New Release! (BTW V4.70)

[devak]

I thought that was obvious. Mashing a diamond into iron would make no sense, but add creeper oysters into the mix and SCIENCE!

Couldn't have said it better myself :)

Remember: no matter what, it still makes more sense than diamond armor and tools in vanilla.

Given that iron and diamond can't mix (diamond dissolves in iron when heated) i find it weirder.

However, the result is that i fear Creeper Oysters even more. What ungodly contents are in those oysters that allow this? WHY CAN WE EAT IT?! *shudders*

[icynewyear]

Will there be a balance discussion thread per chance?

[eternal8phoenix]

For example, one of my simplest house-designs involves four wooden "pillars" in the corners, which I then fill in with wood, glass and doors. In the past I used the make the wooden supports 3 to 4 blocks tall by (you guessed it) pillaring, then I'd fill in the areas in between. Finally I'd make one dirt staircase to get to the top and build a roof on it. Taking this change into account, I imagine I'll have to build it layer by layer now, which feels oddly counter-intuitive (first build a frame, then fill it in). Well, it'll be either that or set up and tear down a lot of temporary dirt blocks.

Well if you want to keep the whole frame thing going, could always just plant trees in the corners and wait for them to grow. Means a bit of trimming but at least you can frame first.

[greezoo117]

Well, I haven't tested it yet, but Hardcore Building looks groundbreaking. It could be the hardest feature to get used to. It's very brave, good job !

[Ribky]

Dear mother of....

This is awesome... and just further proof that no matter what's in the ore dictionary, BTW is the most metal mod out there.

Thank you good sir.

[Thalarctia]

My initial thought when reading the hardcore bouncing change was "oak trees are going to be such a pain now...", but a bit later, it occured to me to use the existing trunk to build a staircase around, making it easier to read the outlying branches anyway. Limitations breed creativity once again, so now im actually looking forward to seeing how this affects the game in other ways!

With all the hardcore performance enhancement we've been getting lately, I figured it was only a time before someone realized that we needed some hardcore protection aswell, to avoid getting overrun by hardcore babies... :-p

Also loving the changes to shears and diamonds, the first becoming well worth the investment, and the second acting as a more natural progression, rather than a shortcut to endgame.

[Vexalor]

Sorry I'm late! The new armors are great in the early and mid game, and the diamond ingot thing was pure genius on that whole diamond balance issue (just sticking a few diamonds on a stick never made any sense anyways)!

I guess no more of my emergency towering exercises... ;)

Thanks again for another amazing release, FC!

[Roflpofl]

When I hit iron in my own play-through it was like the angelic choir sang out from on high. Before then, it's some serious "bloody nails scratching at the stone" action :)

When i read this my thougths were like "Well, you are trying to break a rock with a little pick made of stone itself, which only does make a little more sense than scratching it of with your nails in the end :P. Hm, still more realistic than smashing it into bits with a wooden pick...."

Then I installed and hit my first block of stone with a wooden pick....and couldn't stop laughing cause I actually asked for it, didn't I? :D

[magicjani]

Great job on the shears. Through the latest updates, you've actually made them one of the most useful items in the game. And early-game leather collecting is not as boring as it used to be, thanks to the high efficiency recipes. Plus, you can make the saw earlier now if you don't have luck finding many cows.

I seriously don't know how you get such amazing ideas. The diamond change is just so obvious, but I could never remember it myself. Now even if I get lucky and find diamonds with my first iron pickaxe, it's not game-breaking anymore, because I still have to find more iron to make diamond tools.

But the HC Bouncing.. That's where I was dissapointed. It makes building a pain in the ass now. Sure, it does (kinda) prevent the easy "pillaring" and catching yourself midair when falling off cliffs, but that's also about it.
Yes, I know that I can use platforms to counter this, but that only slows you down. The results of your building are the same, but it's just not fun to build anymore. Sure, I can build layer by layer, but nobody likes constantly changing through inventory like every third block.

[FlowerChild]

Will there be a balance discussion thread per chance?

Nah man, not for awhile. I don't like putting those up before a release has had a chance to sink in.

Shoot my a PM if there's something in particular though. The above sounds ominously urgent :)

[icynewyear]

I talk about it in my one shot. You'll see what I mean.

[Eriottosan]

I have to say, with all the recent changes, you're just making me more and more wishful for a PC so I can actually play again... I think I'm gonna really enjoy playing BTW again when I get the chance!

[DaveYanakov]

Well, I have played with it enough now to make atleast one small observation: tall oaks have been upgraded from pain-in-the-ass to royal-pain-in-the-ah-fuck-it-I'll-just-torch-the-rest :P

...and ofcourse one block up in the air survived the fire >.>

This is why I always start chopping taller trees from two meters off the ground and slab up to the top of the resulting stump. Makes harvesting that last little bit so much easier.

[xou816]

A new update already :) FC, you're a machine! Time to try it out; I'm especially curious about what I considered a gag item and which suddenly turned into a high-value item...
Thanks!

[Daisjun]

Firstly great job up the update FC! It was only the other day that I was building a pillar just to see the surrounding area and thought it was a bit silly how someone could physically jump in the air and place a block underneath them while airborne.

Secondly why is there is so much hate against nerfing wood and stone tools? I usually find that I prioritize trying to find iron at the start in order to make a pickaxe and sword for better defence and easier killing of animals. Are people really struggling that much to get to the iron age? It's actually easier than vanilla in the sense that you can never 'lose' iron. One blaze rod and you've got iron recycling and you're on your way to steel. If you're at the stage where you have a viable base going, there's really no need to use stone tools at all.

Thirdly...erm...great job!

[Mr_Hosed]

Firstly great job up the update FC! It was only the other day that I was building a pillar just to see the surrounding area and thought it was a bit silly how someone could physically jump in the air and place a block underneath them while airborne.

Secondly why is there is so much hate against nerfing wood and stone tools? I usually find that I prioritize trying to find iron at the start in order to make a pickaxe and sword for better defence and easier killing of animals. Are people really struggling that much to get to the iron age? It's actually easier than vanilla in the sense that you can never 'lose' iron. One blaze rod and you've got iron recycling and you're on your way to steel. If you're at the stage where you have a viable base going, there's really no need to use stone tools at all.

Thirdly...erm...great job!

Combine the 9x hit to iron and stone picks now only lasting barely long enough to gather resources for another tool; yeah, lots of tedious rebuilding of tools. I think that's what people are most hit by; The shear minimal usage you get from stone and how long you have to keep using it.

Basically you're not going to be staying in any one place very long unless you find a massive cave system... and those are fraught with their own challenges now that coal gives one torch. And then there's food dwendling rapidly and constantly.

It most definately makes you feel like you're accomlishing something once you've built your first branch mine though.

[Shengji]

Effort and planning? All you need to do is place two dirt pillars next to each other and hop back and forth between them. Costs a bit more dirt, but well... if you're going to leave the pillars behind anyhow, you apparently have plenty of dirt anyhow.

Well, I did say "discourage". It's still possible to be sure, just requires a *bit* more thought, and you'd be surprised where that rises up and bites you in the ass.

Remember: it just became twice as hard and resource consuming. From my experience with my play-through, that does indeed make a difference. Does it fix it? No. Is it a step in the right direction? Definitely.

Also it has made my "tick" tactics impossible when spelunking without torches - where I will pillar straight up to the ceiling and dig in at the first sign of trouble!

Great release FC, I can't play much at the moment, deep in crunch time at the moment, but next weekend I should have a few hours to myself (yes my job and homelife really is that busy!) and I cannot wait, I love how you continually challenge us to find more and more creative solutions. As Sar said, this is going to be painfully fun!

[FlowerChild]

Combine the 9x hit to iron and stone picks now only lasting barely long enough to gather resources for another tool; yeah, lots of tedious rebuilding of tools. I think that's what people are most hit by; The shear minimal usage you get from stone and how long you have to keep using it.

In my experience with it: rushing is what gets you killed.

Trying to push down towards a branch mine as quickly as possible is (hopefully) no longer an effective strategy. Spend some time at the surface. Caves are everywhere. Coal is everywhere. When I descended into the depths in my own game, coal was not at all an issue. I lit up everywhere I went, never recollected my torches, and always had plenty on hand. When I spent enough time collecting iron near the surface to make myself a pick, it lasted me plenty long enough to collect more for another, plus a surplus to expand into other tools.

If you try to play the way you used to, then the speculum will spread wide. If you take your time, allow yourself to enjoy the different stages of the game, diversify your activities, working on farms, expanding your base, and stockpiling food between descents, it's entirely manageable, and very enjoyable.

However, don't expect it to play like vanilla. If you try to force it to, you will likely end up dead, and not having a very good time.

And worth noting: using words like "tedious" in a release thread is not a good way to make friends.

[Husbag3]

I was a bit pessimistic when I heard about the changes to stone and wooden pickaxes but after starting starting a new world I was proven wrong. I found that digging into the side of a hill and hollowing out a large area was very effective during the night; a relatively low amount of hunger is used up yet you are doing something productive as oppose to just afking.

[Daisjun]

Secondly why is there is so much hate against nerfing wood and stone tools?

Combine the 9x hit to iron and stone picks now only lasting barely long enough to gather resources for another tool; yeah, lots of tedious rebuilding of tools. I think that's what people are most hit by; The shear minimal usage you get from stone and how long you have to keep using it.

Basically you're not going to be staying in any one place very long unless you find a massive cave system... and those are fraught with their own challenges now that coal gives one torch. And then there's food dwendling rapidly and constantly.

It most definately makes you feel like you're accomlishing something once you've built your first branch mine though.

I find cave exploration to be one of the most exciting aspects of the game now. You definitely can't just rush into the depths without some serious prep. In vanilla you could have obsidian and diamonds within about half an hour, whereas now you have to actually work towards reaching the bottom of a cave. Branch mining sucks the fun completely out of that. And if you're largely nomadic at the start and stick to cave entrances, you can build up a decent iron stockpile rather quickly. Cave exploration also has the added bonus of coming across mine shafts, rails being a highly valuable source of iron. And did you forget about nethercoal?

[moonracer]

I've put a few hours into the update and had some interesting behavioral changes. I'm overall really enjoying all of your choices so far.

Hard core jumping was a great idea. I didn't even have to test it to see the merit to the idea. The only surprise was I didn't realize how often I used to jump to put torches in high areas like stone pillar markers, or to light up tall cave areas. It also increases the value of carrying ladders when spelunking as a backup.

I'm still holding off judgement on stone picks. I'll play a few more days to see if it 'clicks'. I'm sure there is a fair amount of me just playing the mod wrong. I will say, stone stairs are much less of an option early game. I'm mostly using ladders (though wood stairs are an option I hadn't thought of till just now). Also, because I need to mine almost twice as much stone to have any to work with I find I am encouraged to strip/branch mine early just to build up some reserves. I just wanted to share that since most people seem to suggest the opposite. Spelunking for exposed iron is cool, but the stone tools used to collect it do not return material to replace them, so a certain amount of stone grinding seems required.

Another interesting side effect. I started growing cane and quickly realized that wicker might become a more popular early building block due to how efficient it is to produce. Which is great since I always liked that material but never really gave it a thought until now.

I might sound critical of points but I'm still playing it, and I'm enjoying the challenge of trying to adapt to your mechanics and seeing how they change my outlook on existing features.

[DaveYanakov]

I got an hour into the survival island yesterday and while it was a very hairy start, it was still workable. The easy tree only provides 4 wood and you need a minimum of 5 to get started but I lucked out and the one sapling that survived the thunderstorm of day 2 grew into a towering spire. I'll be harvesting that sucker for weeks! It only took me till the fourth morning to be able to gather enough stone axes together to push into the zombie dungeon and collect the precious treasures of two bread, two sheaves of wheat and best of all, an entire iron ingot!

I'm not seeing what the kvetching is about. If you start on a normal seed with all the trees and animals you could ever want it would be even easier.

[someonetobe]

If you try to play the way you used to, then the speculum will spread wide.

New favorite FC quote.

[FlowerChild]

I'm not seeing what the kvetching is about. If you start on a normal seed with all the trees and animals you could ever want it would be even easier.

IMO, it's just an adjustment man, which is why people are grumbling.

Like I said above, if you just do the usual vanilla thing and try to dig straight down to bedrock to start a branch mine right from the get go, if you don't wind up dead, it will be total hell (and not very fun) trying to do it with stone picks.

Until people realize that, adjust, and clue into the fact that caving really is the way to go at the start (it really is part of the tech tree now...which is a big part of why I did this), bitching is inevitable. I think we're also getting bitching from the compulsive hoarder crowd who insist on using stone tools even when they have access to iron because they don't want to "waste" it. This will of course also be hell.

I'm actually considering an even more drastic change to hammer home the point of caving being the early game mining method of choice, and make it more intuitively obvious, but am mulling over various design issues before moving forward with it.

For those of you that are having a hard time wrapping your head around the changes, I encourage you to watch icy's recent play-through of the early game. He seemed to intuitively "grok" what needed to be done right from the get go, even if his insistence on individually crafting instead of mass crafting picks left me constantly scratching my head :)

[fullsailor]

I think we're also getting bitching from the compulsive hoarder crowd who insist on using stone tools even when they have access to iron because they don't want to "waste" it.

Yeah, and I don't understand that either. Everything you can make with iron, you can melt down with the crucible later. My friend and I started a new world with 4.65. We didn't mind "using" the iron and storing the near-spent tools until we could craft a crucible.

Anyway, thanks for such an incredible set of releases. Everything since you went total conversion has led to so much more enjoyment playing Better Than Wolves.