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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The Warden should "collect" lost items when you die that you haven't reclaimed before the items despawn. Instead of despawning forever, when they disappear, they should be put into a special internal world storage structure so whenever any player finds any Ancient City, the chests should be populated with the most valuable lost items at the time the chest is first opened. After that the chest will retain the items until someone takes them.
This would give players a great incentive to travel to the nearest Ancient City to get their lost loot.
Dudo que pueda expresar bien el feedback fuera de mi idioma así que lo siento mucho por los inconvenientes. Primero queda nada las botas ya tienen mucha cosa, es mejor que el encantamiento sean el los pantalones x1000.
Luego me parece un poco difícil encontrar los shikers (the one that spwan the warden), pienso que sería mejor si tuvieran un efecto visual de más rango como el beacon (obviamente no tan exagerado). Pero si la idea es desabilitar todos pues me parece bien que se encuentren todos más o menos rápido.
Por último you are amazing and thanks for all your job c:I have a few thoughts on this snapshot
I feel that the ancient cities are significantly underlooted. The best thing you can find is an enchanted book. I think that an item only available in these cities' chests should be a thing (or potentially upping the loot very much). That or the warden drops an item that is useful.
Everybody is saying that you can do a 4 block pillar, and this could be potentially fixed if you give the warden the ability to climb, like spiders, only faster, and not on ceilings OR a ranged attack. The warden also has a little too much health in my opinion, the fight gets bland after hitting him 25 times with my sharpness V netherite sword.
The Warden wa too easily cheated through water and height advantages. It's also slightly too easy to build a small hut and attack the Warden's lower body. I attempted fighting the Warden out in the open (without running away or turtling) in all Netherite using End Crystals. This fight was doable, but fairly resource intensive and challenging.
Most of my Warden encounters were simply running away and waiting for it to leave, then coming back. I did figure out a tactic for sneaking around the Warden by destroying Sculk Shriekers and using snowballs and blocks. Looting chests in the Ancient Cities was still slightly too difficult in my opinion, it was impossible to open almost any of the chests without setting off a Shrieker.
The darkness effect felt very isolating, very encapsulating. It felt like I had been placed in an arena with an unknown opponent who could strike at any time.
How scared I got by the Warden depended on several factors. If I was listening to music, in end-game gear, with Night Vision, just testing things out I wasn't exactly terrified, although I did get quite spooked by the Shriekers going off. When listening to the game sounds, in the dark, without end-game gear, it was much scarier.
The sound design and the atmosphere of the deep dark and the ancient cities is just perfect, the darkness effect is absolutely terrifying and I love it, the warden is so incredibly strong as it should be. Unfortunately, while the warden is essentially impossible to fight head on without the use of enchanted golden apples along side the very best equipment, it remains extremely easy to cheese, through the use of a pillar that's a couple of blocks tall and standing on top of it. I would really like to see something done to make it harder to cheese in such a way, perhaps allowing it to burrow its way up the pillar when enraged, as it does when spawning. But this is just an another case of players optimising the fun out of a game and I can absolutely understand the decision of keeping this cheese in the game. All in all, an incredible snapshot that exceeded all of my high expectations for these features, I'm really looking forward to the future of minecraft.
When playing this snapshot, I started a survival world above an ancient city, and after gathering basic materials, I dug to deepslate level. My first glance at the ancient city was awe-inspiring and terrifying in equal measure. These structures are, without a doubt, the coolest ever added to Minecraft. The biome has come so far from being a ravine with sculk on the floor and a cabin carved into the wall. I love how rich with history the cities are--they really make you wonder about how the city came to be abandoned, more so than any other structure.
On to useful feedback:
The sculk seems a little too easy to defeat. You can usually disable a shrieker by breaking a single sensor next to it and then breaking the shrieker. (Once or twice, I occasionally set off a shrieker to speed along the process of summoning the Warden.) This could have two potential solutions: there could be a higher chance of multiple sensors generating next to shriekers, or the shriekers could be able to detect when a sensor around it gets broken. That would increase the difficulty of clearing out sculk patches, but it might make it too hard.
Also, the sculk catalysts seem...kind of useless. They don't always generate in the center of sculk patches, and as there are no mobs but the Warden around, it's not entirely intuitive that the catalysts spread the sculk. Is there a way the catalysts could be more useful in the Deep Dark? Could they be given another feature?
[Continued in next comment]
Now, the Warden. The sound design, the Darkness effect, the creepy atmosphere, and the terrifying glimpses of the Warden combined to create an absolutely bone-chilling experience. I was utterly horrified by the biome as a whole, and I absolutely loved it. I do have a couple nuggets of feedback, though. I didn't cheese the Warden in order to preserve the creepy atmosphere, but even then it would sometimes get stuck between walls and not be able to pathfind to me. What if the Warden had the ability to burrow and then pop out at another sculk patch closer to you? That would definitely make it harder to escape, although to keep it balanced I think it should only do that if you're relatively close but also unreachable.
The Warden should be able to swim faster and be immune to fire, have longer reach, and all that stuff. Basically, make it immune to all but the most elaborate cheeses. One way it could reach you through walls is by burrowing down and popping up in another sculk patch that's closer to you. Currently, if the Warden can't reach you, you basically just have to wait for it go away.
[To be continued again, I swear this'll be the last time]
If you light TNT next to the warden, the warden will move towards the TNT because of the sound and take damage. While this is a good way to cheese the warden, I think it makes the fight too easy. Another issue is that I've explored about 20 cities, and all of them have been in a dripstone cave. That by itself is fine, but the problem is that the dripstone caves override the generation of a deep dark city, and one city had the center partially deleted by a dripstone cave. I'm 99% sure that a Mojang developer tweeted that wardens would burn in daylight, but they don't. I also think it's weird that a warden would rather kill a bat than a player.
This next nugget deals with the Deep Dark biome as a whole. Basically, Deep Dark caves should be:
-Bigger (closer to the size of lush/dripstone caves)
-They should have biome-specific formations and features, like maybe sculk tendrils hanging from the ceilings? There could be candles on the ground and occasional soul lanterns. Stuff like that would be cool.
-All Deep Dark caves should have at least one, small structure. Not trying to speak for the development team, but if you look at the implied story behind the ancient cities, it seems that a lot of things died there-it seems that there were lots of ritual sacrifices in particular. It doesn't make sense for sculk to have taken over a cave for no reason, so I think there should be, if an ancient city can't generate, one or two small structures around the size of ocean ruin buildings. That would keep a consistent narrative with the idea that the people who built the cities were the ones that caused the sculk to spread. Of course, it might be too difficult to implement that way; I'm not completely sure how structure generation is coded. Keep up the good work!
The Warden is so awesome and I LOVE it! The pulsing darkness is terrifying because you can only see the Warden if it's within a dozen or so blocks of you, and by that point you're mostly screwed. Even when I turn hitboxes on, it's still incredibly hard to see and it's thrilling, I love it. I also like how the Warden isn't just a single, one-time boss, and how you can keep summoning them (and the animation is so epic). However, there's a couple things I think could be changed for the better. First things first, the loot is complete dookie, so please add things like gear and ores or something like that. Maybe there could even be netherite ingots in chests because netherite looks amazing with deepslate, so the theme would match, but idk. Secondly, the Warden can't attack you if you're 2 or more blocks above it, which means that if you pillar two blocks up you can't be damaged. I think that first off the Warden should have a hit height of at least 3-4 blocks, maybe more. Next, I think that something should be done to stop players just making a wall a block off the ground to stop the Warden from getting them—which I know is already hard in the pitch-black—maybe either making it able to jump 2 blocks off the ground (though it would look dumb and funny) or it could possibly break blocks. A third option could be that when a certain amount of time has passed when the Warden is angry. and can't get the player, it calls on others to help it. Out of room now, maybe make the limit 2000?
My answers to the questions:
The Warden wasn't challenging as soon as I towered up. I enjoyed feeling like the Warden might be just around the corner.
When I encountered the Warden for the first time, I instantly felt a surge of adrenaline rush through me as I scrambled to find cover. It ended shortly after I towered up, but the mood was still tense.
I built above the Warden.
I did loot chests in the ancient cities (by destroying Shriekers first).
The darkness effect felt nice. I feel like if certain things had a faint glow like soul-related items, it would look much cooler.
I'm not one to get scared by video games, but it definitely felt like it achieved its goal.
My own thoughts and feedback:
I noticed that the deep dark would not generate any "patches" under water. as a result, other patches nearby were obstructed.
Also I think the Warden would be cooler if it used some form of projectile to attack the player if they are out of reach. It could cause effects like slowness, blindness/darkness, and weakness. This could also be something the Warden dropped.
The only mobs I saw were bats and some mobs that spawned on the weird shrine thing.
One other thing, I found a mineshaft intersecting with the ancient city and it felt kind of out of place.
Also, I think alertness should lower by 1 every five minutes and the timer should reset while a Warden is around or if a new alertness level is reached.
In conclusion, I had fun. Considering this is still the first snapshot, it seems great so far.
The center of this city is covered in lava on the seed 826400521578601942 at -359 -20 -383. I think this should be fixed.
Just finished playing the new snapshot and let me tell you I was blown away. My two big comments revolve around both the darkness effect and the warden mob. For starters with the smaller comment, the darkness effect should be renamed to paranoia. Just a far scarier name and would fit better with the scary vibe the deep dark has. Next to the Warden, I thought it was terrifying but one loop pull I found in my personal experience was using a punch 2 bow, ender pearl, and lava pool. I would make a lot of noise during the warden used the pearl to get behind it and used my bow to knock it into the lava pool. This tactic was way too easy and perhaps adding a knockback of fire resistance would solve it. Other than that great job and keep up the good work this was well worth the wait, and I am so excited to play this update with my friends.
I personally loved my terrifying encounters with the Warden but there are a few issues:
1: the Warden seems to get stuck on blocks and can't get itself out of it.
2: It is way too easy to cheese the Warden either by building up or blocking yourself into a space the Warden can't fit into.
I think an easy fix to this problem that won't involve the Warden breaking blocks is for the Warden to temporarily change blocks into a new skulk block that entities can go through so the player would fall down their tower if they built up and the Warden could reach players if they hid in small spaces and this could fix the Warden getting stuck on blocks problem.
Also 3: THE BATS!!! The bats that spawn outside of the Deep Dark biome fly into the deep dark biome and trigger the skulk sensors and skulk shriekers making the Warden spawn without me making a single vibration! The bats are a good distraction when the Warden is looking for me but when there is no Warden to distract they are just constantly flying over the skulk sensors triggering them which summons the Warden. The real threat wasn't the Warden but THE BATS!!! THE BATS!!! THE BATS!!!
THE BAAAAAAAATTTSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Though other than the Warden and THE BATS!!! I like how absolutely terrifying the darkness effect is especially on moody light level.I will suggest to add a range attack to the warden to deal with the 4 blocks tower escape trick.
I was thinking the warden could take a block and throw it fast on the player like a trident, this attack would only be use if the warden is unable to reach the player and deal less damage but more knockback.
While absolutely unnerving. It was too easy to pillar up and bridge away from the warden. If it has the ability to destroy a number of blocks beneath you it would be more challenging. I also found it was surprisingly passive when faced with any mobs other than the player or bat's. I was surprised it wasn't bothered much by a flock of chickens or goats even.
Need optimization for this update, because it is very heavy and many people will not be able to play !
The Warden is amazing. It's to easy to chesses it by pillaring up or digging a 2 deep hole. I would like to see you being able to nametag the Warden so they don't burrow into the ground so people that do mob zoo's, min games in survival, or just want to cage him up at there base can.
if you could help me get in i will tell you how i feel i dont know how to get it up files are very confusing
Dude if yall mojang people realease 1.19 now in this march ill be happy and the snapshot is amazing
it would be a good idea that the dark effect cancels the power of the beacons
I think it was a bit too easy to escape the warden. You can easily run away somewhere it can't follow you. I liked the darkness effect, though I think it should wear off quicker after you leave the warden's darkness radius.
It is also really easy to kill the warden because it has very limited mobility. I think it should be able to shrink down if necessary and burrow through blocks (just like how it emerges and leaves) to reach the player, perhaps showing a particle trail as it travels through blocks.the warden and the sculk blocks are great and all , but the warden despawns way too fast . it should stay up for about 5 minutes instead of one and if there are no players and its nametagged ,it shouldnt despawn.
thanks for reading my comment :)
Questions first:
The warden is just as easy to cheese as an iron golem, which is nice until you realize the whole idea of making it something to run from is broken by that.
The encounters I originally had with the warden (pre-cheese) were horrifying, between its animations, the sounds, darkness, the ambiance was amazing
You don't need to, but yeah, you can sneak around it by crouch jumping onto the walls in the smaller areas with chests which isn't consistent, but if you get onto them even if it hears or smells you, it can't reach you
The darkness felt scary, it was really cool, I really like how it works
Originally it was very scary, especially without turning my brightness up, and I didn't have my particles on, so I had to just rely on sound to know if it was about to spawn.
General:
I think that the cities are cool, but they don't feel like a city, or even remnants of a city, it feels empty. The ancient city is mostly walls occasionally broken up by a ruined house (which makes sense for an ancient city) it felt more like an ancient temple, which would also be fine, I'd be fine with it being one large structure with the tiny loot areas in, or around it, akin to the Jungle Temples, but more unique and larger, but as of right now the ancient city feels incomplete, and I'm hoping its just because this is experimental.
overall great, though the warden was unable to get around cheesing like pillaring, snowballs and distractions definitely worked and it felt very immersive. maybe a couple different structures inside the outer segments though
The warden was genuinely terrifying and I loved it. The way he crawled up out of the floor was so cool! It definitely was a challenge facing him head on, if not impossible. Although, of course, building up was an easy way to avoid the struggle. I really enjoyed the warden interactions, although the first time the Warden spawned, it was in a 2x1 hole and it just suffocated for like 5 minutes. I wasn't able to loot chests without dying until I found out about wool's effect - then it became easier to loot by surrounding the chest with wool. The darkness effect I was worried was going to dampen the experience but I really enjoyed the fact that it only enacted when the Warden was around. I wanted to be able to explore the city without my eyesight being hindered but also get the fear that comes with the effect. I got both. No joke- terrifying. I was literally crying when it started running towards me. I loved every second of it LOL!
1.Very cool additions to the game overall
2. I'll love to see the "portal" in the deep dark city work as an actual portal to another dimension (deep dark obviously). Maybe it could have another ore/ingredients to add to the diamond tools/armor in the smithing table, because I strongly feel that it has a lot more potential than just use for creating netherite stuff.3.Dear Mojang,
Please, just please delete the wool in the deep dark city, I mean why the heck should it be there? Warden was a sheep keeper and made it into his building? ThanksI would like if you spectate the warden you see nothing that would be fun and logical
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I found out about the snapshot a few days late, but I did get to test it last night.
-The Warden was fantastic overall. He's very difficult to outrun; however, as many have said, it's easy to avoid him by pillaring up a few blocks. My understanding is that it wouldn't be that simple. Also, I would suggest making the Deep Dark patches larger. They were quite small in the city I found.
-The first time I set off enough shriekers to summon the Warden, he spawned in an area out of view. That was exciting and mildly frustrating since I couldn't see him right away, but he did spawn in another area for a great reveal. I loved the emerging animation; it felt like a major threat and that I needed to get the heck out of there!
-I was able to build a wool enclosure or wall if he got too close; or just sprint along the wool-lined halls to make an escape. However, I wasn't sure if pillaring would work, so I did that in later encounters. I didn't have much success distracting him with snowballs.
-I had success looting the chests; only one attempt resulted in my untimely demise. I think the chests need roughly double the amount of loot, similar to bastion remnants; in the ones I found, there wasn't much.
-The darkness effect felt claustrophobic and absolutely eerie. Paired with the Warden's sounds, it was amazing.
-His lumbering animations make him seem kind of benign at first, but when he charges, that ramps up the scare factor. Overall, the Warden exceeded my expectations!
-The Warden is easily cheesable, pillars digging etc...
-I would suggest maybe some kind of ranged attack?
-Maybe like tentacles through the skulk blocks and maybe he could convert blocks to skulk and be able to pass through them and climb on them?
-That would help with a lot of easy cheese to kill this mini boss.
-Darkness effect is on point.
-Ancient cities are awesome.
Hope you read this!
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