Experiences of a long time player returning
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2021 3:43 pm
So a few years ago I tried to do a post AAAAHHHHH play through that ended in a death spiral. I'm pretty sure that game is unrecoverable without cheating. That pretty effectively put me off the game for a long time. With the idea of the mod being open sourced I got a little excited about the idea of playing with the code. In the meantime that got me excited about playing again. I'm on my 5th Hardcore Spawn.
My initial run I got an iron axe and pick (also shovels and swords from zombies). I had 6 hampers and some nice resources stored. It all ended while trying to cave for diamonds when I forgot that skellies shoot through lava. Instead of protecting me that lava flow was my death.
My next spawn was relatively quick to not being able to dig a shelter. I left finding shelter a bit late and every place I tried to dig was grass -> rocky dirt -> loose dirt -> stone which is of course impossible to deal with using a stone shovel. Trying to get back to my old shelter killed me.
My third spawn I was more careful. I spawned in a snowy forest and through careful management moved to a mountain biome where I got up to an iron pick. Which I promply lost while caving when a creeper dropped down on me from above/behind. I left no usable iron tools behind but did get sugarcane so a couple full stacks of meat in baskets.
My fourth spawn I spawned in a jungle. I was frustrated and ran around the nearby mountain biome a bit looking for signs of previous Steves. I took a break and came back to try to salvage things. Barely survived the night but pulled my meat off the campfire prematurely twice because I couldn't see well enough because there was a block above the fire. Tried to eat raw meat and got unlicky three times with food poisoning. Died from starvation in the morning.
Fifth spawn. Again in a snowy forest but does not appear to be the same. Found a nice hidey hole in an open surface cave with a dirt deposit. Got a bone club and two string gifted to me in the morning so things are going alright.
Learnings and Strategy
1. Play cautiously. Ensure shelter before overreaching to grab a little food. While caving only grab resources when you feel confident in your safety.
2. Hidey-holes are death traps. Upgrade to something with a lookout ASAP. Bonus points if it's close enough to the water to fish. Fishing is a great supplement to your food especially with the cautious play style
3. Iron Picks are not King. Yes they are the awesome. But caving the third strata is so dangerous consider creating other iron tools first to improve your infrastructure. An axe gives you more storage and base building potential. Getting hoe and shears will let you start hemp production. Shovels give you so much dirt + gravel for road and base building. It's so disheartening to lose your iron pick and have no progress to come back to. Infrastructure investments may feel less meaningful than goild/redstone/diamond but they are safer and will provide you something to come home to when you find a base after HCS.
4. When you die take a break. For me this is critical because if I try to play frustrated I'll do stupid things. Do something else or play something else. Come back when you're ready to tackle building up a new base. And remember that every bit of infrastructure or value you leave in the world is something to come back to.
Observations on the state of the Game
Overall I think the early game is really really good. The adjustments since AAAHHHH make the game feel more fair generally. One element of continuing frustration is that I would like to get to the nether to open up the midgame but everytime I get my iron pick I die caving. When I say every time I really mean twice as a major element of the frustration is that in order to try and learn from my mistakes I have to go through many hours of pre-iron play again. Since returning from HCS it is generally expected to have a compass that feels a little out of reach given that is after the part I die on. That said the above perspective adjustments have helped attenuate my frustration somewhat. Also I've forced myself to not restart from a new world which was my goto before.
Any tips or strategies others have on surviving the early game with sanity intact? :D
My initial run I got an iron axe and pick (also shovels and swords from zombies). I had 6 hampers and some nice resources stored. It all ended while trying to cave for diamonds when I forgot that skellies shoot through lava. Instead of protecting me that lava flow was my death.
My next spawn was relatively quick to not being able to dig a shelter. I left finding shelter a bit late and every place I tried to dig was grass -> rocky dirt -> loose dirt -> stone which is of course impossible to deal with using a stone shovel. Trying to get back to my old shelter killed me.
My third spawn I was more careful. I spawned in a snowy forest and through careful management moved to a mountain biome where I got up to an iron pick. Which I promply lost while caving when a creeper dropped down on me from above/behind. I left no usable iron tools behind but did get sugarcane so a couple full stacks of meat in baskets.
My fourth spawn I spawned in a jungle. I was frustrated and ran around the nearby mountain biome a bit looking for signs of previous Steves. I took a break and came back to try to salvage things. Barely survived the night but pulled my meat off the campfire prematurely twice because I couldn't see well enough because there was a block above the fire. Tried to eat raw meat and got unlicky three times with food poisoning. Died from starvation in the morning.
Fifth spawn. Again in a snowy forest but does not appear to be the same. Found a nice hidey hole in an open surface cave with a dirt deposit. Got a bone club and two string gifted to me in the morning so things are going alright.
Learnings and Strategy
1. Play cautiously. Ensure shelter before overreaching to grab a little food. While caving only grab resources when you feel confident in your safety.
2. Hidey-holes are death traps. Upgrade to something with a lookout ASAP. Bonus points if it's close enough to the water to fish. Fishing is a great supplement to your food especially with the cautious play style
3. Iron Picks are not King. Yes they are the awesome. But caving the third strata is so dangerous consider creating other iron tools first to improve your infrastructure. An axe gives you more storage and base building potential. Getting hoe and shears will let you start hemp production. Shovels give you so much dirt + gravel for road and base building. It's so disheartening to lose your iron pick and have no progress to come back to. Infrastructure investments may feel less meaningful than goild/redstone/diamond but they are safer and will provide you something to come home to when you find a base after HCS.
4. When you die take a break. For me this is critical because if I try to play frustrated I'll do stupid things. Do something else or play something else. Come back when you're ready to tackle building up a new base. And remember that every bit of infrastructure or value you leave in the world is something to come back to.
Observations on the state of the Game
Overall I think the early game is really really good. The adjustments since AAAHHHH make the game feel more fair generally. One element of continuing frustration is that I would like to get to the nether to open up the midgame but everytime I get my iron pick I die caving. When I say every time I really mean twice as a major element of the frustration is that in order to try and learn from my mistakes I have to go through many hours of pre-iron play again. Since returning from HCS it is generally expected to have a compass that feels a little out of reach given that is after the part I die on. That said the above perspective adjustments have helped attenuate my frustration somewhat. Also I've forced myself to not restart from a new world which was my goto before.
Any tips or strategies others have on surviving the early game with sanity intact? :D