Deep Dark Experimental Snapshot Feedback
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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Some feedback i got around the warden is that the warden should only spawn in a deep dark biome or the city since if a player on multiplayer farmed a lot of shriekers it could causes some problem
and even if the player doesn't meant to use it to spawn a bunch of warden to annoy other players
It could still ruin the opportunity to use it in a build as said in Minecraft LiveSo to sum things up, the warden should only spawn in the deep dark, and the shriekers should only emit sound effects and the darkness effect when outside of the biome
Howdy, Minecraft devs. I've been enjoying the aesthetic of the ancient cities and I really adore the killer sound design of the shrieker and the warden, however... everything else feels kind of underwhelming. With the constant hints at an anti-cheese mechanic it's a little disappointing that the warden is pretty barebones. Same goes for the deep dark biome - without the cities, their aesthetic is not so different from a normal cave. I trust that these will be remedied by the end of the experimental snapshots or the development cycle.
That being said, I'd like to pitch my idea for a potential anti-cheese mechanic:
- The warden has organs that allow itself to also function as a sculk catalyst.
- Should its prey be too high up to reach, it'll infect the atmosphere with sculk particles.
- The particles will latch onto nearby mobs and players, and slowly infect them. Once the process is complete, the entity just straight up dies.
- There are three ways to rid yourself of these particles:- Fully submerging yourself in water. In this situation, you'll have to juggle between oxygen and the sculk.
- Rapid movement. In this situation, you'll probably have to deal with getting chased by the warden as well.
- Somehow waiting till the warden burrows back into the ground.
- On default, this death timer lasts 60 seconds, assuming moderate movement activity. This timer is reduced the more experience the player has, and it also gradually ramps up faster the more the player stays still or moves slowly.
The overall vibe of the deep dark is incredible and I love the warden as an enemy to go up against, arguably my favorite new mob to be added since I started playing back in 1.7. the stealth elements and the way the whole skulk ecosystem operates is amazing, and I particularly love the shriekers
While the warden itself is very enjoyable to go toe-to-toe with, as others here have mentioned it can be very easily circumvented by pillaring blocks/digging into a small space where it is unable to reach you.
My only other complaint about the snapshot would be the loot drops in the ancient city chests aren't particularly great when compared to the effort it takes to get to them, the handful of enchanted books are nice but I'm not sure they make clearing out the city worth it, particularly for hardcore worlds. I appreciate that swift sneak is a cool enchantment unique to the cities, but I would appreciate some more loot, even in the form of golden apples, or various armor or the like.Minor nitpick:
In addition to pulling in black fog, I think the darkness effect should also strengthen the vignette.
what is the snapshot for 1.19
Continuing further from my deep dark biome comment I said by adding a miniature structure, this new mini structure could be a small maze full of bones and chests called the deep dark catacombs, this helps add more to the deep dark biome as the name also seems to fit with the lore of the biome being full of dead mobs (which resulted in the Sculk growth).
There's obviously a few glaring issues with the snapshot, but most of those I assume to be addressed in future snapshots. But the ones I'm most concerned about are:
1.) There are too few Sculk Shriekers and there could stand to be slightly more sensors. Currently, my Warden cheesing idea of 'break the shriekers' seems to hold a lot of ground. How am I supposed to care about the Warden if I break the Sculk Shriekers? A good way to combat that is to ensure that there are always 2 shriekers with at least 2 sensors near eachother. If you only have 1 sensor, then that's broken and they can't activate. If you only have 1 shrieker, then you just break the shrieker directly. Now, a lot of newer players might not know that this is how the Warden is summoned at first, so this might not always be something that needs to exist, but for the knowledgable player, I believe this would end up being how you cheese the Warden if there are not more Sculk Shriekers made.
2.) The Deep Dark biome itself feels too spread out. There are too often just small patches of the biome, and it feels a little off. Bigger patches would be welcome.
3.) Oddly enough, Bats? These aren't too common down in the Deep Dark as they shouldn't be able to spawn, but if one wanders into the biome- its quite a blessing, should it be?
4.) Lastly, when spawning a bunch of mobs around the Warden, it seems to take a little too much time deciding who it wants to attack.I love everything else so far, and the feel is masterful.
I think the charge cost for Sculk Sensors and Shriekers generating from Catalysts should be lowered so they're easier to farm. Maybe lower the cost to 5 xp and lower the chance for them to generate, so it doesn't overload places with Sensors or Shriekers.
Sculk charge from Catalysts should be directable for easier farming. Currently it only wonders about randomly, which makes farming Sculk difficult while using certain designs. Maybe add a block or item that could draw in charge?
I think Redstone Ore could have heightened rates in the biome. As sculk already emits a Redstone Signal when activated, I think it'd be nice if there was just more Redstone Ore and Deepslate Redstone Ore, as that'd also just make a lot of sense I think.
Locating an ancient city is a task. You have to aimlessly wander around the caves and hope that you find one. I spent hours searching for one until I got frustrated then used the "/locate" command. The ancient city was on the opposite end of my world and THOUSANDS of blocks away. It would be nice if the ancient city had an explorer's map. With an explorer's map in hand, I could suit up then journey across the world to my inevitable doom.
The thing I enjoyed with the warden is it's scary feeling and it's sound design they really made you feel like we're experiencing a creeper and spider jumpscaring you for the first time again. The thing I didn't enjoy about the warden is it is easy to kill with crit hits, smite v and lava I think we need to triple the warden's health and make him immune to fire.
The ancient city can be replaced by dripstone
Swift speed would have been better on leggings instead of on boots.
As someone wrote in this suggestion, there are already too much enchantments for boots and leggings needs more content.
It also makes more sense because leggings is probably the main thing that slowes you down when you sneak. With armor you need to sneak quietly and leggings is the main thing that moves and makes noisesFor my first encounter with the warden I gave myself end-game gear. I dropped myself down into a deep-dark cave with a bucket of water after I passed the first sculk blocks including a shrieker block. I removed the shrieker blocks to prevent the warden from spawning as I encountered them. This was sometimes challenging as they sometimes required me to climb or place blocks. Before too long I was able to loot one of the chests containing the new enchantment which I promptly equiped after mining some sculk blocks for more xp.
Then I decided to get the warden to come after me intentionally. So I built a bed, made a small cave saferoom into a wall with a 2 by 1 corridor that the warden can't fit through. I ran to a shrieker block and the warden spawned, I thought it was really cool how you keep hearing its heartbeat because with the blindness effect it was hard to see the warden that I fled from. I went into the saferoom I made and the warden got stuck outside the corridor and I could kill it very easily. I wish it was a little harder to cheese, maybe if it used projectiles when you're in a corridor. Overall a very solid start though!Warden: Far too much health, even for a "boss" you're not really meant to kill. It also still needs a 'trophy' for those who do best the warden. Maybe one of it's horns that's similar in purpose to the Ender Dragon head? Also incredibly easy to cheese and beyond having "darkness" was not scary to me. I am older tho
Ancient City: Loot is far too poor to ever make a journey there. Even stronghold have the chance for mending, for free books, and serves a purpose for beating the game and getting endgame content anyway. Additionally, special versions similar to the Bastion would make it much more dynamic and fun to explore each time. The hard to break block in the city should also be able to be picked up, since it's a "failed" portal from as far as I can tell. If you plan to add a dimension later, make it only 'open in the Ancient City's bounding box or a special 'portal' bounding box.
Swift Sneak: Currently, this enchantment can be added on every item. Probably a bug. However, Swift Sneak should be a leg enchantment. We have a huge bloat of boot enchantments, and legs and chest currently have none outside of the ones you always add to endgame armor. Adding exclusive enchantments on top of it already being a rare enchantment requiring a lot of effort to get only makes me never get it. Having an enchantment that's actually usable makes me want to go get it. The example for myself is that I have never used Infinity since Mending came out. Currently, Swift Sneak is set up like this.
The deep dark doesnt look very good in my opinion compared to the other 2 cave biomes. It looks like a normal cave with random splashes of sculk blocks, it desperately needs a tweak possibly with more decorative blocks like sculk vines, sculk grass, etc.
As for the Warden, it is not quite scary yet as we can easily cheese it by stopping it with water, 1 block gaps, 3 block stacked up, walls. And it is also slower than a running player
Although the warden is incredibly enjoyable to fight if you don't place anything, as others have said, it's rather easy to escape or trap. A potential solution to this is adding a small set of abilities which the warden can use in a more specific set of circumstances. There could be a scream attack, in which the warden can hold a constant scream and destroy most blocks while fully enraged. If the warden is surrounded by blocks it cannot break, such as obsidian, it could dig into the ground and indicate where it is underground with particles. This would potentially solve most methods of cheating the warden.
Everyone is talking about the warden, so I’ll talk about some other stuff. I think that, as of right now, the biggest issue for me in this snapshot is that the risk/reward for the ancient cities really isn’t there yet. Aside from enchanted books, the only other valuable things you’re going to find down there are skeleton heads. The ancient city and the warden are going to be probably the most difficult challenge in the game to date, but aside from gathering sculk items for farms and getting swift sneak III there isn’t really much of an incentive to completely explore them.
As for what could fill these chests, I honestly think just a few valuable resources like god apples and diamonds would give players a lot more of a reason to thoroughly sweep out the ancient city. Additionally, the Otherside music disk could be moved to the ancient city lot chests, but I get the feeling that that’s already the plan.
As for swift sneak, I think it’s a really cool idea, but we have wayyyyy too many boots enchantments now (there are 5 unique boots enchantments and none for the chestplate!) So I think that the enchantment would work better on leggings, since you use your legs to sneak and stuff. I do agree that having all these enchantments at once is too much, so I’d say making soul speed incompatible with depth strider and frost walker would probably fix this issue, since swift sneak is more “generally useful” than soul speed and having swift sneak on your default gear would be more useful.The Warden was indeed challenging, I really enjoyed the new playstyle I had to follow to avoid being killed.
I enjoyed luring it away with snowballs, until I shot it a bit too fast and it became angry, oh no.... RUN!! lol.
What I didn't enjoy was how easy it was to trap or escape from it, simply a tower 2 blocks high or a 1x1x2 hole in the wall was enough, or an aquifer since he can't swim, I could just swim above it and he couldn't touch me, Powder Snow, Lava and even a random 2 block deep hole in the floor also worked.
Also the other thing that bothered was how easily distracted it was to stray bats flying around.
And lastly my test with armor, I knew full Netherite still did 7 hearts of damage but once I put on Protection 4 on everything, he only dealt 2 hearts damage, which is quite low, MUCH lower than I thought.
Lastly is just a quick thought that Ancient Cities are too hard to find in Survival, hopefully there will be an item that helps guiding you to one like the Eye of Ender or a map.The Warden sure came as promised with the scared feeling I had 11 years ago during my first night, so bravo on that, I eve´n started panicing and threw my snowballs too fast, making it angry.
Random thing I want to add: Sculk Catalysts are cannibals, they turned a killed Warden into more sculk.
Feels like the deep dark intertwines with the other cave biomes too much and it kinda ruins the uniqueness and isolation that a biome should have in my opinion.
I really love the atmosphere of the Cities and biome, but, and I'm sure it's already been said, defeating the Warden is very easy as all you need to do is pillar up or down and dump lava on them, which breaks the immersion of this monster that can kill you instantly. Having a "sculk scream" or something that could be used as a ranged attack would be very useful to discourage players from cheesing the fight. An attack that could send out the vibration particles and knock back the player off of a tower they'd built would be the perfect counter for any players using those tactics. Another enchantment would be nice, to go along with the "Swift Sneak" enchant, or possibly a totem that revives the player and also sends out said "sculk scream" to knock whatever killed the player far backwards... But overall, incredible area and will be an amazing inclusion to the game. Thank you to all of you at Mojang for being generally awesome.
I tried looting an ancient city in survival and overall it was great however for a player who knows what they're doing and comes prepared it is quite easy to beat. I was trying to be sneaky and I was able to destroy a lot of shrieker and sensors without triggering the warden, although I did set off a few shriekers and was taking my time to destroy them in the best order to avoid setting them off. After getting most of the chests (only 3 left unlooted) the warden spawned which I think was good timing. It allows a player who's taking their time the ability to get all most of the loot and get out with a bit of luck. When heard the warden come out I immediately dug three blocks down and put a block above my head so I was completely enclosed and after a minute the warden despawned. This is where the flaw lies. I was then able to loot another city without being careful and just hiding underground when the warden came out. Once I couldn't dig myself out without triggering the warden again but I realized you could just mine away underground and come up somewhere else. I think that it's too easy to hide from the warden and just wait it out. Two ideas I had to combat this that aren't just make the warden break blocks is to make the darkness effect slow down your mining speed so that it's harder to mine away or make the warden able to smell you through one or two blocks. If not either of there than something has to be done to make avoiding the warden a challenge, and not just a minute.
Congratulations on the work done, it's amazing and terrifying!
Here is my feedback:
- The warden has little vertical range against players who climb pillars or hide in walls, maybe he should be able to jump there, or shoot projectiles, repulsive effects?
- Warden is easily slowed down by water and lava, he should have greater counter force or special skills to deal with it quickly.
- Bats are spawning frequently and causing distraction issues.
- The darkness effect is perfect, it gives you the feeling of being lost or what's to come, I wouldn't change a thing about it.
- The ancestral cities look perfect, but you should think that the warden is very challenging and few players will go after the deep dark if there is not a very good reward in the chests, but that are also not items that would help the player to have so much power to the point of benefiting from a fight with the warden (which was not made for this). The new enchantment looks good, but very limited, so it's definitely not enough to get players there, at the risk of "losing more than winning".
- I also think the warden should be able to break blocks like webs, he seems strong enough for that and some players could use it against him.This is my feedback, I tried it in survival and it was really challenging, I tried to avoid it without abusing its weaknesses, like climbing blocks or hiding, and it was really fun, but other players can abuse this and break the experience, so I advise thinking in solutions for this.
cons: From my experiance, the warden was very easy to run away from, I think he should be faster then you while normal running, and equal speed as you while jump running. Also you can easily just go only 2 blocks up and he can't hit you, maby the warden could go up blocks like a spider. Another thing is you can kill the warden using a fishing rod and fall damage, I think that the warden should't take fall damage and if you hook the waden he will pull you to him. I feel like having multiple NATURALY spawn warden is kinda broken, by my experience, the skulk screker would't activate if a warden was in a 24 blocks radiuce, witch is way to small.
pros: I like the fact that the warden can go true a 1 block space even tho he is 3 blocks wide, it makes it easier for him to chase you around. The game play of the ancient city reminds me alot of the mobile game "granny" .
reinforced deepslate: it is really cool that you can move it with piston and blast resistant. Also the fact that it is resistent to wither makes it possible to make moveble wither cage witch can be use to make crazy obsidian farm.
(sorry for bad english spelling i am french)
The Warden, as absolutely terrifying as he his!! I felt like all the OG tricks still functioned quite well.
*towering up, like we do for Iron Golems and Ravengers
*digging a hole/tunnel, as we do for any other mod
*dumping a lava bucket in top of him, like we do for piglin brutes
I feel like there should be a little more to to tricking or defeating the Warden, especially with all the hype about it.
Maybe make him resistant to lava/fire, the ability to climb or hit a player 5 blocks away, and maybe a gravity pull effect when you're within a certain radius of the Warden. If not a gravity pull effect, then most definitely a slowness effect. That would all lead to wanting to stay stealthy and distraction based strategy for dealing with the Warden and raiding the city.
I think this snapshot was really good. The Warden and the sculk mechanics are of a very good quality.
The new enchantment (Swift Shift) is really good for exploring the Deep Dark.
I only have 3 suggestions:
- The Warden is very easy to kill (just tower 3 blocks and pour lava), so probably a roar mechanic to knock off the players in tower, or the ability to climb blocks would really help.
- The new enchantment should be available only to leggings, because the boots have already 3 unique enchantments.
- Change the snowballs in the loot chests to very damaged bows and arrow, because in my opinion, that has more sense that the snowballs.
That is all I have to say. Dear Mojang, keep up the good work and stay safe!
Warden - VERY cool mob. You are great! We are waiting for new snapshots. 👍
The Warden is indeed very easy to beat by placing blocks, or digging in a wall, but I see a way to fix that. If the Warden don't touch you for too long, it will send projectile (like a new projectile) that will deal some knockback and maybe like darkness and poison, I think it would make it more difficult to avoid a "fair" fight :)
3d biomes blending is unstable and has patch's of the top biome mixed in cause mobs to appear
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