You can't just dismiss the point by declaring any comments in that vein invalid. I declare your claim to be invalid.
Uh, sorry, debates don't work that way. Make a counterpoint first. At least I did.
There shouldn't be back-and-forth behavior. You shouldn't use torches on areas you want to keep lit, and you don't need to light up every nook and cranny of the caves. Being able to persist lighting everyplace is part of what this change is supposed to prevent. Saying that it requires a lot of work and resources to do it doesn't make it a bad change, it means it does what it is meant to.
So far I haven't encountered a single area I didn't need to keep lit on the long term, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at there. Unless people are really stupid enough to build tunnels and completely forget about them.
It should be prohibitive enough so you can't spam it like you do torches.
Well apparently it isn't that prohibitive, if the "OMFG IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO MAKE" guys speak for anything. Consistency is always nice.
Additionally, minecraft is full of stuf you have to replace. How many times have you replaces your pickaxe? Your sword? Your armour?
How many of those items are placeable?
That's what I thought.
But you don't seem to be changing how you play the game. You are simply adding in a step of replacing burnt-out torches.
So wait a minute. First you're debating that I'm mad because it's game changing, and now you've immediately gone back on your word and claimed that it isn't. Are you trying to destroy your own argument here, or are you just having a bad day?
and embrace the gameplay change.
And now we've come full circle. This is extremely amusing.
All of your problems are coming from fighting it and trying to play the same way as you used to.
Normally I wouldn't care if it's game changing (or whatever you want to call it, because you apparently can't even make up your mind on what it is), but when it adds nothing new to the table, downgrades existing items, forces backtracking and generally only really serves to be a pain in the ass, I'm not sure what exactly you expect me to say.
You seem to be intentionally mis-interpretting everything I say in the worst way. You are taking things that people said, unrelated to anything I have said, and used it to show that my logic is inconsistent. You have taken statements I have said to point out the flaw in your statement, and declared your own statement to be correct becuase you said it first, told me to make a counter-argument that I already made, and then declared my parallel statement to yours to be invalid, which was the entire point of the statement. I take a general statement that you made, and point out it is overly generic, and only then do you narrow your focus, implying that my statement was wrong, I say that you aren't changing how you approach the game, so you say I am saying the gameplay isn't changed, then yell at me for reversing a statement you misinterpreted, and then finished off by claiming downsides to the idea, some of which I had already disproven, and ignored the benefits to the gameplay.
You have taken statements I have said to point out the flaw in your statement, and declared your own statement to be correct becuase you said it first
Uh, no I didn't. Not sure where you got that impression from.
told me to make a counter-argument that I already made
No you didn't. Do tell, where is this counter-argument and how exactly does it apply to the bit I requoted, because as far as I can see you left some questions unanswered. Namely, the fact that SMP has many, many more players and will be having land limitations, at least last I heard.
I take a general statement that you made, and point out it is overly generic, and only then do you narrow your focus, implying that my statement was wrong,
So? Prove it isn't. Are you going to make an actual response to my points soon, or are you just gonna keep crying like this because I bothered?
I say that you aren't changing how you approach the game, so you say I am saying the gameplay isn't changed, then yell at me for reversing a statement you misinterpreted, and then finished off by claiming downsides to the idea
Can we stop twisting words now? Both of us? Surely you must realize this is getting nowhere.
some of which I had already disproven,
Then requote as such instead of wasting my time like this, and perhaps I can adjust my argument accordingly. Really, I'll wait, but don't hold me in suspense like this.
and ignored the benefits to the gameplay.
What benefits? We're downgrading an existing item and making a duplicate to take its place. If we were so concerned about torch spammability then you could just fix the whole problem by making 1 torch per crafting instead of the usual 4. Or add more coal and/or sticks to the recipe.
It prevents you from lighting up everything in the world. This is a good change. Mining isn't all daisies and roses, here will be an element of danger to it. Safe mining techniques will consist of more than sprinkling torches indiscriminately. It is currently trivial to mine in complete safety. It is similarly easy to spread torches across the entire countryside to keep mobs from spawning near your base. Making torches more expensive doesn't fix this, it just makes lighting things as you go expensive and unwieldy. We need a cheap light source, but that same light source shouldn't be infinite.
Also, if you do have a finite map, then you will have nothing to mine for by the time you run out of coal. Anyplace that still needs lighting at that point should easily be lit by lanterns. So you either have an infinite world, so resource consumption is not an issue, or a finite world, in which case you run out of things to mine anyways. If you have multiple people, then you get more potential effective use out of each torch since more than one person can be benefiting form them at a time, so you can harvest the lit areas faster, so you have less consumption needed to mine resources.
When you mine, how often do you finish a tunnel and never need to go down it again? All the torches in that area do not need to be replaced. At most, you should have one path going through your mine you may have to keep lit, and the various side-passages can remain dark. Re-lighting this takes marginally more effort than walking down it normally. This re-lighting can be avoided or at least minimized, if you reconnect the mine to the surface occasionally, so you can travel above-ground to get to the mine instead of dealing with a dark passage. These are simple gameplay shifts to make to compensate for the change. It doesn't throw the entire game into chaos, it just adds more advanced strategy to how you mine. This actually parallels the best way o lay out a mine-track. A single path going down, with side passages that are periodically closed down, and the invested resources gathered and applied towards advancing the main line. If this mining strategy is followed, you can likely follow a mine track deep into your mine, so lighting is less necessary along that path.
Here, reading some posts on this thread annoy me to register.
Torches = finite b/c it is too easy right now to secure an area, even hard mode is a joke.
Lantern = infinite b/c Maintenance is never fun, is what people get paid to do in real life. You have fun washing your dishes, throwing out your trash, and changing light bulb and paying the electric bill? Annoying enough in real life, I don't need to feel the frustration of maintenance in my game.
Minecraft is about building up and not worrying about high upkeep. This is why i am playing minecraft and not doing real life construction. We have enough oil crisis in our world, don't want to see that in my minecraft world,
So Lantern must be INFINITE, and no more than 3to 4X harder to produce than torch.
It prevents you from lighting up everything in the world. This is a good change. Mining isn't all daisies and roses, here will be an element of danger to it. Safe mining techniques will consist of more than sprinkling torches indiscriminately.
You need not make an entirely new item and downgrade an existing one to do that. Part of the problem is that you get so many torches from a very small amount of resources - 1 coal and 1 stick for 4 torches is a bit ****ing ridiculous. If you cranked that back down to 1 torch per crafting, you'd cut down on the spammability without making it any less useful as an early-game alternative to lighting, not to mention you don't use extra item slots over it.
It is currently trivial to mine in complete safety.
Not necessarily. Even if you place torches appropriately, it doesn't stop monsters spawning ahead of you, and it's not too uncommon to get murdered by cave skeletons and creepers the very second you enter it (unless, you know, you're able to plant torches through walls or something).
Also, frankly, lumping your skill level with everyone else's doesn't exactly help your argument (you did this in an earlier post, before you ask). You may be able to mine in complete safety, but a lot of people out there never really catch a hold of the technique and really don't need the extra hassle of maintaining torches to **** with them. Honestly, I'd say restricting it to Hard difficulty would be enough. Or hell, if it's cave or mining difficulty you're after, why does it even have to be related to torches?
Making torches more expensive doesn't fix this, it just makes lighting things as you go expensive and unwieldy. We need a cheap light source, but that same light source shouldn't be infinite.
Rework the Flint & Steel into something, then. Even if it's as simple as placing a plank block and setting it on fire (though preferably something better than that).
(I wanted to comment on the finite worlds bit, but I had a bit of a derp and couldn't manage anything better than "it's an issue with finite worlds in general". I'll get back to you on that.)
If you have multiple people, then you get more potential effective use out of each torch since more than one person can be benefiting form them at a time, so you can harvest the lit areas faster, so you have less consumption needed to mine resources.
Potential being the key word, right? This isn't really taking into account people who, for example, hoard resources for themselves (and might not even use them, depending on their activity), or even guys that grief by deliberately destroying said resources. This argument kinda assumes humanity is perfect, and... well, you can see where this point is going. The fact remains that more players = faster resource consumption, but not necessarily that it'll go to good or collaborative use.
When you mine, how often do you finish a tunnel and never need to go down it again?
Frankly? Never. I usually dig stairs all the way down to the bedrock, dig tunnels for redstone and other rarer goodies, then just keep expanding to get the ores surrounding it. I'm aware some people have different tunnelling strategies, but there's literally always the chance that there's ore behind every rock you see, so I don't really see why you'd need to outright abandon a previously explored tunnel or cave. Hell, come to think of it, I've never made a tunnel that has hit a concrete finish.
Re-lighting this takes marginally more effort than walking down it normally. This re-lighting can be avoided or at least minimized, if you reconnect the mine to the surface occasionally, so you can travel above-ground to get to the mine instead of dealing with a dark passage. These are simple gameplay shifts to make to compensate for the change. It doesn't throw the entire game into chaos, it just adds more advanced strategy to how you mine.
I actually don't remember claiming it did, come to think of it. But whatever. My personal problem is that it's just a massive hassle to have to hunt down and replace torches all the time, and all this trouble to make alternate routes and reconnecting to main routes and such can be just as easily accomplished simply by limiting the sheer quantity of torches on your person. 4 torches per two items is still ridiculous (not to mention it makes no mathematical sense, but that's less important), and coal is more than common enough (even if non-renewable) to still serve the same purposes of most ordinary mines and tunnels.
every resource in MC is limited and the torches running out will turn into a big problem for everyone.
infinte world = infinite resources.
Besides that, do you have any idea how much coal there is on even a small map. Hundreds of thousands of blocks worth. I think I recently broke 1 million blocks when my map reached 15mb in size. That's 1 million blocks of unharvested coal. There is so much coal, I turn up coal deposits because I have too much already.
I believe that lanterns will be replacing torches as a permanent light source. Also, when beta comes along, all torches already placed will turn into lanterns.
Lanterns are just harder to make.
QFT
Re-quoted for truth. :tongue.gif:
Anyway, I like the idea of temporary torches. It means that you can't just light up the whole world with permanent light sources easily. Coal and sticks are the easiest materials for crafting to find in the whole game.
I really like the idea of lanterns, but I think instead of making torches temporary, I really think they should just reduce the lighting they offer by a certain amount.
Aesthetically, I think I would prefer the look of torches over the look of lanterns. I think in a game that really doesn't offer much in the way of excessive design options, adding options while keeping the number of logical choices the same doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
I think this game should encourage different choices over having single choices... Placing a torch just isn't a viable option for base lighting anymore once they're made a finite duration.
The coal/other ore ratio in a given area is roughly constant. If there is enough coal in a given area to mine the other resources there(and there easily is), you will always have new coal in areas with resources worth mining. By the time you run out of coal in the immediate area, you are going to be out of iron ore, diamond ore, etc. to be harvested from it, so you have to move on to fresh ground anyways. Due to the inherent values of how the game works, you will not run out of coal for mining.
When you have to mine a days walk away to get coal, you would have to mine there to get iron as well. If you want stone, you can always have a open-air quarry that doesn't need torches.
Permanent light sources must exist. Some people seem to forget that Minecraft is a game, and games are supposed to be fun. Renewing your light sources repeatedly is not a fun way to spend your time.
However, that's not to say that torches must remain permanent. It is imperative that there be an affordable permanent method for lighting a home so that players don't have to continually seek out more coal and wood to relight their homes. There are plenty of other elements of the game that players would rather spend their time on.
I propose a 3-tiered system. After detailing the plan, I will explore its benefits and pitfalls in depth and explain its possible effects on game play.
Tier 1: Campfires
Camp fires can be produced like so:
This allows them to be produced without a workbench.
- Campfires produce significantly more light than a torch (50% more or so).
- Campfires burn out in a single in-game day. The light decreases at a steady rate starting halfway through its life until the light disappears and the campfire with it.
- Food can be cooked on campfires.
- Campfires can't be stacked.
- Enemies within a campfire's light radius burn as if in daylight.
Tier 2: Torches
Torches become partially permanent.
- Torches fade out slowly over the course of 5 in-game days. At the end of those 5 days, the torch continues to provide slightly more light than a redstone torch.
- Right-clicking on a torch with coal will use a piece of coal to relight the torch to full brightness.
-Retrieving a torch from the wall will use up all of its brightness. Re-placing it would produce a minimum-brightness torch.
Tier 3: Lanterns
Lanterns can be produced with medium resource investment. An example recipe:
[] []
[] []
[] []
Coal could be replaced with oil if Notch wills it. This example recipe produces 2 lanterns.
- Lanterns never run out and produce slightly more light than a torch at full brightness.
- Lanterns can hang from ceilings.
- Lanterns can be stacked.
What are the effects of this on game play?
In the early game, players will likely resort to using campfires for lighting and protection. Players are allowed to remain nomadic for the first few days of the game due to the campfire's protective properties; however, they will still be forced to defend themselves, as enemies burn slowly and can still attack them.
When a player decides that he is ready, construction of a base can begin. Due to the temporary effectiveness of torches, only small abodes will be possible at first. As the light of their torches run out, they will be forced to create more torches or continually feed coal to their torches to keep their base lit. This would not be difficult with a small base, but would make management of larger bases difficult at this stage of the game.
When a player comes across iron, they can finally start constructing lanterns. While lanterns are not difficult to produce in large quantities, the steel cost involved will make them think twice before creating them. Lanterns will allow for much larger bases than were previously possible, though expansion will be limited by the amount of iron you have.
Using my idea will slow down base construction and cave exploration. It would no longer be viable to run around a cave, lighting every possible nook and cranny with torches. Lanterns, requiring a workbench to create, would not allow players to continually produce more while in a cave, requiring the player to return to the surface regularly.
I can't really say whether or not this would be fun, but I think it proves something. The more difficult it is to produce light, the more time players will spend trying to create light sources, making cave exploration and base expansion take longer. Making torches _and_ lanterns both temporary will dramatically increase the amount of time players spend making new light sources.
So far I haven't encountered a single area I didn't need to keep lit on the long term, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at there. Unless people are really stupid enough to build tunnels and completely forget about them.
Well apparently it isn't that prohibitive, if the "OMFG IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO MAKE" guys speak for anything. Consistency is always nice.
How many of those items are placeable?
That's what I thought.
So wait a minute. First you're debating that I'm mad because it's game changing, and now you've immediately gone back on your word and claimed that it isn't. Are you trying to destroy your own argument here, or are you just having a bad day?
And now we've come full circle. This is extremely amusing.
Normally I wouldn't care if it's game changing (or whatever you want to call it, because you apparently can't even make up your mind on what it is), but when it adds nothing new to the table, downgrades existing items, forces backtracking and generally only really serves to be a pain in the ass, I'm not sure what exactly you expect me to say.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumIn short, your post makes no logical sense.
No you didn't. Do tell, where is this counter-argument and how exactly does it apply to the bit I requoted, because as far as I can see you left some questions unanswered. Namely, the fact that SMP has many, many more players and will be having land limitations, at least last I heard.
So? Prove it isn't. Are you going to make an actual response to my points soon, or are you just gonna keep crying like this because I bothered?
Can we stop twisting words now? Both of us? Surely you must realize this is getting nowhere.
Then requote as such instead of wasting my time like this, and perhaps I can adjust my argument accordingly. Really, I'll wait, but don't hold me in suspense like this.
What benefits? We're downgrading an existing item and making a duplicate to take its place. If we were so concerned about torch spammability then you could just fix the whole problem by making 1 torch per crafting instead of the usual 4. Or add more coal and/or sticks to the recipe.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumAlso, if you do have a finite map, then you will have nothing to mine for by the time you run out of coal. Anyplace that still needs lighting at that point should easily be lit by lanterns. So you either have an infinite world, so resource consumption is not an issue, or a finite world, in which case you run out of things to mine anyways. If you have multiple people, then you get more potential effective use out of each torch since more than one person can be benefiting form them at a time, so you can harvest the lit areas faster, so you have less consumption needed to mine resources.
When you mine, how often do you finish a tunnel and never need to go down it again? All the torches in that area do not need to be replaced. At most, you should have one path going through your mine you may have to keep lit, and the various side-passages can remain dark. Re-lighting this takes marginally more effort than walking down it normally. This re-lighting can be avoided or at least minimized, if you reconnect the mine to the surface occasionally, so you can travel above-ground to get to the mine instead of dealing with a dark passage. These are simple gameplay shifts to make to compensate for the change. It doesn't throw the entire game into chaos, it just adds more advanced strategy to how you mine. This actually parallels the best way o lay out a mine-track. A single path going down, with side passages that are periodically closed down, and the invested resources gathered and applied towards advancing the main line. If this mining strategy is followed, you can likely follow a mine track deep into your mine, so lighting is less necessary along that path.
Torches = finite b/c it is too easy right now to secure an area, even hard mode is a joke.
Lantern = infinite b/c Maintenance is never fun, is what people get paid to do in real life. You have fun washing your dishes, throwing out your trash, and changing light bulb and paying the electric bill? Annoying enough in real life, I don't need to feel the frustration of maintenance in my game.
Minecraft is about building up and not worrying about high upkeep. This is why i am playing minecraft and not doing real life construction. We have enough oil crisis in our world, don't want to see that in my minecraft world,
So Lantern must be INFINITE, and no more than 3to 4X harder to produce than torch.
You need not make an entirely new item and downgrade an existing one to do that. Part of the problem is that you get so many torches from a very small amount of resources - 1 coal and 1 stick for 4 torches is a bit ****ing ridiculous. If you cranked that back down to 1 torch per crafting, you'd cut down on the spammability without making it any less useful as an early-game alternative to lighting, not to mention you don't use extra item slots over it.
Not necessarily. Even if you place torches appropriately, it doesn't stop monsters spawning ahead of you, and it's not too uncommon to get murdered by cave skeletons and creepers the very second you enter it (unless, you know, you're able to plant torches through walls or something).
Also, frankly, lumping your skill level with everyone else's doesn't exactly help your argument (you did this in an earlier post, before you ask). You may be able to mine in complete safety, but a lot of people out there never really catch a hold of the technique and really don't need the extra hassle of maintaining torches to **** with them. Honestly, I'd say restricting it to Hard difficulty would be enough. Or hell, if it's cave or mining difficulty you're after, why does it even have to be related to torches?
Rework the Flint & Steel into something, then. Even if it's as simple as placing a plank block and setting it on fire (though preferably something better than that).
(I wanted to comment on the finite worlds bit, but I had a bit of a derp and couldn't manage anything better than "it's an issue with finite worlds in general". I'll get back to you on that.)
Potential being the key word, right? This isn't really taking into account people who, for example, hoard resources for themselves (and might not even use them, depending on their activity), or even guys that grief by deliberately destroying said resources. This argument kinda assumes humanity is perfect, and... well, you can see where this point is going. The fact remains that more players = faster resource consumption, but not necessarily that it'll go to good or collaborative use.
Frankly? Never. I usually dig stairs all the way down to the bedrock, dig tunnels for redstone and other rarer goodies, then just keep expanding to get the ores surrounding it. I'm aware some people have different tunnelling strategies, but there's literally always the chance that there's ore behind every rock you see, so I don't really see why you'd need to outright abandon a previously explored tunnel or cave. Hell, come to think of it, I've never made a tunnel that has hit a concrete finish.
I actually don't remember claiming it did, come to think of it. But whatever. My personal problem is that it's just a massive hassle to have to hunt down and replace torches all the time, and all this trouble to make alternate routes and reconnecting to main routes and such can be just as easily accomplished simply by limiting the sheer quantity of torches on your person. 4 torches per two items is still ridiculous (not to mention it makes no mathematical sense, but that's less important), and coal is more than common enough (even if non-renewable) to still serve the same purposes of most ordinary mines and tunnels.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse Premiuminfinte world = infinite resources.
Besides that, do you have any idea how much coal there is on even a small map. Hundreds of thousands of blocks worth. I think I recently broke 1 million blocks when my map reached 15mb in size. That's 1 million blocks of unharvested coal. There is so much coal, I turn up coal deposits because I have too much already.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired StaffRe-quoted for truth. :tongue.gif:
Anyway, I like the idea of temporary torches. It means that you can't just light up the whole world with permanent light sources easily. Coal and sticks are the easiest materials for crafting to find in the whole game.
♣♦♠♥
Former King of Alesgan
Aesthetically, I think I would prefer the look of torches over the look of lanterns. I think in a game that really doesn't offer much in the way of excessive design options, adding options while keeping the number of logical choices the same doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
I think this game should encourage different choices over having single choices... Placing a torch just isn't a viable option for base lighting anymore once they're made a finite duration.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumWhen you have to mine a days walk away to get coal, you would have to mine there to get iron as well. If you want stone, you can always have a open-air quarry that doesn't need torches.
However, that's not to say that torches must remain permanent. It is imperative that there be an affordable permanent method for lighting a home so that players don't have to continually seek out more coal and wood to relight their homes. There are plenty of other elements of the game that players would rather spend their time on.
I propose a 3-tiered system. After detailing the plan, I will explore its benefits and pitfalls in depth and explain its possible effects on game play.
Tier 1: Campfires
Camp fires can be produced like so:
This allows them to be produced without a workbench.
- Campfires produce significantly more light than a torch (50% more or so).
- Campfires burn out in a single in-game day. The light decreases at a steady rate starting halfway through its life until the light disappears and the campfire with it.
- Food can be cooked on campfires.
- Campfires can't be stacked.
- Enemies within a campfire's light radius burn as if in daylight.
Tier 2: Torches
Torches become partially permanent.
- Torches fade out slowly over the course of 5 in-game days. At the end of those 5 days, the torch continues to provide slightly more light than a redstone torch.
- Right-clicking on a torch with coal will use a piece of coal to relight the torch to full brightness.
-Retrieving a torch from the wall will use up all of its brightness. Re-placing it would produce a minimum-brightness torch.
Tier 3: Lanterns
Lanterns can be produced with medium resource investment. An example recipe:
[]
[]
[]
Coal could be replaced with oil if Notch wills it. This example recipe produces 2 lanterns.
- Lanterns never run out and produce slightly more light than a torch at full brightness.
- Lanterns can hang from ceilings.
- Lanterns can be stacked.
What are the effects of this on game play?
In the early game, players will likely resort to using campfires for lighting and protection. Players are allowed to remain nomadic for the first few days of the game due to the campfire's protective properties; however, they will still be forced to defend themselves, as enemies burn slowly and can still attack them.
When a player decides that he is ready, construction of a base can begin. Due to the temporary effectiveness of torches, only small abodes will be possible at first. As the light of their torches run out, they will be forced to create more torches or continually feed coal to their torches to keep their base lit. This would not be difficult with a small base, but would make management of larger bases difficult at this stage of the game.
When a player comes across iron, they can finally start constructing lanterns. While lanterns are not difficult to produce in large quantities, the steel cost involved will make them think twice before creating them. Lanterns will allow for much larger bases than were previously possible, though expansion will be limited by the amount of iron you have.
Using my idea will slow down base construction and cave exploration. It would no longer be viable to run around a cave, lighting every possible nook and cranny with torches. Lanterns, requiring a workbench to create, would not allow players to continually produce more while in a cave, requiring the player to return to the surface regularly.
I can't really say whether or not this would be fun, but I think it proves something. The more difficult it is to produce light, the more time players will spend trying to create light sources, making cave exploration and base expansion take longer. Making torches _and_ lanterns both temporary will dramatically increase the amount of time players spend making new light sources.
Campfires & Beds
Urban Decoration: Roof Tiles, Marble Columns, & Street Lamps
Billets (Hired Guards)
lantern^
then it would work.