4.69 Gameplay Balance Discussion Thread

[FlowerChild]

All righty then, let's give this another try :)

I'm currently returning to working on gameplay, and am actually doing a play-through at present. I think people have had enough time now to get used to all the HC changes to start making some observations again on overall balance without it being premature.

As per the other threads:

-Make observations, not suggestions. Talk about the things you've noticed that feel "off", not about how you would personally solve them. Leave the actual game design to me.

-Be polite. This thread isn't intended as a bitch fest, but rather as a venue for constructive observation. If there's a problem, you can be sure that I'll address it without you having to overstate it.

-This thread is for discussing *gameplay*, not for bug reports, comments about optimizations, or what have you. Please keep it on topic.

Guess that's about it: have at it :)

[Coldrocker]

In terms of balance I guess I wanted to bring up some things I noticed about the early game progression. I'm still working through my play-through as I had a couple incidents with a creeper in a mineshaft which has slowed me down.


Day 1 Spawn
I think it was a great choice to make the villages abandoned within the 2km zone, however it feels abit off that If you are lucky enough to spawn next to an abandoned village on day 1, you already have some valid safe houses to survive the night. While not hugely major, it does take away some of the thought process of where you will bunker down for the first night.

Further to this, I find the first few nights i simply just tunnel into a safe dirt hovel with no real thought. Dirt right now has the ability to defy physics, which is kind of odd because it is a block made up of fine sediment like sand and gravel. It would be quite more challenging if you had to use the lands natural contours eg the stone caves, to hide out, rather then just being able to hold up in a dirt hovel.

Iron Age > Diamond Age
HC Hunger and Tools, created a whole new Stone Age. Prior to this it was Stone > Iron > Diamond day 1 which really bypassed a lot of the challenge. Now that we have this great age the only caveat is with regard to the Iron > Diamond progression. For me personally, once i find enough iron to make a pick, i usually will have found diamond ore by this point and its a really short transition, so much so that I only ever have to make the 1 iron pick to mine the diamond to then build a diamond pick.


Now that the hardcore modes have been mostly implemented, the question I have for you FC is where do you see BTW developing next. Do you see the tech tree going going past the current soul forge tier with more forms of advanced mechanization on the horizon? Have you any wishes to introduce new types of enemies?

[Foxy Boxes]

Shears seem a little expensive, both thematically and with respect to their function, but other than that I've yet to notice and imbalances.

[FlowerChild]

Iron Age > Diamond Age
HC Hunger and Tools, created a whole new Stone Age. Prior to this it was Stone > Iron > Diamond day 1 which really bypassed a lot of the challenge. Now that we have this great age the only caveat is with regard to the Iron > Diamond progression. For me personally, once i find enough iron to make a pick, i usually will have found diamond ore by this point and its a really short transition, so much so that I only ever have to make the 1 iron pick to mine the diamond to then build a diamond pick.

Yup, I don't disagree. Diamond balance is something I'll be looking at in this play-through I'm doing now.

Now that the hardcore modes have been mostly implemented, the question I have for you FC is where do you see BTW developing next. Do you see the tech tree going going past the current soul forge tier with more forms of advanced mechanization on the horizon? Have you any wishes to introduce new types of enemies?

Like I said man...don't off-topic this thread. That's exactly what you're doing here, even though the rest of your post is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.

[FlowerChild]

Shears seem a little expensive, both thematically and with respect to their function, but other than that I've yet to notice and imbalances.

Yup. The approach I am taking to that is to better integrate shears, rather than to make them cheaper. Changes will be coming for that soon.

[Starshifterxen]

Me and a friend started a new server together on about 4.65:

Hardcore movement
Fantastic feature, it really encourages the building of paths and makes you more thoughtful about combat. Only minor downside I have encountered is that long grass feels like it slows you a bit much and encourages me to bunny hop.

Hardcore hunger
Works really well early game to provide a focus and is transitions well into later game to be less of a burden. There is still a significant tipping point where is becomes very easy to obtain without automation once you have carrots/potatoes + animals.

Combat
Death mechanics add tension, but healing feels a little too slow to me. It encourages me to bunker down when on low health and just do something else whilst I wait to heal.

New armour works well. I am more thoughtful over what armour to use.

Combat feels tighter in general

Hardcore beacons
I like the new beacons, but I had two difficulties.

• The wither is ridiculously hard to kill without trying to glitch it, etc.
  It is very difficult to get the resources together on a new world to make a beacon, this is compounded by the fact the the effects cannot be easily predicted.

Iron changes and torch changes

I like the changes in general, iron feels a lot more precious and I am more conservative with what I light up. The main imbalance is that the vast majority of my iron later game comes from my mob trap. Iron armour is a particular culprit.

Hardcore spawn
Early game this feels a bit brutal. I felt like I repeated the early game multiple times, which gets a little tedious.
Later game it comes into its own as it takes you out of your comfort zone. This is when it really shines from our experience.

Other random/vanilla comments
- Upon finding a village I will immediately brick them all into their houses until the settlement is appropriately lit and walled as it is very difficult to keep them alive otherwise. This feels a bit off.
- I cannot work out how I am supposed to navigate the nether effectively. New portals end up warping me to old ones and without F3 (which was always a bad option anyway) it is a real pain to rectify.
- Screw pumps are incredible expensive. I don't know when I would want to use them for that cost.
- Chickens are a real pain to keep and breed compared to other animals. I HATE chickens now.
- The nether scares me now and its build into the mod well...

Overall the mod has improved massively in this last few major releases. The gameplay has a lot more depth at all stages of the game.

So thank you very much for that! :)

[Mr_Hosed]

I just started a new world and only have 4 hours of play on it. I've died three times and am now at my 2nd spawn location.

Spawn 1
----------
The first day was pretty much the usual MC first day, except instead of making a wood axe I had to immediately find a cave and start mining the floor. Hate punching wood and floating trees. After getting some stone axes and picks I started chopping down some trees and murdering everything I could find. When night came I walled up the cave I scavanged earlier and proceeded to cook my way through the night.

The biggest change I noticed was the feeling of stone being a precious resource, the need to immediately slaughter the landscape, and the frustration at not finding any coal.

My second day was a real eye-opener. Where'd all my animals go! I won't spoiler where they went ;) That led to expanding my exploration circle, hunting while cutting down trees. I spent a lot of my game-time judging if the food expenditure to the circumstances of each hunted animal would pay off. I also found myself making a very large number of axes... and missing convenient inventories auto-equip functionality.

I pretty much repeated the same process for a few more days until I felt I had enough resources to start mining for coal or start a trek for a better location... but a damn creeper figured out I'd removed the block I used for a door and blew my ass up when I wasn't looking.

This is far different from my previous experiences with Minecraft. Previously I would actually be rather cosmetic with my initial build (as much as one can with limited resources) and would protect the nearby animals rather then hunt them so I wouldn't have to drag 'em from far away when I was ready to breed. I would also start charcoal production my first night, even if coal was nearby, and mine like a mad man. The second day would be farming and off I went on a rush to wheat, diamonds, and a couldron.

Spawn 2
----------
At my second spawn I was more careful about my hidy-hole and searched for coal. ALL of it goes to torches. Again, by my second night at this location the local wildlife was pretty much gone. I've been at this new location for about 7 days, have 2 iron ingots, 2 stacks of torches (including the ones placed in my cave system) and now I'm out of food. Fortunately I built up some fat. Unfortunately I'm on the edge of a desert and snow forest...

Final Observations
---------------------
I've noticed a distinct lack of feeling safe; Ever. Food is a real concern and requires actual management. I also feel like I need to be very conciderate about my ingress and egress to the base to minimize my jumping, even going so far as to mine stone just to build stairs and such where before I wouldn't care. I'm never running since I'm always short on food.

That's it for now. Hopefully that was a useful observation of very early gameplay in some fashion.

[FlowerChild]

Iron changes and torch changes

I like the changes in general, iron feels a lot more precious and I am more conservative with what I light up. The main imbalance is that the vast majority of my iron later game comes from my mob trap. Iron armour is a particular culprit.

Errr...how is that an imbalance? That was the intent of that change :)

[Ethazeriel]

A few things from my playing on the official server:

HC food:

It feels good. I can't comment much on this because the server is already pretty well established

HC Iron:

I like it, I really do. It was really rewarding to get my first iron pick (which I promptly lost to a zombie), and I'm really liking how iron is a resource again. The one thing that's been bothering me is lightning rods. At 3 iron per rod, it just feels a little too expensive, especially for decorative use. I suppose this might change when I have a mobtrap up and running, but for now it just feels like too much.

Later game/anvil tech redstone:

I just got my first anvil yesterday, and with HC iron it feels like a real accomplishment. Now that I've got it though, some things feel a bit off. Specifically, redstone eyes. It feels like a detector block is a little too cheap, especially with less than a gold ingot required per block. Perhaps reduce the yield on the redstone eye recipe, or increase the amount of gold required.

Overall, I'm really liking the game, because that's what it feels like. I'm having a lot of fun building walls and fortifying my base so that I feel safe from monsters. Keep at it man :)

[Starshifterxen]

Iron changes and torch changes

I like the changes in general, iron feels a lot more precious and I am more conservative with what I light up. The main imbalance is that the vast majority of my iron later game comes from my mob trap. Iron armour is a particular culprit.

Errr...how is that an imbalance? That was the intent of that change :)

Fair enough :)

To answer your question: My comment was more on the relative outputs, rather than the mechanic. (which I love)

[BlindEndermen]

Early Game:
Food:
It's fun to roam around and hunt. I had the luck to spawn near an ocean, so I built a boat and went along the coastline. That way I found a village with carrots (after many minecraft days). Still did not find potatoes. I guess villages spawning only in deserts and plains makes it extremely hard to find enough of them to get all crops, especialy when playing on large biomes(But I'm not sure if BTW is intendet to be played with large biomes)
Light:
When roaming for food it's likely you will find coal nearby; therefore it's not a problem to light up your base/safe area. But light becomes a problem when mining.
Mining:
As long as you dig you mineshaft it's all fine; you can use torches to light it up or slab it to prevent mob spawning.
Hitting a cave systhem then actualy means 2 things: you will get new recources much faster as you can just walk and jump to find them. But at the same time mobs are able to spawn all around you (as vm cave systems are extremely large), and atack you from out of nowhere. This made me realy fear caves.
Mobs:
They became much harder to fight. This is not such a problem on the surface as you normaly see what's comming towars you. But as mentioned above it makes caves a realy dangerous place.
Iron:
You realy managed to make Iron a resource. In vmc I was used to just mine down and find enough iron for my iron armor in 10minutes. On my actual world I still do not have one!
Animals:
I still did not tame any wolves as when I found some I had no bones to tame them.
As you cannot bring them to your base I bult holes and pushed them into, lit the holes and coverd them wit dirt to keep the animals safe untill I can bring them to my base.
The vmc spawning for animals makes it realy hard to put all together to get the farms working.

Spoiler

Show

Mobs are broadly divided into four categories: hostile, friendly, water (i.e. Squid) and ambient (i.e. Bat). Hostile mobs have a spawning cycle once every game tick (1/20th of a second). Friendly and water mobs have only one spawning cycle every 400 ticks (20 seconds). Because of this, hostile mobs can spawn at any time, but animals spawn very rarely. Instead, most animals spawn within chunks when they are generated.

Mid Game:
No idea if I can say I reached mid game. I have a mill stone + windmill and acouldron. also I have wheat and carrots and I'm building a second base to bring the animaly I have in small huts around the lands; as my first base is about 3000blocks away from the huts i captured those animals in.
The Nether:
As I need to visit it to make my way up the tech tree I want to be prepared (I visited it only once to get some netherrack for the couldron). I personaly want to get my Iron equipment and some stacks of arrows(and therefore I may need a mobtrap) before feeling safe enough to face the Nether.

Conclusion:
Maybe I play minecraft the wrong way, but I especialy fear mobs and caves in combination. Also I have the impression to be extremely slow in terms of tech tree progression. I often find myself not traveling around my world thinking what I could build there or on top of this... but then get kind of frustrated as my actual tech level does not alow such big projects. But I know most of the thing are possible with stone toals (it only takes much longer) and I also know it's intended not to reach the age of steal in one minecraft day.

[johnt]

Now that I've turned off hardcore spawn, no complaints at all about early game balance, though i think it would be nice to somehow lower the iron cost of the hoe or the shears a little bit so you can get farming going a little earlier.

[DukeCunning]

Everything feels balanced to me.

Glass is a little too easy to break.

[Wafflewaffle]

One of the things i've been noticing more and more is that when a certain area is "exhausted" of food sources it takes a long time for food to respawn. That is not an immediate problem becouse you can always move to greener pastures early game, but as time goes on hardcore spawn pretty much turns the area around your respawn a dead zone (expecially if you die like i do).

If you move every day (during nomad phase) food is always abundant, cows, sheep and shit but when you die the "path" to your previouly visited areas generelly wont have food enough to make the trip, the you die and your food supply gets another chomp.

An way out of this to set bases near the spawn with food stock and roads, but during nomad phase you are not really amassing enough material for roads or sparing enough food to keep a spawn base always stoked with food.

Otherwise everything has been smooth as butter.

[FlowerChild]

One of the things i've been noticing more and more is that when a certain area is "exhausted" of food sources it takes a long time for food to respawn. That is not an immediate problem becouse you can always move to greener pastures early game, but as time goes on hardcore spawn pretty much turns the area around your respawn a dead zone (expecially if you die like i do).

I don't quite get this. If you have Hardcore Spawn on, then you'll be respawning in random locations that are unlikely to be exhausted of food.

It seems what you're saying would be more applicable to having HC Spawn turned off rather than on.

[Ceunon]

I think he's meaning that, regardless of spawning on a random location, you still travel to your original spawn point with a compass so you can get back to your base.

[mogulus]

I love the early game hc mode effects so far. I do what I can to get to the stone age and get mobile, then explore until I find wheat and either potatoes or carrots ( never found both in the same game ). Then after getting a large stockpile of meat while nomadding it, I settle down and start my farm and tech tree.

The game is slowed down nicely now. Clocks are much more valuable, making nether quartz a much have for me. Nighttime is truly terrifying and seeing it coming is a must :) :) :)

As for hchunger, I stated my 'no starve' method above. This works well enough for me but I feel like fishing and making soup isn't worth the effort. I might be missing the point here but the time it takes getting milk, mushrooms and fish etc does not yield the ammount of nutrient that a potato and steak does.

It does feel like it takes a very long time to heal. Maybe longer than it should. But in my opinion it just makes healing potions that much more valuable.

[jakerman999]

Abandoned mineshafts seem to make getting iron quite a lot easier. There also much safer than caves, assuming one is quick enough to block off cave spiders. That said, cave spiders are a much larger, near insurmountable threat if left to roam unchecked.

[FlowerChild]

I think he's meaning that, regardless of spawning on a random location, you still travel to your original spawn point with a compass so you can get back to your base.

Yes, I get that, but if you're spawning in a "fresh" location with plenty of animals, it would seem to be more a problem of poor planning/rushing to not return to original spawn well stocked with food, rather than a balance issue.

[wizardglick]

I find that I am subsisting quite happily at my base without chickens or animal breeding. I eat pumpkin seeds all day and hoard fish (I fish whenever it rains), mushrooms, and the odd bits of meat that I can obtain when exploring. I haven't started grinding hemp for windmill sails quite yet, but I'm pretty sure I have enough food stockpiled to get the job done. You do have to spend more time hanging around your base cultivating, but I'm still getting some of my local area world explored. I thought this was going to be a bigger problem.

I have plenty of coal for torches, but because of torch economy, I'm being a bit stingy. This has made the mines a bit more dangerous, and once or twice have had an unanticipated gaming experience trying to run my dirt road home as it gets dark.

I didn't have a big problem branch mining at level level with stone axes + 1 iron axe. I have more than enough iron ingots for a full set of iron armor. I also have enough gems for a full set of diamond armor.

[savagelung]

Abandoned mineshafts seem to make getting iron quite a lot easier. There also much safer than caves, assuming one is quick enough to block off cave spiders. That said, cave spiders are a much larger, near insurmountable threat if left to roam unchecked.

I also noticed this. I won't comment on whether I feel it's balanced, but here's my story as a data point:

I started a new large biomes world with a witch hut seed. My plan is to set up a 301x301 perimeter with a witch-compatible mob trap in the center. I managed to hide 2 of each passive mob underground for safekeeping.

I spent the first few days hunting passive mobs to build up a supply of meat. I managed to find enough iron caving near the surface to make an iron pickaxe, hoe and sword. At the moment, I have a sizable hemp farm going, and more sugarcane than I will ever use.

As soon as I got my iron pickaxe, I dug out a mineshaft at the center of my perimeter. I am using 150-block-long branches, to fit with my perimeter system. At the end of the first branch, I found an abandoned mineshaft. In about an hour of exploring, I surfaced with this:

Spoiler

Show

If you count the smeltable minecarts, my total iron haul was 57 ingots and change. The diamond haul was enough for a pickaxe, enchanting table and chestpiece. My nether portal spawned me less than 50 blocks from a blaze spawner encased in netherrack, which made putting up a sissy bar and punching blazes in the feet pretty easy. I felt safe with my chestpiece and I came out of the Nether with 20 blaze rods and dozens of netherwart, more than enough for hibachis and potions.

The only chokepoint in my tech tree progression is wolves: thanks to large biomes and my swamp spawn point, they are hard to come by. As soon as I have dung though, I'll be able to leap through the tech tree.

By my estimate, if I had more favorable wolf-spawn conditions and a similar abandoned mineshaft find, I could make it from first spawn to SFS plate/tools in < 4 hours. The chest minecarts in abandoned mineshafts are definitely a significant source of iron. Diamond is also very easy to come by as soon as you have an iron pickaxe.

[Taleric]

I will skip all the parts are think are great (most all HC changes).

I have 48-72 hours into a world started on 4.65.

I still skip leather for gold armor starting because I need the leather to mechanize. I wore chain for a bit and iron, quickly skipping to diamond as you had better go all in for protection or just be nude. Now I just don SFS or wear nothing. Traveling, I am naked, with SFS ready to click on in danger due to the weight.

I initially felt diamonds were too plentiful and with ease of enchantment would avoid SFS. I was wrong because being able to smelt the tools back and the awesome longevity of SFS made me progress. You realize late that the beacons require that you be thrifty.

I am sad now to be left with maxing all beacons and getting the enchantments out of the villagers to play. It has been a great run and more late game is always in demand. I guess that is what why there are massive builds.

Other than these items, the immersion and progression has been awsome! I just ignore stuff like having to turn villages in a prison camps for safety as a vanilla problem.

[Vexalor]

I'm going to be honest and say that I feel that BTW is pretty balanced right now. I don't have too many complaints, really.

Once I get some more time, I plan on spending a pretty good chunk of time playing and will report back soon.

The only thing that really deserves mention here that I have felt as off thus far playing the post 4.65 versions is the matter of diamonds. I know that others have mentioned it, but, personally, the issue of diamonds really comes down to a division between early and mid-late game. In the early game diamonds feel a little too plentiful when compared to iron and gold scarcity, but once enough progress has been made into the tech tree for the construction of large mob farms and resmelting, diamonds suddenly start to feel very much balanced. I am honestly not sure anything can or even should be done to rectify this situation, though.

However, now that I think about it, I guess this would be good place to mention that I also get that "off" feeling from villages. Villages just seem a little awkward and even boring currently, and I have high hopes for the completion of HC Villagers. As a side note, I have always felt that making certain crops only available in villages was a good idea, but it just doesn't sit right with me that finding a village automatically gives one access to one or even two entire crops immediately upon discovery. I guess I just feel there should be a greater requirement of effort somehow involved :).

Also, the only above comment that really made me think was one in which someone said that screw pumps where too expensive. I would agree that with iron being scarcer they do feel a bit iron heavy, but I don't think that they are too unbalanced, especially if it keeps them a late game mechanic, which I think is proper for them. Know what? Been doing some thinking and screw pumps actually seem pretty balanced in my opinion.

[Thalarctia]

Having played through the tech tree from wandering nomad to steel and mechanical power since 4.65, I've noted the following:

HCH feels great. Nothing more to it, it just feels really awesome. I find myself constantly monitoring my food situation, for quite a long while, ensuring a stable food supply was my main priority whenever playing.

I most definately agree with the post above stating that shears are too expensive for what they do - But since you're already on it, I dont see a reason to elaborate further.

I hardly used iron tools at all until I had my crucible in place. Despite having spelunked quite a bit, I had some rubbish luck finding iron in the first place, so for a long time, I just had stone and the diamond pick I used to get my portal with. While searching for cultivated crops, I came across two witches huts, each of them netting me an extra 7 ingots worth of iron due to the cistern, effectively tripling my iron stores when I brought them home. I imagine something quite similar would have happened, had I found a mineshaft, with chest carts sitting everywhere, as the poster above did.

The torch change feels pretty damn good as well. You value your torches higher, and you get a significant boost as soon as you reach the nether, as burning netherrack is a godsend for caving and branch mining.

The output of my pumpkin farm felt a bit low, so much in fact that I felt the need to not rely on it for food, and instead view any pumpkins it grew as a bonus, I could use for the millstone. Not necessarily a bad thing, and granted, it was not the worlds biggest farm. When compared to how quickly hemp grows, and the seeds you still get from harvesting them, having a bunch of stoned chickens is a much superior option.

All I can think of for now.

[Vexalor]

Partially as a response to Thalarctia, partially another thought to be added to my previous statement:

4.65 really did change the feel of Minecraft for me. It now feels like I am really working toward something when I play the game, rather than just building stuff for the heck of it. It's especially refreshing to have to worry about hunger, which before just seemed like an aimless quirk and is now a major component of the game. Further, the ore changes and the torch changes are fabulous also: I no longer just skip coal I find in caves and such because it's actually a valuable resource and now iron mining requires much more an effort and gives much more a reward. I redacted my previous comment about screw pumps because I realized that they are of major importance in making the player's dream of manipulating water more challenging.

The truth is that BTW has made me understand more than ever that the more the challenge, the more the intrinsic reward. So, overall, FC, keep up the good work because you're making Minecraft Minecraft again. You're making the game back into that game we picked up originally because it gave us the challenge of determining our own challenges in this strange voxel-based world we find ourselves spawned in by presenting us with a hostile environment that needs conquering.