Preparing for death and Hardcore Spawn
Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2020 10:27 pm
Hardcore Spawn seems to me to be one of the more fundamental parts of BTW's design: it gives death a very large cost, and reinforces a theme of slowly building up and conquering the dangers of the world. Given that, it makes sense that *responding* to death--both the actual event, and the threat of it--is something that would drive a lot of players' decisions throughout the game. This has only become more true with the recent (past 1-2 years) changes to early- and mid- game which make the time to build a new base up to compass tech significantly longer.
For those who have played a lot, especially with recent versions: How do *you* handle death? In particular:
1. When you die, do you "rush" to get a compass ASAP so you can get back to your main base? Does this mean you skip some steps you'd normally take when starting a fresh world? Do you take more risks in a hardcore spawn, to e.g. get redstone fast? In general, how long does it take you to get back to a main base?
2. How developed does a base need to be before you prioritize returning to it (i.e. label it as your primary base), rather than building a "new" main base at your hardcore spawn location? Or do you always try to return to original spawn so you can find your primary base with a compass?
3. What sorts of preparation do you make for deaths, if any? Do you build lots of waypoints and/or hidey-holes that can help you survive and find your way back to your main base without building up from scratch? If so, how do you space those out such that you can reliably find them, especially as the HC Spawn radius increases as you progress?
I'm curious to think how others think about this, since it's something that feels so important to the game design but I struggle with a lot personally. I personally find a lot of stress from death, and the prospect of restarting from (sort-of) square one kills my motivation to keep playing BTW for a while when I do die. I'd love to learn from others' experience!
Also, if it's not clear--I'm mostly thinking about single-player, as I think multi-player changes a lot of the relevant calculations here.
For those who have played a lot, especially with recent versions: How do *you* handle death? In particular:
1. When you die, do you "rush" to get a compass ASAP so you can get back to your main base? Does this mean you skip some steps you'd normally take when starting a fresh world? Do you take more risks in a hardcore spawn, to e.g. get redstone fast? In general, how long does it take you to get back to a main base?
2. How developed does a base need to be before you prioritize returning to it (i.e. label it as your primary base), rather than building a "new" main base at your hardcore spawn location? Or do you always try to return to original spawn so you can find your primary base with a compass?
3. What sorts of preparation do you make for deaths, if any? Do you build lots of waypoints and/or hidey-holes that can help you survive and find your way back to your main base without building up from scratch? If so, how do you space those out such that you can reliably find them, especially as the HC Spawn radius increases as you progress?
I'm curious to think how others think about this, since it's something that feels so important to the game design but I struggle with a lot personally. I personally find a lot of stress from death, and the prospect of restarting from (sort-of) square one kills my motivation to keep playing BTW for a while when I do die. I'd love to learn from others' experience!
Also, if it's not clear--I'm mostly thinking about single-player, as I think multi-player changes a lot of the relevant calculations here.