From reading the replies and topics along a similar vein, it seems that people won't be satisfied until the difficulty is raised to the point where it becomes a challenge. I fail to see how increasing that standard however, will affect the difficulty in the first place.
Because there's no actual loss involved with death in Minecraft, dying actually has no consequence in Minecraft besides a temporary setback. It seems that a majority of individuals believe that reducing the amount of caves and decreasing the ore concentration will increase the challenge, but there was no real incentive to collect ores in the first place. For builders, creative exists. For survivalists, it's possible to survive without using any of the ores at all. I'd like to request a more concise explanation as to how the challenge of survival would increase by reducing, or even eliminating the presence of ores and caves.
What about mobs? Considering how individuals improve over time with regards to the limited combat that Minecraft has, I can only see the challenge growing to a point where mobs either scale in difficulty relative to how long you have been alive, or all mobs are immediately capable of performing one hit kills. But obviously that would upset a great deal of people.Certainly there have been suggestions with regards to making creepers destructive enough to reduce the player's efforts to nothing, or make other mobs invincible so that the player would have no chance, or minuscule chance with end tier armour. But again, that sort of suggestion would raise a storm of angry comments and complaints. People making these statements won't address the first issue: There's no major consequence in dying. (Of course, I grew up playing games where one hit kills were a norm, or enemies were invincible and that was what defined "Survival" for me. And I loved those games.)
I think there are many great points here, but nobody has really touched the core problem.
What is there to motivate people to move up a tier?
Why should death be feared when the consequence is minimal?
If there were essential reasons behind these, instead of just feeling a whimsical sort of accomplishment, then perhaps all of these suggestions would become more valid.
Just my two cents.
(To all the inevitable comments about "Enemies being OP make the game boring" or "So opinionated comments!", all I have to say is that everybody is subject to their own opinion, another fundamental reason why people are bringing up all these complaints in the first place.)
>minecraft
>Meant to be hard.
It may have been hard in Alpha, but that was never a set-in-stone base level of difficulty the game always had to be at.
Also the whole 'killing mobs around you then sleeping' thing is WAY more realistic than the old way. Realistic in the way that i'm OK with realism. I found it rather silly how I could just make a little hut and put a torch down and be able to sleep even if Hell had basically opened it's gates right in-front of my little hut. In my head it makes sense that you need to kill the mobs to get a peaceful nights sleep.
But that's just me.
It seems that a majority of individuals believe that reducing the amount of caves and decreasing the ore concentration will increase the challenge
For my part, I want smaller and less frequent caves because it would 'feel' better to me. I don't view anything in this game as challenging currently.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Fighting ignorance and false information one post at a time.
For the record if I correct you it's not meant maliciously, but if you whine about it I AM laughing at you.
How Minecraft has became to Easy, and the reasons for it. (Compared to Alpha 1.26)
1.) Caves were less common, meaning you dug your own mines MORE often. It's not minecraft now, it's Cave Explorer Craft. If caves were super rare, you'd dig your own mines, which makes sense, because it is "mine" craft. When is the last time you dug your own mine? Chances are you didn't, or if you are like me, very few.
2.) Iron was NOT plentiful. You had to search and mine around for it, not just walk through a cave and come out with 64 iron. This made you treat it with respect, you didn't just make tons of iron tools all willy nilly like. This also made leather armor actually useful, since iron was hard to come by.IRL there is a mass amount of iron,so this makes the game more realistic. besides iron isn't so strong anyway.
3.) Armor damage reduction was based on remaining durability, meaning as your armor took damage and lost durability, it protected you less, requiring more materials to make fresh armor more often, Now a set of iron will last you for several days to weeks. And it doesn't get weaker as it loses durability.
4.) Mobs were in greater numbers, and density, if you think a zombie is weak, your right. But 3 zombies, 2 skeletons and a creeper, in a small cave, that's no so easy anymore.i agree theres barely any mobs in caves except in spawners.
5.) Food wasn't stack-able, now it is and you can auto heal, actually I like the food bar feature because it makes lots of food a necessity. But I will not say it makes it harder, it does make it easier. Food should NOT be stack-able.why should it not be stackable? you think that pounds and pounds of stone should fit in Steve's pocket but a porkchop should take up an entire slot. SEEMS LEGIT.
Differences from Beta
1.) Beds had to be inside a secure house, you couldn't just stick one outside. Now you can just kill the mobs around, and sleep outside, ridiculous. It was once about building a shelter and surviving, but now you can sleep out side? Ruins the flow and feel of the game. Makes the "threat" from the outside world feel like a joke.this is good for the people who explore the world instead of stay in one spot though the entire game.
2.) It used to be the mine-craft thing, that you'd walk outside and get blown up by a creeper. So we made defenses against it. Now it's pointless, because that never happens but very rarely now.in all honestly that just depends on how well you light the area around your house :tongue.gif:
3.) Certain blocks took longer to mine, Obsidian, Redstone ore, Bricks, Stone Bricks, this made them "feel" more durable. Now everything mines a bit faster, which makes the game go along too quickly.redstone shouldn't be changed but the rest yes.
My alpha world, that I still have. If I travel back to my first home and walk around, there were like zero caves near by. I dug my first mine in the back of my small home, slowly but surely till I found a cave, explored it, and began to mine more on my own.yea theres more caves now but i find not many to have a decent amount of materials.
ANYWAY!
What was the first thing you liked about the game? When I first played, it was "whoa you can build stuff? Sweet!"
When night time came along... it was "Holy **** what is that!"shoulda used the wiki :tongue.gif:
I feared mobs and the darkness up until 1.8. That's when it all started going down hill and becoming easy.
Come on people, the creeper, we used to fear the green dude! Walk outside, BOOM. Now? Mobs are considered a joke, "oh look some mobs, kill em"a wild 1.1 armor nerf appeared!
The game used to be dangerous as hell, armor was weaker and grew weaker as it took damage, it was unforgiving. But that key fact is what made the game feel good. It felt good to have a gold fireplace, since it was extremely difficult to find gold and to make it out alive.
I'm currently playing alpha 1.26 to discover any more differences I may Not remember.
So yeah, minecraft isn't as good as it used to be, all those threads most of you hate.
They are right. i find very few that make a decent point that only benefits that person who made the thread.
There is no reason for the game not to be very difficult. Notch originally wanted the game to be difficult.
Which is very important for a game like minecraft, where you work and survive to get materials.yea but the game is turning more into an adventure sandbox then a survival game.
Cos I play the game for a sense of adventure and to build epic bases and structures. Put those two things together and it means from a development point of view that I want the game to be challenging and creative. Currently the game is creative but it's far from challenging.
How is their no incentive to mine ores? You need them to build things. Sorry to sound so simple but I really dont get that, you say as a survivalist you dont need to mine ore, so do you just sit in a dark space thinking "I am alive, I have achieved my goal"? Survival also encompasses the building of a permanent base, mechanical features and anything your imagination can think of, that stuff isn't just for creative mode.
That's completely true and I agree, considering that I build extensive city networks above ground. I work hard at making them completely safe, and I love building. But I'm bringing up these points relative to the OP's points, and points others have made here.
Let me as a builder ask you, why is it that ores are really so necessary?
A single tree alone will yield enough building materials for a shelter. Dirt, used with correct aesthetics, can make a very magnificent building (of course, up to your opinion). Half slabs completely remove the need for torches. Wood yields charcoal, whereas a wooden pick yields cobble. Cobble means stone brick, stone, more half slabs to completely remove light. All in all, you already have more than enough blocks to make an aesthetically pleasing building, with lights or without lights.
So why is it that ores are necessary? I don't *need* them to build anything, unless I fancy making that iron block building, and on the scale that I usually build at, typically I'll need a couple thousand blocks for a single building, so in that sense creative is better than survival in that respect. But that's be offtopic.
(Charcoal, the bane of many people, basically means you can have light from trees alone. And I'm sorry for not defining it, but I don't consider cobblestone as an ore.)
What is there to motivate people to move up a tier?
My answers, are going to be personal; which I think is part of the issue, all people are going to look at the sandbox type game with different goals.
What is there to motivate people to move up a tier?
The short: There isn't anything specifically motivating me to move up in tiers / quality of builds / equipment.
The long: It is my personal goal in Minecraft (which is completely self motivated; there is nothing in-game to promote this type of play.) is to climb 'tiers' of resources to the point where I am able to help stabilize a community of other players, so that they may peruse their own builds with adequate support that they feel their time spent playing in my hosted environment is worth it. I like seeing player inter-action, I like seeing communities, I love seeing multi-person projects. But all the previous activities require resources in survival mode, (creative is disallowed completely, no exceptions) resources that aren't going to procure themselves.
This can be the result of several factors; be the resources were already stripped from an area, the player in question doesn't know what to do on their own, or the people aren't the top percent of gamers that seem to populate every thread and they actually die and lose their things (constantly I might add. Current record is 15 deaths in a single night. The player was not intentionally dieing, but frantically trying to recover her harvested iron.) From this stance; all proposed changes to the core game have to be very carefully looked at; the multiplayer world is a tediously balanced thing, the most trivial of changes could cause its entire collapse.
Why should death be feared when the consequence is minimal?
This is a slightly akward question, as it implies that death does not carry harsh punishment. Death can be cripplingly punishing under the right circumstances; or not even a skipped step under the properly manipulated conditions.
Anyone who wants to do enchanting; best not die unless they have some type of automated experience machine. Anyone who does extensive mining; can lose hours of progress because of one ace ceiling creeper interceding at the right time. On the flip side of the coin, death can be a benefit if you are out of food; but have a bed. Simply sleep, and end yourself and you are rewarded with a full food bar!
Perhaps it needs some type of lingering effect to prevent its exploitation as far as free food? Or instead of dropping your entire inventory; simply remove or delete half of the items (at random selection) flat out and let you keep the rest. I don't honestly have a perfect solution here; but to say that death is trivial is certainly a skewed view. You may be the high skill level gamer that doesn't die unless by choice; but take a moment to remember that there is always someone less skilled out there who also wants to enjoy the game.
Even ignoring my personal... issues... with servers, you have to concede that many players regularly utilize SSP.
Omega was suggesting that it is hardly ever played, and isn't at all useful, when it is an important part of Minecraft.
Even ignoring my personal... issues... with servers, you have to concede that many players regularly utilize SSP.
Omega was suggesting that it is hardly ever played, and isn't at all useful, when it is an important part of Minecraft.
Absolutely. I will never suggest that anyone playing SSP simply sod off and deal with it. (For lack of better terms) I want the game to be enjoyable for everyone; and for that to happen both sides need to compromise.
In much the way you ask me to "concede that many players regularly utilize SSP", the multiplayer folks want the same concession that these proposed changes would have drastic effects on their worlds. However over the past week or so that these threads have been flooding the board the majority of SMP speculation has been largely dismissed under the pretenses of 'if you want to build, use creative' or 'games not hard enough and if you don't agree you suck and deal with it', if not being flat out ignored entirely.
I guess to organize better I should also clarify that its not just an SSP / SMP issue. There is also the SMP small community style, SMP PvP style, and SMP build style. Each group wants their voice to be heard, because any change; no matter how trivial it may seem, effects infinitely more people then just you. More then just me, more then just the forums; we're talking (potentially) a million people if the sales numbers are to be believed. There is a huge, soul crushingly large weight to making decisions that Minecraft devs have to make. They at some point, probably read over the forums. Any group that is currently not the most outspoken is perfectly right to be frustrated by the idea that their input might not be heard. Call me a naive fool, but I hope that discussion can be carried out in an intelligent manner with most possibilities presented in order to draw a consensus between these very different groups.
Whats happening here is her comment being read as an attack and dismissed with your own personal affiliation to SSP. The words could have been more delicately chosen; but there is still a valid point in there; and that is what needs to be focused on.
5.) Food wasn't stack-able, now it is and you can auto heal, actually I like the food bar feature because it makes lots of food a necessity. But I will not say it makes it harder, it does make it easier. Food should NOT be stack-able.
All I thought when I read this:
"Back in my day clams didn't stack, and we had to dismount to open em!"
1.) Caves were less common, meaning you dug your own mines MORE often. It's not minecraft now, it's Cave Explorer Craft. If caves were super rare, you'd dig your own mines, which makes sense, because it is "mine" craft. When is the last time you dug your own mine? Chances are you didn't, or if you are like me, very few.
What.
Quote from Locklear308 »
So we have basically determined that we need to drastically reduce the number of caves.
Whaaaat.
Clearly, you and I have a very different idea of what difficulty is. To me, digging a ladder shaft (completely safe) and branch mining at layer 12 (safe if you exercise basic caution) are easy. Very easy. Exploring a cave, which may have monsters around any turn, exposed lava pits, unstable gravel ceilings, and so forth, is significantly harder. Not to say it's all that difficult if you prepare, but it does actually have danger, unlike sealed mining.
On your other points:
* Yeah, iron is more plentiful. Not sure that makes a huge difference, since I always got multiple stacks by the time I found my first few diamonds, but sure, railroads are certainly easier.
* Armor - definitely better now, but a lot of the monsters have been made stronger as well. Would have to do some tests to see how this compares.
* Cite on that mob density? Seems like this should be affected by difficulty level.
* Food - Ok, this is another "what" moment. Are you saying that food which only enables slow regeneration over time is more powerful than food which insta-heals you? And that needing to eat doesn't add any more challenge? I disagree, obviously.
* Was making a little box-hut, cave, dirt pillar, or cicada-burrow actually difficulty? For anyone?
* Creepers do more damage now and are harder to "defuse", not sure what you're talking about.
* Holding the RMB down longer is not a challenge. Slower is not more difficult.
Overall - you seem to be confusing "grinding" with "difficulty". Driving in the Indy 500 is difficult, driving to the store a dozen times because you have to buy one item at a time is not, it's just annoying.
Could Minecraft be more actually difficult? Absolutely. Personally, I'd like to see this linked to the Difficulty setting - I could see a "Hard" mode where monsters appeared by the horde, acted smarter, and could bypass simple defenses. I just think "harder" should mean "Arg, danger everywhere!" instead of "Ugg, this mining is taking forever."
Well, I know this may not be the best idea, but if I were a dev at Mojang, I would have implemented difficulty scaling long ago. And no, I don't mean by difficulty setting (that's already implemented), I mean by factors within the actual game.
For example: The deeper you go underground, the higher level you are, and the more players are in a chunk.
The latter suggestion, while marred with tons of issues on its face, is an example of how difficulty scaling could specifically affect SMP. I would also stray from ideas such as "mob damage scales, and that's it". Health, resistance to damage, willingness to spawn in higher light levels, range and firing rate of arrows, blast radius... Not only that, but difficulty is not restricted to mobs, there a ton of player- and environment-specific attributes, all of which can be scaled! It would be a pain in the ass to code, but I like the idea of it.
Well, I know this may not be the best idea, but if I were a dev at Mojang, I would have implemented difficulty scaling long ago. And no, I don't mean by difficulty setting (that's already implemented), I mean by factors within the actual game.
For example: The deeper you go underground, the higher level you are, and the more players are in a chunk.
The latter suggestion, while marred with tons of issues on its face, is an example of how difficulty scaling could specifically affect SMP. I would also stray from ideas such as "mob damage scales, and that's it". Health, resistance to damage, willingness to spawn in higher light levels, range and firing rate of arrows, blast radius... Not only that, but difficulty is not restricted to mobs, there a ton of player- and environment-specific attributes, all of which can be scaled! It would be a pain in the ass to code, but I like the idea of it.
I apologize for not having the time available to give this post the reply it deserves, but this I could stand behind happily.
--I think it would be interesting to have more mobs spawn the higher level you are, but considering we have no storage method for levels we don't want to spend, it would only make things worse if you actually die, also to consider is if you happen to lag more and that helps you die.
On top of that, the 'exit to menu instead of respawning' button would be there to add insult to injury when you click it by accident.
I just think there should be one mode more difficult then hard where more mobs spawn, maybe even keep it night time.
No wait, I've got it. Along with my suggestion of having difficulty scale according to factors that can be influenced by the players, which can be applied to all difficulty modes... How about a separate mode, where difficulty scales by the amount of time after you started playing? Only one day to prepare, and afterwards, eternal night of mob spawning. One to three minutes of leeway after each night. A single life, with final score based on number of nights survived. The more nights you survive, the more difficult and more plentiful the mobs become, until you're facing Ghasts and Blazes by the dozen.
EDIT: Some credit for the idea goes to Turret Defense in StarCraft.
No wait, I've got it. Along with my suggestion of having difficulty scale according to factors that can be influenced by the players, which can be applied to all difficulty modes... How about a separate mode, where difficulty scales by the amount of time after you started playing? Only one day to prepare, and afterwards, eternal night of mob spawning. One to three minutes of leeway after each night. A single life, with final score based on number of nights survived. The more nights you survive, the more difficult and more plentiful the mobs become, until you're facing Ghasts and Blazes by the dozen.
EDIT: Some credit for the idea goes to Turret Defense in StarCraft.
I honestly think they should get rid of hardcore and replace it with that. If you're doing a contest for a score, there's no point in pretending to play survival regularly like hard mode, or they could have both, but personally I still find hardcore uber pointless.
Starcraft ftw.
I thank all mob damage should go up heart, all sword damage down 1/2 heart, and armour nerfed a bit, and food stackable only to 8, and a bit harder to come by.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
note: Then I mention a group of people in my posts, i mean the majority of information i have seen from that group, and my statement may not be accurate for every individual in that group.
I thank all mob damage should go up heart, all sword damage down 1/2 heart, and armour nerfed a bit, and food stackable only to 8, and a bit harder to come by.
I agree with all of that except sword damage going down, taking more hits to kill something has never made a game harder, just more exhaustive. It's like one of those ludicrous boss battles that take 3 hours. I think it's more about making mobs deadly, and yes armor is still very strong for how easy it is to stumble upon.
I agree with all of that except sword damage going down, taking more hits to kill something has never made a game harder, just more exhaustive. It's like one of those ludicrous boss battles that take 3 hours. I think it's more about making mobs deadly, and yes armor is still very strong for how easy it is to stumble upon.
True, but how about make enchanting harder, so you have to work to enchant your armor?
Like make you enchantment table a wool, 1 obsidian, 1 book, 1 nether brick, 1 blaze rod, 1 ghast tear, 1 magma cream, 1 mossy cobblestone, and 1 mossy stone brick?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
note: Then I mention a group of people in my posts, i mean the majority of information i have seen from that group, and my statement may not be accurate for every individual in that group.
True, but how about make enchanting harder, so you have to work to enchant your armor?
Like make you enchantment table a wool, 1 obsidian, 1 book, 1 nether brick, 1 blaze rod, 1 ghast tear, 1 magma cream, 1 mossy cobblestone, and 1 mossy stone brick?
That's just getting ridiculous. I even find enchanting higher levels pointless majority of the time, even though that's not the same thing you are talking about.
I did ratios on enchant vs. leveling and this is what I got:
Nice level for Bow: Lv25
takes 226 kills of regular aggressives (5 exp each)
Bows last 192.5 kills (385 shots but 2 per mob kill if you enchant it usually)
For swords: Lv20
takes 160 kills of regular aggressives
Diamond sword lasts ~628 kills (1562 slashes but ~2.5 per mob kill, 3 for zombie and 2 for others roughly)
With these levels, bows have an 85% re-enchant efficiency and swords have a 400% re-enchant efficiency if you want a pretty good enchant.
I guess it's worth enchanting swords but not bows, but it just drives me nuts that it takes so long that I feel like I'm killing solely to re-enchant my weapons.
Because there's no actual loss involved with death in Minecraft, dying actually has no consequence in Minecraft besides a temporary setback. It seems that a majority of individuals believe that reducing the amount of caves and decreasing the ore concentration will increase the challenge, but there was no real incentive to collect ores in the first place. For builders, creative exists. For survivalists, it's possible to survive without using any of the ores at all. I'd like to request a more concise explanation as to how the challenge of survival would increase by reducing, or even eliminating the presence of ores and caves.
What about mobs? Considering how individuals improve over time with regards to the limited combat that Minecraft has, I can only see the challenge growing to a point where mobs either scale in difficulty relative to how long you have been alive, or all mobs are immediately capable of performing one hit kills. But obviously that would upset a great deal of people.Certainly there have been suggestions with regards to making creepers destructive enough to reduce the player's efforts to nothing, or make other mobs invincible so that the player would have no chance, or minuscule chance with end tier armour. But again, that sort of suggestion would raise a storm of angry comments and complaints. People making these statements won't address the first issue: There's no major consequence in dying. (Of course, I grew up playing games where one hit kills were a norm, or enemies were invincible and that was what defined "Survival" for me. And I loved those games.)
I think there are many great points here, but nobody has really touched the core problem.
What is there to motivate people to move up a tier?
Why should death be feared when the consequence is minimal?
If there were essential reasons behind these, instead of just feeling a whimsical sort of accomplishment, then perhaps all of these suggestions would become more valid.
Just my two cents.
(To all the inevitable comments about "Enemies being OP make the game boring" or "So opinionated comments!", all I have to say is that everybody is subject to their own opinion, another fundamental reason why people are bringing up all these complaints in the first place.)
>Meant to be hard.
It may have been hard in Alpha, but that was never a set-in-stone base level of difficulty the game always had to be at.
Also the whole 'killing mobs around you then sleeping' thing is WAY more realistic than the old way. Realistic in the way that i'm OK with realism. I found it rather silly how I could just make a little hut and put a torch down and be able to sleep even if Hell had basically opened it's gates right in-front of my little hut. In my head it makes sense that you need to kill the mobs to get a peaceful nights sleep.
But that's just me.
For my part, I want smaller and less frequent caves because it would 'feel' better to me. I don't view anything in this game as challenging currently.
For the record if I correct you it's not meant maliciously, but if you whine about it I AM laughing at you.
Remember kids, when the mod crashes delete system32!
That's completely true and I agree, considering that I build extensive city networks above ground. I work hard at making them completely safe, and I love building. But I'm bringing up these points relative to the OP's points, and points others have made here.
Let me as a builder ask you, why is it that ores are really so necessary?
A single tree alone will yield enough building materials for a shelter. Dirt, used with correct aesthetics, can make a very magnificent building (of course, up to your opinion). Half slabs completely remove the need for torches. Wood yields charcoal, whereas a wooden pick yields cobble. Cobble means stone brick, stone, more half slabs to completely remove light. All in all, you already have more than enough blocks to make an aesthetically pleasing building, with lights or without lights.
So why is it that ores are necessary? I don't *need* them to build anything, unless I fancy making that iron block building, and on the scale that I usually build at, typically I'll need a couple thousand blocks for a single building, so in that sense creative is better than survival in that respect. But that's be offtopic.
(Charcoal, the bane of many people, basically means you can have light from trees alone. And I'm sorry for not defining it, but I don't consider cobblestone as an ore.)
Two very good questions that are long overdue for answers.
My answers, are going to be personal; which I think is part of the issue, all people are going to look at the sandbox type game with different goals.
What is there to motivate people to move up a tier?
The short: There isn't anything specifically motivating me to move up in tiers / quality of builds / equipment.
The long: It is my personal goal in Minecraft (which is completely self motivated; there is nothing in-game to promote this type of play.) is to climb 'tiers' of resources to the point where I am able to help stabilize a community of other players, so that they may peruse their own builds with adequate support that they feel their time spent playing in my hosted environment is worth it. I like seeing player inter-action, I like seeing communities, I love seeing multi-person projects. But all the previous activities require resources in survival mode, (creative is disallowed completely, no exceptions) resources that aren't going to procure themselves.
This can be the result of several factors; be the resources were already stripped from an area, the player in question doesn't know what to do on their own, or the people aren't the top percent of gamers that seem to populate every thread and they actually die and lose their things (constantly I might add. Current record is 15 deaths in a single night. The player was not intentionally dieing, but frantically trying to recover her harvested iron.) From this stance; all proposed changes to the core game have to be very carefully looked at; the multiplayer world is a tediously balanced thing, the most trivial of changes could cause its entire collapse.
This is a slightly akward question, as it implies that death does not carry harsh punishment. Death can be cripplingly punishing under the right circumstances; or not even a skipped step under the properly manipulated conditions.
Anyone who wants to do enchanting; best not die unless they have some type of automated experience machine. Anyone who does extensive mining; can lose hours of progress because of one ace ceiling creeper interceding at the right time. On the flip side of the coin, death can be a benefit if you are out of food; but have a bed. Simply sleep, and end yourself and you are rewarded with a full food bar!
Perhaps it needs some type of lingering effect to prevent its exploitation as far as free food? Or instead of dropping your entire inventory; simply remove or delete half of the items (at random selection) flat out and let you keep the rest. I don't honestly have a perfect solution here; but to say that death is trivial is certainly a skewed view. You may be the high skill level gamer that doesn't die unless by choice; but take a moment to remember that there is always someone less skilled out there who also wants to enjoy the game.
Even ignoring my personal... issues... with servers, you have to concede that many players regularly utilize SSP.
Omega was suggesting that it is hardly ever played, and isn't at all useful, when it is an important part of Minecraft.
Absolutely. I will never suggest that anyone playing SSP simply sod off and deal with it. (For lack of better terms) I want the game to be enjoyable for everyone; and for that to happen both sides need to compromise.
In much the way you ask me to "concede that many players regularly utilize SSP", the multiplayer folks want the same concession that these proposed changes would have drastic effects on their worlds. However over the past week or so that these threads have been flooding the board the majority of SMP speculation has been largely dismissed under the pretenses of 'if you want to build, use creative' or 'games not hard enough and if you don't agree you suck and deal with it', if not being flat out ignored entirely.
I guess to organize better I should also clarify that its not just an SSP / SMP issue. There is also the SMP small community style, SMP PvP style, and SMP build style. Each group wants their voice to be heard, because any change; no matter how trivial it may seem, effects infinitely more people then just you. More then just me, more then just the forums; we're talking (potentially) a million people if the sales numbers are to be believed. There is a huge, soul crushingly large weight to making decisions that Minecraft devs have to make. They at some point, probably read over the forums. Any group that is currently not the most outspoken is perfectly right to be frustrated by the idea that their input might not be heard. Call me a naive fool, but I hope that discussion can be carried out in an intelligent manner with most possibilities presented in order to draw a consensus between these very different groups.
Whats happening here is her comment being read as an attack and dismissed with your own personal affiliation to SSP. The words could have been more delicately chosen; but there is still a valid point in there; and that is what needs to be focused on.
All I thought when I read this:
"Back in my day clams didn't stack, and we had to dismount to open em!"
Whaaaat.
Clearly, you and I have a very different idea of what difficulty is. To me, digging a ladder shaft (completely safe) and branch mining at layer 12 (safe if you exercise basic caution) are easy. Very easy. Exploring a cave, which may have monsters around any turn, exposed lava pits, unstable gravel ceilings, and so forth, is significantly harder. Not to say it's all that difficult if you prepare, but it does actually have danger, unlike sealed mining.
On your other points:
* Yeah, iron is more plentiful. Not sure that makes a huge difference, since I always got multiple stacks by the time I found my first few diamonds, but sure, railroads are certainly easier.
* Armor - definitely better now, but a lot of the monsters have been made stronger as well. Would have to do some tests to see how this compares.
* Cite on that mob density? Seems like this should be affected by difficulty level.
* Food - Ok, this is another "what" moment. Are you saying that food which only enables slow regeneration over time is more powerful than food which insta-heals you? And that needing to eat doesn't add any more challenge? I disagree, obviously.
* Was making a little box-hut, cave, dirt pillar, or cicada-burrow actually difficulty? For anyone?
* Creepers do more damage now and are harder to "defuse", not sure what you're talking about.
* Holding the RMB down longer is not a challenge. Slower is not more difficult.
Overall - you seem to be confusing "grinding" with "difficulty". Driving in the Indy 500 is difficult, driving to the store a dozen times because you have to buy one item at a time is not, it's just annoying.
Could Minecraft be more actually difficult? Absolutely. Personally, I'd like to see this linked to the Difficulty setting - I could see a "Hard" mode where monsters appeared by the horde, acted smarter, and could bypass simple defenses. I just think "harder" should mean "Arg, danger everywhere!" instead of "Ugg, this mining is taking forever."
Well, I know this may not be the best idea, but if I were a dev at Mojang, I would have implemented difficulty scaling long ago. And no, I don't mean by difficulty setting (that's already implemented), I mean by factors within the actual game.
For example: The deeper you go underground, the higher level you are, and the more players are in a chunk.
The latter suggestion, while marred with tons of issues on its face, is an example of how difficulty scaling could specifically affect SMP. I would also stray from ideas such as "mob damage scales, and that's it". Health, resistance to damage, willingness to spawn in higher light levels, range and firing rate of arrows, blast radius... Not only that, but difficulty is not restricted to mobs, there a ton of player- and environment-specific attributes, all of which can be scaled! It would be a pain in the ass to code, but I like the idea of it.
I apologize for not having the time available to give this post the reply it deserves, but this I could stand behind happily.
+rep cookie.
On top of that, the 'exit to menu instead of respawning' button would be there to add insult to injury when you click it by accident.
I just think there should be one mode more difficult then hard where more mobs spawn, maybe even keep it night time.
No wait, I've got it. Along with my suggestion of having difficulty scale according to factors that can be influenced by the players, which can be applied to all difficulty modes... How about a separate mode, where difficulty scales by the amount of time after you started playing? Only one day to prepare, and afterwards, eternal night of mob spawning. One to three minutes of leeway after each night. A single life, with final score based on number of nights survived. The more nights you survive, the more difficult and more plentiful the mobs become, until you're facing Ghasts and Blazes by the dozen.
EDIT: Some credit for the idea goes to Turret Defense in StarCraft.
Starcraft ftw.
True, but how about make enchanting harder, so you have to work to enchant your armor?
Like make you enchantment table a wool, 1 obsidian, 1 book, 1 nether brick, 1 blaze rod, 1 ghast tear, 1 magma cream, 1 mossy cobblestone, and 1 mossy stone brick?
I did ratios on enchant vs. leveling and this is what I got:
Nice level for Bow: Lv25
takes 226 kills of regular aggressives (5 exp each)
Bows last 192.5 kills (385 shots but 2 per mob kill if you enchant it usually)
For swords: Lv20
takes 160 kills of regular aggressives
Diamond sword lasts ~628 kills (1562 slashes but ~2.5 per mob kill, 3 for zombie and 2 for others roughly)
With these levels, bows have an 85% re-enchant efficiency and swords have a 400% re-enchant efficiency if you want a pretty good enchant.
I guess it's worth enchanting swords but not bows, but it just drives me nuts that it takes so long that I feel like I'm killing solely to re-enchant my weapons.