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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Yo junto a mi hermano, derroté al warden a la segunda vez con la ayuda de lava y espadas con Smite. Me gustaría que el warden tuviera una función de aspirar y/o soplar, así evitar que jugador ponga bloques.
I love the new snapshot and especially the Warden! The only things I could think on giving feedback would be: the Warden should be quieter, it should not take knockback, and we shouldn't be able to mine a 2x1 hole to avoid it. Keep up the good work!
Swift sneak should absolutely be a leggings enchantment. The chest and leggs have no unique enchantments at the moment. So already putting it on the boots is bad. But making it incompatible with several of the other boot enchantments just makes Swift sneak a bad enchantment on arrival. Instead of being a must have on your leggings, it now is a contributor to the enchanted boots being a chore and a mess.
Regarding the loot tables, i feel they need a buff. Adding the Otherside disc seems like a no brainer. And why not other classic high value, low probability items.
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I noticed that the warden is weak under water. In creative mode, I spawned a warden and a few iron golems, and the warden was completely helpless. The iron golems hit it around like a beachball! It can't even swim up a block. I feel like it should have a little power under water because you have the advantage under water, and its just helpless. Also, many Wardens spawned at once are VERY noisy. That's all from me.
I have yet to play test it, but from what I've seen... This is the most immersive impressive update I've ever witnessed. I was so worried the warden was going to get nerfed into oblivion to make the game too easy. I'm very impressed with the ambience, the sounds, the darkness effect, the massive HP. I really hope in the final it stays at least this tough and intense. Ya'll have done an AMAZING job!!!
Related Feature Suggestions:
Cartographers selling maps to ancient cities
Lava Strider treasure enchantment in ancient cities that allows swimming faster in lava. (For easier escaping when you fall in it, easier usage in building, and for use with fire resistance to go mining for netherite in lava lakes)
Piercing Vision treasure enchantment in ancient cities that doubles visible distance while submerged in lava, water, or when afflicted by darkness or blindness.
Experience orbs moving close enough to skulk catalysts should still be used (End dragon xp skulk manual farm)
Fast travel between ancient cities with the portal structures in the middle OR alternative end portal
TNT detonating near a warden within twice its explosion radius should cause the warden to be temporarily stunned
Bells in the ancient cities used as redstone traps triggered by tripwire or pressure platesLike everyone else is saying, it's very easy to cheese the warden by either building up, placing lava/water, using a punch 2 bow, or it getting distracted by a bat. Despite all of that, I still found the warden to be pretty scary. As for the deep dark, I think the biome itself can use a little more work to make it more atmospheric. Adding some exclusive ambient sounds or music like the one heard in Minecraft live 2021 can make the biome a lot scarier. Additionally, I feel like the deep dark doesn't feel much like a unique biome but rather just a bunch of small clusters of sculk scattered around. I think adding some type of animated sculk vines hanging from the ceiling can make it much more atmospheric. Perhaps some can even drag the player up if they're not careful.
Another problem with the deep dark biome is that there isn't much of an incentive to go out and risk finding one without an ancient city. I feel like the biome is too reliant on the structure and struggles to stand independently. I think one thing you can do is make it so rare ores like diamonds are a bit more common in the biome and there is a chance to maybe find a small cabin with some decent loot like the one in Minecraft live 2020. I also feel like the biome itself should be a little more common but be found way lower than y:0 instead y:30.
As for the ancient cities, I'm quite happy with how they look and their rarity. The only real issue I have is that the loot should be better.
For me I really think that the Warden should be more challenging to defeat, ( or just avoid) rather than just pillaring up 4 blocks to avoid it or digging down. Maybe a solution is that the Warden could jump up some blocks or break some blocks to reach the player?
The Warden needs some sort of ranged attack when it can't path find it's way to you or is low health and far away, that way people can't out range it with a bow or tower up.
To make it less punishing you could make it only do knockback when it's high health, that way it can knock players off of towers; and do heavier damage when lower health, for players trying to out range it.I think you should be able to put swift sneak on leggings instead of bots. There are alreday to many bots enchantment, and besides you actually sneak with your legs so it makes sense.
I want the portal to go to a different dimension!! One thats super challenging, one that is completely out of this world but has some beauty
The first time I activated the Sculk Shrieker it was because of a bat, a bit unfair but the idea that a bat could cause my death is kind of funny. From then on, every time I saw a bat, I tried to get as far away as possible. Who would have thought that these beings were so evil XD
I then discovered that if you break the Sculk Shriekers fast the Warden will not be alarmed, even though they have been activated. I think that would have to change, once a single Sculk Shrieker activates, the Warden would inevitably have to be alarmed despite me breaking that block in panic.I was able to loot chests, I like that SOME give you snowballs and healing potions, it's like they're hinting that I'm going to need them soon, scary. Those potions probably won't do much good since the Warden will kill me almost instantly, but the hint is fantastic.
The loot in general seems good, for me the most valuable things are all the types of Sculk more than anything else, I think of the chest more as a bait than as a real reward, but at the same time, the new enchantment makes me want to open them even more.01/
Wool paths seem too safe to me. Sometimes there are Sculk Veins on the wool paths and I was hoping that walking or running on these would alert the Sculk Sensors, but no. I think adding that detail would make walking the wool paths less safe if you're not paying attention, plus I think walking on Sculk blocks and Veins would have to be risky in some way. I also saw that on those roads there are some holes, maybe there could be a Sculk Sensors there from time to time >:)
The first times the Warden appeared I couldn't see it, I don't know why, maybe it was stuck somewhere. It was all very scary anyway, I love the Darkness Effect and all the sounds, but I wish I could have seen it. Later I managed to see it, but normally it couldn't get into the wool paths and got stuck. For this reason I was able to kill him easily.
Perhaps once the Warden spotted you, he would be able to 'dig' through walls, if he can dig out of the ground I don't see why he wouldn't be able to do that.02/
Please make the Reinforced Deepslate rotatable and when mined it can be picked up. Would be a great building block.
Darkness effect is great, but I don't like that it can be changed in the settings, I think it takes away everything interesting from that effect. One of the things that I think made minecraft scary in its early days was that you couldn't change the brightness, I don't want this slider to do the same.
If that effect causes problems for people with visual sensitivities, I guess that's why that slider was added, I'd prefer the effect to change so it can be seen by everyone, perhaps by making those periodic pulses of darkness much slower and less sudden, perhaps the slider could be changed to handle the timing of those pulses. Or at least make the minimum not 0%, maybe 10%?03/
Oh and lastly, before I found the deep dark, I was mining and suddenly heard in the distance Sculk Sensors constantly turning on and off, like an alarm. It was probably the fault of a bat but it would be cool if there was a sound like that when you approach this biome, it took me a long time to find it and something like this might help, plus it would be a scary welcome.
04/
hello so when I enchant netherite boots via the /enchant command it states "this enchantment cannot be used on netherite boots"
If the warden is supposed to not be killed why not just make it similar to the second stage of the wither with projectiles where it can’t take any damage, things like knock back could still work but it would be impossible to kill.
I'll cut to the chase first and then give more impressionistic feedback later.
- Wardens should not burrow if named.
- Wardens should have more stringent spawning requirements (more on this below).
- Ancient Cities need MUCH better loot, what would be best is something completely unique to them that people will really want to get.
My feedback is mostly coming from the perspective of someone who really likes the interesting minigame applications the warden and the whole skulk ecosystem offer. Obviously the sensor was designed for that and still has issues that need to be addressed, but I think myself and many others would like to be able to use the warden in our minigames as well. With them disappearing back into the ground uncontrollably this becomes very difficult, since the infrastructure has to be present to respawn them every so often, which makes it impossible to -- for instance -- trap them in a specific room. It feels very strange that the convention of named mobs not despawning doesn't apply to the warden, as I see no clear gameplay advantage to that, it's unnecessarily limiting. By the same token, having skulk shriekers summon a warden even outside of caves and the deep dark seems a bit strange, but if that is going to be the case maybe it could be light-dependent? I would like to be able to give players the darkness effect without spawning a warden, and currently that seems impossible. Overall the whole team has done an amazing job with this, all's left is tuning!
^ My suggestion for it. Since I didn't read the whole page to the bottom and didn't find this place.
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A fair few people I've seen have wanted to make it so the Warden is some sort of boss or gives a hefty reward when defeating it. But, I would prefer that to not be the case, ever. You see, with the addition of the Ancient City in the "Very Scary Snapshot," there was a new block added that cannot be harvested, much like how Budding Amethyst works. So I was thinking: What if we add an interactive object in the Ancient City. Making it worth the trouble of knowing where it is, and an easy way to re-access it so that the player can go there to interact with this object once more.
As such, I propose the "Soulfire Forge," a special forging block that allows you to progress further beyond Netherite. The forge would require fire ignited on soul sand/soil underneath to be able to function, and cannot be moved by pistons, and cannot be harvested by any means.
Another use for this interactive block would be the ability to upgrade the Elytra, such as giving it Armor or increasing Flight Retainment, where it will allow you to fly longer with less need of rockets.
Placing a villager near this block... ... ???
After experiencing and playing around with the warden, I am very happy with:
- The amount of damage it does
- The amount of health it has
- The darkness effect. The darkness effect adds another level of spookiness to the game that I think is just brilliant! It makes exploring the ancient city a lot more intense!
In my opinion, the chest loot should be a lot better. Maybe in the chests can be the swift sneak enchantment book? The heartbeat effect should also be a bit louder, almost muting the other sounds and making the player feel like they are underwater, emphasizing claustrophobia. This louder heartbeat combined with the already brilliant darkness effect will be fantastic!
I think that a fix is required to stop players from cheesing this new mob. As with all new mobs, there are inevitably problems and/or mechanics that will need to be fixed before the update release.
The most obvious way of cheesing is towering up two blocks. The warden itself is three blocks tall! It should be able to have a vertical reach of at least that. Another way of fixing this problem is to have the warden able to climb walls (much like the spider). This would stop players from just towering up and bowing the warden down.
I hope this helps!
I've played around with the warden, sculk blocks, and the deep dark for quite a bit now. I had a friend look at some of the code and I have the following suggestions. I will write this over several comments due to the character limit.
Darkness EffectThe darkness felt scary but it was too dark. It got so dark inside of caves that it become impossible to see the warden itself thus reducing the fear brought upon the player by the environment. The darkness effect's fog range should pulse alongside the "default" pulse that the effect already has. It also should not affect the emissive layer of the warden itself.
Warden
As of right now, the warden feels too derpy. It often gets distracted by bats (which shouldn't spawn in the deep dark) or gets stuck in crevices. This comes down to a level design problem (touched upon later) inside the cities and deep dark though as well as mob functionality.
The mob should be able to crawl up blocks or create some sculk that it can traverse through in some manner in order to get out of places or to hit pesky players that have towered up. In my opinion, it should also be able to function as a catalyst itself and spread sculk when it kills mobs.
The hitbox itself also does not make much sense for the stature of the mob. I understand that it's supposed to 'crawl' through narrower spaces but its animations don't reflect that.
The warden also seems to have a very long delay between knowing about a creature and actually going to that creature.Registered User commentedComment actions Permalink- Edited
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Here's some simple solutions to alleviate the complaints of many players, that the Warden is too easy to cheese!
Wardens should move faster in lava & water. Make them run fast when in lava/water, as if they don't like liquid. Currently lava buckets can easily kill a group of Wardens.
Give Wardens the same reach as the player's sword to prevent 3-block tower strategies. It's strange that this tall Warden mob can't even reach players that are 2 blocks high.
If a summoned Warden becomes angry at a mob, the Warden should also summon weak (but scary!) soul entities that go through blocks, attacking the mob. It should knock players off their towers. These soul entities can also help get rid of bats and other mobs that are out of the Warden's reach. Creepers shouldn't explode from getting attacked by these.
Lastly, add more sculk material in the deep dark biome & city, it'll look much better.
These solutions should increase the difficulty of the Warden a little bit, while still giving players viable but harder options to cheese the Warden!
Following my previous comment: https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/4439977202957/comments/4447266096397
Level DesignAs it stands right now the ancient cities have quite a few flaws in the level design. The paths are very long and have too much wool, thus either making it incredibly easy to avoid the warden and also making it boring to traverse. The generation is too horizontal and elevation and height should play a more significant part in the layout of the cities. The narrow entrances inside the city feel too frequent, there should be large ones.
Another big part about the generation is the fact that there is no "bottom layer" to the city, allowing caves to intersect and form pockets that the warden can easily fall into.
The city center has a trench in which the warden can get stuck and not get out of.
There is too much sporadic light. I understand wanting to light up the area but the abundant amount of dense low-light emitting sources are contradictory to the goal of wanting to submerge the player in darkness.
Instead, an alternative solution could be to make a variant of the sculk vein that emits light or add a sculk-lamp-like block that lights up the surrounding area.
The sculk network should communicate with each other to give away the player's location instead of only communicating directly with shriekers and the warden. The sculk patches also should be wider and interconnect more to achieve a more fungus-network-like aesthetic of communicating sculk.The warden has many cool effects, but I feel like it might be turning minecraft into a horror game. Maybe there could be a setting to make it less scary, because I get TERRIFIED. Although do make it less cheesable...
What would make the Warden even cooler and harder is allowing it to make high jumps in order to get to you if you're higher up. Maybe they could do that when there's no blocks for them to climb from the bottom to where you're standing. I would love to see the Warden jump and pounce Hulk Style.
Following my previous comment: https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/4439977202957/comments/4447341803277
ShriekersI think the shriekers are great but could have an added benefit from having a shriek block animation as seen in some fanmade videos. (Also bringing parity with bedrock where blocks aren't locked to 22.5-degree rotation.) They also are far too easy to break which makes it trivially easy to not spawn a warden. Holding sneak through the entire city allowed me to clear it without ever spawning one. They currently also don't seem to have the mechanic where they spawn a warden after a few triggers, instead, it always spawns when it shrieks. My suggestion would be to up the default warden tracker to 3-5 triggers and also make the shriekers attempt to shriek before being broken.
This ties into another point which is that looting the chests in the city was incredibly easy. I could sneak up, break the shriekers and loot chests without ever triggering the warden spawn.My previous comment: https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/4439977202957/comments/4447438952973
Animation System
After having checked the code behind the animation system seems a carbon copy of the JSON format. It might be a good idea to consider changing this system to be more like bedrocks and pull from a JSON file instead of hardcoding it. This could potentially also allow creators and resource pack creators to customize animations or add more (such as additional idle animations) if they so desire as they can with custom entities on bedrock. This should note much more work considering the framework already seems to mostly be there, it would just need to be converted to pull from JSON as previously described.
This would be easier to transfer animations cross-platform/versions between java/bedrock as they would be the exact same format.
Sidenote: An additional great feature for creators would be to make armor stand rotation interpolated to allow for much more realistic animations in resource pack mobs for adventure maps/servers.A few things:
One: Warden is very easy to cheese but spawns a ton which makes it flip between being biased towards and against the playerTwo: Personally I love the ancient city but for some reason, I feel like the roof is too low a lot of the time, I think it should spawn really deep in the world but extend high up
Three: I'm hoping the loot tables will be expanded because it seems very underwhelming for what you have to do to get to it
Four: Another personal thing but I feel like the deep dark city should have a little bit more color variety. Nothing crazy, just a little splash of color, like the wool could have a little color variance.
Five: Yet another personal thing but I feel like the warden should be omnipresent rather than having a bunch of wardens. It should chase after you but lose your scent if you manage to get away from it for a bit and then sink back into the ground until or unless you get found again. The warden makes it sound like a single unique omnipresent entity rather than a species.
Six: The warden should have a ranged attack that's only used as an anti-cheese emergency weapon, like a screech that does a lot of damage
Seven: The Ancient City feels less like a city and more like a castle. Personally, I think that the Ancient City should be a set of structures that all revolve around the Ancient City's current version. Maybe a few towns, a shop with some diamonds inside or something, a few guard posts to make it feel like it's been lived in.
The warden disappears when name tagged. Please make it so the don’t dig back into the ground when name tagged
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