An honest critique of BTW 4.2x

[Adjudicator79]

So after expressing my concerns over hardcore beds and the removal of all designation coordinates, I was called out for “reflexively railing against loss of convenience.” Given FC's willingness to occasionally engage in design discussions, and the tremendous amount of enjoyment I get from BTW, I decided to take up the gauntlet and play through 4.2x with the changes and see what resulted.

What follows is an honest critique of roughly two weeks of play time in BTW 4.2x with both my existing, very heavily developed BTW world, and a series of new worlds. There are a few things it would probably be helpful to know about my MC/BTW play. I get to play for maybe an hour each day. Between a new job, three hours of commute time, and trying to actually stay current on my area of expertise, I have very restricted time chunks. Every once in a while I can log several hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, but only at the expense of what little social time I have. This means that I value the most bang for the buck when it comes to fun out of my limited MC time.

I also apparently am in the minority of MC players in still primarily viewing MC as a building platform. I honestly couldn't care less if the zombies, skeletons, creepers, etc make sense in the world of Steve. The End is spectacularly uninteresting to me and represents almost no value in terms of the building experience that MC lets me have. The End text was probably the worst thing to happen to MC, as it represents Mojang trying to make a story out of what should be a building platform game, not an adventure game. I recognize that I’m the minority in this, but it’s what made BTW so appealing to me, as it has traditionally been about multi-block systems, design-oriented building, and careful resource planning and management. BTW represents the best of the building platform gaming experience of MC, with very little of the “story” of MC being forced on the player. And where story was incorporated, it was for smoothing out design choices related to resources from the Nether, primarily, which worked to reinforce the resource management function of the mod - which I consequently loved.

Finally, I played the 4.2 updates over a several week period, which was broken up by a 12 day trip for work where I got absolutely no play time and came back to 4.3 having been released, which I still haven’t done much with.

So, with those caveats in mind, here are my thoughts on 4.2 and the hardcore beds and maps specifically.

My pre-existing build:

1. Hardcore beds had almost no impact on my well-developed world except to make me wear my SFS armor every time I left the base. Most of my ongoing projects were underground anyway and I simply delved back into the earth once night fell. I did craft a compass for the first time in forever and trek back to my spawn point, which was actually further away than I thought. I spent a mind-numbingly boring amount of time building a railroad to my base – primarily because the shortest route required crossing large chunks of deep water, so I had to do the awkward backward creep with blocks in hand. The danger posed by monsters in a well-lit, carefully designed base location, with SFS armor on, is simply non-negligible. In fact, I found myself going after my stockpiles of monster drops less often, as I was killing many of them during my nighttime, damage-impervious wanderings.

2. The stake and string method of laying out base design makes for a very interesting and enjoyable alternative to F3. So long as you remember to put sign posts up on everything stating how big an area you've laid out with your stakes. Otherwise, you end up recounting over and over. The only downside I found to not having F3 in an existing build was trying to match up an underground area to an above ground location. I had a large structure to build vertically and had a limited space to put it in on the surface. Normally I would have marked my points on the surface world and then found the same points at bedrock to build up. Instead, I had to build down and leave a giant hole in the ground, not my favorite method. But in reality, it was a small impact.

3. Hardcore maps makes the Nether a pain. More than anything else, the Nether is so easy to lose your Y coordinate placement in. I stopped exploring the Nether for a new fortress because I simply couldn't see spending the time to carefully track every single step and climb of the mountain to ensure my return. I've basically walked away from the Nether in my pre-existing build. Exploration without some form of tracking movement isn't challenging, it’s pointless. Especially when death ports me back to the overworld start point now, meaning all my gear is automatically lost. I get netherrack when I need it, carefully scrounge my glowstone, and simply don't build with netherbrick anymore.

New builds:

1. I started off doing what I normally do on a new world, chopping down the nearest tree for some materials and then wandering for literally days on end looking for that perfect spot to build my base. I love finding just the right area to build, especially with hardcore buckets on now. I usually don’t pay any attention to where I am, where to go, or what direction I’m moving. I frequently double back or head off in one direction for days and days, carving out a tiny hole to wait out the night. If I see sheep along the way, I kill them for wool, banking on the that magic three to make a bed and make nighttime go faster and get to exploring again. I did this the same way for my first four starts. After dying during basic home construction, which seems to happen frequently (unseen creepers, falls, lack of food resources to heal starvation damage, etc), and being dragged back to the spawn point every time with no idea of where my “perfect spot” was, I started trying to track my exploration. That was horrible. It slowed me down dramatically, as I now had to collect enough of something to mark my path, remember to plop them down every couple of dozen of blocks, and constantly be looking behind me for the last block, rather than simply enjoying the pleasure of new scenery and discovery. I ended up starting up new worlds, building a pillar in the center out of whatever I could find, and exploring in a circle around that pillar. If I didn't find a good base building spot within that range, I quit and started up a new world. That feels absolutely horrible to me. I feel like it sucked all of the joy out of discovery and exploration in the early game. I guess it could be incentive to build a temp base, create what you need to get mobile, and then go exploring, but that feels backwards to me. I don’t like redoing base builds multiple times when I could be spending that time on one build and doing it right. Maybe my play style just isn't a good fit with this feature, but it really breaks my enjoyment of new worlds in the game and exploration in general. And searching for villages, temples, or other randomly spawned MC creations feels like it's gone out the window. This is a mirror of the nether fortress issue as well.

2. I've never been a huge dyed wool user, and since we can’t use wool to make string (I always thought that was a very sensible option), and we can’t use it for beds now, I don’t care about sheep anymore. Hardcore sheep was very cool, but after a few fun trials, I didn't feel the need to build a sheep genetics testing laboratory. I still always kept a few sheep around in case I wanted to make some beds for some of my more distant secondary bases, but now I don’t even pay attention to sheep. I don't look for them or think of how to get them. Sheep have become a non-entity in the post-BTW 1.2x world unless you are an interior designer, and that makes me sad.

3. The no sleep rule for new builds also meant that, when I picked a spot to build, I immediately started sinking shaft to bedrock. I wanted something to do during non-daylight hours other than leaving MC run in the background while catching up on YouTube. This has resulted in the reality that I’m constantly running up and down my ladder, stairs, whatever to get to the surface and check if it's light out so that I can go kill weeds to get seeds. I seem to always have to grow my animal stock to decent size, so I can't simply kill indiscriminately for meat. Which has resulted in three of my new builds in me living with a half heart b/c of starvation sickness for a while, hoping that the wheat will grow quickly, or planting and cutting down trees repeatedly to try and generate some apple drops. I lived frequently at the 2-3 meatsicles stage until realizing that, with hardcore grinding enabled, it made sense just to let the health meter drop to half a heart, grind as much wheat as I could during daylight, or move my grinding operations indoors to allow for night time grinding, and then worry about health only in terms of falling damage while driving to bedrock. Any caverns I encountered were immediately walled up for later exploration. Again, I may be missing an obvious alternative to this, but I felt like hardcore beds drives a walled off style of play, rather than an expansive, and therefore risk-taking, one.

4. The lack of coordinates was less bothersome in a new build, although the top to bottom lack of coordination still bothers me. But the lack of Y coordinates was very exciting when it came to driving to bedrock and I found myself constantly checking my delving very carefully, since bedrock, and therefore lava, just *had* to be right under me!

Miscellaneous:

By random chance, one of the new builds I started was on a medium sized island with a jungle. This actually was fantastic and I barely noticed the lack of beds and maps, b/c I didn't need either. Exploration was built around a compass and a boat, so that worked well, and future expansion will likely be underground to continents. I got lucky in finding a nether fortress relatively close to my portal, so I’m good there as well.

Summary:

All in all, I find the changes to be mixed blessings. I see them adding difficulty to the game, as FlowerChild predicted, but, either due to my personality, my gaming style, or my inability to see beyond the changes, I don’t find them drivers of enjoyment. They have mostly resulted in me being less exploratory, more risk-averse, and less likely to fire up MC.

I have no interest in playing vanilla MC, I think FC has improved that game far too dramatically to make it even playable on its own anymore. But I feel like the expansiveness of the MC world has been taken away by these two changes. If something is added to allow the player to earn the “convenience” of these elements (specific location knowledge and controlling where you wake up), I’d be thrilled. I’m fine with having to work for them both. I just don’t see stripping both out completely and permanently as increasing enjoyment in the game.

So that’s my critique. I’m fully aware that most here will disagree with me, probably vociferously. But FC has always indicated that he’s open to honest, well-thought out responses to his design, and this is what I’ve attempted to do.

Edit: Turtle question answered.

[Thorium-232]

Edit: Also, I’ve apparently been de-Turtled for some other offense, so my status wasn’t changed due to this post.

FC got rid of the Turtle rank, so it's not just you. Explanation is here.

[kjbrona]

You do realize there is a clock in game since almost the beginning that shows you what time it is?
4 gold bars around redstone.

[Anamirian]

You do realize there is a clock in game since almost the beginning that shows you what time it is?
4 gold bars around redstone.

That isn't his point, really. I also happen to agree with every point the OP has made, the removal of the F3 feature in particular has really put a damper on my willingness to explore. And the early game in particular, I find myself often leaving the game idle to pass through the night

[FlowerChild]

Will read this through fully once I'm with the 1.4 port. Have way too much on my plate right now to engage in this kind of design discussion.

Just an FYI that I'm not ignoring it :)

[Adjudicator79]

You do realize there is a clock in game since almost the beginning that shows you what time it is?
4 gold bars around redstone.

Yes, because what I have tons of while still digging with stone tools is gold and redstone

[Adjudicator79]

Will read this through fully once I'm with the 1.4 port. Have way too much on my plate right now to engage in this kind of design discussion.

Just an FYI that I'm not ignoring it :)

Completely understood, FC. I also want to be clear that I don't expect, need, or demand a reply at all. You still have my support and admiration as a designer.

I just felt compelled to share my experience with 4.2, given that I had actually taken notes while playing through it!

Good luck with the 1.4 port and keep up the great work!

[FlowerChild]

Completely understood, FC. I also want to be clear that I don't expect, need, or demand a reply at all. You still have my support and admiration as a designer.

I just felt compelled to share my experience with 4.2, given that I had actually taken notes while playing through it!

Good luck with the 1.4 port and keep up the great work!

Oh, I don't take offense at well thought out critiques man, so don't sweat that. I did a quick scan over your OP, and it was enough to tell that's it's just that.

Also, what another user said about the turtle is correct. The group was disbanded over the weekend (or thereabouts), so it had nothing to do with you being removed or what have you. Nobody is a turtle anymore :)

I will ask people to keep this discussion civil until I have a chance to get to it though. I'd prefer this thread not have to be locked down before I have a chance to respond.

[kaos78414]

I'll take some time and respond to some of these points with my own opinions on them. Much of this is probably just differences in playstyle, especially that you seem to lose some sense of exploration, where I seem to gain it. Anyway here goes:

My pre-existing build:
1. True enough, agreed here.

2. I haven't used stakes in any practical way; I mainly use them for decoration. So I can't comment on this, really.

3. This may be chalked up to a difference in playstyle, but I have no problems whatsoever navigating large portions of the nether. I just use 2-block-high netherrack with a torch on top to mark my path. This also doesn't seem to impede my ability to stop and appreciate the scenery in the nether. But again, that could just be a playstyle difference.

New builds:

1. See, I can understand being frustrated that it slows you down. But for me, the end result of having long roads or building rail systems is worth it to have a much more lively world overall. Maybe this is another case of a playstyle difference, but these features took me in the exact opposite direction: I explore more, create more expansive overworld cities sprawled over larger areas, and I go out plenty at night.

2. I agree that sheep have been devalued a bit. I now use beds as a decorative item only, and that is sparingly. I do use wool from time to time to build (carpets and banners and such), but other than that wool doesn't have much value. That said, I'm sure FC has things in mind for wool in the future. Or as mentioned in the villager thread, maybe beds will be getting a different use.

3. This may be a difference in playstyle again, or it could be luck, but I have yet to run into a lack of food in my latest world. I'm not sure how this happened to you tbh.

4. I think this is exactly what drove me to explore. Maybe the big difference between you and I is that I tend to build above ground, while you tend to build underground?

So that’s my critique. I’m fully aware that most here will disagree with me, probably vociferously. But FC has always indicated that he’s open to honest, well-thought out responses to his design, and this is what I’ve attempted to do.

I don't disagree completely, but I certainly have had a different experience from yours. I can't quite pinpoint what's different about your playstyle and mine that created such different experiences, though.

[PatriotBob]

I've gotten a good chance to play quite a bit with better than wolves, and once I made the choice (mistake?) to build ~1k from spawn. It surely makes things more annoying on death but that's a needed change in my opinion. At this point I really like the changes with 1 main caveats.

Navigation.

1) The compass. A compass always points to spawn, being quite useful in finding it. But if you're looking for something kilometers away, it's of no real use. It's granularity of orientation diminishes with distance from spawn.

2) Maps are useless for navigation. Their scope is way to small to be able to be useful for traveling.

However the 2nd point was just addressed (surprisingly) by Mojang. Being able to scale maps out to show 4km^2 makes them much MUCH more useful for navigation. The fact that they chunk align only makes this better. (Good to know there was one thought out feature in 1.4)

I mean I'm a big fan of making tools useful for the reasons that they were actually useful. Map, in 1.4, actually come close to accomplishing that goal. I'd like to see additional zoom levels added, but right now is ok. But the compass just kinda seems "meh" at the moment. It's useful for finding spawn. That's it. But with the day/night cycle and clouds direction is simple to derive.

But then again... neither of these work in the Nether... so... yeah... really would like to have a better way than lots of pillars of cobble so ghasts don't destroy your markers.

[Mason11987]

Regarding not building with netherbrick, you can always make some yourself. I've made all my netherbrick through BTW means instead of trying to dig out those deathtraps.

[Kazuya Mishima]

I also started a new world to test out how the new features effect early game.

From a player interested in survival games traveling and exploring is itself a luxury that should be earned. While it's important to find shelter and safety and food in the immediate vicinity, going on a long journey before you have these exposes you to to much uncertainty about finding them or granting you the ability to produce them. Really MC makes hunting way to easy and so you can kill tons of stuff along the way. I'm not exactly thrilled with the scenery of my initial spawn, it was overpopulated with sheep and i had to travel quite a bit to find cows and pigs.

Also why don't you use the nether ceiling to explore and tunnel up there safely ? I cannot stand navigating nether terrain as it's usually too irregular but after 2 failed exploratory channels looking for a fortress my 3rd channel payed off.BTW rope makes exploring the nether actually more thrilling and firing on ghasts from an elevated position gives your accuracy advantages because you don't have to correct for the projectile drop so much.

[morvelaira]

I agree with the jist of Adjudicator's past. I do find it a mixed bag, and I think the deficiencies could be improved on. The only main point that I'll bring up in addition is my impression of stakes. They're very useful in decoration, and quite handy in measuring a pre existing distance. What they are less useful for, however, for measuring out artificial distances when one is planning structures. I find I often need to count the space out manually, and then the stakes only serve as a confirmation - adding little value. It may be a difference in playstyle but I, like Adjudicator, still believe MC to be a game about building and I feel like I have more headaches and less innovation.

Because of the above, I find myself unhappy with the Hardcore Info feature. While I agree with the argument for it whole heartedly in principle - players shouldn't have to use a debug menu to gather in game information - the stakes and their lack of full featured-ness leave the replacement seem very incomplete. Part of the reason I have enjoyed the Ender Spectacles so much is because they so effectively replace the information that was removed, and do nso in a way that makes so much sense, I can heartily say that it should have always been this way. I don't feel the same about the other side of the coin for Hardcore Info, and I know FC has it in him to improve that.

All said, though... that's probably my biggest gripe about the 4.2x branch of the mod. Relatively small overall, but I hope worth considering.

[FlowerChild]

I don't feel the same about the other side of the coin for Hardcore Info, and I know FC has it in him to improve that.

Yeah, don't go there.

This is all a matter of opinion, and not one that I personally agree with. "Improving" upon it would rely on me agreeing there's a problem to begin with.

Making that about "I know you can do better!" will only serve to piss me off.

[PatriotBob]

I don't feel the same about the other side of the coin for Hardcore Info, and I know FC has it in him to improve that.

Yeah, don't go there.

This is all a matter of opinion, and not one that I personally agree with. "Improving" upon it would rely on me agreeing there's a problem to begin with.

Making that about "I know you can do better!" will only serve to piss me off.

How about we just skip that whole pissing off the benevolent dictator part...

I like stakes. But I didn't find them useful at first. I think it just take having some trust in the tools now provided and changing the building process to best use the tool. Seems like a lot of people are building like they would with F3 and trying to make stakes fill the gap. That will never be the most efficient building method and isn't fair to try to make the feature fill that role.

But give it time, retooling is a rough adjustment.

[Sarudak]

Morv I'm a bit confused about what it is you don't like about stakes exactly. Like how are you trying to use them that they're not performing what you want from them? Stakes seem easy enough to me and quite useful but I'm sure if there's a use case you're trying to cover and stakes aren't cutting it fc would like to hear about that even if he doesn't agree for some reason. What it seems like to me is that your complaint is a simple matter of feeling the pain of lost power. Ender spectacles are MORE powerful for determining where mobs spawn than f3 was so of course you like those where stakes are definitively LESS powerful than f3 for measuring so the tendency is to dislike them as a player. But i think a non specific "not good enough, you can do better" ends up more frustrating and discouraging to fc who is trying very hard to give us an engaging and coherent play experience.

[javierbs]

New builds:

1. I started trying to track my exploration. That was horrible. It slowed me down dramatically, as I now had to collect enough of something to mark my path, remember to plop them down every couple of dozen of blocks

I personally didnt even feel the lose of F3, I never did use it, dont really know why. I am used to manual navegation and being the boy scout I once was, I have a very good alternative to that hansel and gretel aproch. You see there is a simple concept that never fails: The sun and the moon comes out from the east and goes down on the west. with that bit of information I can walk miles and knowing my relative positions and using a few mountain, rivers or other landmarks I can manage to move about pretty easily and even going back to the point of my death with relative ease.

For the building part, I have always block counted or used dirt to mark places and when I need to align underground projects I simply start digging in the point I want it align with. Guess that with F3 that was easier, but as I have metion I never have used it... maybe the fact that mac's F3 works on the OS shortcuts as primary function has helped with that :D

[morvelaira]

It might be an artifact of making a let's play on top of my normal playstyle, but my Minecraft OCD kind of demands that I feel like I know what I'm doing with a build, or it quickly becomes intimidating and overwhelming. So because of this I tend to pre plan my builds extensively. Now, stakes are very good at telling me quickly and easily how far it is from this hill to that tree, but they're incredibly awkard for figuring out how far away fifty blocks is from here so that I can mark a space to start clearing for building next. I usually wind up either running back and forth repeatedly trying to find the right distance by trial and error, or counting it out with torches like I used to and not using stakes at all.

[odranoel]

i must say its very interesting to see everyones different views on these topics (especially now that we have had a bit of time to play with them)

at first i was bothered by the HC beds because i had gotten so used to skipping the night that i was actually pretty angry about the feature at first (i made a post about that in another thread) however now that iv had time to play with it iv honestly foundt hat i love the new feature, my base is always nice and well light up now and it really brought back a sence of "survival" so to speak. so i ended up apologizing to FC for my initial negative reaction as he turned out to be right all along!

however that being said one aspect that i still do not like and agree with the OP on is the inability to change your spawn point. i also feel this has hampered my exploration somewhat. even with a nice rail system i dont wanna spend ten minutes riding it just to get back to a far away base because of a random death for what ever reason (lets face it we all die eventually no matter how good you are) i do wish that once i install my self in a far away place i dont have to go through the hassle of making my way back every time i die. and once i have multiple bases i have to choose which one i want to spawn in.

so, i love HC beds in the sense that it took away the ability to skip the night as that really brought a great change in my overall experience. (even if i wasn't happy about it at first) but the inability to change your spawn has been quite frustrating to be honest. (feels more like an SMP feature then a SSP feature. even tho HC spawn is SMP way)

as for HC info i barely noticed the change to be honest as i never really used it to begin with. so i guess i cant really say anything there. Also i almost never use maps, as i always build roads between my bases (even befor HC beds) so i always guide my self by those and memory of the surrounding landscape.

[FlowerChild]

Just a quick post here, and then I shall step out of this thread for awhile as it threatens to pull me away from the update a tad too much otherwise :)

I of course know that removing F3 removed player info, and that the Stakes don't even make up for a fraction of that. That's entirely intentional, and I can't see myself fully restoring the info provided by it unless Steve reaches the point where he's able to launch a satellite into orbit.

In the case of the Ender Spectacles, as I've said before, the info about where mobs can spawn is about to become a lot more important when I get back onto revising mob mechanics, so giving the player additional info about that is rather important to gameplay.

The F3 info on the other hand, is strictly about convenience, it did it in an entirely immersion-breaking way, and the information it provided actually *decreased* the potential for interesting gameplay. So, I axed it without any intention to replace it whatsoever, and I still have no intention to do so.

The Stakes are provided as-is as an aid in building appropriate to Steve's tech level. That's it. I decided to include them in the same release with the F3 removal to ease the pain *somewhat*, but they were in no way intended as a replacement.

I may include additional building aids in the future, now that the player doesn't have access to an out of game GPS at all times, but I have no firm plans in that regard, and am quite pleased with the way things are playing right now.

So yeah, arguments about loss of convenience go nowhere with me, as that was precisely the effect I intended.

[Kazuya Mishima]

I usually wind up either running back and forth repeatedly trying to find the right distance by trial and error, or counting it out with torches like I used to and not using stakes at all.

Why not just try to approximate a 50 m distance, eyeball it, place your first stake then move what you think is 50 m, place another stake, and then string them and determine what distance you've traveled with the remaining string. If your off 10 or so then you can count manually the remaining distance, if your off 30 or more then you just start another measurement next to your existing one. Just remember to account for the stakes within your measurment as their position does not take up string.

[morvelaira]

Part of the reason I haven't done that is OCD related, and the other is just that I don't have a very abundant supply of string in my now only BTW world as it's my mob farm I've been attempting to lay out. ;) I certainly recognize t0the way I do things may not even be remotely similar to 'normal', and since a certain level of inconvienice is intended, I shall keep my frustrations about it to myself. As I said earlier, it might be my biggest gripe about the 4.2x series of updates, but its rather small in the grand scheme of things. Likely wouldn't have even mentioned it if not for this thread and finding I wasn't the only one who was unsure about them after some use.

[Kazuya Mishima]

Part of the reason I haven't done that is OCD related, and the other is just that I don't have a very abundant supply of string in my now only BTW world as it's my mob farm I've been attempting to lay out. ;) I certainly recognize t0the way I do things may not even be remotely similar to 'normal', and since a certain level of inconvienice is intended, I shall keep my frustrations about it to myself. As I said earlier, it might be my biggest gripe about the 4.2x series of updates, but its rather small in the grand scheme of things. Likely wouldn't have even mentioned it if not for this thread and finding I wasn't the only one who was unsure about them after some use.

I don't think there is a "normal". Different people have differently play styles. I tend to build under a few layers of dirt and don't build above ground structures like you except for my windmill. As a result a night of running through my base tends to drive spiders on the surface mad as they track me but can't get to me. In the morning when i exit my base all the spiders are piled up still aggro ed on me and they make easy kills. Right now i have no mob trap but plenty of string.

I don't have much of a view though. :(

I have experimented with the string, i used it to measure the distance from my base to bedrock chasm to a zombie spawner, well atleast the approximate distance as it was on the otehr side of a fissure. Then i build another vertical channel down using the half measured half approximated figure adn managed to come out pretty close.

Maybe we are so used to having tremendous precision of the GPS we are kinda spoiled. It was rewarding to know my intuitive senses of estimating distances was fairly accurate, that combined with the string can be powerfully information but will never provide 100% accuracy. I'm not sure we need such high degree of accuracy what with the screw pump if we fail to estimate the limits of a water source block we can always correct with vertical pumping.

It might look like sht but really who needs those sterile standardized direwolf 9x9's everywhere. Every base i've ever built looks different.

The one place losing coordinates has impacted me most is nethergate alignment which i always used the /8 rule. I had a series of gates very close together in the overworld in my last world because i was certain they were perfectly aligned. I had a room with gates in the nether that were practically next to each other but all had a distinctive overworld destinations. I'm not sure you can do that anymore unless you spend a lot of time making exploratory gates and mining obsidian makes that prohibitive.

[Mr_Hosed]

Was going to stay out of this, but I see a common factor to the critiques I felt should be pointed out.

A good number of people seem to play with the Debug screen on essentially by default, using it constantly while playing. It's integral to their game HUD, not an optional toggleable screen.

Those who seem to have appreciated the changes (I'm one of them so I am biased) are those who rarely used the Debug screen to begin with and don't view it as integral to their game HUD.

I imagine if I built using F3 as my guide I would be railing against that particular change.

<My style of play to illustrate the point>
I've always been a block counter and actually use torches and cobble to do a majority of my build layouts. Even my branch mines are setup to make my OCD easily satified without a lot of effort. Every 8th block = torch (Steve's reach used to be 4 blocks making this easy), every branch 8 torches long, etc. The main time I would use F3 before was for long long long trips and after a while I noticed I didn't even look at where I was going, I just watched the coordinates. Now I actually enjoy the adventure and the scenery alon the way.

I probably picked up these techniques from playing a LOT of Minecraft back in the 1.2 Beta era (just after the Nether was added is when MC grabbed hold of my sanity and won't let go) and back then F3 didn't exist.

[SterlingRed]

Exploration, maps, wool, stakes, nether. (Just a quick list to remind me what to talk about)

I do find myself exploring differently without f3. I explore more along the cardinal directions than in diagonals like I did before as its much easier to navigate back if i've only moved in straight lines. However I still do explore diagonals when I find something cool or am trying filling in a map because my main base is only several hundred blocks from spawn. Thus its relatively easy to navigate back by compass. However I can imagine this would be much more difficult to do with a base a large distance from spawn without a nether rail system. Personally, I generate worlds until the spawn is near an area I like, rather than explore until I find a spot I like.

I love the concept of maps in the game. But you are right, they are too small to be great navigation aids and their 4 blocks per pixel makes it a rather crappy way to get a sky view of your buildings. But both these problems are fixed by the new maps in 1.4 and I'm very excited for them. Currently maps provide me with a good tool to get familiar with my immediate area so if I go off exploring, I can usually figure out where I am on my way back a fair distance out from my base because I have used maps and I know what the region looks like.

I never really used wool much to begin with. Never needed string a lot before stakes anyway. But I do use them to colorcode redstone circuits and as half slabs for BD memory. This has saved me time on many occasions looking at a mess of redstone scratching my head going "where the f is that line going?"

As far as the nether goes, I again explore primarily in cardinal directions until I get familiar with terrain features to know where I am. Yes it is harder than running off willy nilly and using f3, but doesn't it make sense that navigation and getting lost be part of the gameplay?

Stakes. I do use them quite a bit and I have found myself with a permanent string shortage. I find them quite useful for measuring out buildings by staking a corner, walking away until I feel like its the distance I want, plop down a stake and add string. Then I adjust my position accordingly by a few blocks to get where I want to be. I translate vertical layouts by digging 2x1 shafts up or down from whatever I'm trying to line up with. Then when I hit the height I want, I plop down a stake and start laying out the floor or building just like I did before. As long as you know where one corner is and how a build is oriented, it is really trivial to line it up vertically without f3.

I understand we have different playstyles, and yours aren't wrong. But different playstyles will change the usefulness of various features.