4.71 Gameplay Balance Discussion Thread (READ RULES OR BAN)

[jakerman999]

Just had this small revelation: the longer one spends caving, and increasing the safety of the underground networks, the less places there are for monsters to spawn. This results in higher mobtrap outputs, once the player achieves that level. The more time spent labouring over iron, the faster the free iron comes in. This gave me a great sense of value to the input::output ratio of caving. It also solves a metagamey issue with an ingame solution, which is very elegant. The whole system feels rather remarkable.

[Taleric]

Once you have a well established grinder it is hugely satisfying to see the drop rates skyrocket as you light up the underground.

IRT 4.71, I was never one to cheap out of shovels cause they save time. So I have not had to deal with piles. Was happy to see you can eat bat wings but noticed no major increase in fishing speed. I have to try full moon yet, different locations and all bait types.

No idea how people have such a hard time with mobs. Once I have a sword to block with and at least leather armor it takes a good 4-5 at a time to bring me down. Axe combat is a little tricky so you have to be more selective. I would say the majority of my deaths in BTW, save the nether, are foolish industrial accidents like falling into a mob trap incinerator during wiring ect.

[FlowerChild]

Just had this small revelation: the longer one spends caving, and increasing the safety of the underground networks, the less places there are for monsters to spawn. This results in higher mobtrap outputs, once the player achieves that level.

Yup, this has definitely been on my mind in my attempts to increase the value of caving. Caving in the early game preps your world for the latter game. The thing is though, this won't necessarily be apparent to people that don't have a lot of experience with BTW or think far enough ahead to realize it's the case.

I've set in on 'plan B' of stratifying stone to basically make caving in the early game a given, and already have preliminary results. Unfortunately, the method I'm using to avoid messing with people's worlds slows down chunk generation a bit (chunk loading is unaffected), but it still appears to be faster than before my optimizations, so hopefully that will be a reasonable trade-off. I was a tad worried it would be so slow as to not make this approach a feasible solution (I'm basically post-processing stone AFTER generation, which means I'm scanning through and potentially modifying almost every single stone block in the game...that's a metric shit-ton) but it seems to be well within the realm of reason. I also doubt it will impact people during general play and is more of significance during flying through new worlds in creative-mode.

Just a note here: I'm in no way trying to prevent branch mining or somehow eliminate it from the game as an earlier poster seemed to be suggesting. What I'm attempting to do is make it something that you need to work towards, and thus integrate it into the tech-tree. At a certain point in the latter game, you should be able to do it with no more trouble than you used to. It's the early stages where I feel this is of great significance to the gameplay progression, enough so that I'm going to great lengths to decrease or eliminate its feasibility.

Anyways, I'd ask people to avoid further comments on the balance of the current mining progression until the next release, as it's about to change yet again rather dramatically. Other topics of balance are of course still open to discussion.

[Sarudak]

Does this mean we get a new kind of stone with aesthetic uses??

[FlowerChild]

Does this mean we get a new kind of stone with aesthetic uses??

Maybe :)

Keep it on topic though please, as the above isn't related to balance. I'll likely put out a test release later today with this stuff in it, at which point you guys can see for yourself. I want to get some serious testing on this one before doing an "official" release to make sure it doesn't mess with people's worlds (like I wanted to establish with the village changes), and to make sure it doesn't totally kill people's performance.

[Fret]

I love the change to stone pickaxes. Some extra info: I don't know about the pre iron stage, because I already started this world in 4.68. (Was sick of starting over every new update, made me hate the game xD). Have some iron tools, but no diamonds or nether portal.

So, my base is on an island just before the coast in a giant hills biome. I wanted to flatten the hill. In other words I planned to remove a ton of stone. I didn't need to do this, but wanted to because of the beauty factor. Had to sacrifice (largly damage) my only iron pick for it.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that being creative in the early game is still possible, but comes at a cost. Really felt like a big decision and took some time to think about it.

Also Flowerchild can I make remark about mining ores if it isn't related to branchmining?

[Nelgoth]

One more game observation that feels funny. The amount of wood that it takes to tan leather feels off. I crammed what felt to be an actual house's worth of oak wood into my cauldron to make my chest-piece.

Also, hardcore bouncing + a Steve sized hole in the bedrock can make for an interesting and embarrassing situation.

[FlowerChild]

One more game observation that feels funny. The amount of wood that it takes to tan leather feels off. I crammed what felt to be an actual house's worth of oak wood into my cauldron to make my chest-piece.

Remember: it depends on the type of wood.

[Sarudak]

Also, hardcore bouncing + a Steve sized hole in the bedrock can make for an interesting and embarrassing situation.

Did this actually happen to you? I can't remember ever seeing a hole in bedrock that was a 1x1x2...

[DNoved1]

Did this actually happen to you? I can't remember ever seeing a hole in bedrock that was a 1x1x2...

I've had it happen to me while retrieving my stuff after a dual suicide with a wither. Forgot to bring any blocks, and fell into this hole. Lets just say it took a while for me to starve...

Spoiler

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[FlowerChild]

All right. I've had it with the off topic. Thread locked.