This week we released a side snapshot for Java containing a work in progress version of the Deep Dark feature set, including the Deep Dark biome, Ancient City structures, Sculk blocks and...THE WARDEN!
As well as your general feedback, the team also prepared some questions that they would love to hear your thoughts on after playing:
- Was the Warden challenging? If so, what did you enjoy / not enjoy about your encounters with the Warden?
- Describe any encounters you had with the Warden - did they feel enjoyable?
- Were you able to figure out how to sneak around the Warden?
- Were you able to loot chests in the Ancient Cities without being killed by the Warden?
- Describe how the darkness effect felt
- In your encounters with the Warden, how scared did you feel?
For more details on in this snapshot and how to access it, check out the blog post over on Minecraft.net.
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I have 2 ideas, both unrelated.
my first idea is to have the warden drop it's head when you kill it
no exp, no achievement, nothing else, it just dies and drops it's head, which could be placed down like other heads and used as intimidating decor. (maybe it 'fake' glows when connected to powered redstone, like the texture on it's horns lights up but it doesnt give off light?)
my second idea is to make the warden fire/lava resistent (and to fix it's AI in water)
(seriously, it broke down in water while i was playing around with it.) perhaps it could swim through lava like it's water? maaaaybe have a seperate swimming animation for it going through lava/water? it would look really wack and remove the scare factor if it just hobbled over like any other mob trying to swim, especially with it's unique walk animation.Pues a mi parecer los bloques de la piedra profunda refordada estan bien. Los sculls igual.La cantidad a la que se propaga el skull con el catalizador esmuy grande pero cree que esta bien.Las animaciones igual aunque creo que se pueden mejorar. El warden en si es bueno pero es muy facil evadirlo haciendo una torre de dos bloques, el peligro y daño estan bien. A mi parecer todo esta bien pero creo que se puede mejorar. Aaay los sonidos si me aterraron a oscuras jaja.
I noticed that with the swift sneak enchantment, you can sprint and sneak at the same time. If this is a feature, it is very janky, as both default keybinds are right next to each other.
In my opinion, summoning the warden should be easier. As it stands right now, as long as you're sneaking, it's easy to avoid spawning the warden, trivializing the ancient cities. I'd love to see noise-related traps in the ancient cities, to make navigating them more interesting.
Chests are easy to loot without summoning the warden thanks to wool occlusion.
Once the warden does get summoned though, the gameplay completely shifts for the better. Trying to sneak your way around the warden is a blast, and if it does notice you, running through the halls of the ancient city is terrifying and exhilarating. I do hope that, when finished, it has some sort of method to counter some obvious cheese methods.
There isn't much to say about the darkness effect, it does it's job and it does it well. I think it'd be cool if it made light sources around the player temporarily go out (torches burning out, redstone lamps turning off, etc)
After waiting over a year for the deep dark, this snapshot absolutely lives up to the hype. I can't wait for the full update!
Heres 10 ways on how to cheese the warden... (tldr: the warden should be able to hit you when your like 3-4 blocks higher than it or at least knock you off or something)
1: pillar up 4 blocks and go afk
2: pillar up 4 blocks and wait for a mob to spawn
3: pillar up 4 blocks and place lava
4: pillar up 4 blocks and throw a snowball and just tower out of the deep dark
5: pillar up 4 blocks and crit it until it dies
5: pillar up 4 blocks and shoot a bow at it
7: pillar up 4 blocks and place water on the warden and run
8: pillar up 4 blocks and mine the skulk sensors
9: pillar up 4 blocks and spawn a boat on the other side of the warden and run
and finally, 10: pillar up 4 blocks and throw a snowball / shoot an arrow away from the warden and run
This is adding on to what someone else posted, but I would love for there to be sort of map or way to find ancient cities. Otherwise they're not only very rare but also hidden underground, unlike other rare structures. Maybe you could be able to find a map to them in villages or buy them from the cartographers. Or you could find them in woodland mansions / stronghold / dungeon / mineshaft chests. Just a suggestion
Honestly, I expected a lot more skulk shriekers. Currently you can just run around a lot of the ancient cities without even a care in the world, which kinda removes a lot of the horror. However, to balance out this change, I would suggest increasing the amount of shriekers needed to spawn the warden by a little bit. Other then that, you've already heard this a billion times but the general loot needs a buff. Maybe not end city level like many are suggesting, but maybe like bridge bastion level (more in the sense of loot rarity instead of the actual loot tables.
For me there was a problem: bats spawned, triggered the Sculk sensors and the Scrikers, they summoned the warden on their own. I didn't make a sound, how am I supposed to sneak around if they make noice?
When the warden came it was quite terrifying, especially since I couldn't see a thing. But after a while i noticed, he wasn't interested in me at all, he just went after the bats! He never left, so I was forced to piller upp and kill him with my bow. The fight was to easy... He should be able to climb. I decided to turn of mob spawning so I could have an uninterrupted experience.
For some reason after the first warden, only one Scrieker had to be activated to summon a new. When the came I easily beat them at a distance, even at ground level my punch bow kept him at a distance.
The loot was very disappointing, not worth the time it took to get it. I couldn't even find the new enchantment. Later I flew around in creative, looked in every chest and found noting. It needs to be at least one in every city, since they are so rare. The only thing worth something to me would be the skeleton skulls and the reinforced deepslate frame. But if you remove it's ability to be moved by pistons it will be worthless as well. Since then I cant use it to trap an wither in it so I can make a cobble farm.
To be fair this is a experimental snapshot, and it amazing, and have never been more scared in Minecraft. But some things takes the experience away from me and they have to change.
Alot of people can agree that the warden in its current state is very easy to defeat if you just simply pillar up 3 blocks and all he can do Is look up and accept his fate. I had an idea (it might be hard to implement) but as the warden is digging up you have 2 or 3 other smaller minnions that get summoned with him and will act like little gremlins who's soul job is to knock you down from high places. I'd see them having the same ability as spiders. If that's not possible then having the warden have some sort of projectile or like a scream that pushes you back would be great.
I believe that the warden should be able to slowly pull you towards it with its chest like maybe when you're up to three blocks or in a two-block area, the warden should try to pull you out of those areas by pulling you in if you keep making a sound and if it smells you right there. It could make a sound indicating when it's about to pull you in close maybe as an inhale.
Suggestion for the Warden: Currently when you see the Warden you simply create a tower of blocks and it's safe for you, I'm my opinion would be cool add the mechanic that if the Warden knows where the player is but can't reach the player he disappears and reappears right on the block that the player is
I don't know if it's a bug or a feature, but apparently, the Warden is classified as an undead, which to a certain extent makes sense, but just why? It has souls, but the Skulk seems to be something alive...more similar to Nether Wart
I really liked, but there's really no point to go after the ancient cities, no actual good loot, and also, it's very easy to kill the warden, just pillar up 3 blocks, also, the ancient cities and the deep dark biome are very far away from the spawn, i think we should have a explorer map to find the ancient cities
The Swift sneak enchantment should be more common in the citys I couldn't find a single one. I looked in every chest. I also think they should be applied to the leggings instead of the boots. I will not give upp dept strider for fast sneaking. The boots have to many special enchantments either way, and the leggings hs none. I also kind of makes sense, when you sneak in Minecraft, you bend your legs not your feet.
Should the warden spawn above ground?
Ancient cities need more variety, right now I find it to be a lot of hallway walking, and the chest areas are cool but a bit small. I want some buildings rather than 6x6 ruins. Also there should be increased Diamond Spawn in the deep dark biome since it really is not worth mining there considering the warden and the sculk. I think there should be at least 1 more sculk block, perhaps something that can help you navigate to an ancient city?
The warden cant swim
Feedback:
1) There should be more shriekers, especially around chests (It is too easy to walk around the DeepDark)
2) The wool side-paths that are generated make traversing the city pretty easy
3) The deepslate cave walls around the city do not look natural (It looks like the city was copied and pasted underground)
4) Small deep dark biomes are empty - Would be cool to have smaller ruins with a loot chest with less valuable loot than in the city
5) Obviously the warden can be cheesed and there is only 1 unique item in the deep dark (but I'm assuming there are plans for these)
6) The warden scream gives you time to run away and escape (Would be cool if the warden will go back underground, but then also rise up in front of you if you somehow escape)
7) The deep dark should definitely have a eerie soundtrack a long with some ambience
I hope to see some of these come to life in latter snapshots! Fantastic job with the current deep dark!
Really weird bug is happening where the portal in the middle of the Deep Dark City isn’t lighting. Hope this can be fixed in the next snapshot.
-The warden mob is a really scary mob along with darkness effect
-The warden mob is a balancing mob but very easy to counter with 4 blocks, lava or water. (a tip I give is to make the player hit a specific point like the "heart".
-The lost cities are very beautiful and we know you are improving, but there is still no objective for the player to explore the lost cities. It will thrill the first maybe second time but if you don't have something valuable or something else cof* cof* a portal for other dimension cof* cof* , the player will not want to explore further.
-The other blocks are wonderful and the vibration mechanics add a different level of fun gameplay
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The warden would be challenging if it had a way to counter the pillaring strategy. Even just climbing to a high or low place can prevent it from being a threat since it gets stuck on a cliff. Digging down is also effective if you go deep enough. I know a counter to the pillaring strategy is in the works, but I also feel like the warden shouldn't care about fall damage when enraged.
All in all, I really enjoyed my encounters with the warden as long as it didn't get stuck like I previously mentioned.
I was able to figure out how to sneak around the warden, although it too some trial and error as well as a death or two.
I was also able to loot the chests. Again, it took a couple of tries but I think that's alright.
The darkness effect behaves a little weirdly when combined with night vision. Also, I feel the radius that the warden can apply darkness to players should be increased since it tends to wear off before the warden goes back under but otherwise it's good.
I was terrified whenever that thing crawled out of the ground and remained that way until it either crawled back in or got stuck on a ledge or a wall.
Overall, I think the warden just needs to ignore fall damage heights when it's angered, that way it can chase targets over steep ledges. By the way, if the shriekers are triggered by a mob, they should really activate and summon the warden no matter how far away the player is, this could open up a lot of possibilities.
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I feel that Swift sneak enchantment is a little too rare right now. I had to loot 2 cities to get enough books(one in creative because it took a long time to loot the 1st one and I only got 3 level 1 books). This is fair for single player worlds but would be too rare for servers.
Also, I know this is probably too early in development and this might get fixed but there seems to be a bug with the enchantment - when you are sprinting and then you press sneak, your speed is slightly faster than sneaking when walking (both cases while wearing Swift sneak 3, I didn't test for all 3 levels). So basically sneaking speed should be the same irrespective of when you activate it (while walking or sprinting). Also the Sculk sensor considers it to be sneaking (doesn't activate) in both the cases (which is intended, but one is faster than the other).As horrifying as the warden is, it's unbelievably easy to cheese and avoid. In my opinion, it needs some way to break blocks. I killed it on my first try, without knowing what to expect at all.
Overall, I think the presentation for the ancient cities is pretty well done, especially the blindness effect. I couldn't figure out how the shrieker blocks worked, though, and I felt like I had to go a little out of my way to spawn the warden.
When the warden isn't being easily cheesed, the chase sequence I had was terrifying. It all came to an end, however, when I blocked myself up with a few blocks at the end of a tunnel. Suddenly, the warden wasn't nearly as terrifying.
Changes need to be made to the Warden's movement so that it cannot be so easily cheesed. For instance, water should not in any way impede the warden, and it should have some sort of jumping/climbing ability to deal with players standing on poles and shooting arrows.
Ideally it would be immune to arrows and lava to prevent this cheesing. The idea seems to be avoid it rather than to kill it, and so this shouldn't impact the gameplay in any way, but rather make it more immersive. It ideally could also have a feature to crawl to navigate to players who attempt to hide themselves inside a 2x1 hole, which is too short for the warden at the moment.
Generally the Warden is very fascinating, but lots needs to be done to actually make it an avoidance challenge, rather than just standing on a pole and dumping lava on it, or tunnelling 2 or 3 blocks and then whacking the warden, who cannot reach the player then..
You can run away from the pretty easily during the phase where he comes up from the ground, I found that as long as I was not in an enclosed area when he arose then I could escape. Once he was chasing me I thought it was exciting in that horror game way. There was one thing that I'm not sure to whether it was intentional or not but during a chase I went through a 1 wide 2 block high hole, (a hole the size of the player) I thought if I went through it he wouldn't be able to follow me because his size, but he did fit through the hole, like I said I don't know if it is intentional that he can fit through these smaller holes in order to chase the player (and it did make the chase interesting) but it was also weird seeing his model clip through the wall. Now when it comes to the ancient cities, the only thing I would change is maybe the loot in the chests, since it feels like ancient cities and the warden are end game content, I feel like the loot in the chests should be beefed up just a bit, (with things like enchanted apples and other things). Overall I love the feel of both the warden and the ancient cities, (the wool integrated into the walls is also useful). 10/10 much spook
I have a variety of pros and cons to how the Deep Dark as a whole is implemented.
1. The Warden is without a doubt a stressful threat. Navigating an ancient city or cave and triggering a Shrieker on accident made me go into a panic a couple of times, because I knew a Warden was a second away from spawning. Every time this happened I found a hiding spot and used methods to distract it, either using Iron Golems to take its focus off of me or using a Thumper strategy, by using a redstone mechanism. It's more terrifying to see a Warden get flung by a pack of Golems. I understand an anti-cheesing mechanic is planned so I won't go into how easy it is to avoid it, but I will say the Darkness effect is just perfect.
2. The Deep Dark itself is the coolest concept of a Cave Biome, however restricting its existence to specific structures and around it is what kills its mystique for me. Every time you will see a growth of Sculk you know there's an Ancient City nearby, and it would be better to occasionally find splotches of Deep Dark in standard caves to keep the spice of spelunking up.
3. The loot in Ancient Cities is not worth it to risk going into the dangerous circumstances. Swift Sneak is a great enchantment but I would also like to find Diamonds, extremely rare enchantment books like Mending and Fortune, and other rarities to match the level of risk, especially since these structures are going to play a critical role in the Wild Update.I think that the biome itself needs some work. For one it spawns higher up than expected which Im assuming is just a bug. It also seems very lack luster. Maybe if it had some other new block to fill in between the sculck patches or if sculk was more abundant it would look better or some type of sculk hanging from the ceiling or floor built up like in the dripstone biomes.
I also think it needs to have some other unique mobs to fill it out. It seems very easy to get through without alerting the warden so another mob to fight would definitely make it scarier and make it more likely you trigger a sculk sensor. My final nit pick is the loot. The ancient cities need something much more unique than the swift sneak enchant. It is really only useful in the deep dark. If you added something that was really good and can change the game a bit more like a new weapon jt would be more worth while. It just seems like it isnt very necessary to go there right now. These arent huge problems and it is early in bevelopement so I assume alot will change but these are just some things to consider.I think the cities should have more variety with the sizes of the structures, some wide or small, and some that are tall, built up by floors (to give it a more city look) and some short, like ruined houses. Azalea wood could also be a part of the structures. loot in the cities are decent, especially with a new enchantment that brings a quality of life to the game, but there needs to be more. Of course the classic loot of diamonds, raw gold, raw Iron, raw copper, Redstone, and lapis, especially since the cities are deep under ground. And another unique item, something completely new, maybe an item titled: "Conjured souls" maybe it can be crafted with a Flint n steel to create a soul Flint and steel, potentially having a use for a future update ;). Perhaps a new mob as well, one that doesn't disturb or seem out of place of the mechanics of the deep dark, a creature weaker and less powerful than the warden but still something to avoid, "The stalker". A creature that wanders around but moves very slowly, at 200 health and its only attack is spraying something called sculk spores whichll turn players heart to sculk acting as a slower wither effect, causing players to also recieve blindness (not darkness) and slowness. The sculk spores can also turn hostile mobs to sculk mobs. The stalker would be extremely slow compared to the warden and is easily avoidable, but it'll be the players mistake if they stop for awhile. Lastly, when they catch you they'll shriek alerting the warden.
Warden : Felt scary, fast, definitely a thing you fear, but given a patient player, easy to beat, I feel as though a projectile might be good for his kit, something he only uses when he cant directly reach you, and maybe instead of having it like a ghast fireball, you make it similar to evokers jaws, something easy to telegraph, but scary, reaches far, and doesnt do a ton of damage. Or maybe a block specific target attack, where the block your standing on has an attack that rises out of it.
I feel as though that could help with the pillaring and hole strategies
As for the Deep Dark Biome, it feels extremely bare bones, it looks like someone found a random part of a cave and just placed a catalyst, and quite frankly felt (immersion breaking?) Maybe a wider area w more skulk would work, I also saw a cool idea on twitter where someone had made bone pillars to hold it up, and I think something along those lines would be really good for setting the biome apart and giving us more unique caves
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Love the feel of the new structure though I am worried I won't have a reason to go there, they are super rare and the enchantment is cool but you only need it once and then never have to visit another city again. The warden is terrifying however the ability to just build up kinda ruins it, I think it should have one of these 3 abilities or others: 1) Can summon the souls out of its chest like a small vex type creature that are silent and and pursue the entity when the warden is not able to reach them. 2) the warden should summon a block beneath the player like a sculk trap or something that sucks the player into the ground *insert screen effects* then summons a sculk hole near the warden so the player is forced to be next to the warden and punished for building away from it. 3) when the warden is enraged, can give the offending entity an effect called Paralysing Fear that stops the entity from placing blocks that way when the warden pursues you can't build away from it.
Overall the aesthetic of the deep dark is amazing the biome itself seems kinda sparse and maybe it could do with more sculk growths to pad out the emptiness of the cave it spawns around as it feels scary but there is so many patches or large areas of regular cave that make it feel fragmented for a biome that it is. I think in terms of cave generation, more lush generation rather than dripstone but with less shiekers farther from the city so that it's got the main aesthetic but not super op dangerous.
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