Skill in TFC & Minecraft?

[sdbaynham 57]

Hey guys,

I've been thinking a lot about skill in TerraFirma and what it means, particularly what "competitive" terra firma would look like. I think in Minecraft, the usual go-to is just straightforward PVP. It seems like the answers would be different for TerraFirma, though, partly because armor is so wacky OP right now, and also partly because it seems like the depth would allow for new "skills" to come out. So I'm trying to think of different skills in TerraFirma that might come up in a competitive context.

I've thought of the following:

1. The ability to find and dig ore efficiently

2. The ability to craft efficiently, but also the ability to create stuff on the anvil with very high durability.

3. I guess the ability to keep yourself fed (although this doesn't seem very difficult right now).

I was wondering if you guys can think of any other specific skills that might set one player apart from another, and also if someone could explain the concept of skill in vanilla minecraft PVP because it always seemed like dudes banging on each other with diamond swords to me.

[EstebanLB 183]

The skill in any particular task is determined by how much you learn to do it, how much you practiced it and it remains in you, not to a player from a particular map or server. It won't go away when you die nor nothing. A number won't affect how good you are at doing things. So forget about it. Also it's already been suggested

[sdbaynham 57]

What's already been suggested? This isn't a suggestion.

[kinjirurm 1]

Maybe the ability to manage animals efficiently (find maximum levels of creatures of each gender, mate them successfully, get the most efficient amount of resources from them, etc) but that's a bit hard to quantify. I definitely see organization as a skill, being able to fit the most resources in the smallest space and still know where to find anything very rapidly. Being able to locate and find resources (in particular, specific types of woods or stone) is a skill I suppose, but again, hard to quantify and put into practical use as a significant skill. I can see where, in time, building efficiently could be called a genuine skill, too, such as getting maximum numbers of sluices from a body of water, for instance.

I think you covered the most visible and vital game concepts in your original post. God knows I'd gladly trade lots of time forging stuff (including getting together the molds, charcoal, etc) in return for ample supply of resources to work with, because finding ore can be a real pain. I enjoy the challenge of TFC in general, but I do miss having neat little mines that were laid out however I decided to lay them out, instead of being a product of where a propick took me.

[TheBlindPeople 31]

Whenever skill in Minecraft comes up I want to point out

by one of the developers of Magic The Gathering on the subject of Luck vs. Skill.

Minecraft was not made to be a competitive game. It was made as an exploration adventure game. There are a bunch of random variables present to make the world unique for repeated playthroughs. TFC also embraces this aspect of vanilla and emphasizes searching the land for resources. Even by the creator's own words he doesn't want players to find the same stuff every time, sometimes not even reaching some resources each game.

Competitive players hate that. How can this be competitive if the luck in the game is so high? I clearly outplayed my opponent with my superior skill, but he had tin right below him where I was several-thousand blocks away from a good deposit. And in smelting he randomly got more resources from his ores! And he made all his stuff outside but never got attacked, but I always had crap right outside my door!

There is some skill to this game, that seems to be an aspect this mod wishes to increase. Even vanilla Minecraft has a degree of game mechanic understanding mastery. But the base gameplay includes too much luck to really justify ever touching competitive gameplay. Removing that luck with mirrored spawns and showing where the deposits are would address these issues, but this would gut the main experience the mod was built around.