People suggesting ways to deal with the new mandatory zombie apocalypse mode should remember that for a lot of "noobs" i.e. children, casual gamers and old people Minecraft was an enjoyable experience (sometimes their first gaming experience) also because it had that unique mix of peaceful Lego mornings + "scary" nights with monster so easy to deal with even a "noob" can do it and feel good about it.
Now that mix is gone. You can either have all day Lego (Peaceful) or a combat-heavy experience (everything else), and suggesting a 5yo girl she just suck at building an efficient base won't help.
Maybe D-Bone doesn't care in keeping such customers but I don't know how this could possibly be beneficial to future sales once the word spreads.
Or maybe they just wanted to raise awareness on gang rape and went a little too far. [/sarcasm]
People need to learn about using the word "challenging"
Seriously..you cannot please everyone...People complain about it being easy, now people complain it is too difficult!
I personally like the change, it puts your Survival skills to test. It is suppose to make you think twice about going outside at night. Night time is now Dangerous! Really Dangerous! Wasn't the game always suppose to be dangerous at night. As we step our skills up, the game becomes easier for us and gets boring.
But that's the problem! there's no more skill involved if there's no more strategies to be developed! You go up to a mob like skeletons and you just spam left click, No Strategy involved and everyone knows about sprinting around a skeletons arrows but now if you even try to get close you get hit anyway (For Players doing hardcore this can be a real problem). Sure you can use a bow but what about close quarters like caves and such? We really need a better Strategy than just taking all of the hits.
I have been playing this game a long time. When I first started playing there were no beds and I spent my nights either in a hidey-hole. Or by my 2nd or 3rd night I had built a 2 high wall around the area I was building my first home. I did this because night was dangerous. Now over time I became better at the game. And additions to the game made the game easier. Beds allowed night to be skipped, enchanting tables allowed my diamond sword to become even stronger. I also didn't wear armour at all for the longest time, and that forced me to learn to avoid being hit.
So when the zombies were given their new AI and spawning abilities I welcomed the challenge. I currently play on an SMP world, so sleeping away night isn't always an option. But torches still work, walls and fences still work. And I now take to wearing an iron chest most of the time. Even before 1.6 the village I found near world spawn, I walled it in, and torched it. The 1.6 zombies don't make the game harder, they just force the player to think. Build defenses, spam torches, carry armor and weapons. Carry healing/regen potions if you need to.
Finally, for casual gamers who just want to build/farm etc. Put the difficulty on peaceful while you work and just turn it to easy when you want to fight mobs. Or just go to creative mode. I feel Minecraft has been developed in a way that allows users of all play-styles to tweek the game to a difficulty level that suits them.
I like all the horses and such in the 1.6 update, but the zombies are driving me insane, i think there should be and option or gamerule to use the old zombies or the 1.6 zombies
But that's the problem! there's no more skill involved if there's no more strategies to be developed! You go up to a mob like skeletons and you just spam left click, No Strategy involved and everyone knows about sprinting around a skeletons arrows but now if you even try to get close you get hit anyway (For Players doing hardcore this can be a real problem). Sure you can use a bow but what about close quarters like caves and such? We really need a better Strategy than just taking all of the hits.
And fighting zombie hordes is not really a challenge as much as it is an annoyance. Hit the closest one, back up a little, lather, rinse, repeat.
Yeah it's because those Mojang morons didn't think that sometimes rules interact in weird ways. Even when it is PERFECTLY obvious that when you have this:
#1 The more damaged a zomnbie is, the harder it strikes
and then add this:
#2 Reinforcement zombies come with less hit points (i.e. already damaged)
You always get this:
Zombies hordes (and not "hoards" for all those literally challenged) strike hellishly hard!
Zombie reinforcements should follow the EXACT same rules as normal zombies: lit levels, on forim ground only, and DEFINITELY not in any space that either is too close to a player or has some kind of line-of-sight to the player (even if the player is looking away!). (even a partial line of sight).
Also, killing off a couple zombies should NOT "insure" an endless stream of zombies each night. Instead, when the 'zombie horde" effect is triggered, rarely, multiple zombies spawn at once, and then that is IT. You get one *huge* fight, not a trickling stream that goes on until morning.
Also, the "zombie horde" thing should be a "mob group" data. Like, when you kill off a zombie pigman, all other zombie pigmen from the same group also go hostile. Again, to make this a "fight a group" occurence, instead of a "fight an endless stream of weak monsters" thing.
Wasting 35% of my playtime fighting those easy mobs is a total waste of "difficulty".
Not to impugn upon the good work done by Mojang, but with some of the stuff that comes with the updates, I do have to wonder if perhaps they never had any sense with regard to good game design in the first place, and Minecraft's excellence as a game (and its popularity) is just some grand mistake. Things like constant zombie apocalypses, "improved" boat controls, "improved" terrain generation, and a general tendency to look for quick, buggy fixes when larger overhauls are necessary does beg that question. Again, I don't mean to say that everything they've done is bad - in fact, most of it is good - but the bad things just seem to degrade the game to such a degree that even a cursory critical examination of gameplay should make it glaringly obvious that they need fixing. /rant
Back on topic, it seems like a good fix to me; also, the group thing like with the pigmen makes sense; they're both zombies, and should have similar mechanics. I definitely agree on the spawning rules - it seems inconsistent that they should sometimes be able to spawn in lit areas when they don't normally.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the spawning thing only happen on hard?
Finally, for casual gamers who just want to build/farm etc. Put the difficulty on peaceful while you work and just turn it to easy when you want to fight mobs. Or just go to creative mode.
Changing difficulties i.e. making monster appear or disappear at will is not a feasible solution for people wanting a relaxing experience with the occasional jump on the chair. Knowing that monsters can't spawn or will spawn takes away the surprise element, and also feels like cheating to someone.
In Creative mode you don't need to eat, to get resources, to craft tools, to stay away from dangers, to make your way through the territory etc. etc. etc. Taking away all the Survival elements is not the answer to people just wanting the game to be easy at Easy difficulty level. What's wrong with that?
I don't have any video proof so anyone could say I hallucinated it, but I was definitely playing on Easy when I watched a zombie spawn 2 or 3 blocks in front of me as I was fighting a single zombie in shallow water, in a torch-lit area in front of my base.
The server I play with is on Normal all the time and I haven't died yet, but in that world we have enough armor to make iron, decent enchanted weapons if we want to use them, and a steady supply of cooked steak. The zombies are annoying, to the point that I once pillared up and waited out the night rather than deal with a horde containing multiple babies (I was stranded in a dark plains after abandoning my injured horse to save it from creepers, and couldn't find our base.) The hordes and new hunger can increase the challenge somewhat when caving and led to a few tight spots and near-deaths, but has nowhere near the impact it does on an un-armored character in a new world without a reliable food source. I actually died more to skeletons on that SSP world, usually after I'd been weakened by zombies or ran point-blank into a skelly while running from some horde.
Gosh i hate this feature. ever since i luered some villagers into my house, i have been under a CONSTANT
zombie apocalype. they just wont stop coming!
even with god enchanted stuff i still cant fend them all off. i think they should decrease the aggro range of zombies.
another time is when i killed a zombie in a cave, i turned on my X-ray texture pack and i saw every single zombie
in the cave system ABOVE me converging on top of where im standing. its really annoying
This feature is bull it, makes all villages screwed over especially on hard. Sure you can fence them in and light up the area, but that takes time and by then most of them are dead.Iron golems also only spawn if there is enough houses and villagers. That really needs to be fixed.
Don't you get zombies to spawn too close from you or outside of the farm?. I had a farm with a zombie spawner and I had to do modifications in order to kill them safely, since I was usually attacked at my back by new zombies (I've built a movabator, to get them 20 blocks high, making them fall and then killing them with one hit).
That's the best part, they all spawn outside of my farm, then they go inside the farm because that's the easiest way for them to get to my villagers.
I think the zombie sieges increase the efficiency of my farm.
Also I built a 23 block high drop trap to leave them one hit away from death (except the armored ones).
My server has had to disable Zombies and increase the spawn rate for spiders and Skeletons due to how impossible Abandoned Mineshafts are to explore. After killing 1 single Zombie, the abandoned mineshaft becomes a race to get out as every single zombie in the entire area will somehow navigate to no matter where you are and come find you.
Zombies in this most recent update have made the game nearly impossible to enjoy due to constant dying, over and over. I really hope Mojang fix this for Normal and Easy difficulties, because it's just ridiculous and boring.
At first, i hated this update, because of the way I strip mine. I never needed torches, so I was used to mining through the dark.
So when this update came with the new spawning mechanics, I found myself physically unable to mine. As a result, I was annoyed greatly at first.
Turns out...lighting up my tunnels works to stop this though, and I'm not bothered much by it.
As for when I'm not underground...Same story really. It used to bother me, but now I'm used to it, and I know what precautions to make to prevent it.
But as many people have said in the thread before me, there's still a huge problem with this update, in that there's no differences in the mechanics with the Difficulties.
If a person wants to play survival, but isn't that good at the game yet, or just in general a more casual player, they would naturally pick Easy mode....But now, easy is no longer easy to them, because the new main threat in the game is the exact same as if they were playing on hard.
I'd say mojang should keep the mechanics as they are right now for Normal and Hard mode, but tone it down for easy mode. Lower the spawn chance, and aggro range.
You would think, if Minecraft would include difficulty options, they would have some use. Unfortunately, the only difference they make currently is artificial difficulty.
Okjay, this thing with the zombies is insane. It isn't "challenging", it's asanine. I just lost a hardcore world I'd been working on- fine, it was hardcore- so I restarted, but went down to normal. 8 zombies ran across open daylight on the plains to come get a piece of me, burning as they came, with more popping out of every cave around me. even with a tactical withdrawal, myself and the sun weren't enough to stop the onslaught.
Again, that's not "challenging". When your equipment, skill level, tactics, and even the earth itself cannot hold back the horde, it's just a boring, aggravating curb stomping. For those of you who want this sort of insane difficulty... go find a MOD for the game, instead of punishing every other person who plays the game. Some of us would like to explore mines and craft things without having to be on peaceful or creative.
Yeah villages are now useless for first night shelter
They're useless for ANY shelter. They're pretty much just a killing field now. There's no way in a single day to properly fence off and light an entire town, even if you happen across it just after the monster spawns quit for the day. The only way you could pull it off is if you're using server codes to /give yourself the materials needed, and even then, better hope its not a large village, or that didn't mean miss one single point where a monster could spawn.
Really.. so if mobs bother you that much, why do you play Survival? Do you know what survival means? And nothing even harms you during the day, if you were doing a building project just make sure to use your bed at dawn. Also light up masses of area with torches and that's all there is to it!
Do you? Because clearly, you think it's hardcore mode, but moreover, I've done actual Real world survival, and no world in minecraft would now be considered viable for human life. Really? What if you're, say, coming out of night time, emerge from your shelter, and a zombie jumps you first thing. It's only one, so you hew him down so you can get on with your morning. What happens instead is that 10 zombie come rolling up out of the caves and come after you, even setting themselve ablaze in the sun to get one crack at you, and only you. This is precisely what happened to me, and it was one thing on hardcore, I accept the point that it's hard. But it repeatedly on both normal and easy as well.
How do you get this mass of torches so quickly? Obviously, you must using server commands or SPC, cause otherwise you're talking about tons of coal and wood for sticks, especially for an area of a 60 block radius.. That takes time and resources, and now, time is against. Daylight is not a salvation anymore, as the horde will still come for you, even if they're losing people to burning deaths along the way.
You're going on about the game as if it's permanently set to night? Why are people complaining so much about what happens at night when you're supposed to hide or skip using a bed which I've said loads of times now on this post?
If I create a new world, I gradually build up supplies and skip or hide nighttime accordingly. Once you have built up areas and tons of resources, there really is no threat at all. With a properly lit up area, you could still AFK at night quite easily.
If I create a new world and wanted to explore, I would chop some wood, kill a few sheep and grab some food. Make a bed and skip the night every dawn.
Because it DOESN'T just happen at night. And oh yes, that sounds so fun and engaging doesn't, just sitting around not doing anything every night. Isn't the whole we play video games to stave that off?
What if you you didn't know about the zombies, how to make torches, make a bed, or the best places to gather food? Oh right, you're okay with excluding people who might be new to the game. Thus, basically, you're for the destruction of minecraft and its fanbase, because that's the road that leads down.
Old school games weren't difficult for point of fun, btw. They were made purposely difficult so that you would lose and put in another quarter or twenty. That's it, it was no higher-minded than that, it was a blatant cash grab built to bilk us of our money as kids.
You know, I haven't personally had a HUGE problem with the zombies lately, but the more I read comments and think about it, the more that the problem of keeping a village alive in normal survival stands out as a big issue. Seems the only thing you can successfully do in early game with limited resources is to light up 1 or 2 houses containing more than 1 villager and block the doors, hoping no zombies will spawn inside by some random fluke, so that later you can attempt to repopulate. Although if it were my choice I'd just unload the village chunk and come back when I had supplies, but sometimes that's not possible to do if you get caught at night and can't travel. The likelihood of entire villages being wiped out in a single night is probably the main thing that bothers me about the current state of zombies, because in the beginning of the game there's just not much you can do to stop it.
I suppose it's a luxury to have a nice populated village, and of course if you're maintaining a village you should be working for it. But the odds seem so enormously stacked. It used to be fun to play 'village defender' and go around slaying the zombies without a barrier, but now?? Oh well.
Now that mix is gone. You can either have all day Lego (Peaceful) or a combat-heavy experience (everything else), and suggesting a 5yo girl she just suck at building an efficient base won't help.
Maybe D-Bone doesn't care in keeping such customers but I don't know how this could possibly be beneficial to future sales once the word spreads.
Or maybe they just wanted to raise awareness on gang rape and went a little too far. [/sarcasm]
So when the zombies were given their new AI and spawning abilities I welcomed the challenge. I currently play on an SMP world, so sleeping away night isn't always an option. But torches still work, walls and fences still work. And I now take to wearing an iron chest most of the time. Even before 1.6 the village I found near world spawn, I walled it in, and torched it. The 1.6 zombies don't make the game harder, they just force the player to think. Build defenses, spam torches, carry armor and weapons. Carry healing/regen potions if you need to.
Finally, for casual gamers who just want to build/farm etc. Put the difficulty on peaceful while you work and just turn it to easy when you want to fight mobs. Or just go to creative mode. I feel Minecraft has been developed in a way that allows users of all play-styles to tweek the game to a difficulty level that suits them.
Because Everyone Needs A 14 Inch Tablet
And fighting zombie hordes is not really a challenge as much as it is an annoyance. Hit the closest one, back up a little, lather, rinse, repeat.
Not to impugn upon the good work done by Mojang, but with some of the stuff that comes with the updates, I do have to wonder if perhaps they never had any sense with regard to good game design in the first place, and Minecraft's excellence as a game (and its popularity) is just some grand mistake. Things like constant zombie apocalypses, "improved" boat controls, "improved" terrain generation, and a general tendency to look for quick, buggy fixes when larger overhauls are necessary does beg that question. Again, I don't mean to say that everything they've done is bad - in fact, most of it is good - but the bad things just seem to degrade the game to such a degree that even a cursory critical examination of gameplay should make it glaringly obvious that they need fixing. /rant
Back on topic, it seems like a good fix to me; also, the group thing like with the pigmen makes sense; they're both zombies, and should have similar mechanics. I definitely agree on the spawning rules - it seems inconsistent that they should sometimes be able to spawn in lit areas when they don't normally.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the spawning thing only happen on hard?
In Creative mode you don't need to eat, to get resources, to craft tools, to stay away from dangers, to make your way through the territory etc. etc. etc. Taking away all the Survival elements is not the answer to people just wanting the game to be easy at Easy difficulty level. What's wrong with that?
No, it does not. It happens on ALL difficulty levels. THAT is the problem!
The server I play with is on Normal all the time and I haven't died yet, but in that world we have enough armor to make iron, decent enchanted weapons if we want to use them, and a steady supply of cooked steak. The zombies are annoying, to the point that I once pillared up and waited out the night rather than deal with a horde containing multiple babies (I was stranded in a dark plains after abandoning my injured horse to save it from creepers, and couldn't find our base.) The hordes and new hunger can increase the challenge somewhat when caving and led to a few tight spots and near-deaths, but has nowhere near the impact it does on an un-armored character in a new world without a reliable food source. I actually died more to skeletons on that SSP world, usually after I'd been weakened by zombies or ran point-blank into a skelly while running from some horde.
zombie apocalype. they just wont stop coming!
even with god enchanted stuff i still cant fend them all off. i think they should decrease the aggro range of zombies.
another time is when i killed a zombie in a cave, i turned on my X-ray texture pack and i saw every single zombie
in the cave system ABOVE me converging on top of where im standing. its really annoying
That's the best part, they all spawn outside of my farm, then they go inside the farm because that's the easiest way for them to get to my villagers.
I think the zombie sieges increase the efficiency of my farm.
Also I built a 23 block high drop trap to leave them one hit away from death (except the armored ones).
Zombies in this most recent update have made the game nearly impossible to enjoy due to constant dying, over and over. I really hope Mojang fix this for Normal and Easy difficulties, because it's just ridiculous and boring.
So when this update came with the new spawning mechanics, I found myself physically unable to mine. As a result, I was annoyed greatly at first.
Turns out...lighting up my tunnels works to stop this though, and I'm not bothered much by it.
As for when I'm not underground...Same story really. It used to bother me, but now I'm used to it, and I know what precautions to make to prevent it.
But as many people have said in the thread before me, there's still a huge problem with this update, in that there's no differences in the mechanics with the Difficulties.
If a person wants to play survival, but isn't that good at the game yet, or just in general a more casual player, they would naturally pick Easy mode....But now, easy is no longer easy to them, because the new main threat in the game is the exact same as if they were playing on hard.
I'd say mojang should keep the mechanics as they are right now for Normal and Hard mode, but tone it down for easy mode. Lower the spawn chance, and aggro range.
Again, that's not "challenging". When your equipment, skill level, tactics, and even the earth itself cannot hold back the horde, it's just a boring, aggravating curb stomping. For those of you who want this sort of insane difficulty... go find a MOD for the game, instead of punishing every other person who plays the game. Some of us would like to explore mines and craft things without having to be on peaceful or creative.
I just feel gypped for updating.
They're useless for ANY shelter. They're pretty much just a killing field now. There's no way in a single day to properly fence off and light an entire town, even if you happen across it just after the monster spawns quit for the day. The only way you could pull it off is if you're using server codes to /give yourself the materials needed, and even then, better hope its not a large village, or that didn't mean miss one single point where a monster could spawn.
Do you? Because clearly, you think it's hardcore mode, but moreover, I've done actual Real world survival, and no world in minecraft would now be considered viable for human life. Really? What if you're, say, coming out of night time, emerge from your shelter, and a zombie jumps you first thing. It's only one, so you hew him down so you can get on with your morning. What happens instead is that 10 zombie come rolling up out of the caves and come after you, even setting themselve ablaze in the sun to get one crack at you, and only you. This is precisely what happened to me, and it was one thing on hardcore, I accept the point that it's hard. But it repeatedly on both normal and easy as well.
How do you get this mass of torches so quickly? Obviously, you must using server commands or SPC, cause otherwise you're talking about tons of coal and wood for sticks, especially for an area of a 60 block radius.. That takes time and resources, and now, time is against. Daylight is not a salvation anymore, as the horde will still come for you, even if they're losing people to burning deaths along the way.
Because it DOESN'T just happen at night. And oh yes, that sounds so fun and engaging doesn't, just sitting around not doing anything every night. Isn't the whole we play video games to stave that off?
What if you you didn't know about the zombies, how to make torches, make a bed, or the best places to gather food? Oh right, you're okay with excluding people who might be new to the game. Thus, basically, you're for the destruction of minecraft and its fanbase, because that's the road that leads down.
Old school games weren't difficult for point of fun, btw. They were made purposely difficult so that you would lose and put in another quarter or twenty. That's it, it was no higher-minded than that, it was a blatant cash grab built to bilk us of our money as kids.
I suppose it's a luxury to have a nice populated village, and of course if you're maintaining a village you should be working for it. But the odds seem so enormously stacked. It used to be fun to play 'village defender' and go around slaying the zombies without a barrier, but now?? Oh well.