Getting REALLY Frustrated

[Jesar]

For the last two weeks, I've been playing this mod almost everyday for several hours at a time, and even marathoned it a couple of times, and I just die over and over and fucking over again. It used to be stupid mistakes getting me killed, so I just tried again. And again. Now it is getting ridiculous.

I'm not complaining about hardcore anything. I love all of the hardcore features, especially hardcore of darkness and hardcore resources. The problem I have is that I'm dead and sent back to punching 19 fucking trees every 15-20 minutes, 40 if the game wants to be a queen douche to me that day. I can't stand it anymore. I climb out of the little hobble I have to make from not having any resources to build with, and kill the few spiders that have been pissing me off. I clear the area of creepers. I go back in my base to make another ax, and LO AND BEHOLD, a creeper came in with me. I KNOW I checked for the bastard, but one still managed to find me. This kind of creeper shenaniganary has killed me more times than I can count, and at no time do I feel it is deserved. On a recent play, I respawned with HCS into a small cave in the gloom. I tried desperately to climb out as the darkness finally swallowed me. I have to admit, it was a nice change from getting stuck to my front door by a spider that decided to not make any noise till I came out then bombed by a surprise creeper.

I have restarted so many worlds just to see if starting in a new biome may give me a better chance, but night after night I dig nothing but stone, make axes, kill animals, cook food, then boldly step out to start searching for caves just to be zerg rushed by some skeletons that hid behind a tree or a spider that was still fucking hostile for some reason.

I want to know if I'm alone in this. How many others are respawning day after day without any significant progress? How many of the players with a decent base actually built it from the ground up in recent releases with absolutely NO help from exploits or cheating? No climbing waterfalls, no pillaring up and down, no using save editing, no making a backup just in case you really don't feel like losing your base, any of that? No external mapping programs? I'm playing COMPLETELY legit and can't fucking take it.

I love this mod, and view it as the real version of minecraft. But ever since I came back (btw 4.84 or so), I can't even get to iron anything. I got a pick once, then got creeper bombed on the surface, and that's the farthest in the tech tree I've got recently.

My blood pressure is getting too damn high playing this mod now. Sorry for ranting, especially since I'm supposed to be on a forum break to play the game, but I had to get this off of my chest.

[Mason11987]

For the last two weeks, I've been playing this mod almost everyday for several hours at a time, and even marathoned it a couple of times, and I just die over and over and fucking over again. It used to be stupid mistakes getting me killed, so I just tried again. And again. Now it is getting ridiculous.

I'm not complaining about hardcore anything. I love all of the hardcore features, especially hardcore of darkness and hardcore resources. The problem I have is that I'm dead and sent back to punching 19 fucking trees every 15-20 minutes, 40 if the game wants to be a queen douche to me that day. I can't stand it anymore. I climb out of the little hobble I have to make from not having any resources to build with, and kill the few spiders that have been pissing me off. I clear the area of creepers. I go back in my base to make another ax, and LO AND BEHOLD, a creeper came in with me. I KNOW I checked for the bastard, but one still managed to find me. This kind of creeper shenaniganary has killed me more times than I can count, and at no time do I feel it is deserved. On a recent play, I respawned with HCS into a small cave in the gloom. I tried desperately to climb out as the darkness finally swallowed me. I have to admit, it was a nice change from getting stuck to my front door by a spider that decided to not make any noise till I came out then bombed by a surprise creeper.

I have restarted so many worlds just to see if starting in a new biome may give me a better chance, but night after night I dig nothing but stone, make axes, kill animals, cook food, then boldly step out to start searching for caves just to be zerg rushed by some skeletons that hid behind a tree or a spider that was still fucking hostile for some reason.

I want to know if I'm alone in this. How many others are respawning day after day without any significant progress? How many of the players with a decent base actually built it from the ground up in recent releases with absolutely NO help from exploits or cheating? No climbing waterfalls, no pillaring up and down, no using save editing, no making a backup just in case you really don't feel like losing your base, any of that? No external mapping programs? I'm playing COMPLETELY legit and can't fucking take it.

I love this mod, and view it as the real version of minecraft. But ever since I came back (btw 4.84 or so), I can't even get to iron anything. I got a pick once, then got creeper bombed on the surface, and that's the farthest in the tech tree I've got recently.

My blood pressure is getting too damn high playing this mod now. Sorry for ranting, especially since I'm supposed to be on a forum break to play the game, but I had to get this off of my chest.

You should watch the BTW and icynewyear youtube video. They played for a while and died, but only because of a silly mistake. It's really not that hard to stay alive, but you will die. The fun thing is that each time you start up and build a base is one more area in the world that you might recognize if you respawn upon your next death. Eventually you'll be at a point where you will almost always spawn somewhere you recognize and you can base hop back to your main base. I just got my two steel tools in my base and I've died a few times, but I've always built up until I could explore til I found some trace of my wanderings which eventually lead me back to base.

Are you playing on Hard? The mod is balanced for Normal and that might be part of the issue.

[sacrife]

I suggest you stop relying on "this time I won't have bad luck". That never works. They always find you. Play it safe.
Always have a bunch of axes with you, always some dirt to block yourself in if necessary. If you feel it is to risky to go somewhere, don't go there.
Kill a bunch of cows and craft leather armor. That helps.

Also, 4 iron nuggets and a redstone makes a compass. Use it to find your first base.

[Grom PE]

Just to try all the hardcore modes I've been avoiding, namely Hardcore Spawn and Hardcore Buckets, I've started a new game since BTW v4.85.

I died on the stage of caving / gathering iron about 5 times, with having to punch wood, then managed to establish a base and get to the 30th experience level. Got ambushed by a creeper, but fortunately enough, respawned nearby, and worked up to the level 32 again now.

Got a big hemp, pumpkin and melon farm, chicken farm, a windmill, and just recently found 3 diamonds and got to the nether.
So much fun, no frustration at all.

I'd say that the very beginning is a bit too tedious and frustrating, but that's expected knowing it's used as a punishment for death, but once you get past that and acquire an iron pickaxe, a hoe, a pumpkin and a chicken farm, things get quite easy.

I feel no real threat other than the occasional lag.

[TallTyrionLannister]

Hey man, I've experienced these frustrations as well and I'm sure many other players have as well. While on the one hand it is discouraging to get almost to the tipping point of real advancement and lose everything, ultimately I'm more satisfied with my run because of the way the mod makes you use your surroundings and plan carefully. Sure, I've died dozens of times, but every time I come upon an old abandoned hidey-hole from a previous attempt I remember the important lessons I learned during that playthrough. You do start to adapt. Eventually you'll start to leave signs for your future Steve's as well as a few basic tools to give yourself a bit of an edge. I started leaving markers in every direction around my main base to point the way home, and I finally have enough supplies there to spring right back into action if I should die.

But man... do I die... and die...
One time I had just gotten a supply of enough stone to start spamming stone picks but had no weapons (I was in my base) and I uncovered a hive of silverfish. Death. One time a wolf snuck up on me and bit me in the ass and I desparately fumbled to fling meat at him but by then he'd already tasted my blood. Death. Most recently I've been on the long...long search for a village and made myself a nightfort pillar out of netherrack (thanks to extensive tunneling in the Nether in search of said village) . When morning came i quickly picked my way to the ground and into the arms of a creeper I didn't see, exploding in my face. Death.

All this death makes every bit of progress that much sweeter.

[Thalarctia]

As with all other difficult games, the more frustrated you are, the more likely you are to make a mistake and die horribly. You need to be relaxed, focused and most of all: careful. Don't take unneeded risks, know when to cut your losses and retreat, and never go out at night unless you absolutely have to.

Whenever people complain about dying all the time, it is usually because they make mistakes. Without watching you play, I can not tell what those mistakes are, but you might be able to if you watch someone else play (if they succeed where you fail). It might seem a bit like self-promotion, and it is, but I have a BTW "educational lets play / tutorial" going on youtube, where I give pointers, explain what I do and try my best to show people how to avoid the pitfalls that exist in the game. I actually made a mistake in the last episode, but I was able to recover from it by realizing it was a poor decision in time, something that has saved me on many other occasions as well. You might want to check it out if you haven't already: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... jmB5iNjx-M

[Jesar]

As with all other difficult games, the more frustrated you are, the more likely you are to make a mistake and die horribly. You need to be relaxed, focused and most of all: careful. Don't take unneeded risks, know when to cut your losses and retreat, and never go out at night unless you absolutely have to.

Whenever people complain about dying all the time, it is usually because they make mistakes. Without watching you play, I can not tell what those mistakes are, but you might be able to if you watch someone else play (if they succeed where you fail). It might seem a bit like self-promotion, and it is, but I have a BTW "educational lets play / tutorial" going on youtube, where I give pointers, explain what I do and try my best to show people how to avoid the pitfalls that exist in the game. I actually made a mistake in the last episode, but I was able to recover from it by realizing it was a poor decision in time, something that has saved me on many other occasions as well. You might want to check it out if you haven't already: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... jmB5iNjx-M

Thanks, and I admit I am just a tad bit frustrated, and will be continuing my attempts into the future. Also, I have watched many of your btw vids already. Good stuff, man.

[johnt]

If you're dying that much, you're simply playing it wrong. You need to be more cautious, carefully secure your entrances to your base, secure a renewable food supply, etc, etc. I've died maybe 4 or 5 times over the course of 4 days on my new server (Mostly from wolves and random creeper hits, but also one case of digging unwisely in the nether). One of my other players has died literally hundreds of times in that same time period. That's not because I'm lucky and he's not.

A few tips.

1) Move slowly and be aware of your surroundings-- If you walk out of a cave/hut/base, don't stop moving until you're clear of the entrance and have time to turn around to look for any mobs that might be hanging around. Don't rush into caves until you've blocked off all side entrances you haven't explored. Don't dig up iron unless your'e in a secure area.

2) Beware of darkness -- Don't go out at night. Don't stand still in any area that you can't light up completely. If you're in a cave, block off any pathways you haven't lit up.

3) Secure your entrances -- a simple ladder one block off the ground is sufficient for stopping all mobs.

4) Save your hunger meter and secure a renewable food supply asap-- Don't chase down every animal you see. Don't run up and down hills. Avoid fights if you can. Your very first goal after 'surviving' in the early game is to capture a few chickens and cows and find some pumpkins and hemp seeds. Don't explore deep into caves until you have a lot of extra coal and at least some armor -- only get iron you can find on the surface or close to it.

5) Learn to use blocks to fight. Watch the fights in this video to see how:

6) Don't do anything stupid. Yes I know you want to immediately run in and take on the zombie spawner you just found, unarmored with 3 torches and a pair of axes, and at half-health. This is stupid. You know this is stupid. Don't do stupid things. Or if you insist on doing stupid things, do them in a smart way.

[Stormweaver]

Hehe, sounds like me when I came back to find BTW had become an entirely different beast.

The way I solved it was to specifically develop habits to minimise my...well, chances of death. Is there a tree within 30~ blocks of my temporary base's exit? cut it down, or set up elsewhere. Setting up for the night? dig the entrance so I can kill spiders from beneath. Find a desert? Collect a stack of sand and cactus each, for when I settle down to tech up. Need stone in a cave? turn slopes into easily-watched bottlenecks.

Each time you die, just ask yourself what kind of OCD habit could have prevented it, and if you're giving the same answer a few deaths later, put serious thought into adopting it.

[Jesar]

Need stone in a cave? turn slopes into easily-watched bottlenecks.

This intrigues me, but I don't fully understand what it means. I know what a bottleneck is, but can you elaborate on how to make them artificially?

[Shengji]

Think of Better Than Wolves like you would think of the thief games. To begin with, you will die, mostly because you are not utilising all the tools you have available.

You mentioned that you die a lot to creepers at your front door. Because creepers are silent, you have to spot them, which means a base with poor visibility is a death trap. Build windows, which in the hovel days need be nothing more than holes in the wall. Of course you need to stay safe from skeletons, so treat the above ground level as a lookout level - you move up there at dawn and find all the monsters in the area. The next thing you can do is force them to approach your door from only one angle - build a pair of trenches delineating a path to your door, a long straight, visible path - hell, have it a level up leading to a tree with trapdoor and ladder on the trunk to get you away from all the mobs along your walls!

Why does your very first home need to be a walled enclosure, have you tried tree dwelling - once you've gone hippy you'll never go back - it's easy to build your first proper house around your tree, which ends up in the living room*. Especially good are the jungle trees!!! It's stupidly easy to sit in a tree all night safe from the mobs, you get unparalleled views of the monsters though I will most certainly concede that getting down safely is the challenge!

Hope theres something helpful in that lot!

*A la Constantines manor!

[MaxAstro]

On the creeper thing: It is reasonably possible to build entrances to your base that no monster can navigate. For example, if you have to jump and catch a ladder to get into your base, you have already filtered out everything but spiders - which can then be filtered by their size. You can achieve the same thing by having a wall of vines that must be climbed sideways in order to enter - for bonus points have cactus at the top to kill anything that tries to climb straight up.

I always build bases such that the entrance and exit is on the roof, so that I have an unobstructed view in 360 degrees to look for monsters before I leave. Doorways are death traps and I don't trust them unless they lead to an area I've already secured.

[Jesar]

Thanks for all the help guys, this stuff is gold. Especially that stuff about doorways being deathtraps, I guess I never really thought about not using them before.

If it intrests you guys, I'm currently uploading a video of me playing BTW from the beginning, and if you want to see how I play, you can see for yourselves. I'll give the link in a thread in General Discussion once the video is up.

Thanks again for all the help, I guess I was just being an idiot trying to run out of a hole in the ground and not get anally violated.

[the_fodder]

I Feel your pain, I am also getting frustrate at my deaths. Not the fact that I die or how I die but going back to wood puncher. So frustrated in fact that I depression quit (like rage quitting but with tears) most of the time, hell one time I decided to go fix a leaky toilet rather than deal with wood punching. I understand FC wants death to be painful but it is a little on the high side for my taste. With that said I think it should also be known that FC has RUINED minecraft for me , meaning I can't play it without BTW.

My respawns have gone through a couple of evolutions.
At first I was all like if I wander around a bit I will find my base... Then I progressed to leaving the furnace and workbench in each hobbit hole I created. I am currently at leaving tools and some food in them and any extra tech that I feel I can leave behind along with signs pointing to spawn. I guess my next step is to preemptively built full bases out there as finding free roaming animals is getting harder and harder.

Also, 4 iron nuggets and a redstone makes a compass. Use it to find your first base.

Oh, hey thanks for the tip! Should I just use /give that redstone? Last I checked you needed an iron pick to get it legit. I don't know about you but I like to have sword first before I go poking around at diamond level.

Just to try all the hardcore modes I've been avoiding, namely Hardcore Spawn and Hardcore Buckets, I've started a new game since BTW v4.85.

I can understand not feeling up to hardcore spawn but you should really try Hardcore buckets. Even if you don't turn it on play like it was, you will get more satisfaction from your builds.

Stormweaver wrote:
Need stone in a cave? turn slopes into easily-watched bottlenecks.


This intrigues me, but I don't fully understand what it means.

I believe he means vertical choke points. instead of leaving multiple paths that can be traversed by mobs mine extra stone so there is a two high wall with a single way to get up. You can also halfslab an edge to make a 1 1/2 wall mobs can't jump up.

[Jesar]

I believe he means vertical choke points. instead of leaving multiple paths that can be traversed by mobs mine extra stone so there is a two high wall with a single way to get up. You can also halfslab an edge to make a 1 1/2 wall mobs can't jump up.

That's genius, and I'm stupid for never thinking of that. Also, I had another facepalm moment when I suddenly remembered I can use rope to descend into ravines without making an elevator.

[Splee999]

All right, in relation to the early game difficulty, has anyone figured out the best way to get your first blaze rods? I haven't been able to figure out a way to conquer the nether fortresses with my puny early game tech. Between the wither skeletons and the blazes, those nether fortresses just seem like death traps with shiny, shiny promises of blaze rods and eventual hibachis as bait.

[the_fodder]

All right, in relation to the early game difficulty, has anyone figured out the best way to get your first blaze rods? I haven't been able to figure out a way to conquer the nether fortresses with my puny early game tech. Between the wither skeletons and the blazes, those nether fortresses just seem like death traps with shiny, shiny promises of blaze rods and eventual hibachis as bait.

what level of tech are you going in with?

Bows are a must for me. Snypa4lyfe

[Sarudak]

Getting blaze rods is a lot easier now that you don't have to face a spawner. Blazes spawn at random on nether forts. Make sure you setup blocks at height 3 in the tunnels to prevent nether skellies from having free movement. Then hunt around until you see a blaze hanging out and snipe him from a distance. Once you think the coast is clear run in and grab the loot. If you're a little less patient then dig a tunnel to a spawner (for many of these you may have to come in underneath) and then try to lure blazes in one at a time. Make sure the tunnel has several turns and you have blocks to seal it off if things go poorly.

[Thorium-232]

Man, it's gotta warm FC's stone heart a little knowing that his mod is spawning impromptu support groups on his own forums.

[DiamondArms]

BTW: now with Therapy prescriptions

As for blaze hunting, FC's changes to spawn restrictions makes blaze hunting waaaay easier. If you can find a nether fort region, you can move around the outer edge and pick off any blazes and/or wither skels with a bow. No real need to enter the fort itself until you are better prepared.

[Mason11987]

I got my first blaze just by picking off one near the edge of the fort. We were in an open area and I could just circle-strafe to avoid his fireballs until I was confident enough to charge in with my iron sword. But really a bow would have been smarter, but even with that half-assed strategy I got enough blaze rods to make a couple hibachis, which is all you need to get up to steel, and one left over for a brewing stand which with the magma cubes I hunted should make a good fire resistance potion so I can work my way up to locking down a nether fort.

[DaveYanakov]

All right, in relation to the early game difficulty, has anyone figured out the best way to get your first blaze rods? I haven't been able to figure out a way to conquer the nether fortresses with my puny early game tech. Between the wither skeletons and the blazes, those nether fortresses just seem like death traps with shiny, shiny promises of blaze rods and eventual hibachis as bait.

Build lots of arches as you push forward into the fortress to block the three meter tall skeletons. Put down pillars to block fire from blazes as you approach to axe range. The key is to bring more dirt and cobble with you.

[Sarudak]

Axe range? Hopefully you're using a sword by the time you're trying for your first blaze rods...

[FlowerChild]

Ok, after the obligatory "haha...noob", I'll share some of my own hard-earned lessons for survival:

-Focus your early game hunting efforts on cows and sheep. I usually focus on sheep in particular. Cloth armor will save your ass in the early game, and sheep are easier to kill so they don't nuke your axe durability as quickly as cows. I usually try to get 4 leather and a shit load of wool in the first couple of days so that I can have a full set of cloth with leather boots, then switch focus to cattle once I have a good supply of stone (because of the axe durability thing), and start replacing individual pieces of cloth with leather until I have a full set. When I say "focus", what I personally do is kill pretty much anything that is in my path, but when choosing my path, I'll head towards packs of animals of the type I'm focusing on.

-With regards to leather armor, keep in mind that I've intentionally designed it to be tempting to save your leather until you have sheers as a risk/reward thing. Players that choose to do that are decreasing their chances of survival in order to obtain a longer-term reward. I personally don't take that risk, and if you're having a lot of trouble with the early game, I'd probably advise not to do so. Use your leather as you get it, and if you need to, go on a hunting expedition later to get more once you have your shears.

-You no longer need to punch 18 (actually, I think it was 19) logs when you restart. 14 now gets you a stone axe, with the recipe changes in the last release, and that reduction in log punching was partly done to help tweak that early game log-punching period without significantly changing the nature of it. I've personally switched to making one first as it also allows me to get a bit of hunting done on the first day, then only build a pick when I'm ready to settle for the night. Mining is a night-time activity anyways, so it doesn't hurt to reduce it in the daylight period of your first day, and animals are most abundant during that first day before the mobs move in to eat them.

-This may be personal style, but I have a new rule in that I don't descend to the bottom layer of strata until I have an iron sword (and usually full leather). I found myself dying way too often getting trapped against indestructible stone and pummeled by mobs, and I find the sword gives me just enough of an edge to get out of those situations. I'm *extremely* careful in navigating caves, but inevitably mistakes will be made, and having a little insurance for when that happens helps a lot in being able to recover. Keep in mind that you can play for hours, make one little mistake, and it will get you killed (and over a long enough time line, we'll all fuck up eventually), so being able to deal with it can make the difference between being able to keep going afterwards or spawning in a new location and going back to punching wood.

-I tend to build doorways like you do, and I don't think they've gotten me killed once. I do a couple of things with that though: first, I don't head out immediately when the sun rises. I pause by my doorway with it still blocked off and listen for the sound of mobs burning, or spiders hissing. You may be tempted to go out a little early to get a head start, and I'd strongly advise against that. I only go out once the burning stops, and if the spiders are hissing, I usually try to lure any that might be aggro out to kill them from my doorway. When I finally leave, I head straight out a good distance from the door (sometimes I even sprint if I have surplus food), before turning around to check if anything followed me (particularly creepers). Also, I focus my wood cutting on clear cutting all trees for a good distance around my entrance without replanting saplings (to prevent skellies taking shelter under them when the sun rises). Then, as I start building up a coal surplus, I start planting torches around the area to prevent the mobs from spawning. Finally of course, you'll want to build walls around the area to make it truly safe when you have the resources available to do so (but I personally feel that is now a mid-game activity rather than early).

-In general: don't rush. Rushing will get you killed, and you basically need to be patient and evaluate each new situation you get involved in before diving in. As others have said, if you're getting frustrated, this likely means you aren't considering things fully anymore due to that frustration. Take a breather, cool off, and try to approach your situation calmly and rationally, making sure to always ask yourself "what could I have done differently to prevent that?"

Anyways, those are my tips. I will now return to be role of saying "haha...noob" to any such complaints after this brief moment of weakness ;)

[DaveYanakov]

Axe range? Hopefully you're using a sword by the time you're trying for your first blaze rods...

I tend to rely on actual blocks for blocking. Swords are very nice to have but nine times in ten when I find a nether fort for my first rods I go in with nothing but weapons, building materials, what armor I can afford and a couple days worth of food. Setting up a new expansion base at spawn radius is far less painful to me than losing multiple ingots right at the point when I am looking forward to being able to recycle them.