4.65 Balance Observations and Discussion (SPOILERS)

[FlowerChild]

Another release, another balance discussion thread :)

Obviously, feel free to discuss spoilers in this thread, as discussing balance while trying to keep features secret would be difficult at best.

Like last time:

-Please make observations based on *actual gameplay*. If it's not something you've experienced in game, then I don't want to hear it. Please don't engage in theoretical wankery.

-Please be polite. I put a heck of a lot of work into these recent releases, I'd appreciate if people kept that in mind while posting, and there's really no reason to overstate objections in order to make your point. If you have a valid point, I'll listen, and am actually much more likely to listen if it's stated in a reasonable manner.

-No suggestions please. Tell me what you're experiencing, not how you would personally change it in order to resolve any issues you may encounter. Make observations and leave the analysis to me.

Issues I'm already aware of that I'll be taking care of in upcoming releases, so they aren't really worth posting about (some carried over from last time as I'm still going to address them):

-Additional items, like cocoa and potentially flowers, should be edible. I held off on doing that yet as I'll be making a change soon to increase the resolution of the hunger meter so that you can gain smaller amounts for eating more common items. I've been focusing mostly on "staple" foods so far, with more scavenging/desperate type stuff to come, and obviously you don't want a flower to restore as much hunger as a carrot (with carrots currently giving you the minimum possible hunger with the current system).

-There's a known exploit with being able to kill yourself repeatedly to gain as much Mystery Meat as you like. I'll be resolving that shortly.

[Kezza]

One thing I noticed and love... The spiders shooting webs at you.
Nice idea FlowerChild, had some tricky situiations but it made fighting spiders more challenging!

[FlowerChild]

One thing I noticed and love... The spiders shooting webs at you.
Nice idea FlowerChild, had some tricky situiations but it made fighting spiders more challenging!

That isn't a balance observation man, that's just a random statement about noticing a new feature. If you want to discuss the new features in that context, I just created another thread for that.

[JakeZKAM]

The roles of the 4 basic over world mobs are much better defined now. Creepers and skellies used to be the biggest threat while spiders and zombies where simply pests but now... They're much better defined now and it's just right:-)

Also the new difficulty with hunting while not too difficult on it's own, the behavior of animals fleeing you and then zombies gobbling them up is making my meat stores run low during the nomad phase. Manageable but low, which is excellent ;)

[Simurgh]

The competition for food is a welcome addition. Its taken away the luxury of doing a relaxed hunt as supplies run low, more incentive to totally deplete an area of livestock and an incentive to travel further afield for resources.

[FlowerChild]

The roles of the 4 basic over world mobs are much better defined now. Creepers and skellies used to be the biggest threat while spiders and zombies where simply pests but now... They're much better defined now and it's just right:-)

Also the new difficulty with hunting while not too difficult on it's own, the behavior of animals fleeing you and then zombies gobbling them up is making my meat stores run low during the nomad phase. Manageable but low, which is excellent ;)

Awesome man. Obviously the above is exactly what I was shooting for with those changes :)

I still have a few more tweaks left to do there to get it exactly where I want it. Stuff like zombies not chasing animals into sunlight, and animals being willing to flee into water as they often get stuck right now on island edges while attempting to get away, but yeah, I think it already goes a long way in fleshing out the world and game.

You may remember me lamenting the lack of natural predators for animals in the last thread like this. Well, in the end I decided to do something about it...big time :)

And yes, spiders and zombies were definitely lacking in personality (and challenge) before. I'm quite happy with how that aspect turned out.

[Husbag3]

I'm not sure about the level of priority that player tracking has over passive mob tracking but it doesn't feel right that hostile mobs just draw a blind eye to you when some piggies are in sight. I feel as though it has been slightly counter productive with regards to making mobs harder to tackle.
On a more positive note, I got a bit too big for my boots and tried to take on 2 endermen whilst caving. I ended up fleeing into a 2 high tunnel but it's the first time I've been genuinely worried for Steve's safety whilst playing minecraft.

[FlowerChild]

I'm not sure about the level of priority that player tracking has over passive mob tracking but it doesn't feel right that hostile mobs just draw a blind eye to you when some piggies are in sight. I feel as though it has been slightly counter productive with regards to making mobs harder to tackle.

They should currently give you priority when choosing targets, but once they pick one, stay focused on it until it's dead or gets away. Of course, if you attack then they focus on you.

Personally, I think that leads to a cool vibe where mobs are a bit less of a threat when food is abundant, but once it's exhausted, they're more of a problem. Something like this may also serve to make the underground feel more threatening since the mobs only have you to focus on as prey.

Remember: the goal isn't more challenge across the board, or to just make mobs harder at all times, it's to make the game more interesting and fun. Factors like the above lead to emergent gameplay where the player can use animals to distract and such, whereas just having mobs exclusively focus on the player at all times makes such interactions rather single dimensioned.

So then, I think the relevant question isn't whether it's harder, but whether it is more fun this way. I'd personally say that it is.

[moonracer]

The combination of all of the hardcore elements of the game is starting to wear me out as a player. I think all of the survival changes make sense but in practice it is keeping me so busy just trying to stay fed that I have little time to do other tasks in the game.

I tried fishing and the yield was so low that I doubt I would ever bother using that activity again (except for taming cats). I collected 2 fish in a day of fishing (usually got about 10+ before for a similar amount of work). Not sure if I was just unlucky or if this was how low you were aiming.

Stone tools wear out fast enough I found I wasn't accumulating as much for building materials.

While I enjoy the dynamic world effect of monsters attacking wilderness creatures and livestock it has the negative side effect of making the world seem dead the day after. It is fine if you are nomadic, but once you settle down you end up with an empty world as far as you can see outside of your house.

This is an observation from playing the previous build and still getting used to iron balance (I had been away from MC and BTW) but I ended up making an iron pick just to collect required materials and skipped right to diamond tools. Iron still feels so rare that this feels like the most logical path until you get high enough in the tech tree to recycle iron (which usually takes me a while).

[RedNoob]

As I just started a new world 1h ago I alredy realised one thing:
First night came and I was fine with the light of my furnance... but I could not find coal the next day (while hunting and collecting more wood) and even so the next (while mining from my small base with the light of some furnances fired by the wood I got from the near jungle. Then I realized WHY I could not find coal... I have two other mods installed: Craftguide (np) and New ore distribution ... mhh so that says it all!!!!
This truly is not a btw porblem as coal is realy not a rare resource in vmc but I wanted to share this and there is no 4.65 gameexpirience thread...

[HighMongrel]

After a long time away from minecraft I decided to come back to try this out and I am enjoying it so far. A few observations

-Starting in an ocean biome really sucks. My first life was spent blindly going around the ocean with a shovel, pickaxe, and a boat. I was rather lucky in that the island I started on had a tree, so I could actually make that much. Regardless I had yet to find anything but small, empty of everything but grass and occasionally a tree, islands by the time the sun was starting to rise on the second day. I managed to spot a zombie off in the distance, so I waited for the sun to start damaging him, killed him, ate his flesh, and promptly died of starvation due to food poisoning. I then spawned near another small island, though thankfully I found a larger body of land about halfway through that day.

-Holy god birch logs burns long

-Fishing is a decent night activity if you build a hut near the water and cast out a small hole. Not very much food gain though. Only got 3 bites in a night and only managed to catch 2 of them.

-Abandoned villages are immensely disappointing when you find they're abandoned. Spent the night there though.

-Desert Temple are great. I might settle once I find more chickens now that I have a hoe and pumpkins. The sword doesn't hurt either.

-Carrying around a stack of dirt half slabs makes things a lot easier.

That's about it so far. Only on night 5 though.

Edit: one more note

-Wolf is delicious

[Wookieguy]

...it is keeping me so busy just trying to stay fed that I have little time to do other tasks in the game.

I had a bit different experience, unless you are speaking of the first three days. The first two days were all about hunting and cooking, and then I went mobile to search for villages. After the third or fourth night, I had accumulated so much cooked meat that I had to keep myself from hunting for my inventory's sake. I can now focus entirely on travel and exploration until a hunting binge is required again.

I did experience a bit of bore from the constant hunting and holing up for the night, probably due to my good survival skills. Rather it was rational or not, I felt like mining during the night (after I had a bit of coal) wasn't worth very much, since it would waste food and be abandoned soon. The next night, I'm going to try some mining to see if this problem is only perceived due to my resource stinginess.

I always have the lingering thought in the back of my head that if I die, I'll have to repeat the nomad phase again. I'm bittersweet over it, since I haven't felt too much excitement so far, and don't yet "get" the whole nomad thing.

The following is my playstyle, and I would like it if someone would point out if there are ways to have more fun, while staying relatively safe.

Punch tree, make tools, get cobble, kill all mobile meat dispensers with an axe, burrow into the hillside, cook meat during the night, mine for coal, hunt all day again, go back to the same hole, repeat previous night, tear down camp, travel straight while stopping to operate meat dispensers, repeat burrow-cook-mine procedure. Continue traveling until a populated village is found.

I rarely have monster encounters, and have no worry for food. Armor is a given with leather.

I expect that playing it so safe if what is contributing to boredom, so I expect I'll get braver in future play sessions.

[ion]

new mob AI is nice.at first i didn't knew that and all my chicken pen was obliterated by an unknown enemy. off course i blamed my 3 dogs that were supposed to prevent the chicken massacre and killed them all. second night i watched and waited who was the culprit, but by then i have gorged myself on raw wolfchops. spiders spewing webs is the best thing and i think why that wasn't in vanilla from the first stage. ninja creepers are the main source of death for me, mostly because my 1337 dodge skills make me scream in RL instead of running away.
iron instead is a resource that in my case i mine it only for powergaming. mine enough of it to make one pickaxe, dig to diamond level, make portal and start SFS production. for me the price is too high and is worth waiting to skip the iron stage.

[OldMarriedDude]

- rewrite no point in stories -

Chasing a herd of animals for food was very cool and lots of fun. Seemed a little food intense at first but never got near starving. Its a great mechanic for actually herding animals instead of having them chase their favorite food.

Fucking spiders- the first web I saw was shot at me. Very surprising and makes spiders a mild PITA. Downside IMO is spiders randomly shooting webs around the landscape even when not attacking/chasing player. This seems like it may become an issue in mob traps. It also adds a requirement for spider proofing your base tho.

The furnace burning with fuel but no cook-able items makes complete sense. Being able to use it for light is a very cool idea. Love the idea of having to "tend" the fire and pay attention to fuel consumption. Haven't messed with different fuel types as I currently only have oak wood and coal is too valuable to cook food with ( seems weird saying that)

[FlowerChild]

Fucking spiders- the first web I saw was shot at me. Very surprising and makes spiders a mild PITA. Downside IMO is spiders randomly shooting webs around the landscape even when not attacking/chasing player. This seems like it may become an issue in mob traps. It also adds a requirement for spider proofing your base tho.

I would agree with you there, but it's not random man :)

I'll also take this opportunity to remind people: no theorizing please. This is for observations based on play. Are spiders gumming up your mob trap? No? Then kindly STFU ;)

[OldMarriedDude]

Fucking spiders- the first web I saw was shot at me. Very surprising and makes spiders a mild PITA. Downside IMO is spiders randomly shooting webs around the landscape even when not attacking/chasing player. This seems like it may become an issue in mob traps. It also adds a requirement for spider proofing your base tho.

I would agree with you there, but it's not random man :)

After reading the other thread I see it isnt random, it also explains the random wool blocks I found.

[FlowerChild]

I expect that playing it so safe if what is contributing to boredom, so I expect I'll get braver in future play sessions.

If playing as a nomad doesn't interest you: then don't play as a nomad.

At present, there's basically a branch in the early tech tree. You can play as a nomad, trying to eventually obtain high value crops, or you can settle immediately, and focus on lower value, but perfectly sustainable crops.

I have been mostly playing the 2nd way myself, so I know it's entirely feasible (and fun). Obtaining the high value crops is intended to be a challenge and a long haul. Some people choose to go for that right away, but there's absolutely no requirement to do so.

[FlowerChild]

After reading the other thread I see it isnt random, it also explains the random wool blocks I found.

No, it doesn't actually. I suspect you may want to hold off on posting to this thread again until you've spent more time on the release man.

[FlowerChild]

I tried fishing and the yield was so low that I doubt I would ever bother using that activity again (except for taming cats). I collected 2 fish in a day of fishing (usually got about 10+ before for a similar amount of work). Not sure if I was just unlucky or if this was how low you were aiming.

It's currently balanced to average about 10 fish in a 10 minute day *if* you are fishing above ground. Fishing below ground has always been lower yield in MC, the output was just so high to begin with that nobody noticed. If you are already above ground, then yes...you're being incredibly unlucky, or you need to work on your timing. If all you used to be getting before this change was 10 fish in a day, then yeah...you're definitely doing something wrong.

With regards to your other comments: if you are feeling like you are constantly struggling to survive, then work on developing sustainable crops. There are in game solutions to your problem that you can work on as a player.

By the late game, feeding yourself takes hardly more effort than it used to under the vanilla huger rules, and that is by design.

[HighMongrel]

So I've got a small base now with some chickens and I've found spiders don't really like chickens. One crawled into my chicken pit and managed to off 2 of them. Now it's properly caged off and I have a small pumpkin/hemp farm set up. Mushroom omelets are amazing, though I've unfortunately lost the only cow in the vicinity. Not that it was actually giving milk, seemed to refuse to eat grass or something cause I couldn't milk it for the 3 days it was alive.

[FlowerChild]

So I've got a small base now with some chickens and I've found spiders don't really like chickens. One crawled into my chicken pit and managed to off 2 of them. Now it's properly caged off and I have a small pumpkin/hemp farm set up. Mushroom omelets are amazing, though I've unfortunately lost the only cow in the vicinity. Not that it was actually giving milk, seemed to refuse to eat grass or something cause I couldn't milk it for the 3 days it was alive.

How is this in any way a balance observation?

Enjoy your vacation.

[JakeZKAM]

I've found that furnaces happen to be an effective light source for early level mining. Getting all the way to bedrock isn't feasible, but having one every once and awhile still gives enough light to see (I don't know about spawning) the only issue is keeping them stocked, so if you can't manage to find any surface coal to kickstart your mining operations, chop some trees, make a furnace, and pray you don't start running out of fuel before you get topside ;)

Having to get at least Iron before starting your farm is excellent. I finally managed to do it but I didn't feel like I could effectively settle down before I had it, as the only thing I could really figure out how to farm then were mushrooms. Deciding between trying to settle down and set up a base was pretty hard, knowing that if I was on the move I'd be unable to advance farther in the tech tree, yet unless I found a decent bit of surface iron I was kinda forced to get moving before my food ran completely out.

Another habit I found myself in after the first nights massacre and sudden realization of the zombies true intent, I started digging out small holes, pushing farm animals in, covering them up and marking them for later when I returned, just for an extra bit of safety for my precious farm animals.

[Shengji]

I'm finding meat really rather easy to gather first thing in the morning, plenty of animals seem to get away with bad injuries but you come along and one or two punches pops them! I'm feel that I'm exploiting this to not bother gathering food at any other time and saving my wood or stone axes durability.

Apologies if I sound a bit shirty, I'm loving the release but I've got a migraine right now - about the only thing that dragged me away from playing!

[nmarshall23]

I started a new world just to give you feedback.

Hardcore Wood feels intuitive, after I burnt a few logs, I started prioritizing which trees to cut down. No longer do I just cut down any old tree, what tree I go after depends on what I need more, sticks or fuel.

Branch mining with a stone pickaxe, is boring. I'm sure that's intended. However it does feel about right, that it takes longer for stone pickaxes to break coal and iron ore. Because of this, I've been real nervous while I'm trying to grab a few resources in a large cave, when I didn't have enough torches to light it all up.

Currently I'm agonizing other what to tool make with my precious iron ingots. I only have two, do I make a sword, so that I can defend myself? Or hold out so I could make a pickaxe? Maybe a hoe, then I could breed chickens.. This is the first time that I've ever had to make a meaningful decision as to what tool would be most useful.

I've had to set the game aside so that I can plan out my next few actions.

Related to what tool to make next is that, Shear feel overpriced, I just need them for a second to cut some grass. But they cost the same much as a iron sword.
Maybe I just need to adjust my playstyle. Just realized that I could use the new Cow Herding behavior to my advantage. I could herd them into a pen where they would be safe. Also Cow Herd behavior, feels just right. Has me planing ahead, and making cobblestone fences to keep them from running too far.

[earthling]

I too have started a new world for 4.65 and have been traveling the land with the ultimate goal of acquiring crops. I'm compelled to share my observations now, before precedent fully sets in, as I generally play slowly and only a couple hours a day.

- Wood/stone tool and block harvesting changes feel OK. While slower, they still function as needed and the payoff for finding more advanced materials surely is great. Unfortunately I haven't quite made it to the next level...

- Hardcore wood does turn me on... with the furnace providing the ambience.

- Herd behavior is a nice touch. Chasing critters has provided some nice comedy!


There is one thing that feels off to me though. I could say much but will limit myself.

Light. For me the scarcity of light has bottle-necked my activities. I feel too uncomfortable doing any but the most timid caving knowing that a creeper can appear out of nowhere and kill me. That my ability to mark my territory and create a safe haven from the infinite mobs is so limited is not fun. As we all know, MC caves can be batshit huge... and ultimately I play MC to carve out a niche in an infinite world, so the prospect of this as a permanent feature- as it stands now- really deflates me. Torch spam is not ideal... but is it simply a failing of the MC engine rather of the game design?