I am tempted (as a completely different topic of the previous 2 posts) to make the darklands even harder than they are now without the torches. I have come across 2 plugins recently that allow a fine grained list of additional factors that make stuff even harder. While I do not plan to make it so hard that it becomes impossible, I am not sure that the current darklands is really that much harder than the normal game, now that we have ender chests etc. The tow plugins are Monster Apocalypse and Extra Hard Mode.
If you are interested in this topic, please reply here with a comment and name the 1-3 most interesting features that you think would make the darklands more hard, but also more fun. We can then decide if we want to do that, and what we want to change.
As always, if we change something, we are always free to learn and improve it in case it becomes too hard or otherwise not as we want it. So please keep an open mind for this.
Extra hard mode looks and sounds cool. Monster apocalypse, not so much.
agreed
Add both so I can tally up how many deaths players get in the Darklands >:)
This sounds really cool. However, I feel like it may get old for some players.
It would be cool to try, at the very least. Also it will affect the economy a lot in the long-run.
I think that some things like making the darklands always dark makes sense and stronger mobs would be a fun challenge but I think other things such as making stone harder to mine is very bad idea because mining in darklands is my #1 source of money and supplies. I also don’t like mobs being able to destroy their way through structures because monster spawners in mineshafts for example would be a nightmare when they tunnel out into a nearby shaft and converge on me.
Also…
-If all blocks fell like sand and gravel, mining would be so difficult that it would make it not worth it to mine at all in darklands.
-Endermen teleporting a player could easily get that person killed and in darklands it’s a pain to have to find where you died in cave systems.
-Having some of our inventory disappear when we die is especially bad for obvious reasons and if mobs will be harder it’s a bad combo.
-Zombies can come back to life would be annoying, especially around a spawner.
-Cave-ins are a bad idea for those who mine, especially at low levels because you never know where a cave will be and branch mining would be impossible.
-Mobs exploding on death is just annoying cause in mining they come at you out of nowhere sometimes and having the luxury of being far away and holding a bow doesn’t happen often.
-Mobs being able to run at you fast and attack from far away will make getting a long way out in darklands unlikely without use of skyway or minecart because there are a lot of mobs and a lot of distance to cover.
-Turning off redstone torches or making them dimmer would be a pain because it’s already so hard to see with just redstone and glowstone is expensive to use for the majority of lighting.
As I said above though, I’m not all negative. I DO think that darklands could benefit from a few fun changes such as..
-More mobs and spawners
-Making mobs harder to kill by needing to be delt more damage.
-Turning off day would make the darklands true to it’s name.
-Food being harder to grow by dropping less wheat or melon slices would make it feel like more of a desperate place to be by not having a comfortable amount of food. I am not in favor of melon slices not being able to be made into seeds though cause that’s my favorite food to use in darklands but that might just be me.
-It’s not a challenge but I think bigger cave systems would be really cool to see.
I’m starting to get off topic now so I’ll stop here. :)
I agree that the Darklands are probably a tad too easy. The server’s economy has encountered an extreme surplus of just about everything (less a few rare items) because the darklands are so easy to farm for resources. That and the raffle style drawings from voting which are less of a culprit than darklands. I’m down with these changes. Now the zombies potentially being able to dig through anything (assuming this means bedrock as well) might be a little overkill but then again, Darklands are not meant to be easy. On top of that, the stability to the market might be good for the server.
Having reviewed both monster apocalypse just looks a bit over the top. extra hard mode looks well considered and clever. Not being able to mine stone with a pickaxe but instead having to make tnt would be a much more interesting mechanic.
Maybe we could have a trial dl under the extra hard mode? See what it was *actually* like.
I am in full agreement with you psi, I rather enjoyed the ideas and mechanics in extra hard mode, giving many near-death encounters and a true struggle while monster apocalypse just seems to be a horrid blood bath with very little progress.
I also think that we should reenable torches again if we go with the Extra Hard Mode. I think the idea that there is less oxygen in the caves is a cool idea.
I really like the ideaa, but it’s pretty clear we’d need to configure either plugin to get it to work with the right balance. Some of the ideas in either plugin are wayy overpowered for a resource world (as Arielia alluded to), and it’s not clear from the configs exactly how much work it’ll be to get it right.
I agree on making it harder but maybe since you have the protected place that only citizen and higher could build in maybe you could make that a safe zone. That would be good becuase if you getting attacked you could run there to regain health or eat food.
As infrequently as I use the darklands, I’m probably going to make a mine there when i run out of room in my empire mine. And I will not be able to stand the bigger cave systems. Also, exploding mobs will cause a lot of lag. I don’t know about you, but I hate lag. So i think that this is making it a little too hard for bad survivalists like me. But I would like something like a thirst mod.