First Day Biome Improvements

[abculatter2]

I have noticed that any HC spawn or otherwise first-day spawn that isn't in a plains or forest biome feels like a somewhat forced and arbitrary challenge mode, with few early-game advantages but very significant early game disadvantages. I have talked briefly about this on the Discord, and a lot of people have brought up the use of pre-selected seeds as a form of solution to this, which felt deeply against some of the core aspects of HC spawn that made its original inclusion so fun and I think indicates a problem that should be addressed. I have personally felt so frustrated by getting so many HC spawns that feel unwinnable that I have started to just give up trying, and have started playing the same seed with a good early game spawn over and over, and have started feeling like if I die then the best course of action is to just delete the world and start over, because it unlikely to be possible to actually succeed no matter how I manage my time and resources or how much knowledge I have or how skillfully I play, due to the majority of places just simply not having enough resources to get past the first few days or having challenges that are insurmountable within the first few days unless you are incredibly lucky.

I feel that a good way to address this issue would be to add some tweaks to expand some of the more difficult biomes. I do think that it is important to maintain the difficulty of these biomes, however, as well as making each one a distinct challenge with unique solutions for each, so that each biome has a distinct character. I also very much like the premise of changing world generation as little as possible, and agree that any tweaks should be done to things that already exist in the world.

I'll go through the ones that I feel should be addressed, as well as what I feel is the problem is, and some ideas for improving them. A lot of the ideas may be more appropriate for an add-on, however, depending on how much change we want to have in base BTW.

Desert
It's just a wasteland. There's literally nothing here for you at all, except maybe a desert temple or a village. Eventually you could put a windmill here and not have to care about thunderstorms, but that's literally the only advantage, with many disadvantages to counter that.

Ideas to change:

Dead Bush:
- Renamed to Thorn Bush
- Thorn Bushes have 4 growth stages, generating in the 4th/final growth stage. When harvesting them, they no longer break instantly; instead, they have a similar amount of time to break as wooden logs, and each break reduces their growth stage by 1. The 1st growth stage is just a nub that represents a deep root system that is nearly impossible to fully kill, needing stump remover to remove it easily.
- Harvesting Thorn Bushes with your hands or an inappropriate tool deals 2 damage (1 heart) to you. Using any chisel deals 1 damage. Using an axe deals no damage. Probably also deals damage when you walk in it similar to cacti while it is at growth stage 2-4. Harvesting every stage except the first gives you a shaft, regardless of tool used.
- Slowly regrows over time. Maybe splashing a bottle of water on it will speed it up somewhat?
- If a Thorn Bush is at growth stage 4 when a thunderstorm is active, it has a high chance of spawning a Tumble Weed mob, setting its growth stage down to 1 when it does so. Tumble weeds bounce about stupidly during the thunderstorm, looking for a creature standing on sand to collide with. If it collides with one, it will deal a good chunk of damage (8-10 damage, maybe?) and a new Thorn Bush will be spawned at that location. If it is unable to collide with a mob before the thunderstorm ends, it will slowly loose health until it dies, accomplishing nothing. Tumble Weed drops are 2-4 shafts, and maybe a bit of experience. Alternatively, instead of using a mob, this could be done with particles being generated from the bush in a random cardinal direction determined at the beginning of each thunderstorm, and any mobs that walk into this particle effect will cause the thorn bush to reset to stage 1, deal damage to the mob, and attempt to sprout a new Thorn Bush at the mob's location.

Cacti:
- Add a Cactus Stump, spawned at the bottom of every cactus. This behaves similarly to any stump. Can be picked up with a block dispenser and replanted elsewhere.
- Rename Cactus blocks to Cactus Logs.
- Cactus Logs no longer grow on their own, only a Cactus Stump can grow more Cactus Logs, doing so above itself. Stumps can also regrow the bark on any stripped Cactus Logs above them. Cactus Logs can now be placed anywhere, behaving like any other log, except still damaging mobs and items that touch it.
- Harvesting a Cactus Log requires an axe, similar to regular logs. If punched with your hands, you will take damage as if you were standing on the log. If you use any chisel, you will strip the bark, giving you Cactus Bark and making the log no longer hurt to touch. If you chisel or harvest the stripped log, you'll get Cactus Pith. A Cactus Log can also be chopped in the inventory with an axe, giving you 1 Cactus Bark and 2 Cactus Pith.
- Cactus Pith is a very effective fuel in campfires and brick ovens, though the full log is more efficient to use if you are using an oven.
- Cactus Logs now have a chance to become debarked every time they deal damage to a creature. A stripped cactus log can be repaired using a piece of cactus bark, allowing you to still use them as bramble fencing but now requiring periodic maintenance. Items will be destroyed without having a chance to strip the bark, and all cactus-related items are immune to cactus damage.
- Cactus Stumps can be bought from a farmer villager in a desert, replacing the trade for sugar cane roots.
- (this may be overly complicated even compared to the other things I've suggested so far, though I like the idea) During a new/gloom moon, cactus stumps that receive a growth tick will, instead of growing a normal cactus log, attempt to replace their top-most log with a Blooming Cactus block. These blocks will attract any bats nearby towards them, instantly killing any bat that touches them and eating its drops. This turns the Blooming Cactus into a Gorged Cactus block, which looses its attraction to bats. When the morning comes, Gorged Cactus blocks will convert into Fruiting Cactus blocks which can be harvested with shears, converting it back into a regular cactus log and giving you a Prickly Pear. Prickly Pears can be eaten to restore some hunger but dealing 2 points (1 heart) of damage. Cooking it in an oven or cauldron removes the damage effect. If this is implemented, Farmer villagers will require one Prickly Pear along with emeralds in order to create a new Cactus Stump.

This next feature I'm very iffy about suggesting, though I think it would be a good way to make deserts a useful place to go in the time before nethercoal;
- you can combine 2 piles of sand with 1 nitre and 1 coal dust to make Glass Mixture. This can be cooked in an oven or crucible to create an Incomplete Glass Bottle. Holding right-click on the Incomplete Bottle, similar to weaving, will eventually turn it into a glass bottle.
- A glass bottle can be crafted with a piece of clay and a piece of string/hemp fiber to make an Oil Lamp. Oil lamps can be filled with Cactus Pith and lit like a torch, burning the pith to provide a small amount of light similar to a campfire or oven, but can be refilled with cactus pith either in-world or in your inventory. Can also be used as a source of fire, similar to a torch. If the lamp ever burns out, either from water or running out of fuel, it will need the string/hemp fiber replaced before it can be lit again.
- Filling an Oil Lamp with tallow (or blasting oil?) will allow it to burn infinitely


Jungle:
This one... So bad to spawn in that the ability to spawn in it was removed. And, tbh, I feel that it's fine because of that, but since we're here analyzing biomes that are unwinnable in the early game I felt I couldn't not address this elephant in the room. And I do feel like there is some really great potential here for a high risk, high reward biome to stay in, even if it never becomes a permanent base.

Ideas:
- This one may be kinda controversial, but I think it would add a lot of value to the biome, making it more worth the risks associated with it. Make it so only 1x1 jungle trees can be grown outside of a jungle biome. 2x2 jungle trees require a jungle to grow.
- Change jungle spiders so that their detection radius can be reduced by taking the risk of going without food. For example, not having any food items containing meat in your inventory significantly reduces (halves?) the radius that a jungle spider can detect you. Being Peckish or below also reduces the range they can see you a good bit. None of these reductions matter to a jungle spider that has already spotted you, though, which will happily pursue you from the normal detection radius.
- Maybe add the ability to right-click on a jungle spider with a meaty food item or to throw a meaty food item on the ground, making them non-hostile with an eating sound and animation for some amount of time. This could give you some time to run away while the spider is distracted, and also would slow them down from mowing down every animal immediately upon chunk generation.
-Add Camouflage, a piece of armor that gives no armor value and has piss-poor durability, but gives you a lesser invisibility effect if you are either standing on a leaf block or are inside of a piece of foliage. Crafted by breaking a leaf block with jungle bark, giving you a generic item that can be worn in any armor slot, or used to craft the armor set. Maybe could have other uses?
- Maybe add a Meat on a Stick, crafted from any raw meat and a pointy stick. This will attract any meat-loving mob towards it as though it were a delicious animal, though maybe not quite as far of a radius and not quite as attractive as a living creature, such as yourself. If anyone actually reaches it they'll eat the meat of course, so ideally you'll want to bury it in the ground or something. Eventually will decay and need to be replaced.
- Given all the meat sinks here, I feel that there could be some value in having some way to generate meats that can be used for things like Meat on a Stick or feeding a chasing Jungle Spider. Maybe an early game trap made of wicker, string, and a shaft, which generates a Vermin item after a day or two, at the cost of durability and fishing bait? or/and, Cats could generate Vermin if you give them pets every day, doing so less reliably than the traps but requiring nothing more then your daily love and praise. Vermin is a terrible food source for you, useful only in absolute emergencies similar to rotten flesh, but is great for bribing the local fauna. Let's just hope you can keep up with the meat tax...

Extreme Hills:
This one I feel conflicted as to whether or not it actually needs changing. It just feels really sparse on wood, which is really tough on the first few nights. Especially with all the jumping you have to do here, meaning you have to hunt more, but you can't hunt day 1 without wooden clubs, which are really hard to get here without foregoing a campfire.

Maybe an idea?;
- Tree leaves in this biome drop Scraggly Branches, which can be whittled into extra shafts, similar to weaving, or just tossed into the fire. Can also be used in place of shafts to make a campfire. (This and the next idea could also be used in Ice Plains)
- In exchange for the above, trees grown in this biome will always be stunted, giving less logs and taking longer to grow but also needing a much smaller space to grow successfully.
- Maybe silverfish can drop fishing bait? Or something else that's useful, like clay? If there is anything useful added to silverfish, I feel it would be good to have a way to find silverfish a bit more easily, such as right-clicking infested stone with an empty hand causing a silverfish sound to play, possibly with a small chance of the silverfish suddenly popping out at you.
+

Swamp:
This is another one that I'm kinda conflicted with. It definitely feels like there are plenty of benefits to living in a swamp, but also plenty of downsides, so I dunno.

- I mostly just think that this biome could use a way to farm lilly pads for an easier way to get around, even if it takes time to build out the paths. Plus, honestly it's just a cool idea to have lilypad paths around the place. Maybe also a way to more easily avoid slimes on your first couple nights, though this I feel is kinda hard to do without negating the threat entirely.
- Maybe a way to do both of the above at the same time; When lilypads receive a growth tick, they can rarely be turned into a Budding Lillypad. If fertilized with bonemeal, this is guaranteed to happen on the next nightfall. A Budding Lilypad will cause slimes to be irresistibly attracted to it in a short radius, ignoring all other pursuits. If a slime manages to land on top of a Budding Lilypad it turns into a Fertilized Lilypad, loosing all its attraction to nearby slimes. Budding Lilypads that are not fertilized by daybreak revert back to regular lilypads. Fertilized Lilypads will turn into Blooming Lillypads at daybreak, which can be right-clicked to harvest a Lily Pod. Blooming Lilypads also, however, have a high chance of 'popping' on their own over time, with almost all of them having 'popped' by the end of the morning. When popping, Flowering Lilypads revert back to regular lilypads and attempt to spawn a new Baby Lilypad in the nearby area, checking to see if there are less then X lilypads within a Y radius first. (basically the same as mushrooms but only spreading onto sunlit stagnant water source blocks)
- Right-clicking with a Lily Pod on a stagnant water source block will spawn a new Baby Lilypad on that block. Baby Lilypads grow into regular lilypads over a few days.
- Full moons (or maybe gloom moons?) greatly increase the chance of a lilypad naturally turning into a Budding Lilypad, making the morning after a good time to go out and farm them. Provided you can deal with all the slimes that were attracted to the area...
- As an extension of the above, I would also make lilypads require a certain amount of light be present in order to survive. Otherwise, they disappear.

[PlasmaFox]

Very interesting ideas! We have plans to rework cacti, cocoa beans, potatoes and some other crops to match the Vegehena standard (is that how you spell it?)

I think if you simplify some of your features and balance them out, they would fit nicely into BTW. I personally like the desert bottle lamp which would require fuel. A2 actually wanted to add something similar to his own mod. It would be nice to have a longer lasting light source which could help with keeping animals or lighting up walkways.

[IssaMe]

Don't forgot one advantage for deserts is that brick drying doesn't reset in rain! But yes it'd be nice if some biomes didn't just feel like worse variants of others

[EpicAaron]

It just feels really sparse on wood, which is really tough on the first few nights. Especially with all the jumping you have to do here, meaning you have to hunt more, but you can't hunt day 1 without wooden clubs, which are really hard to get here without foregoing a campfire.

Let those fists fly baby. Your hands will take you far.

I listened to a survival podcast in which a man lost in the Sahara survived by decapitating bats and drinking their insides.

Many of the biomes in 1.5.2 act as obstacles. Finding seams between two difficult biomes, like an extreme hills next to a taiga, or a desert next to a swamp, is best. You can harvest the resources from one while living safe and sound in the other. Mobility is key: if a place seems devoid of food, iron, or wood (or all three!), it is good to know when it is time to pack up and move.

Flowerchild once said in the Discord that he doesn't build his first oven until after a week of playtime. That really surprised me, because I was under the impression that getting an oven as soon as possible was the best way to play the game. Sometimes taking a little extra time to find the best spot is a smart long term strategy.