Introduction (the Issue)
In the maps I make I often have issues with too many natural spawns. This is likely to effect other mappers that use programs such as MCEdit to make a world from scratch.
The naturally generated land Minecraft makes has many different layers: High Cliffs, Land at Sea Level, Caves Underground.
The natural spawning is balanced around this fact. The game looks at a set amount of area around the player and creates the MOBs at set intervals up to a maximum amount.
Maps like mine don't have as many places for the MOBs to spawn, but they will still be created at set intervals up to the same maximum amount. The issue is this maxim amount is too high for smaller areas.
Proposed Change/Tweak (the What & How)
The science of what Mincraft does is it breaks up the map into 'chunks'. You can picture the game laying a piece of grid paper over the map. It uses these chunks to do it's spawning calculations.
I am requesting that the game be tweaked to also take into account the spawn-able areas in each chunk and adjust the maximum accordingly.
This would even out the spawning in all areas. Sometimes in normal Minecraft you go days without seeing any MOBs at all. If you were on the surface all day, and there are many caves below you, they can fill up to the max MOB count, then at the night there would be next to nothing on the surface.
So instead of just dividing the map into 16x16 columns, it could look at 16x16x16 blocks, and use that to calculate the spawning.
If it's desired to have the spawn rates as they are in normal Minecraft then it could be programed to have areas of higher danger. The "danger" amount could decrease as you go further from the 'hot spot'.
If you used this mechanic as a fix you could also give mappers the option to set the 'danger level' of areas - giving us more control of natural spawns. You could also use the 'hot spots' as places for endgame content like the Fortress spawn locations. This would also give normal Minecraft more of a feeling of progression.
Summary
The natural spawn mechanics aren't as balanced as they could be. Many small tweaks could greatly help mappers (READ: People that add content to the community and help build up Minecraft's popularity.) as well as make the normal Minecraft experience be more balanced, have more of a progression and more fun.
Thank you for taking the time to read this suggestion. As a community, if we like this idea and think it would benefit everyone, help to let Mojang know:
Click on the green up arrow to support this idea and take a few moments to post something constructive below on how or why you'd like this implemented in normal Minecraft as well as custom maps.
What scenarios could you imagine yourself in as a player if it worked like this?
What kind designs would you make in your maps as a creative player or mapper if you could set the 'danger level' in a biome or chunk area?
I think the title is confusing because I think you are not talking about game-generated balance. I think you are talking about adding variation to the spawn-levels of mobs, so some areas spawn more than others. This naturally is the case already, as Mooshroom islands spawn none, and jungles spawn fewer because most things don't spawn on leaves, but I could definitely see this being an interesting variable.
For map-makers, they already have access to these variables indirectly: spawners are fully customizable, light levels affect spawn rates, biomes can be chosen, and if they want to reduce spawns they can build dark rooms to capture some of the traffic or build unspawnable surfaces like leaves or slabs.
I know this isn't the most popular idea because many people aren't really interested in the back-end game mechanic stuff. But this could really help the balance of the gameplay, as well as really help out map makers.
In the maps I make I often have issues with too many natural spawns. This is likely to effect other mappers that use programs such as MCEdit to make a world from scratch.
The naturally generated land Minecraft makes has many different layers: High Cliffs, Land at Sea Level, Caves Underground.
The natural spawning is balanced around this fact. The game looks at a set amount of area around the player and creates the MOBs at set intervals up to a maximum amount.
Maps like mine don't have as many places for the MOBs to spawn, but they will still be created at set intervals up to the same maximum amount. The issue is this maxim amount is too high for smaller areas.
Proposed Change/Tweak (the What & How)
The science of what Mincraft does is it breaks up the map into 'chunks'. You can picture the game laying a piece of grid paper over the map. It uses these chunks to do it's spawning calculations.
I am requesting that the game be tweaked to also take into account the spawn-able areas in each chunk and adjust the maximum accordingly.
This would even out the spawning in all areas. Sometimes in normal Minecraft you go days without seeing any MOBs at all. If you were on the surface all day, and there are many caves below you, they can fill up to the max MOB count, then at the night there would be next to nothing on the surface.
So instead of just dividing the map into 16x16 columns, it could look at 16x16x16 blocks, and use that to calculate the spawning.
If it's desired to have the spawn rates as they are in normal Minecraft then it could be programed to have areas of higher danger. The "danger" amount could decrease as you go further from the 'hot spot'.
If you used this mechanic as a fix you could also give mappers the option to set the 'danger level' of areas - giving us more control of natural spawns. You could also use the 'hot spots' as places for endgame content like the Fortress spawn locations. This would also give normal Minecraft more of a feeling of progression.
Summary
The natural spawn mechanics aren't as balanced as they could be. Many small tweaks could greatly help mappers (READ: People that add content to the community and help build up Minecraft's popularity.) as well as make the normal Minecraft experience be more balanced, have more of a progression and more fun.
Thank you for taking the time to read this suggestion. As a community, if we like this idea and think it would benefit everyone, help to let Mojang know:
Click on the green up arrow to support this idea and take a few moments to post something constructive below on how or why you'd like this implemented in normal Minecraft as well as custom maps.
For map-makers, they already have access to these variables indirectly: spawners are fully customizable, light levels affect spawn rates, biomes can be chosen, and if they want to reduce spawns they can build dark rooms to capture some of the traffic or build unspawnable surfaces like leaves or slabs.
My thread: Life as a Nomadic Trapper: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1664475-my-life-as-a-nomadic-trapper
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