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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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  • 3
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    I think that the way you activate the warden is perfect and that if you want to you can avoid the warden without angering it, and escape. If you fight the warden without being prepared, your only option is to run away. If you come prepared, you can fight it, and if you do it normally it is fun, but it is also super easy to cheese. Overall though, they did feel enjoyable, although scary. I thought the darkness effect was a bit over the top. It was almost impossible to see where I was going and had to turn the darkness effect down to around 60-70 % in order for it to be at least possible. I think setting the default lower would help. A couple ore general things: I think that the loot in the chests should be slightly more worth it, and I also think that there should be a little more lighting, considering that every torch you place activates the skulk. also, in the middle you can't even see the warden statue, and only the fire.

  • 0
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    Version didn't show up, thats scarier than the warden.

  • 8
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    Warden should be fire proof.

  • 4
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    the warden summons on stone and not on the sculc block is that supose to happen?

     

  • 2
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    The Warden is too easy to run away from and avoid. I believe they should gather around the chests/loot they are trying to protect so if they lose agro on the player they default back to chests. They also seem too distracted by other mobs especially bats, making them even easier to avoid. I also think if the warden does as much damage as it currently does then it needs less health, or more health and less damage. Nothing too drastic but some balancing with health/damage would be nice. It also feels too unrewarding to defeat the warden in it's current state, mob drops aren't the only way to do this so it's understandable that it doesn't drop anything but some sort of achievement or perhaps a special chest/loot gets unlocked when it's defeated and you'd have to find it, maybe it was buried in reinforced deep slate and is now accessible after killing the Warden.

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    Of course it should be harder to avoid the warden, especially when towering up is so easy. I feel like in its present stage its too easy to kill. I really love the idea of a mob the player isn't supposed to kill, there needs to be some sort of way for the warden to knock the player off their perch. 

    Also, I found a bug that make crouch-sprinting with the new sneak enchantment possible. If the player sprints and then start crouching while sprinting they crouch-sprint faster. I'm sure this isn't what was intended. I'm excited to see what comes out of this update.

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    Perhaps the swift sneak enchantment can work as a percentage of walking speed instead of it's current state. Currently, a player is able to sprint then crouch with swift sneak to move faster than the sprinting speed. I propose the new enchantment to be dependent on a percent of the normal walking speed. For example, level 1 would be 80% walk speed, level 2 90% and level 3 100% or similar to this structure.

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    I found the deep dark biome generating above Y level 0. I think it should only generate in the negative Y range as it's the "Deep Dark" so works better in the deepest layers of the world.
    The Warden is almost challenging, if you decide to stay on the ground it delivers a new and unique experience to the game. As mentioned by other players though it's all too easy to pillar up and 'cheese it'.
    If the Warden doesn't drop any loot I see no reason why the player needs to kill it, so if the player is within sword reach it should be able to reach/jump up and hit you.
    This would leave pillaring up as a viable escape option but not an easy kill option. One other option is that we know from the Warden's spawn animation that it can move through solid deepslate so maybe if the player uses the wrong material to tower up the Warden can climb through it without destroying blocks.
    The loot chests definitely need a buff, the new enchantment of swift sneek is cool but it's not enough to risk a hardcore world for (as an example). Also I'm not a big fan of having to change armor for different scenarios, it slows the game down and clogs up the inventory, so maybe stick it on the leggings instead.

    Maybe another treasure enchantment or a new unbrewable potion in the chests could counteract the new blindness status effect, like whoever built these ancient cities discovered ways to counteract the Warden - the wool paths and swift sneek already suggest this.
    Can't wait for more!

  • 3
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    Please don't remove mineshafts and ancient cities intersecting it looks pretty epic. However, you might want to do something about the spiderwebs next to the spawners, because they kind of ruin the look of everything.

  • 0
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    I like'd it all, but I was playing in creative mode. But I didn't like that there wasn't anything, from Bedrok betas.

  • 0
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    I found a river in the desert, suddenly it started raining, but only in the river... if you cross it either sides it stops.

  • 2
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    • Was the Warden challenging? If so, what did you enjoy / not enjoy about your encounters with the Warden? Yes and no, when the warden could pathfind me correctly it was almost impossible to get away (maybe less sniffing every 2 seconds) , very easy to escape however due to the layout of the deep caves colliding with the collapsed city, I enjoyed the horror however it could be quickly broken by the bad pathfinding on top of this the warden makes extremely loud noises making it feel like hes 10 blocks away when hes 40.
    • Were you able to figure out how to sneak around the Warden? The use of snowballs made it easier to sneak around the warden however sneaking around two was unfair. Only one warden should be active at a time due to his ability to decimate you.  
    • Describe how the darkness effect felt. The darkness made the warden horrifying, seeing the blue approach in the thin hallway was gut punching, the pulsing effect removes some fear however, instead it should be 10 seconds of complete dark, then 10 more seconds and it should expand the darkness. IMO this would make it scarier as you're completely shrouded for a bit then relaxed but the fear is there.
    • Overall it was a little disappointing as the loot was rather lackluster, in other words high risk, low reward, the warden and the sculk work extremely well but is let down by other things such as the city structure and how little the sculk appear in regular caves, I will make another comment addressing more.
  • 5
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    While everyone else was messing with the Warden, I was focused on the Sculk Catalyst and Blocks. I currently have two issues with how the Sculk works in Java:

    1. The generation is much too random. Even if you give it a 3 wide stone generator and drop mobs from below, it prefers to spread into the rest of the generator and apply Sculk Veins, instead of localize where the mob died and focus on converting the closest blocks. In the Bedrock Betas, it seemed to have a central 3x3 grid where it would always convert if possible with the randomness being extended out from there. That would be preferable to completely random that tends to spread out, especially if its purpose is to be used for mob farms.

    2. Sculk doesn't seem to give much XP. Maybe it's just me, but even after converting a decent chunk of a plain with Zombie Piglins, I feel the XP largely isn't worth it for the amount of time it takes. If Sculk is meant to be the alternative to the many more efficient ways to get XP, some of which were stated to be bugs (Piglins, Trident Killers, etc.), the base XP should be increased. Another idea to add to the base XP increase would be to allow Fortune to influence XP gains from Sculk for Hoes, with Fortune 3 giving a chance to score HUGE XP from only a few blocks. It would also give a reason for the Seriously Dedicated to put something other than Silk Touch on their Netherite Hoes.

    TL;DR: Make the Sculk Catalyst generate more on the point of death, and give Sculk more XP.

  • 3
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    I really like how you can place torches in the little holes in the wool without it activating things, just figured that out and helps a lot because of the low light

  • 1
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    I was exploring one in survival when some bat activated the redstone lamps in the middle and it scared me so much I love it 

  • 0
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    Ancient Cities are gorgeous! The Warden is quite scary. The Darkness effect and the sounds are creepy. His behavior (appearing & angering) felt inconsistent. He had a hard time getting out of water. There is a lot of wool. Pretty easy to get around. Lots of chests. Didn’t find the new book. The book will help sneak around the deep dark, but why would I return? Is there more loot of a reason to come back?

  • 4
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    Please make Blindness apply to hitboxes. Many people play with them on now, and the warden is incredibly easy to track through blindness with the hitbox visible.

  • 9
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    The warden is great. When it's not attacking you in survival, it's kinda cute. However, it's still too easy. My suggestions:

    1. Lava (and maybe potion) immunity

    2. An AoE Shockwave that deals slight damage and decent knockback, to knock players off any pillar. Ideally, if lava and potions can't kill the warden, bow fights would be the only way -- so maybe when it gets mad it'll perform this? With the goal being that it'll deal enough damage / frequency to kill the player before the warden itself gets killed. Extra props if it's in a series of much tinier hits per "wave"... helps players who run, hurts those who pillar. 

    3. Named wardens should not be able to burrow

    4. Once it charges, it should be faster than the player unless line of sight (line of... sound?) gets broken, then slowing back down to its current charge speed or less. That would encourage speed potions. 

    Overall, fantastic, it would be great even if this was its final form. But I think a few more buffs would be great, and tweaking their despawning + named burrowing could create an interesting "pet" challenge.

  • 0
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    The snapshot is very nice but Unfortunately, there are a lot of ways to cheese the Warden, the biggest Problem is, he can´t climb to you, if you are stacked on blocks. It would be nice, if he get a climb feature, same as spider, but with a better animation. The next Problem is, he get a lot of knockback. In my opinion, it would be nice, if he can go straight trought the water and lava without getting damage. It would be nice, if the Warden get no damage from the enviroment (for example  gravel).The next Problem is, he is to tall for a strip mining corridor. I think a solution is to give the warden the skill to sneak or crawl. If the player build himself in, a solution is, the warden can dig hisself to the player.A other skill can be to make a jump attack. Maybe he can sneek himself to the player. There is sooo much potential.

    Because of I am from German, I hope my Englisch isn´t to bad xD

  • 1
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    1. The warden was in my opinion quite challenging, I enjoyed the scary feeling and the feeling on being impossibly weak against it and having to lure it away instead of killing it.

    2. I sometimes encoutered one when opening chests or being a bit careless, I also found him emerging due to the scructure sometimes needing you to break/place blocks wich greates vibrations, it felt like you are in trouble once you hear the sound of a warden emerging from the ground making me run to the wool patch in the city.

    3.Yes i did, by sneaking and throwing/shooting projectiles to lure him away, i really liked the sniffing feature where just being quiet isn't enough and the agression mechanic makes every mistake fatal.

    4. Yes, by sneaking and analyzing the sculk sensors and shriekers you can figure out how to avoid it, careful wool placement also helps, in my opinion its like a puzzle to not anger the warden when looting and i like it.

    5. It made the warden twice as scary, the fact that you can't see the warden very well makes it hard to locate it, it made the audio heartbeats much more useful, as it helps locate the warden.

    6. Quite scared, i felt nearly powerless against the warden, the darkness effect made it so you feel like it could come from any direction, and the heartbeats make you extra scared.

     

  • 1
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    I just wanted to share some things that I found that may not be intended with generation first:
    The ancient city can generate in an area that is mostly underwater, in the ground, or in lava pools. If the room with the skulls generates in water, then the 2 soul fires in the room will stay lit underwater and the skulls will instantly break. 
    Additionally, the sculk sensors above the lamps in front of the reinforced deepslate structure seem to always be waterlogged by default. This can cause the water to flow out of the lamp tower. 

    For the deep dark biome, the first one I went to had almost no caves and absolutely no sculk, the second one had a very large area (around 300 by 200 blocks) with no caves as well and only had a very small patch of sculk on the very edge of the biome. When near a city, the sculk seems to generate much better. 


    Otherwise, I am finding the atmosphere of the deep dark cities to be right with what was being aimed for and I know that it is planned for the warden to have measures to prevent towering up 4 blocks, so overall it is a fun experience when played intentionally and the city is not underwater or mostly underground. 

  • 2
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    the wither takes no damage from the warden
  • 4
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    I think instead of making the Warden just fire resistant when it comes in contact with fire, it should burn blue (soul fire) and it should increase its stats (strength? speed? regen?). That way the player actually wants to avoid the Warden accidently touching lava etc. 

  • 4
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    When it comes to the ancient cities, the skulk sensors and shriekers, and navigating around without trying to make any sound, I ADORED this. An absolute blast of a dungeon crawl, more open than a bastion remnant so it feels more like navigating the stronghold or a nether fortress, but with that added challenge of moving slowly, focusing on where it was safe to place wool blocks to hop across and finding ways to destroy shriekers without alerting any others nearby - it was super fun, and I can't wait to see the final product.

    That being said, I have only one complaint regarding our friend and main focus, The Warden.

    The Warden does pose an interesting challenge, and DEFNITELY produces the right amount of fear. At some point I tried to build up and away and found that the darkness stopped me from seeing a block above my head, causing just the right amount of panic. The amount of health did absolutely make me consider trying to navigate around it instead of killing it.

    However, the sniffing mechanic.

    It throws a wrench into that whole vibe of trying to not make any sound, because in the end it doesn't matter if you don't make any noise and shoot projectiles away from yourself, because once it wanders towards that arrow you shot, it immediately just sniffs and then walks back in your direction, way too close for comfort.

    My only recommendation is that, if the sniffing feature is kept, it becomes significantly less frequent. That way the focus stays on the sound control.

  • 1
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    • Loot in the Ancient Cities is not strong enough to incentivize exploring--risk/reward balance is off. For example, raiding end cities nets enchanted diamond armor, diamonds, and elytra. Raiding an Ancient City nets candles, snowballs, and an underwhelming enchant (see next comment).
    • New sneaking enchantment is underwhelming--should be on legs, not feet. Legs & Chests have no unique enchants and feet have several. Not worth having yet another pair of boots just for this... I already have normal boots (water), nether boots (soul speed), and leather boots (snow). Alternatively, enchant should just make walking quiet (not jumping though), rather than making sneaking fast.
    • Consider adding an Elytra enchant called "Gliding" which implements the elytra changes from 1.18 snapshots where gliding did not effect durability, only boosting. Put that enchant in the Ancient City chests to address the above feedback point.
    • Deep Dark biomes should impact the walls and ceilings as well, creating a more atmospheric environments. 
    • Mob Suggestion -- Warden Bugs: small bug (like the Ender Mite) that spawns on skulk blocks and is afraid of the light. It normally moves slowly and makes no sound, but when it sees light it runs and makes noise, which can activate Warden related blocks and call the Warden.
  • 0
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    I think that the wool block should be replaced with a new block that has the same function of the stealth mechanic, it would be more of an aesthetic and environtment change since it is supposed to be in an ancient city in ruins made entirely of stone remains , the floor is made of wool. Doesn't make much sense to me

  • 1
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    Wardens need to be fixed

  • 1
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    I was thinking about how to make the loot in ancient city chests more interesting

    One idea is to have the chests themselves to be the treasure -> Sculk Chests. Even if it would be just a retextured chest/barrel it would still be very valuable for the different design. It could also perhaps work as a shulkerbox, but since you can't craft them there would be a very limited supply, so it wouldn't replace shulkerboxes but it would be useful in early game before you go to the end. Having a chest/shulker with double storage that fits into 1x1 would be nice as well - again if they wouldn't be craftable that would make them super valuable.

     

     

  • 0
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    The warden seems like a nice new challenge. However they can easily be dodged by pillaring up. A soundwave that knocks back the player should prevent such.

    The ancient city feels very ominous, however I do feel like it is lacking at this point. Not sure what it is missing though!

    The Darkness effect is very scary, love the new side the game would offer! Definitely a reason to go/avoid these places.

  • 2
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    I really liked the experimental snapshot even though there are a couple of things that need to be improved so that bats are not generated in the deep darks since they make the warden angry quickly