Wolftopia and I appear to prefer quite different styles of play. While I've played in what I believe to be his preferred style (ie. no afk fishing / no [or very limited] autofarming / etc), this is a style I find requires SMP with the "right" people to be enjoyable… (and I still find it limiting).
I read no more into this than that we are different people with different preferences.
With that said:
The problem I find with elytra/shulker box play is that [in vanilla] both are non-renewable resources [for practical purposes].
In SMP this tends to create a have/have-not division which drives a rush to the end to acquire these goods; if one is not part of the group that succeeds, second-class status looms. [This is exacerbated by the fact that the most useful 'bit of kit' for 'end busting' to get elytra is having an elytra. One posible solution that has been brought up is to mod the game to make elytra unusable in the end, thus keeping all players on at even stanfind for end exploration.]
That the Punch2/Infinity flying exploit engendered such wide and possitive support that it was replaced with rockets [which require at least a bit more infrastructure/resources] indicates to me that the playstyles to which Wolftopia objects are widely enjoyed. [Note that there has been concensus on the point that removing/nerfing elytra would now cause major community pushback.]
I agree that elytra/shulker play has a very different feel than the far more limited inventory and 'fast' exploration meaning boats along an ocean shore that characterize play without these items. I do not, however, consider this bad a priori…
With respect to the different versions: Having all versions interconnectable would be [I beleive] a "good thing®".
This leaves the question of upon which current version the fully interconnectable goal should be based:
In my opinion this should be java if only for the greater ease with which various groups can mod the game to suit their varying preferences.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
While I agree that in SMP, rocket propelled elytras do have a bit of balance issues with the other methods of transportation, They do open up a whole new form of flight adventure maps, or at least makes making them much easier.
Do you know what I did right when 1.11.1 came out? I immediately got an idea that I liked for an adventure map which is heavily flight based which I am still working on in 1.13.1 to this day. Just retexture and rename firework rockets to pixie dust, and I've got a built in minecraft system for the natural use and requirement of the dust (which is required for flight in the universe that my map is based in). I didn't even mention the built in minecraft pixie dust trails left behind while speeding off to somewhere.
Here's an idea that may help balance elytras a little more in SMP:
Since fireworks rockets shoot out many sparks, which can occasionally be an ember which is hard on clothing and (elytra material), Maybe the durability on an elytra can deplete extremely fast when used with firework rockets.
This way functionality in adventure maps and creative could still be preserved by routinely lowering the damage value of the elytras nbt along with unbreaking 100, and in survival mode players might want to consider using another form of transportation so their hard to obtain elytra dosen't get melted/burnt holes in it from sparks. They can repair them, but they can only do that so many times until it becomes too expensive and unfeasible to repair anymore.
Also is it no longer possible to put mending on an elytra? I'm not sure, but I thought I remember hearing about that somewhere, unless it was just a suggestion.
I disagree that this is a problem, and here's why:
There comes a point in the game, where survival stops being about survival. It's the point where you get every enchantment on your diamond gear including mending- even your hoe. You can walk outside at midnight, and mobs aren't even your concern. It's at this point where many players stop. Most quit a long time ago.
A few keep playing, and this is Hermitcraft. For all intents and purposes, the game is no longer about survival. It's creative mode with resource gathering. I'm using HermitCraft because they are the most well-known example of this "late-late-game". So, what do the people of HermitCraft do in their videos? They're building, all the time. Very rarely do you find an episode of them taking down dungeons, and when that happens it's end cities. They beat survival.
You have the assumption people post-mending elytra want to keep playing survival, but I don't think that's the case. They just want to build, unlike creative they are gathering the resources (so it's more "authentic"). More dangers should be added to the End for these players, but I don't think an elytra nerf is the solution. It's much easier to build if you can fly.
I do agree with everyone that minecarts need a redux.
Aditionally: they should ditch the Java edition. It performes like a wet towel, and has simply too many bugs and balance issues. MCPE/Win10 is way more balanced. For instance: getting gunpowder is NOT that easy in MCPE, as spawn rates are a lot lower. You get like, what, 6-8 overworld and 6-8 cave spawns for an area of several chuncks. It's not impossible, and you'll get gunpowder, but if you want to be able to easily fly around with your elytra all day, it's not going to work.
This goes for more stuf. Take the iron-golem-farms. On JAVA you can make totally rediculous amounts of iron, if you take like Tango-Tek's Iron Trench or Phoenix. Again, this issue or imbalance is not present on Win10/MCPE, as golems a) practically will NOT spawn on water and won't spawn as much.
I could go on. It's not elytra which is broken. It's the other transportation stuff which is broken, and the java version in general.
You do realize Mojang could just fix the bugs in Java, or add new bugs to Bedrock, right? It's not coding limitations that are the problem.
I disagree that this is a problem, and here's why:
There comes a point in the game, where survival stops being about survival. It's the point where you get every enchantment on your diamond gear including mending- even your hoe. You can walk outside at midnight, and mobs aren't even your concern. It's at this point where many players stop. Most quit a long time ago.
A few keep playing, and this is Hermitcraft. For all intents and purposes, the game is no longer about survival. It's creative mode with resource gathering. I'm using HermitCraft because they are the most well-known example of this "late-late-game". So, what do the people of HermitCraft do in their videos? They're building, all the time. Very rarely do you find an episode of them taking down dungeons, and when that happens it's end cities. They beat survival.
You have the assumption people post-mending elytra want to keep playing survival, but I don't think that's the case. They just want to build, unlike creative they are gathering the resources (so it's more "authentic"). More dangers should be added to the End for these players, but I don't think an elytra nerf is the solution. It's much easier to build if you can fly.
I do agree with everyone that minecarts need a redux.
You do realize Mojang could just fix the bugs in Java, or add new bugs to Bedrock, right? It's not coding limitations that are the problem.
You are completely misreading what has been going on for many years now. People aren't leaving because they feel they're underpowered and want to play in a semi-creative mode, they are mostly leaving because the game gets too easy and then there's not a point to survival anymore.
Elytra just make this even worse. Sure, at first it's fun to use the elytra, but once you have it, everything is too easy, which is what makes people walk away from survival mode or even the game itself. There is no longer motivation to build railroads or Nether tunnels to connect things. There's not even motivation to build houses and walls to protect yourself from monsters.
In theory, this should be the opposite. Giving players even more control and power should allow them to build big castles with their new abilities. However, this is not the case in practice, as one would know after giving the situation further thought; people build basic houses as protection from mobs. They do this, of course, because mobs are dangerous and you need shelter. This is what I call the "starting motivation." This starting motivation then gives the player even more motivation:
I bet I could make this house bigger. You know what? I want this to look epic. I shouldn't have to be crammed into this tiny room. I'll make it wider and longer. I'll make the ceiling higher. I'll add more rooms. I'll make the outside look amazing. I'll add a lit-up path from my front door to my mineshaft, and then to my Nether portal. I'll make a road to the stronghold. I'll build a dock for fishing and for when I need to go across the ocean.
Do you see? The people who want this god-like gameplay shouldn't be playing survival mode. That's not what survival mode is. This trend of overpowered late-game features has been detrimental to player interest. There is no point in doing anything when there is no longer starting motivation. Instead of adding overpowered enchantments and overpowered elytra mechanics, game updates should add more starting motivation.
The game gets boring, and adding more dungeons won't fix the problem. Adding more starting motivation will.
After you "beat the game" (kill the Ender Dragon), there should still be more (building) progression. Going to the end should allow for some new starting motivation. As it is now, there's no reason you would continue to build or explore, so... why even play?
The attitude that one should become a god in survival mode needs to go away.
people build basic houses as protection from mobs.
This pinpoints the division.
You believe survival mode should be about surviving in a dangerous world, slowly growing in power and meeting new dangers along the way. I believe the same up to an extent. The problem is once you get enchanted diamond armor and start fighting in the End, the Overworld becomes easy. The only way I think we could fix this would be for new mobs to spawn in the overworld after the Ender Dragon.
This might sound like I'm getting off-track, but this is the underlying disagreement here. I believe there should be a point where you "beat" the game, master everything it has to offer and at that point everything that once scared you is now a nuisance. This might not be living up to the name "survival mode" but Mojang can't add content forever.
Even if elytra boasting was removed and enchantments nerfed, there would still be an endgame. You eventually run out of things to do, and you can't be expected to do the same things over and over again. The End Poem tells the player that while the "story" of the game is done, you can now do whatever you want. That sounds to be like what Hermitcraft is doing. There is a reason to build- because building provides a sense of pride and accomplishment.
I understand what you mean about starting motivations. But what motivation could exist post-dragon?
If the progression system were ever expanded, then the elytra should be moved to maintain it's "final" status. In a perfect world it would take about thrice as long to get an elytra, so the nether railways are a worthwhile alternative.
You believe survival mode should be about surviving in a dangerous world, slowly growing in power and meeting new dangers along the way. This is what survival mode has always been, or at least supposed to have been. I believe the same up to an extent. The problem is once you get enchanted diamond armor and start fighting in the End, the Overworld becomes easy. Exactly. The only way I think we could fix this would be for new mobs to spawn in the overworld after the Ender Dragon. That's not the only way. Armor could be nerfed, new "miniboss" mobs (like the witch) could be added. New mobs could start to invade the Overworld after you've had Nether access for a while.
This might sound like I'm getting off-track, but this is the underlying disagreement here. I believe there should be a point where you "beat" the game, master everything it has to offer and at that point everything that once scared you is now a nuisance. This might not be living up to the name "survival mode" but Mojang can't add content forever. No, there shouldn't be a point like that. Do you even know what Minecraft is? It's a sandbox game. There is no "end game," and there is no finale. Notch added the Ender Dragon as something to drive the player through progression and as an end for those who want one, but this should by no means signify the end of gameplay. You're right that Mojang can't add content forever, but I'm not asking for that. Instead, they need to add meaningful content and new starting motivations.
Even if elytra boasting was removed and enchantments nerfed, there would still be an endgame. You eventually run out of things to do, and you can't be expected to do the same things over and over again. The End Poem tells the player that while the "story" of the game is done, you can now do whatever you want. That sounds to be like what Hermitcraft is doing. There is a reason to build- because building provides a sense of pride and accomplishment. That's not always reason enough to keep playing long-term.
I understand what you mean about starting motivations. But what motivation could exist post-dragon? Well, as you progress through the game, uncovering things could increase the difficulty in new ways. By the time you reach the dragon fight, the game would already be signifacntly harder despite you having better armor and weapons. After you defeat the dragon, perhaps some force from the End could come into the Overworld.
If the progression system were ever expanded, then the elytra should be moved to maintain it's "final" status. In a perfect world it would take about thrice as long to get an elytra, so the nether railways are a worthwhile alternative. It still needs to be balanced, even if it's the last new item you get in the game.
The starting motivation of protection from mobs isn't helped by the fact that the mobs themselves are static, and only change in updates, which don't necessarily do much. This means that a small hut is pretty much always enough, except for storage.
If there was something similar to Terraria's Herdmode, the mobs would be a threat for longer. However, that in itself is problematic due to the game making the Player lose their inventory by default, which can potentially lead to more powerful gear which may be needed to survive being lost, effectively forcing the game to be balanced so the Overworld stays static in that regard so the Player can always rebuild their gear if lost.
It doesn't help that the more challenging and dangerous mobs aren't found in the "wild", but only in structures, so the Player always has the initiative against them.
Elytra are only a factor, but at the point they're found, exploration and transport-based challenges are already over. The player likely already has good enough gear to be able to easily deal with mobs, and a water bucket alone deals with most issues related to movement. On top of that, some of the game's mechanics don't change at all: The only difference between mining early and late into the game is the time needed to obtain a certain amount of ores. Elytra, in the end, do little more than make something trivial even easier at that point.
In other words, the entire endgame is problematic, with Elytra being only part of the issue.
I agree with you. However, the elytra create their own problem: they separate you from the game world since you become a god.
But yes, the whole "end game" is broken as you said.
For instance: getting gunpowder is NOT that easy in MCPE, as spawn rates are a lot lower. You get like, what, 6-8 overworld and 6-8 cave spawns for an area of several chuncks.
And this is why I, and many others, wouldn't even dream of touching Bedrock - what fun is it to barely see any mobs? You may as well play on Peaceful.
In fact, this is one reason why I never updated past 1.6.4; in 1.7 Mojang decided to make the internal server chunk load distance depend on render distance, causing mob spawning to break unless it was high enough, which, when combined with performance decreases (did you know that the recommended requirements for 1.6 call for 15 year old hardware? Mojang is simply destroying the Java edition with their terrible coding, not that I even care as I've gone off to make my own version which is literally an order of magnitude faster than 1.13) meant that I barely saw anything, and a major part of my playstyle (well, pretty much the only part) is caving for the fun of it, including killing mobs - I've even buffed them, including their numbers (they spawn/despawn within 96 blocks instead of 128, which is about double the density for the same mob cap), since more mobs means more fun - with as many as 800 killed over an hour or two:
Virtually all of the mobs here were killed while caving, and aside from passive mobs and a handful of Endermen and Blazes, not for their drops (I also used bones dropped by skeletons for bonemeal, but I did not intentionally kill them, same for the helmets I picked up and put on):
I also buffed (or did not nerf them) them in some interesting ways; while armor offers less protection (3.3% per armor point instead of 4%) for players it still offers the original 4% for mobs and diamond armor only offers 18 armor points for the same protection as vanilla iron, rescaled to 20 for mobs while amethyst (which is much rarer and much more expensive to repair) has 20 on players and 22 on mobs (that's 88% damage reduction on mobs vs 66% on players, meaning that a mob can survive 2.78 times more damage than a player in the same armor); likewise, weapons deal one more damage to offset a reduction by one in their base damage (for players amethyst is the same as diamond used to be, +7 attack damage, and one greater in the case of mobs). Efficiency on tools acts the same as Sharpness on weapons but only when used by mobs, and mobs with axes (the only weapon that penetrates armor) penetrate twice as much armor (one armor point per 2 damage vs 4 for player-held axes and a maximum penetration of 80% vs 60%) - a zombie on Hard with an amethyst axe with Sharpness V and Efficiency V deals 35.25 damage, one-shotting a player in any kind of armor unless it is enchanted with at least 2x Protection IV, and even with full Protection IV it only takes 2 hits for them to kill you (luckily they will not naturally spawn as Sharpness can only be placed on an axe with books, though on Hard mobs can spawn with level 30 enchanted gear and amethyst is close to gold in enchantability).
Note: I do not like more mobs because they make resources easier to get; in fact, I think that farms are all but cheating; so you made a mansion with iron blocks? Did you mine the iron or did you use an iron farm? If the latter, then why not just play in Creative? I've even nerfed farms, such as by making mob spawners (which IMO are only there for a challenge) stop spawning mobs which drop items if too many spawn too quickly, even as I massively buffed their spawn rates (up to one mob per second) so they actually pose a challenge and mob types (including almost all Overworld mobs); likewise, I've recently made naturally spawned mobs stop dropping items as well if they die too quickly (a "normal" player will never kill them fast enough). You also need to light up everything, including twice as many caves as there are in 1.7+, including single caves so massive that in excess of 5,000 torches are needed to fully light them up, for a darkroom spawner to work because mobs only despawn based on horizontal, not vertical, distance.
quote=fishg
…There comes a point in the game, where survival stops being about survival. It's the point where you get every enchantment on your diamond gear including mending- even your hoe. You can walk outside at midnight, and mobs aren't even your concern. …
A few keep playing, and this is Hermitcraft. For all intents and purposes, the game is no longer about survival. It's creative mode with resource gathering. I'm using HermitCraft because they are the most well-known example of this "late-late-game". So, what do the people of HermitCraft do in their videos? They're building, all the time.
You have the assumption people post-mending elytra want to keep playing survival, but I don't think that's the case. They just want to build, unlike creative they are gathering the resources….
This is very well said.
There are, however, points made in your post with which I disagree:
"…at this point where many players stop. Most quit a long time ago." I find this unfortunate, but it is impossible to please everyone.
"…gathering the resources (so it's more "authentic")" I think you misunderstand the motivation to do late-game/end-game builds in survival rather than creative. [I refer to this phase (of which Hermitcraft is a fine example) as "survival creative".]
Using creative mode all resources have the same cost — zero. [Technically enchanted items and a few bits like spawners may require a bit of typing, but this is near enough to universally true.] Flamability and blast resistance (or the need to use silk touch tools) are also not considerations.
Creative mode is thus very much an infinite set of electronic Lego®-equivalents where the only reason to choose one block over another is aesthetics.
There is clearly a fairly large group of players who find this situaltion ideal… and they produce some literally awesome builds,
but,
there are also those who favor circumstances where blocks have different costs.
"More dangers should be added to the End for these players…" I don't see this as being desirable; the point of the game for players of my ilk is to work one's way up to the point where one can focus on interesting (if not always purely functional) builds. Adding more hoops/obstacles would not be appreciated… [i]unless [/i]those are tied to gaining new resource options. [Ocena munuments and the prismarine variants being a fine example.]
quote=Wolftopia
u are completely misreading what has been going on for many years now. People aren't leaving because they feel they're underpowered and want to play in a semi-creative mode, they are mostly leaving because the game gets too easy and then there's not a point to survival anymore.
⋮
In theory, this should be the opposite. Giving players even more control and power should allow them to build big castles with their new abilities. However, this is not the case in practice, as one would know after giving the situation further thought; people build basic houses as protection from mobs. They do this, of course, because mobs are dangerous and you need shelter. This is what I call the "starting motivation." This starting motivation then gives the player even more motivation:
⋮
Do you see? The people who want this god-like gameplay shouldn't be playing survival mode. That's not what survival mode is. This trend of overpowered late-game features has been detrimental to player interest. There is no point in doing anything when there is no longer starting motivation. Instead of adding overpowered enchantments and overpowered elytra mechanics, game updates should add more starting motivation.
The game gets boring, and adding more dungeons won't fix the problem. Adding more starting motivation will.
After you "beat the game" (kill the Ender Dragon), there should still be more (building) progression. Going to the end should allow for some new starting motivation. As it is now, there's no reason you would continue to build or explore, so... why even play?
The attitude that one should become a god in survival mode needs to go away.
While your observation that people leave MC because they have "[beaten the game] and then there's not a point to survival anymore" is undoubtable true for some players, I would contend that this is due to such players misunderstanding MC; it is not a conventional video game which can be beaten, it is an electronic environment in which one can build.
"[Becoming] a god in survival mode" would seem something of an overstatement, but reaching the point at which acquiring the desired amount of a resource becomes a question of 'at what cost in effort/time?' rather than 'if?' strikes me [and there is good evidence I am not unique] as being the point of survival. [Looked at another way, there is a class of player for whom this is "starting motivation".]
Responses in bold.Responses inside a quote are annoying to quote.
It is clear you [Wolftopia] have certain opinions about what MC/survial mode/etc are and how the 'should' be played. These opinions are not universally shared.
fishg: I believe there should be a point where you "beat" the game, master everything it has to offer and at that point everything that once scared you is now a nuisance.
wolftopia: No, there shouldn't be a point like that.
This is a difference of opinion. While I wish Wolftopia well in his quest for a game that does not allow this to occur, I side with fishg in thinking that reaching that point is the point of MC.
fishg: There is a reason to build - because building provides a sense of pride and accomplishment.
wolftopia: That's not always reason enough to keep playing long-term.
Both these statements are true for some players; neither is true for all.
Taken together they explain the apparent preponderence of late game players who employ elytra/shulkers/autofarming.
That not all players will find "a sense of pride and accomplishment" from building sufficient to let them play a given world for several thousand hours is not a reason to continually write new hoops into vanilla for those whose goal is to reach that point.
I also. [although for different reasons, I expect.]
Jragon's statement @ 2:15 "I think the game should motivate the players to do stuff… the game shouldn't rely on the players having to motivate themselves to be creative; they need things to do, goals to accomplish…" neatly illustrates the divide.
While things are noy so binary, the alternative camp [to which I belong] holds that players motivating themselves to be creative and MC being the vehicle with which they can express their goals is a [large] part of the game.
For those like Wolftopia & Jragon who want an ever increasingly challenging series of hoops to jump through, MC is 'broken': many hours of careful and skillful play will allow one to reach a point at which the only meaningful challenges are self-imposed. […or provided by other players in SMP.]
For others, such as myself, whose early game play is primarily motivated by the goal of reaching this point, MC works very well.
Jragon's point about it being far easier (considering social/customer relations costs) to 'buff' a 'weak' addition than 'nerf' an 'overpowered' one is a timely restatement of a truth that has been all too frequently overlooked since I first heard it so expressed in the mid-70's. [An important lesson for map designers ]
His[?] point that "…before horses and elytra, … part of the fun of the game was making transport as efficient and interesting as possible… " noting earlier that "…you can build for fun, or you could build to solve problems…" [this is from ~0:45 — ~1:20] is also relevant.
The shift from building things [his examples include paths, bridges, and rail lines] out of 'necessity' to because one enjoys building/using/having them does not remove them from the worlds of some players. While it is likely that some who would have built these out of perceived need now will not, there is some considerable question as to the desirability of 'pushing' such builds on them. [The results would be unlikely to provide nearly the staisfaction of builds created by players for whom the building process was a fun choice.]
His ideas [from ~5:00 on] about the potential desirability of making shulkers and elytra renewable resources are (while pursuing arguments on the subject quite different from mine) also quite interesting. [They are also on-topic as he couples this shift with some degree of limitation/nerf of the current items.]
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
2/11/2017
Posts:
662
Member Details
why don't the people in this thread realize that HermitCraft is basically a group of gods at the game, and they will always find some way (whether it be an exploit or an item) to become overpowered.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Minecraft 2.0
Minecraft 1.VR-Pre1
Snapshot 15w14a
Minecraft 3D
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
You are completely misreading what has been going on for many years now. People aren't leaving because they feel they're underpowered and want to play in a semi-creative mode, they are mostly leaving because the game gets too easy and then there's not a point to survival anymore.
what are you basing this on? Where's the proof for this statement? I totally don't agree. People leaving has nothing to do with god mode, the game being too easy, and so forth, but simply because they finished the game. They have built their base, fought mobs, maybe built some factories, visited woodland mansions, killed a (or several) wither, killed the end-dragon, killed some enderman, and so forth.. and then.. there was nothing more to do they hadn't done already. THAT is why ppl quit the game. Simply because there's nothing more left to do.
...and that's exactly my point. As you said, people are leaving Minecraft because they finish it, but Minecraft should not be able to be finished. Why does it feel like you finished the game after a while, even when there are still technically more things to do? Because the game gets too easy and thus there is no challenge and no motivation to play.
Games aren't fun when they're easy. That's the point of it being a game. Now, you might point to creative mode, where there's no danger and you have infinite resources. However, when you are playing creative mode, you're not playing a game. Saying you are still playing the game when in creative mode would be like saying you are still playing Halo when in Forge mode. You're in an editor. You're creating. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Elytra just make this even worse. Sure, at first it's fun to use the elytra, but once you have it, everything is too easy, which is what makes people walk away from survival mode or even the game itself. There is no longer motivation to build railroads or Nether tunnels to connect things. There's not even motivation to build houses and walls to protect yourself from monsters.
Again, uttter nonsense. Proof of you being wrong, is all over youtube, not only Hermitcraft. Again, look at hermitcraft, they build extensive nether hubs, as the nether simply still has exactly the same usage. Same for minecarts. First of, minecarts are good for nothing really. But the uses they do have, remain after getting elytra, nothing changes this. No-one uses minecarts for actual travel a lot.
I agree with you on minecarts, but they are not the only problem. Yes, Nether tunnels are used, but consider three points:
1. This isn't always the case, but elytra are often used to go through a Nether tunnel. In fact, the other mechanic mainly used is ice boats, which are a whole other mess
2. Even if people use Nether tunnels for traveling to already found locations, they still use elytra for exploration, since you can get an aerial view and go at very fast speeds. Even then, elytra are still more practical for traveling to certain places unless the places are very far away, in which case one would make a Nether tunnel.
3. Not everyone has time to make a Nether tunnel, or time to make a Nether tunnel for everything. So what's used in this case? The elytra.
If you think the nether is only for traveling, you are using the nether wrong. Maybe you should then learn to use the nether correctly.
Please stop talking about 'god-like' gamemplay. This is utter nonsense. Elytra allows you to travel faster. Nothing more. It does not make you a god in any way shape or form.
You can certainly use the Nether for gathering resources or for discovering new areas of the world, but when you have the elytra you can do so much more efficiently; you have no control over what new mysterious area you end up in while using the Nether for exploration (it's a gamble), so it's usually more practical to just use the elytra.
And again, keep in mind that the Nether isn't practical for all forms of transportation, either. Destinations are often far away enough that you would have used the Nether had you not had the elytra, but it's just not worth digging the tunnel when you could just use the elytra.
Yes, it does make you very god-like (not a god!) With the elytra you're able to fly at will, and travel amazing distances with little expense. How is that not god-like?
The game gets boring, and adding more dungeons won't fix the problem. Adding more starting motivation will.
The game gets boring. EXACTLY. THAT is why people quit. Because they have done it all. Elytra is a starting motivation, because it enables you to venture further, gather resources more easily, and so forth.
The attitude that one should become a god in survival mode needs to go away.
You need to stop this nonsense about god mode. Elytra is no god mode, by any means. Elytra does NOT make the player any more powerfull, you can't kill hard mobs easier because of it.
I can understand this is your opinion, the way you feel. But it's nonsense. You make a lot of claims which simply are not true. You do understand the game gets boring after ppl have done it all. The only way to fix that, is to add more to the game, not removing stuff. More questlike stuff.
I really don't see why you start about elytra. Even if you look at it the way you do, there are WAY worse things. Like farming/trading with villagers. This has a WAY bigger impact, than the elytra. Or, on the java edition, AFK fishing.
You seem to think Minecraft is only about fighting mobs. It is not. If you want a game like that, you should try a first person shooter. THOSE games are about fighting mobs and killing. Minecraft is NOT.
As I said before, elytra are, in theory, a great starting motivation. However, once you have it, there's no reason to "venture further." At this point there is little treasure you don't have, and what you don't have is arguably not worth it; for instance, if you haven't fought the Woodland Mansion in that world yet, why do so if you've already done it in another world? The totem of undying is not very useful at this point anyway, seeming as you are already very powerful and hard to kill. Any death this far in the game would come from a simple mistake, which is not made impossible or much less likely by having collected the totem of undying. Are you really going to be constantly holding that totem?
You can't kill hard mobs easier because of elytra, but you can avoid them quite easily.
I never said Minecraft was about fighting mobs. However, surviving against and protecting oneself against said mobs is a big part of survival Minecraft.
And how exactly would removing any specific item change that? After you've killed your 94872th zombie, you either are bloody sick of killing the same mob over and over again and you quit because its boring.. or you're absolutely terrible and you quit because its boring.
The problem with your argument is that you're trying to tell me what it means for the game to be "finished." In my world, the game is "finished" by about day 4 when I've got full enchanted diamond armor. I hate the end just in general to the only reason for me to bother going there, fighting the dragon and then manually blocking my way out hundreds or thousands of blocks is to find an elytra and some shulker shells.
But hey, minecarts ruined the game because you could travel while AFK. Bows ruined the game because you could just shoot mobs from afar. Pistons ruined the game because you could make mob-proof doors. Enchantments ruined the game because everything became easy. Hell, some people claim simple new block textures will "ruin" the game every bloody update.
And plenty of people left before elytra came out because they were "finished." Some of them came back because they liked the elytra. Everybody has different opinions on how the game should be played and what it means to "win." If you don't like elytra then fine, don't use them. But you don't get to tell me whether or not I should use them. And if you don't like people on your server using them then either convince them (not _tell_ them) that you're right.. or go join a server that has elytra disabled. Or start you're own server and do things entirely how you thing they should be done. Nobody's _forcing_ you to play the game in a way you don't like.
I don't know if I agree with this. I've gotten bored of Minecraft a few times and quit (while staying active on the forums) and it isn't because I've run out of fantastical build ideas or self-imposed challenges. It isn't that the enemies cease to be challenging either (although that is true). Usually it is because I know that no matter what I'm just going to do the same grind again. The fact that I've been playing for about 8 years is why I get bored and find other games to play. I've simply done all I care to do in the game, at least until a major update comes out and I have more things to do for a spell.
So I don't think the Elytra ruins Minecraft or detracts from the game. I've used them and thrown Mending on them and done all that jazz and I've always considered them more of a fun distraction than anything else. I'd rather build a railway system than just fly to another location because it is permanent and it gives me something to do.
I do agree with your ideas for improving the Elytra though. Heck I made a suggestion for hang gliders and thermals before the Elytra was even a thing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
As someone who's played since 1.2.5, I never really quit due to the ease of the game, brokenness of an item, or lack of viability of another. Are these all valid concerns? Yes. Is elytra broken? In my opinion, yes. However, rather than it not existing or being nerfed incredibly, I'd rather see it toned down towards more of a glider that needs high height rather than something you can boost indefinitely, and then other problems around it fixed as well. What I mean is, other forms of transportation (namely, rail) could use some focus of attention, and elytra being a fast and long-distance end game solution to travel is perhaps a sign of another issue, and that is homogenous worlds since the 1.7 update due to the climate system. I'd rather see efforts made to make all these things more better align and balance than see elytra itself simply nerfed. In short, rail needs some attention, elytra needs toned down, and worlds need to become less repetitive, and I think there'd be more balance among the state of things.
The reasons I "quit" (at times, as I never fully did and am still here today) is mostly because after so long with ANY game, you'd rather move on to other games too. I would rather see a game add new content and change a bit to stay fresh but still say the same, rather than try and radically change to keep itself relevant, because in the case of the latter, you usually end up needing to change so much that you upset players. No, I'm not saying not changing because players will be upset is a reason not to change. I'm saying that trying to remain relevant at all costs usually harms what the game is. It's only natural that people want to experience many things in the limited time they have rather than the same thing over and again, so you can only make it so fresh for so long. That being said, Minecraft has this issue less than other games (in my opinion), because it is rather unique and was, at the time, totally fresh, and it always offers the same possibilities despite Minecraft's age, so people tend to often come back on and off.
So, no, elytra and the bigger problem it relates to is not at all why I would tend to lose interest, although I agree with you that it's broken and change with it (and other things!) would be nice. That being said, to me, Minecraft in survival is, as others have said, long past that point, and honestly, I think I prefer it that way. If it was always continuous struggle for survival, I don't think it'd have that long-term popularity or potential with many players. If the "survival" stage was maybe longer and better balanced, sure I'd be on board with that, but even as someone who rarely uses elytra (and when I do, it's not for travel but more as a fun toy here and there; my travel and adventuring is mostly done on foot the old fashioned way) and as someone who doesn't use automatic farms of any kind (again, the old fashioned way manually), survival really is creative with manual resource gathering to me now. It's a story/world builder for me, and if it was too heavy on the survival aspect, that wouldn't be as fun for me.
So I partially agree with you, yes, but not to the extent that it's one of the major things "killing the game".
Adding my two cents in: I believe that there is NOTHING wrong with the Elytra itself. My issue is in how they are deployed. By that, I mean how one launches into the air with said Elytra. For most people, launching themselves into the air from a high place with firework rockets is an easy thing to do. Even when that was not an option, shooting oneself with a Punch II bow was only a slightly harder thing to do... FOR MOST PEOPLE. As someone who is unable to do either of these things due to health issues on my part, the Elytra, while being an accomplishment at first, becomes an even more stressful challenge than the journey to get said Elytra (before someone suggests an Elytra launcher, those do not work for me either, unfortunately). As unpopular an opinion as it is, 1.10's "Auto-Jump" option was the best thing to ever happen to my Minecraft playstyle. Alas, something similar does not exist for the Elytra, as it should, in my opinion. Just because I have a total lack of depth perception DOES NOT mean that I should not be allowed/unable to use an Elytra if I want to use one. Thus far, that has been the case, to my utter annoyance.
I rarely use the Elytras, but I do not hate them.
The method of transport that I hate the most would be the Minecarts, which from when the compact ice came out, I do not use. The Elytras would go later, because sometimes I do not have control of these, and I get to hit a wall, or fall to the ground and there is no place to give twice to space, and can be slower than the Compact ice, so if I see problems.
Java may be a suboptimal language for this sort of programming, but – given the performance enhancement attainable by one guy writting code that he gives away [Optifine] – I consider failure to properly prioritize at MS/Mj far more likely to be the culprit. [The argument that MS/Mj is simply unable (ie. incompetent) to write better performing code seems disingenuous. I consider it possible that the current development staff / management combination may be so, but that would merely push the improper prioritization higherup the corporate ladder as hiring low-level managers (and programmers) capable of writing efficient code – something that would make the game more accessible thus increasing sales & profits – should be in line with the best interests of the stockholders.]
The problem is not, then, with elytra (or any other item / content) but with a corporate attitude that will add things (typically bright & sparkley things that make marketing happy) without properly supporting those additions. [A simliar argument can be build on some of the long persistant errors/bugs eg the lighting engine has long cried out for rewrite.]
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
The game is not coded in Java. There is a version of the game which is coded in Java. The good version is coded in c++, and doesn't have the performance issue you mention, and DOES have elytra.
It's bonkers to take an item out of the game, because developers chose the wrong language for something.
Besides that, even using slow java, it should be possible to just make it perform well enough.
What you're doing makes no sense. If performance is the argument, they should remove all mobs, a few biomes, a few selection of blocks, stop generating worlds at random but use a fixxed map, and so on. Then it would perform like nothing else.
Also, your issue is highly machine dependant. If you buy a better computer, or tweak the settings of the game down, you won't have this issue.
Java being slow is so 1990s:
In my own tests FC2 could easily outperform everything else, including the W10 edition (MCPE/Bedrock).
The config allows increasing the view distance limit up to 256 [that's over a quarter-million chunks loaded, 62 times what vanilla supports]. Performance will likely tank once the game runs out of VRAM.
All rendering happens with full detail and for a view distance setting of d FC2 will render (d*2+1)^2 chunks, some bugs around post-initial area and very large distances aside. The whole view distance is being simulated (ticked). MCPE doesn't do either.
And not only is that a mod based on Java, it is a Forge mod (Forge itself is so badly coded that FoamFix, an optimization mod designed for Forge, says that vanilla outperforms Forge with only FoamFix; this is why modpacks need like 4 GB of RAM just to start up, and take 5-10 minutes (I've even seen people say 15+) to load).
Also, my own version is literally an order of magnitude faster than 1.13 (for example, it generates a new world in less time than 1.13 takes to just start up), and only needs around 100 MB of memory - and a lot of that is not due to my own optimizations but Mojang's terrible coding practices since 1.8 in particular:
The old Notch code was straightforward and relatively easy to follow. The new rendering system is an over-engineered monster full of factories, builders, bakeries, baked items, managers, dispatchers, states, enums and layers. Object allocation is rampant, small objects are allocated like there is no tomorrow. No wonder that the garbage collector has to work so hard.
Doubt theyre gonna improve it any time soon, if anything theyre making Minecraft worse in 1.13. sp614x showed us how much worse their object allocations are in 1.13 compared to 1.12 :/
My first few game engine attempts had this problem. I would allocate new objects all the time, for everything. All position vectors were immutable, because separation of concerns, information hiding, encapsulation, that was all taught to me as good. It was taught that that is the correct way of making large, object oriented software systems. I was taught that I could just allocate new objects, let the old ones float away and get scooped up by the garbage collector. And for a while, everything was beautiful. Entity lists would grow with new entities and dead entities could be simply trimmed out of the list.
Well for my first attempt at an XNA game on the xbox 360, it lagged like crazy...
To give some idea of how badly coded vanilla is, I recently optimized the rendering of fences to be more than two dozen times faster than vanilla - yes, two dozen times (fences are one of the worst blocks when it comes to rendering since they are made up of up to 5 blocks with up to 30 faces, with multiple bug reports about how laggy they are, even up to crashing the game).
Likewise, I recently changed the way Superflat worlds generate so they are fully compatible with normal Overworld features - a default Superflat world is literally about 10 times faster than before (the vanilla Superflat generator generates all 16 chunk sections, even if they are air, also leading to 2-3 times the memory usage of normal worlds, which had bugged me until I used NBTExplorer to look at the save files and saw that all 16 sections were being saved. They did fix this in 1.7 but it still isn't as fast). The Nether? I just optimized it to generate close to 3 times faster (my Overworld is "only" about twice as fast as vanilla due to all the new content added, I have not actually added anything new to the Nether):
Rendering vanilla fence took 207204 nanoseconds [this is 0.85 seconds to update a chunk section filled with fences]
Rendering optimized fence took 8349 nanoseconds [this is 0.034 seconds, which may still be noticeable but far less than before]
(a bug report showing how bad vanilla fence rendering can be)
Before:
Took 2995460 nanoseconds to generate terrain
Took 3273508 nanoseconds to replace blocks
Took 789569 nanoseconds to generate caves
Took 56442 nanoseconds to generate fortresses
Took 372748 nanoseconds to initialize chunk
Took 88408 nanoseconds to populate fortresses
Took 2885139 nanoseconds to populate lava blocks 1
Took 454060 nanoseconds to populate fire
Took 493213 nanoseconds to populate glowstone
Took 32559 nanoseconds to populate mushrooms
Took 205504 nanoseconds to populate nether quartz
Took 2046580 nanoseconds to populate lava blocks 2
(total time taken is about 12 ms per chunk, equivalent to 5.3 seconds to generate 441 chunks, the number loaded around the player. I excluded 2 ms from the time taken to generate lava blocks 2 (hidden lava pockets) since much of that is due to runaway world generation due to an incorrect offset which forces unloaded chunks to generate, and includes time needed to generate them, resulting in double-counting)
After:
Took 795659 nanoseconds to generate terrain
Took 386146 nanoseconds to replace blocks
Took 233752 nanoseconds to generate caves
Took 57257 nanoseconds to generate fortresses
Took 129655 nanoseconds to initialize chunk
Took 90970 nanoseconds to populate fortresses
Took 2756861 nanoseconds to populate lava blocks 1
Took 22250 nanoseconds to populate fire
Took 61663 nanoseconds to populate glowstone
Took 33104 nanoseconds to populate mushrooms
Took 40037 nanoseconds to populate nether quartz
Took 54590 nanoseconds to populate lava blocks 2
(total time taken is about 4.66 ms per chunk, equivalent to about 2 seconds to generate 441 chunks - 2.7 times faster than before. This also shows that the code that generates water/lava springs ("lava blocks 1") badly needs optimization as it takes more than half the time; it can even crash the game as it is apparently a recursive function)
FWIW, these are the system requirements for 1.6, and my "version" would be even lower despite hundreds of new features (I'm closing in on 200 changes and additions in an upcoming update, some of which include multiple features if you count every variant of a block or mob):
Recommended Requirements:
CPU : Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 (K8) 2.6 GHz
RAM : 4GB
GPU : GeForce 6xxx or ATI Radeon 9xxx and up with OpenGL 2 Support (Excluding Integrated Chipsets)
HDD : 150MB
Of particular interest, check out when the Radeon 9000 series came out - and they actually used to recommend this (which has absolutely no hope in running current vanilla versions at a playable framerate, if at all - it is 100 times slower than the current minimum GPU).
Not sure if it has been mentioned before but this probably has to do with instant gratification and the younger audience.
Basically GTA-Online just Minecraft.
Which is why I highly doubt anything will change. Hopefully servers do their part and disable it.
First a caveat:
Wolftopia and I appear to prefer quite different styles of play. While I've played in what I believe to be his preferred style (ie. no afk fishing / no [or very limited] autofarming / etc), this is a style I find requires SMP with the "right" people to be enjoyable… (and I still find it limiting).
I read no more into this than that we are different people with different preferences.
With that said:
The problem I find with elytra/shulker box play is that [in vanilla] both are non-renewable resources [for practical purposes].
In SMP this tends to create a have/have-not division which drives a rush to the end to acquire these goods; if one is not part of the group that succeeds, second-class status looms. [This is exacerbated by the fact that the most useful 'bit of kit' for 'end busting' to get elytra is having an elytra. One posible solution that has been brought up is to mod the game to make elytra unusable in the end, thus keeping all players on at even stanfind for end exploration.]
That the Punch2/Infinity flying exploit engendered such wide and possitive support that it was replaced with rockets [which require at least a bit more infrastructure/resources] indicates to me that the playstyles to which Wolftopia objects are widely enjoyed. [Note that there has been concensus on the point that removing/nerfing elytra would now cause major community pushback.]
I agree that elytra/shulker play has a very different feel than the far more limited inventory and 'fast' exploration meaning boats along an ocean shore that characterize play without these items. I do not, however, consider this bad a priori…
With respect to the different versions: Having all versions interconnectable would be [I beleive] a "good thing®".
This leaves the question of upon which current version the fully interconnectable goal should be based:
In my opinion this should be java if only for the greater ease with which various groups can mod the game to suit their varying preferences.
While I agree that in SMP, rocket propelled elytras do have a bit of balance issues with the other methods of transportation, They do open up a whole new form of flight adventure maps, or at least makes making them much easier.
Do you know what I did right when 1.11.1 came out? I immediately got an idea that I liked for an adventure map which is heavily flight based which I am still working on in 1.13.1 to this day. Just retexture and rename firework rockets to pixie dust, and I've got a built in minecraft system for the natural use and requirement of the dust (which is required for flight in the universe that my map is based in). I didn't even mention the built in minecraft pixie dust trails left behind while speeding off to somewhere.
Here's an idea that may help balance elytras a little more in SMP:
Since fireworks rockets shoot out many sparks, which can occasionally be an ember which is hard on clothing and (elytra material), Maybe the durability on an elytra can deplete extremely fast when used with firework rockets.
This way functionality in adventure maps and creative could still be preserved by routinely lowering the damage value of the elytras nbt along with unbreaking 100, and in survival mode players might want to consider using another form of transportation so their hard to obtain elytra dosen't get melted/burnt holes in it from sparks. They can repair them, but they can only do that so many times until it becomes too expensive and unfeasible to repair anymore.
Also is it no longer possible to put mending on an elytra? I'm not sure, but I thought I remember hearing about that somewhere, unless it was just a suggestion.
There comes a point in the game, where survival stops being about survival. It's the point where you get every enchantment on your diamond gear including mending- even your hoe. You can walk outside at midnight, and mobs aren't even your concern. It's at this point where many players stop. Most quit a long time ago.
A few keep playing, and this is Hermitcraft. For all intents and purposes, the game is no longer about survival. It's creative mode with resource gathering. I'm using HermitCraft because they are the most well-known example of this "late-late-game". So, what do the people of HermitCraft do in their videos? They're building, all the time. Very rarely do you find an episode of them taking down dungeons, and when that happens it's end cities. They beat survival.
You have the assumption people post-mending elytra want to keep playing survival, but I don't think that's the case. They just want to build, unlike creative they are gathering the resources (so it's more "authentic"). More dangers should be added to the End for these players, but I don't think an elytra nerf is the solution. It's much easier to build if you can fly.
I do agree with everyone that minecarts need a redux.
You do realize Mojang could just fix the bugs in Java, or add new bugs to Bedrock, right? It's not coding limitations that are the problem.
You are completely misreading what has been going on for many years now. People aren't leaving because they feel they're underpowered and want to play in a semi-creative mode, they are mostly leaving because the game gets too easy and then there's not a point to survival anymore.
Elytra just make this even worse. Sure, at first it's fun to use the elytra, but once you have it, everything is too easy, which is what makes people walk away from survival mode or even the game itself. There is no longer motivation to build railroads or Nether tunnels to connect things. There's not even motivation to build houses and walls to protect yourself from monsters.
In theory, this should be the opposite. Giving players even more control and power should allow them to build big castles with their new abilities. However, this is not the case in practice, as one would know after giving the situation further thought; people build basic houses as protection from mobs. They do this, of course, because mobs are dangerous and you need shelter. This is what I call the "starting motivation." This starting motivation then gives the player even more motivation:
Do you see? The people who want this god-like gameplay shouldn't be playing survival mode. That's not what survival mode is. This trend of overpowered late-game features has been detrimental to player interest. There is no point in doing anything when there is no longer starting motivation. Instead of adding overpowered enchantments and overpowered elytra mechanics, game updates should add more starting motivation.
The game gets boring, and adding more dungeons won't fix the problem. Adding more starting motivation will.
After you "beat the game" (kill the Ender Dragon), there should still be more (building) progression. Going to the end should allow for some new starting motivation. As it is now, there's no reason you would continue to build or explore, so... why even play?
The attitude that one should become a god in survival mode needs to go away.
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
This pinpoints the division.
You believe survival mode should be about surviving in a dangerous world, slowly growing in power and meeting new dangers along the way. I believe the same up to an extent. The problem is once you get enchanted diamond armor and start fighting in the End, the Overworld becomes easy. The only way I think we could fix this would be for new mobs to spawn in the overworld after the Ender Dragon.
This might sound like I'm getting off-track, but this is the underlying disagreement here. I believe there should be a point where you "beat" the game, master everything it has to offer and at that point everything that once scared you is now a nuisance. This might not be living up to the name "survival mode" but Mojang can't add content forever.
Even if elytra boasting was removed and enchantments nerfed, there would still be an endgame. You eventually run out of things to do, and you can't be expected to do the same things over and over again. The End Poem tells the player that while the "story" of the game is done, you can now do whatever you want. That sounds to be like what Hermitcraft is doing. There is a reason to build- because building provides a sense of pride and accomplishment.
I understand what you mean about starting motivations. But what motivation could exist post-dragon?
If the progression system were ever expanded, then the elytra should be moved to maintain it's "final" status. In a perfect world it would take about thrice as long to get an elytra, so the nether railways are a worthwhile alternative.
Responses in bold.
I recommend watching this video:
I agree with you. However, the elytra create their own problem: they separate you from the game world since you become a god.
But yes, the whole "end game" is broken as you said.
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
And this is why I, and many others, wouldn't even dream of touching Bedrock - what fun is it to barely see any mobs? You may as well play on Peaceful.
In fact, this is one reason why I never updated past 1.6.4; in 1.7 Mojang decided to make the internal server chunk load distance depend on render distance, causing mob spawning to break unless it was high enough, which, when combined with performance decreases (did you know that the recommended requirements for 1.6 call for 15 year old hardware? Mojang is simply destroying the Java edition with their terrible coding, not that I even care as I've gone off to make my own version which is literally an order of magnitude faster than 1.13) meant that I barely saw anything, and a major part of my playstyle (well, pretty much the only part) is caving for the fun of it, including killing mobs - I've even buffed them, including their numbers (they spawn/despawn within 96 blocks instead of 128, which is about double the density for the same mob cap), since more mobs means more fun - with as many as 800 killed over an hour or two:
Virtually all of the mobs here were killed while caving, and aside from passive mobs and a handful of Endermen and Blazes, not for their drops (I also used bones dropped by skeletons for bonemeal, but I did not intentionally kill them, same for the helmets I picked up and put on):
I also buffed (or did not nerf them) them in some interesting ways; while armor offers less protection (3.3% per armor point instead of 4%) for players it still offers the original 4% for mobs and diamond armor only offers 18 armor points for the same protection as vanilla iron, rescaled to 20 for mobs while amethyst (which is much rarer and much more expensive to repair) has 20 on players and 22 on mobs (that's 88% damage reduction on mobs vs 66% on players, meaning that a mob can survive 2.78 times more damage than a player in the same armor); likewise, weapons deal one more damage to offset a reduction by one in their base damage (for players amethyst is the same as diamond used to be, +7 attack damage, and one greater in the case of mobs). Efficiency on tools acts the same as Sharpness on weapons but only when used by mobs, and mobs with axes (the only weapon that penetrates armor) penetrate twice as much armor (one armor point per 2 damage vs 4 for player-held axes and a maximum penetration of 80% vs 60%) - a zombie on Hard with an amethyst axe with Sharpness V and Efficiency V deals 35.25 damage, one-shotting a player in any kind of armor unless it is enchanted with at least 2x Protection IV, and even with full Protection IV it only takes 2 hits for them to kill you (luckily they will not naturally spawn as Sharpness can only be placed on an axe with books, though on Hard mobs can spawn with level 30 enchanted gear and amethyst is close to gold in enchantability).
Note: I do not like more mobs because they make resources easier to get; in fact, I think that farms are all but cheating; so you made a mansion with iron blocks? Did you mine the iron or did you use an iron farm? If the latter, then why not just play in Creative? I've even nerfed farms, such as by making mob spawners (which IMO are only there for a challenge) stop spawning mobs which drop items if too many spawn too quickly, even as I massively buffed their spawn rates (up to one mob per second) so they actually pose a challenge and mob types (including almost all Overworld mobs); likewise, I've recently made naturally spawned mobs stop dropping items as well if they die too quickly (a "normal" player will never kill them fast enough). You also need to light up everything, including twice as many caves as there are in 1.7+, including single caves so massive that in excess of 5,000 torches are needed to fully light them up, for a darkroom spawner to work because mobs only despawn based on horizontal, not vertical, distance.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
…There comes a point in the game, where survival stops being about survival. It's the point where you get every enchantment on your diamond gear including mending- even your hoe. You can walk outside at midnight, and mobs aren't even your concern. …
A few keep playing, and this is Hermitcraft. For all intents and purposes, the game is no longer about survival. It's creative mode with resource gathering. I'm using HermitCraft because they are the most well-known example of this "late-late-game". So, what do the people of HermitCraft do in their videos? They're building, all the time.
You have the assumption people post-mending elytra want to keep playing survival, but I don't think that's the case. They just want to build, unlike creative they are gathering the resources….
This is very well said.
There are, however, points made in your post with which I disagree:
"…at this point where many players stop. Most quit a long time ago." I find this unfortunate, but it is impossible to please everyone.
"…gathering the resources (so it's more "authentic")" I think you misunderstand the motivation to do late-game/end-game builds in survival rather than creative. [I refer to this phase (of which Hermitcraft is a fine example) as "survival creative".]
Using creative mode all resources have the same cost — zero. [Technically enchanted items and a few bits like spawners may require a bit of typing, but this is near enough to universally true.] Flamability and blast resistance (or the need to use silk touch tools) are also not considerations.
Creative mode is thus very much an infinite set of electronic Lego®-equivalents where the only reason to choose one block over another is aesthetics.
There is clearly a fairly large group of players who find this situaltion ideal… and they produce some literally awesome builds,
there are also those who favor circumstances where blocks have different costs.
"More dangers should be added to the End for these players…" I don't see this as being desirable; the point of the game for players of my ilk is to work one's way up to the point where one can focus on interesting (if not always purely functional) builds. Adding more hoops/obstacles would not be appreciated… [i]unless [/i]those are tied to gaining new resource options. [Ocena munuments and the prismarine variants being a fine example.]
quote=Wolftopia
u are completely misreading what has been going on for many years now. People aren't leaving because they feel they're underpowered and want to play in a semi-creative mode, they are mostly leaving because the game gets too easy and then there's not a point to survival anymore.
⋮
In theory, this should be the opposite. Giving players even more control and power should allow them to build big castles with their new abilities. However, this is not the case in practice, as one would know after giving the situation further thought; people build basic houses as protection from mobs. They do this, of course, because mobs are dangerous and you need shelter. This is what I call the "starting motivation." This starting motivation then gives the player even more motivation:
⋮
Do you see? The people who want this god-like gameplay shouldn't be playing survival mode. That's not what survival mode is. This trend of overpowered late-game features has been detrimental to player interest. There is no point in doing anything when there is no longer starting motivation. Instead of adding overpowered enchantments and overpowered elytra mechanics, game updates should add more starting motivation.
The game gets boring, and adding more dungeons won't fix the problem. Adding more starting motivation will.
After you "beat the game" (kill the Ender Dragon), there should still be more (building) progression. Going to the end should allow for some new starting motivation. As it is now, there's no reason you would continue to build or explore, so... why even play?
The attitude that one should become a god in survival mode needs to go away.
While your observation that people leave MC because they have "[beaten the game] and then there's not a point to survival anymore" is undoubtable true for some players, I would contend that this is due to such players misunderstanding MC; it is not a conventional video game which can be beaten, it is an electronic environment in which one can build.
"[Becoming] a god in survival mode" would seem something of an overstatement, but reaching the point at which acquiring the desired amount of a resource becomes a question of 'at what cost in effort/time?' rather than 'if?' strikes me [and there is good evidence I am not unique] as being the point of survival. [Looked at another way, there is a class of player for whom this is "starting motivation".]
It is clear you [Wolftopia] have certain opinions about what MC/survial mode/etc are and how the 'should' be played. These opinions are not universally shared.
fishg: I believe there should be a point where you "beat" the game, master everything it has to offer and at that point everything that once scared you is now a nuisance.
wolftopia: No, there shouldn't be a point like that.
This is a difference of opinion. While I wish Wolftopia well in his quest for a game that does not allow this to occur, I side with fishg in thinking that reaching that point is the point of MC.
fishg: There is a reason to build - because building provides a sense of pride and accomplishment.
wolftopia: That's not always reason enough to keep playing long-term.
Both these statements are true for some players; neither is true for all.
Taken together they explain the apparent preponderence of late game players who employ elytra/shulkers/autofarming.
That not all players will find "a sense of pride and accomplishment" from building sufficient to let them play a given world for several thousand hours is not a reason to continually write new hoops into vanilla for those whose goal is to reach that point.
wolftopia: I recommend watching this video: The Problem With the Minecraft Elytra Jragon: Sep 14, 2017
I also. [although for different reasons, I expect.]
Jragon's statement @ 2:15 "I think the game should motivate the players to do stuff… the game shouldn't rely on the players having to motivate themselves to be creative; they need things to do, goals to accomplish…" neatly illustrates the divide.
While things are noy so binary, the alternative camp [to which I belong] holds that players motivating themselves to be creative and MC being the vehicle with which they can express their goals is a [large] part of the game.
For those like Wolftopia & Jragon who want an ever increasingly challenging series of hoops to jump through, MC is 'broken': many hours of careful and skillful play will allow one to reach a point at which the only meaningful challenges are self-imposed. […or provided by other players in SMP.]
For others, such as myself, whose early game play is primarily motivated by the goal of reaching this point, MC works very well.
Jragon's point about it being far easier (considering social/customer relations costs) to 'buff' a 'weak' addition than 'nerf' an 'overpowered' one is a timely restatement of a truth that has been all too frequently overlooked since I first heard it so expressed in the mid-70's. [An important lesson for map designers ]
His[?] point that "…before horses and elytra, … part of the fun of the game was making transport as efficient and interesting as possible… " noting earlier that "…you can build for fun, or you could build to solve problems…" [this is from ~0:45 — ~1:20] is also relevant.
The shift from building things [his examples include paths, bridges, and rail lines] out of 'necessity' to because one enjoys building/using/having them does not remove them from the worlds of some players. While it is likely that some who would have built these out of perceived need now will not, there is some considerable question as to the desirability of 'pushing' such builds on them. [The results would be unlikely to provide nearly the staisfaction of builds created by players for whom the building process was a fun choice.]
His ideas [from ~5:00 on] about the potential desirability of making shulkers and elytra renewable resources are (while pursuing arguments on the subject quite different from mine) also quite interesting. [They are also on-topic as he couples this shift with some degree of limitation/nerf of the current items.]
why don't the people in this thread realize that HermitCraft is basically a group of gods at the game, and they will always find some way (whether it be an exploit or an item) to become overpowered.
Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQdu9LKAdIU
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
15w14a is on this link:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/15w14a
1.RV-Pre1 is here:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/1.RV-Pre1
Minecraft 3D is here:
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Java_Edition_3D_Shareware_v1.34
...and that's exactly my point. As you said, people are leaving Minecraft because they finish it, but Minecraft should not be able to be finished. Why does it feel like you finished the game after a while, even when there are still technically more things to do? Because the game gets too easy and thus there is no challenge and no motivation to play.
Games aren't fun when they're easy. That's the point of it being a game. Now, you might point to creative mode, where there's no danger and you have infinite resources. However, when you are playing creative mode, you're not playing a game. Saying you are still playing the game when in creative mode would be like saying you are still playing Halo when in Forge mode. You're in an editor. You're creating. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I agree with you on minecarts, but they are not the only problem. Yes, Nether tunnels are used, but consider three points:
1. This isn't always the case, but elytra are often used to go through a Nether tunnel. In fact, the other mechanic mainly used is ice boats, which are a whole other mess
2. Even if people use Nether tunnels for traveling to already found locations, they still use elytra for exploration, since you can get an aerial view and go at very fast speeds. Even then, elytra are still more practical for traveling to certain places unless the places are very far away, in which case one would make a Nether tunnel.
3. Not everyone has time to make a Nether tunnel, or time to make a Nether tunnel for everything. So what's used in this case? The elytra.
You can certainly use the Nether for gathering resources or for discovering new areas of the world, but when you have the elytra you can do so much more efficiently; you have no control over what new mysterious area you end up in while using the Nether for exploration (it's a gamble), so it's usually more practical to just use the elytra.
And again, keep in mind that the Nether isn't practical for all forms of transportation, either. Destinations are often far away enough that you would have used the Nether had you not had the elytra, but it's just not worth digging the tunnel when you could just use the elytra.
Yes, it does make you very god-like (not a god!) With the elytra you're able to fly at will, and travel amazing distances with little expense. How is that not god-like?
As I said before, elytra are, in theory, a great starting motivation. However, once you have it, there's no reason to "venture further." At this point there is little treasure you don't have, and what you don't have is arguably not worth it; for instance, if you haven't fought the Woodland Mansion in that world yet, why do so if you've already done it in another world? The totem of undying is not very useful at this point anyway, seeming as you are already very powerful and hard to kill. Any death this far in the game would come from a simple mistake, which is not made impossible or much less likely by having collected the totem of undying. Are you really going to be constantly holding that totem?
You can't kill hard mobs easier because of elytra, but you can avoid them quite easily.
I never said Minecraft was about fighting mobs. However, surviving against and protecting oneself against said mobs is a big part of survival Minecraft.
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
And how exactly would removing any specific item change that? After you've killed your 94872th zombie, you either are bloody sick of killing the same mob over and over again and you quit because its boring.. or you're absolutely terrible and you quit because its boring.
The problem with your argument is that you're trying to tell me what it means for the game to be "finished." In my world, the game is "finished" by about day 4 when I've got full enchanted diamond armor. I hate the end just in general to the only reason for me to bother going there, fighting the dragon and then manually blocking my way out hundreds or thousands of blocks is to find an elytra and some shulker shells.
But hey, minecarts ruined the game because you could travel while AFK. Bows ruined the game because you could just shoot mobs from afar. Pistons ruined the game because you could make mob-proof doors. Enchantments ruined the game because everything became easy. Hell, some people claim simple new block textures will "ruin" the game every bloody update.
And plenty of people left before elytra came out because they were "finished." Some of them came back because they liked the elytra. Everybody has different opinions on how the game should be played and what it means to "win." If you don't like elytra then fine, don't use them. But you don't get to tell me whether or not I should use them. And if you don't like people on your server using them then either convince them (not _tell_ them) that you're right.. or go join a server that has elytra disabled. Or start you're own server and do things entirely how you thing they should be done. Nobody's _forcing_ you to play the game in a way you don't like.
I don't know if I agree with this. I've gotten bored of Minecraft a few times and quit (while staying active on the forums) and it isn't because I've run out of fantastical build ideas or self-imposed challenges. It isn't that the enemies cease to be challenging either (although that is true). Usually it is because I know that no matter what I'm just going to do the same grind again. The fact that I've been playing for about 8 years is why I get bored and find other games to play. I've simply done all I care to do in the game, at least until a major update comes out and I have more things to do for a spell.
So I don't think the Elytra ruins Minecraft or detracts from the game. I've used them and thrown Mending on them and done all that jazz and I've always considered them more of a fun distraction than anything else. I'd rather build a railway system than just fly to another location because it is permanent and it gives me something to do.
I do agree with your ideas for improving the Elytra though. Heck I made a suggestion for hang gliders and thermals before the Elytra was even a thing.
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
As someone who's played since 1.2.5, I never really quit due to the ease of the game, brokenness of an item, or lack of viability of another. Are these all valid concerns? Yes. Is elytra broken? In my opinion, yes. However, rather than it not existing or being nerfed incredibly, I'd rather see it toned down towards more of a glider that needs high height rather than something you can boost indefinitely, and then other problems around it fixed as well. What I mean is, other forms of transportation (namely, rail) could use some focus of attention, and elytra being a fast and long-distance end game solution to travel is perhaps a sign of another issue, and that is homogenous worlds since the 1.7 update due to the climate system. I'd rather see efforts made to make all these things more better align and balance than see elytra itself simply nerfed. In short, rail needs some attention, elytra needs toned down, and worlds need to become less repetitive, and I think there'd be more balance among the state of things.
The reasons I "quit" (at times, as I never fully did and am still here today) is mostly because after so long with ANY game, you'd rather move on to other games too. I would rather see a game add new content and change a bit to stay fresh but still say the same, rather than try and radically change to keep itself relevant, because in the case of the latter, you usually end up needing to change so much that you upset players. No, I'm not saying not changing because players will be upset is a reason not to change. I'm saying that trying to remain relevant at all costs usually harms what the game is. It's only natural that people want to experience many things in the limited time they have rather than the same thing over and again, so you can only make it so fresh for so long. That being said, Minecraft has this issue less than other games (in my opinion), because it is rather unique and was, at the time, totally fresh, and it always offers the same possibilities despite Minecraft's age, so people tend to often come back on and off.
So, no, elytra and the bigger problem it relates to is not at all why I would tend to lose interest, although I agree with you that it's broken and change with it (and other things!) would be nice. That being said, to me, Minecraft in survival is, as others have said, long past that point, and honestly, I think I prefer it that way. If it was always continuous struggle for survival, I don't think it'd have that long-term popularity or potential with many players. If the "survival" stage was maybe longer and better balanced, sure I'd be on board with that, but even as someone who rarely uses elytra (and when I do, it's not for travel but more as a fun toy here and there; my travel and adventuring is mostly done on foot the old fashioned way) and as someone who doesn't use automatic farms of any kind (again, the old fashioned way manually), survival really is creative with manual resource gathering to me now. It's a story/world builder for me, and if it was too heavy on the survival aspect, that wouldn't be as fun for me.
So I partially agree with you, yes, but not to the extent that it's one of the major things "killing the game".
Yep! Many endearing old features of MC are completely undermined by elytra and shulker boxes.
But it's still fun!
Adding my two cents in: I believe that there is NOTHING wrong with the Elytra itself. My issue is in how they are deployed. By that, I mean how one launches into the air with said Elytra. For most people, launching themselves into the air from a high place with firework rockets is an easy thing to do. Even when that was not an option, shooting oneself with a Punch II bow was only a slightly harder thing to do... FOR MOST PEOPLE. As someone who is unable to do either of these things due to health issues on my part, the Elytra, while being an accomplishment at first, becomes an even more stressful challenge than the journey to get said Elytra (before someone suggests an Elytra launcher, those do not work for me either, unfortunately). As unpopular an opinion as it is, 1.10's "Auto-Jump" option was the best thing to ever happen to my Minecraft playstyle. Alas, something similar does not exist for the Elytra, as it should, in my opinion. Just because I have a total lack of depth perception DOES NOT mean that I should not be allowed/unable to use an Elytra if I want to use one. Thus far, that has been the case, to my utter annoyance.
I rarely use the Elytras, but I do not hate them.
The method of transport that I hate the most would be the Minecarts, which from when the compact ice came out, I do not use. The Elytras would go later, because sometimes I do not have control of these, and I get to hit a wall, or fall to the ground and there is no place to give twice to space, and can be slower than the Compact ice, so if I see problems.
Java may be a suboptimal language for this sort of programming, but – given the performance enhancement attainable by one guy writting code that he gives away [Optifine] – I consider failure to properly prioritize at MS/Mj far more likely to be the culprit. [The argument that MS/Mj is simply unable (ie. incompetent) to write better performing code seems disingenuous. I consider it possible that the current development staff / management combination may be so, but that would merely push the improper prioritization higherup the corporate ladder as hiring low-level managers (and programmers) capable of writing efficient code – something that would make the game more accessible thus increasing sales & profits – should be in line with the best interests of the stockholders.]
The problem is not, then, with elytra (or any other item / content) but with a corporate attitude that will add things (typically bright & sparkley things that make marketing happy) without properly supporting those additions. [A simliar argument can be build on some of the long persistant errors/bugs eg the lighting engine has long cried out for rewrite.]
Why is this still a thing? Nothing needs changed. Fixing an opinion, should not be Mojang's issue. There are ways to fix it as there is.
Java being slow is so 1990s:
And not only is that a mod based on Java, it is a Forge mod (Forge itself is so badly coded that FoamFix, an optimization mod designed for Forge, says that vanilla outperforms Forge with only FoamFix; this is why modpacks need like 4 GB of RAM just to start up, and take 5-10 minutes (I've even seen people say 15+) to load).
Also, my own version is literally an order of magnitude faster than 1.13 (for example, it generates a new world in less time than 1.13 takes to just start up), and only needs around 100 MB of memory - and a lot of that is not due to my own optimizations but Mojang's terrible coding practices since 1.8 in particular:
To give some idea of how badly coded vanilla is, I recently optimized the rendering of fences to be more than two dozen times faster than vanilla - yes, two dozen times (fences are one of the worst blocks when it comes to rendering since they are made up of up to 5 blocks with up to 30 faces, with multiple bug reports about how laggy they are, even up to crashing the game).
Likewise, I recently changed the way Superflat worlds generate so they are fully compatible with normal Overworld features - a default Superflat world is literally about 10 times faster than before (the vanilla Superflat generator generates all 16 chunk sections, even if they are air, also leading to 2-3 times the memory usage of normal worlds, which had bugged me until I used NBTExplorer to look at the save files and saw that all 16 sections were being saved. They did fix this in 1.7 but it still isn't as fast). The Nether? I just optimized it to generate close to 3 times faster (my Overworld is "only" about twice as fast as vanilla due to all the new content added, I have not actually added anything new to the Nether):
FWIW, these are the system requirements for 1.6, and my "version" would be even lower despite hundreds of new features (I'm closing in on 200 changes and additions in an upcoming update, some of which include multiple features if you count every variant of a block or mob):
Of particular interest, check out when the Radeon 9000 series came out - and they actually used to recommend this (which has absolutely no hope in running current vanilla versions at a playable framerate, if at all - it is 100 times slower than the current minimum GPU).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Not sure if it has been mentioned before but this probably has to do with instant gratification and the younger audience.
Basically GTA-Online just Minecraft.
Which is why I highly doubt anything will change. Hopefully servers do their part and disable it.