Getting the first Nether Star is really boring. [SPOILERS]

[will_holmes]

A friend of mine and I are currently playing a co-operative world, and we've only just come to the point where we have a level 3 Priest who is asking for a Nether Star to level up and start providing Eyes of Ender. Up to this point, everything we do has been pretty engaging, but the update with Hardcore Villagers has added a stage to the game which has ended up extremely tedious; getting 3 Wither Skeleton Skulls. We've set up a trap for Wither Skeletons from the Chopping Block and Saw, which we know works because it kills them so quickly.

However, we've been luring around 70 Skeletons now and we've only managed to get a single skull, without including the numerous instances where we've failed to trap the skeleton or I fall in the trap myself, and the process is taking hours upon hours of doing the same thing over and over. We can't even use Nether Groth because of the lack of Silk Touch enchantments.

Making the trap is fun, as is luring the skeletons, but we have spent so long doing this that we're now finishing our sessions frustrated and bored.

[Sockthing]

I totally agree, gil and I have endlessly been trying to get skulls for our priest and no such luck.
We feel our world doesnt want us to give any. Or we are just very unlucky..

Also hanging in this situation has resulted in less playing in that world over the last few weeks.

[FlowerChild]

K, will take a look. From the above and some previous posts in the spoiler thread I'm getting the impression the chopping block mechanic may not be working as intended.

[FlowerChild]

BTW: Would you guys mind posting screenshots of your decapitation machines? There might be issues with particular setups at play.

[will_holmes]

Sure. The hopper's unpowered, and the only two blocks that move are the chopping block and the stone brick block. There is nothing directly above the saw. The Wither Skeleton drops in through a hole directly above the hopper.

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[FlowerChild]

And to be certain: you mentioned falling into the trap on occasion. When that happens is the death message chopping block related?

[will_holmes]

I've never actually died from it, triggering it is done manually from the outside. We're playing hardcore so not dying is a bit of a priority.

However, I'll go make a copy and run an experimental death for science. Be right back.

EDIT: Yep. Got put on the chopping block.

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[FlowerChild]

Ok, then the odds of collecting a skull from each skellie should be 10%, which is the same drop rate you get with a Battle Axe. If you really have killed 70 skeletons then, you've either gotten exceptionally unlucky in only getting one skull out of it, or something is off with the chopping mechanic.

Still, 10% may be a little low for this, but there's an unfortunate overlap here where I don't want to make the output large enough that it nullifies the desire to build an actual mob-trap for these things later on.

Will ponder.

In the meantime I will of course remind you that build an actual trap is a perfectly valid option here, will take care of the bulk of your problem, and will turn this into an interesting construction project rather than a cycle of repeatedly luring skelies.

[FlowerChild]

Ok, so I took a look at this this afternoon. Looks like what's happening is that a portion of the time, the skellies are being killed by suffocation damage, which means the bonus to head drops isn't applied in those cases, reducing the overall drop rate below what it should be. It's hard to estimate the exact percentage here, but I'd say it's somewhere upwards of 25%. Not really noticeable with a full fledged mob trap, but it would definitely make the semi-manual method more grindy than I'd like.

I'll put in some code tomorrow to make the saw damage "sticky" so that if a mob receives some and then is killed by suffocation it'll still count as a saw kill and applies the bonus. I may also up the bonus slightly to make it a little less annoying while not devaluing traps too much.

Will try to get that to you guys in the next couple of days.