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Proposal: Eliminate mob grinders
Poll: Should XP, and enchanting levels, be easy to obtain once you hav
Ended May 15, 2014
Poll: Should the base, default, rules for the game restrict what you c
Ended May 15, 2014
Poll: Given NPC trading for things in 1.3, is a free supply of resourc
Ended May 15, 2014
Minecraft is a sandbox.
Who said Survival had to be difficult? I'm not sure Jeb or Notch ever stated that. Find me proof.
Notch has. It's been awhile, and I don't remember where. I'll let other people quote his tweet, his blog, etc.
Then a simple question for you: Should every enchantment be level 50? If so, why have XP? Why have XP hard to obtain? Should you ever have to choose to make a bunch of low level enchantments? Should the high-end items be really rare?
Or should everything be common; should level 50's be so common that you can toss them out once per hour, and regard diamond picks as "Geez, only efficiency 4, what a waste"?
THAT's what I'm seeing, and that's what I think is a fail.
Make several lower level enchantments.
===
For everyone who says that a mob grinder is "hard to make": What if you're wrong? What if it's as simple as a hundred block high tower that funnels mobs into a 22 drop fall with an enclosed glass viewport and "exposed feet" for you to swing at, or toss one potion at?
Mob grinders are easy to make. If you think they are hard, then maybe it's you?
* Promoting this week: Captive Minecraft 4, Winter Realm. Aka: Vertical Vanilla Viewing. Clicky!
* My channel with Mystcraft, and general Minecraft Let's Plays: http://www.youtube.com/user/Keybounce.
* See all my video series: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-editions/minecraft-editions-show-your/2865421-keybounces-list-of-creation-threads
(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?
I think that Jeb should fix this so that you can't just run around and farm XP. Mobs should not spawn at night. That way, everyone is on an even footing.
I sincerely hope and pray that you're simply practicing your sarcasm. Rethink what you just said to the letter; how much resources and time do you think it consumes to gather the resources to create that (assuming you're on survival), let alone create it in the first place? If you've guessed "a hell of a lot", then you're absolutely correct.
I have no idea why this thread was even brought back up. Mob grinders require time and effort to create and run efficiently, and it's a sandbox game so people can do whatever the hell they want anyway. These are solid facts, end of discussion.
[quote=Badgerz]You have to keep in mind that people are stupid.
[quote=Catelite]Just because you don't understand how something works, doesn't make it broken or pointless. >_<
This precisely. I was thinking this thread was going to die pretty soon, but it seems to like thrashing around in death throws. I thought that everything that was previously stated was very compelling for why this was a poor idea that was doomed to fail.
That comparison is **** and this is why: Farms are a feature, grinders are an exploit. Farms require upkeep and tending, grinders do not.
Grinders WERE creative. Now everyone and their grandma has posted garbage all over the internet detailing the exact way to create and operate grinders and you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone deviating from a given ideal premade design. They're as creative as toast now.
All this and my hatred for exploitative pricks aside, there's no sensible way to remove something that isn't even a legit feature without annoying limits.
They require time and effort to create...They run on their own.
THIS IS MY POINT
Your mob grinder / XP farm makes all the point of XP pointless.
Why have an XP system -- Why have a system that limits enchantments -- if you're going to bypass it all anyways?
This, in a nutshell, by someone who disagrees with me, is exactly what I'm getting at, and why I think it needs to be done.
And frankly, if you need a couple of hours to only get 10 levels of XP, your mob farm stinks.
===
I really want to dissect your post. Please forgive this. But please listen to yourself.
I don't know how long it took to make your farms. Do you know how many hours I spent on a wheat farm? I took what I thought was a "solved" problem, only to find that Etho's greenhouse was actually designed for flowers, not for wheat -- and needed significant change. Or the time that I spend surveying land before building staircases and laying out rooms. Or just hours and hours of tree farming so that I can say I have 2x6x64 legitimately obtained wood for each of the three tree types I have so far, plus another 2x64 planks for each, plus some spares so that eventually I'll have 2x64 slabs and stairs of each.
Time to build something is "hardly" the issue, and at the same time, the whole issue. That's playing the game. Some people will take longer to get resources than others; I won't play the "limited resource survivals" (skyblock, ocean block, sky grid, etc) because it takes too long for a cobble generator to generate enough to be worth working with, or in Ocean Block (no lava) just waiting for trees to grow and always being short.
Again, I don't know how many times you died to testing out traps. Care to guess how many times I died to carelessness? Care to guess how many times I died because a co-player's "water-vator" turned into a death trap when I fell out? Care to guess how many times I ran into a ravine because I was too frustrated to pay attention to what I was doing?
(1 for mistaking food and hearts. Two for two different forms of the water-vator. Once for frustration. Dropping from about level 15-20 down to 2-6 in each case. All honestly earned levels, no grinders.)
Trial and error isn't a bad thing. What's your point here?
Losing 50 levels because you didn't light up properly? That can happen while caving. Maybe a better question: What were you doing with 50 levels? How many of them were earned from fighting, and how many were "free" from your farm?
Every version has people saying "I won't upgrade". What's your point?
===
You talk about how minecraft is all about being creative. This proposal would simply say that that one particular creative structure would work for a little bit, and then stop. You would then need to either (A) Let a creeper blow some of it up, or (B) Find a new place to make a new, different grinder, or (C) Do something entirely different -- be brand new creative.
Doing something that everyone does -- a rubber stamp grinder -- is not creative.
Doing a variation on a theme -- a new form of grinder -- is a little creative. Now, can you do another 30 new forms at 30 new dungeons?
Doing something entirely different -- not a grinder at all -- is so creative that I don't know what it looks like at all. Care to show me?
===
TL; DR:
Let me turn this around. Lets say I'm on something like SkyBlock, or SkyGrid, or OceanBlock. Lets say I've just set up my first resource generator (my first cobblestone generator, or planted my first tree).
Would you consider it cheating, or against the spirit of those maps, to switch to creative mode, and give myself 2 double chests full of that resource block, in no time? 6x9x64, x2, of that very resource that those maps make hard to get as part of the endurance challenge of them? Is that "fair"? "In the spirit of the map"? "Cheap"?
Would you consider it legit for someone who had a mob grinder built to switch to creative mode, and make a double chest full of bottles-o-enchanting for free levels? Or just flat-out using the "/xp" command?
That's what you are doing.
EDIT: "Skyzone" was the other limited map. (It's a map generator based on SkyBlock that adds some things that SB is missing.)
* Promoting this week: Captive Minecraft 4, Winter Realm. Aka: Vertical Vanilla Viewing. Clicky!
* My channel with Mystcraft, and general Minecraft Let's Plays: http://www.youtube.com/user/Keybounce.
* See all my video series: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-editions/minecraft-editions-show-your/2865421-keybounces-list-of-creation-threads
(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?
Yes, we would consider it cheating for you to use creative. How in the bloody universe do you think you're going to compare switching to creative mode and spawning unlimited items and using the /xp command to constructing something that takes time, resources, and effort to build?
You're missing the entire point. A grinder is not just something you can place and have unlimited diamonds, it takes thinking, planning, creativity, effort, time, and resources to create one that's shaped to your specific world. Ok, yeah, awesome, I could copy a design from a video I saw once, now where am I going to build it? How am I going to gather the resources required? You said yourself constantly that you copy some greenhouse design or other, what's the difference? You're being hypocritical here:
So you're missing the entire point, let me say it again:
Mob grinders require time, effort, and resources to construct, this is the main thing here, they are not just some random structure you built like a dirt hut. They are only limited in creativity if everyone copies each other's designs, but no one really does that if they're trying to be creative in the first place, and it doesn't really matter anyway because it's a sandbox game and people can do whatever they want to have fun in the game. It does not, I repeat, not remove the point of enchantments because the person who built the grinder spent time, effort, and resources to construct an effective, working XP grinder, and should be rewarded for his efforts. If I spend a week gathering resources, building a drop trap that reduces mob health to a perfect number without killing them, and then kill them for XP, I deserve to get XP. If you spend a week gathering resources, building wheat farm that produces more than enough wheat for you to survive, you deserve to be rewarded. If some random person spends a week gathering resources, building an animal farm that supplies them with lots of meat and other drops, they deserve to be rewarded. I could care less whether the design for each of the farms was copied from a video or not, the person in question still built it and still deserves to be rewarded.
[quote=Badgerz]You have to keep in mind that people are stupid.
[quote=Catelite]Just because you don't understand how something works, doesn't make it broken or pointless. >_<
By the way, the rest of us don't give a damn about your "youtube views" and how mob grinders may hurt your view count. If you can't succeed with regards to that without interfering with how other people enjoy the game, you should find something else to do with your time. Minecraft was certainly not developed for the purpose of getting you Youtube views.
Jeb and Mojang are free to make whatever changes they want, of course, including your suggestion. But I, and I think most others here, trust that they make those decisions by weighing how the changes will impact the fun for all of Minecraft's millions of players, not just a few who happen to dislike a feature that is popular with others. I think the fact that Jeb has already voiced approval of mob grinders suggests they will likely ignore your suggestion.
-Never even built a mob-grinder
-I ain't even mad.
So let me repeat this:
1. I have just built a tree farm on a map that restricts my trees initially. I could spend 3 hours planting and chopping, planting, chopping, etc. Or, I could just save time and use creative mode to give me a chest of wood. I have torches and/or beds so mobs can't reach me. Fair/unfair?
2. I have just built a mob farm that will give me unlimited XP over time. I could spend hours sitting here, collecting levels. Or, I could use creative mode, magic up 50 levels, and cast right away. Fair/Unfair?
And a gravity fall drop spawns unlimited amounts of mob drops -- gunpowder, bones, arrows, etc. Fair/unfair?
---
The context here, was a map where you had a long, repetitive, boring grind to plant and harvest trees to make wood, or to sit by a cobblestone generator to harvest cobblestone. You seem to feel that something that gives you wood or stone quickly and easily is wrong.
So let me turn that around: If you have to spend time and effort to harvest XP orbs, zombie flesh, spider string, etc; and instead, build an automatic harvester that gives you chest after chest worth of drops in minutes, is that wrong?
===
No, not really.
How water flows -- how water falling down spreads 7 blocks (or 8, depending on circumstances) -- leads to one basic design for water flowing into a center space.
Etho's design was specifically based around what grass blocks you could reach, plant bonemeal on, and harvest for the flowers; it had complexity around the whole "Don't let any flowers get trapped by water flow".
Making a wheat farm -- where you do not need to place bonemeal on the ground -- resulted in the whole thing scaling up from 13x13 to 17x17 (numbers from memory, might be wrong), and all the water flow ways having to be redesigned. But guess what: ** There is only one such design **. It's a function of the laws of physics in minecraft. I guarantee that if I gave you the design goals, you'll build 98% the same design.
To repeat: I thought Etho had already designed and shown what I wanted. It turned out that he did not. Some work and experimentation to figure out how to build what I wanted revealed that the game physics only gave one way.
I agree that they require time to build.
I agree that some designs require lots of resources (ok, all of them require at least a little.)
I agree that they require some effort.
My question: Why do you think that after spending a little bit of time, effort, and resources, that you should get unlimited supplies of _X_? And if you do, why not just skip straight to creative, and magic it up without bothering to wait?
This is the key point; I do not believe these are the same.
Wheat is supposed to reproduce large amounts of wheat and seeds; you are supposed to be able to farm it for food.
Monsters are supposed to be things to fight, you are supposed to have a risk to get the rewards from them.
You are bypassing the risk, going straight to the rewards; a well designed system gives you chest after chest full of drops. Why not just use creative to magic it up?
And if you don't like creative to magic it up, why not prohibit the freebie farm in the first place?
===
No. The XP system was broken before, in that the only way to get XP was in combat, and peaceful players could not get it at all. The XP system was broken in that, in a game where you are a miner, and gain the ability to enchant tools to mine better, required combat.
In fairness, I am a skill system player, not a "generic-XP level up" system player.
I am the type of person that makes areas safe and does a lot of mining. Being able to get that XP for enchanting while safe makes a lot of sense.
... So let me guess Neospector's next complaint: "My mob farm lets me collect XP safely, how does it differ?". Answer: Time/effort.
I have to go to the caves, find the ores, mine them.
No different than "I have to go to the flat plains, with my bows, stay out at night, and shoot things".
But very different from "I sit in front of the mob dispenser, and just punch mindlessly as they show up", or "I just toss one potion and they all die".
After all, didn't Neospector just say that using creative mode to do it instantly is unfair? Time/effort does matter, right?
===
Where do you draw the line? What's good/bad here?
1. Going into the outdoors at night, with bows/arrows, fighting monsters, dealing with the risk, and collecting some drops and XP over the course of 10-12 minutes.
2. Using a Mob Grinder to reduce mobs to a single punch, generating mobs 10-20 times as fast as the outdoor hunt, with no risk. But it takes time and attention.
3. Using a gravity fall to collect all the drops even faster, with no attention time. But no XP.
4. Using creative mode to give you chests of drops, and/or XP bottles.
I draw the line between 1 and 2. As soon as the risk goes away, the rewards should go away. You seem to be of the opinion that 3 is fair game. But then, other than sitting mindlessly holding "punch", or walking by the pickup spot every 4.5 minutes, what's different than creative mode?
===
Design challenge. Design a wheat farm with the following goals:
1. Harvesting is done by standing in one spot, in the center, placing a water block on top, and letting the water flow send all the wheat and seeds to you.
2. Make it the largest amount of harvest-able wheat that you can get from a single water block placement.
3. There is a bug where water falling down from above will destroy the wheat, instead of harvesting it. Assume that bug is fixed (it's already fixed in the snapshots, and I wasn't aware of it when I built the thing).
I suspect that 98% of your design will match mine. The design is heavily restricted by the water physics of minecraft.
* Promoting this week: Captive Minecraft 4, Winter Realm. Aka: Vertical Vanilla Viewing. Clicky!
* My channel with Mystcraft, and general Minecraft Let's Plays: http://www.youtube.com/user/Keybounce.
* See all my video series: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-editions/minecraft-editions-show-your/2865421-keybounces-list-of-creation-threads
(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?
There is one game called "Minecraft creative". In there, you can get anything you want, place anything you want, etc. With a few limits.
There is another game called "MC Edit minecraft maps". In there, people like Vechs can do anything, with fewer limits. And we like the results of that.
And then, there's a game called "Minecraft survival". It has rules -- you cannot just do anything. Rules that restrict what you can and cannot do.
People like jeb_, notch, dinnerbones, etc., are all trying to restrict what you can and cannot do.
I'm just trying to point out additional restrictions that seem to be sensible.
Now, are people like notch and jeb_ really in "the worst category" of minecraft players? Do you like the rules that they have? Do you think the rules should be changed?
I'm just pointing out that this is a rule behavior that Notch has stated was bad, that Jeb seems to have stated is nothing more than "We never got rid of it before", and here is a proposal for removing it that is relatively easy to implement.
So my question to you: Would this rule change -- only minimal free XP, only minimal free drops without risk -- make for a better game, given that it's a game with rules and restrictions?
* Promoting this week: Captive Minecraft 4, Winter Realm. Aka: Vertical Vanilla Viewing. Clicky!
* My channel with Mystcraft, and general Minecraft Let's Plays: http://www.youtube.com/user/Keybounce.
* See all my video series: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-editions/minecraft-editions-show-your/2865421-keybounces-list-of-creation-threads
(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?
The awesome in combat mostly comes from when you go outside the box. In fact, that's why I support getting all drops (including XP) from any method of mob death. Because if I boot a creeper off a cliff 300-style, or shove a skeleton into a cactus field, or otherwise trick foes to their doom, that's better than normal sword-spamming, and deserves the full reward.
So IMO, while building a grinder may or may not be an engineering feat (some are, some aren't), it's at least as creative as running around swinging a sword a bunch of times.
Actually, you can. It's called "modding." And it's completely endorsed by the developers. Survival isn't about the developers trying to create specific rules that everyone is forced to live by (otherwise notch and jeb would be opposed to modding). It's about creating a game with the set of rules that allows for a game that makes the greatest number of players enjoy the game experience as possible. Survival is the "default" version of survival mode, designed to cater to the largest audience. Modding is how outliers of that audience tweak the game to make it better for their own needs. I would have asked "have you considered modding it out of your game" but like I said, you're not happy unless you can apply this change to everyone else as well, whether they like it or not.
No, because notch and jeb make rules changes with intent of making the game more enjoyable for everyone, while you propose rules changes with the intent of making the game better for yourself at the expense of everyone else's enjoyment. Do you really not understand this difference?
Show me that notch and jeb believe that players shouldn't be able to create mob grinders.
For you and a couple other people, perhaps. Not for most people.
The only point I want to mention here is that mob farms still have risks associated with them. I had a skeleton mill once that was a lot of fun (because I liked getting the skeletons to fight each other), but one time by sheer chance, a creeper spawned inside. Before I could react, a skeleton accidentally shot him. Seconds later, the skeleton spawner was vaporised, and my mill was useless.
Ok, just stop. Mob grinding does not compare to creative mode nor spawning items. They are not the same. One is spawning you infinite diamonds, iron, gold, or some other valuable resources in a nanosecond. This is creative mode, this is spawning items, this is not mob grinding, this is cheating. The other spends time (Real life days for an effective trap), resources (depending on how you build it and where, this can vary from one hell of a lot to not that much), and effort (a lot, involving finding a mob spawner/constructing the darkened room, gathering the resources for building it, building it, and fine-tweaking it) that gives you a theoretically infinite, but slow-to-collect supply of rather invaluable resources, including rotten flesh, spider eyes, string, gunpowder, and one semi-valuable but already-easily-collected-without-grinding resource: XP. This is mob grinding, this is not spawning items, this is not comparable to creative, this is not cheating. It is fair; I spent time to build it, I should be able to collect the rewards. Are you also going to complain if I build an automatic dispenser unit that dispenses the correct resources on the push of a button? I'm not doing the work to gather the resources, nor am I collecting them from my chest myself. Are you also going to complain about my cactus farm? I spent time to build it and make it work and gather the resources in one place, but I'm not actually punching the cacti, so it must be some overpowered, unfair feature, by your logic, right?
[quote=Badgerz]You have to keep in mind that people are stupid.
[quote=Catelite]Just because you don't understand how something works, doesn't make it broken or pointless. >_<