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29 posts in this topic

There might be quite a bit of controversy over this, but bear with me.

 

The night is an extremely influential part of the minecraft experience. It drives the player to explore with caution and a watchful eye for the time and drives several fascinating pieces of emergent gameplay. For example: a consequence of the night is the tendency for one to maximize the efficiency of daytime activities by clustering functional buildings closer together, so it takes less time to get from point A to point B. It also incentivizes choosing a base location that coincides with more than one ore type to do the same. These aspects of emergent gameplay are wonderful, and really shape how the game is played, however there is a problem.

 

The problem is the presence of the bed. Before we go any further i'd like to point out that this has nothing to do with the spawn setting aspect of the bed. The bed, while now slightly farther along in the progression than it was before, still cuts these wonderful bits of gameplay apart. As a result travel efficiency is no longer required on relatively short distances because a bed simply resets the clock to a safer time. 

 

Additionally, exploration becomes far less interesting than it otherwise could be. Though I refuse to do so, i find that many people I have asked simply carry a bed with them whenever they explore for some ore or mineral or rock type or even vegetable they need for their latest project. In doing so they make exploration extremely monotonous and remove a period of time that makes the game more enjoyable specifically because it breaks up that monotony into manageable chunks. This also effects having bases long distances from each other. Sometimes having a base very far away from your main is necessary because of some extremely rare substance found there. The journey between the main base and the outpost, however, is not incredibly exciting since you can just plop a bed down right before sundown, fall asleep, and then continue on your way. But if there were no beds you introduce a new form of emergent gameplay. i can imagine people building up networks of safehouses between there most far-flung outposts with various amenities to safeguard the player through the night. 

 

Ultimatey i find the solution vexing, since beds should not be removed entirely, since spawn setting is a useful part of the game, but on the other hand it would not be wise to simply remove the night-skipping aspect of the bed, for then beds have no intrinsic value over straw-and-hide mats. I believe I have come up with a fine solution to this. My suggestion is that the night skipping aspect of the bed be removed entirely, but to counter-balance this with respect to the straw-and-hide mat it should give some type of health bonus to the player through the course of a 24 hour period.

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It's always interesting to see how divided the community can be, considering there was actually a few recent posts asking to be able to skip the night easier, such as a travel bed, or changing the straw bed so that it can pass the night too.

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While I would agree that beds are terrible additions to the game that basically allow you to play peaceful even on hard mode, the fact is a significant portion of the TFC userbase wants the game to be easy. I can't fanthom why this is the case, but it is

 

The devs have considered this issue before. They just prolonged when beds can be made.

 

The people who want the game to be easy do have a point. Just because beds are in the game, doesn't mean we have to use them

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It's always interesting to see how divided the community can be ...

 

It indeed is interesting!

 

I don't really want to say the same things over again, so I suggest reading two threads that offer some quite detailed arguments for the complete opposite of this suggestion:

 

http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/6405-spawn-point/

 

http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/6590-facilitating-long-distance-travel-allow-your-latest-firepit-set-your-spawn-point/

 

Other than that, nobody has to use beds if they don't want to, as Pailsight already pointed out (yah I know, temptations,temptations ...), and I don't really see the excitement in digging myself into a thatch box and wait for the night to pass doing almost nothing for the hundredth time, instead of just using a bed. In my opinion, that doesn't make the game harder at all, just more of a tedium. Except, of course, if you find it exciting to run through a monster infested night without camping - by all means: do it!

I find it a bit unfair for Pailsight to accuse us to "want the game to be easy", because I really don't think that's the case here.

Not everybody has the time to play 5 hours every day to make some progress in the game, and without the ability to skip the night (at least at some point at the game), half the time is more or less wasted (and not really harder).

 

With one point I do agree though: plop down your bed in the middle of the wilderness and skip the night - that doesn't seem quite right.

I'd like to know if there is any possibility in minecraft mechanics to get assaulted while sleeping?! Like, for instance, the resting mechanic in good old Baldur's Gate, where there's a chance to get surprised by enemies while resting (which also cancels the rest!).

Such an addition would force the player to protect his night camp, even when carrying a bed ...

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With one point I do agree though: plop down your bed in the middle of the wilderness and skip the night - that doesn't seem quite right.

I'd like to know if there is any possibility in minecraft mechanics to get assaulted while sleeping?! Like, for instance, the resting mechanic in good old Baldur's Gate, where there's a chance to get surprised by enemies while resting (which also cancels the rest!).

Such an addition would force the player to protect his night camp, even when carrying a bed ...

^^ this. I'd love to see a mechanic where sleep can be interrupted unless you are sleeping in a spawn-protected area, so that plonking a bed down and sleeping wherever you happen to be standing the minute the sun starts to set isn't a sure-fire way to just effectively hop into peaceful mode. Perhaps you could go a step further and, even if the player sleeps through the night, spawn some mobs in the area around them that will be burning or hiding in shadows when day returns. This could be the mechanism; for every hour of game-time skipped in the bed, random chance of spawning mobs around the player; if they spawn too close to the player, the player is woken up and has to fight. The added effort of setting up a fire pit beside the bed before sleeping might prevent spawns close enough to wake the player, increasing the odds they can sleep through the night, but not affecting the fact that mobs will still spawn in the areas just outside that range, so they will still have some mobs to fight or evade after breaking camp when moving on. This fire pit should have to be given enough wood to legitimately keep burning, though; hitting 3 sticks with a flint and steel should not protect them all night, each game-time hour tick they're sleeping the fuel for the fire should be checked and the protection lost if it's out of wood. This effect should require a fire pit, and not just any light source. There should be a minimum threshold of spawn protection for this; you'll likely have been within range of the chunk you're sleeping in long enough for a single game hour tick to have granted it some spawn protection. So at your base, or even your mine, where youv'e clocked a lot of time, you're fine, you can sleep through every night safely if you want, but when out exploring new terrain, you risk being woken even if you'd spent a few game-hours chopping trees before plonking the bed down.

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With one point I do agree though: plop down your bed in the middle of the wilderness and skip the night - that doesn't seem quite right.

I'd like to know if there is any possibility in minecraft mechanics to get assaulted while sleeping?! Like, for instance, the resting mechanic in good old Baldur's Gate, where there's a chance to get surprised by enemies while resting (which also cancels the rest!).

Such an addition would force the player to protect his night camp, even when carrying a bed ...

That's more or less the mechanics we had on Beta 1.7.4 but it was very bugged.

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Yeah.. what you guys are suggesting is essentially re-enabling the old vanilla "Nightmare" functionality.

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well, it was a good idea poorly implemented, and it would fit well in tfc I think :)

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oh, i forgot to mention a massive part of my suggestion! I meant to ask for and include more nighttime gameplay to further evolve the gameplay surrounding the night. Also to respond to what you said about how "you don't have to skip the night," this wasn't my point. It's not about skipping the night being a bad feature, it's about creating new and emergent gameplay by expanding an existing system that is underused. The point i was trying to make is that the night is a gameplay mechanic that has incredible potential, but is still very underutilized. The first step to expanding an existing gameplay mechanic is to remove the barriers from it being utilized to its full potential, otherwise you end up with "features" instead of "gameplay" (Vanilla Minecraft development does this a lot). This point would  have been far clearer if i had actually included expansion of nighttime gameplay in my OP.

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I've read both sides of the argument - the anti- and pro-nighters, anti-night wanting to make skipping the night easier, and pro-night wanting to night skipping.

Anti-nighters don't like sitting in a hole with nothing to do, waiting for the sun to come up. Pro-nighters like the difficulty and danger of not being able to skip the night, and think that skipping the night removes a whole aspect of the game.

I think what both factions want is actually the same thing: for the game to not be boring. So I have a couple of ideas:

  • Fire. Let's say fire scares mobs - they are wary of campfires, and actively avoid bonfires. Now you have a good way to try and be safe at night without cowering in a hole, that also requires some resources and foresight (gather wood, make a bonfire and light it before night time closes in). 
  • The safety of this could be offset by a mechanic that mobs get bolder when they are in large numbers. You would see the mobs congregating, readying to attack (Suspense), and readying yourself, or picking them off, or whatever.
  • Nightmares, as said above. If skipping the night by sleeping is to be left in the game, a risk to that would be nice. Waking up disoriented, with a couple of mobs right next to you because you slept in an unsafe location is a good way to dissuade someone from sleeping flippantly.
  • More mob variation. This is a long term thing, and quite a lot of work, so I don't really expect it to happen soon, if at all. Different mobs with different fighting tactics would reinvigorate fighting for me, and make night time more exciting.
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The core problem is how hostile mobs spawn....it gets dark and they pop into existence...daylight comes and they burn up and are gone. This was a clever way to introduce foes 3 years ago....now its absurd. The developers of Microcraft (oops) need to come up with something superior....a goblin village, an orc encampment, a xenophobic village, a sloth of bears, a pride of lions, bridges with attendant trolls, etc. I really laugh when folks say "we need more realistic mobs....wolves,  cougars (the bitey kind, not the buy you drinks kind) but no one mentions the archaic mechanism of their introduction. Anyhow....not quite about beds but somewhat related...have a nice night all :)

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I believe the BTW solution to this is:

Maximize your daytime hours outside with exploring and resource gathering.

Spend your nights crafting and mining to make the most out of those lost or limited hours you aren't able to go outside for.

 

The primary solution then is not to make the night something to walk around in, but rather instead to provide meaning to points in time that you spend inside your base waiting for the sun to rise.

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I would welcome everyone welcoming the inability to skip nighttime to post some videos of them doing some amazing emergent gameplay on hardcore without using beds or covering in a dugouts (proper built house is acceptable to cover in, however). Also, please take note of changes coming in b79 and don't build torchfields.

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the same is already true of tfc. Where it falls down - in btw AND tfc - is when you're away from base, on long exploration missions, which are, arguably, much more important in tfc because of the changes to ore distribution and the addition of many rare ores and plants you must explore massive areas of the map in order to find. In btw you can just blindly dig almost anywhere, just like vanilla, and have about the same chance of finding any ores. Just digging a hole wherever you happen to be when night falls is a waste of tools in tfc unless you happen to be near a vein of something you actually need. When you're thousands of meters from your base, there's not a lot to do to pass the night in tfc if you're not inclined to run around fighting mobs. At most, you might make a firepit to cook some meat you killed that day, or to make some more torches. Unless you've run out of vessels or broken your jug and need to do a pit kiln, that's not enough to really occupy you through a whole night, so you either run around fighting mobs - which some people just don't want to do - or you have dead time just waiting for the sun to come back up.

 

The only thing I can think of you might add that would be something that could practically and usefully occupy this time even when you're away from base would be some prolonged but low-tool, no-special-block tasks being added that the player must spend some amount of time working on, but can do so in small chunks of time here and there. Weaving, as a possible example; if weaving were a process that the player sat down to, whether they have some gui "minigame" that pops up or whatever, and was something could be done at any time so long as they had some thatch, or possibly string and knitting needles, or something like that, and perhaps as importantly, could be interrupted and resumed at any point - perhaps a woven item has a kind of reverse damage bar, starts empty and they have to work it until they fill it before the completed item is usable. This would be only marginally less monotonous than doing nothing, or staring at a furnace, but it would at least be something, and I know some players greatly enjoy this kind of tasks in other games even if it's mostly mindless.

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In the early game of TFC, you have no bed and can't skip the night.

 

Once you get metals, you can make a pickaxe, a prospector's pick, and saw and make a bed.

 

Once you have a pickaxe and prospector's pick, you can use the night productively by mining

 

Once you get a bed in TFC, the only differences between this in Better Than Wolves is

 

A.) The prospector's pick vs branch mining with stone pickaxes.

B.) Its impossible to skip the night in BTW

 

It would basically work the same in TFC as it does in BTW. The difference here is a significant portion of the TFC userbase wants beds

 

But at the end of the day. If you want Hardcore Bedding and beds work, you don't use beds. If you don't want Hardcore Bedding and beds don't work, you are annoyed at the lack of the option of sleeping

 

Personally I think Minecraft is too Easy has better nights than TFC and BTW. The mobs make surviving the night difficult and there is a significant resource cost if you choose to sleep through the night once you have a bed.

 

Of course MITE has some other issues....It takes on average ~15 m^3 of gravel to make a flint axe

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Please don't use the argument, "if you don't want to use it, and you can choose whether you use it or not, then you shouldn't use it" because that reasoning is terrible. It is both a straw-man and an appeal to popularity in this context. To clarify: My point is NOT that night doesn't work the way it does now, which must be implied in that argument for it to make any sense. It also assumes that the best answer to this misrepresentation of my argument is to appeal to the populous, which is not necessarily true. My point IS that night is a feature that is not fully utilized and that could be expanded immensely. My point is also that the first step in expanding night is to limit the triviality of allowing it to be avoided so that it's gameplay aspects can expand through both emergent gameplay AND implemented gameplay.

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I have been playing on servers for a while so the bed is all but useless. Is very rare to get everyone to sleep.

That said I wish there was some kind of mechanics to avoid mobs for the night while exploring.

Like a combination of tent and bonfire, It would not skip the night but it would keep mobs from spawning or attacking you.

For balance the tent would require several large Leather and the bonfire would use several logs but would burn for the whole night.

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I'm sorry, but how is that argument straw man? Forcing a level of difficulty that you desire onto the entire player-base in hopes of bettering the game through emergent gameplay is not a realistic option in the majority of cases. For example, take the Ultra Hardcore style of gameplay. For players who believe that there should be no natural health regeneration, and in some cases only 1 life per world, they are more than welcome to play Minecraft in that way. However, not all players are forced to do so and can easily play using a different level of difficulty.

 

Appeal to popularity can never be dismissed in regards to game development. If you piss off the majority of the player-base with something new, it can result in the death of the community.

 

Limiting the ability to pass the night as the game currently stands isn't going to change anything. Players who think it is too hard are simply going to dig themselves a little safe hole, and then alt-tab while they wait for night to pass. Or they might switch to just playing on peaceful. It doesn't fix a single part of the problem, and in essence can actually make it worse.

 

The first step to expanding night is to add new features and possibilities of things to do during the night. At that point, players who usually use the bed to skip the night, or just dig themselves a safe hole are much less likely to do so. The problem becomes moot because more and more players stop using that functionality completely by their own will, but the option is still there for those who do decide they wish to use it.

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a mob-repellent type feature is exactly the type of feature that would improve a sleepless night, particularly if it required mainenance (ie resource requirement) and especially if it was implemented in  conjunction with other night-time features.

 

edit: appeal to popularity is one of the biggest mistakes many game developers make. The fact is, the average player doesn't actually know what will lead to a balanced, pleasurable gameplay experience. They know what they enjoy OUTSIDE the game, and they know which things they enjoy outside the game are most relevant to the game, but they frequently fail to consider how it effects gameplay in an emergent scene, and also how it affects the balance and consistency of the game. The very best game designers (since game design is really what we're talking about, not game development) are not just fantastically good at adding inherent gameplay, rather they are reasonably good at adding inherent gameplay, but masters at manipulating features such that gameplay emerges naturally without implicit intention. The most important aspect, however, of why the average player's suggestions are frequently "bad" is how it affects the ability to develop the rest of the game. Any implemented feature takes time, and a huge portion of player suggestions are not very valuable because they add a limited amount of gameplay at the cost of a relatively large chunk of time. The best game designers understand this and look for ideas with the biggest bang for their buck in terms of gameplay and time. Features like, for example, adding a new type of vegetable to the game do not add significant gameplay value, but require a not-insignificant amount of time to implement (in this case it's not much, but it's still not worth the time) when they could have implemented a similarly simple feature with inherently more gameplay value. 

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it's a strawman because it misrepresents my argument and then countermands that misrepresentation. It does not apply when my actual argument is taken into consideration, since removing night-skipping is not the premise of my argument but the conclusion. My argument pointed out that the best way to expand an existing gameplay feature (night) is to add functionality to that feature, but if night can be skipped altogether then that new functionality, which in the case of night usually can't be restrictive to night, will be moved to a safer period of time. But Night is enjoyable in the game because it adds significant tension, so skipping the night removes a source of tension that leads to potential emergent gameplay (check my OP to see the emergent gameplay stuff). gameplay is enjoyable, so allowing night to be skipped removes a source of enjoyment. To clarify: the fact that you have a CHOICE at all, even if you choose not to skip night makes such gameplay no longer emergent, but decisive, which is almost always less enjoyable. Making people building certain types of structures because they are necessary is a much better way to provide gameplay than giving them the choice to do so, because it makes people think about how they want to customize a basic element so that it is unique and valuable to them, whereas allowing people the choice makes the value of such a project significantly less in the player's mind, because there is a subconscious understanding that it is not truly necessary. THAT was my point, when you juxtapose all of my previous conclusions into a single argument as the premises, and it is completely misrepresented when one says you can choose either way, because that is exactly the argument i'm countering. It's actually one of the most inaccurate strawman arguments i've seen because it knocks my argument down with the contrary to my conclusion. It's a misrepresentation of my argument specifically because it implies that part of my argument is that skipping sleeping is not a beneficial feature of the game as it stands, when in fact 

that part of my argument is that skipping the night is not a beneficial feature in the context of adding features to the night to make it a better source of enjoyable gameplay. As it stands I actually agree that sleeping is a beneficial feature because the night has potential, but does not have significant gameplay value except for as a source of time-based tension. 

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The main problem is, well..... the night isn't dangerous bed or no, unless you, like stated above, like to run around at night, or make a really dumb shelter that mobs can come into.

While it's true that a bed lets you pass a very dangerous part of the day, the thing it, making a thatch box does the very same thing, it just takes a much longer time.

 

HOWEVER.

There is a difference between these two methods.

One is that unlike a bed, not sleeping makes it a lot harder to tell if the night is over. You have to keep your ears open for the sound of burning dead, or leave a window open and risk getting sniped by a skeleton. Granted, this isn't really that hard to do, and skeletons probably won't wander close enough to see you and shoot anyways. Of course, if on hard, a zombie can break through your door as well, provided that you actually have a door

 

The second is a bit of a bigger difference.

The morning.

The bed, if used correctly, can prevent all surface mobs form spawning.

However, if you spend the night while not sleeping, even at day, you are in danger from creepers, baby zombies, and undead with hats/under overhangs/in forests, at least for the first few (in-game) early hours of the day.

 

And this is, I think the biggest difference. A bed, truly can give a 'peaceful experience on hard' because mobs don't spawn at all.

However, not sleeping the night is different, because mobs do spawn, and some of these mobs can survive the sun and give you a very nasty surprise.

 

I think it would be nice if you could skip the night, but it didn't effect the spawning of mobs, so when you wake up, you have to be careful because you can walk out the door and get slaughtered by that baby zombie, or creeper, or something

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if everyone agreed with your premise, that "night is enjoyable," then it would never have occurred to anyone to make night skippable and we wouldn't have beds, or this conversation.

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Gopher, here's the thing. Right now, the night is not enjoyable because it provides no incentives to continue playing during the night, It's a dead zone in the gameplay where people either stop playing, or use a bed to skip it entirely. It becomes a resource that is not being fully utilized. Not only that, if anything were to be added to the night to make it more enjoyable, having a bed as an option means whatever interesting things happen during the night can just be skipped over entirely. Such is the reason Hardcore Bedding was originally introduced in BTW to begin with.

 

Because beds have been around so long, I understand a large part of the playerbase considers them a core part of the game. However, I do recall the earlier days of the game before beds were an addition. You had to build little depots and secondary bases every so often to hide inside when night came, otherwise you'd be completely obliterated. There was tension in daytime travel from the mobs that had appeared overnight, requiring you to pay close attention to your surroundings and listen for the footsteps of nearby mobs. Anything that enhances a player's engagement in the game is a net positive, whether or not they happen to think it's enjoyable at the time. The best games are the ones you might rage at now and then, but you just keep going back to again and again to throw yourself wholeheartedly into.

 

Reducing the amount of time waiting around doing nothing, and making every part of the gameplay at least slightly dangerous means although the player may not be able to do other things while playing, it means that much more of their focus is actually on the game itself. There's a bit of an issue when it comes to certain tasks as well if they're just busywork. Seeing the sun set and going "oh, better plop my bed down now" has a lot less tension and engagement than "oh shoot! I'd better run to the next safehouse or else I'm going to die again".

 

While most players say they enjoy added convenience, because it allows them to continue the task they were doing without interruption, in reality the scarcity of opportunity to acomplish that task instead adds far more meaning to it, and makes it far more enjoyable as a by-product. Players can look forwards to those activities with anticipation, keeping themselves busy in the meantime. By far one of the most interesting night-based BTW experiences I've had is that I recently spent a day just wandering around hacking down trees and thinking to myself "oh man, I can't wait for night to come so I have an excuse to do some more mining"

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I understand all of that, believe it or not. Ultimately, beds are optional. For the players who don't WANT to encounter hostile mobs, adding gameplay elements that attempt to reward them or, worse, FORCE them to run around at night will NOT make them enjoy the game more. It will make them switch to peaceful and complain on the forums that they can't sleep through the night anymore.

 

And honestly, do not sit here and tell me BTW somehow proves that it makes the game more fun to all players to take the bed away. BTW players are a tiny subset of the modded-client minecraft world, which is a tiny subset of the pc minecraft world, which is a tiny subset of the minecraft player community as a whole. And among that tiny subset of a tiny subset of a specific demographic, the single most common request and complaint is so-called "hardcore beds." (:edit: Well, second most common, I was forgetting Hardcore Spawn)There are people who think Dwarf Fortress is more fun than any other game in existance. It does not follow that making any other game more like dwarf fortress will make it more fun to all players. It would make that game more fun mainly to Dwarf Fortress players.

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I never had any premise that stated the night is enjoyable, because it ISN'T. The only premises i had that might be misread as such was when i said that the night has the potential to be a very enjoyable aspect of the gameplay experience or that night adds tension to the game which is an enjoyable aspect of it, the first being impossible to misinterpret as such and the latter being true regardless of whether the night is enjoyable since the night is scary regardless of whether you skip it or not.

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