I've heard it said before that beds are too powerful, and take away from Minecraft's survival experience, and was wondering what people thought about this. Once again, I wanted to do my best to try and list some of the pros and cons of adjusting beds. (Though, obviously, I'd be in support of adjusting beds if I'm making a thread like this.) I'm almost certain I've missed something, and would appreciate feedback!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Summary ~ Beds may be somewhat overpowered, but they also allow players the option to avoid game play that may be beyond their skill level.
Pros ~ Once again, (at least in my opinion), beds are overpowered- (But that doesn't mean I don't intend to do my best playing devil's advocate.) The problem with beds is that they are, (firstly), really easy to craft- and secondly, do two incredibly useful things that should be a bit more difficult to obtain then just placing down some wool and wood. Beds allow you not only to skip the night, but to reset your spawnpoint. This means that any player with three wool and three planks can not only avoid pretty much any monsters, but can pretty much ensure their safety even if they do die.
The argument that players can simply opt to not use beds is silly- if they are in the game, players will use them because they are an easier alternative, even if they don't necessarily like the mechanics. I use beds all the time, even if I think they don't make sense gameplay wise!
There are several alternatives to beds that make more sense to me. I think the first step would to make it so that beds let you sleep through the night, but don't magically reset your respawn point. To do this should require something else- perhaps a campfire, or a respawn anchor similar to that of the Nether Respawn anchor. I certainly wouldn't recommend taking beds out of the game- sleeping can still be a useful game mechanic without being totally overpowered, and who would want to get rid of the phantom? Another way, (as many have brought up in the comments), would be to make sheep only drop wool if sheared.
The point is, beds allow players to miss out on a great deal of gameplay- and while this certainly saves on frustration, it discourages challenge and innovation. If there was an easy way out for every part of gameplay, would the game really be worth playing? With beds in the game, the aspect of'survival' in survival mode is practically nonexistent. That being said, removing beds entirely or adjusting them too much would be a grave mistake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cons ~ As with any core mechanic, this would be very hard to modify or remove, even if you wanted to. Beds were first introduced all the way back in 1.3, and as such have long been an accepted part of gameplay- to change them now would most certainly cause more trouble than it's worth.
While it's fair to say that beds allow players to skip parts of the game, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not all players want to spend their first nights cowering in terror for ten minutes on end while monsters prowl outside, and the whole point of the game is that people can play it how they want. Removing this option for them would be unfair, particularly since many players have already gotten used to it. Some people like a hardcore survival challenge... but not everyone does. One of the biggest arguments I've seen against changing beds is the fact that the alternative is simply to dig a hole and go AFK for awhile.
It isn't necessary to add new game mechanics where other game mechanics already exist- and the last thing anyone wants is to set a precedent for changing things that players have long gotten used to. The point of Mojang's more recent updates has been to revamp and upgrade existing content- not to replace it entirely. At most, tweaks to how beds work might be helpful- but ultimately, core gameplay mechanics should not be altered. Imagine how the community would react if Mojang changed how creepers worked? Or added other needlessly complicated survival mechanics, like thirst or temperature, that would only serve to annoy and frustrate players further? Or replaced diamonds with something better? (...Wait)
The point is, not everyone wants a challenging survival experience. If changes like this were made, they ought to be reserved for harder gameplay modes.
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The fact that they allow you to skip the night ensures that you are completely safe all the time except if you are in a cave or another dimension. Beds turn the entire overworld into one giant safehouse and remove almost any challenging aspect from the whole dimension. You could opt not to use them, but then the phantoms will come in and start killing you, which is a ridiculous concept if you ask me. If you try to make the game more difficult for yourself, you're bombarded with excessive difficulty and annoyance, and the only way to prevent this is to sleep, which makes the game ridiculously easy. It's black and white, and the only way to escape the trap is to turn the gamerule for phantoms off.
Further, the bed causes massive explosions that can be used offensively in the nether and end, which makes the fights easier for an incredibly cheap price. That's very overpowered.
I don't even see spawnpoints as significant in terms of balance, I'm just so mad about the other stuff.
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Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Minecraft 2.0
Minecraft 1.VR-Pre1
Snapshot 15w14a
Minecraft 3D
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
The bed explosion thing I've always thought was dumb. Besides being 'lol indie game quirky' it is just a bad mechanic. It would be so easy to have just played a message that says "You don't feel safe in this strange environment and cannot sleep".
As for Phantoms, their spawn mechanic is pretty bad imo, but you don't have to sleep to get rid of them if I remember correctly, you just need to get into a bed. You can then get out right away and stay up through the night. I would be okay with their spawning mechanics changing so they are not tied to X days without sleeping.
Everything else is fine by me. Normally I wouldn't say this but beyond dealing with Phantoms (assuming you want to keep game rules their default settings), any other benefit the bed gives are 100% optional and self inflicted. If you are on Single Player you can just never use a bed if you don't like how easy the game is made by them. As for servers, they make their own rules on what is allowed, including rules for beds. Many servers have voting to skip nights or other things like that.
And I really don't buy that people will *always* use beds if they are an option. I like using beds, but I have absolutely started worlds where I decided I wasn't going to use a bed and then I followed through on that and never used them. It isn't that hard to have a modicum of self restraint.
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Now since the Bed and the Phantom are interconnected together the main argument here for me is that beds are now consider a critical aspect of the game in combating these mobs and the longer a player goes with out a being in a bed the phantom problem grows worse for the player and resets upon every interaction of being in a bed. The devs should just scrap that portion of the Bed Mechanic entirely and let The Phantom be a super rare mob that appears at night instead of being a mob interaction that progressively gets worse over time for the player. Now while that kind of progressive interaction with a mob does sound like a cool challenging idea to have it should've been only reserved for the nether where the concepts of frustration is very welcomed. The nether in theory is a place that invites that kind of exceptionally frustrating form of gameplay.
So yeah according to my main base of reasoning Beds are very overpowered in terms of mob removal.
Everything else is fine by me. Normally I wouldn't say this but beyond dealing with Phantoms (assuming you want to keep game rules their default settings), any other benefit the bed gives are 100% optional and self inflicted. If you are on Single Player you can just never use a bed if you don't like how easy the game is made by them. As for servers, they make their own rules on what is allowed, including rules for beds. Many servers have voting to skip nights or other things like that.
And I really don't buy that people will *always* use beds if they are an option. I like using beds, but I have absolutely started worlds where I decided I wasn't going to use a bed and then I followed through on that and never used them. It isn't that hard to have a modicum of self restraint.
Considering the situation with enabling or disabling cheats, I wouldn't be so quick to assume everyone has such self-control. The entire argument for disabling them is that it's easier not to cheat if you don't have the option to opt to, implying that they lack the self-control not to opt for it. It is evident that ultimately the setting doesn't matter since you can change it via nbt, yet people argue that they wouldn't do that because it's too difficult (they don't have the self-control to be willing to do things of this difficulty).
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Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Minecraft 2.0
Minecraft 1.VR-Pre1
Snapshot 15w14a
Minecraft 3D
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
I've heard it said before that beds are too powerful, and take away from Minecraft's survival experience, and was wondering what people thought about this. Once again, I wanted to do my best to try and list some of the pros and cons of adjusting beds. (Though, obviously, I'd be in support of adjusting beds if I'm making a thread like this.) I'm almost certain I've missed something, and would appreciate feedback!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Summary ~ Beds may be somewhat overpowered, but they also allow players the option to avoid game play that may be beyond their skill level.
Pros ~ Once again, (at least in my opinion), beds are overpowered- (But that doesn't mean I don't intend to do my best playing devil's advocate.) The problem with beds is that they are, (firstly), really easy to craft- and secondly, do two incredibly useful things that should be a bit more difficult to obtain then just placing down some wool and wood. Beds allow you not only to skip the night, but to reset your spawnpoint. This means that any player with three wool and three planks can not only avoid pretty much any monsters, but can pretty much ensure their safety even if they do die.
The argument that players can simply opt to not use beds is silly- if they are in the game, players will use them because they are an easier alternative, even if they don't necessarily like the mechanics. I use beds all the time, even if I think they don't make sense gameplay wise!
There are several alternatives to beds that make more sense to me. I think the first step would to make it so that beds let you sleep through the night, but don't magically reset your respawn point. To do this should require something else- perhaps a campfire, or a respawn anchor similar to that of the Nether Respawn anchor. I certainly wouldn't recommend taking beds out of the game- sleeping can still be a useful game mechanic without being totally overpowered, and who would want to get rid of the phantom?
The point is, beds allow players to miss out on a great deal of gameplay- and while this certainly saves on frustration, it discourages challenge and innovation. If there was an easy way out for every part of gameplay, would the game really be worth playing? With beds in the game, the aspect of
'survival' in survival mode is practically nonexistent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cons ~ As with any core mechanic, this would be very hard to modify or remove, even if you wanted to. Beds were first introduced all the way back in 1.3, and as such have long been an accepted part of gameplay- to change them now would most certainly cause more trouble than it's worth.
While it's fair to say that beds allow players to skip parts of the game, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not all players want to spend their first nights cowering in terror for ten minutes on end while monsters prowl outside, and the whole point of the game is that people can play it how they want. Removing this option for them would be unfair, particularly since many players have already gotten used to it. Some people like a hardcore survival challenge... but not everyone does.
It isn't necessary to add new game mechanics where other game mechanics already exist- and the last thing anyone wants is to set a precedent for changing things that players have long gotten used to. The point of Mojang's more recent updates has been to revamp and upgrade existing content- not to replace it entirely. At most, tweaks to how beds work might be helpful- but ultimately, core gameplay mechanics should not be altered. Imagine how the community would react if Mojang changed how creepers worked? Or added other needlessly complicated survival mechanics, like thirst or temperature, that would only serve to annoy and frustrate players further? Or replaced diamonds with something better? (...Wait)
The point is, not everyone wants a challenging survival experience. If changes like this were made, they ought to be reserved for harder gameplay modes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps we could have chairs implemented, which set your spawn points in the overworld, instead of beds. This would add more furniture to the game and add a new item that takes over one of the roles beds used to have.
Players who set their spawn location before the update was implemented, that spawn point that was previously set using a bed is remembered. But future spawn points will now have to be set using chairs. This would encourage players to put a little more work into crafting, a key element of the game, and also add some more fine details to their bases or houses so it feels and serves more like a home to them.
I wouldn't want to change too much about bed mechanics mind you, because a move like this could be circumvented by playing legacy console editions of the game or older versions in the Java launcher and I wouldn't want Mojang to ruin the experience for a lot of people. Not everyone plays the game just to fight monsters all the time, sure it's a feature of survival, but there's more reasons to play Minecraft than battling Skeletons and Creepers, it is exploring the massive in game worlds, different biomes, building towns by yourself or with friends etc. Plus you are tampering with a core mechanic of the game, even just revamping the spawn mechanics would be in some people's view, extreme.
Also skipping the night does nothing about the hazards underground.
Only using lighting, careful gameplay and armour, does.
Way back, around 2011 I believe, beds were a lot more difficult to use than they are now. Back then, if you slept in a dark room or area, you would wake up in the middle of the night and get attacked by monsters (I remember laughing my head off whenever this happened to the Yogscast). You also couldn't place a bed close to a wall, doing so would also spawn monsters and wake you up, not sure if this one was intentional, but maybe we could have one of these old features back in the game? A lot of the times whenever I'm exploring, I tend to sleep in the middle of a dark forest and just skip the night, but if the old sleeping rules were implemented back in the game, this wouldn't be possible anymore. Perhaps the bed would have to check a certain area around it. If there are a lot of dark blocks near it, monsters would have a higher chance of waking you up in the middle of the night, making skipping the night while exploring a lot more difficult.
Way back, around 2011 I believe, beds were a lot more difficult to use than they are now. Back then, if you slept in a dark room or area, you would wake up in the middle of the night and get attacked by monsters (I remember laughing my head off whenever this happened to the Yogscast). You also couldn't place a bed close to a wall, doing so would also spawn monsters and wake you up, not sure if this one was intentional, but maybe we could have one of these old features back in the game? A lot of the times whenever I'm exploring, I tend to sleep in the middle of a dark forest and just skip the night, but if the old sleeping rules were implemented back in the game, this wouldn't be possible anymore. Perhaps the bed would have to check a certain area around it. If there are a lot of dark blocks near it, monsters would have a higher chance of waking you up in the middle of the night, making skipping the night while exploring a lot more difficult.
But making monsters spawn just for having a bed next to a wall would ruin a lot of peoples houses by spawning Creepers inside them, according to your description, since even with lighting there would be a mechanic involving beds "too close to walls". This isn't an improvement, it is destroying people's work. Surely if you've taken the time to illuminate housing properly it should be rewarded by no monster spawns inside it under any circumstance?
dark blocks outside could have monster spawns yes, this is acceptable, or having monsters wake players up during the night if they have failed to light their bases up properly (above 7 in all adjacent floor surfaces) or if they haven't placed gates in front of wooden doors to stop zombies from getting in.
But making monsters spawn just for having a bed next to a wall would ruin a lot of peoples houses by spawning Creepers inside them, according to your description, since even with lighting there would be a mechanic involving beds "too close to walls". This isn't an improvement, it is destroying people's work. Surely if you've taken the time to illuminate housing properly it should be rewarded by no monster spawns inside it under any circumstance?
dark blocks outside could have monster spawns yes, this is acceptable, or having monsters wake players up during the night if they have failed to light their bases up properly (above 7 in all adjacent floor surfaces) or if they haven't placed gates in front of wooden doors to stop zombies from getting in.
I didn't suggest we should implement the "too close to the wall" problem, I should've been more clear. I think players waking up in the middle of the night because they didn't properly light up their base could work to balance beds. You would have to make sure their are no blocks with a light level of 6 or lower.
I didn't suggest we should implement the "too close to the wall" problem, I should've been more clear. I think players waking up in the middle of the night because they didn't properly light up their base could work to balance beds. You would have to make sure their are no blocks with a light level of 6 or lower.
In that case, I agree. In fact it's an exploit about beds I want removed from the game. Clearly if players failed to illuminate their base properly then they should be punished. This increases the difficulty with beds as far as exploration goes, but it is balanced, it is neither too easy nor too hard. It puts beds into the fair category, also beds should not be used as a weapon, their explosive power should not affect monsters, I would support this even if it was only a world option although I'd prefer it be standard game design.
Also skipping the night does nothing about the hazards underground.
Only using lighting, careful gameplay and armour, does.
There's also strip mining, which only clears the minimum amount of underground blocks and commonly does not have mobs spawn, no matter how dark it is. Players can use this method to basically cheese the entire mob spawning system without using a single torch.
Even if they couldn't, placing a bunch of lighting blocks is nowhere near enough work to grant removal of the entire challenge of the game. In general, there should be no one thing that removes the whole point of conflict in your game, because after that it becomes boring and way too easy.
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Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Minecraft 2.0
Minecraft 1.VR-Pre1
Snapshot 15w14a
Minecraft 3D
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
There's also strip mining, which only clears the minimum amount of underground blocks and commonly does not have mobs spawn, no matter how dark it is. Players can use this method to basically cheese the entire mob spawning system without using a single torch.
Even if they couldn't, placing a bunch of lighting blocks is nowhere near enough work to grant removal of the entire challenge of the game. In general, there should be no one thing that removes the whole point of conflict in your game, because after that it becomes boring and way too easy.
I agree with the OP's suggestion regarding things like this though, there should be a separate mode for the changes you're wanting because not everyone will want the drastic changes you're insisting be put into the game.
As for the current survival modes, excluding hardcore mode, I disagree that lighting shouldn't be enough to halt hostile mob spawns, as it is an intended game mechanic and the basic and well known design of the game which people have gotten used to, it may not be what you fully agree with, but it works. Changing things too much can also ruin the game. Nobody wants to play a game they find too frustrating or where an update removed a core game design that they have previously trusted to help them progress.
Players can use this method to basically cheese the entire mob spawning system without using a single torch.
An easy fix for this is to fix lighting so true darkness is totally, utterly pitch black, regardless of brightness setting:
You should not be able to make out anything away from the lava and torches, regardless of your display settings (at best the dark areas will be a uniform shade of gray, this was taken with brightness set to bright, which only varies the brightness curve between 0% and 100% (0% and 100% are always the same), and editing options.txt to set gamma to some high value will not work as I limit all settings to their intended ranges when reading them in).
As far as beds go, i find it highly ironic that Mojang decided to force players to have to regularly sleep in order to avoid "phantoms", which will certainly never exist in TMCW; I basically never sleep myself and don't see why it is so broken, in fact, in one of my worlds I set it to permanent day to force mobs to spawn underground, where I spend all of my time, and otherwise it is easy to avoid mobs by sprinting past them when I return to/from my bases at night. The only time they are any sort of inconvenience is when I'm building a base, then I do sleep to avoid trying to deal with mobs while building. Maybe they can remove the exploding mechanic in the End/Nether (where it also makes it a bit too easy to find ancient debris), instead simply disallowing sleep.
An easy fix for this is to fix lighting so true darkness is totally, utterly pitch black, regardless of brightness setting:
You should not be able to make out anything away from the lava and torches, regardless of your display settings (at best the dark areas will be a uniform shade of gray, this was taken with brightness set to bright, which only varies the brightness curve between 0% and 100% (0% and 100% are always the same), and editing options.txt to set gamma to some high value will not work as I limit all settings to their intended ranges when reading them in).
As far as beds go, i find it highly ironic that Mojang decided to force players to have to regularly sleep in order to avoid "phantoms", which will certainly never exist in TMCW; I basically never sleep myself and don't see why it is so broken, in fact, in one of my worlds I set it to permanent day to force mobs to spawn underground, where I spend all of my time, and otherwise it is easy to avoid mobs by sprinting past them when I return to/from my bases at night. The only time they are any sort of inconvenience is when I'm building a base, then I do sleep to avoid trying to deal with mobs while building. Maybe they can remove the exploding mechanic in the End/Nether (where it also makes it a bit too easy to find ancient debris), instead simply disallowing sleep.
A very well thought out fix, thank you.
Honestly this should have been in the game already as it makes perfect sense. Nobody should be able to cheese a dark area simply by amplifying their brightness settings in the display options.
Only light sources within the game should be capable of allowing players to see where they are going underground, if we ever get a cave update, this is the change I'd fully agree with because it fixes a balancing issue with strip mining or caving, but it fits the core design of the game. Lighting isn't only about preventing monster spawns, it is so you can see what you are doing, lighting has 2 main purposes but 1 is broken at this point in time.
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Beds are way too easy to find. You shouldn't need to skip the night if it is beyond your skill level, you should need to defend yourself from it. Beds are also uselessly overpowered, you start off already supplied with enough blocks to survive from mobs. I've grown to accept beds, but the 1.14 update threw all that out the window. Beds should not spawn in villages.
Beds are way too easy to find. You shouldn't need to skip the night if it is beyond your skill level, you should need to defend yourself from it. Beds are also uselessly overpowered, you start off already supplied with enough blocks to survive from mobs. I've grown to accept beds, but the 1.14 update threw all that out the window. Beds should not spawn in villages.
Not spawning beds in villages is a good start, but making wool so it doesn't drop by killing sheep would be another improvement. You should need shears to collect the wool to make beds if they are to continue allowing you to set your spawn points on top of skipping the night. And no village chest should have iron ingots, iron tools or armour plates only. Meaning most of the time, especially early game, players should need to mine for their iron underground which makes sense.
There are some players who would need to skip the night in survival if they want to build or farm for food outside without interruptions, other than that I agree with you, skilled players would be fully capable of fighting off monsters during the first couple of nights before the Phantom's start spawning, because they'd know how to get all the best equipment and use milk to get rid of status effects they might receive from Witches etc.
Beds are way too easy to find. You shouldn't need to skip the night if it is beyond your skill level, you should need to defend yourself from it. Beds are also uselessly overpowered, you start off already supplied with enough blocks to survive from mobs. I've grown to accept beds, but the 1.14 update threw all that out the window. Beds should not spawn in villages.
You cant sleep in a bed when a monster is too close.
But you can close a door and wait for the sun to kill all zombies.
Doors shouldnt spawn in villages.
-Just kidding.
Beds should defenitly stay in villages. The houses are already very simple,
removing the beds from villages would take away villagers that go to sleep.
Finding a village on your first day can give you more overpowered things then beds.
Like Haybales. A Stack of them is a lot of food! Or the Blacksmith, if you get very lucky.
A Village can be an oasis that saves your life.
And a village should look like it's alive, not just houses without interior.
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My projects:
-are abandoned for now. I might pick 'em up in the future.
For now i'm working on a private modpack that suit's my own playstyle.
I am gonna stay in modded 1.12.2 untill my potato dies. No mercy! :Q
making wool so it doesn't drop by killing sheep would be another improvement. You should need shears to collect the wool to make beds if they are to continue allowing you to set your spawn points on top of skipping the night.
I support that. Only that.
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My projects:
-are abandoned for now. I might pick 'em up in the future.
For now i'm working on a private modpack that suit's my own playstyle.
I am gonna stay in modded 1.12.2 untill my potato dies. No mercy! :Q
I also want to point out something which is very important for balance in game design. We shouldn't be gauging difficulty solely by how many players are achieving results, sometimes when a lot of people are achieving certain goals it means they are competent players, not because a game or a task in it is too easy. We should assess difficulty by how much intelligence/skill is required to execute a task without fail successfully, and how much time and effort the task makes the player put in.
With this said, it doesn't take much skill to find a bed that is already in villages.
But it does require some knowledge about crafting recipes and finding the correct resources to make your own bed.
More effort is required so before the village update, beds were more balanced in my opinion.
I never had too much trouble making my own beds before the village update made them spawn in villages already, I don't see why anybody else should either, nobody else to my knowledge had complained about beds being too hard to get back then.
I'm not advocating changes that would force a lot of people to rage quit or become too stressed out for the game to be enjoyable for them.
Perhaps we could have chairs implemented, which set your spawn points in the overworld, instead of beds. This would add more furniture to the game and add a new item that takes over one of the roles beds used to have.
The problem is that a bed makes sense as a spawn point, it's your resting location, and when you die, it makes sense that you wake up in it. With something like a chair, players will be placing down and using them a lot and it doesn't really fit what you would expect a player spawn to be.
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Hey guys I'm James, I used to be a noob but now I'm not, I finally figured out how to use TextCraft so here's a banner for one of my suggestions.
I've heard it said before that beds are too powerful, and take away from Minecraft's survival experience, and was wondering what people thought about this. Once again, I wanted to do my best to try and list some of the pros and cons of adjusting beds. (Though, obviously, I'd be in support of adjusting beds if I'm making a thread like this.) I'm almost certain I've missed something, and would appreciate feedback!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Summary ~ Beds may be somewhat overpowered, but they also allow players the option to avoid game play that may be beyond their skill level.
Pros ~ Once again, (at least in my opinion), beds are overpowered- (But that doesn't mean I don't intend to do my best playing devil's advocate.) The problem with beds is that they are, (firstly), really easy to craft- and secondly, do two incredibly useful things that should be a bit more difficult to obtain then just placing down some wool and wood. Beds allow you not only to skip the night, but to reset your spawnpoint. This means that any player with three wool and three planks can not only avoid pretty much any monsters, but can pretty much ensure their safety even if they do die.
The argument that players can simply opt to not use beds is silly- if they are in the game, players will use them because they are an easier alternative, even if they don't necessarily like the mechanics. I use beds all the time, even if I think they don't make sense gameplay wise!
There are several alternatives to beds that make more sense to me. I think the first step would to make it so that beds let you sleep through the night, but don't magically reset your respawn point. To do this should require something else- perhaps a campfire, or a respawn anchor similar to that of the Nether Respawn anchor. I certainly wouldn't recommend taking beds out of the game- sleeping can still be a useful game mechanic without being totally overpowered, and who would want to get rid of the phantom? Another way, (as many have brought up in the comments), would be to make sheep only drop wool if sheared.
The point is, beds allow players to miss out on a great deal of gameplay- and while this certainly saves on frustration, it discourages challenge and innovation. If there was an easy way out for every part of gameplay, would the game really be worth playing? With beds in the game, the aspect of'survival' in survival mode is practically nonexistent. That being said, removing beds entirely or adjusting them too much would be a grave mistake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cons ~ As with any core mechanic, this would be very hard to modify or remove, even if you wanted to. Beds were first introduced all the way back in 1.3, and as such have long been an accepted part of gameplay- to change them now would most certainly cause more trouble than it's worth.
While it's fair to say that beds allow players to skip parts of the game, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not all players want to spend their first nights cowering in terror for ten minutes on end while monsters prowl outside, and the whole point of the game is that people can play it how they want. Removing this option for them would be unfair, particularly since many players have already gotten used to it. Some people like a hardcore survival challenge... but not everyone does. One of the biggest arguments I've seen against changing beds is the fact that the alternative is simply to dig a hole and go AFK for awhile.
It isn't necessary to add new game mechanics where other game mechanics already exist- and the last thing anyone wants is to set a precedent for changing things that players have long gotten used to. The point of Mojang's more recent updates has been to revamp and upgrade existing content- not to replace it entirely. At most, tweaks to how beds work might be helpful- but ultimately, core gameplay mechanics should not be altered. Imagine how the community would react if Mojang changed how creepers worked? Or added other needlessly complicated survival mechanics, like thirst or temperature, that would only serve to annoy and frustrate players further? Or replaced diamonds with something better? (...Wait)
The point is, not everyone wants a challenging survival experience. If changes like this were made, they ought to be reserved for harder gameplay modes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The fact that they allow you to skip the night ensures that you are completely safe all the time except if you are in a cave or another dimension. Beds turn the entire overworld into one giant safehouse and remove almost any challenging aspect from the whole dimension. You could opt not to use them, but then the phantoms will come in and start killing you, which is a ridiculous concept if you ask me. If you try to make the game more difficult for yourself, you're bombarded with excessive difficulty and annoyance, and the only way to prevent this is to sleep, which makes the game ridiculously easy. It's black and white, and the only way to escape the trap is to turn the gamerule for phantoms off.
Further, the bed causes massive explosions that can be used offensively in the nether and end, which makes the fights easier for an incredibly cheap price. That's very overpowered.
I don't even see spawnpoints as significant in terms of balance, I'm just so mad about the other stuff.
Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQdu9LKAdIU
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
15w14a is on this link:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/15w14a
1.RV-Pre1 is here:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/1.RV-Pre1
Minecraft 3D is here:
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Java_Edition_3D_Shareware_v1.34
The bed explosion thing I've always thought was dumb. Besides being 'lol indie game quirky' it is just a bad mechanic. It would be so easy to have just played a message that says "You don't feel safe in this strange environment and cannot sleep".
As for Phantoms, their spawn mechanic is pretty bad imo, but you don't have to sleep to get rid of them if I remember correctly, you just need to get into a bed. You can then get out right away and stay up through the night. I would be okay with their spawning mechanics changing so they are not tied to X days without sleeping.
Everything else is fine by me. Normally I wouldn't say this but beyond dealing with Phantoms (assuming you want to keep game rules their default settings), any other benefit the bed gives are 100% optional and self inflicted. If you are on Single Player you can just never use a bed if you don't like how easy the game is made by them. As for servers, they make their own rules on what is allowed, including rules for beds. Many servers have voting to skip nights or other things like that.
And I really don't buy that people will *always* use beds if they are an option. I like using beds, but I have absolutely started worlds where I decided I wasn't going to use a bed and then I followed through on that and never used them. It isn't that hard to have a modicum of self restraint.
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
Now since the Bed and the Phantom are interconnected together the main argument here for me is that beds are now consider a critical aspect of the game in combating these mobs and the longer a player goes with out a being in a bed the phantom problem grows worse for the player and resets upon every interaction of being in a bed. The devs should just scrap that portion of the Bed Mechanic entirely and let The Phantom be a super rare mob that appears at night instead of being a mob interaction that progressively gets worse over time for the player. Now while that kind of progressive interaction with a mob does sound like a cool challenging idea to have it should've been only reserved for the nether where the concepts of frustration is very welcomed. The nether in theory is a place that invites that kind of exceptionally frustrating form of gameplay.
So yeah according to my main base of reasoning Beds are very overpowered in terms of mob removal.
Considering the situation with enabling or disabling cheats, I wouldn't be so quick to assume everyone has such self-control. The entire argument for disabling them is that it's easier not to cheat if you don't have the option to opt to, implying that they lack the self-control not to opt for it. It is evident that ultimately the setting doesn't matter since you can change it via nbt, yet people argue that they wouldn't do that because it's too difficult (they don't have the self-control to be willing to do things of this difficulty).
Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQdu9LKAdIU
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
15w14a is on this link:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/15w14a
1.RV-Pre1 is here:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/1.RV-Pre1
Minecraft 3D is here:
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Java_Edition_3D_Shareware_v1.34
Perhaps we could have chairs implemented, which set your spawn points in the overworld, instead of beds. This would add more furniture to the game and add a new item that takes over one of the roles beds used to have.
Players who set their spawn location before the update was implemented, that spawn point that was previously set using a bed is remembered. But future spawn points will now have to be set using chairs. This would encourage players to put a little more work into crafting, a key element of the game, and also add some more fine details to their bases or houses so it feels and serves more like a home to them.
I wouldn't want to change too much about bed mechanics mind you, because a move like this could be circumvented by playing legacy console editions of the game or older versions in the Java launcher and I wouldn't want Mojang to ruin the experience for a lot of people. Not everyone plays the game just to fight monsters all the time, sure it's a feature of survival, but there's more reasons to play Minecraft than battling Skeletons and Creepers, it is exploring the massive in game worlds, different biomes, building towns by yourself or with friends etc. Plus you are tampering with a core mechanic of the game, even just revamping the spawn mechanics would be in some people's view, extreme.
Also skipping the night does nothing about the hazards underground.
Only using lighting, careful gameplay and armour, does.
Way back, around 2011 I believe, beds were a lot more difficult to use than they are now. Back then, if you slept in a dark room or area, you would wake up in the middle of the night and get attacked by monsters (I remember laughing my head off whenever this happened to the Yogscast). You also couldn't place a bed close to a wall, doing so would also spawn monsters and wake you up, not sure if this one was intentional, but maybe we could have one of these old features back in the game? A lot of the times whenever I'm exploring, I tend to sleep in the middle of a dark forest and just skip the night, but if the old sleeping rules were implemented back in the game, this wouldn't be possible anymore. Perhaps the bed would have to check a certain area around it. If there are a lot of dark blocks near it, monsters would have a higher chance of waking you up in the middle of the night, making skipping the night while exploring a lot more difficult.
But making monsters spawn just for having a bed next to a wall would ruin a lot of peoples houses by spawning Creepers inside them, according to your description, since even with lighting there would be a mechanic involving beds "too close to walls". This isn't an improvement, it is destroying people's work. Surely if you've taken the time to illuminate housing properly it should be rewarded by no monster spawns inside it under any circumstance?
dark blocks outside could have monster spawns yes, this is acceptable, or having monsters wake players up during the night if they have failed to light their bases up properly (above 7 in all adjacent floor surfaces) or if they haven't placed gates in front of wooden doors to stop zombies from getting in.
I didn't suggest we should implement the "too close to the wall" problem, I should've been more clear. I think players waking up in the middle of the night because they didn't properly light up their base could work to balance beds. You would have to make sure their are no blocks with a light level of 6 or lower.
In that case, I agree. In fact it's an exploit about beds I want removed from the game. Clearly if players failed to illuminate their base properly then they should be punished. This increases the difficulty with beds as far as exploration goes, but it is balanced, it is neither too easy nor too hard. It puts beds into the fair category, also beds should not be used as a weapon, their explosive power should not affect monsters, I would support this even if it was only a world option although I'd prefer it be standard game design.
There's also strip mining, which only clears the minimum amount of underground blocks and commonly does not have mobs spawn, no matter how dark it is. Players can use this method to basically cheese the entire mob spawning system without using a single torch.
Even if they couldn't, placing a bunch of lighting blocks is nowhere near enough work to grant removal of the entire challenge of the game. In general, there should be no one thing that removes the whole point of conflict in your game, because after that it becomes boring and way too easy.
Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQdu9LKAdIU
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
15w14a is on this link:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/15w14a
1.RV-Pre1 is here:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/1.RV-Pre1
Minecraft 3D is here:
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Java_Edition_3D_Shareware_v1.34
I agree with the OP's suggestion regarding things like this though, there should be a separate mode for the changes you're wanting because not everyone will want the drastic changes you're insisting be put into the game.
As for the current survival modes, excluding hardcore mode, I disagree that lighting shouldn't be enough to halt hostile mob spawns, as it is an intended game mechanic and the basic and well known design of the game which people have gotten used to, it may not be what you fully agree with, but it works. Changing things too much can also ruin the game. Nobody wants to play a game they find too frustrating or where an update removed a core game design that they have previously trusted to help them progress.
An easy fix for this is to fix lighting so true darkness is totally, utterly pitch black, regardless of brightness setting:
You should not be able to make out anything away from the lava and torches, regardless of your display settings (at best the dark areas will be a uniform shade of gray, this was taken with brightness set to bright, which only varies the brightness curve between 0% and 100% (0% and 100% are always the same), and editing options.txt to set gamma to some high value will not work as I limit all settings to their intended ranges when reading them in).
As far as beds go, i find it highly ironic that Mojang decided to force players to have to regularly sleep in order to avoid "phantoms", which will certainly never exist in TMCW; I basically never sleep myself and don't see why it is so broken, in fact, in one of my worlds I set it to permanent day to force mobs to spawn underground, where I spend all of my time, and otherwise it is easy to avoid mobs by sprinting past them when I return to/from my bases at night. The only time they are any sort of inconvenience is when I'm building a base, then I do sleep to avoid trying to deal with mobs while building. Maybe they can remove the exploding mechanic in the End/Nether (where it also makes it a bit too easy to find ancient debris), instead simply disallowing sleep.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
A very well thought out fix, thank you.
Honestly this should have been in the game already as it makes perfect sense. Nobody should be able to cheese a dark area simply by amplifying their brightness settings in the display options.
Only light sources within the game should be capable of allowing players to see where they are going underground, if we ever get a cave update, this is the change I'd fully agree with because it fixes a balancing issue with strip mining or caving, but it fits the core design of the game. Lighting isn't only about preventing monster spawns, it is so you can see what you are doing, lighting has 2 main purposes but 1 is broken at this point in time.
Beds are way too easy to find. You shouldn't need to skip the night if it is beyond your skill level, you should need to defend yourself from it. Beds are also uselessly overpowered, you start off already supplied with enough blocks to survive from mobs. I've grown to accept beds, but the 1.14 update threw all that out the window. Beds should not spawn in villages.
Hey guys I'm James, I used to be a noob but now I'm not, I finally figured out how to use TextCraft so here's a banner for one of my suggestions.
Not spawning beds in villages is a good start, but making wool so it doesn't drop by killing sheep would be another improvement. You should need shears to collect the wool to make beds if they are to continue allowing you to set your spawn points on top of skipping the night. And no village chest should have iron ingots, iron tools or armour plates only. Meaning most of the time, especially early game, players should need to mine for their iron underground which makes sense.
There are some players who would need to skip the night in survival if they want to build or farm for food outside without interruptions, other than that I agree with you, skilled players would be fully capable of fighting off monsters during the first couple of nights before the Phantom's start spawning, because they'd know how to get all the best equipment and use milk to get rid of status effects they might receive from Witches etc.
You cant sleep in a bed when a monster is too close.
But you can close a door and wait for the sun to kill all zombies.
Doors shouldnt spawn in villages.
-Just kidding.
Beds should defenitly stay in villages. The houses are already very simple,
removing the beds from villages would take away villagers that go to sleep.
Finding a village on your first day can give you more overpowered things then beds.
Like Haybales. A Stack of them is a lot of food! Or the Blacksmith, if you get very lucky.
A Village can be an oasis that saves your life.
And a village should look like it's alive, not just houses without interior.
My projects:
-are abandoned for now. I might pick 'em up in the future.
For now i'm working on a private modpack that suit's my own playstyle.
I am gonna stay in modded 1.12.2 untill my potato dies. No mercy! :Q
I support that. Only that.
My projects:
-are abandoned for now. I might pick 'em up in the future.
For now i'm working on a private modpack that suit's my own playstyle.
I am gonna stay in modded 1.12.2 untill my potato dies. No mercy! :Q
I also want to point out something which is very important for balance in game design. We shouldn't be gauging difficulty solely by how many players are achieving results, sometimes when a lot of people are achieving certain goals it means they are competent players, not because a game or a task in it is too easy. We should assess difficulty by how much intelligence/skill is required to execute a task without fail successfully, and how much time and effort the task makes the player put in.
With this said, it doesn't take much skill to find a bed that is already in villages.
But it does require some knowledge about crafting recipes and finding the correct resources to make your own bed.
More effort is required so before the village update, beds were more balanced in my opinion.
I never had too much trouble making my own beds before the village update made them spawn in villages already, I don't see why anybody else should either, nobody else to my knowledge had complained about beds being too hard to get back then.
I'm not advocating changes that would force a lot of people to rage quit or become too stressed out for the game to be enjoyable for them.
The problem is that a bed makes sense as a spawn point, it's your resting location, and when you die, it makes sense that you wake up in it. With something like a chair, players will be placing down and using them a lot and it doesn't really fit what you would expect a player spawn to be.
Hey guys I'm James, I used to be a noob but now I'm not, I finally figured out how to use TextCraft so here's a banner for one of my suggestions.