HC slime stories & discussion [spoilers]

[EtherealWrath]

I was hoping to last longer than 5 minutes after the server went live.
I was planning to drop off my decent gear, grab my trusty stone axe and wonder off into the outback.
I never made it through my own base before I was ambushed by the green squelching mass.

They escaped the saws of my grinder and came for me. My longsword swished and scythed in vein as the slimes evaded my frantic hacking. Pounding. Even as the ominous purple sheen from my blade splattered a few across the stone floor they kept pounding and bouncing off my glowing armour. Wearing me down before executing the final kill. Foolish thoughts of a stone axe lie forgotten by my broken body.

field notes and observations

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The incident happened in the sorting area under my grinder. I found my longsword again, but the stack of emeralds I'd attained from a friendly librarian fell into a water channel and washed into the incinerator. I was jumped by about 4-5 small slimes and 1 medium; the little ones are fast moving and difficult to hit. Pack a mean punch too. I struck the medium one down before it got close. Didn't last much longer as they swamped me from all sides.

Trying to retrieve my stuff, I saw movement in a water channel below me. No idea how it got in there as the channel is sealed [glass roof]. I gleefully awaited for its demise in the incinerator but it jumped back up- trying to get me. I may need to redesign a few things if I wish to continue living in this swamp.

[William the tuba]

....nope, no hard core, just slime all the way throu--AAAAAAAAAA

I found some in the bottom strata; luckily I was fighting downhill. Those slimes were vicious.

[dawnraider]

So I decided to waltz into the swamp right next to my base to try out the new slimes. And holy shit they were scary. I was not prepared for the sheer speed, nor for how quickly the tiny ones swarm you. I was extremely glad in that moment that I had full diamond gear and a knockback sword.

I foolishly charged two big ones simultaneously, ordinarily no problem. Before the update, my standard procedure was to kill them all down to the tiny ones, since the tiny ones didn't deal damage. BAD IDEA. I had over twenty tiny slimes swarming me, which even through full diamond armor got me down to half health before I killed them all.

I think the most brutal part of getting swarmed like that is the knockback. You get constantly knocked around, unable to actually run away and get a position advantage, requiring brute force to kill them all.

I salute you, FC, for successfully making slimes scary as fuck.

[FlowerChild]

I salute you, FC, for successfully making slimes scary as fuck.

Hehe...well, it honestly just started as a "man, I've got to fix these slimes always getting stuck in shallow pools" when I setup base in a swamp after a HC spawn. Then once that was working, I was reminded that I always thought that slimes had a really cool Asteroids-like mechanic, which was hobbled by the smallest ones not doing any damage.

What happened to you is basically the same thing that used to happen in Asteroids if you made the mistake of shooting all the big rocks first instead of dealing with them one at a time ;)

[chaoticneutral]

I completely forgot the update changed slimes, went into a swamp at night and...

Holy shit, are they on caffeine?

I love the smaller ones now being a threat - now you need to fight smart against them instead of click-click-click.

"man, I've got to fix these slimes always getting stuck in shallow pools"

This was nice, too. No more "bait them into water, kill other mobs and then deal with them" tactics anymore :D

[Equitis1024]

Holy cow, slimes are great now! Those tiny ones really kicked my ass. I had a flashback to playing Quake as a kid and getting repeatedly wrecked by those lightning-fast bouncing blue blob monsters. It was fantastic; I love when a game can dredge up long-forgotten memories like that!

The movement fix is so huge, and now I really have no idea why the small ones never did damage before. Why would Notch decide to implement this fun splitting mechanic but then make it completely irrelevant?

I love how you manage to find these ideas that just feel like they're the way the feature was always meant to be implemented. The mushroom stuff in this release is the same way. Your hardcore changes over the years have really made Minecraft the game I *assumed* I was playing back in my very first few days with it. That's extremely cool. Thanks, FC!

[Rawny]

I saw a medium sized slime.
I flexed as it was at the bottom of a ladder.
I panicked as it came up towards me!
I fought, I won, I cheered.
Three small slimes ran up the ladder towards me!
I fled.
I blocked the laddered pit with cobblestone.

[Niyu]

Not sure how I feel about the slimes scaping my saw wall in my mobtrap.

Swamps really feel dangerous now though. I specially like the way the small slimes seems to surround you when figthing you.

[FlowerChild]

Not sure how I feel about the slimes scaping my saw wall in my mobtrap.

Don't think that should happen with the next release. I've restored the width of the small slimes to its previous value to correct an issue that someone posted about on MCF with slimes slipping between diagonally placed blocks. My goal there was to reduce their height so they could move between half-blocks, and I had just adjusted the width to match, so no real loss there in restoring the horizontal value.

Anyways, I suspect the width is likely the issue with your saw wall as well.

[Niyu]

Great. Thanks again for yor hard work.

[FlowerChild]

Great. Thanks again for yor hard work.

No worries man. If you run into any little issues like this, don't hesitate to post them over in the feedback forum and I'll be happy to at least verify whether they're by intent.

As I mentioned in the release thread, I'm a tad out of practice when it comes to BTW, so while in the past I would have likely thought of something like the Saw gap, the full implications of a small change like that may not immediately occur to me.

There's a thousand little details I need to keep in mind when making changes, and reminders of stuff I might have missed are certainly helpful while I rebuild the internal model I use to keep track of all of it ;)

[abculatter_2]

Another thing I noticed is that, when a medium/big slime dies near full blocks, some of its children may spawn inside the blocks and suffocate. This might be related to the saw issue. You can also hit slimes through blocks with a small width, such as glass panes, even though they're on the other side.

[Gilberreke]

Another thing I noticed is that, when a medium/big slime dies near full blocks, some of its children may spawn inside the blocks and suffocate. This might be related to the saw issue. You can also hit slimes through blocks with a small width, such as glass panes, even though they're on the other side.

All of those sound like they are the same collision issue. My guess is that when the hitbox is fixed, those will all revert to more or less vanilla behavior.

I noticed that there was talk about slimes fitting through half-blocks, haven't seen that happen yet myself. Now I'm wondering if there's any way for slimes to be small out in the wild and if I should adapt my bases to account for wild small slimes getting in through half-gaps in my base.

I bet if cows get antsy near slimes, you might get interesting slime invasions :D. Imagine a big slime being kicked to small during the night, opening the door and being greeted by 16 of the small buggers D:. Even worse, the above situation where they get in through a half block D:

[Xaedblade]

I noticed that slimes also deal damage when the are dead! Those are some toxic little dudes! I now make sure to back up as I kill them as one of their dead bodies killed me... :D lol... luckily I did not hardcore spawn far from my swamp base :D

[abculatter_2]

Just wondering, does anyone else find the new small slimes excessively difficult to hit? It seems like the combination of their faster jump timer and smaller hit box has really done a number on their ability to dodge attacks... Their jumping patterns also feel erratic and unpredictable, but that may just be because I'm usually too focused on hitting the damn thing to notice a pattern. It really feels, to me, like the most reliable way to hit them is to simply spam-click until you hit it, which isn't particularly fun, and even in ideal conditions it's difficult for me to hit one without it hitting me at least once.

I've also noticed that their lack of knockback causes them to deal damage very, VERY quickly... Which isn't a bad thing, though combined with the above it makes them feel a bit excessively deadly. Especially in close quarters.

[dawnraider]

I noticed that slimes also deal damage when the are dead! Those are some toxic little dudes! I now make sure to back up as I kill them as one of their dead bodies killed me... :D lol... luckily I did not hardcore spawn far from my swamp base :D

Yeah that can be kind of nasty. Unfortunately that's a vanilla thing, as it happened with magma cubes (of which the tiny ones did deal damage) prior to Hardcore Slime.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah that can be kind of nasty. Unfortunately that's a vanilla thing, as it happened with magma cubes (of which the tiny ones did deal damage) prior to Hardcore Slime.

I never noticed that myself, but will take a note on it as it should be quite easy to change.

[Wibbles]

Has anyone tried breaking the slimes down into globlets and then hitting the lot of them with splash potions or dynamite? Perhaps a bit overkill but what else are you going to do with those splash damage weapons - now there's an excuse. Slime hunting as a sport sounds like a lot more fun with the new changes :)

[abculatter_2]

Has anyone tried breaking the slimes down into globlets and then hitting the lot of them with splash potions or dynamite? Perhaps a bit overkill but what else are you going to do with those splash damage weapons - now there's an excuse. Slime hunting as a sport sounds like a lot more fun with the new changes :)

Now THAT sounds like a good idea, and actually makes me a bit glad the fuckers are hard to hit... Now we have a good use-case for spending an inventory slot on splash potions of damage!