I mean, how many people would use old versions, except for nostalgic reasons? That's why beta 1.7.3 is a popular version when it comes to the old versions of the game, and the fact that *none* of the old versions are available is disheartening.
You could keep the old links alive but hidden, and the newest version the most visible one. Any time you have someone having an issue with the mod and they are using an older version, you just tell them to update to the newest version and close the bug report. It's easy as that.
I want to download BTW for minecraft beta 1.8.1. Give me working link to download this, please.
This was just addressed at the top of this page of the thread. FlowerChild doesn't want any extra work trying to keep track of questions from previous versions. If everyone was running different versions of his mod all the time it would get confusing trying to keep track of which features are available to a user and which bugs still exist for them.
He also doesn't like the idea of splitting up a community too much. It's the same reason there are so few boards on the official BTW forums. Keeping things condensed keeps the community more intact. This method keeps the community tight and also makes things easier for FC himself. Having everyone playing all sorts of different versions goes against that line of thinking.
-Added the ability to speed up boat travel if you are holding a sail (the item used to craft wind mills). Without a sail, boats now have their speed greatly reduced. This makes early game water travel a tad more problematic, and adds a bit of progression to boat use.
-Added additional hunger consumption when you swim vertically upwards. This increases the inefficiency of swimming relative to boating, as well as making it tiring to simply tread water.
-Added the ability to see if a furnace has any contents (not fuel) without having to open it. There's now a slight texture variation on the front of the furnace when it contains something, which makes working with large banks of furnaces much more convenient.
-Added Bone Blocks as a new storage block, created with 9 bones in the crafting grid. When summoning the Wither, Bone Blocks now replace the soul sand that was previously used in a "T" shape beneath the skulls.
-Added Infused Skulls as a new item and block. In terms of functionality, these replace Wither Skulls (now called Runed Skulls) for summoning the Wither. They may either be acquired through trading, or by combining a Runed Skull, a Soul Urn, and soul flux in the crafting grid.
-Added a new method of acquiring Wither Skulls (now called Runed Skull) through trading, to provide an alternative approach to decapitating a large number of wither skeletons.
-Changed the Wither so that it can no longer be summoned in dimensions other than the overworld (no summoning in the nether or end) to make fighting it more interesting.
-Changed the name of Wither Skulls, to Runed Skulls, to better suit their new role, acquisition method, and lore.
-Changed some of the crucial trades with villagers that facilitate progress towards the end. Without spoiling too much, the priest is no longer the only villager required.
-Changed the Anvil recipe to use a nether Star and Soul Flux in combination with a Dead Weight (vanilla Anvil) in the crafting grid. It may also now be obtained through trading, but may no longer be melted down in the Crucible. This change makes the Anvil available earlier in the overall progression (through trading), opening up some of the more complex redstone blocks in the mod (like the Block Dispenser and Detector) before Soulforged Steel is acquired.
-Changed the way the sail item looks when held by the player slightly, to better suit its new role in yachting.
-Changed (tweaked) the AI of fleeing animals slightly, to make them a little harder to catch.
-Changed (reduced) the hunger value of Tasty Sandwiches slightly to make them a bit less universally awesome relative to other food sources, and to increase the value of finding potatoes and carrots.
-Changed (reduced) the hunger value of bread and Scrambled Eggs for similar reasons.
-Changed (tweaked) the level and value of a few minor villagers trades to create a smoother play experience.
-Changed boats to be burnable in the furnace.
-Fixed a problem where shears would sometimes glitch out if their last bit of durability was used to shear creepers, sheep, or mooshrooms.
-Removed a bunch of splash screen texts that were no longer relevant or which hadn't aged well.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
-------------
If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:
This encourages even more the most effective way to play BTW in my experience, which is spending the first days traveling 3000 or 4000 blocks away to get out of the dead village radius. If you're going to need an NPC village anyway, why not look for one as soon as you start?
Well, from my perspective, because roaming on foot like that isn't the most effective way to play
I can't speak for others and I'd be interested in hearing how many people go on foot at start (from past conversations on that topic though, it seemed to me to be a small minority, and one that was reduced even further by additional changes I made over time), but I always wait for the nether before doing so. IMO, going on foot is largely a waste of time since the 8 to 1 block ratio from nether to overworld makes travel much much easier once you build a portal, and you wind up establishing a permanent and convenient link between spawn and village in the process of setting that up.
Meanwhile, if you roam right at the start you really aren't progressing much through the tree as you do so, which seems to me like a waste of time on performing a task in a less than optimal manner.
However, this playing-style leads to some immersion breaking moments when you settle down near a village, but you do it at a distance of no less than 12 chunks to keep village chunks unloaded and avoid zombies slaughtering villagers.
I personally wall off a village and build a base within because traveling those 12 chunks every morning and night would be a drag. My most recent world I even set up a rail line in the nether between my village and my original spawn base so I could quickly go back and forth at night for supplies, and make similar travel less annoying.
So I can't say I agree on that part either. There's multiple ways you can deal with protecting villagers, and yours doesn't seem any more efficient than mine, so I wouldn't really consider it an immersion breaking exploit, as you could just as easily do things another way if you're not fond of your current method.
As I probably said a few years ago, the dead village radius goes against replayability, since you need to do the same in every game: walk away from the spawn area in a straight line for a few thousands of blocks.
I suspect we have had this conversation before, and I suspect it probably evolves the same way: with me pointing out that what you say you "need" to do appears to be something you are choosing to do.
You really don't have to start your game that way, and my impression is the majority of people don't. For myself, I don't think I've ever actually started a play through that way, as it always struck me as a rather dull and inefficient way to go.
Let's put it this way: I assume you're largely looking for villages initially for wheat, but to make effective use of wheat, you need a millstone and windmill which require a long time spent in a single location to grow the hemp.
By the time you've done all that, you could have easily gone down to diamond level in that same stationary area and gained access to the nether. You can then explore for villages not only with the fast travel convenience of the nether, but also with your milling setup ready to go once you find wheat.
To me, that seems like a big net gain overall, so I've never really understood why you consider your method most efficient in any of these conversations we've had. Your complaint seems to be that you find how you start the game to be boring, monotonous, and to discourage replay, but you also seem to refuse to consider that it may be your choice as to how to play the early game that might be causing that problem.
As I probably said a few years ago, the dead village radius goes against replayability, since you need to do the same in every game: walk away from the spawn area in a straight line for a few thousands of blocks.
I've never once done this and I've probably done a dozen very long term games since hardcore spawn was introduced. Why do you think you need to do that?
I've never once done this and I've probably done a dozen very long term games since hardcore spawn was introduced. Why do you think you need to do that?
I was just trying to track down some previous conversations we had in this thread about this topic, as I think it's been covered a few times before, but I suspect they may have been deleted after they turned into arguments. I'd really prefer to avoid having that happen this time, so I'm going to try and keep this constructive (which I'm admittedly not always great at).
If I remember right, I think ivanovic used to find the early game extremely challenging on the food side when he first tried the mod with HC hunger and related features, to the point where I think he found it to be next to impossible to survive in place (I think I remember the phrase "razor edge" with regards to the margin for error).
I think he may have eventually solved that by going nomad, and thus has come to the conclusion that doing so is a much easier way to play. At this point, I'm uncertain if he's ever managed to survive staying in place, and thus I suspect he may not consider it a viable option.
I could be wrong, but I think HC hunger difficulty is at the core of this issue, and everything else that's come up has been symptomatic of that. Many of us (myself included) consider surviving in place to largely be trivial once you get used to it, so the thought of walking a few thousand blocks to avoid having to do it seems to us like it creates more problems than it solves.
This is by design of course, as I've largely tried to up the inconvenience of doing so through various adjustments until settling would seem like the preferred option, since I think that's where the more interesting gameplay resides, without being so heavy handed about it that it acts like a hard barrier. If those measures are still not sufficient, I'd really like to figure out why so I can make further adjustments.
I don't wish to put words in your mouth Ivanovic, so please feel free to correct anything I've said here if inaccurate. I'm just trying to work through a perceived issue that seems to have been a problem for us for several years now, and which I'd like to see us reach some kind of constructive resolution on.
That seems reasonable. I definitely failed once or twice, running out of food. There are certainly a few quirks you have to learn or you're going to fail at it.
I'd recommend anyone who find it near impossible record a video of their first half hour of playing a new world, I'm sure anyone would be willing to provide some pointers. I'd wager it's running and jumping that's killing him.
What do you mean by "micromanaging food"? It's just managing it.
Even if you get all those crops, you still don't have an iron pick, so you can't do a whole lot with it. It seems so much more sensible to get at least an iron hoe, and a compass before going on your adventure. And at that point you're pretty close to getting to the nether anyway, so why not cut the travel to an eighth as far.
I just don't see what's appealing to spending a lot of effort to get somewhere, and you'll still have to do the same steps as the early game once you get there, but now if you die you're completely screwed because you built up nothing within the radius.
There is randomness, that's what finding a village is, and finding out if it has any of the crops you still need. There's a ton of randomness, but if you could easily get a huge step up the tech tree in a few minutes people would undoubtedly just keep restarting til they get an easy start, which makes the experience worse for them.
Yes, I remember those discussions that most of the time ended up in hostile arguments, probably because you had too many open disputes back then (people complaining about the mod staying at 1.5.2 and so on).
That's a fair assumption. Usually the longer it's been since I've taken a break from modding, the more stressed out with the community I become. I'm also a fair bit older than when I started this, so maybe I prefer keeping things a little more chill now than when I was younger as well.
I'm glad we both seem to be committed to discussing this constructively.
Yes, I know you don't like that small chance to find an inhabited village near the spawn, but for me that's one of the charms of Minecraft and games with procedurally generated worlds: randomness, luck, surprise.
Well, everything you've said makes sense, but a few additional things to consider here about why I set things up the way they are:
-I originally implemented the village radius because without it, death tends to be incentivized as anything within the HC spawn radius might be discovered on a respawn. Thus, an even more gamey method of frequently dying until you find a village becomes a thing.
-If within the radius, I'd have to then tone down the rewards of finding villages substantially so that they don't potentially break other aspects of the progression. Stuff like finding a big pile of iron in a blacksmith's chest for example, or making sure that the crops present don't totally outclass more typical early game ones. The same kind of thing I did with the looted temples really, where I made sure that they didn't provide an overabundance of early game resources.
-If I tone down the rewards of all villages (and temples) in order to accommodate the early game, then I also greatly decrease the excitement of exploration in the middle and late game as the rewards would be insignificant in comparison to what you already have. Given mid to late game content is much more sparse than early game, that doesn't seem like a good trade off to me. This is a big problem with random discoveries in this kind of game unless they're tied into an additional gating mechanism (like I did for wheat with the millstone): they run counter to having strong progression as you either have to make them rewarding enough to potentially break that progression, or so trivial in reward magnitude that they lose significance later on.
Also, while I don't think your conceptual objection to the radius revolves around the in-game rationale for why the villages are abandoned, and while I don't normally like to give away the back-story of the mod, preferring to leave it to players to ponder on their own, maybe it would help to consider that perhaps the villages being abandoned is related to your presence and connection to the spawn point, not just as a random coincidence around that location.
Edit: Oh, ok, Flowerchild, I didn't see your reply. This forum doesn't go along well with my browser. Anyway, I'll try BTW again changing my playstyle.
Well, I did come away from this discussion with a few design goals I want to pursue, that I think I had long suspected but which your considering experiences made more of a priority for me:
-The food items at villages are perhaps still too tempting an early game goal, so I'm going to attempt to tone that down some more and shift their usefulness even more towards the mid game. In particular, I'm going to take a look at wheat's role in animal breeding as that totally shortcuts the milling bottleneck I mentioned, and given breeding animals is probably the primary food source players rely on in vanilla, I think it's where they naturally gravitate towards when trying BTW.
-I think early game base elements could also be further incentivized to make the player's life a little easier when settled as opposed to a nomadic lifestyle. This fits into some other plans I had quite well, which again I'll reprioritize slightly to get to sooner rather than later.
I can't speak for others and I'd be interested in hearing how many people go on foot at start (from past conversations on that topic though, it seemed to me to be a small minority, and one that was reduced even further by additional changes I made over time), but I always wait for the nether before doing so.
I didn't follow the entire conversation, but did see this.
I myself roam for a few days, until i have the means to sustain myself for a few days. i then use that time to mine and gather more crucial resources. After that, several hunting expeditions to keep food up, and beyond that is usually the " stock up and explore the world" phase. At which point i either find a better spot and build my base there, or i return to the original occasionally to restock and advance.
Finding good materials like iron requires (or greatly benefits from) finding caves, so usually the end of my initial nomad phase is "whenever i find a suitable cave".
-Added internal support for extended block IDs beyond the base 256 to facilitate future expansion of the mod. This is based on Yhetti's code in the Deco add-on, with permission, so major thanks to him for his efforts over the years in helping this happen.
-Added a Rotten Flesh storage block (9 in the crafting grid), largely as a test of the above functionality as it makes use of the extended block IDs. These blocks may also be assembled with pistons via Hardcore Packing. Please let me know if you experience any odd behavior with these blocks as it will help me ensure that extended block IDs are working well before I make further use of them.
-Added a new interface for villager trading to help cut down on the amount of clicking in the mid to late game. This will hopefully make the large number of trades that must be performed to get to the end much more convenient overall.
-Added the ability to filter Glowstone into Brimstone with a Hopper and Soul Sand filter. Like with filtering Ground Netherrack and Soul Dust, this will also produce souls which may be captured with an Urn. This provides a method of producing limited amounts of gunpowder earlier in the tech tree.
-Added ability to assemble Blocks Of Bone with Pistons via Hardcore Packing.
-Added a couple of additional factors to not worry about. In particular, you should be entirely unconcerned when performing activities that might result in loose tormented and likely deranged souls meandering about, especially if you have high level villagers nearby whose well-being you are totally chill about. You will totally not at all painfully face palm at the realization of how obvious a danger this doesn't represent if you just breath deeply, relax about the whole thing, and go about your business as if I hadn't said anything. This should not be misinterpreted as some kind of warning, as really, there's always been nothing to worry about. I have no idea why you're making such a big deal about this and I refuse to humor your dysfunction any longer.
-Changed priest villagers to have an extra trade slot available at high level to help offset some of the lack of variety in their trades. This became a problem due to the mandatory trade offers I implemented in the previous release.
-Changed the order in which the Librarian trades are unlocked, and some of the level-up trades slightly to create a more interesting progression.
-Changed a few other minor villager trades here and there, particularly peasant trades.
-Changed (tweaked) the Block of Bone texture slightly to appear a little more aged.
-Changed Lilly Pads so that they can't be placed as blocks. Sorry, too sploity, as they could easily be used to take a lot of the tension and danger out of longer boating trips.
-Fixed a bug where the furnace gauge wouldn't always display correctly after a save / load.
-Fixed problem with Hardcore Packing where sometimes blocks would get packed as the piston was retracting instead of extending.
-Fixed problem that was causing Jungle Spiders to spawn in fewer numbers than they should have. You're welcome.
Tomato!
-------------
If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:
Derivation is my go-to texture pack for BTW but my OCD wouldn't let me use it when i saw vanilla furnace while cooking. So obviously flesh block would need texturing but I've noticed that hungry wolves turn white and look like they use a vanilla texture. I noticed padded armor uses vanilla textures as well.
Also, do the villagers in this texture pack change skins as they're upgraded?
Noice! Padded armor seems to be the only vanilla texture i can find. Also i have a small request, if possible: the leather helmet has that facemask..is it possible to remove it and make it look a little more like the tanned leather helmet?
I haven't added any textures for Decocraft add-on, only the standard BTW items. I may add Decocraft items at a later date, but they would have to go in a separate file. I left the face-mask as it establishes a difference between leather, and tanned leather at a glance. I never really liked it though (not my design) so I will probably change them up next time FC adds new items.
Padded armor is in standard Better Than Wolves but i think it is forgotten about since wool is almost the same and easier to make.
I mean, how many people would use old versions, except for nostalgic reasons? That's why beta 1.7.3 is a popular version when it comes to the old versions of the game, and the fact that *none* of the old versions are available is disheartening.
You could keep the old links alive but hidden, and the newest version the most visible one. Any time you have someone having an issue with the mod and they are using an older version, you just tell them to update to the newest version and close the bug report. It's easy as that.
This was just addressed at the top of this page of the thread. FlowerChild doesn't want any extra work trying to keep track of questions from previous versions. If everyone was running different versions of his mod all the time it would get confusing trying to keep track of which features are available to a user and which bugs still exist for them.
He also doesn't like the idea of splitting up a community too much. It's the same reason there are so few boards on the official BTW forums. Keeping things condensed keeps the community more intact. This method keeps the community tight and also makes things easier for FC himself. Having everyone playing all sorts of different versions goes against that line of thinking.
Nah, it wouldn't change a thing. People read neither the title nor the opening post, FAQ or even the last comment page.
[**** NEW RELEASE ****]
Version 4.A3 Headed Beastie of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!
Download Link
This release contains the following changes:
-Added the ability to speed up boat travel if you are holding a sail (the item used to craft wind mills). Without a sail, boats now have their speed greatly reduced. This makes early game water travel a tad more problematic, and adds a bit of progression to boat use.
-Added additional hunger consumption when you swim vertically upwards. This increases the inefficiency of swimming relative to boating, as well as making it tiring to simply tread water.
-Added the ability to see if a furnace has any contents (not fuel) without having to open it. There's now a slight texture variation on the front of the furnace when it contains something, which makes working with large banks of furnaces much more convenient.
-Added Bone Blocks as a new storage block, created with 9 bones in the crafting grid. When summoning the Wither, Bone Blocks now replace the soul sand that was previously used in a "T" shape beneath the skulls.
-Added Infused Skulls as a new item and block. In terms of functionality, these replace Wither Skulls (now called Runed Skulls) for summoning the Wither. They may either be acquired through trading, or by combining a Runed Skull, a Soul Urn, and soul flux in the crafting grid.
-Added a new method of acquiring Wither Skulls (now called Runed Skull) through trading, to provide an alternative approach to decapitating a large number of wither skeletons.
-Changed the Wither so that it can no longer be summoned in dimensions other than the overworld (no summoning in the nether or end) to make fighting it more interesting.
-Changed the name of Wither Skulls, to Runed Skulls, to better suit their new role, acquisition method, and lore.
-Changed some of the crucial trades with villagers that facilitate progress towards the end. Without spoiling too much, the priest is no longer the only villager required.
-Changed the Anvil recipe to use a nether Star and Soul Flux in combination with a Dead Weight (vanilla Anvil) in the crafting grid. It may also now be obtained through trading, but may no longer be melted down in the Crucible. This change makes the Anvil available earlier in the overall progression (through trading), opening up some of the more complex redstone blocks in the mod (like the Block Dispenser and Detector) before Soulforged Steel is acquired.
-Changed the way the sail item looks when held by the player slightly, to better suit its new role in yachting.
-Changed (tweaked) the AI of fleeing animals slightly, to make them a little harder to catch.
-Changed (reduced) the hunger value of Tasty Sandwiches slightly to make them a bit less universally awesome relative to other food sources, and to increase the value of finding potatoes and carrots.
-Changed (reduced) the hunger value of bread and Scrambled Eggs for similar reasons.
-Changed (tweaked) the level and value of a few minor villagers trades to create a smoother play experience.
-Changed boats to be burnable in the furnace.
-Fixed a problem where shears would sometimes glitch out if their last bit of durability was used to shear creepers, sheep, or mooshrooms.
-Removed a bunch of splash screen texts that were no longer relevant or which hadn't aged well.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
-------------
If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:
that update finally came!
Well, from my perspective, because roaming on foot like that isn't the most effective way to play
I can't speak for others and I'd be interested in hearing how many people go on foot at start (from past conversations on that topic though, it seemed to me to be a small minority, and one that was reduced even further by additional changes I made over time), but I always wait for the nether before doing so. IMO, going on foot is largely a waste of time since the 8 to 1 block ratio from nether to overworld makes travel much much easier once you build a portal, and you wind up establishing a permanent and convenient link between spawn and village in the process of setting that up.
Meanwhile, if you roam right at the start you really aren't progressing much through the tree as you do so, which seems to me like a waste of time on performing a task in a less than optimal manner.
I personally wall off a village and build a base within because traveling those 12 chunks every morning and night would be a drag. My most recent world I even set up a rail line in the nether between my village and my original spawn base so I could quickly go back and forth at night for supplies, and make similar travel less annoying.
So I can't say I agree on that part either. There's multiple ways you can deal with protecting villagers, and yours doesn't seem any more efficient than mine, so I wouldn't really consider it an immersion breaking exploit, as you could just as easily do things another way if you're not fond of your current method.
I suspect we have had this conversation before, and I suspect it probably evolves the same way: with me pointing out that what you say you "need" to do appears to be something you are choosing to do.
You really don't have to start your game that way, and my impression is the majority of people don't. For myself, I don't think I've ever actually started a play through that way, as it always struck me as a rather dull and inefficient way to go.
Let's put it this way: I assume you're largely looking for villages initially for wheat, but to make effective use of wheat, you need a millstone and windmill which require a long time spent in a single location to grow the hemp.
By the time you've done all that, you could have easily gone down to diamond level in that same stationary area and gained access to the nether. You can then explore for villages not only with the fast travel convenience of the nether, but also with your milling setup ready to go once you find wheat.
To me, that seems like a big net gain overall, so I've never really understood why you consider your method most efficient in any of these conversations we've had. Your complaint seems to be that you find how you start the game to be boring, monotonous, and to discourage replay, but you also seem to refuse to consider that it may be your choice as to how to play the early game that might be causing that problem.
Can someone point me to a recent installation guide?
I'm having a really hard time trying to install the mod. Every time I think I've got it, I start the game and find that it's not working.
Edit: Nevermind, found one
I've never once done this and I've probably done a dozen very long term games since hardcore spawn was introduced. Why do you think you need to do that?
I was just trying to track down some previous conversations we had in this thread about this topic, as I think it's been covered a few times before, but I suspect they may have been deleted after they turned into arguments. I'd really prefer to avoid having that happen this time, so I'm going to try and keep this constructive (which I'm admittedly not always great at).
If I remember right, I think ivanovic used to find the early game extremely challenging on the food side when he first tried the mod with HC hunger and related features, to the point where I think he found it to be next to impossible to survive in place (I think I remember the phrase "razor edge" with regards to the margin for error).
I think he may have eventually solved that by going nomad, and thus has come to the conclusion that doing so is a much easier way to play. At this point, I'm uncertain if he's ever managed to survive staying in place, and thus I suspect he may not consider it a viable option.
I could be wrong, but I think HC hunger difficulty is at the core of this issue, and everything else that's come up has been symptomatic of that. Many of us (myself included) consider surviving in place to largely be trivial once you get used to it, so the thought of walking a few thousand blocks to avoid having to do it seems to us like it creates more problems than it solves.
This is by design of course, as I've largely tried to up the inconvenience of doing so through various adjustments until settling would seem like the preferred option, since I think that's where the more interesting gameplay resides, without being so heavy handed about it that it acts like a hard barrier. If those measures are still not sufficient, I'd really like to figure out why so I can make further adjustments.
I don't wish to put words in your mouth Ivanovic, so please feel free to correct anything I've said here if inaccurate. I'm just trying to work through a perceived issue that seems to have been a problem for us for several years now, and which I'd like to see us reach some kind of constructive resolution on.
That seems reasonable. I definitely failed once or twice, running out of food. There are certainly a few quirks you have to learn or you're going to fail at it.
I'd recommend anyone who find it near impossible record a video of their first half hour of playing a new world, I'm sure anyone would be willing to provide some pointers. I'd wager it's running and jumping that's killing him.
What do you mean by "micromanaging food"? It's just managing it.
Even if you get all those crops, you still don't have an iron pick, so you can't do a whole lot with it. It seems so much more sensible to get at least an iron hoe, and a compass before going on your adventure. And at that point you're pretty close to getting to the nether anyway, so why not cut the travel to an eighth as far.
I just don't see what's appealing to spending a lot of effort to get somewhere, and you'll still have to do the same steps as the early game once you get there, but now if you die you're completely screwed because you built up nothing within the radius.
There is randomness, that's what finding a village is, and finding out if it has any of the crops you still need. There's a ton of randomness, but if you could easily get a huge step up the tech tree in a few minutes people would undoubtedly just keep restarting til they get an easy start, which makes the experience worse for them.
That's a fair assumption. Usually the longer it's been since I've taken a break from modding, the more stressed out with the community I become. I'm also a fair bit older than when I started this, so maybe I prefer keeping things a little more chill now than when I was younger as well.
I'm glad we both seem to be committed to discussing this constructively.
Well, everything you've said makes sense, but a few additional things to consider here about why I set things up the way they are:
-I originally implemented the village radius because without it, death tends to be incentivized as anything within the HC spawn radius might be discovered on a respawn. Thus, an even more gamey method of frequently dying until you find a village becomes a thing.
-If within the radius, I'd have to then tone down the rewards of finding villages substantially so that they don't potentially break other aspects of the progression. Stuff like finding a big pile of iron in a blacksmith's chest for example, or making sure that the crops present don't totally outclass more typical early game ones. The same kind of thing I did with the looted temples really, where I made sure that they didn't provide an overabundance of early game resources.
-If I tone down the rewards of all villages (and temples) in order to accommodate the early game, then I also greatly decrease the excitement of exploration in the middle and late game as the rewards would be insignificant in comparison to what you already have. Given mid to late game content is much more sparse than early game, that doesn't seem like a good trade off to me. This is a big problem with random discoveries in this kind of game unless they're tied into an additional gating mechanism (like I did for wheat with the millstone): they run counter to having strong progression as you either have to make them rewarding enough to potentially break that progression, or so trivial in reward magnitude that they lose significance later on.
Also, while I don't think your conceptual objection to the radius revolves around the in-game rationale for why the villages are abandoned, and while I don't normally like to give away the back-story of the mod, preferring to leave it to players to ponder on their own, maybe it would help to consider that perhaps the villages being abandoned is related to your presence and connection to the spawn point, not just as a random coincidence around that location.
Well, I did come away from this discussion with a few design goals I want to pursue, that I think I had long suspected but which your considering experiences made more of a priority for me:
-The food items at villages are perhaps still too tempting an early game goal, so I'm going to attempt to tone that down some more and shift their usefulness even more towards the mid game. In particular, I'm going to take a look at wheat's role in animal breeding as that totally shortcuts the milling bottleneck I mentioned, and given breeding animals is probably the primary food source players rely on in vanilla, I think it's where they naturally gravitate towards when trying BTW.
-I think early game base elements could also be further incentivized to make the player's life a little easier when settled as opposed to a nomadic lifestyle. This fits into some other plans I had quite well, which again I'll reprioritize slightly to get to sooner rather than later.
I didn't follow the entire conversation, but did see this.
I myself roam for a few days, until i have the means to sustain myself for a few days. i then use that time to mine and gather more crucial resources. After that, several hunting expeditions to keep food up, and beyond that is usually the " stock up and explore the world" phase. At which point i either find a better spot and build my base there, or i return to the original occasionally to restock and advance.
Finding good materials like iron requires (or greatly benefits from) finding caves, so usually the end of my initial nomad phase is "whenever i find a suitable cave".
[**** NEW RELEASE ****]
Version 4.A4 Kiloblock Boon of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!
Download Link
This release contains the following changes:
-Added internal support for extended block IDs beyond the base 256 to facilitate future expansion of the mod. This is based on Yhetti's code in the Deco add-on, with permission, so major thanks to him for his efforts over the years in helping this happen.
-Added a Rotten Flesh storage block (9 in the crafting grid), largely as a test of the above functionality as it makes use of the extended block IDs. These blocks may also be assembled with pistons via Hardcore Packing. Please let me know if you experience any odd behavior with these blocks as it will help me ensure that extended block IDs are working well before I make further use of them.
-Added a new interface for villager trading to help cut down on the amount of clicking in the mid to late game. This will hopefully make the large number of trades that must be performed to get to the end much more convenient overall.
-Added the ability to filter Glowstone into Brimstone with a Hopper and Soul Sand filter. Like with filtering Ground Netherrack and Soul Dust, this will also produce souls which may be captured with an Urn. This provides a method of producing limited amounts of gunpowder earlier in the tech tree.
-Added ability to assemble Blocks Of Bone with Pistons via Hardcore Packing.
-Added a couple of additional factors to not worry about. In particular, you should be entirely unconcerned when performing activities that might result in loose tormented and likely deranged souls meandering about, especially if you have high level villagers nearby whose well-being you are totally chill about. You will totally not at all painfully face palm at the realization of how obvious a danger this doesn't represent if you just breath deeply, relax about the whole thing, and go about your business as if I hadn't said anything. This should not be misinterpreted as some kind of warning, as really, there's always been nothing to worry about. I have no idea why you're making such a big deal about this and I refuse to humor your dysfunction any longer.
-Changed priest villagers to have an extra trade slot available at high level to help offset some of the lack of variety in their trades. This became a problem due to the mandatory trade offers I implemented in the previous release.
-Changed the order in which the Librarian trades are unlocked, and some of the level-up trades slightly to create a more interesting progression.
-Changed a few other minor villager trades here and there, particularly peasant trades.
-Changed (tweaked) the Block of Bone texture slightly to appear a little more aged.
-Changed Lilly Pads so that they can't be placed as blocks. Sorry, too sploity, as they could easily be used to take a lot of the tension and danger out of longer boating trips.
-Fixed a bug where the furnace gauge wouldn't always display correctly after a save / load.
-Fixed problem with Hardcore Packing where sometimes blocks would get packed as the piston was retracting instead of extending.
-Fixed problem that was causing Jungle Spiders to spawn in fewer numbers than they should have. You're welcome.
Tomato!
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If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:
Double Yay! Thanks soo much!
Yay for new update and yay for texture pack!
Derivation is my go-to texture pack for BTW but my OCD wouldn't let me use it when i saw vanilla furnace while cooking. So obviously flesh block would need texturing but I've noticed that hungry wolves turn white and look like they use a vanilla texture. I noticed padded armor uses vanilla textures as well.
Also, do the villagers in this texture pack change skins as they're upgraded?
Thanks again!
Noice! Padded armor seems to be the only vanilla texture i can find. Also i have a small request, if possible: the leather helmet has that facemask..is it possible to remove it and make it look a little more like the tanned leather helmet?
Padded armor is in standard Better Than Wolves but i think it is forgotten about since wool is almost the same and easier to make.
Yay for leather helmet redesign!
Guys, can you please take texture pack conversation elsewhere? It's rather off-topic.
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Curse PremiumAwesome to see another update FC!
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