Cerus

As a developer, I tend to ignore overly specific suggestions, and I felt I was definitely pushing it already with the list I had. If there's expressed interest I'd gladly provide more of the sort of details you listed above.

Which are excellent by the way, if a bit different from my original thought. But that's exactly why I'm trying not to be overly specific about every little detail. Just wanted to get ideas out there, because the current spawning bugs me terribly.

While I think this overall idea is a improvement over the current spawn protection mechanism, I'm not sure why you want to disable overworld spawning based off of light levels

 

That change would allow hostile mobs to spawn above ground any time of the day or night. I personally think hostile mobs shouldn't be spawning frequently above ground (sure there will be instances such as mobs leaving caves, but overall daytime should be a time where you don't have to worry about mobs that much)

The idea is just to remove spawning in the dark for monsters (on the surface), no mobs would spawn or (in the case of spiders) be aggressive during the day. For the undead that burn in the sunlight, I was imagining something like having the virtual "group" of monsters hibernate during the day, either not spawning in when their region is loaded, or perhaps have them appear to be burrowed into the dirt when it's available.

Overall, I imagine a system like this would greatly reduce the *total* number of monsters, but make the interactions that do occur way more dangerous and relevant.

(Because if you see a group of monsters at night, they're probably coming for you.)

The expiring torch mechanic discussion got me thinking about ways to make monster spawning on the surface more interesting, primarily removing the tie to light levels, while also making monster behavior more dynamic and threatening.

• [*]Disable light level based spawning on the surface. [*]Monsters spawn at "nests" [*]Nests grow over time, up to a limit based on geography/proximity to other nests and nearby player activity. [*]Monster "groups" are generated from nests (loaded or not) and expand into areas without nests, placing new small nests. [*]Certain types of player activity in an area marks that area as a "player nest" of sorts. [*]Monster groups are attracted to nearby player nests, as a player you'll see a group of monsters approaching your settlement at night from the direction of a monster nest from time to time. [*]Nests that are allowed to get too large start spawning a variant that can target and destroy walls. [*]Nests are defined by special blocks or structures, a player can interact with these in some way to destroy or reduce the size of the nest.
  

The drive behind this kind of a spawning overhaul is threefold:

First, it eliminates monsters from spawning inside surface structures in a sealed area if that area is not already a monster nest.

Second, it makes monsters far more of a threat to large settlements (identified as big player nests), attracting monsters from many nearby monster nests.

Third, it puts control of the local monster threat more directly into the hands of the players, by allowing them to attack a nest directly to put a stop to the groups spawning there. As opposed to the passive spawn protection system we rely on now.

Note: None of these changes would affect spawning behavior below ground, unlit caves would be every bit as dangerous as they are now.

I love the new torch mechanics, but hate the vanilla light based spawning mechanism.

I've always hated that monsters just poof into existence inside my walls without a source I can actively work towards quelling beyond either smothering my fort in lights or awkwardly spreading my stationary work areas all over my compound.