IF feathers are too hard to feasibly amass in Minecraft Survival
THEN the best solution is to make them drop a minimum of 1 feather and a maximum of 4 - 10 that can be adjusted to balance
I've seen two topics recently advocating for a tool, similar to sheers, that would allow you to renew ably extract feathers from chickens. This is appalling and wrong. Chickens, and indeed very few birds, can have their feathers removed without great pain, bleeding, infection, and death. Now I'm not a PETA moron; games are games and Mario does not advocate the death of endangered species. But I am an aspiring Engineer and I see that there is an underlying need here that's not being answered efficiently.
The answer is simple, pure, easy-to-code, aesthetically pleasing, mechanical feasible, and short to explain:
Chickens should drop a larger number of feathers upon death, a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 4 -10 depending on game balance
It's simple - change the code specifying the number of feathers to have a greater quantity
It makes Sound, Logical Sense - A chicken in real life would probably drop dozens of feathers of a size and quality that could be used as a crafting material
It's Aesthetically Pleasing - Even the topic stating No-Kill Chicken Feathersargues that killing a chicken for two feathers seems cruel, they were so close to the answer. We aren't torchering chickens for renewable feathers, we are giving them a clean death for a reasonable amount of product.
It's Easily Adjustable - Too many feathers or too few? Future updates can easily dial down on the correct feather drop range to prevent it from being broken.
Additional Concept - 2/23/12
Suggested by a few posters including Nexus_Leonon, Chickens would have the ability to randomly Moult or drop a feather similar to how they currently produce eggs. I'm not fond of this idea however because it copies the otherwise unique mechanic held by the chicken and I feel that when a large number of chickens are breed it would lead to an overproduction of feathers without any cost (which is to say killing a chicken requires you to breed more with wheat while Moulting requires no input for output). Also, any feathers discarded in this fashion, in a real life situation, would never be used as arrow fletching because they would be damaged, old, decomposing, and asymmetrical.
Related, but Off-Topic Issue I haven't updated the OP in a while and during that time a number of issues have been brought up as to why we would or wouldn't need more feathers. While this isn't the objective of my suggestion (which is "If we need more feathers, this is how to fix it"), I feel I should bring up these points to the OP so I don't feel like I'm repeating myself or more importantly, contradicting myself.
The Arrow Pointing to the Underlying Issue
So Annon pointed out recently and it's totally correct that you only really need feathers for crafting two items; Book and Quill, and Arrows. Clearly Book and Quill hardly requires a chest full of feathers to craft so if it were the only item you could craft with feathers then we wouldn't need any of the changes I've suggested. However, arrows are crafted from feathers and I therefore the only reason a player would need a lot of feathers. So since arrows are what create a possible demand for feathers, we should address the second way of obtaining arrows; killing skeletons and taking them from their re-dead bodies.
Beating Bones for Bows
The idea is that you can farm skeletons to get more arrows than from obtaining raw materials and crafting them. This is very true and is one of the main points people bring up as to why we don't need more feathers. I personally think however that this isn't the way it should be; skeletons should be changed to only rarely drop arrows. Combine this change with my other proposal and we would have a system where crafting arrows is the norm and finding them on skeletons is a rare coincidence.
Why shouldn't we farm skeletons for arrows? Just as skeletons will rarely drop bows now, so too should they scarcely drop arrows. Think about it like this; when a player shoots an arrow, they can retrieve it from the ground. Logically, this means that the arrow you shot wasn't damage or broken; it was sturdy and well made. Skeletons shoot arrows that you can't retrieve however. Their arrows are moldy, rotten, and generally unfit. The only chance you have of reclaiming arrows from a skeleton is by finding that rare arrow that hasn't been shot and isn't completely defunct. This isn't a realism argument, it's a logical, aesthetic explanation of why an existing mechanic functions. So you should only farm skeletons for items they have in abundance, such as bones, as apposed to their crooked, termite infested arrows.
I'm not advocating that we shouldn't farm hostile mobs or even that we shouldn't farm skeletons. Skeletons already give a unique drop that has a variety of utility, consumable uses in the form of bones (taming wolves) and bone meal (white dye, fertilizer). I think that's quite enough for them alone without making them the best resource for arrows.
Flint and Feather Flock Together
Since we established above that feathers are really about crafting arrows, then the next issue that arises is flint. Flint is a rather limited and hard to obtain resource, perhaps an even bigger issue than obtaining feathers due to the fact it's used to craft a degradable tool as well. However, since the addition of trading with villagers gave us the ability to pay a Testificate to turn gravel into flint, I think this is much less of an issue. Gravel may not be renewable the same way feathers are, but it's the same thing with all ores and it's solve the same way; dig farther and deeper till you find new gravel/ore.
However, I have a solution to both the flint and feather problem, if it exits, that is similar to may main suggestion:
IF both feathers and flint are too hard to feasibly amass in Minecraft Survival
THEN the simplest solution is to increase the number of arrows crafted from a single recipe to 6 - 16 that can be adjusted for balance
This solves both the feather and the flint problems and is very simple to implement. I don't have this as my main solution because I only recently formulated it and because Flint might not be an issue so much anymore with the recent changes coming in 1.3. It's also not the most aesthetically pleasing issue; I think that getting 4 arrows each time you craft makes logical sense, which means the proper way to solve this problem aesthetically is to fix obtaining feathers and flint separately. I have presented the feather solution, but the flint one is not as clear to me, which is why I've focused on the feathers originally.
First, when given the option in a game, my preferred method of combat is usually archery. More feathers pretty much translates directly into more arrows, so I'm happy there.
Second... I know it's just a game, but reading topics where they suggested we pluck live chickens literally made me shudder. I mean, I don't even like to kill my livestock before I have an iron sword. Otherwise I'm chasing around terrified, squealing pigs trying to bludgeon them to death with ineffective weapons. But that may just be me.
I mean, I don't even like to kill my livestock before I have an iron sword. Otherwise I'm chasing around terrified, squealing pigs trying to bludgeon them to death with ineffective weapons. But that may just be me.
Your not alone. Games do not need to always need to be the paragon of good and hope. Hell, violent video games are fun. But Minecraft does not need this brutality with animals. It's not interesting, it's sure as hell isn't amusing. It detracts from the game and adds literally nothing that can't be achieved by modifying the drop rate.
I agree on the suggestion, and on a side note, I wish we could directly craft Gravel into Flint just so making arrows would not be/be less of a pain with/without the change to feathers.
I agree on the suggestion, and on a side note, I wish we could directly craft Gravel into Flint just so making arrows would not be/be less of a pain with/without the change to feathers.
So I think you and a few other posters have brought up an even broader point that is even more point and encompasses mine. Feathers are only really used to make arrows at this point and the only way to obtain arrows in bulk other than crafting them would be to make an automated Skeleton Farm with a Spawner block.
So increasing feather drops is only half of the true balancing solution, the other being allowing flint to be extracted from gravel via crafting at a reasonable ratio that, like the feather drops, can be adjusted and dialed down to achieve proper game balance. Besides, I always hate it when I'm having to dig through gravel, a chore in itself, and I end up with two inventory slots taken instead of one.
Also, chickens could have some periods where they drop feathers because they're molting, and they could be angry and start pecking at you, but not dealing any damage.
Also, chickens could have some periods where they drop feathers because they're molting, and they could be angry and start pecking at you, but not dealing any damage.
I admit that molting is an acceptable mechanic that would satisfy both feather needs and people who don't approve of killing animals period. And it probably wouldn't be too hard to add since chickens already randomly drop eggs.
I take issue though that in real life, molted feathers are usually downy (light and fluffy) and are not the same as stiff feathers like that depicted as the icon drop. I know I know, we don't have to conform to real life concepts in Minecraft and I agree; Minecraft wouldn't be fun if it was too realistic. But I think that giving the chicken the ability to just molt feathers randomly might make feathers too ubiquitous and uncontrollable.
If more people agree chickens should molt, I'll consider adding it to the OP as an additional mechanic, but right now I'm not convinced it's the most efficient and mechanically correct solution.
I admit that molting is an acceptable mechanic that would satisfy both feather needs and people who don't approve of killing animals period. And it probably wouldn't be too hard to add since chickens already randomly drop eggs.
I take issue though that in real life, molted feathers are usually downy (light and fluffy) and are not the same as stiff feathers like that depicted as the icon drop. I know I know, we don't have to conform to real life concepts in Minecraft and I agree; Minecraft wouldn't be fun if it was too realistic. But I think that giving the chicken the ability to just molt feathers randomly might make feathers too ubiquitous and uncontrollable.
If more people agree chickens should molt, I'll consider adding it to the OP as an additional mechanic, but right now I'm not convinced it's the most efficient and mechanically correct solution.
I guess you're right, if it is added, it would have too be rare, although not too rare, but not make it so that your chicken pen full of feathers. Although, it could add some more maintenance in farming.
And I think it would be hilarious watching your friend running around from a chicken because it's assaulting him.
Yeah, plucking chickens seems a little weird. I'd rather we just get more drops per chicken. 0-2 feathers isn't even remotely realistic. The birds are covered with feathers, so why would we get only 0-2? Even 10 or so amount of feathers isn't realistic, but at least 7-10 would be more reasonable. As said before, we'd still have a bottleneck, except it would be flint now. Oh well, at least, I'd be able to make more arrows. (I don't always need flint anyways, since I got more arrows, so I can have fire (coal), ice (water bucket), lightning (diamonds), explosive (gunpowder), and egg arrows (self-explanatory) to.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I don't plan to add a new dimension at the moment. It's just to performance heavy on servers, and the current dimensions need more attention before we start adding new ones." < Yeah, like biomes or actual varied terrain in the nether. Nether ruins didn't do the trick at all.
This seems to be rapidly becoming an arrow thread. I actually don't mind that much; if that is the true root of the issue with gathering feathers and if it's a legitimate one, then perhaps there lies the way to solve the problem.
So along the lines of arrow creation, we have feathers, sticks, and flint. Sticks don't seem to be an issue, but feathers require a lot of chickens to obtain and flint takes a lot of literal gravel grinding and is non-renewable. There is always creating an automatic or semi-automatic skeleton farm to get arrows by themselves, but automation doesn't solve the problem early on. We need a solution that balances arrow access with obtain-ability. We want arrows to be valuable and hard to get for players just starting out, but we don't want to make an entire facility required to produce a stack of arrows.
Thought process aside, the easiest thing to do seems to be adjusting the amount of arrows you get from one flint, one stick, and one feather. If we were to get 8 arrows per recipe instead of 4, we could solve the issue without adjusting flint mining mechanics or feather drop rates (although I do think that the way flint is obtained is fundamentally flawed, I'm just looking at it from the standpoint of the least amount of change to solve the most amount of problem).
Edited the end of the post to revising the word "Molting" to "Moulting" (according to Wikipedia, the proper variation, although molting is the same word). Also added the argument that moulted feathers are damaged and grubby in real life and aren't suitable for use as aerodynamic arrow fletchings.
I always though it would be cool if they would just randomly drop feathers like they do with eggs, and dropping more feathers upon death would be better as well
I think that attacking chickens with your hands should both cause damage AND give you a feather.
===
Game balance: Once we got one chicken home (we actually got three), we started a chicken coop.
We now have 6 chests of eggs, more chickens than we know what to do with, no shortage of food at all, use eggs for target practice, have tried using them as weapons (for knockback, and creeper defense), and absolutely no shortage of feathers what-so-ever.
So it goes from extreme shortage to extreme oversupply.
(In regard to a mod that gives realistic animal genetics):
Would you really rather have bees that make diamonds and oil with magical genetic blocks?
... did I really ask that?
True, but they require you to do something; pick them up and throw them or load them into a dispenser. Just as wheat requres you to pluck it out of the ground and replant it again. It's a process that can not perpetuate itself without player interaction. Is it easier than say breading livestock? Of course, but it's still something that takes enough time and effort on the player's part to accomplish.
With Eggs - Chicken > Drop Egg > Throw/Dispense Egg > Repeat (until chick is hatched) > Slay other chicken > Collect feather
With Wheat - Chickens > Grow/harvest wheat > breed Chickens with wheat > Slay half of the chickens > Collect feathers
With Moulting - Chicken > Collect Feathers
No, Moulting is indeed a humane, and easy to code solution, but it is not realistic (moulted feathers from chickens are groady and wouldn't be very hight quality) and would require no real effort on the players part to obtain. My solution, to increase the amount of feathers dropped every time a chicken is killed, is thee best solution because it is the simplest solution. If it was reasonable to have about 10 or 12 chickens in a single player coop and you only had to kill 4 of them to get a whole stack of feathers, you would actually be getting more feathers than the molting chickens of the same number. But it isn't broken because you still have to breed and kill your chickens; energy/effort in, product out.
Edit: Also, I'm not against all fully automated processes, as long as it requires significant resources to accomplish. Example, I'm not overly fond of the cactus farm bug because that doesn't require anything but blocks and water to create. But if you made a redstone mob crusher with pistons and water filters to keep drops and mobs separate, it's OK, in my opinion, if all you have to do is flick a switch and get your rewards. Plus, killing mobs in that automated fashion won't net you experience, unless you make a really good mob trap that leaves them within an inch of their life, but even then, your still putting in some work so the process isn't fully automated anymore.
I've seen two topics recently advocating for a tool, similar to sheers, that would allow you to renew ably extract feathers from chickens. This is appalling and wrong. Chickens, and indeed very few birds, can have their feathers removed without great pain, bleeding, infection, and death. Now I'm not a PETA moron; games are games and Mario does not advocate the death of endangered species. But I am an aspiring Engineer and I see that there is an underlying need here that's not being answered efficiently.
All these Topics cry out a feather deficiency:
Shearing for Feathers
Pluck-Able Chickens
More Feathers
A 'Practical' Use for Birds
Shearing Chickens!
Birds - Our New Feathery Friends?
MORE BIRDS!
Easier Way to Make Arrows
No-Kill Chicken Feathers
The Ability to Sheer Chickens
So let us assume that there is a legitimate need for obtaining more feathers. Obviously, if this is not the case, we don't need to change anything. You can argue we either need more feathers or don't, but if we need more feathers, there is a single solution.
The answer is simple, pure, easy-to-code, aesthetically pleasing, mechanical feasible, and short to explain:
It's simple - change the code specifying the number of feathers to have a greater quantity
It makes Sound, Logical Sense - A chicken in real life would probably drop dozens of feathers of a size and quality that could be used as a crafting material
It's Aesthetically Pleasing - Even the topic stating No-Kill Chicken Feathersargues that killing a chicken for two feathers seems cruel, they were so close to the answer. We aren't torchering chickens for renewable feathers, we are giving them a clean death for a reasonable amount of product.
It's Easily Adjustable - Too many feathers or too few? Future updates can easily dial down on the correct feather drop range to prevent it from being broken.
Additional Concept - 2/23/12
Suggested by a few posters including Nexus_Leonon, Chickens would have the ability to randomly Moult or drop a feather similar to how they currently produce eggs. I'm not fond of this idea however because it copies the otherwise unique mechanic held by the chicken and I feel that when a large number of chickens are breed it would lead to an overproduction of feathers without any cost (which is to say killing a chicken requires you to breed more with wheat while Moulting requires no input for output). Also, any feathers discarded in this fashion, in a real life situation, would never be used as arrow fletching because they would be damaged, old, decomposing, and asymmetrical.
Related, but Off-Topic Issue
I haven't updated the OP in a while and during that time a number of issues have been brought up as to why we would or wouldn't need more feathers. While this isn't the objective of my suggestion (which is "If we need more feathers, this is how to fix it"), I feel I should bring up these points to the OP so I don't feel like I'm repeating myself or more importantly, contradicting myself.
The Arrow Pointing to the Underlying Issue
Beating Bones for Bows
Flint and Feather Flock Together
First, when given the option in a game, my preferred method of combat is usually archery. More feathers pretty much translates directly into more arrows, so I'm happy there.
Second... I know it's just a game, but reading topics where they suggested we pluck live chickens literally made me shudder. I mean, I don't even like to kill my livestock before I have an iron sword. Otherwise I'm chasing around terrified, squealing pigs trying to bludgeon them to death with ineffective weapons. But that may just be me.
And in reality it would be the flint that would be scarce, not the feathers. As it is the arrow creation balance is out of whack.
Your not alone. Games do not need to always need to be the paragon of good and hope. Hell, violent video games are fun. But Minecraft does not need this brutality with animals. It's not interesting, it's sure as hell isn't amusing. It detracts from the game and adds literally nothing that can't be achieved by modifying the drop rate.
So I think you and a few other posters have brought up an even broader point that is even more point and encompasses mine. Feathers are only really used to make arrows at this point and the only way to obtain arrows in bulk other than crafting them would be to make an automated Skeleton Farm with a Spawner block.
So increasing feather drops is only half of the true balancing solution, the other being allowing flint to be extracted from gravel via crafting at a reasonable ratio that, like the feather drops, can be adjusted and dialed down to achieve proper game balance. Besides, I always hate it when I'm having to dig through gravel, a chore in itself, and I end up with two inventory slots taken instead of one.
I admit that molting is an acceptable mechanic that would satisfy both feather needs and people who don't approve of killing animals period. And it probably wouldn't be too hard to add since chickens already randomly drop eggs.
I take issue though that in real life, molted feathers are usually downy (light and fluffy) and are not the same as stiff feathers like that depicted as the icon drop. I know I know, we don't have to conform to real life concepts in Minecraft and I agree; Minecraft wouldn't be fun if it was too realistic. But I think that giving the chicken the ability to just molt feathers randomly might make feathers too ubiquitous and uncontrollable.
If more people agree chickens should molt, I'll consider adding it to the OP as an additional mechanic, but right now I'm not convinced it's the most efficient and mechanically correct solution.
I guess you're right, if it is added, it would have too be rare, although not too rare, but not make it so that your chicken pen full of feathers. Although, it could add some more maintenance in farming.
And I think it would be hilarious watching your friend running around from a chicken because it's assaulting him.
Perhaps a hat tip to a famous fantasy game that involves chickens attacking a hapless green hero who poked at them one too many times?
But that's what that tower in Kakariko Villiage is for...
+1
Click for penguins in minecraft!
So along the lines of arrow creation, we have feathers, sticks, and flint. Sticks don't seem to be an issue, but feathers require a lot of chickens to obtain and flint takes a lot of literal gravel grinding and is non-renewable. There is always creating an automatic or semi-automatic skeleton farm to get arrows by themselves, but automation doesn't solve the problem early on. We need a solution that balances arrow access with obtain-ability. We want arrows to be valuable and hard to get for players just starting out, but we don't want to make an entire facility required to produce a stack of arrows.
Thought process aside, the easiest thing to do seems to be adjusting the amount of arrows you get from one flint, one stick, and one feather. If we were to get 8 arrows per recipe instead of 4, we could solve the issue without adjusting flint mining mechanics or feather drop rates (although I do think that the way flint is obtained is fundamentally flawed, I'm just looking at it from the standpoint of the least amount of change to solve the most amount of problem).
I am ninja'd far too often.
I think that attacking chickens with your hands should both cause damage AND give you a feather.
===
Game balance: Once we got one chicken home (we actually got three), we started a chicken coop.
We now have 6 chests of eggs, more chickens than we know what to do with, no shortage of food at all, use eggs for target practice, have tried using them as weapons (for knockback, and creeper defense), and absolutely no shortage of feathers what-so-ever.
So it goes from extreme shortage to extreme oversupply.
* Promoting this week: Captive Minecraft 4, Winter Realm. Aka: Vertical Vanilla Viewing. Clicky!
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(In regard to a mod that gives realistic animal genetics):
Would you really rather have bees that make diamonds and oil with magical genetic blocks?
... did I really ask that?
Excuse me? What Crap? You can't have any, it's my dung pile.Also modified title to prevent cut off.
No, Moulting is indeed a humane, and easy to code solution, but it is not realistic (moulted feathers from chickens are groady and wouldn't be very hight quality) and would require no real effort on the players part to obtain. My solution, to increase the amount of feathers dropped every time a chicken is killed, is thee best solution because it is the simplest solution. If it was reasonable to have about 10 or 12 chickens in a single player coop and you only had to kill 4 of them to get a whole stack of feathers, you would actually be getting more feathers than the molting chickens of the same number. But it isn't broken because you still have to breed and kill your chickens; energy/effort in, product out.
Edit: Also, I'm not against all fully automated processes, as long as it requires significant resources to accomplish. Example, I'm not overly fond of the cactus farm bug because that doesn't require anything but blocks and water to create. But if you made a redstone mob crusher with pistons and water filters to keep drops and mobs separate, it's OK, in my opinion, if all you have to do is flick a switch and get your rewards. Plus, killing mobs in that automated fashion won't net you experience, unless you make a really good mob trap that leaves them within an inch of their life, but even then, your still putting in some work so the process isn't fully automated anymore.
What's up? I'm the proud co-owner of a little ClassiCube server called Minebuild.
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