Minecraft Forums

The hardest part of minecraft for me is starting off in a new world, because you have no source of food, light, or materials.

For me, its building something aesthetically pleasing. I always have the hardest time coming up with themes or the right blocks.

Getting people to watch my Let's Play.

OT: Staying motivated in a world. Once I have my diamond armor and weapons the game gets pretty easy so I start to think about what is next.

for me it is also starting out in a new world, and the second thing is finding iron, which is a big deal for me.

I'd say it's getting over that dry spell which seems inevitable during a new game where you find just enough iron to make some tools that allow you to get digging in dangerous areas but not quite enough iron yet to equip yourself with adequate armor or weapons to survive in those places for long forays!

I tend to build my homes underground and use any nearby timber to make fences, doors or stack up dirt barriers to keep the caverns I make in the search of iron & coal safe while I'm gathering.

Hardest part for me?

Trying to cross a lava lake deep underground carefully placing gravel or sand in the pool to get across and keeping an eye out for mobs behind you - especially a skelly since a single shot is enough to knock you in.

Building starter house..

For me its finishing or strating the big projects I think of.

Easiest part is definitely surviving the first few days, piece of cake.
Hardest part is continuing to play on the world instead of moving on after I get in a comfortable position.

Quote from BigAlanM

Turn the lava into obsidian with water.
I carry two buckets with water so I can make an infinite water source if I need it.
But if you stand up on a block and then pour the water at the edge of the lava and then refill the bucket from the place you poured it out the water will stop and you will have an area of obsidian.
If the ceiling is low I'll set up a sand wall to keep the water from washing me away and then pour the water.

The main disadvantage of that is when one is at the bottom of the large chasms it can significantly decrease lighting by turning much of the lava into obsidian.

It's more of an issue it seems with the latest update in that these large underground caves form that are lots of broken pieces all merging into areas with lava pools - in places where pouring water would be tough and still allow one to be in control. I've had pools where it took me almost 50 pieces of gravel or sand to reach the other side (making a path 2-3 blocks wide).

Usually it's not a problem but recently with the same lighting change in 1.7.x that I think affects lighting at night in the villages it seems more monsters spawn in the caves - I look and there aren't any, turn around, drop 2 pieces of gravel and suddenly Mr. Blue Jeans has just pushed me into the lava.

Motivation. When I play, I tend to have a very easy time progressing from nothing to diamonds. Then I get a full suit of diamond armor and get bored and stop playing for a few months. Then i'll come back to test the next snapshot and the same thing happens again. And again. And again.

Granted there's not much left in the game for me so there isn't much to be motivated by anyway.

The hardest part is building stuff that looks good and then making the decision to stop rather than keep working on the same thing for the rest of eternity. Sometimes it's nice to say Mission Accomplished and move to the next new creation but of course, I always come back and keep working on old stuff when I get a new idea.

I would have to say the hardest thing for me to do is getting the building materials for big builds/actually building them. I'm not very good at making my builds look nice. Usually I only use maybe 3 different blocks at the most on a build.

Hardest part for me - Finding strongholds and dungeons.

Easiest part for me - Finding diamonds and rare minerals. I feel fortunate.

Getting someone to play with.

#loner...

Quote from creeperskelly

The main disadvantage of that is when one is at the bottom of the large chasms it can significantly decrease lighting by turning much of the lava into obsidian.

It's more of an issue it seems with the latest update in that these large underground caves form that are lots of broken pieces all merging into areas with lava pools - in places where pouring water would be tough and still allow one to be in control. I've had pools where it took me almost 50 pieces of gravel or sand to reach the other side (making a path 2-3 blocks wide).

Usually it's not a problem but recently with the same lighting change in 1.7.x that I think affects lighting at night in the villages it seems more monsters spawn in the caves - I look and there aren't any, turn around, drop 2 pieces of gravel and suddenly Mr. Blue Jeans has just pushed me into the lava.

But that's why you bring torches into caves; if you bring a stack of logs, you can make 2,048 torches using coal mined from the cave (I have made/used over 40,000 in my current main survival world...). Monsters also won't spawn within 24 blocks of you, at least in 1.6 (of course, zombies come from all over), so its not like flooding the lava near you will make them spawn. Using water over sand/gravel is especially important in the kinds of caves I explore (I modded them to be bigger and denser); one cave I recently explored had so much lava (or used to) that it might have been better to call it an ocean, visible from holes all the way up to the highest layers; much better to dump water and let it trickle down and risk more monsters than get knocked down and die from fall damage in lava (besides, who's afraid of a few monsters once you have good weapons and armor?).

Also, caves are supposed to be less common and less dense in 1.7 (confirmed by looking at the decompiled source and comparing maps in Unmined), so I'm curious about the ones you are finding.


But anyway, starting a new world would be the hardest part of the game; I'd even actually mine a bit until I got enough iron before going into caves. I even used MCEdit to move my base in my main survival world when I wanted a fresh world (actually the same seed except for the cave generation), completely bypassing the "start with nothing" part; I'm planning to do the same when Forge and MCP/mods update for 1.7, although I only do it on that world.

MasterCaver:

I have a seed that I am replaying to allow it to be 100% generated by 1.7.2 so when I get to one of these really odd caverns I'll show you. Right now the one I was having trouble with has been mined and was created in a prior snapshot so the villagers have trading bugs (free tools are awesome!).

Usually I find it more fun to keep stuff on the surface and carry a limited inventory to the bottom - that way I can fill up with more loot before returning to my base. Carrying a maximum amount of sticks to make torches once I mine coal wouldn't be characteristic for me. I usually carry about 128 torches with me at most.

If my son is playing one of my maps then we carry more torches and divvy the tasks so I'll look for certain ores and make paths across lava lakes while he does other things (I wonder how many parents/children play MC together?)

It used to be that I put torches in a 6x6 pattern - TxxxxxT (T=torch, x=block) like that - but now monsters spawn even when I do this so something has to have changed in 1.7. Monsters are spawning somewhere even when it seems that there is enough light (I've been playing MC since 1.2.x and I have AS so I do notice even the slightest changes in things).

Something about this changed in the snapshots leading to 1.7 and including 1.7 because the game play I used in the deep dark depths of the world in prior versions doesn't work well now (I have been killed more in 1.7 than all prior versions combined - in fact it was quite rare - usually just something stupid like falling).

Ordering people around during mass scale PvP situations. Even when I'm the leader.

Quote from creeperskelly

Usually I find it more fun to keep stuff on the surface and carry a limited inventory to the bottom - that way I can fill up with more loot before returning to my base. Carrying a maximum amount of sticks to make torches once I mine coal wouldn't be characteristic for me. I usually carry about 128 torches with me at most.

You only need one extra inventory slot for wood though, assuming you mine coal anyway, making torches in batches of 32 or 64 at a time (128 wouldn't go far for me; I use torches at the rate of about 300-400 per hour and this way I can play for days without returning; I even bring a couple extra stacks with me). I also use a backpack mod to carry more stuff, usually only limited by how much wood I bring down, although since you have to manually move stuff into the backpacks I want as much space as possible (this is how I typically organize my inventory, depending also on the levels I'm mainly exploring/mineshafts/etc; more space for coal and less for redstone at higher layers, a slot for emeralds, more rails, string from cave spider nests, etc).

Even before I used mods, I'd make blocks of the stuff I mined, stopping to smelt iron/gold ore, later using an Ender Chest to carry more, including extra/less used supplies (requires a Silk Touch pickaxe). Of course, carrying this much stuff (less Ender Chest method) without cheats/keepinventory is extremely risky and if 1.7 is as dangerous as you say (I haven't really played much in 1.7 yet), I might rethink doing this or even use an Ender Chest for my backpacks; if you think losing a stack or two of iron is bad, try a few dozen stacks (of course, if lava is involved, since I also use Rei's Minimap), although I'd be still be more concerned about the mod tools/armor I use since that stuff is REALLY expensive, not even considering their enchantments.