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I made this world just to play with the new villager AI in 12w08 (creative mode screwing around), but later found something potentially interesting that I might try out as well... There isn't really much to the landmass where you spawn, it's basically all plains and swamp and not that large. From where I spawned I could see the tiny 4-building village, a swamp area, and beaches on both sides.



The village is kind of messed up, I had to dig out some of the villagers and make stairs for them because it generated on/in a kind of hill. But it has a blacksmith with a decent chest, a church and a library house. Oddly, I think this is the first time I've seen a village with NO wheat farm. So if you want wheat you're on your own...





There are also tons of cows and other livestock, so the enterprising player may raid the blacksmith chest and then collect as much beef, wood, chicken eggs or whatever as possible before heading for the closest swamp...

Seed is 'yona yona yona'

Spawn in a forest next to plains. Jungle, village and mountain biome are visible in the distance. Pic 1, Pic 2

Village on the plains, somewhat close to the jungle. Caves open right under the village, the ground is practically hollow.


Beautiful jungle beaches and bays:




A stronghold is located in this area at x:15, z:682 (dig right into the beach) and from what I could tell there are 2 spider spawners and a skele spawner within or bordering the stronghold:



Spiders at x:-4.7, y:51, z:696 and x:-38, y:22, z:687
Skeletons at x:-103, y:14, z: 678

There's also a really pretty mountainous jungle area around x:1800, z:950 with a lot of nice scenery.

Screenshots here

Quote from blue_bear_94

God, when is Jeb going to stop with this trash and realize that he needs a different approach to the problem?

I really can't understand posts like this. You say new biomes won't make exploration more interesting, but adding variable width caves and height variation will?

I was there before 1.7 too, and I can remember what this interesting terrain was like. People would spend a while searching for seeds with weird floating overhangs, or someone would post a seed with a mountain in the shape of a d***. Interesting either way, but is it really worth exploring for? New biomes, on the other hand, provide new plants and potentially resources that the players will be able to find. Not only that, but they have major differences with the other biomes: height, color, mobs, trees, and more. They may not be one of a kind, but in the end they introduce more variation to the game than just strangely shaped terrain.

I agree that the terrain generator could use some help, that the base terrain could be more varied, but don't sit around saying that anything that's not like 1.7 is trash.

Quote from UpUpDownGaming

This is why games suck these days.. People get so worked up because they have to actually play the game to actually be good at it. Then the developers get tired of changing everyone's diaper & end up Nerf-ing their game for their children. Really sucks for us hardcore gamers but I guess we are no longer the majority demographic. It really does suck..

Horse breeding right now I feel they implemented for RP's & Single Player's. Not for mechanic junkies.. -.- I'm sure they'll give ya'll your little horse breeding update in the future but for now you're not important & the quicker you accept that understanding, the quicker you'll be able to enjoy the game to it's fullest once again.

Posts like these are why communities suck these days. Furthermore, how you somehow arrive at the conclusion that a post that points out that horse breeding mechanics are counter-intuitive after extensive testing means people are lazy and don't want to get better at the game is beyond me. Not to mention that when it comes to heavily mechanical things, understanding how the mechanics work is the first step to getting better at that aspect of the game; it's a different process than what you may be used to, but it's valid nonetheless.

Now, as for the topic at hand, the formula presented will essentially give a random number between (1/3)(PA+PB+m) and (1/3)(PA+PB+M) with a flat distribution, where M is the maximum value and m is the minimum. Let x = (PA+PB)/2, that is, the average of the parent's stats. Then we're picking a random number between (2/3)x + (1/3)m and (2/3)x + (1/3)M. This means our average resulting stat is going to be along the line (2/3)x + (1/6)(M+m), and the parent's stats are going to be around x. If you take a look at the graph of this, you can see the problem:
The blue line is the average of the parent's health, and the purple line is the average offspring's health. The green and red lines are the maximum and minimum, respectively. So repeated breeding steps without selection will ultimately push all the stats toward the middle of the range; breeding horses with bad stats has a better chance of giving you better stats than the parents, and breeding horses with good stats gives you a better chance of getting worse stats than the parents. It's also interesting to note that getting a stat at the maximum value requires two parents with that stat already there to even have a chance of getting it with the offspring.

I think a better system would use a weighted average of the two parent's stats (with weights r and 1-r, where r is a random number between, say, 0.2 and 0.8) along with a small random mutation either up or down. Values outside the desired range could simply be rounded either way.

Quote from EdenR

No, Minecraft is NOT about survival! It's a SANDBOX game, not an RPG game!

But those of us who want to explore or build DON'T WANT to "deal with said problem"! And we shouldn't be forced to! The way we "deal with said problem" is to play on easy or moderate, or we DID until Dinnerbone screwed things up for everyone except RPG players!

Minecraft is a survival game though. Otherwise we wouldn't have the gamemode "survival". If MC was only a sandbox game, we would only be able to "play" in creative. Simple enough.

I agree with you though. The new regional difficulty is a hard pill to swallow for casual players, who seem to usually play only on easy. I don't know if it was catering or pandering to the RPG crowd, but it definitely alienated an entire playerbase for the sake of making another playerbase happy. The casual players here gave up even trying to adjust to regional difficulty and haven't touched MC-PC in two weeks. It's sad. I'm not a Mojang staffer, but i would be willing to say this is the way MC is going and the development direction they've decided to take. *shrugs* It is what it is.

Quote from ArcticKitsune

- It's not? Then what were we doing in Alpha and Beta? Swimming on the beaches? Seriously though, we were mining, farming, and attacking mobs day and night while building shelter. If we didn't we'd die. It's a sandboxing survival game with the ability to still do whatever you want. Nothing has really changed, even with the new features. Everything new you see is simply fluff.

- You do know you can still explore and build right? You can still do so properly with said problem. There is always a way to tame each situation.

Do you know any casual players? You know, the ones who like exploring and building while only battling hostiles on occasion? These casual players who often play on easy and who are even more often looked down upon by the MC community at large because they don't "have more guts". We have an assortment of players in our family ranging from 7 to 60 years old, who prefer to play creative, easy, hard, and hardcore. My son and i are the only ones still playing MC-PC. Everyone else couldn't handle the regional difficulty changes. I haven't read anywhere that it's a gamerule that can be changed via the console, but maybe it should be. Or even scaled and ony present in certain difficulties. Who knows? What i do know is the casual players shouldn't have to adapt so severely just because the hardcore players through a tantrum and wanted more. It's saddening though. Until 1.6, Minecraft seemed to be a game which was inclusive of all sorts of players. With the addition of the zombie mechanic and regional difficulty, MC-PC is now just another game (at least around our family) who some can play and others cannot. Simple scaling or even gamerule options would bring back that inclusiveness. That's all we're saying. As someone who likes hard difficulty, i'm enjoying zombies and regional difficulty, but i do miss the other players in our family and the conversation/camaraderie that came with playing together.

Quote from Down_He_Fell

It's their game. They decide what goes into it.

So stop complaining.

Too right you are. Wish it didn't make me miss playing with other people though.

Quote from Theprank247

I think you mean that's what you want, how are you gonna just say that's the whole point, you didn't make the game you can't decide the point.

Apparently your apathy has contributed nothing to this conversation or your knowledge of the game.

If you have read Dr. Zhark's (the developer of the horses) wiki you will find that breeding a better horse is indeed the whole point of the breeding system.

As for your "OMG Who the hell cares" video, if you don't care then why are you trolling this thread?

If you cannot contribute something useful to this conversation, either pro or con, please refrain from posting anything at all.

Raven

***

Nobody seems to be remembering that not everyone may be as good as them.

If you think the changes are fine and that you don't have a problem... cool.

The changes are obviously still not enough for some people whether or not it effects those with lower skills or a different approach to the game. Whether or not it affects anyone besides yourself is entirely irrelevant. You like the added difficulty and could care less if some "grandma" player on easy is swamped by zombies and can't find the steak to keep healing hearts. No, they should just go on peaceful if they can't handle it all because you like it. I've always wanted to go all 'Walking Dead' in Minecraft.

This is practically the middle finger many (not all, you can quote me on this) of those favoring the changes and backing it have been giving.

The pros keep laying traps for the developers that says by making the game harder it is making it better; and that everyone agrees. Clearly this is not the case if this whole issue has arisen.

The only real civil conclusion we've had to solving this issue and a host of other "balances" is to make it scale by difficulty. This was made by people who both enjoy and dislike the 1.6 changes, but with the sake of everyone's happiness rather than just themselves. The real enemy of this whole argument are those who say "I like it, so you should like it too or shut up" and "I hate it, so I must make sure everyone hates it".

And judging by Hashiba's comment; I think I should remove my harsh opinion from the OP. It'd be best to go without automatically biasing people both for or against me.

Quote from Divinius

I have no problem with people that want to play "zombie horde survival" in Minecraft.

What I do have a problem with is the developers forcing this on everyone that plays, since not everyone wants that. There are so many other things to do in the game that being forced to spend so much time just dealing with the mobs seems ridiculous to the rest of us. And it's not just zombies. The new skeleton AI, the new way food regen works (which, I actually like), etc. are all things that make the game less fun for people that DON'T want Minecraft to be "Super Monster Killer Extreme". Implementing all these new "difficulty" features without actually tying them to the difficulty settings is beyond idiotic, and I really hope Mojang realizes this soon.

I think something that a lot of the folks calling for the complete removal of the zombie-horde behavior are missing is those of us that like it certainly don't think of it as "survival horror". Minecraft isn't horrifying and never will be. There is a portion of the playerbase, myself included, that really enjoy having to work around challenging mechanics. The fun for me has always been to "break the game" in the sense of mastering mechanics and taking advantage of them.

However, the majority of articulate posts that aren't just slandering people that play differently all seem to have a common solution:

We need a difficulty overhaul.

If some of us like things hard and some of like things more peaceful (but obviously not "peaceful"), why not make different gamemodes? Everyone plays Minecraft for their own reasons and everyone one plays Survival for their own reasons. I just don't understand how it would be difficult to implement a couple of switches that dial some more numbers around so we can set up each game world to suit how we want to play it. The difficulty settings as they currently sit are pretty pathetic in my humble opinion.

So here is what I really think we should do: Instead of arguing about how Minecraft was meant to be, or how "the majority" of people supposedly play it, we need to create a formal solution to how we want the difficulty menu to work. Personally, I would advocate for a new gametype that locks the game on Hard with all the new zombie crazy-ness for people like me and leave the existing gametype alone along with reworking the Easy/Normal/Hard to also toggle the zombie behavior.

IMO, "Hardcore" is named incorrectly as a gametype and it really restricts using plain english to describe a future gamemode that is just harder, not perma-death. The perma-death gamemode should be renamed to something like "rogue-like" or simply, "perma-death". In fact, why can't this simply be another choice we make in world creation? Perma-Death Yes/No.

I'd like everyone's opinions.

Quote from Blodshogams

Yeah, I wouldn't mind a hard-only or a /gamerule solution to bridge the gap between now and when they get something like this going (assuming they do).

I like your ideas, but honestly, a "hard-only" or /gamerule solution is necessary regardless of what they may (or may not) do to improve this new feature.

There will always be beginners and casuals in Minecraft that don't want to be forced to play on peaceful, but don't want to deal with anything more difficult than what they've been used to forever. I realize that many people seem to want more challenge, but not everyone does. Until Mojang realizes this, and removes all of this additional "difficulty" (yes, it still belongs in sarcasm quotes) from at least the "Easy" setting, these changes will continue to cause beginners and casuals to abandon the game (or not update).

I play on hard so I don't have a problem with the zombies for the most part, it keeps me on my toes so I like that. That being said, I don't think that people trying to play EASY should have to deal with the endless aggro zombies.

Easy should appeal to the the most casual player, hard to the most dedicated of players, normal someplace in the middle that hits the majority. The difficulty should operate like a curve, as you master one you move on to the next level, and then the next.

I find it hard to believe that a new comer to the game, or a casual player, is going to find any enjoyment out of playing on the easy setting when having to deal with a zombie horde. It should be an option, that only takes place on normal or hard (maybe they only spawn reinforcements on hard, but still have sight and communication on normal).

It seems like an easy compromise so that everyone can enjoy the game that they want to enjoy playing. Yes there are options for mods, but that shouldn't be a requirement.

To begin here is the current methodology of the breeding system as confirmed by jeb

(Pa+Pb+New)/3

Meaning
(1st parents value + second parents value + random generated value of new born horse) /3

In theory it might seem ok, however in testing and practice it has a very negative effect. Currently with this system of breeding there is a higher chance of the foal being born worse than both parents than being born on par or better than both parents. Each attribute is generated with this method seperately, meaning the speed, health and jump will all have a chance to individually be better or worse than the parents, to top this off is the immense rarity of producing a foal with slightly better stats than the parents.


Expectation : Breeding horses gives the chance of a foal born with same stats of parents and a chance of being better

Reality: Breeding horses produces a foal with a higher chance of worse stats than both parents and a very rare chance of being on par with an increasingly rare chance of being better than both parents.

To put this in numbers here is the stats of two parents I matched and sucessfully bred a faster foal - this result took 11 stacks of golden apples/carrots to get - this is 352 horses bred in order to get a desired result.

Parent 1
Movement: 0.2861759696540014
Health: 23.884621246761167
Jump: 0.7660536715135388

Parent 2
Movement: 0.2890115841860407
Health: 23.653863740283494
Jump: 0.7637059616547069

Result
Foal
Movement: 0.29452453100491977
Health: 23.84616166234822
Jump: 0.72963024811971

So I finally bred a faster foal from 2 fast parents, but the health is in-between both parents and the jump height worse, so in a way the foal isn't that much better apart from speed.

In the present state of breeding, the only way to successfully breed better horses reliably is to rely on a mod to show the horses stats in game, or to use an external program like NBT to extract each horses entitiy data to read their stats to compare.

This makes horses more complicated than redstone and in the current state of breeding it is better, faster and easier to just run around in the plains and get a horse with great stats than it is to breed them.

To breed the above result, it took me 1 week. I decided to then run 5000 blocks to a plains biome and found a horse with the following stats

Tamed Wild Horse
Movement: 0.29616763833616183
Health: 28.0
Jump: 0.824004267934707

Already the tamed horse exceeded the bred horses health, jump and run speed, meaning my efforts were pointless. Presently horse breeding does not provide any sense of actual progression or accomplishment as the chance of success is a lucky rng.

In conclusion, at this present time breeding horses is currently pointless for those (like me) who were hoping to be pro horse breeders that bred superior horses. The amount of gold required in order to achieve a desired result is astounding.

This really needs to be changed and simplified to be made easier for others and make breeding more worthwhile so others do not need to heavily rely on a mod to be able to breed better horses.

You could argue I am just being lazy- however I have spent my entire playing time in the past few weeks to JUST breeding horses, non stop, I have bred well over 900 horses testing this and attempting to breed superior horses. I seriously doubt anyone would go to the extremes I have been doing in order to get better horses nor would I expect anyone to have the patience or determination I have to achieve this.

I have had a ticket since the snapshots, however due to the lack of knowledge of this issue and lack of understanding of horse breeding it seems no one has yet noticed how bad the breeding system currently is. Please show some support by posting in the below ticket to have this method simplified.

MC-16533

here is an image example of breeding results between 2 pairs over 32 breedings (equal to 1 stack of golden apples/carrots)