YEs and no.
Yes: Makes Bones more useful
No:
Crop bonemeal sucks
Breaking tree farm a lot
Actually, I don't see how this nerf makes Bones more useful... if anything it makes them less useful by giving people even less reason to change them into Bonemeal.
See, I can see for TREES having a nerf. It instantly spawns 20 some odd blocks, and you could potentially change an entire land scape in minutes.
Wheat though, well...its food. Big deal. someone can stomp it into oblivion anyway.
But it's a few blocks. Big deal. I have chests full of Cobblestone, Dirt, Sand, Gravel... what is a few blocks of Wood going to do for me, other than allowing me to build with Wood?
Changing an entire landscape? Big whoop. I could do that without wasting my time getting and using Bonemeal on the Saplings in the first place as well.
You see, Minecraft isn't about surviving. It's about making the world into your oyster and I really have no problems with being able to grow a tree with Bonemeal.
If it doesn't make sense... need I remind you of all the other things in Minecraft that only make sense with in-game logic?
Horrable.... Gosh. 3 for wheat?!?!?! 2 for trees!Instead of getting a peice of bread from 1 bone, you need 3!Horrable.... Gosh. 3 for wheat?!?!?! 2 for trees!Instead of getting a peice of bread from 1 bone, you need 3!
Actually, I don't see how this nerf makes Bones more useful... if anything it makes them less useful by giving people even less reason to change them into Bonemeal.
But it's a few blocks. Big deal. I have chests full of Cobblestone, Dirt, Sand, Gravel... what is a few blocks of Wood going to do for me, other than allowing me to build with Wood?
Changing an entire landscape? Big whoop. I could do that without wasting my time getting and using Bonemeal on the Saplings in the first place as well.
You see, Minecraft isn't about surviving. It's about making the world into your oyster and I really have no problems with being able to grow a tree with Bonemeal.
If it doesn't make sense... need I remind you of all the other things in Minecraft that only make sense with in-game logic?
A tree is around...idk...25 blocks? (someone get me the real number) and filling that many blocks as fast as you can DOES seem a bit OP. Especially with jungle trees.
Changing the land scape should be an option yes, but how much you want to bet I could make tree spawning a PVP tactic? It shouldn't be THAT quick.
And yes, the world is your oyster, but it should require some work. Not 7 bone meal for 1 wheat, 21 for bread kind of work, but enough you cant SHOOP DA WOOP TREES EVERYWHERE BLAAAUGH
A tree is around...idk...25 blocks? (someone get me the real number) and filling that many blocks as fast as you can DOES seem a bit OP. Especially with jungle trees.
Oh man, 28 blocks for your average tree... I'm totally going to run out of the other blocks I already have stored up from when I gathered Bones so it totally matters that I grew a tree and got more blocks.
Changing the land scape should be an option yes, but how much you want to bet I could make tree spawning a PVP tactic? It shouldn't be THAT quick.
Likely someone has, and, just as likely, the person who did so found out the hard way that growing a tree is far from a winning strategy. Given that you have crap on your hotbar and are attempting to grow trees while running away... you're going to die as soon as that guy catches up after dodging the trees, or shoots you because trees can't block arrows even when they're directly between two players.
And yes, the world is your oyster, but it should require some work. Not 7 bone meal for 1 wheat, 21 for bread kind of work, but enough you cant SHOOP DA WOOP TREES EVERYWHERE BLAAAUGH
Yeah, making a bunch of trees grow with additional work is obviously a problem when the alternative is planting the Saplings and going about your business while they grow.
Oh man, 28 blocks for your average tree... I'm totally going to run out of the other blocks I already have stored up from when I gathered Bones so it totally matters that I grew a tree and got more blocks.
Likely someone has, and, just as likely, the person who did so found out the hard way that growing a tree is far from a winning strategy. Given that you have crap on your hotbar and are attempting to grow trees while running away... you're going to die as soon as that guy catches up after dodging the trees, or shoots you because trees can't block arrows even when they're directly between two players.
Yeah, making a bunch of trees grow with additional work is obviously a problem when the alternative is planting the Saplings and going about your business while they grow.
Problem isnt running out of blocks, its that as far as survival creation goes, this is THE fastest way to produce matter into the world.
And yes, this won't KILL people, but You could easily make a wall to slow someone down, and maybe even get away safely entirely, even if a guy had diamond armor. Its like In Gmod if people spam the shipping containers.
And actually, if you just plant saplings you have instead of chucking them into a fire, this is almost NEVER a problem.
Problem isnt running out of blocks, its that as far as survival creation goes, this is THE fastest way to produce matter into the world.
Wood is also the easiest block in the world to destroy, and I could always use that Cobblestone I've mined up instead because, at the beginning of the game, I'm sure than many people aren't exactly looking for enough material to build a mansion.
And, even when you are looking to build a mansion, you shouldn't really want it to be that flammable.
And yes, this won't KILL people, but You could easily make a wall to slow someone down, and maybe even get away safely entirely, even if a guy had diamond armor. Its like In Gmod if people spam the shipping containers.
But trees aren't even good obstacles... And even if they are, all the Bonemeal nerf does is ruin a decent escape tactic that was already easily circumvented.
And actually, if you just plant saplings you have instead of chucking them into a fire, this is almost NEVER a problem.
You should try storing Saplings up from the trees you chop down then...
The nerf was well needed, but it still needs some balancing. You shouldn't need 8(?) bonemeals just to get 1 piece of wheat instantly, but only 2 to get a full tree. I personally love the nerf, it makes the game harder because you're a little bit more prone to starving. You can't just kill a couple of skeletons, break a few tall grass, and be set for the day. The nerf to bonemeals along with the buff of skeletons makes Minecraft more challenging. For survivalists, this a dream come true, but for builders, it's simply an inconvenience. But what I don't get about people who just build is why they play survival mode when they are not going to play survival.
Wood is also the easiest block in the world to destroy, and I could always use that Cobblestone I've mined up instead because, at the beginning of the game, I'm sure than many people aren't exactly looking for enough material to build a mansion.
And, even when you are looking to build a mansion, you shouldn't really want it to be that flammable.
But trees aren't even good obstacles... And even if they are, all the Bonemeal nerf does is ruin a decent escape tactic that was already easily circumvented.
You should try storing Saplings up from the trees you chop down then...
It isn't the easiest to destroy, and I mean that you can literally put down more blocks per second by spamming, this, by maybe 10 times. yes they are flammable, but they can still be placed 10 times faster than by hand this way.
Trees CAN be good obstacles on the right terrain. And you flipped your argument to say "but if I'm wrong, this is a legit tactic". This still could be a tactic, just not one from a fresh spawn. and not as much.
I've NEVER stored sapplings. The way you do it is : Take an ax (stone / iron). Go nuts chopping down trees. Plant every sapling you have, next time you need wood it will be there.
The nerf was well needed, but it still needs some balancing. You shouldn't need 8(?) bonemeals just to get 1 piece of wheat instantly, but only 2 to get a full tree. I personally love the nerf, it makes the game harder because you're a little bit more prone to starving. You can't just kill a couple of skeletons, break a few tall grass, and be set for the day. The nerf to bonemeals along with the buff of skeletons makes Minecraft more challenging. For survivalists, this a dream come true, but for builders, it's simply an inconvenience. But what I don't get about people who just build is why they play survival mode when they are not going to play survival.
Because "Survival" is just a word, and not actually named that because surviving in Minecraft is supposed to be the main thing you do.
And, once again, this change does not provide difficulty. Food is still easy to get, even if you can't grown Wheat instantly, and it has no impact on people with Skeleton farms and/or a lot of Bones. This is an annoyance, not difficulty.
Honestly I don't think the nerf goes far enough. Don't flame before you read the rest of what I have to say.
So first off I would like to refer everyone to the post in this thread regrading making bonemeal increase the speed at which crops grow instead of insta-growing them in any way as this is fairly similar to my thoughts on the matter. However I think that bone meal should be applied to the actual farmland and not the crop and give you this bonus, up to a cap of lets say 25% increase for balance and arguments sake. Now if we have this implemented and give each bonemeal added to soil a 5% increase to the growth rate that means that using up five per plot of farmland would give you the max bonus. Now to continue with balancing this out the bonus would only last for that single piece of wheat/carrot/potato. So after you harvest you plant you would have to go back in and re-apply all of the bonemeal that you want. This works because early on it is easy enough to get a few bones to create bonemeal from even if you don't fight mobs. You can just let the skeletons burn and get pick up the drops. So having it speed up growth in this way doesn't make regular farming completely pointless late game and actually encourages it in way. It also doesn't make it overly difficult for new players (or vets on a new world) to not starve while trying to get themselves settled in.
Now if you'll notice I left out anything about trees,melons,pumpkins and mushrooms in that last bit. I'll talk about that now. I think they should not get any bouns from bonemeal period. Melons are something that are supposed to be rare, allowing even speed up growth on a plant that never needs to be replanted would give a permanent bonus. Pumpkins are the same as melons, they may not be as rare but they still have the same growth pattern and also a more of a commodity as there are better food sources and as such they don't need to be grown so rapidly. Not something I want. And trees shouldn't get insta growth or sped up growth at all because I'f you've used up so much would that you can't just cut down a few more trees from your nearest forest then you should have a tree farm or something similar already, and if you don't then it's your own fault for being careless and not managing your resources well enough. With all of that said, most new player really shouldn't be wasting precious bone meal on trees so that they can get more wood they should be using it on getting their farming operations set up and expanded until they have a nice sustainable size. As for mushrooms, they can keep the instant giant mushroom thing. If the mushroom is on Mycelium. This seems fair to me. But I do think that if mushrooms are on grass blocks using bonemeal on the mushroom, or on the blocks next to it perhaps, should give you more mushrooms, to make them a more reliable resource to farm. When I say more I mean one or two more for a max of three, the two new ones and the original mushroom.
Sorry no TL;DR for this one. If you actually care about the subject you'll read it all.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Humanity is the creation of Logic and Emotion, Calculation and Imagination, Cold Analysis and Blind Faith. This is why I believe it is a strange Human that would prize one while shunning the other. For a calculator can do math just as well as you, but a calculator can not use math to make the world a better place.
... there are 1000 ways to nerf bonemeal that would be more fun than simply increasing the click rate (but it probably was the easiest to implement)... if you would have read my post carefully - I have no problem with bonemeal being harder to obtain (by smelting for example and only 1 out of 1 bone) but having to click a small wheat block 7 times isn't really helping the fun in the game - or is it?
Hear! Hear! I agree wholeheartedly!
Why bones/bonemeal seen as worthless now? Simple: a combination of overabundance and of the fact that for usual usages you don't really need all that much:
- Taming wolves: Even to tame an entire wolf pack, you don't need to kill all that many skeletons. After all, once your initial taming is done, it's done, and it's easier to just breed more "already tamed" wolves that to go find new ones.
- Quick-growing of vegetation: Because of...
a- 1 bone gives 3 bonemeals, you easily get lots of it.
b- bonemeal targets 1 plant only (except when done on a grass block).
c- crops already grow quite fast anyway
... this simply means that bonemeal is usually used mostly only to "quick start" a new type of crop, say from a single zombie-drop carrot to having at least 10 planted carrots. Once that's done, it's done for good, and no more bonemeal is needed.
Bone meal is also used when you have a skelly grinder to have a "3 clicks per wheat on a single flamrland block" thing going, but the discussion of overabundance of stuff when players have mob grinders is entirely another problematic.
So here is how I think the bonemeal "nerf" should have been done:
(-A-) Adjust quantity before adjusting effect.
Items with special effects should try to "seem" rare/valuable. They're not building materials of which you'd need stacks and stacks and stacks of. So it's better to reduce the amount than to chop the effect into oblivion.
Thus, for bonemeal:
- Skeletons should drop only 0-1 bones instead of 0-2.
This would result in a x2 rarity effect for bones, so taming wolves would be less "immediate".
and
- Crafting Bone should yield only 1 bonemeal instead of 3.
Thus would result in a total effect of x6 rarity effect for bonemeal.
Combined with the new power of skellies (they're really hard now, and you must strafe to get at them), this would make bones, and especially bonemeal, much "rarer".
{ Parenthesis: In fact, I think they went a little bit overboard with the power of skellies now. Like another poster said, they're almost mini-bosses. Sheesh, I always hated using bow and arrow, and strafing is VERY hard on my carpal tunnel syndrome. I wouldn't mind if _SOME_ skellies were "uber", byut all of them? Given the _EXTREMELY LOW_ diversity of monsters in the game, making a very common monster like skellies this hard feels weird to me. I just wait for the sun to come up to grab the skellies's drop lol. }
(-B-) Make automatic grinders farming less uber powerful.
When a mob "shares" part of it's volume with another monster, it shouldn't drop anything when killed. in fact, past some point of "high concentration" of mobs overlapping in the same volume, a fraction of them should despawn immediately until the threshold is respected. That way, "monster towers" which cause server lag would be reduced, and mob farms couldn't "exagerate". to prevent players from simply modifying their mob farms so that its the monsters DROPS which accumulate in the same spot, I'd apply the same threshold principle ti the drops, too. When item entities are created, they get a flag wether they were created by direct player action of not, and when they "merge" together, there would be odds that some disappear instantly, with a limit. This way even if you create a uber humongous automatic wheat farm, or skelly farm, you wouldn't get insane amounts of drops in a very short time, simply by pushing a button.
Also, monster spawner created monsters should have lower drop rate. The more monsters of that type that are killed nearby recently, the lower the drop rate in the next few minutes. Wether the monster is killed by player hand or entirely automatically should also affect the drop rate.
In short, grinders would still "pay" more overall, but not WAY more. Maybe it' ok to let a player with an automatic farm posseess say 10 times more stuff than the guy doing it manuallly. But a 100 times more? A 1000 times more? Definotely not Ok. Because that's asking for trouble on any server worth its salt. the game should be dsigned for the multiplayer environment. If a player in single player w2ants to have multidouble-chests full of stackas of something, they should just use creative mode momentarily to do so (cheats are directly part of the game now anyway) instead of wanting to ruin the economy (such as it is) for the community.
(-C-) Make the effect useful not only when you "start" stuff, but also "continue" to be useful afterwards when "you "continue" to do the stuff that you started.
Wolves: Easy, just make it edible just like raw meat for healing and breeding purposes. Anyway it's much more fun to to have 2 different types of foods to use on wolves, especially for roleplay-oriented players "Here's a good doggy, here's a treat!" (give bones)"
Crops: The bonemeal should not act as a magical-thingy-of-instant-growth, but as fertilizer boosting the normal growth speed. Maybe then we could also have bonemeal as an ingredient to make an instant-growth potion or item instead.
This way, the usage would not be reserved for "starting" a farm, but could be useful for a long time afterwards.
(note that even with the last 13w04a update, you can still 'nearly' insta-grow wheat with bonemeal, all you have to do is click-spam the crop).
Example of how it could be implemented:
No instant growth, even when put directly on grass. Instead, a magical green sparkling on the block where the bonemeal was added. this aura lasts for some time, and you can't spam-stack more bonemeal in the same spot.
Effect: In addition to the normal random block updates they get normally, when a bonemeal-aura gets a random block update, it will also give all blocks of the prioper type in a 4x4 area (inclyuding diaginally) around it their get a chance to grow. This will thus add more chances of several random blocks in the overlapping area getting growth.
The nature of the block where the bonemeal aura is, determines the kind of aura:
Specific Crop Aura - If aura is 'around' a crop block, it enhances that type of crop only.
Specfic Tree Aura - If aura is 'around' a sapling, it enhances the growth of that type of tree in the area.
Specific Mushroom Aura - If aura is 'around' a mushroom, it constantly gives some chance that this kind of mushroom grows into a giant one, in the area.
Grass & Flowers Aura - If aura is 'around' around empty air above a grass block, or is around tall grass, dandelion or rose, it constantly gives some chance of creating mostly tall grass (not dead tall grass), some dandelions, and a few roses.
Grass & Flowers Aura - If aura is 'around' around empty air above a grass block, or is around tall grass, dandelion or rose, it constantly gives some chance of creating mostly tall grass (not dead tall grass), some dandelions, and a few roses.
Also, you couldn't add bonemeal if by doing so that would make two auras of the same kind adjacent (even diagonally), but you can add some more further away to stack the effect. Since each bonemeal would provide say the equilvalent of speeding up the growth by +200%, with 1 bonemeal you'd get triple normal growth speed, a 2nd bonemeal aura would make the overlapping area get x5 speed, it would become x7 speed with a 3rd bonemal, etc. For a maximum boost of x25 on some plant type. Grass and flowers would work a bit differently since they don't "grow" but "appear". Of course, the bonemeal has a maximum duration, too, but it should be sufficiently long.
Because "Survival" is just a word, and not actually named that because surviving in Minecraft is supposed to be the main thing you do.
And, once again, this change does not provide difficulty. Food is still easy to get, even if you can't grown Wheat instantly, and it has no impact on people with Skeleton farms and/or a lot of Bones. This is an annoyance, not difficulty.
Ok. If so, why was the hunger bar added? Why was food added? Why do you have a health bar when the only point of Minecraft is building? It's undeniable that Minecraft has a survival aspect. Just because you don't play that way, doesn't mean Minecraft is not supposed to be played that way.
Does not provide difficulty? You need to kill more skeletons, which are now stronger, to get instant food. True that food is still easy to get, but this nerf made it a little bit harder. Not everyone has a skeleton farm nor want to build one because it takes away a huge bit of the survival aspect of the game.
It is more of an annoyance than a difficulty? Care to expand on that more? That can be said about anything. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you have to dig down ~70 blocks just to get to the level where diamond ores spawn instead of just having diamond ores above ground. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you can only put down one block at a time just to build a house instead of just using WorldEdit. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you have to collect blocks and materials to build a house instead of just having an infinite amount of them. See what I'm saying?
This nerf may just be an annoyance if you are just a builder, but if you appreciate the survival aspect of the game, it's definitely an increase in difficulty.
Ok. If so, why was the hunger bar added? Why was food added? Why do you have a health bar when the only point of Minecraft is building? It's undeniable that Minecraft has a survival aspect. Just because you don't play that way, doesn't mean Minecraft is not supposed to be played that way.
Does not provide difficulty? You need to kill more skeletons, which are now stronger, to get instant food. True that food is still easy to get, but this nerf made it a little bit harder. Not everyone has a skeleton farm nor want to build one because it takes away a huge bit of the survival aspect of the game.
It is more of an annoyance than a difficulty? Care to expand on that more? That can be said about anything. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you have to dig down ~70 blocks just to get to the level where diamond ores spawn instead of just having diamond ores above ground. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you can only put down one block at a time just to build a house instead of just using WorldEdit. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you have to collect blocks and materials to build a house instead of just having an infinite amount of them. See what I'm saying?
This nerf may just be an annoyance if you are just a builder, but if you appreciate the survival aspect of the game, it's definitely an increase in difficulty.
please note this was in the "adventure update" not the "Realism" update.
Also whoever suggested INSTEAD smelting bones, PLEASE make this happen.
This would be so much better than this broken idea or 7 per wheat right now.
please note this was in the "adventure update" not the "Realism" update.
Also whoever suggested INSTEAD smelting bones, PLEASE make this happen.
This would be so much better than this broken idea or 7 per wheat right now.
No one is talking about realism here. Minecraft was never meant to be realistic.
That could also work, because you have to have fuel and a furnace to make bonemeal. But remember, it's a snapshot for a reason - it still needs some balancing. Dinnerbone(?) himself said that he is planning on balancing this nerf. By the release of 1.5, I highly doubt you'll need 7 bonemeals just for 1 wheat.
Changing an entire landscape? Big whoop. I could do that without wasting my time getting and using Bonemeal on the Saplings in the first place as well.
You see, Minecraft isn't about surviving. It's about making the world into your oyster and I really have no problems with being able to grow a tree with Bonemeal.
If it doesn't make sense... need I remind you of all the other things in Minecraft that only make sense with in-game logic?
This. Moderators please close the topic, there is nothing more to be said.
Empty
? Isn't that how it worked before? Personally the tree nerf seems to make more sense but nerfing bonemeal on crops is Not needed.
A tree is around...idk...25 blocks? (someone get me the real number) and filling that many blocks as fast as you can DOES seem a bit OP. Especially with jungle trees.
Changing the land scape should be an option yes, but how much you want to bet I could make tree spawning a PVP tactic? It shouldn't be THAT quick.
And yes, the world is your oyster, but it should require some work. Not 7 bone meal for 1 wheat, 21 for bread kind of work, but enough you cant SHOOP DA WOOP TREES EVERYWHERE BLAAAUGH
No. P_eople have a right to express their opinion.
Likely someone has, and, just as likely, the person who did so found out the hard way that growing a tree is far from a winning strategy. Given that you have crap on your hotbar and are attempting to grow trees while running away... you're going to die as soon as that guy catches up after dodging the trees, or shoots you because trees can't block arrows even when they're directly between two players.
Yeah, making a bunch of trees grow with additional work is obviously a problem when the alternative is planting the Saplings and going about your business while they grow.
Problem isnt running out of blocks, its that as far as survival creation goes, this is THE fastest way to produce matter into the world.
And yes, this won't KILL people, but You could easily make a wall to slow someone down, and maybe even get away safely entirely, even if a guy had diamond armor. Its like In Gmod if people spam the shipping containers.
And actually, if you just plant saplings you have instead of chucking them into a fire, this is almost NEVER a problem.
And, even when you are looking to build a mansion, you shouldn't really want it to be that flammable.
But trees aren't even good obstacles... And even if they are, all the Bonemeal nerf does is ruin a decent escape tactic that was already easily circumvented.
You should try storing Saplings up from the trees you chop down then...
The nerf was well needed, but it still needs some balancing. You shouldn't need 8(?) bonemeals just to get 1 piece of wheat instantly, but only 2 to get a full tree. I personally love the nerf, it makes the game harder because you're a little bit more prone to starving. You can't just kill a couple of skeletons, break a few tall grass, and be set for the day. The nerf to bonemeals along with the buff of skeletons makes Minecraft more challenging. For survivalists, this a dream come true, but for builders, it's simply an inconvenience. But what I don't get about people who just build is why they play survival mode when they are not going to play survival.
lol I was just kidding
It isn't the easiest to destroy, and I mean that you can literally put down more blocks per second by spamming, this, by maybe 10 times. yes they are flammable, but they can still be placed 10 times faster than by hand this way.
Trees CAN be good obstacles on the right terrain. And you flipped your argument to say "but if I'm wrong, this is a legit tactic". This still could be a tactic, just not one from a fresh spawn. and not as much.
I've NEVER stored sapplings. The way you do it is : Take an ax (stone / iron). Go nuts chopping down trees. Plant every sapling you have, next time you need wood it will be there.
Because "Survival" is just a word, and not actually named that because surviving in Minecraft is supposed to be the main thing you do.
And, once again, this change does not provide difficulty. Food is still easy to get, even if you can't grown Wheat instantly, and it has no impact on people with Skeleton farms and/or a lot of Bones. This is an annoyance, not difficulty.
So first off I would like to refer everyone to the post in this thread regrading making bonemeal increase the speed at which crops grow instead of insta-growing them in any way as this is fairly similar to my thoughts on the matter. However I think that bone meal should be applied to the actual farmland and not the crop and give you this bonus, up to a cap of lets say 25% increase for balance and arguments sake. Now if we have this implemented and give each bonemeal added to soil a 5% increase to the growth rate that means that using up five per plot of farmland would give you the max bonus. Now to continue with balancing this out the bonus would only last for that single piece of wheat/carrot/potato. So after you harvest you plant you would have to go back in and re-apply all of the bonemeal that you want. This works because early on it is easy enough to get a few bones to create bonemeal from even if you don't fight mobs. You can just let the skeletons burn and get pick up the drops. So having it speed up growth in this way doesn't make regular farming completely pointless late game and actually encourages it in way. It also doesn't make it overly difficult for new players (or vets on a new world) to not starve while trying to get themselves settled in.
Now if you'll notice I left out anything about trees,melons,pumpkins and mushrooms in that last bit. I'll talk about that now. I think they should not get any bouns from bonemeal period. Melons are something that are supposed to be rare, allowing even speed up growth on a plant that never needs to be replanted would give a permanent bonus. Pumpkins are the same as melons, they may not be as rare but they still have the same growth pattern and also a more of a commodity as there are better food sources and as such they don't need to be grown so rapidly. Not something I want. And trees shouldn't get insta growth or sped up growth at all because I'f you've used up so much would that you can't just cut down a few more trees from your nearest forest then you should have a tree farm or something similar already, and if you don't then it's your own fault for being careless and not managing your resources well enough. With all of that said, most new player really shouldn't be wasting precious bone meal on trees so that they can get more wood they should be using it on getting their farming operations set up and expanded until they have a nice sustainable size. As for mushrooms, they can keep the instant giant mushroom thing. If the mushroom is on Mycelium. This seems fair to me. But I do think that if mushrooms are on grass blocks using bonemeal on the mushroom, or on the blocks next to it perhaps, should give you more mushrooms, to make them a more reliable resource to farm. When I say more I mean one or two more for a max of three, the two new ones and the original mushroom.
Sorry no TL;DR for this one. If you actually care about the subject you'll read it all.
Hear! Hear! I agree wholeheartedly!
Why bones/bonemeal seen as worthless now? Simple: a combination of overabundance and of the fact that for usual usages you don't really need all that much:
- Taming wolves: Even to tame an entire wolf pack, you don't need to kill all that many skeletons. After all, once your initial taming is done, it's done, and it's easier to just breed more "already tamed" wolves that to go find new ones.
- Quick-growing of vegetation: Because of...
a- 1 bone gives 3 bonemeals, you easily get lots of it.
b- bonemeal targets 1 plant only (except when done on a grass block).
c- crops already grow quite fast anyway
... this simply means that bonemeal is usually used mostly only to "quick start" a new type of crop, say from a single zombie-drop carrot to having at least 10 planted carrots. Once that's done, it's done for good, and no more bonemeal is needed.
Bone meal is also used when you have a skelly grinder to have a "3 clicks per wheat on a single flamrland block" thing going, but the discussion of overabundance of stuff when players have mob grinders is entirely another problematic.
So here is how I think the bonemeal "nerf" should have been done:
(-A-) Adjust quantity before adjusting effect.
Items with special effects should try to "seem" rare/valuable. They're not building materials of which you'd need stacks and stacks and stacks of. So it's better to reduce the amount than to chop the effect into oblivion.
Thus, for bonemeal:
- Skeletons should drop only 0-1 bones instead of 0-2.
This would result in a x2 rarity effect for bones, so taming wolves would be less "immediate".
and
- Crafting Bone should yield only 1 bonemeal instead of 3.
Thus would result in a total effect of x6 rarity effect for bonemeal.
Combined with the new power of skellies (they're really hard now, and you must strafe to get at them), this would make bones, and especially bonemeal, much "rarer".
{ Parenthesis: In fact, I think they went a little bit overboard with the power of skellies now. Like another poster said, they're almost mini-bosses. Sheesh, I always hated using bow and arrow, and strafing is VERY hard on my carpal tunnel syndrome. I wouldn't mind if _SOME_ skellies were "uber", byut all of them? Given the _EXTREMELY LOW_ diversity of monsters in the game, making a very common monster like skellies this hard feels weird to me. I just wait for the sun to come up to grab the skellies's drop lol. }
(-B-) Make automatic grinders farming less uber powerful.
When a mob "shares" part of it's volume with another monster, it shouldn't drop anything when killed. in fact, past some point of "high concentration" of mobs overlapping in the same volume, a fraction of them should despawn immediately until the threshold is respected. That way, "monster towers" which cause server lag would be reduced, and mob farms couldn't "exagerate". to prevent players from simply modifying their mob farms so that its the monsters DROPS which accumulate in the same spot, I'd apply the same threshold principle ti the drops, too. When item entities are created, they get a flag wether they were created by direct player action of not, and when they "merge" together, there would be odds that some disappear instantly, with a limit. This way even if you create a uber humongous automatic wheat farm, or skelly farm, you wouldn't get insane amounts of drops in a very short time, simply by pushing a button.
Also, monster spawner created monsters should have lower drop rate. The more monsters of that type that are killed nearby recently, the lower the drop rate in the next few minutes. Wether the monster is killed by player hand or entirely automatically should also affect the drop rate.
In short, grinders would still "pay" more overall, but not WAY more. Maybe it' ok to let a player with an automatic farm posseess say 10 times more stuff than the guy doing it manuallly. But a 100 times more? A 1000 times more? Definotely not Ok. Because that's asking for trouble on any server worth its salt. the game should be dsigned for the multiplayer environment. If a player in single player w2ants to have multidouble-chests full of stackas of something, they should just use creative mode momentarily to do so (cheats are directly part of the game now anyway) instead of wanting to ruin the economy (such as it is) for the community.
(-C-) Make the effect useful not only when you "start" stuff, but also "continue" to be useful afterwards when "you "continue" to do the stuff that you started.
Wolves: Easy, just make it edible just like raw meat for healing and breeding purposes. Anyway it's much more fun to to have 2 different types of foods to use on wolves, especially for roleplay-oriented players "Here's a good doggy, here's a treat!" (give bones)"
Crops: The bonemeal should not act as a magical-thingy-of-instant-growth, but as fertilizer boosting the normal growth speed. Maybe then we could also have bonemeal as an ingredient to make an instant-growth potion or item instead.
This way, the usage would not be reserved for "starting" a farm, but could be useful for a long time afterwards.
(note that even with the last 13w04a update, you can still 'nearly' insta-grow wheat with bonemeal, all you have to do is click-spam the crop).
Example of how it could be implemented:
No instant growth, even when put directly on grass. Instead, a magical green sparkling on the block where the bonemeal was added. this aura lasts for some time, and you can't spam-stack more bonemeal in the same spot.
Effect: In addition to the normal random block updates they get normally, when a bonemeal-aura gets a random block update, it will also give all blocks of the prioper type in a 4x4 area (inclyuding diaginally) around it their get a chance to grow. This will thus add more chances of several random blocks in the overlapping area getting growth.
The nature of the block where the bonemeal aura is, determines the kind of aura:
Specific Crop Aura - If aura is 'around' a crop block, it enhances that type of crop only.
Specfic Tree Aura - If aura is 'around' a sapling, it enhances the growth of that type of tree in the area.
Specific Mushroom Aura - If aura is 'around' a mushroom, it constantly gives some chance that this kind of mushroom grows into a giant one, in the area.
Grass & Flowers Aura - If aura is 'around' around empty air above a grass block, or is around tall grass, dandelion or rose, it constantly gives some chance of creating mostly tall grass (not dead tall grass), some dandelions, and a few roses.
Grass & Flowers Aura - If aura is 'around' around empty air above a grass block, or is around tall grass, dandelion or rose, it constantly gives some chance of creating mostly tall grass (not dead tall grass), some dandelions, and a few roses.
Also, you couldn't add bonemeal if by doing so that would make two auras of the same kind adjacent (even diagonally), but you can add some more further away to stack the effect. Since each bonemeal would provide say the equilvalent of speeding up the growth by +200%, with 1 bonemeal you'd get triple normal growth speed, a 2nd bonemeal aura would make the overlapping area get x5 speed, it would become x7 speed with a 3rd bonemal, etc. For a maximum boost of x25 on some plant type. Grass and flowers would work a bit differently since they don't "grow" but "appear". Of course, the bonemeal has a maximum duration, too, but it should be sufficiently long.
Just ideas, really.
Ok. If so, why was the hunger bar added? Why was food added? Why do you have a health bar when the only point of Minecraft is building? It's undeniable that Minecraft has a survival aspect. Just because you don't play that way, doesn't mean Minecraft is not supposed to be played that way.
Does not provide difficulty? You need to kill more skeletons, which are now stronger, to get instant food. True that food is still easy to get, but this nerf made it a little bit harder. Not everyone has a skeleton farm nor want to build one because it takes away a huge bit of the survival aspect of the game.
It is more of an annoyance than a difficulty? Care to expand on that more? That can be said about anything. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you have to dig down ~70 blocks just to get to the level where diamond ores spawn instead of just having diamond ores above ground. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you can only put down one block at a time just to build a house instead of just using WorldEdit. I could say it is more annoying than challenging that you have to collect blocks and materials to build a house instead of just having an infinite amount of them. See what I'm saying?
This nerf may just be an annoyance if you are just a builder, but if you appreciate the survival aspect of the game, it's definitely an increase in difficulty.
please note this was in the "adventure update" not the "Realism" update.
Also whoever suggested INSTEAD smelting bones, PLEASE make this happen.
This would be so much better than this broken idea or 7 per wheat right now.
No one is talking about realism here. Minecraft was never meant to be realistic.
That could also work, because you have to have fuel and a furnace to make bonemeal. But remember, it's a snapshot for a reason - it still needs some balancing. Dinnerbone(?) himself said that he is planning on balancing this nerf. By the release of 1.5, I highly doubt you'll need 7 bonemeals just for 1 wheat.