Better Than Wolves Forum

Version 4.A9 Pustules Lancing of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!

Download Link

This release contains the following changes:

-Added Hardercore Spawning. This changes Hardcore Spawning in a number of different ways that are left for players to discover. The overall intent is to help HC Spawning remain relevant throughout the game, by changing how it behaves as you move further into the progression. Note that as a result, players that already have developed worlds may find that HC Spawn behavior changes quite drastically, because they will not have incrementally progressed through the earlier stages.

-Added Hardcore Soul Mating as part of the above changes to hardcore spawn. In the early stages of the game, this means that when one player dies on a multiplayer server, any other players that die in the following Minecraft day will also respawn in the same general vicinity as the first. This is to help reduce the amount of time that people playing cooperatively will have to spend apart from each other, but since this only functions for a limited part of the progression, keep in mind that you'll want to switch to using soul sand to track each other down at some point.

-Added Largercore Spawning. In worlds generated with large biomes, all distances related to Hardercore Spawning (including abandoned villages, looted temples, etc.) will be scaled upwards. Large Biomes are still not officially supported in Better Than Wolves, but I figured that while I was refactoring various bits of code for the above features, I'd add this in as well for players looking for something a little different.

-Added a whole set of Blood Wood planks and associated blocks (slabs, stairs, fences, Moulding, Siding, Corners, Columns, Pedestals, Tables, Benches) to the game, in place of simply using jungle wood as a Blood Wood substitute, as was done previously.

-Changed cocoa beans so that their growth stages can be detected by a Buddy Block.

-Changed the way blocks render while being cooked in a Kiln, to make the process a little more evident, and to fix a problem where only one block could be displayed as cooking at a time.

-Changed the splash potion ingredient back to gunpowder (from Creeper Oysters), since gunpowder is now available earlier in the tech tree again, and since Creeper Oysters are rather common for such a powerful role.

-Changed the way maps are zoomed out, so that it is done by surrounding *empty* maps in the crafting grid with paper, rather than doing it with an already used map. This bypasses a number of vanilla issue with zooming maps out, without losing any functionality since maps are reset when zoomed anyways. You can see the current zoom level in the tooltip for the map.

-Fixed a very old and very rare crash bug involving mob spawners attempting to generate mossy cobble in chunks that had yet to generate.

-Fixed problem where ladders would sometimes default to odd directions when placed in tight spaces.

-Fixed (probably) a vanilla problem where groups of mating animals would sometimes produce more offspring than the number of parents should allow. I say "probably" because it was a rather rare and random bug, which makes proving its nonexistence difficult.

-Fixed a problem where axes weren't properly harvesting Blood Wood logs.

Frothy Discharge!

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If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:

:)

FlowerChild wrote: Frothy Discharge!

Please, slow down...it's been so many times so quickly, I'm not used to this, I'm drowning under the weight of your repeated releases TT_TT

Thanks FC! I started a new world after the pumpkin nerf in A7 and I've been loving the way everything is coming together. For the first time in four or so worlds I'm having to really take my time and make use of all the homesteading stuff in the early midgame instead of just rushing for pumpkins after the first few iron tools, amassing tons of eggs, and then quickly leaping to mechanical power off the back of bone meal spam on hemp. Taking things slower is not only prolonging the fun of the early game, but introducing all sorts of interesting gameplay tensions that I hadn't experienced before.

Can't wait to find out what Hardercore Spawning entails...

Oh shit man! This is fantastic! Excited to take advantage of bloodwood planks!

Good god man, slow down. I can barely keep up with this anymore.

FlowerChild wrote:-Added Largercore Spawning. In worlds generated with large biomes, all distances related to Hardercore Spawning (including abandoned villages, looted temples, etc.) will be scaled upwards. Large Biomes are still not officially supported in Better Than Wolves, but I figured that while I was refactoring various bits of code for the above features, I'd add this in as well for players looking for something a little different.

Sweet, as someone who has always greatly preferred the extra space and challenge provided by large biomes it's nice to see this officially added. I thought you had quietly added this in years ago though, tbh. I remember a discussion along those lines happening at some point.

TL;DR AAAAAAAAHHHH!

Much happiness! I lather myself in the frothy discharge of all your enthusiasms :)

Thordan Ssoa wrote: Sweet, as someone who has always greatly preferred the extra space and challenge provided by large biomes it's nice to see this officially added. I thought you had quietly added this in years ago though, tbh. I remember a discussion along those lines happening at some point.

It took some mild refactoring of the HC Spawn code, which wouldn't have been substantial in itself, but testing for these kinds of changes is a bit problematic given it takes extended play and has a high degree of uncertainty in terms of spawn conditions.

But, given I had to do that anyways for the Hardercore Spawning, just made sense for me to work it in now at the same time. I warn you though: in combination with some of the other changes in this release, HC Spawn on a large biomes world might get slightly insane :)

FlowerChild wrote: I warn you though: in combination with some of the other changes in this release, HC Spawn on a large biomes world might get slightly insane :)

Well, my stream world is large biomes and I've already died three times. I'll be finding out the hard way soon enough, I'm sure.

FC you are an update machine.

In my current world, I,m about to reach crucible tech without diying once. I just need to crush and filter the netherrack for the hibachi.

This release is making me both afraid of diying, and wanting me to die to see what happens.

Thank you! <3

I love the changes to Hardcore Spawn, it's such a staple of BTW play, cool to see it getting some more love. Now, I have no clue yet what they exactly entail, but tying to progression sounds delicious :)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

We added some spiked overlord in hot pink and tentacle overlord emojis to the Discord to celebrate :D

FlowerChild wrote: -Added Hardcore Soul Mating as part of the above changes to hardcore spawn. In the early stages of the game, this means that when one player dies on a multiplayer server, any other players that die in the following Minecraft day will also respawn in the same general vicinity as the first. This is to help reduce the amount of time that people playing cooperatively will have to spend apart from each other, but since this only functions for a limited part of the progression, keep in mind that you'll want to switch to using soul sand to track each other down at some point.

Thanks for this man. I really appreciate it.

FlowerChild wrote: -Added Hardercore Spawning. This changes Hardcore Spawning in a number of different ways that are left for players to discover. The overall intent is to help HC Spawning remain relevant throughout the game, by changing how it behaves as you move further into the progression. Note that as a result, players that already have developed worlds may find that HC Spawn behavior changes quite drastically, because they will not have incrementally progressed through the earlier stages.

Hmmmm... Ominous

Sarudak wrote: Thanks for this man. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure man! A lot of the stuff in this release was actually inspired by things you suggested, so thank you as well! :)

Somewhere along the way your co-op idea mutated into something larger as I toyed with various ideas on how to balance it without completely losing the fear of death, without it being too prone to exploits, and without losing tracking people down with soulsand. I really like the latter as I find the idea of players "rescuing" each other in coop to be a very potent one, so I thought it a shame if that were to be totally replaced with this new thing.

Anyways, that somehow got merged with the thing you were talking about the other day about gameplay evolving as you progress, and voila! Whole new set of gameplay! :)

I am really looking forward to the hardercore spawning. I often play on the same seed so this should freshen things up a bit.

Just put out a b version with the following change:

4.A9 Pustules Lancing b

-Fixed a problem where cooking logs in a Kiln would produce bedrock instead of charcoal.

The download link in the OP has been updated to this version.

Best changelog to date imo

TheGatesofLogic wrote:Best changelog to date imo

Sorry about the oversight on the logs man. Fixed it as soon as I saw your report, and I hope it didn't result in too many indestructible structures on your server :P

Honestly? I saved like a quarter stack of bedrock in my valuables chest just as a badge of pride. The guys on my server are cool, I'm not worried they'd abuse it. Thanks for fixing it though!

Oh boy!

FlowerChild wrote: -Added Largercore Spawning. In worlds generated with large biomes, all distances related to Hardercore Spawning (including abandoned villages, looted temples, etc.) will be scaled upwards. Large Biomes are still not officially supported in Better Than Wolves, but I figured that while I was refactoring various bits of code for the above features, I'd add this in as well for players looking for something a little different.

How will this affect my quite well developed large biome world? I have all the villagers so won't cause any new challenge I suppose, and no ugly map edges?

Thanks for the update as always FC.

Magick_Miner wrote: How will this affect my quite well developed large biome world? I have all the villagers so won't cause any new challenge I suppose, and no ugly map edges?

Shouldn't cause any seams, no. I would have explicitly mentioned that.

Man, I’ve just been thinking about how these recent updates have really brought me back to the good old days. I’ve had so much fun in recent weeks thanks to you FC, I gotta just say thanks.

TheGatesofLogic wrote:Man, I’ve just been thinking about how these recent updates have really brought me back to the good old days. I’ve had so much fun in recent weeks thanks to you FC, I gotta just say thanks.

Awwww... shucks man.... my pleasure :)

FlowerChild wrote:This bypasses a number of vanilla issue with zooming maps out

I just experimented with this change and..... Wow! The hoops I had to jump through before, to get this effect. I could really hug you for how much more player-friendly it is going to be to properly map the world now. Thanks!