My 1.8 observations

[FlowerChild]

Just wanted to start up this thread as I've logged a couple of hours on vanilla 1.8 now and will note some of my observations here, especially as they pertain to the mod.

Nothing major so far, but will add to this down the road. I'm playing on normal difficulty on a fresh world.

-Ran into an Enderman in a natural cave I dug into while digging my first shaft. Must admit he made me nervous with me trying to scoot around him without looking directly at him. Feels like an interesting addition so far if only for that.

-The terrain definitely feels a lot more epic. I haven't done much above-ground exploration yet, but have observed several massive mountains nearby my starting location, and I seem to be in some kind of swampy biome.

-Not much to say about the hunger/food system yet other than it feels a bit weird at present. It's like the system is intended to make things more "realistic", but healing when not hungry feels just as unnatural to me as healing a bunch when you eat (like it used to work), yet is less practical. Really not sure what the intent was here as a result. Will need to play with it more to really evaluate it. Obviously though, the stacks of 64 food items are going to require some major tweaking to work into the mod. It makes me quite happy that the Cauldron has developed to have so many secondary uses, as obviously the base functionality of it being a means to mass-cook no longer cuts it.

-Found a totally awesome cave system around bedrock level that has HUGE vertical extent (underground ravine?). I've never seen anything like this in Minecraft before, and I must admit with the fog kicking in (at what seems to be quite a reasonable distance), it gave me a very "Mines of Moria" kinda feeling. I like this aspect a lot.

[FlowerChild]

-I really don't like the opening/closing chests animation/sound. Inventory management was annoying enough in Minecraft without that damned sound (which seems to be MUCH louder than most other sounds in the game) everytime you open/close a chest. I find myself avoiding moving things around just because I hate the sound effect :\

-I don't much care for the implementation of the craft-all key. I think zombe's was much more reasonable. Crafting absolutely everything you can in a single click and automatically moving it all to your inventory is overkill IMO, and I've already had a few mishaps because of it. I think crafting a full-stack and putting it into your cursor is a much safer method of doing this.

[Gilberreke]

With the new hunger healing system, perhaps it's finally time to tap into hemp's medicinal qualities? ;)

I'm half-joking of course, but I'm kinda excited to see what you do with the hunger/food restrictions that are put into place. The cauldron still has its use in being able to cook multiple food sources at the same time of course and the fact that you can automate it somewhat.

[elustran]

Something else to realize is that factory farming might be broken by 1.8 (not sure if anybody has mentioned this elsewhere). Passive mobs only spawn once when a chunk is generated and never seem to despawn. Passive mobs do not just spontaneously spawn. Hopefully there will be a suitable (exploitable) animal husbandry system in 1.9, but meanwhile for 1.8, that means that all of the passive mob factory farming will have to be re-imagined somehow, or maybe that BTW will have to re-enable mob spawning.

Although, I anticipate being able to build something like the the biofuel system of the zombie survival boats, now that zombies drop rotted flesh...

Anyway, looking forward to what you come up with.

[Katalliaan]

With the new hunger healing system, perhaps it's finally time to tap into hemp's medicinal qualities? ;)

I'm half-joking of course, but I'm kinda excited to see what you do with the hunger/food restrictions that are put into place. The cauldron still has its use in being able to cook multiple food sources at the same time of course and the fact that you can automate it somewhat.

I had posted in another thread (about 1.8) about having potions that heal you instantly at the cost of hunger, whether from Mojang or a modder. Maybe I wasn't too far off; after all, potions are usually made from plants.

[Gilberreke]

I had posted in another thread (about 1.8) about having potions that heal you instantly at the cost of hunger, whether from Mojang or a modder. Maybe I wasn't too far off; after all, potions are usually made from plants.

I was joking man, let's not turn this into a "suggest stuff to FC thread". There's a place for that and it's not here. You might be just joking too, but better err on the safe side I guess :)

[redeyedmonstar]

very interested in your thoughts/feeling on passive mobs not respawning now and how that is going to effect the mod.

[Katalliaan]

I was joking man, let's not turn this into a "suggest stuff to FC thread". There's a place for that and it's not here. You might be just joking too, but better err on the safe side I guess :)

Yeah, it was a bit of a joke. However, apparently there are "potion effects" already in the game, and they include a heal effect (not used by anything in vanilla) and a "hunger" effect (from eating raw food or rotten flesh).

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I was already aware of the passive mob respawn changes. I read the change-log the day 1.8 came out and have been keeping up on the news.

This is really just about the additional observations I'm making based on actually *playing* with it :)

I'm also not at a stage where I'm going to really theorize about the changes I'm going to make to the mod to rebalance for the new Mojang stuff. At present, I'm just playing and taking notes on my experiences.

Another one:

-Clay is all over the frigging place (at least in swampy biomes). This will likely affect mod balance somewhat, as I do not believe I can consider it a rare or limiting resource any longer.

[Gilberreke]

-Clay is all over the frigging place (at least in swampy biomes). This will likely affect mod balance somewhat, as I do not believe I can consider it a rare or limiting resource any longer.

I consider this one a good thing, though it might mean you need to slightly up the ante for the crucible if you want it to be harder to create.

The rarity of clay always felt rather forced and relying upon it for BTW by extension felt awkward too

[Brethern]

I must admit with the fog kicking in (at what seems to be quite a reasonable distance), it gave me a very "Mines of Moria" kinda feeling. I like this aspect a lot.

Is it able to be modded out? My java skills (and attention span) are limited so I don't know and frankly trying to get an answer from MCF isn't possible. The ones who haven't got a clue spam driving the ones who know away.

[DaveYanakov]

There's even more clay on the bottom of oceans. If you can get down there and build a little diving bell sort of thing, you can fill an entire chest with clay blocks in pretty short order.

Ravines seem to spawn at all heights. I've run into a couple weird ones so far. One extended down through bedrock and about 10 meters overhead. Only sign that it was a ravine instead of a cave was that it ran fairly straight for 120 meters. The other one was a long rip in the surface about 100 meters that varied between 8 and 12 meters in depth rather than the more usual 25-30 meter plunges I've seen. The majority of them appear to spawn with at least 10 meters of surface over top of them.

[Gilberreke]

Is it able to be modded out?

Yeah, sure. Try asking in the Forge thread for a hook, so it can be added as a small tweak to another mod (or standalone) easier

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I agree that the clay thing is a nice change (kinda sorta...I think he might of gone a bit overboard), just noted it because it will likely require rebalancing for the mod. It doesn't seem to be just limited to swampy biomes either, as I just took quite an expedition and noticed it pretty much along every shore I moved along regardless of biome. I felt in no way compelled to stop and harvest it because it was so plentiful, finding it pretty much lost all significance. It's kindof a non-resource now unless I suppose if you're in the middle of a huge land-mass with absolutely no water around.

On that note:

-Boats are a much more important part of the game, and a lot more fun to use now too, with the river systems and such.

-If it weren't for their limited range, I might even consider crafting a map at this point, as the terrain is much vaster and more interesting. Given that they cover such a small area though, they're probably even less useful now than they were before.

[FlowerChild]

-Is it just me or do vines only get harvested if you *left* click on them with the sheers? Frigging weird if so.

[DaveYanakov]

I like that clay is as plentiful as it is for two reasons. The big one is that I've been using vases stacked up into pillars for a lot of my builds now. They make excellent columns, especially with the various colours available. The other one is that I really like to play with the clay soldiers mod on occasion so having plenty of spare clay around makes it less of a tradeoff.

Yes, vines are harvested with shears as if you're mining them. The same way shears work for picking up wool blocks.

[Mrchaim]

I think at this point, a Minimap mod with a good waypoint system is almost required, honestly (Especially since with a well setup waypoint system, it allows you to very precisely target the creation of netherportals and where they lead - a late game feature, for sure, but a really valuable one). It's just a far more reliable option than either the compass or the map, which is something of a shame.

Vines: I've been able to harvest them by beating them to death with a shear like any tool. Is that what you mean?

Boats: I'd be more enmoured of the addtional need to use them if they didnt still explodeat the drop of a hat, honestly. I want to like them,and it's really cool to have way more space to go sailing with them in, but they're still hideously fragile, and in vM, there's just no good way to build a dock or the ilk i've found.

As it is, i dealt with the "lake travel" issue just by building my base on the lake/into it's foundations. Works pretty well, so far (And makes it basically immune to endermen/creepers, which is a nice bonus)

Clay: I honestly am yet to find a real use for all the clay i've accumlated just building my base - Stone bricks are easier to create, and more asthetically pleasing in my opinion. (I belive they're the same strength and toughness as normal bricks as well, which again, is a pleasent bonus)

[DaveYanakov]

It's actually pretty easy to build an automatic launching ramp with 9-11 sticky pistons. It works for recovery too. River navigation can still be a pain if you accidentally brush up against a bank and break your boat. Having a way to prevent that would be awesome. That said, I really, really like the seed I'm playing. The oceans just keep going for kilometers and you can count the number of (tiny) islands with your shoes on.

[Katalliaan]

The shears works the same way if you want to harvest leaves or tall grass. Getting wool off sheep seems to be the oddity.

[elustran]

I think at this point, a Minimap mod with a good waypoint system is almost required, honestly

Why not just use a minecart system, possibly expanded via a Nether rail for longer distance travel?

[TyberAlyx]

healing when not hungry feels just as unnatural to me as healing a bunch when you eat (like it used to work), yet is less practical.

Maybe this will change when potions arrived?

[finite8]

healing when not hungry feels just as unnatural to me as healing a bunch when you eat (like it used to work), yet is less practical.

Maybe this will change when potions arrived?

I actually quite like this feature and has made cave spelunking more fun. I always hated the "chow down on cooked pork and heal instantly" thing. Now there is more of a "Take time to recover and luick your wounds" feel to combat which is good. This combined with blocking makes for a good and flexible combat experience.

It also use to be harder to mine because you had to weigh up how important those 4 x hearts were as it potentially took up a perfectly good slot that could hold 64 x iron. The fact that you now heal slowly over time feels well balanced to me. It also adds a proper "Survival" mechanic to the game. it forces a more creative design of your buildings as you now need to factor in food collection.

[Brethern]

healing when not hungry feels just as unnatural to me as healing a bunch when you eat (like it used to work), yet is less practical.

Maybe this will change when potions arrived?

I actually quite like this feature and has made cave spelunking more fun. I always hated the "chow down on cooked pork and heal instantly" thing. Now there is more of a "Take time to recover and luick your wounds" feel to combat which is good. This combined with blocking makes for a good and flexible combat experience.

It also use to be harder to mine because you had to weigh up how important those 4 x hearts were as it potentially took up a perfectly good slot that could hold 64 x iron. The fact that you now heal slowly over time feels well balanced to me. It also adds a proper "Survival" mechanic to the game. it forces a more creative design of your buildings as you now need to factor in food collection.

Since I normally play on peaceful I couldn't careless about how combat works. The only time I'm off peaceful is when I need my mob grinder working. And frankly that blocking, eating animation and hunger could have been bug fixes.

[Mrchaim]

Why not just use a minecart system, possibly expanded via a Nether rail for longer distance travel?

If i'm understanding the question correctly...

Effort and investment of resources, basically, as well as travel speed. To match the speed of travel by netherportal, you'd have to do something like a minecart-based Steve accelerator. (Where you rig up multiple carts in clicking range of each other, and simply "leap" from one after another to travel even faster than a redstone signal.)

That's both a ton of resources, and a hell of a lot of effort to build it. Compare to rigging up netherportals, which while they require a diamond pickaxe to build them netherside, are still pretty easy to put up, and the fact that the nether's honestly not that hard to travel through (And you can easily ghast-proof the travel-ways with cobblestone if you really feel the need to - although i suspect with the new bow mechanics, Ghasts will somewhat lack in challenge)... there's just not a good argument other than how hap-hazard Portals tend to be for linking up properly. And as said, with a minimap mod, that issue goes away.

[finite8]

Why not just use a minecart system, possibly expanded via a Nether rail for longer distance travel?

If i'm understanding the question correctly...

Effort and investment of resources, basically, as well as travel speed. To match the speed of travel by netherportal, you'd have to do something like a minecart-based Steve accelerator. (Where you rig up multiple carts in clicking range of each other, and simply "leap" from one after another to travel even faster than a redstone signal.)

That's both a ton of resources, and a hell of a lot of effort to build it. Compare to rigging up netherportals, which while they require a diamond pickaxe to build them netherside, are still pretty easy to put up, and the fact that the nether's honestly not that hard to travel through (And you can easily ghast-proof the travel-ways with cobblestone if you really feel the need to - although i suspect with the new bow mechanics, Ghasts will somewhat lack in challenge)... there's just not a good argument other than how hap-hazard Portals tend to be for linking up properly. And as said, with a minimap mod, that issue goes away.

On the topic of ghasts no longer being a threat, I'm looking forward to FC implementing the lens. If it ends up working like he hopes (with an entity standing in front of it blocking the signal), It would be possible to rig it up to dispenser to fire arrows at a wayward Ghast when they trip the lens beam. Ghast Grinder AHOY!