This is a general matter that's been bothering me for awhile: there are a lot of drops which are either nearly-useless, or used in such a limited context compared with the drop rate that huge waste stockpiles develop. The worst offenders by far are Rotten Flesh, and Bones, although Gunpowder can build up in large quantities unless you have an actual use for TNT. This only gets worse after building a monster trap. I'd hoped that the addition of trading would resolve this, but these 'waste drops' are completely left out of the trade system.
It shouldn't be that hard to come up with some sort of use for these drops. One in particular that would be nice would be using Rotten Flesh and perhaps Bones to create some kind of monster-luring item or potion that enhances the spawn rate and/or increases the experience gained from enemies killed while it's active. Since the randomness of enchantments requires a huge amount of grinding to get even moderately high-end gear, it would be nice to have a way of making this grinding happen faster without excessive dependence on exploits.
Every base I build gets at least one incinerator (magma column or netherack fire) to get rid of waste items. I may not be able to end that practice, but I'd love to reduce the amount of drops that go in there, the way seeds suddenly became worth keeping when they became useful for breeding chickens.
Never before have I ever thought that certain items didn't have enough uses before even though I had so many of them. Here's the thing though: someone who plays differently than someone else may use a certain item more than the other person. Likewise, someone who doesn't play well at all might not ever get as much of the item as someone who is more experienced at the game. I only ever understood that a mob trap or grinder was supposed to give so much loot that you'd never be able to expend all of it in the first place.
As for your ideas: there is an interesting concept behind them, but I don't think it's specific enough. Currently the items you mentioned (mainly gunpowder, bones, and rotten flesh) have more than one use: TNT/Potions/Fire Charges/..., Wolf Taming/Bone Meal, Food/Wolf Food, etc. I'm not saying that these few uses should suffice for the items alone, but I can slightly agree that there might be room for suggestions on other uses. You have to keep in mind that since these items are extremely easy to obtain according to your suggestion, the ideas can't be overpowered in any shape or form.
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I'm kinda with you on the rotten flesh and maybe the gunpowder, but bones are already pretty dang useful. They make bone meal for dyes and insta-growing plants, and tame wolves.
Either way, I think this would be a pretty neat idea, as long as it wasn't overpowered in any way. That would take all of the satisfaction and point out of experience grinding.
I'm kinda with you on the rotten flesh and maybe the gunpowder, but bones are already pretty dang useful. They make bone meal for dyes and insta-growing plants, and tame wolves.
I have to agree with Rumblethumps as far as bones are concerned. Given how easy a wheat farm is to start, you essentially can sell bones to villagers by turning it into bonemeal and using that bonemeal to gather large amount of wheat, which you can then sell to the villagers. Personally I rely on gunpowder quite a bit as I like amassing large amounts of tnt to get rid of any mountains/terrain which bothers me in a quick and fun manner. Also, since the addition of fire works, I'm finding it hard to get enough gunpowder. Rotten flesh doesn't bother me too much, although i don't feed my dogs often, it is good dog food for players who don't want to give them a steak.
The one item that I have no use for is spider eyes. Because I play SSP I don't have a need for negative potions. Although having said that, as tonytheslayer said, another player might get alot of use out of that item.
I guess at the end of the day you either have to stock pile them or get rid of them, I tend to get rid of renewable items i don't use. If your suggestion is to give every item a ton of uses, I don't support that. I think items currently have well balanced uses and I don't want uses added just for the sake of making every single item useful to every single player. So spiders for me are just gonna be for xp and that's ok.
This is especially a problem with rotten flesh. At the beginning it's very useful as a food source, but once you have a reliable source of food it piles up quickly. As RebD said though, if you have a lot of bones, you can often grow and harvest an entire farm many times in a row.
Spider eyes actually do have a specific use other than potions. Occasionally I've been low on health, and want to heal. However, I don't have any food in my inventory at the moment. I'm almost there though; just one chicken leg (or whatever it is) away from hitting the point where my health refills. The solution? Eat a spider eye. Sure, it gives me a poison effect, but unless I'm playing on Hard difficulty it won't actually kill me, and if there aren't any mobs around it isn't a problem. Soon enough all the health I've lost from the poison, plus all my other health, has recharged.
I agree though, this particular situation doesn't come up nearly enough to make spider eyes useful enough for their commonness. Negative potions do have uses in SSP though, as they can be used against mobs. An Instant Harming splash potion or whatever it's called can work as a grenade of sorts against non-undead mobs, for instance.
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I agree though, this particular situation doesn't come up nearly enough to make spider eyes useful enough for their commonness. Negative potions do have uses in SSP though, as they can be used against mobs. An Instant Harming splash potion or whatever it's called can work as a grenade of sorts against non-undead mobs, for instance.
And I fully agree that might suit some players play style, just not mine, i prefer bow and arrow. Which is kind of my point, I just throw out all the excess eyes and string i get from spiders and it's not so bad.
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It shouldn't be that hard to come up with some sort of use for these drops. One in particular that would be nice would be using Rotten Flesh and perhaps Bones to create some kind of monster-luring item or potion that enhances the spawn rate and/or increases the experience gained from enemies killed while it's active. Since the randomness of enchantments requires a huge amount of grinding to get even moderately high-end gear, it would be nice to have a way of making this grinding happen faster without excessive dependence on exploits.
Every base I build gets at least one incinerator (magma column or netherack fire) to get rid of waste items. I may not be able to end that practice, but I'd love to reduce the amount of drops that go in there, the way seeds suddenly became worth keeping when they became useful for breeding chickens.
Never before have I ever thought that certain items didn't have enough uses before even though I had so many of them. Here's the thing though: someone who plays differently than someone else may use a certain item more than the other person. Likewise, someone who doesn't play well at all might not ever get as much of the item as someone who is more experienced at the game. I only ever understood that a mob trap or grinder was supposed to give so much loot that you'd never be able to expend all of it in the first place.
As for your ideas: there is an interesting concept behind them, but I don't think it's specific enough. Currently the items you mentioned (mainly gunpowder, bones, and rotten flesh) have more than one use: TNT/Potions/Fire Charges/..., Wolf Taming/Bone Meal, Food/Wolf Food, etc. I'm not saying that these few uses should suffice for the items alone, but I can slightly agree that there might be room for suggestions on other uses. You have to keep in mind that since these items are extremely easy to obtain according to your suggestion, the ideas can't be overpowered in any shape or form.
Either way, I think this would be a pretty neat idea, as long as it wasn't overpowered in any way. That would take all of the satisfaction and point out of experience grinding.
I have to agree with Rumblethumps as far as bones are concerned. Given how easy a wheat farm is to start, you essentially can sell bones to villagers by turning it into bonemeal and using that bonemeal to gather large amount of wheat, which you can then sell to the villagers. Personally I rely on gunpowder quite a bit as I like amassing large amounts of tnt to get rid of any mountains/terrain which bothers me in a quick and fun manner. Also, since the addition of fire works, I'm finding it hard to get enough gunpowder. Rotten flesh doesn't bother me too much, although i don't feed my dogs often, it is good dog food for players who don't want to give them a steak.
The one item that I have no use for is spider eyes. Because I play SSP I don't have a need for negative potions. Although having said that, as tonytheslayer said, another player might get alot of use out of that item.
I guess at the end of the day you either have to stock pile them or get rid of them, I tend to get rid of renewable items i don't use. If your suggestion is to give every item a ton of uses, I don't support that. I think items currently have well balanced uses and I don't want uses added just for the sake of making every single item useful to every single player. So spiders for me are just gonna be for xp and that's ok.
Spider eyes actually do have a specific use other than potions. Occasionally I've been low on health, and want to heal. However, I don't have any food in my inventory at the moment. I'm almost there though; just one chicken leg (or whatever it is) away from hitting the point where my health refills. The solution? Eat a spider eye. Sure, it gives me a poison effect, but unless I'm playing on Hard difficulty it won't actually kill me, and if there aren't any mobs around it isn't a problem. Soon enough all the health I've lost from the poison, plus all my other health, has recharged.
I agree though, this particular situation doesn't come up nearly enough to make spider eyes useful enough for their commonness. Negative potions do have uses in SSP though, as they can be used against mobs. An Instant Harming splash potion or whatever it's called can work as a grenade of sorts against non-undead mobs, for instance.
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And I fully agree that might suit some players play style, just not mine, i prefer bow and arrow. Which is kind of my point, I just throw out all the excess eyes and string i get from spiders and it's not so bad.