I want to say outright this map is pretty decent....
That being said it turned pretty near unplayable during the Mossy Cobblestone area. Or as i call it, the ONLY AREA THAT LAGGED OUT MY REALM
I have to ask, why in gods name did you give zombies a sight range of 200 blocks? and why the hell did you give them a spawn range of 4 and then negate that entirely by putting the entity cap of 30? One final thing, WHY DID YOU MAKE IT DETECT PLAYERS 255 BLOCKS AWAY?
It was so bad and so unplayable, we had to actually peaceful the map periods of time to even finish the area! Don't even get me started on the reinforcements!
Also bugs: Creepers with potion effects that last long can explode into lingering variants. Ex: water breathing creeper that explodes gives infinite water breathing.
I tried playing the Whirling Phenomena and holy ****. That is frustrating.
At 1st playthrough, I died in the starting area more than 10 times trying to figure out what to do. I broke all the silverfish spawner but ghasts kept blowing up silverfish blocks so at the end my starting area looked like a crater. After I figured out that I have to get the **** out here I reached the victory monument. I scrapped what I could(even from the crossway) but I ran out wood. After that, I couldn't progress. I deleted the map and reinstalled it.
At 2nd playthrough, I just got some magma blocks+flint and steel and rushed to the monument. Still not enough wood, but I can at least make some swords. Ran out again.
You said that this map is not intended to be rushed through, but by approaching slowly, I wasted 2 playthroughs. I don't think rushing through will work either as there are spawners every 5 blocks.
You said that you have to farm but farm what? If you had given me sapling at least I can gather lot of wood and get some armor from spider leathers. Also I could make a mob grinder to get some arrows.
I think the only way to reliably progress is to fish a mending+infinity bow. With unenchanted ones which can take few hours.(Probably run out of wood before that)
Also magma block is not a good light source. Why not glowstone? Or torch?
If you want to make a hard map, make it fair. In most Vechs' maps, he will give you "flak vest" which has projectile protection. Skeletons are too OP for start so it is his way of nerfing them. But that doesn't make his maps too easy as it will break after some time but by the time the player has resources to help themselves.
TL;DR : This map is brutal, savage and not fun. Next time gather some playtesters to test your map.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I like custom maps, creative research and technical survival.
I want to say outright this map is pretty decent....
That being said it turned pretty near unplayable during the Mossy Cobblestone area. Or as i call it, the ONLY AREA THAT LAGGED OUT MY REALM
I have to ask, why in gods name did you give zombies a sight range of 200 blocks? and why the hell did you give them a spawn range of 4 and then negate that entirely by putting the entity cap of 30? One final thing, WHY DID YOU MAKE IT DETECT PLAYERS 255 BLOCKS AWAY?
It was so bad and so unplayable, we had to actually peaceful the map periods of time to even finish the area! Don't even get me started on the reinforcements!
Also bugs: Creepers with potion effects that last long can explode into lingering variants. Ex: water breathing creeper that explodes gives infinite water breathing.
In the area with all the zombies, I was able to get a stable 60 fps. Granted I have fairly good pc, and I probably underestimated how good an average players pc would be. The main goal for that area was to make zombies a threat and make them surround you in massive hoards. So the area is about dealing with large groups of enemies, blocking them off, lava bucket killing them, using the special slowness/weakness potions from the villagers to get away from them and so on. The idea also was that zombies would flood in from ever corner, so you would need to be on the run. To change the area, I am unsure what I would do. The reinforcements may have been overkill, maybe greatly reduce the amount of zombies, but make them individually tougher (do more damage, move faster, knock back resistance).
For the creepers giving infinite water breathing, that is an unintended side effect of the 1.11 changes, but I decided that I would keep the creepers in and if the player can figure that they can get infinite water breathing then why not, its not like it makes you invincible, and you loose it if you die.
I tried playing the Whirling Phenomena and holy ****. That is frustrating.
At 1st playthrough, I died in the starting area more than 10 times trying to figure out what to do. I broke all the silverfish spawner but ghasts kept blowing up silverfish blocks so at the end my starting area looked like a crater. After I figured out that I have to get the **** out here I reached the victory monument. I scrapped what I could(even from the crossway) but I ran out wood. After that, I couldn't progress. I deleted the map and reinstalled it.
At 2nd playthrough, I just got some magma blocks+flint and steel and rushed to the monument. Still not enough wood, but I can at least make some swords. Ran out again.
You said that this map is not intended to be rushed through, but by approaching slowly, I wasted 2 playthroughs. I don't think rushing through will work either as there are spawners every 5 blocks.
You said that you have to farm but farm what? If you had given me sapling at least I can gather lot of wood and get some armor from spider leathers. Also I could make a mob grinder to get some arrows.
I think the only way to reliably progress is to fish a mending+infinity bow. With unenchanted ones which can take few hours.(Probably run out of wood before that)
Also magma block is not a good light source. Why not glowstone? Or torch?
If you want to make a hard map, make it fair. In most Vechs' maps, he will give you "flak vest" which has projectile protection. Skeletons are too OP for start so it is his way of nerfing them. But that doesn't make his maps too easy as it will break after some time but by the time the player has resources to help themselves.
TL;DR : This map is brutal, savage and not fun. Next time gather some playtesters to test your map.
In my play tests I was able to get through every area without too many issues, Like starting the map and completing false silver floors without dying. I guess the main problem is I knew what strategy to use, and even with that strategy it was challenging as I intended. But from what I can tell going in blind to the starting area makes it nearly impossible.
The idea behind the starting area is you start in the small thing you tp into, then you quickly try to get some wood, and then jump off the edge into the water, make swords/axes, and kill zombies for food, and slowly find your way to the wool and monument.
As far as lighting goes I intended it to be limited. There are a lot of magma blocks, which in my play tests were way more than enough to get through the first intersection. There is also a stack of glowstone and redstone lamps at the monument, and a lot of coal in the back of the open to sky part of false silver floors.
To make the starting area bearable, what kinds of things did you have the biggest problem with? Skeletons are meant to be something you avoid unless you can get them in close quarters or find arrows, so giving a flak vest would defeat the purpose of that. The starting area is very open to allow you to move around skeletons. Maybe honey pots could make the natural spawns lower and reduce skeleton spawns. Other things I can think of: giving more wood, that is easy to access, make one ghast spawn instead of two (though the ghasts never did any thing once I got off the starting platform), reduce the amount of silver fish blocks.
By the way, thank you for your feed back, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me make my map better.
All right. I was a huge fan of your first map, so the minute I saw you made a second one, I immediately needed to play it. And since I have little to zero experience with the 1.9+ combat update, I thought I'd start with your map (I'm still playing maps for 1.7 and 1.8... Don't judge me, I HATE the new combat mechanics). Now I've played A LOT of CTM maps, and I was in need of a new challenge. Needless to say the previous reviews and your update on how it's a ''failure'' and how it's brutally unbalanced REALLY made me want to play it, weirdly enough. I've played unbalanced maps before; I'm not scared. I will leave bread crumbs and tid bits of my adventure here and tell you how I will destroy your map. Cheers!
I started by laughing at the name of the starting area. Surface Blast was it ? Come on man, every other map uses like "Silent Start" or "Humbling Tickles" as their starting area name, but Surface Blast while I hear crying flame spitting jelly fishes and silver ****s ? *sigh* All right I guess. First off, the area looks great. The ceiling design is pretty epic looking, and the three quartz boxes are probably either good loot or something else; ghast spawners? Like REEEAALLY long range ghast spawners? Either that there's some "hell" biome up there letting ghasts naturally spawn (I don't ever know if it's possible). Anyway.
I started by rushing to one of the houses and blocking myself in with the magma blocks. I got a beetroot soup... I didn't even know these existed, huh. Playing in 1.9+ is like a WHOLE NEW WORLD. Anyway, I didn't waste time and got to the other houses. Ghasts are shooting fireballs and spawning more silverfish. I'm guessing I'm not suppose to stay here and wait for a miracle to cleanse my surrounding of evil, so after getting the three chests I aimed at the well where I did my best to incase myself in magma blocks and slowly descend into the darkness.
The well led to... well more darkness, except now I'm in the actual gigantic starting cave. I will spare you the 6 hours I took to get a small shack going, placing magma block and placing a torch on it (why use flint and steel when the torch has infinite uses...?). I can give you the highlights: New skeletons are INSANE, I fished a Power I Unbreaking I broken ass bow that allowed me to one hit some silverfish (it's now sitting in a chest with no durability bar left), salvaged some of the broken shacks for some wood and got I think all of the Flint & Steel / Magma Blocks chests, died twice by endermen (first one because I accidentaly looked at one, and a second time because a zombie decided to **** me while I was focused on killing one) and finally, I outsmarted your little pillar trap thing if you know what I mean. Thanks for the TNT and the stone sword.
So after 6h of doing like half of the actual cavern, I decided to just dig through the central pillar to get to the other side and make my way through the cave exit I see way over there. After half an hour of pain and suffering caused by an army of two skeletons (seriously, what the **** mojang), I made it to the cave and... I shed a tear. Never in my life was I so happy to see a monument. It's so bright and beautiful I think I will just stay there and fish forever now.
Overall, I think the map is pretty decent, but definitely not for the casuals. If your plan was to make a ridiculously hard map, you did it. People will say it's unbalanced, but you can't make a "ridiculously hard map" without it being unbalanced, right? Don't be too hard on yourself by calling it a failure. :C
Starting area definitely needs some honey pots to reduce spawn. It also needs at least somewhat safe place to regroup. The biggest problem was that it was not very obvious that you have to flee and rush to the water.
Skeletons were not a big problem in surface blast but in the sandstone area, there was no room to hide or avoid them. I just killed some zombies/creepers, proceeded 5 block, retreated to regen health which takes forever. Only having magma block here sucked because there was no time for me to switch to flint and steel and make some fire before I get murdered by skeletons.
I went there because I though that I could get some saplings(or at least some wood) from there.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I like custom maps, creative research and technical survival.
All right, so after making myself confortable in the monument (cozy little storage area with a fireplace and stuff, we guchi fam), I went to the intersection to see what monstrosity waits me. I was heartbroken to realise that I missed the white wool from Surface Blast. I have no words to express how much I don’t want to go back there. It’s so bright in here, everything is happy-looking and peaceful… God damn it.
So after running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I actually found the dungeon which is BEHIND the watch tower. I can’t say if it’s because it’s not obvious enough or that I’m just blind and stupid, but anyway. Dungeon was fairly easy to conquer. I actually like this kind of dungeon where you go through corridors and rooms, it feels like the progress I make is rewarding or something.
SO.... Back at the intersection but not before salvaging one more shack for wood. The book said the next wool is in False Silver Floors. Really ? You DO like those silver****s now do you ?
So I realised that this would be a lot easier during day time since the little shits won’t be spawning. Conquered the Vechs-like castles easily (I say Vechs-like castles because he loves to make perfectly shaped boxes with no detail and call it a castle). I then worked my way slowly through the underground part of it. Yo, you might know it… but it’s hard as **** to crit a silverfish. Anyway.
So I died one time trying to do what you didn’t really want us players to do; making a cobblestone generator. I died from… impatience. I was planning to dig down to the lava, and as I was digging slowly by checking every block to make sure they weren’t infested (let’s say, 3/4 down), I said screw this, the blocks seem to be fine. The second, the instant, THE MOMENT I thought that, the next block was a silverfish block, and since I still had a wood pick, didn’t see the difference. The little **** pushed me and I died. I lost 6 enderpearls and the ****ing shield. God damn it.
BUT. I did get the cobblestone generator going, and now I have all the furni I could ever need and STONE WORDS / PICKS / AXES. You did recommend against it, but you know what ? After playing all these maps, I just stick to whatever rule there is at the START of the map, and that’s it. Survive in any way you can think of, amirite ?
I died a second time because I’m stupid and I don’t know how to press shift. I fell into darkness, blocked myself in a hole but to get out, I needed to break some silverfish blocks and… Yeah that’s didn’t work well. By the way, that was a sneaky evil move on your part to put not one, but two spawners on top of the fleecy box. Didn’t get me though.
I’m now going to start Fort Tomber if I remember correctly (Tomber as in Falling in french I’m guessing). I’m ready to assault it, with my stacks upon stacks of torches, stone tools and rotten flesh, though I have to admit on thing. I think it’s the first time that I’m actually scared of a map. The map is not forgiving at all, and I just feel like everything is out to get me.
All right, so after making myself confortable in the monument (cozy little storage area with a fireplace and stuff, we guchi fam), I went to the intersection to see what monstrosity waits me. I was heartbroken to realise that I missed the white wool from Surface Blast. I have no words to express how much I don’t want to go back there. It’s so bright in here, everything is happy-looking and peaceful… God damn it.
So after running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I actually found the dungeon which is BEHIND the watch tower. I can’t say if it’s because it’s not obvious enough or that I’m just blind and stupid, but anyway. Dungeon was fairly easy to conquer. I actually like this kind of dungeon where you go through corridors and rooms, it feels like the progress I make is rewarding or something.
SO.... Back at the intersection but not before salvaging one more shack for wood. The book said the next wool is in False Silver Floors. Really ? You DO like those silver****s now do you ?
So I realised that this would be a lot easier during day time since the little shits won’t be spawning. Conquered the Vechs-like castles easily (I say Vechs-like castles because he loves to make perfectly shaped boxes with no detail and call it a castle). I then worked my way slowly through the underground part of it. Yo, you might know it… but it’s hard as **** to crit a silverfish. Anyway.
So I died one time trying to do what you didn’t really want us players to do; making a cobblestone generator. I died from… impatience. I was planning to dig down to the lava, and as I was digging slowly by checking every block to make sure they weren’t infested (let’s say, 3/4 down), I said screw this, the blocks seem to be fine. The second, the instant, THE MOMENT I thought that, the next block was a silverfish block, and since I still had a wood pick, didn’t see the difference. The little **** pushed me and I died. I lost 6 enderpearls and the ****ing shield. God damn it.
BUT. I did get the cobblestone generator going, and now I have all the furni I could ever need and STONE WORDS / PICKS / AXES. You did recommend against it, but you know what ? After playing all these maps, I just stick to whatever rule there is at the START of the map, and that’s it. Survive in any way you can think of, amirite ?
I died a second time because I’m stupid and I don’t know how to press shift. I fell into darkness, blocked myself in a hole but to get out, I needed to break some silverfish blocks and… Yeah that’s didn’t work well. By the way, that was a sneaky evil move on your part to put not one, but two spawners on top of the fleecy box. Didn’t get me though.
I’m now going to start Fort Tomber if I remember correctly (Tomber as in Falling in french I’m guessing). I’m ready to assault it, with my stacks upon stacks of torches, stone tools and rotten flesh, though I have to admit on thing. I think it’s the first time that I’m actually scared of a map. The map is not forgiving at all, and I just feel like everything is out to get me.
I'm happy you are still optimistic on the map!
I can't believe you had the patience to make a cobble generator, but props for doing it.
And if the wording in the area order book was unclear I meant that you can play the areas in any order, as each one gives something that the others don't. The areas are only in the order they are because that is the order I built them in.
Your updates are definitely helpful and fun to see.
Yeah I figured the waste of wood for the pickaxes was worth it if I did make the cobblestone generator. At one point I thought the sign was just an evil plan to make you waste wood, because I did run into bedrock. But if you dig an aqueduct right under the entrance of the area, you can lead it all the way to the lava hole under the stairs of the first building. I'm not using a spoiler tag, because it WAS a pain in the ass to do and I will agree with you; I don't recommend it. It was very hit or miss and I did use up A LOT of wood for it. But, like a silver 4 player from league of legends going in 1v5 and killing the enemy support would say: Worth.
Before going back to the monument, I got the chest that contained a golden pickaxe that was preventing the enitre fleecy box from falling into the lava. Thank god you put that chest there ! I also made my way down the longest of lavafalls if you know which one I mean, Zisteau would be proud. Got a bunch of potions and uh… well some other stuff. Now that I mention it, and hopefully you read this, what is going on with the random loot chests ? In the first map they were really nice, but this time, they are filled with comparators, quartz ore, random fence gates, iron pressure plates… I mean, I’m not complaining by any means (actually yes I am, scratch that, I love good loot), but I’m not a great builder. My first guess was to use it as fuel for the furnace but then I remembered: I’m not suppose to have cobblestone and thus, not suppose to have a furnace. I don’t know man, working my way through spawners to get fence gates doesn’t feel rewarding. I’d like to know what was the thought process behind that please.
Anyway, back on track. Fort Tomber. First impression: seems inspired by the castles in Legendary, right ? Castle Ira, Acedia and some other-ia. I could be wrong though, but I don’t mind it. I played a lot of maps where I had some déjà-vu feeling (Untold Story 1 Goliath took a lot of inspiration from Legendary and Waking Up, or your first map was heavily inspired by Inferno Mines, and I have to say, Fallen Mines is what Inferno Mines should have been. You made it prettier, harder and more fun. My main complaint about Inferno Mines is that you get so much loot for a really easy map. In Fallen Mines, I felt like I actually needed the loot since the map was harder).
All right, since I have a lot of torches now, I feel pretty safe just running in and lighting the whole area up, which I did… mostly. The left-side is still dark, but I got the ladders and the chests in the back secured. And you weren’t kidding, those spawners do have a REALLY short range, like 4 blocks right ?
Time to climb up that uh… brick water heater looking fort. I’m going to keep this short : **** 1.9+ skeletons. All right moving on. Got to the top and encountered the first custom mob in the map (second actually, there was poisoned silverfish in False Silver Floors). After battling for a couple minute trying to put light around the spawner right in front of the ladder, I realised something: there’s a two block gap between me and the wall. Oh well, it’s all right what could possibly go wr-and I died. I had 5 hearts and I was tickling their feet to clear out the area but somehow one of them got me. I fell and died, but at least I didn’t lose anything beside 48 levels of experience and a piece of my ego. *sigh*
The roof cleared, I looked down the deep pit, and there’s what I think is water at the bottom (could be lapis blocks, that would be a good trap, wow I should make maps). If that’s the case then this ACTUALLY is a water-heater after all. Time to go back in False Silver Floors and grab those ladders because even if you aren’t lying with that sign, even if it really is safe to jump, I’m a rebel and I do things my way. Don’t tell me what to do, mom.
Oh and by the way, why is there an underwater tunnel that links Intersection 1 and the monument ? Maybe I’m missing something but what is up with that.
Before going back to the monument, I got the chest that contained a golden pickaxe that was preventing the enitre fleecy box from falling into the lava. Thank god you put that chest there ! I also made my way down the longest of lavafalls if you know which one I mean, Zisteau would be proud. Got a bunch of potions and uh… well some other stuff. Now that I mention it, and hopefully you read this, what is going on with the random loot chests ? In the first map they were really nice, but this time, they are filled with comparators, quartz ore, random fence gates, iron pressure plates… I mean, I’m not complaining by any means (actually yes I am, scratch that, I love good loot), but I’m not a great builder. My first guess was to use it as fuel for the furnace but then I remembered: I’m not suppose to have cobblestone and thus, not suppose to have a furnace. I don’t know man, working my way through spawners to get fence gates doesn’t feel rewarding. I’d like to know what was the thought process behind that please.
Anyway, back on track. Fort Tomber. First impression: seems inspired by the castles in Legendary, right ? Castle Ira, Acedia and some other-ia. I could be wrong though, but I don’t mind it. I played a lot of maps where I had some déjà-vu feeling (Untold Story 1 Goliath took a lot of inspiration from Legendary and Waking Up, or your first map was heavily inspired by Inferno Mines, and I have to say, Fallen Mines is what Inferno Mines should have been. You made it prettier, harder and more fun. My main complaint about Inferno Mines is that you get so much loot for a really easy map. In Fallen Mines, I felt like I actually needed the loot since the map was harder).
All right, since I have a lot of torches now, I feel pretty safe just running in and lighting the whole area up, which I did… mostly. The left-side is still dark, but I got the ladders and the chests in the back secured. And you weren’t kidding, those spawners do have a REALLY short range, like 4 blocks right ?
Time to climb up that uh… brick water heater looking fort. I’m going to keep this short : **** 1.9+ skeletons. All right moving on. Got to the top and encountered the first custom mob in the map (second actually, there was poisoned silverfish in False Silver Floors). After battling for a couple minute trying to put light around the spawner right in front of the ladder, I realised something: there’s a two block gap between me and the wall. Oh well, it’s all right what could possibly go wr-and I died. I had 5 hearts and I was tickling their feet to clear out the area but somehow one of them got me. I fell and died, but at least I didn’t lose anything beside 48 levels of experience and a piece of my ego. *sigh*
The roof cleared, I looked down the deep pit, and there’s what I think is water at the bottom (could be lapis blocks, that would be a good trap, wow I should make maps). If that’s the case then this ACTUALLY is a water-heater after all. Time to go back in False Silver Floors and grab those ladders because even if you aren’t lying with that sign, even if it really is safe to jump, I’m a rebel and I do things my way. Don’t tell me what to do, mom.
Oh and by the way, why is there an underwater tunnel that links Intersection 1 and the monument ? Maybe I’m missing something but what is up with that.
The miscellaneous items are there as extra items, to make the chests not as empty, and to also give things that you cannot get otherwise to build a base if someone wants to. I will probably stop doing that in the future though, from what I can tell now, there are too many of them and they fill too much of the chest, and from what I can tell most people don't care about decorations for their base.
Its funny, when I saw the mine area in spellbound caves way back in 1.2.5, I think from paulsoars jr's LP, I knew I wanted to make a mine themed map, and I ended up wanting to make the map after inferno mines was released, around the 1.6 snapshots when the added hardened clay. Obviously I have no way to prove that, but that is how I got the idea. I also wanted to play with some of the ideas vechs had, and expanded on some, the long range spawners in "A miners start" for example.
The water drop is safe, I am pretty sure when ever I say something proceeded by trust me, I'm not lying.
The tunnel connecting int 1 and the monument is just that, a tunnel, I looked at the two bodies of water and thought a tunnel would be fitting.
and I wondered how I'm suppose to connect the railway all the way back to intersection 1 or the monument, because the way your told me to dig leads to the huge cylinder water room.
and I wondered how I'm suppose to connect the railway all the way back to intersection 1 or the monument, because the way your told me to dig leads to the huge cylinder water room.
My original intent was to have the rail be built through the area, or back through deep wood caverns. But now I have realized that is a lot longer than I initially thought. The idea was that you would have t fully secure an area, and build a rail line through it, but looking back on it im not sure how practical it is.
Oh I don't mind building a big roller coaster through an area. I actually did one in Fallen MIne as you can see in the screenshot below. I'm a hipster when it comes to railtracks, so I'm not going to go all "Pfft, railways ? That's so pre 1.4". But you said you want us to go through Deepwood Cavern, but that implies that I have to get lucky with coords, or flat out build the railtrack underwater through the big cylinder room linking Deepwood Cavern and Intersection 2, right ?
Oh I don't mind building a big roller coaster through an area. I actually did one in Fallen MIne as you can see in the screenshot below. I'm a hipster when it comes to railtracks, so I'm not going to go all "Pfft, railways ? That's so pre 1.4". But you said you want us to go through Deepwood Cavern, but that implies that I have to get lucky with coords, or flat out build the railtrack underwater through the big cylinder room linking Deepwood Cavern and Intersection 2, right ?
You should be able to dig a straight path above the water if you go through the tunnel from surface blast, if you look at cords
Yep, I had to look through MC Edit because building a railtrack underwater is... well, it's doable and I think we can agree that it's a pain in the ass.
Oh and one more thing. I can hear a weird sound all over intersection 2. It sounds like guardians but there's none of them around, so I'm assuming it has to do with the intersection being in an ocean biome ?
Yep, I had to look through MC Edit because building a railtrack underwater is... well, it's doable and I think we can agree that it's a pain in the ass.
Oh and one more thing. I can hear a weird sound all over intersection 2. It sounds like guardians but there's none of them around, so I'm assuming it has to do with the intersection being in an ocean biome ?
There is a long range guardian spawner at the bottom of the ocean allowing you to farm shards for the villager trades
Hi, I was trying to speedrun Whirling Phenomena so I have studied almost all parts of your map
Here are some suggestions you may/may not found useful:
Disable natural spawning, especially for map after 1.9. This can make a better enemy control for the player to fight with suitable power level mob at proper location. Fighting natural spawned skeletons and witches at the very beginning is just pain in the ass.
Give more food supply at the beginning.
I prefer fighting against few very powerful mob rather than swamped by many relatively weak mobs.
Give reasonable hints for the player where to go and what to do in some dungeon, Good placement of light source can easily fix this.
The rest of the map is fine imo. After fixing the difficulty balance problem this map should be an EPIC !
Heh, someone posted a review of your map. Not so good.
But I played a bit. needs a lot of work.
Hopefully ventures go better over time!
I want to say outright this map is pretty decent....
That being said it turned pretty near unplayable during the Mossy Cobblestone area. Or as i call it, the ONLY AREA THAT LAGGED OUT MY REALM
I have to ask, why in gods name did you give zombies a sight range of 200 blocks? and why the hell did you give them a spawn range of 4 and then negate that entirely by putting the entity cap of 30? One final thing, WHY DID YOU MAKE IT DETECT PLAYERS 255 BLOCKS AWAY?
It was so bad and so unplayable, we had to actually peaceful the map periods of time to even finish the area! Don't even get me started on the reinforcements!
Also bugs: Creepers with potion effects that last long can explode into lingering variants. Ex: water breathing creeper that explodes gives infinite water breathing.
I tried playing the Whirling Phenomena and holy ****. That is frustrating.
At 1st playthrough, I died in the starting area more than 10 times trying to figure out what to do. I broke all the silverfish spawner but ghasts kept blowing up silverfish blocks so at the end my starting area looked like a crater. After I figured out that I have to get the **** out here I reached the victory monument. I scrapped what I could(even from the crossway) but I ran out wood. After that, I couldn't progress. I deleted the map and reinstalled it.
At 2nd playthrough, I just got some magma blocks+flint and steel and rushed to the monument. Still not enough wood, but I can at least make some swords. Ran out again.
You said that this map is not intended to be rushed through, but by approaching slowly, I wasted 2 playthroughs. I don't think rushing through will work either as there are spawners every 5 blocks.
You said that you have to farm but farm what? If you had given me sapling at least I can gather lot of wood and get some armor from spider leathers. Also I could make a mob grinder to get some arrows.
I think the only way to reliably progress is to fish a mending+infinity bow. With unenchanted ones which can take few hours.(Probably run out of wood before that)
Also magma block is not a good light source. Why not glowstone? Or torch?
If you want to make a hard map, make it fair. In most Vechs' maps, he will give you "flak vest" which has projectile protection. Skeletons are too OP for start so it is his way of nerfing them. But that doesn't make his maps too easy as it will break after some time but by the time the player has resources to help themselves.
TL;DR : This map is brutal, savage and not fun. Next time gather some playtesters to test your map.
I like custom maps, creative research and technical survival.
In the area with all the zombies, I was able to get a stable 60 fps. Granted I have fairly good pc, and I probably underestimated how good an average players pc would be. The main goal for that area was to make zombies a threat and make them surround you in massive hoards. So the area is about dealing with large groups of enemies, blocking them off, lava bucket killing them, using the special slowness/weakness potions from the villagers to get away from them and so on. The idea also was that zombies would flood in from ever corner, so you would need to be on the run. To change the area, I am unsure what I would do. The reinforcements may have been overkill, maybe greatly reduce the amount of zombies, but make them individually tougher (do more damage, move faster, knock back resistance).
For the creepers giving infinite water breathing, that is an unintended side effect of the 1.11 changes, but I decided that I would keep the creepers in and if the player can figure that they can get infinite water breathing then why not, its not like it makes you invincible, and you loose it if you die.
In my play tests I was able to get through every area without too many issues, Like starting the map and completing false silver floors without dying. I guess the main problem is I knew what strategy to use, and even with that strategy it was challenging as I intended. But from what I can tell going in blind to the starting area makes it nearly impossible.
The idea behind the starting area is you start in the small thing you tp into, then you quickly try to get some wood, and then jump off the edge into the water, make swords/axes, and kill zombies for food, and slowly find your way to the wool and monument.
As far as lighting goes I intended it to be limited. There are a lot of magma blocks, which in my play tests were way more than enough to get through the first intersection. There is also a stack of glowstone and redstone lamps at the monument, and a lot of coal in the back of the open to sky part of false silver floors.
To make the starting area bearable, what kinds of things did you have the biggest problem with? Skeletons are meant to be something you avoid unless you can get them in close quarters or find arrows, so giving a flak vest would defeat the purpose of that. The starting area is very open to allow you to move around skeletons. Maybe honey pots could make the natural spawns lower and reduce skeleton spawns. Other things I can think of: giving more wood, that is easy to access, make one ghast spawn instead of two (though the ghasts never did any thing once I got off the starting platform), reduce the amount of silver fish blocks.
By the way, thank you for your feed back, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me make my map better.
WE have recently went into ash Cemetary.
First off, why the hell are pigmen powerful enough to do three hearts of damage to me WHEN I HAVE PROTECTION 4 DIAMOND ARMOR?
Second: why a excessive amount of spawners again?
Third: We found a way past all the mobs by accident, you left a gap near the rail system. Might want to fix that in the future
All right. I was a huge fan of your first map, so the minute I saw you made a second one, I immediately needed to play it. And since I have little to zero experience with the 1.9+ combat update, I thought I'd start with your map (I'm still playing maps for 1.7 and 1.8... Don't judge me, I HATE the new combat mechanics). Now I've played A LOT of CTM maps, and I was in need of a new challenge. Needless to say the previous reviews and your update on how it's a ''failure'' and how it's brutally unbalanced REALLY made me want to play it, weirdly enough. I've played unbalanced maps before; I'm not scared. I will leave bread crumbs and tid bits of my adventure here and tell you how I will destroy your map. Cheers!
I started by rushing to one of the houses and blocking myself in with the magma blocks. I got a beetroot soup... I didn't even know these existed, huh. Playing in 1.9+ is like a WHOLE NEW WORLD. Anyway, I didn't waste time and got to the other houses. Ghasts are shooting fireballs and spawning more silverfish. I'm guessing I'm not suppose to stay here and wait for a miracle to cleanse my surrounding of evil, so after getting the three chests I aimed at the well where I did my best to incase myself in magma blocks and slowly descend into the darkness.
The well led to... well more darkness, except now I'm in the actual gigantic starting cave. I will spare you the 6 hours I took to get a small shack going, placing magma block and placing a torch on it (why use flint and steel when the torch has infinite uses...?). I can give you the highlights: New skeletons are INSANE, I fished a Power I Unbreaking I broken ass bow that allowed me to one hit some silverfish (it's now sitting in a chest with no durability bar left), salvaged some of the broken shacks for some wood and got I think all of the Flint & Steel / Magma Blocks chests, died twice by endermen (first one because I accidentaly looked at one, and a second time because a zombie decided to **** me while I was focused on killing one) and finally, I outsmarted your little pillar trap thing if you know what I mean. Thanks for the TNT and the stone sword.
So after 6h of doing like half of the actual cavern, I decided to just dig through the central pillar to get to the other side and make my way through the cave exit I see way over there. After half an hour of pain and suffering caused by an army of two skeletons (seriously, what the **** mojang), I made it to the cave and... I shed a tear. Never in my life was I so happy to see a monument. It's so bright and beautiful I think I will just stay there and fish forever now.
Overall, I think the map is pretty decent, but definitely not for the casuals. If your plan was to make a ridiculously hard map, you did it. People will say it's unbalanced, but you can't make a "ridiculously hard map" without it being unbalanced, right? Don't be too hard on yourself by calling it a failure. :C
Starting area definitely needs some honey pots to reduce spawn. It also needs at least somewhat safe place to regroup. The biggest problem was that it was not very obvious that you have to flee and rush to the water.
Skeletons were not a big problem in surface blast but in the sandstone area, there was no room to hide or avoid them. I just killed some zombies/creepers, proceeded 5 block, retreated to regen health which takes forever. Only having magma block here sucked because there was no time for me to switch to flint and steel and make some fire before I get murdered by skeletons.
I went there because I though that I could get some saplings(or at least some wood) from there.
I like custom maps, creative research and technical survival.
Just got the orange wool !
So after running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I actually found the dungeon which is BEHIND the watch tower. I can’t say if it’s because it’s not obvious enough or that I’m just blind and stupid, but anyway. Dungeon was fairly easy to conquer. I actually like this kind of dungeon where you go through corridors and rooms, it feels like the progress I make is rewarding or something.
SO.... Back at the intersection but not before salvaging one more shack for wood. The book said the next wool is in False Silver Floors. Really ? You DO like those silver****s now do you ?
So I realised that this would be a lot easier during day time since the little shits won’t be spawning. Conquered the Vechs-like castles easily (I say Vechs-like castles because he loves to make perfectly shaped boxes with no detail and call it a castle). I then worked my way slowly through the underground part of it. Yo, you might know it… but it’s hard as **** to crit a silverfish. Anyway.
So I died one time trying to do what you didn’t really want us players to do; making a cobblestone generator. I died from… impatience. I was planning to dig down to the lava, and as I was digging slowly by checking every block to make sure they weren’t infested (let’s say, 3/4 down), I said screw this, the blocks seem to be fine. The second, the instant, THE MOMENT I thought that, the next block was a silverfish block, and since I still had a wood pick, didn’t see the difference. The little **** pushed me and I died. I lost 6 enderpearls and the ****ing shield. God damn it.
BUT. I did get the cobblestone generator going, and now I have all the furni I could ever need and STONE WORDS / PICKS / AXES. You did recommend against it, but you know what ? After playing all these maps, I just stick to whatever rule there is at the START of the map, and that’s it. Survive in any way you can think of, amirite ?
I died a second time because I’m stupid and I don’t know how to press shift. I fell into darkness, blocked myself in a hole but to get out, I needed to break some silverfish blocks and… Yeah that’s didn’t work well. By the way, that was a sneaky evil move on your part to put not one, but two spawners on top of the fleecy box. Didn’t get me though.
I’m now going to start Fort Tomber if I remember correctly (Tomber as in Falling in french I’m guessing). I’m ready to assault it, with my stacks upon stacks of torches, stone tools and rotten flesh, though I have to admit on thing. I think it’s the first time that I’m actually scared of a map. The map is not forgiving at all, and I just feel like everything is out to get me.
I'm happy you are still optimistic on the map!
I can't believe you had the patience to make a cobble generator, but props for doing it.
And if the wording in the area order book was unclear I meant that you can play the areas in any order, as each one gives something that the others don't. The areas are only in the order they are because that is the order I built them in.
Your updates are definitely helpful and fun to see.
Yeah I figured the waste of wood for the pickaxes was worth it if I did make the cobblestone generator. At one point I thought the sign was just an evil plan to make you waste wood, because I did run into bedrock. But if you dig an aqueduct right under the entrance of the area, you can lead it all the way to the lava hole under the stairs of the first building. I'm not using a spoiler tag, because it WAS a pain in the ass to do and I will agree with you; I don't recommend it. It was very hit or miss and I did use up A LOT of wood for it. But, like a silver 4 player from league of legends going in 1v5 and killing the enemy support would say: Worth.
Taking on Fort Tomber.
Anyway, back on track. Fort Tomber. First impression: seems inspired by the castles in Legendary, right ? Castle Ira, Acedia and some other-ia. I could be wrong though, but I don’t mind it. I played a lot of maps where I had some déjà-vu feeling (Untold Story 1 Goliath took a lot of inspiration from Legendary and Waking Up, or your first map was heavily inspired by Inferno Mines, and I have to say, Fallen Mines is what Inferno Mines should have been. You made it prettier, harder and more fun. My main complaint about Inferno Mines is that you get so much loot for a really easy map. In Fallen Mines, I felt like I actually needed the loot since the map was harder).
All right, since I have a lot of torches now, I feel pretty safe just running in and lighting the whole area up, which I did… mostly. The left-side is still dark, but I got the ladders and the chests in the back secured. And you weren’t kidding, those spawners do have a REALLY short range, like 4 blocks right ?
Time to climb up that uh… brick water heater looking fort. I’m going to keep this short : **** 1.9+ skeletons. All right moving on. Got to the top and encountered the first custom mob in the map (second actually, there was poisoned silverfish in False Silver Floors). After battling for a couple minute trying to put light around the spawner right in front of the ladder, I realised something: there’s a two block gap between me and the wall. Oh well, it’s all right what could possibly go wr-and I died. I had 5 hearts and I was tickling their feet to clear out the area but somehow one of them got me. I fell and died, but at least I didn’t lose anything beside 48 levels of experience and a piece of my ego. *sigh*
The roof cleared, I looked down the deep pit, and there’s what I think is water at the bottom (could be lapis blocks, that would be a good trap, wow I should make maps). If that’s the case then this ACTUALLY is a water-heater after all. Time to go back in False Silver Floors and grab those ladders because even if you aren’t lying with that sign, even if it really is safe to jump, I’m a rebel and I do things my way. Don’t tell me what to do, mom.
Oh and by the way, why is there an underwater tunnel that links Intersection 1 and the monument ? Maybe I’m missing something but what is up with that.
The miscellaneous items are there as extra items, to make the chests not as empty, and to also give things that you cannot get otherwise to build a base if someone wants to. I will probably stop doing that in the future though, from what I can tell now, there are too many of them and they fill too much of the chest, and from what I can tell most people don't care about decorations for their base.
Its funny, when I saw the mine area in spellbound caves way back in 1.2.5, I think from paulsoars jr's LP, I knew I wanted to make a mine themed map, and I ended up wanting to make the map after inferno mines was released, around the 1.6 snapshots when the added hardened clay. Obviously I have no way to prove that, but that is how I got the idea. I also wanted to play with some of the ideas vechs had, and expanded on some, the long range spawners in "A miners start" for example.
The water drop is safe, I am pretty sure when ever I say something proceeded by trust me, I'm not lying.
The tunnel connecting int 1 and the monument is just that, a tunnel, I looked at the two bodies of water and thought a tunnel would be fitting.
Hey bud, so I just made it to
and I wondered how I'm suppose to connect the railway all the way back to intersection 1 or the monument, because the way your told me to dig leads to the huge cylinder water room.
My original intent was to have the rail be built through the area, or back through deep wood caverns. But now I have realized that is a lot longer than I initially thought. The idea was that you would have t fully secure an area, and build a rail line through it, but looking back on it im not sure how practical it is.
Oh I don't mind building a big roller coaster through an area. I actually did one in Fallen MIne as you can see in the screenshot below. I'm a hipster when it comes to railtracks, so I'm not going to go all "Pfft, railways ? That's so pre 1.4". But you said you want us to go through Deepwood Cavern, but that implies that I have to get lucky with coords, or flat out build the railtrack underwater through the big cylinder room linking Deepwood Cavern and Intersection 2, right ?
You should be able to dig a straight path above the water if you go through the tunnel from surface blast, if you look at cords
Yep, I had to look through MC Edit because building a railtrack underwater is... well, it's doable and I think we can agree that it's a pain in the ass.
Oh and one more thing. I can hear a weird sound all over intersection 2. It sounds like guardians but there's none of them around, so I'm assuming it has to do with the intersection being in an ocean biome ?
There is a long range guardian spawner at the bottom of the ocean allowing you to farm shards for the villager trades
OOOooh. And they are killing squids. Okay that makes way more sense now.
Hi, I was trying to speedrun Whirling Phenomena so I have studied almost all parts of your map
Here are some suggestions you may/may not found useful:
The rest of the map is fine imo. After fixing the difficulty balance problem this map should be an EPIC !