I'm new at this and only play in creative mode when my son is playing (he's 3 and has a hissy fit when he gets killed, in creative mode he spawns creepers to blow up the houses I build without fear of dying). I like that the game is hard, so my latest world is survival mode on hard. Yes, I die a lot. But it's so much more fun.
So much more fun for you. I'm married to someone (who I'm trying to get to play Minecraft) who wouldn't think that was fun at all. And obviously your son doesn't think so, either; he thinks setting off creepers in your houses is fun. I'm somewhere in the middle. That's the whole point of my Great Wall of Text in the previous post: the way you find the game fun is right for you. It might not be right for me, or for Coyfish, or for some other person. But it's right for you, so play that way. That's why the game has settings you can choose.
And I usually find lots of coal by falling in a hole that is almost impossible to get out of. I think I am the queen of falling down holes and getting stuck!
Always carry a stack of dirt. Pillar-climb your way out. (keep placing blocks of dirt under your feet while you jump upward) That will take care of the "getting stuck" part. As for the "falling down holes" part, believe it when the loading screen tips say that mining straight up or straight down is a bad idea.
I'm new at this and only play in creative mode when my son is playing (he's 3 and has a hissy fit when he gets killed, in creative mode he spawns creepers to blow up the houses I build without fear of dying). I like that the game is hard, so my latest world is survival mode on hard. Yes, I die a lot. But it's so much more fun.
And I usually find lots of coal by falling in a hole that is almost impossible to get out of. I think I am the queen of falling down holes and getting stuck!
Your son might get a kick out of "creeper terraforming" and might also learn to not get quite as upset about dying in the process. It goes as follows,
In creative mode... First, set up a bed for both of you and set a spawn close by, but not too close by (you don't want the bed destroyed). Then spawn a bunch of creepers (right to the max) around you and your son and the area I want to eventually terraform (like a big hill I want out of the way). Then load up both your inventories with all sorts of goodies just for fun. Then save and exit. Then reload the game in survival mode... of course, your demises will be sudden and completely catatrophic. Then, respawn and have fun scavenging for whatever goodies survived plus a ton of other blocks created by the creep-tastrophy!.
So true! My older son and I play the same way, but my younger son and daughter think it's too hard (and scary!) I do love that they have different settings so everyone can enjoy it (unless we are all playing together!)
Always carry a stack of dirt. Pillar-climb your way out. (keep placing blocks of dirt under your feet while you jump upward) That will take care of the "getting stuck" part. As for the "falling down holes" part, believe it when the loading screen tips say that mining straight up or straight down is a bad idea.
Definitely trying to remember to do this! I have become much better at mining my way out of holes too! I rarely dig straight down, I tend to fall in holes when running around - too busy looking too far ahead or around me to be looking at what I'm running into.
Your son might get a kick out of "creeper terraforming"
That definitely sounds like something he would love. He loves when things explodes, he has gotten quite good at creating huge explosions with a pile of TNT. He doesn't mind dying as long as he dies suddenly, it's more when something is attacking him that he freaks out. Going to give this a try tomorrow!
So true! My older son and I play the same way, but my younger son and daughter think it's too hard (and scary!) I do love that they have different settings so everyone can enjoy it (unless we are all playing together!)
One thing we did with the younger kids was to start each world with a "creative mode" phase and build up some really, really safe areas (or I would quickly pre-build a world on my own in creative mode). I (or me and the older kids) would even make "safe mines" that were well lit up and seeded with ores for the younger kids to explore. That way, when the world gets "converted" to survival (with the intention of keeping it there after that point), the older ones can then explore the natural caves and mines in survival and the younger kids could stay in the safe zones and explore the man-made mines without being overly fearful of encountering hostile mobs.
Now, the younger kids are actually getting more skilled than the older set... and they are becoming more and more willing to go "hardcore" everyday... and the older ones are starting to complain about getting "one-up'd" by the younger ones... just a different game dynamic you probably have to look forward when playing with kids of different ages.
It wasn't so much about learning as much as mining on survival was going slow and not giving much of a reward. Though going on peaceful gave me so much iron and I'm having trouble using it up, but I still WANT A SADDLE.
It wasn't so much about learning as much as mining on survival was going slow and not giving much of a reward. Though going on peaceful gave me so much iron and I'm having trouble using it up, but I still WANT A SADDLE.
In my first world, I went for ages and ages before I found a single dungeon... finally gave up and found a seed on the forums here that described where a dungeon was with a saddle and got that blinkity-blink last achievement (That porkchop tasted SOO good - even though it was long before the hunger bar existed - lol... it was well worth going out and intentionally getting some damage just to eat it!). Anyway, over time, I've just gotten better at locating dungeon and have since found several with saddles in my original world... so, it's up to you... if you want to, just stay patient and you WILL find one eventually. If you just can't wait any longer, just find a seed listed on the seeds list, fence in a pig, dig a pit (at least 5 deep) and get that blinkity-blink achievement out of the way... no guilt necessary.
Well, I'm going to start expanding my mine towards the sand area and maybe move up some levels. Are Strongholds ,usually found on any specific level?
Do you mean dungeons rather than strongholds. Saddles are found in dungeons. I don't think I've ever found one in a stronghold chest. If you mean dungeons, they can be found almost at any level. I've found some above sea level and some just off bedrock. They are commonly seen very near to the surface in deserts (because the sand caves in as the world is generated usually leaving a squarish "pit" with some cobblestone visible and a single raised block of sand in the center of the pit (just above where the spawner itself would be found). Often there are other raised up blocks of sand in the pit where the chests are located. One way to locate them is to listen for a common mob sound coming consistently from an area as you approach it. The spawner is activated when you get within 16 blocks of it and each spawner only spawns 1 type of mob. So, if you start hearing, say a large number of zombies behind a wall. Try leaving the area (at elast, say 50 blocks away) and then come back. If you hear a bunch of zombies again in that spot, you're probably within 16 blocks of a zombie spawner.
Strongholds are very large and cover lots of levels as a result. There is usually only 1 per world and it is usually best located using Eyes of Ender.
No I meant strongholds as just a new question. I may just need to keep digging. Nothing in my desert looks like that i'm afraid. I haven't even tried killing a enderman yet.
When you start hunting endermen, don't forget your Looting sword! Lucked out with a Looting III iron sword on a new world last night (first enchantment on that world), and promptly killed about 4 enderman resulting in a pile of like 7 pearls already!
No I meant strongholds as just a new question. I may just need to keep digging. Nothing in my desert looks like that i'm afraid. I haven't even tried killing a enderman yet.
There are a couple of other ways as well... it just depends where your lines are drawn regarding "survival" vs. "creative" and "glitching" vs. "no glitching." The easiest way to find your stronghold if your seed was created with the same update version as we are at now is to create another in creative mode and use Eyes of Ender out of the creative menu to find it's location. This does not work well if there has been an update since you first created your seed since the stronghold may have moved in the newer version of the same seed. The second way is to X-Ray glitch (doing this in a creative-mode backup copy of your actual world is easier, but this can also be readily done in survival mode). There are several different X-ray glitch tutorials on YouTube.
If you don't want to resort to these measures (and that's perfectly understandable either way), then just dig around in different areas of the map and be patient and you will eventually stumble onto it. I've stumbled into at least 3 or 4 on my pure survival seeds without throwing eyes or glitching or creative mode. My bigger issue is, because I tend to play like "hardcore" where 1 death is the end of the game and I absolutely suck with creepers, I often don't get far enough along in a seed to even worry about finding the stronghold.
The easiest way I've found to lure endermen to you is to construct a platform near a desert with a quick way up and down from it and a lit fenced around it to keep creepers (particularly) from getting close in under it. As enderman spawn in the distance, put your crosshairs right on their eyes and stare. They will generally teleport either to just outside your fenced area or right beneath the platform. Do a quick check all around for creepers and dispatch them with a bow, then descend and strike the enderman with a sword (diamond looting preferred). If you put a small area near your ladder that is only two blocks high, you can stand under that "roof" and the enderman will not be able to strike and hurt you and you can just keep swinging at their legs from under that roof. Using this method, I've dispatched several with stone swords and even a few with my bare hands (oops - hand) without taking too much damage. You can also quickly pour a bucket of water at their toes and then collect it again and wait until they come back for more.
If you are lucky enough to have surround sound hooked up to the TV you play on like I am, you'll be able to locate mob spawners by moving around in caves and such while listening to which speaker the mob sound comes from. It's not 100%, but I've found many a dungeon this way......
Coal is very easy to find, you just have to find a cave. If you still have no luck, you can turn your gamma up to 100% in the options menu. Diamonds, gold, and redstone can be found just a few layers above bedrock. (16-7)
So I finally found the dungeon and now I know what to listen for. I knew I had to listen for lots of monsters of one kind but I hadn't quite heard it before through blocks up to 16 away. I knew it once I heard it. The saddle was in it too. Now the pig needs to just stop jumping in place over and over.
I found a dungeon and a saddle, had to jump online to find out what to do with the saddle haha, put it on a pig... then accidentally killed the pig and lost the saddle. Devastated!
Like you guys were daying, I do think it depends on the player. That is why there are so many different modes -- to cater to every single player. Nice to see others enjoying the game in their own way.
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llamaglama, dunklestein and burningleaf777 are friends at school. Sometimes we all use the school computers. Please don't ban us for alt accounts.
Easiest way I've found to get the when pigs fly achievement is with sticky pistons. Wire up two sticky pistons to remove the blocks over a two by one pit that's about a dozen or so blocks deep. Put a fence around the pit, and blocks around that; with wheat in your hand, just circle the fence until you get the pig to drop into the fenced in area. If you set it up right, once you have the pig in the fence, you just saddle the pig, hop on, then hit your nearby lever and voila! instant achievement.
To get pigs fly achievement quickly using Up's 3 x 3 x 5 deep pit method:
1) Use a seed from the seeds list where the coordinates for a dungeon spawner have been given.
2) First off upon entering the world - Collect wheat from a village or plant some wheat seeds (collected from tall grass) near the dungeon location.
3) Dig a pit - minimum size 3 x 3 x 5 (Note: If using an open desert dungeon, these will often be 5 blocks deep or more, so they can be used as your pit.
4) Put a fence around three sides of the pit and add a little extra area on one side where the pig and you can just stand together inside the fence without being pushed into the pit (see diagram). On the side of this little pen area away from the pit, put in a gate for easy of access. The one side of the pen, however, should be left open to the pit itself. An flat area inside the pen of 2 x 2 is sufficient, although 3 x 2 makes it a little easier to lure the pig into the pen and shut the gate behind you.
Diagram Key - Log represents Fence; Pants represent the Fence Gate, Black wool represents the open pit, and Sand represents the ground
5) With the saddle in your inventory, lure a pig through the gate into the pen using wheat. Shut the gate and saddle the pig. Hop on and hit the pig. Since they have very little place to go other than over the edge of the pit, the pig will usually jump right into the pit. At 5 blocks deep, the pit is deep enough that the pig will take damage but no so deep that the pig will die. You can, however, make the pit bigger and/or deeper if you desire. If you make the pit larger, try not to make the "staging pen" larger: Instead do something like this:
Before we could lead pigs with wheat, I used this with a set of closed double doors on the cliff side of the pen so that I could build up the pen around a wild moving pig, replace a part of the pen fence with the doors, dig the pit wherever after I had trapped the pig and then just open up the doors once I hopped onto the pig. The pen arrangement will also work if you want to use an actual cliff instead of a pit.
Advantages: Other than the saddle, it only uses some wood and a bit of wheat. No need to find slimes for sticky pistons. No need to find a seed with a naturally large cliff face. Works particularly well with desert dungeons.
I got the pig to fall off my getting the pig trapped along a cliff with only two blocks to move. Jump on, hit it, down went the pig. It didn't survived.
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Retired StaffSo much more fun for you. I'm married to someone (who I'm trying to get to play Minecraft) who wouldn't think that was fun at all. And obviously your son doesn't think so, either; he thinks setting off creepers in your houses is fun. I'm somewhere in the middle. That's the whole point of my Great Wall of Text in the previous post: the way you find the game fun is right for you. It might not be right for me, or for Coyfish, or for some other person. But it's right for you, so play that way. That's why the game has settings you can choose.
Always carry a stack of dirt. Pillar-climb your way out. (keep placing blocks of dirt under your feet while you jump upward) That will take care of the "getting stuck" part. As for the "falling down holes" part, believe it when the loading screen tips say that mining straight up or straight down is a bad idea.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
Your son might get a kick out of "creeper terraforming" and might also learn to not get quite as upset about dying in the process. It goes as follows,
In creative mode... First, set up a bed for both of you and set a spawn close by, but not too close by (you don't want the bed destroyed). Then spawn a bunch of creepers (right to the max) around you and your son and the area I want to eventually terraform (like a big hill I want out of the way). Then load up both your inventories with all sorts of goodies just for fun. Then save and exit. Then reload the game in survival mode... of course, your demises will be sudden and completely catatrophic. Then, respawn and have fun scavenging for whatever goodies survived plus a ton of other blocks created by the creep-tastrophy!.
So true! My older son and I play the same way, but my younger son and daughter think it's too hard (and scary!) I do love that they have different settings so everyone can enjoy it (unless we are all playing together!)
Definitely trying to remember to do this! I have become much better at mining my way out of holes too! I rarely dig straight down, I tend to fall in holes when running around - too busy looking too far ahead or around me to be looking at what I'm running into.
That definitely sounds like something he would love. He loves when things explodes, he has gotten quite good at creating huge explosions with a pile of TNT. He doesn't mind dying as long as he dies suddenly, it's more when something is attacking him that he freaks out. Going to give this a try tomorrow!
One thing we did with the younger kids was to start each world with a "creative mode" phase and build up some really, really safe areas (or I would quickly pre-build a world on my own in creative mode). I (or me and the older kids) would even make "safe mines" that were well lit up and seeded with ores for the younger kids to explore. That way, when the world gets "converted" to survival (with the intention of keeping it there after that point), the older ones can then explore the natural caves and mines in survival and the younger kids could stay in the safe zones and explore the man-made mines without being overly fearful of encountering hostile mobs.
Now, the younger kids are actually getting more skilled than the older set... and they are becoming more and more willing to go "hardcore" everyday... and the older ones are starting to complain about getting "one-up'd" by the younger ones... just a different game dynamic you probably have to look forward when playing with kids of different ages.
In my first world, I went for ages and ages before I found a single dungeon... finally gave up and found a seed on the forums here that described where a dungeon was with a saddle and got that blinkity-blink last achievement (That porkchop tasted SOO good - even though it was long before the hunger bar existed - lol... it was well worth going out and intentionally getting some damage just to eat it!). Anyway, over time, I've just gotten better at locating dungeon and have since found several with saddles in my original world... so, it's up to you... if you want to, just stay patient and you WILL find one eventually. If you just can't wait any longer, just find a seed listed on the seeds list, fence in a pig, dig a pit (at least 5 deep) and get that blinkity-blink achievement out of the way... no guilt necessary.
Do you mean dungeons rather than strongholds. Saddles are found in dungeons. I don't think I've ever found one in a stronghold chest. If you mean dungeons, they can be found almost at any level. I've found some above sea level and some just off bedrock. They are commonly seen very near to the surface in deserts (because the sand caves in as the world is generated usually leaving a squarish "pit" with some cobblestone visible and a single raised block of sand in the center of the pit (just above where the spawner itself would be found). Often there are other raised up blocks of sand in the pit where the chests are located. One way to locate them is to listen for a common mob sound coming consistently from an area as you approach it. The spawner is activated when you get within 16 blocks of it and each spawner only spawns 1 type of mob. So, if you start hearing, say a large number of zombies behind a wall. Try leaving the area (at elast, say 50 blocks away) and then come back. If you hear a bunch of zombies again in that spot, you're probably within 16 blocks of a zombie spawner.
Strongholds are very large and cover lots of levels as a result. There is usually only 1 per world and it is usually best located using Eyes of Ender.
There are a couple of other ways as well... it just depends where your lines are drawn regarding "survival" vs. "creative" and "glitching" vs. "no glitching." The easiest way to find your stronghold if your seed was created with the same update version as we are at now is to create another in creative mode and use Eyes of Ender out of the creative menu to find it's location. This does not work well if there has been an update since you first created your seed since the stronghold may have moved in the newer version of the same seed. The second way is to X-Ray glitch (doing this in a creative-mode backup copy of your actual world is easier, but this can also be readily done in survival mode). There are several different X-ray glitch tutorials on YouTube.
If you don't want to resort to these measures (and that's perfectly understandable either way), then just dig around in different areas of the map and be patient and you will eventually stumble onto it. I've stumbled into at least 3 or 4 on my pure survival seeds without throwing eyes or glitching or creative mode. My bigger issue is, because I tend to play like "hardcore" where 1 death is the end of the game and I absolutely suck with creepers, I often don't get far enough along in a seed to even worry about finding the stronghold.
The easiest way I've found to lure endermen to you is to construct a platform near a desert with a quick way up and down from it and a lit fenced around it to keep creepers (particularly) from getting close in under it. As enderman spawn in the distance, put your crosshairs right on their eyes and stare. They will generally teleport either to just outside your fenced area or right beneath the platform. Do a quick check all around for creepers and dispatch them with a bow, then descend and strike the enderman with a sword (diamond looting preferred). If you put a small area near your ladder that is only two blocks high, you can stand under that "roof" and the enderman will not be able to strike and hurt you and you can just keep swinging at their legs from under that roof. Using this method, I've dispatched several with stone swords and even a few with my bare hands (oops - hand) without taking too much damage. You can also quickly pour a bucket of water at their toes and then collect it again and wait until they come back for more.
1) Use a seed from the seeds list where the coordinates for a dungeon spawner have been given.
2) First off upon entering the world - Collect wheat from a village or plant some wheat seeds (collected from tall grass) near the dungeon location.
3) Dig a pit - minimum size 3 x 3 x 5 (Note: If using an open desert dungeon, these will often be 5 blocks deep or more, so they can be used as your pit.
4) Put a fence around three sides of the pit and add a little extra area on one side where the pig and you can just stand together inside the fence without being pushed into the pit (see diagram). On the side of this little pen area away from the pit, put in a gate for easy of access. The one side of the pen, however, should be left open to the pit itself. An flat area inside the pen of 2 x 2 is sufficient, although 3 x 2 makes it a little easier to lure the pig into the pen and shut the gate behind you.
Diagram Key - Log
5) With the saddle in your inventory, lure a pig through the gate into the pen using wheat. Shut the gate and saddle the pig. Hop on and hit the pig. Since they have very little place to go other than over the edge of the pit, the pig will usually jump right into the pit. At 5 blocks deep, the pit is deep enough that the pig will take damage but no so deep that the pig will die. You can, however, make the pit bigger and/or deeper if you desire. If you make the pit larger, try not to make the "staging pen" larger: Instead do something like this:
Before we could lead pigs with wheat, I used this with a set of closed double doors on the cliff side of the pen so that I could build up the pen around a wild moving pig, replace a part of the pen fence with the doors, dig the pit wherever after I had trapped the pig and then just open up the doors once I hopped onto the pig. The pen arrangement will also work if you want to use an actual cliff instead of a pit.
Advantages: Other than the saddle, it only uses some wood and a bit of wheat. No need to find slimes for sticky pistons. No need to find a seed with a naturally large cliff face. Works particularly well with desert dungeons.