Skylights- A cool gimmick and a clever way to challenge the player immediately, but at their own pace. I’d have enjoyed it more if you weren’t allowed a way to reach the others and if the path you chose had more permanent implications (granting some players access to items/farms they otherwise wouldn’t be seen during the rest of the map).
Upper Mines- It was a little bit empty, but it established the feel and scale for the map early on and brought the Skylights together naturally.
Abandoned Dormitories- Stupid cave spiders… I have slow instincts and a slow computer, so I died a bunch. Nothing against this area, which was a good difficulty for the first wool, albeit unspectacular.
Lower Mines- I liked that you could approach this area in different ways; you could be aggressive by rushing in and destroying the spawners, you could be methodical by tunneling and gradually lighting the area, or you could be tactical by sending in the. I took the aggressive approach, but could see doing otherwise on different playthroughs.
Everforge- Ouch, this area was tough at the beginning. Witches this early in the map were very difficult, but manageable once you learned how to fight them (never use fire, never fight at midrange). More problematic was the wool, which felt like it was a block away from being blown up by swarms of creepers. The quality of the loot you were able to get here also kind of overshadowed that of a lot of later chests, which made looking through them a kind of unnecessary for a while.
Outer Darkness- The central vines were one of my favorite areas of the map. I died many times trying to get up in the most daring way possible, only to mess up the climbing controls, overestimate a jump, or get knocked off by a skeleton. Zisteau at the top was tough, but introduced at the right time.
Mellow Caverns- Pretty easy all around, even at the lower levels. I was more amused by the Creeper Jockey than anything else. It was difficult to find the Lost Cavern though, even having been spoiled on where it was… the 3x3 block was nowhere near obvious.
Lost Cavern- That Kamyu fight was very difficult, and was easily the biggest challenge for me up to that point. I had to come back to it, but I thought it was one of the early high points of the map. The loot in the ceiling was a nice touch too.
Hane’s Disgrace- Loved the contraptions, loved the random Blazes, hated the invisible spider dungeon. I’m afraid I ended up getting frustrated and taking the easy route, breaking through the glass.
Lush Ruins- I’m torn here. It had another Headhunter fight, which was nice, but was otherwise far too massive and full of dead ends... only a few places had decent loot, and the rest were only good for a resupply. One could spend months just grinding out spawners. Maybe this should have been a mini-map of its own, with a 3 or 4 part monument to complete… I couldn’t bring myself to stick around beyond getting the wool and getting out.
Flame Warp- I was surprised there wasn’t more to this area. The geometry of it is cool, but between Ender Pearls and Feather Falling boots, it was far easier to get the wool than go onto the next area, where invisible Creepers were just plain annoying. Maybe my least favorite area if I had to pick.
Salire Castle- Could’ve looked a little more ornate and been a little less complicated to navigate. That said, I felt like I was suddenly in a Mario game here, complete with final boss. It was loads of fun.
Giant Dumb Blast Zisteau Cavern- You quickly discover that if you don’t approach this area with the understanding that Zisteaus are stupid, you become a human tennis ball and will die a horrible death in lava. I still found it extremely difficult, but not the impossible test of persistence that the beta testers reported. The tribute was well done.
Wilhelm Cliffs- You just HAAAAAD to have a stick in each intersection 3 area, didn’t you Vechz? Just teasing, I loved this area. It was a lot of fun to finally get immersed in the vistas, and I enjoyed the heck out of Big Bonk until I lost it trying to make one of your silly parkour jumps.
Hallowed Overlook- Best home base ever. All the amenities a Steve could want out of life without having to build complicated sorting systems.
Camp Ember- I loved the aesthetic of this area so much. It felt more like a real ruin and lost civilization than any other that I’ve played in Minecraft. Still, invisible Endermen??? Ye gods!
Ember Castle- Looked great from the outside, and it was loads of fun to make it to reach the top of the ruined tower (even if the wool wasn’t there). That said, the interior rooms were rather ugly and uneventful, and the random chests in all the rooms got to be overkill here.
Cavern of Last Respite- You *******!!! I fell for that trap far more than I ought to have, and kept assuming I wouldn’t be that stupid again. Nope.
Vexian Gallery- Tonally jarring? Sure, whatever. I’m too enamored of that glorious, glorious quartz to care. What texture! Oh yea, I suppose there was some wool here as well.
Blackened Archive- Zoinks. Talk about a challenge. I fell so many times trying to make it to the top. The Char was probably my favorite custom mobs… I got the crap scared out of me when I was bridging over the maze gap and saw one run what seemed like “away”, only to navigate the maze and knock me into a sea of mobs. Zombie pathfinding is scary good.
Zisteaunian Battlecry- For all the methodical progression that’s often necessary in these maps, it was awesome to see a map that actively encourages you to potion up and just go berserk. Got caught off guard by the mobs the first trip though and died horribly in a fire; the second was pretty basic with fire resistance. Maybe slightly increase Zisteau spawning? (I may regret saying that)
Endless Battle- LAG. It was just too much. I’m glad you’re now offering an alternate area, because for some users this area just won’t work at all. That said, the area was a pretty nice finale when I finally got it to work properly, and the friendly mobs were surprisingly effective. Kudos for one last troll job at the end.
Things I liked:
Headhunter Monument- It really helped liven up a lot of the bigger areas, which otherwise would have just been window dressing apart from the wool. You should definitely have more side quests like this in future maps.
Most Custom Mobs- This is where your map really had a leg up on others; combat with nothing but vanilla mobs gets repetitive after a while. Zisteaus, Chars, and Cactus mobs were my favorite of the bunch.
Deathblooms- More of these please. They’re easily my favorite diabolical invention of yours, and quite a nasty surprise. I was hoping there’d be a room completely dedicated to them.
Trolling and Humor- It felt like I was playing Legendary at times, which was a very good thing. I’ve missed the comedic tone in your maps.
Traps- This time around, they were clever, subtle, and usually the last place you expected to find them (Salire Castle and Last Respite, for instance). And of course, the Lost Cavern trap was astoundingly elaborate. Well done.
Cool things that could be improved:
Vistas- They looked awesome, but this game can only render so much. It was jarring to see day/night cycles while deep underground.
Fleecymobs- Having a legitimate boss fight was definitely a nice change of pace for some levels, and an inspired idea. However, they feel really unbalanced. Sometimes you can isolate the fleecymob and shoot it to death without it ever having a prayer; sometimes you just get swarmed and need to do unfun things to win the fight. It’s especially jarring that more than one can spawn at a time, which makes it hard to keep track of which mob you’ve been doing damage to if you die.
Random Loot- I liked that it let helped you recover if you die, but if you’ve got a dungeon crawling compulsion like me, it’s infuriating to find redundancy and so many useless items. Mousing over every enchanted item to make sure it’s not better than what I’ve already got is the worst when they’re in every room.
Things I didn’t like:
Empty feel- I got the feeling that a few areas were just the same empty (except for spawners) room over and over again… Ember Castle’s interior, Flame Warp, and Lush Ruins were the worst offenders. A little more scenery would be nice in places, but it’s just a quibble.
Lag- I love mob swarms and epic battles as much as the next guy, but having to reload or install optimizing software just to play a level really takes you out of the moment.
It's a mixed bag. The mountainous terrain is fun, and finally having rivers is nice, but a lot of the interesting variability of the terrain got lost in the transition. Canyons are random scars in the land, and we rarely get big, oceanic cliffs or beaches anymore. And for those who truly want to immerse themselves in the game, the continents are too small and surrounded by featureless oceans.
As of right now, cocoa beans are rare items found in dungeons that are used to make cookies (inefficient food source), or brown dye (found more commonly on brown sheep). It's more or less useless in its current form. I think it's time to finally give them the attention they deserve. Here are my ideas:
-A cocoa sapling, rather than cocoa beans themselves, will be found in dungeons. Upon growth, it will grow into a cocoa tree, with a retextured structure of a regular oak tree, with each leaf having a 1 in 4 chance of dropping a cocoa bean.
-However, cocoa trees do not produce saplings of their own upon destruction of their leaves. Instead, oak leaves next to cocoa leaves have a chance of dropping cocoa saplings. The probability of an oak leaf dropping a cocoa sapling rather than an oak sapling increases based on the amount of time spent next to each other and the proximity of the leaves.
-In addition to cookies, coffee can be crafted from cocoa beans like so (seeds are beans):
Coffee is essentially a nerfed speed potion, capable of being made without farming nether wart. In addition, it provides 3 temporary hearts of health, which last for 1 minute before beginning to deplete to its original level. It cannot be cheated; if you drink two coffee at the same time, you will lose 6 hearts at the end of the period. It is possible to die of a "caffeine overdose" in this way.
I don't like any of your options in particular. I think trading should be the first component to be added, with each villager having a separate item set:
Butcher- Meats and wool
Farmer- Crops
Priest- Rare materials and potions
Librarian- Dyes, books, and enchanting materials
Smith- Tools and minerals
Villager- Raw materials
The village would have a currency that you would obtain upon giving the appropriate villager your materials, and that you would pay for goods with. They would also only sell items that you have either only encountered already or special items that you could only find in villages.
Eventually, quests could be a good idea, but i'd prefer a trading system first.
I wouldn't discount silk touch. In the hands of an experienced user, it's invaluable. Want to improve your mushroom farm? Unless you want to push mycelium all the way back from a mushroom island with pistons, you're gonna need that silk touch. Want to make a silverfish trap? Silk touch. Want to make a white stone building (assuming you eventually can get back from the End)? Silk touch. Want to build a zombie pigmen farm in the nether, giving you all the gold nuggets you need for glistering melon and instant health? You'll need water in the nether, and you'll only get that from silk touch. It is worth grinding for simply on the basis of doing things that you can't possibly do on your own.
Also, getting upper-level weapons and armor might be pretty important whilst facing off against future bosses, depending on their nature.
Sure, most of us don't particularly worry about what we do in Minecraft, because there no real world implications. Still, sometimes you have to ask yourself...
-Is it unethical to kill a peaceful intelligent/humanoid being for their loot, and do endermen and villagers fall into this category?
-Is it unethical to automatically spawn and process mobs, even if they're hostile?
-Is it unethical to forcefully breed mobs, and separate babies from their parents at birth?
-Is it unethical to eat rotten flesh, under the presumption that it's cannibalism?
-What's the most humane way to kill passive mobs, and are there any that are unacceptably inhumane?
-Are there any other ethical boundaries that you wonder about?
-Most importantly, do any of these ethical issues stop you from doing them?
Bones- Yeah. Bone meal. Where would we be without be bone meal? Wheat farming, animal farming, and tree farming would be a tedious, time-intensive process. Sure, you can use it to tame wolves, and that's cool. But keep in mind that since you get three bone meal per bone, you essentially get a piece of bread for every skeleton killed. Where else do you get that kind of production?
Gunpowder- Splash potions and TNT. No substitutes. Need more be said?
Gold Nugget- Even if you've got only a meager melon farm, getting glistening melons is a snap, and instant health is easy to come by. It's not stackable and requires time to drink, but its the only way to instant health in the game.
Blaze Rods- Have to be near the top. Between being an essential component of Ender Eyes, a powerful energy source, a requirement for crafting potions, and magma cream, there's a ton of benefit to taking on Blazes.
Ghast Tears- Maybe the hardest of all to collect, but the overall benefit of regeneration is even more powerful than that of instant health.
Slime Balls- For a mob that gets ignored as much as slimes, slime balls are fairly useful. They're required to make the most useful type of piston, and another one of the magma cream ingredients, which you need to conquer the Nether.
Ender Pearls- It's a novelty in the end, but it's one of the Ender Eye components, and it can get you out of a tight spot when nothing else can.
String- Essential early on, but quickly loses it's usefulness as you'll only ever need one bow, fishing rods aren't particularly useful, and Sheep are a vastly superior source of wool.
Spider Eyes- Used for negative splash potions, but not much else. By the time you get to brewing, you'll likely already have far more than you need.
Arrows- They're not going to be your primary source of arrows in the first place, unless for some reason you have a problem killing chicken.
Rotten Flesh- Not very useful. It allows for quick, emergency healing on the battlefield, but there's no reason to farm Zombies for it.
Zombies aren't particularly strong, but they've got enough health now to make falling into more than one of them perilous.
Spiders aren't strong either, but their mobility lets them come after you in places that other mobs can't get to. Most of the time, they're only truly threatening when they're perched up above you and jump down when you least expect it.
Skeletons have a big leg up over the previous two in that they can fight back even you're skilled with bows.
Creepers are creepers. We all know the challenges that go with them.
Slimes are weak, but no one expects slimes to be the fight of the century.
Endermen are quite sturdy opponents. Nothing but swords can damage them, they've got double your health, and teleportation throws that much more of a monkey wrench into combat.
Cave spiders are truly nasty pieces of work. They're harder to hit, can climb through any hole, and can basically reduce your health to half a heart in a single hit. And since you find them in abandoned mine shafts with their own spawners, you know that there will be many around.
Silverfish may be diminutive, but once again, strength in surprise and numbers. And no mob is better with unpleasant surprises (except for the creeper) than silverfish. Sure, an experienced player will know what to do, but the risk of giving into the sheer terror of watching them multiply makes them a worthy opponent.
Zombie pigmen are easy if you face them one-on-one; the problem is that with the darkness of the Nether, you'll rarely be able to tell, and the last thing you want in any Minecraft combat scenario is a horde.
Ghasts are fragile; as of now, they can be one-shotted by a fully charged arrow. A number of things make them tough, however; their deadly stream of fireballs constantly destroy the landscape, depth perception with such a disproportionate mob makes correct aim difficult, and they're rarely found alone. Trying to dodge and/or deflect three explosive fireballs at once and charge your bow in time is an impossible task.
Blazes are maybe the deadliest mob in Minecraft if you're unprepared. Their fireballs are fast, and getting lit on fire in the Nether is no fun. And like the Ghast, they fly. However, most of their powers are fire-based... craft up a few good fire resistance potions and you're in business.
None of them are overpowering, but most of the more advanced mobs have some attribute that makes them deadly or hard to kill, such as poison, flying, explosives, swarming, and teleportation. All of these are a lot more powerful than straight-up health would make them (plus they just got a boost and you'll be fighting dragons soon).
I love pretty much everything new that's been added. I agree with your stronghold comment, though; i'd like to see some zombie and skeleton spawners and epic loot!
So for those of you who aren't familiar with the details of the hunger mechanic, there's more to it than food simply refilling the hunger bar and getting you health. There's also an unseen "saturation bar" that determines how long you will stay full before your hunger bar begins to deplete again. For example, two cookies heal the same amount as a melon slice, but the overall saturation that they restore is far less than a melon slice, and you'll be hungry again sooner rather than later.
It got me thinking... why not expand on that mechanic to make each food distinctive, and actively affect player performance?
The nutrition mechanic would have multiple, unseen components to it to help calculate what the player's overall nutrition should be. You'd have a meter for carbohydrates, fat, and protein, and each food would have distinctive values of each. Higher values in each boost players physical skills; carbohydrates would increase player speed and mining speed (build-centric), fat would function like the saturation bar does now (survival-centric), and protein aids attack and defense statistics (adventure-centric). This way, a player can specialize in one component based on their style of play.
For example, subsisting on only bread won't kill you, but while you'll notice how much faster you'll run, you'll also notice how much less effective you are at killing things and not having to eat constantly.
Basically, eating a wide variety of good foods ups your performance, while eating crap all the time weakens you.
1
Upper Mines- It was a little bit empty, but it established the feel and scale for the map early on and brought the Skylights together naturally.
Abandoned Dormitories- Stupid cave spiders… I have slow instincts and a slow computer, so I died a bunch. Nothing against this area, which was a good difficulty for the first wool, albeit unspectacular.
Lower Mines- I liked that you could approach this area in different ways; you could be aggressive by rushing in and destroying the spawners, you could be methodical by tunneling and gradually lighting the area, or you could be tactical by sending in the. I took the aggressive approach, but could see doing otherwise on different playthroughs.
Everforge- Ouch, this area was tough at the beginning. Witches this early in the map were very difficult, but manageable once you learned how to fight them (never use fire, never fight at midrange). More problematic was the wool, which felt like it was a block away from being blown up by swarms of creepers. The quality of the loot you were able to get here also kind of overshadowed that of a lot of later chests, which made looking through them a kind of unnecessary for a while.
Outer Darkness- The central vines were one of my favorite areas of the map. I died many times trying to get up in the most daring way possible, only to mess up the climbing controls, overestimate a jump, or get knocked off by a skeleton. Zisteau at the top was tough, but introduced at the right time.
Mellow Caverns- Pretty easy all around, even at the lower levels. I was more amused by the Creeper Jockey than anything else. It was difficult to find the Lost Cavern though, even having been spoiled on where it was… the 3x3 block was nowhere near obvious.
Lost Cavern- That Kamyu fight was very difficult, and was easily the biggest challenge for me up to that point. I had to come back to it, but I thought it was one of the early high points of the map. The loot in the ceiling was a nice touch too.
Hane’s Disgrace- Loved the contraptions, loved the random Blazes, hated the invisible spider dungeon. I’m afraid I ended up getting frustrated and taking the easy route, breaking through the glass.
Lush Ruins- I’m torn here. It had another Headhunter fight, which was nice, but was otherwise far too massive and full of dead ends... only a few places had decent loot, and the rest were only good for a resupply. One could spend months just grinding out spawners. Maybe this should have been a mini-map of its own, with a 3 or 4 part monument to complete… I couldn’t bring myself to stick around beyond getting the wool and getting out.
Flame Warp- I was surprised there wasn’t more to this area. The geometry of it is cool, but between Ender Pearls and Feather Falling boots, it was far easier to get the wool than go onto the next area, where invisible Creepers were just plain annoying. Maybe my least favorite area if I had to pick.
Salire Castle- Could’ve looked a little more ornate and been a little less complicated to navigate. That said, I felt like I was suddenly in a Mario game here, complete with final boss. It was loads of fun.
Giant Dumb Blast Zisteau Cavern- You quickly discover that if you don’t approach this area with the understanding that Zisteaus are stupid, you become a human tennis ball and will die a horrible death in lava. I still found it extremely difficult, but not the impossible test of persistence that the beta testers reported. The tribute was well done.
Wilhelm Cliffs- You just HAAAAAD to have a stick in each intersection 3 area, didn’t you Vechz? Just teasing, I loved this area. It was a lot of fun to finally get immersed in the vistas, and I enjoyed the heck out of Big Bonk until I lost it trying to make one of your silly parkour jumps.
Hallowed Overlook- Best home base ever. All the amenities a Steve could want out of life without having to build complicated sorting systems.
Camp Ember- I loved the aesthetic of this area so much. It felt more like a real ruin and lost civilization than any other that I’ve played in Minecraft. Still, invisible Endermen??? Ye gods!
Ember Castle- Looked great from the outside, and it was loads of fun to make it to reach the top of the ruined tower (even if the wool wasn’t there). That said, the interior rooms were rather ugly and uneventful, and the random chests in all the rooms got to be overkill here.
Cavern of Last Respite- You *******!!! I fell for that trap far more than I ought to have, and kept assuming I wouldn’t be that stupid again. Nope.
Vexian Gallery- Tonally jarring? Sure, whatever. I’m too enamored of that glorious, glorious quartz to care. What texture! Oh yea, I suppose there was some wool here as well.
Blackened Archive- Zoinks. Talk about a challenge. I fell so many times trying to make it to the top. The Char was probably my favorite custom mobs… I got the crap scared out of me when I was bridging over the maze gap and saw one run what seemed like “away”, only to navigate the maze and knock me into a sea of mobs. Zombie pathfinding is scary good.
Zisteaunian Battlecry- For all the methodical progression that’s often necessary in these maps, it was awesome to see a map that actively encourages you to potion up and just go berserk. Got caught off guard by the mobs the first trip though and died horribly in a fire; the second was pretty basic with fire resistance. Maybe slightly increase Zisteau spawning? (I may regret saying that)
Endless Battle- LAG. It was just too much. I’m glad you’re now offering an alternate area, because for some users this area just won’t work at all. That said, the area was a pretty nice finale when I finally got it to work properly, and the friendly mobs were surprisingly effective. Kudos for one last troll job at the end.
Things I liked:
Headhunter Monument- It really helped liven up a lot of the bigger areas, which otherwise would have just been window dressing apart from the wool. You should definitely have more side quests like this in future maps.
Most Custom Mobs- This is where your map really had a leg up on others; combat with nothing but vanilla mobs gets repetitive after a while. Zisteaus, Chars, and Cactus mobs were my favorite of the bunch.
Deathblooms- More of these please. They’re easily my favorite diabolical invention of yours, and quite a nasty surprise. I was hoping there’d be a room completely dedicated to them.
Trolling and Humor- It felt like I was playing Legendary at times, which was a very good thing. I’ve missed the comedic tone in your maps.
Traps- This time around, they were clever, subtle, and usually the last place you expected to find them (Salire Castle and Last Respite, for instance). And of course, the Lost Cavern trap was astoundingly elaborate. Well done.
Cool things that could be improved:
Vistas- They looked awesome, but this game can only render so much. It was jarring to see day/night cycles while deep underground.
Fleecymobs- Having a legitimate boss fight was definitely a nice change of pace for some levels, and an inspired idea. However, they feel really unbalanced. Sometimes you can isolate the fleecymob and shoot it to death without it ever having a prayer; sometimes you just get swarmed and need to do unfun things to win the fight. It’s especially jarring that more than one can spawn at a time, which makes it hard to keep track of which mob you’ve been doing damage to if you die.
Random Loot- I liked that it let helped you recover if you die, but if you’ve got a dungeon crawling compulsion like me, it’s infuriating to find redundancy and so many useless items. Mousing over every enchanted item to make sure it’s not better than what I’ve already got is the worst when they’re in every room.
Things I didn’t like:
Empty feel- I got the feeling that a few areas were just the same empty (except for spawners) room over and over again… Ember Castle’s interior, Flame Warp, and Lush Ruins were the worst offenders. A little more scenery would be nice in places, but it’s just a quibble.
Lag- I love mob swarms and epic battles as much as the next guy, but having to reload or install optimizing software just to play a level really takes you out of the moment.
Invisible Spiders and Creepers- GAO AWAY
Great map Vechz! Here's to many more!
1
3
-A cocoa sapling, rather than cocoa beans themselves, will be found in dungeons. Upon growth, it will grow into a cocoa tree, with a retextured structure of a regular oak tree, with each leaf having a 1 in 4 chance of dropping a cocoa bean.
-However, cocoa trees do not produce saplings of their own upon destruction of their leaves. Instead, oak leaves next to cocoa leaves have a chance of dropping cocoa saplings. The probability of an oak leaf dropping a cocoa sapling rather than an oak sapling increases based on the amount of time spent next to each other and the proximity of the leaves.
-In addition to cookies, coffee can be crafted from cocoa beans like so (seeds are beans):
Coffee is essentially a nerfed speed potion, capable of being made without farming nether wart. In addition, it provides 3 temporary hearts of health, which last for 1 minute before beginning to deplete to its original level. It cannot be cheated; if you drink two coffee at the same time, you will lose 6 hearts at the end of the period. It is possible to die of a "caffeine overdose" in this way.
Thoughts?
2
Butcher- Meats and wool
Farmer- Crops
Priest- Rare materials and potions
Librarian- Dyes, books, and enchanting materials
Smith- Tools and minerals
Villager- Raw materials
The village would have a currency that you would obtain upon giving the appropriate villager your materials, and that you would pay for goods with. They would also only sell items that you have either only encountered already or special items that you could only find in villages.
Eventually, quests could be a good idea, but i'd prefer a trading system first.
1
Also, getting upper-level weapons and armor might be pretty important whilst facing off against future bosses, depending on their nature.
1
-Is it unethical to kill a peaceful intelligent/humanoid being for their loot, and do endermen and villagers fall into this category?
-Is it unethical to automatically spawn and process mobs, even if they're hostile?
-Is it unethical to forcefully breed mobs, and separate babies from their parents at birth?
-Is it unethical to eat rotten flesh, under the presumption that it's cannibalism?
-What's the most humane way to kill passive mobs, and are there any that are unacceptably inhumane?
-Are there any other ethical boundaries that you wonder about?
-Most importantly, do any of these ethical issues stop you from doing them?
I'm curious to see the reactions.
1
Bones- Yeah. Bone meal. Where would we be without be bone meal? Wheat farming, animal farming, and tree farming would be a tedious, time-intensive process. Sure, you can use it to tame wolves, and that's cool. But keep in mind that since you get three bone meal per bone, you essentially get a piece of bread for every skeleton killed. Where else do you get that kind of production?
Gunpowder- Splash potions and TNT. No substitutes. Need more be said?
Gold Nugget- Even if you've got only a meager melon farm, getting glistening melons is a snap, and instant health is easy to come by. It's not stackable and requires time to drink, but its the only way to instant health in the game.
Blaze Rods- Have to be near the top. Between being an essential component of Ender Eyes, a powerful energy source, a requirement for crafting potions, and magma cream, there's a ton of benefit to taking on Blazes.
Ghast Tears- Maybe the hardest of all to collect, but the overall benefit of regeneration is even more powerful than that of instant health.
Slime Balls- For a mob that gets ignored as much as slimes, slime balls are fairly useful. They're required to make the most useful type of piston, and another one of the magma cream ingredients, which you need to conquer the Nether.
Ender Pearls- It's a novelty in the end, but it's one of the Ender Eye components, and it can get you out of a tight spot when nothing else can.
String- Essential early on, but quickly loses it's usefulness as you'll only ever need one bow, fishing rods aren't particularly useful, and Sheep are a vastly superior source of wool.
Spider Eyes- Used for negative splash potions, but not much else. By the time you get to brewing, you'll likely already have far more than you need.
Arrows- They're not going to be your primary source of arrows in the first place, unless for some reason you have a problem killing chicken.
Rotten Flesh- Not very useful. It allows for quick, emergency healing on the battlefield, but there's no reason to farm Zombies for it.
1
Spiders aren't strong either, but their mobility lets them come after you in places that other mobs can't get to. Most of the time, they're only truly threatening when they're perched up above you and jump down when you least expect it.
Skeletons have a big leg up over the previous two in that they can fight back even you're skilled with bows.
Creepers are creepers. We all know the challenges that go with them.
Slimes are weak, but no one expects slimes to be the fight of the century.
Endermen are quite sturdy opponents. Nothing but swords can damage them, they've got double your health, and teleportation throws that much more of a monkey wrench into combat.
Cave spiders are truly nasty pieces of work. They're harder to hit, can climb through any hole, and can basically reduce your health to half a heart in a single hit. And since you find them in abandoned mine shafts with their own spawners, you know that there will be many around.
Silverfish may be diminutive, but once again, strength in surprise and numbers. And no mob is better with unpleasant surprises (except for the creeper) than silverfish. Sure, an experienced player will know what to do, but the risk of giving into the sheer terror of watching them multiply makes them a worthy opponent.
Zombie pigmen are easy if you face them one-on-one; the problem is that with the darkness of the Nether, you'll rarely be able to tell, and the last thing you want in any Minecraft combat scenario is a horde.
Ghasts are fragile; as of now, they can be one-shotted by a fully charged arrow. A number of things make them tough, however; their deadly stream of fireballs constantly destroy the landscape, depth perception with such a disproportionate mob makes correct aim difficult, and they're rarely found alone. Trying to dodge and/or deflect three explosive fireballs at once and charge your bow in time is an impossible task.
Blazes are maybe the deadliest mob in Minecraft if you're unprepared. Their fireballs are fast, and getting lit on fire in the Nether is no fun. And like the Ghast, they fly. However, most of their powers are fire-based... craft up a few good fire resistance potions and you're in business.
None of them are overpowering, but most of the more advanced mobs have some attribute that makes them deadly or hard to kill, such as poison, flying, explosives, swarming, and teleportation. All of these are a lot more powerful than straight-up health would make them (plus they just got a boost and you'll be fighting dragons soon).
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It got me thinking... why not expand on that mechanic to make each food distinctive, and actively affect player performance?
The nutrition mechanic would have multiple, unseen components to it to help calculate what the player's overall nutrition should be. You'd have a meter for carbohydrates, fat, and protein, and each food would have distinctive values of each. Higher values in each boost players physical skills; carbohydrates would increase player speed and mining speed (build-centric), fat would function like the saturation bar does now (survival-centric), and protein aids attack and defense statistics (adventure-centric). This way, a player can specialize in one component based on their style of play.
For example, subsisting on only bread won't kill you, but while you'll notice how much faster you'll run, you'll also notice how much less effective you are at killing things and not having to eat constantly.
Basically, eating a wide variety of good foods ups your performance, while eating crap all the time weakens you.
Thoughts?