (narrow, easy to take one spawner at a time) until near the very end, and even that wasn't much. One single solitary charged creeper spawner with speed and some skeleton/blaze combos that in the final room could be ramboed quite easily -- eh. (Are those custom skeletons supposed to have missing-texture heads, by the way? They look cool.)
Oh, one last thing. I have no idea what would happen if a natural-spawn creeper went off in the area where there's lava over your head.
Intersection 2&3 deaths (I have not yet located intersection 4):
Walkways of Abandon: 0
Abridged: 1
Temple of Decay: I can't remember; at most 1
Prison of Forgotten Cries (love this area!): 0
Gunkoid Falls: 0
Sporeblight Laboratories: 0
I always do better once I have gear enough that not literally everything can 3- or 4-shot me at worst, but it's objectively easier than parts of Intersection 1 too. (Only place so far that I think might actually be too hard on the player is the last part of Shame of Adonis.) Abridged and Gunkoid Falls are hardest parts of Int 2&3.
I've been tempted to start this for a while now but I felt like waiting for the full release. Any guesstimate for how long that would take? These positive comments are really getting me excited.
Not quite the first.
One of the creeper-meat drops from Grove of Starlight gives 100% KB resistance. I used it on my second trip through the Shame of Adonis end area, when all I wanted was to find the exit, not fight anything. I tried to use it again on my unintended third trip after discovering the teleport problem, but a creeper fell on my head and ruined my day anyway.
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Retired StaffLooking to get a bugfix update out this upcoming Thursday or so, if I'm not too busy!
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Retired StaffThank you so much for this hugely valuable feedback! Gonna go through each thing to make sure I address them:
- First and foremost, I'm so glad the gear progression worked. I got very strict on what could be given out where, and by and large it seems to have worked out for the best, with areas being designed with gear accessibility by that point in mind. A lot of zones didn't have mobs complete as we neared Beta, which meant we got to tailor those specifically for what we wanted!
- The Bows are currently bugged, as the Villager intended to trade you the quite nice Chestplate seems to have vanished for some people. I will be moving the ceiling bow elsewhere though. That one just isn't good.
- By and large I'm happy with most of the Prismarine rewards. Adding the numbers in each zone is done in the next update so players know how many to expect. Don't want to overload Prismarine shards though, and want it to be truly hard to get every single block down, as they're all based around being a challenge to complete, similar to Ragecraft's Emerald Monuments. I do have the Prismarine note in the Intro book, but might copy that section over to Shard 1.
- Regarding those items, I'll likely be digging into each of those to see what I can do to get them a bit more in line with other zones. A lot of the speed items that were given out were likely made a bit wrong, and balancing them out to be considerably less speed is definitely for the best. Tank Pants will likely go down to 40-50, and Butt Kicking will be dropping to a 25% speed, and the pick likely to around 10. I'll drop that protection on the Wither Skull down significantly, as honestly it does just counter everything.
- I'm glad the lessons I learned from Pantheon's ending development shone through here! Loot was something I really wanted to fix as Pantheon was a huge issue with that. It helped that a lot of the development of Discordancy was done together, rather than having 16 of us split off and do our own thing, and it allowed for a lot more aware areas based on those around them. Loot was done mostly by creators, with strict requirements, and then combed over and rebalanced by myself and several others.
- Beyond that, command block fixes, some difficulty touches up and item fixes, and some more info on the Prismarine Shards in visible spots are all things I either have ready or plan to get done for the next release! We're still chatting about the challenges internally, but it's very possible they'll end up cut, simply because we had the idea to make them, but not enough strong ideas to pull them off. It's likely something we'll consider revisiting in Disclarity once that project starts up though, with some more fresh ideas.
Thanks again for taking the time to write all that out, and I'm so glad you enjoyed the experience! Thanks for playing!
One area left.
Suspended Exodus:
Hardest and scariest area yet. One death near the fake disc box, lost most of my stuff to blaze fires. I was surprised to take fall damage the one time I took the long fall into the lava pit -- not deep I guess? Lost about 9.5 hearts of 13, survived due to my almost infinite supply of fire resist potions. IF I hadn't been such a packrat way back in the sewers of Shame of Adonis (slime balls), I would have had a harder time.
But it was hard as it was. Rough areas: ground floor of big castle, due to mob swarms. It's hard to break in there quickly at least for me; looking forward to watching other people try. This was the one area, if anything, that could hypothetically be nerfed; even taking the punch away from the chain mail skellies outside would more easily enable a quick approach. Approach to the "disc box" was also chaotic, but it's so short it's fine.
Finally, of course the void area. Oh lord. I didn't even notice the void the first time I went in there. It had been so hard already I thought it would be short down there and then it wasn't. I got stuck with low supplies, had to claw my way out, how did I not fall, I have no idea. Was in and out of walls my second time in due to punch bow terror. Scary place, very hard.
I have to say I liked it a lot. I've never seen anything quite like it, and it was certainly a challenge. Just harder by quite a bit than anything else I've encountered in Discordancy and a huge shock after the easy Intersection 3 stuff.
Shrine of the Last:
My new favorite area! This place is so great. Fire resist again made it easier than it might have been without it but still, amazing. I had so much fun with my random-enchant blast protection IV diamond helmet (got the diamonds in Suspended Exodus) here, running around killing ghast spawners. Got knocked in lava three times in the end section. Good times, tons of ideas in various rooms that all seem to work out. Also feels an approrpriately large, tough place for its spot on the map, probably as long as Suspended Exodus but without a fake-out giving you a grrr moment.
One thing: the larger of the two diamond traps near the front of hte castle blew up the gold ore there. I'd already placed a golden block thanks to zombie pigmen so it didn't matter, but I'm assuming still that there's plenty of gold in the last area yet to be found. There's certainly a ton of diamonds (with fortune), probably more than there was iron.
An ender chest at the start of the last area would be very very welcome. Or a teleporter for that matter.
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Retired StaffI'd definitely say I need to up the difficulty of I3 more than I need to nerf I4, for sure. I'm glad the areas here held up their toughness and the like, and felt interesting and varied in the process. The outside spawners for SE would be fine to remove, and I'll see how that feels.
Regarding a teleporter at the end of Shrine, I might have to consider a one-way into the area, as I don't want a player to get to just teleport out with their stuff, but don't want to make things too wild. An Ender Chest might be a better solution.
Kinda glad I ended up too busy to get a patch ready, as this feedback was especially valuable!
I'm thinking mostly for purposes of taking extra supplies into the last area. I wound up filling my entire inventory with various stuff so as not to have to make two trips there and still didn't have as much as I'd have liked to.
I don't travel light!
Anyway, still working on it but have comments
on the spawners here. The potion-topped mobs tend to spawn in walls when the spawners are hidden. I don't know if that's intentional (I'm figuring it's intended to hide them and not be able to disable them by light since the potion they're all topped with does almost nothing but I don't know if most of the mobs suffocating is intended).
Secondly, in the area with the spaghetti of lava/stone brick paths above lava, it seems many of the spawners, like in Sporeblight Labs, don't spawn on approach. I was able to run right up and break most of them. I don't know if this is intended either.
At any rate, this has meant that while the beginning area feels "normal", the interior and "spaghetti" bowl areas have been a weird mix of totally unthreatening (when mobs don't show up) and utterly terrifying (when they do), and feel bit odd. I"m not sure what the area maker was going for.
Also, the magma cube things are by far the worst mobs to deal with so far.
More once I finish.
Edit: I am done! I was about 30 seconds from spotting the disc box where I left off and didn't realize it. Nothing to add now, have a few odds and ends of thoughts to put together when I can.
Oh, and I want fireworks.
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Retired StaffCongrats! Regarding mobs not spawning, that's just an issue with spawners priming that are all just accidents honestly. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I will try and find one ASAP.
Once the monument is fixed, the finish sequence should go off properly, which does involve fireworks
Hooray for fireworks!
Okay, my random thoughts on various stuff.
First off, I really enjoyed the map. The few technical and balance issues I mentioned aside, the whole thing played enjoyably and looks great. I think a lot of people will have fun with it.
The overall difficulty feels about as advertised too. While a few areas or sections of areas are easier or higher, over the "medium" rating works for me. It's certainly easier than RCIII, for example, but neither is most of it a cakewalk. (I play on Normal, btw.) Hopefully my impressions as to each area's relative difficulty are typical.
Gear --
As a general rule I agree with the previous poster who said it works. The very first area felt light on gear, maybe the second as well (doing it out of order it was hard to tell). But certainly from the third area I never felt a shortage, nor that what I had was either vastly inadequate or (for the most part) OP. I do have a few comments on particular items.
Supplies --
Only thing I really had to farm was food. I think multiplayer groups may have to work a bit harder than me, but seriously -- never running out of arrows? Finishing the map with tons of blocks and wood? For people like me who find each interruption from the "battle" mildly annoying, this was so very very nice. I didn't even use an infinity bow until the second-to-last area. So nice.
Diamonds were available in ridiculous luxury once they started showing up. Iron markedly less so, but I think there was still enough for larger groups of players. Not positive though.
I'd sure have loved a bucket or two around Intersection 2, but that's just me. Twice I put one together from limited zombie drops only to lose it to explosion/lava/death almost immediately. Woe.
Potions --
Plenty of the regular kind, certainly for one player. I never used any of the special potions aside from the short-duration fire resist you get early on. Potions with serious negatives like slowness and nausea are not appealing to me.
As I think I mentioned once, fire resist potions are available in ridiculous luxury if you're a packrat back in Intersection 1 (which I am) -- I think that's an appropriate reward for thinking ahead, myself!
Location of netherwart feels appropriate.
Enchants, including books --
Fine for one player; I have a feeling that multiplayer groups may feel the pinch, or rely much more on the "regular" gear found in chests than I had to, with or without anvil combos. The gear that has (for example) both protection and fire protection is a mixed blessing, since you can't upgrade it as readily. Location of the enchantment table was also fine. My final armor in the very last area was 3/4 put together myself with regular enchants and an occasional book; so too I think was my sword. So you don't really need anything special to complete the map: this, plus the plethora of diamonds, should spare people who lose gear late in the map some frustration.
More later, will edit.
oh poop I didn't mean to do that, delete it someone
I don't care about the Xs. You can call me Navarog. Or Nava if you really want to be a hipster. It's fine.
This map is designed for single player, and if gear was thrown out to fully suit up 4 players, it would be way to overpowered in single player.
And anyway, 4 players in full leather and stone swords will last longer and do more damage than 1 person in full iron with low level enchants.
Food is easy to farm.
Generally, use the bones on potatoes (obtained from zombies relatively easily), and get a nice stock of them.
In this map, early on creepers dropped uncooked beef. I farmed x2 as much as I needed for the entire map.
Gear is good.
There's plenty of monsters from custom spawners (this could of changed) who drop nice gear. Instead of rushing every spawner, see what they drop, maybe spend 2-10mins farming them if you're really struggling on gear. Can easily obtaining protection 2-4 iron/chain armour.
Iron/diamonds.
I had a bucket since white wool. There's plenty of zombies, and iron isn't that rare from them. Should have enough by intersection 2 to have a bucket for entire party. Sharpness 1 stone sword = unenchanted iron sword, so no need to waste iron on gear until you find decent books.
There really doesn't need to be more iron. I ended up finishing the map with more then I'd ever use.
As for a ton of diamonds, it's a gear check. It's the map telling you "for the last few areas, use diamond armour, you'll need it. Here's plenty so you don't have to worry about falling in void/lava."
Books:
It was paced well for single player.
You have to imagine, if the map design is to have protection 1 at that stage, and you lay out x4 protection books for multiplayer, single player people can abuse that to obtain protection 3 on 1 piece of item.
My opinion anyway, glad you had fun. This map needs to get popular!
Hey folks,
Thanks to all the contributors for creating what so far has been a very pleasing and challenging map. Here's the first episode of my playthrough:
So far I'm finding the difficulty level spot-on, and I'm guessing things are only going to get harder from here on out. Keep up the good work everyone!
~A CTM Addict
Check out my channel here.
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Curse Premiumnow THIS is what i like about the map: 12 DISKS! Those kinds of maps are really fun!
my YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG2UQ_AYUmuX_qt0cW1y3xg/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=0&
Thanks! I hope it does, it's got a lot of promise. Most of the stuff you responded to from me isn't criticism per se, just me rambling on about my impressions and how I think other people playing might experience the map. More in the sense of 'here's how I found it, so if anything here wasn't the way it was supposed to be, now you know'. I didn't actually have trouble with gear after the first area and never had to farm anything worth mentioning except for food.
Couple more comments I didn't have time for before:
Prismarine Shards:
I wound up with five blocks out of seven, and maybe 3 or 4 shards left over. I am a moderately thorough player, in that I won't deliberately skip any obvious areas (I even dug into a couple of unintended honeypots -- mapmaker-created but completely blocked off small areas containing nothing but bunches of mobs). But I don't go into every nook and cranny or spend any amount of time just searching.
I don't remember all the rewards but wanted to comment particularly on two. First the "Chesticle". Assuming you realize what to do with the Chest named Chest? (I didn't!), that Protection III iron with bonuses is way, way way overpowered for where you get it. I love this piece of armor. I adore it. Since I missed it for so long I didn't start wearing it until probably around Intersection III. I slapped Unbreaking III on it immediately and didn't give it up until it ran out of repairs partway through the very last disc area. It's that good. I'm not sure why it is where it is, but it might be better off later on.
Second, that "Mom's Spaghetti" thing that is the fourth reward. Did I miss something particularly strong about it? If I didn't, this seems like the opposite of the Chesticle, way too underwhelming for the point in the map where you get this.
And a few more notes on items/gear:
At the end of intersection 3 I was wearing the following:
Raging Chain Helm
Chesticle
Labpance
Well-built boots
And I felt well-nigh indestructible. The extra attack on the helm more than makes up for its weakness defensively, and the chesticle and boots more than balance out the health debuff. Two items of extra speed -- nice. I really loved this set and only wish I3 as a whole had been more of a test for it. Only a whole lot more punch/knockback or a whole lot more long falls could have ruined my day at this point. (I was using the Blade of the Ancients with its partial knockback protection, though, making up for its lack of OP-ness otherwise with the raging helm bonus. And of course, not-netherstorm)
In contrast, at the end of the map I was using half unnamed items I had enchanted and anvilled together myself. I had the boots of buttkicking (speed again! gotta love it), to which I'd finagled a FF IV addition, and the wither mask (I agree that's a bit OP). And I had the Power VI bow. The other two pieces and the sword were just ordinary maxed out diamond gear. If there was more cool named diamond stuff in the final area I didn't notice because I didn't need it.
Finally! I just watched TJ's first episode and there's a couple of beta-feed-back-worthy things in there for sure, so you should check it out. He also notices one more minor instance of the unprimed spawner thing I mentioned.
Thanks again for the map, it was fun!
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Retired StaffHuge thanks for all the posts and feedback guys
Really glad to see so many people enjoying the map. I'm noting down everything I can and am hoping to get digging in to the fixes/balances sooner rather than later. Been working a lot (a lot a lot) recently, so my time is more limited than expected, but fixes are coming as soon as I can 