We should improve early game.

[Jivix 21]

I propose 2 changes to the early game mechanics. The flint tool feels like a hasty and useless addition because we only need it for the very first thing we do: break stone and wood for a crafting bench and stone tools. After that, it becomes useless. My proposal would increase the utility of flint tool without changing anything it can do in the pre-craftingbench phase by adding another 1st tier of tool as well as a 2nd tier of flint tool achieved in a fireplace that would be required before you can acquire stone.

The first change I propose is to lower the prevelance of flint, while improving the flint spawning engine to make sure there are always a few pieces of flint within the biome (as long as the biome is of a certain size).

The second change is that the stones you find randomly on the ground will primarily drop Rocks (Rocks = the things you find on the surface. Stone = the hard stuff underground), which would be used to make Rock tools (Like Flint tools, cannot harvest stone but also cannot be upgraded). The idea is for the smarter player to save the Flint for an upgrade after they have gathered some materials for the night. (Or simply gather a lot of Flint).

The differences are detailed below:

Old Method

1-Break leaves, get Sticks

1-Break rocks on ground, get Flint

2-Make Flint Tool

3-Break Stone

3-Break 4 Logs

4-Make 4 Flint Tools

5-Make crafting table

6-Craft stone pick/axe.

7-Use Sticks to make Fireplace

8-Continue your progression

New Method

1-Break rocks on ground, get Stones & some Flint

1-Break leaves, get Sticks

2-Make Rock/Flint Tool

3-Use Tool to harvest Logs

5_1-Make fireplace w/sticks + Rock&Flint (or 1-use stick firestarter)

5_2-Use fireplace to heat up flint to Hot, then cool flint (Creates Hardened Flint). If the Flint is overheated (Say, Very Hot*) it will break.

5_3-Use tempered flint to make Flint tools with 4x the durability & better damage output.

5_4-Use Hardened Flint Tool to break stone

6-Make a crafting table

7-Make Stone tools & Hardened Javelin

7-Continue your progression

This will make players feel like they are accomplishing more early game, it gives them an immediate tier that they can jump up to without having to dig down and get stone. While this may not make any difference for an experienced player, it will likely improve the mood and fun of unlucky players while also teaching them a basic concept about the fireplace.

The Hardened Javelin will function exactly like the Javelin, but instead of breaking upon killing an enemy, it will instead use up 1 of 4 uses and appear on the ground.

What do you all think?

[Holy_Shield 17]

The flint tool should be used to re-light torches, that should be its real use.

[RogueHydra 32]

I personally think the flint tool should have MUCH more use in the game down the road so it's not this temporary tool till we get our stone axe. I think it should work like a weak chisel as well actually. use it to shape some of the stones we've dug up with the pick maybe.

[Antice 2]

Hate to be the party pooper, but IRL you cannot "harden" flint by heating it. stone becomes brittle under thermal stress.

I have an alternate progression suggestion tho.

Replace the flint multitool with a full tier of flint based tools, some of witch can be useful well into the metal age.

First off. i do not like the current method of using a flint tool to make planks for a workbench. so get rid of that ability entirely. instead we should have the ability to make another minigame item, kinda like the anvil to let us shape the flint into tool heads. (basic workplace for shaping flint-stone into tools)

In order to attach the flint tool heads to the stick handle we should need some leather strips. (or possibly string) thus requiring some hunting before progressing to the metal age.

The tools i have in mind are thus:

flint anvil: 4 flint in the old workbench pattern, the item could be activated by right clicking with it in your hand. (items would pass in and out of the players inventory trough the hotbar)

* flint "knife": play the flint anvil minigame. this tool has all the knife functions you need for the butcher minigame suggestion in another thread, but it wont last long.

* flint axe, 2 sticks on the bottom a flint knife and a leather strip on the top. (2x2 recipe that approximates a Real world design that has the tool head wedged between 2 sticks that are then tightly bound by strips of rawhide. Rawhide shrinks when it dries, so it becomes incredibly tight and surprisingly durable)

* flint pickaxe. same as axe, except the flint is unshaped. it can only break rock very slowly. incentivetizing finding an above ground deposit of any metal that can be smelted and forged in a fire-pit/stone anvil combo before going for any serious mining.

* sharpened stick throwing spear. made by combining flint knife with a stick. the flint knife looses a little durability like the stone axe does when making planks nowadays. (tier 1 spear) you need a couple of these to kill your first animal. change the mob ai to allow animals to fight back if you try to kill them by hand, only tiny animals should be killable by hand tbh. a cow would murder you if you tried to kill it barehanded in RL after all. this one is always lost when thrown, and only has durability for a couple of stabs before it breaks at any rate.

* flint spearhead. flint anvil minigame, activated by putting a sharpened stick throwing spear in the recipe slot of the anvil.

* Flint tipped spear. tier 2 spear. made by combining flint spearhead with a stick and a leather strip. it's got more damage and durability than the tier 1 spear, and it will not always break unlike the tier one spear. say a 50/50 chance of breaking when thrown or something like that.

* any other tool that can be made from flint/stones, that is needed for the agriculture update that is in the works already.

[Jivix 21]

Hate to be the party pooper, but IRL you cannot "harden" flint by heating it. stone becomes brittle under thermal stress.

Straight out of Wikipedia:

"To combat fragmentation, flint/chert may be heat-treated, being slowly brought up to a temperature of 150 to 260 °C (300 to 500 °F) for 24 hours, then slowly cooled to room temperature. This makes the material more homogenous and thus more "knappable" and produces tools with a cleaner, sharper cutting edge."

Oops. I like your ideas though, using leather/string for the second tier of flint tools. I feel like they'd have to be a bit weaker than that though. The only thing separating them from stone is their power/damage, if we're buffing the durability.

[Antice 2]

Straight out of Wikipedia:

"To combat fragmentation, flint/chert may be heat-treated, being slowly brought up to a temperature of 150 to 260 °C (300 to 500 °F) for 24 hours, then slowly cooled to room temperature. This makes the material more homogenous and thus more "knappable" and produces tools with a cleaner, sharper cutting edge."

Oops. I like your ideas though, using leather/string for the second tier of flint tools. I feel like they'd have to be a bit weaker than that though. The only thing separating them from stone is their power/damage, if we're buffing the durability.

The process used when heating the flint is called annealing. it is done to relive the internal stresses in the stone prior to trying to shape it. pre stressed rocks has a nasty tendency to shatter messily when one is trying to shape them. making it exceedingly difficult to shape the stone. I dunno if annealing should be included tho... if you heat the stone too much it becomes crumbly and useless. it's a really fine balance that has to be kept for a prolonged period of time.

I think that this could add a lot of tediousness to the tool-making process, without really adding much to the immersion level. there is no difference in the finished tool however. since only stones with a low stress levels survives shaping process at any rate.

I'm not too picky about the process tho. just make it different enough from the metallurgy system to allow for some decent mini-game variety.

I suggested using leather as a handle attachment material for authenticity reasons tho. imho the flint based tools should not have all that many uses before they break permanently. the current workspeed and durability of the multitool should be sufficient to discourage heavy mining until one has at least found some surface deposits of the softer metals and made some metal tools.

the killing power of the flint weapons should be fairly good tho. useless against armored mobs ofc, but absolutely lethal against soft skinned prey like sheep and pigs.

All in all i think that flint tools should work fine for making stone-age shelters and light fortifications from lumber, (stockade), but not for mining and gathering of ores and gems. farming should also require a soft metal tool at a minimum. especially if fruits and berries and other gather-able resources that regrow without intervention is added. thus until you find a surface deposit of bizmuth, zink or tin. (any other candidate metals?) you are unable to settle down permanently. thus you have effectively prolonged the hunter gatherer stage and still added enough content to this stage to let the player have plenty to do and discover until they are forced to build permanent structures to house forges and all that jazz.

this would allow the player to rush to metals if they want, or are lucky enough to spawn right next to the perfect spot, but also allow for becoming decently equipped for a long and ardorous trek across the world in search of the right place to settle. right now it is only the lack of challenging mobs and cheezing out that one can survive traveling several thousand blocks without dying en route to someplace decent. finding a good spot to settle on is hard, and so it should remain. that initial big journey towards the unknown horizon in search for the garden of eden is some of the funnest parts of minecraft imho.

[Jivix 21]

I dunno if annealing should be included tho... if you heat the stone too much it becomes crumbly and useless. it's a really fine balance that has to be kept for a prolonged period of time.

I'm not too picky about the process tho. just make it different enough from the metallurgy system to allow for some decent mini-game variety.

the current workspeed and durability of the multitool should be sufficient to discourage heavy mining until one has at least found some surface deposits of the softer metals and made some metal tools. the killing power of the flint weapons should be fairly good tho. useless against armored mobs ofc, but absolutely lethal against soft skinned prey like sheep and pigs.

Well, that's why the annealing process would be simplified to just heating it in the fireplace. May not really demonstrate the incredible skill it takes to heat it up slowly and cool it off properly, but then again we aren't exactly doing full on metallurgy here either (All the metals on here are in pure ore form, and everything comes out upon melting, unlike in reality). There are going to have to be several sacrifices to put reality in game-form, at least until everyone is good enough at metallurgy that we can bump up the skill level required

I think we all like the idea of a mini-game, as long as it isn't boring or annoying. I'm addicted to the anvil, so that's a good one.

That's why I was saying it would not be a good idea to let the tier 0 flint/tier 0 rock tools be able to break stone. You wouldn't really be able to break through rock effectively with even a stone tool anyways. Even the tier 1 flint tool would still be slow, I would prefer even slower than the flint tools are currently. Flint can also be sharpened to incredible levels of sharpness, so it's definitely suited for making cutting edges rather than hammer-like apparatuses (like picks). Perhaps for making planks it should have several uses, but for stone it breaks on the first block?

[Antice 2]

Well, that's why the annealing process would be simplified to just heating it in the fireplace. May not really demonstrate the incredible skill it takes to heat it up slowly and cool it off properly, but then again we aren't exactly doing full on metallurgy here either (All the metals on here are in pure ore form, and everything comes out upon melting, unlike in reality). There are going to have to be several sacrifices to put reality in game-form, at least until everyone is good enough at metallurgy that we can bump up the skill level required

I think we all like the idea of a mini-game, as long as it isn't boring or annoying. I'm addicted to the anvil, so that's a good one.

That's why I was saying it would not be a good idea to let the tier 0 flint/tier 0 rock tools be able to break stone. You wouldn't really be able to break through rock effectively with even a stone tool anyways. Even the tier 1 flint tool would still be slow, I would prefer even slower than the flint tools are currently. Flint can also be sharpened to incredible levels of sharpness, so it's definitely suited for making cutting edges rather than hammer-like apparatuses (like picks). Perhaps for making planks it should have several uses, but for stone it breaks on the first block?

yeah. i agree wholeheartedly on this.flint picvks should break really fast if you try to mine a hard rocktype with it. (like granite) a flint axe otoh should be able to cut down a tree and give you enough planks to make a workbench without a sweat. but a hand held piece of flint. "flint knife" should not be allowed to make planks, nor cut down tree's at all. that kinda forces the player to spend some time to gather flint, leather and sticks to tech with the flint game a bit before progressing into bigger stuff with the help of a crafting table proper. a good experienced player should be able to break trough into mining/melting the early metals on day 2 if they really aim for it and don't build a shelter etc. but it should be pretty hard to manage to do this without getting killed by the wildlife. in general i think spending a minecraft week or 2 in the stone age is quite viable and entertaining as long as there is enough variety to be had in that age.

[Jivix 21]

Totally agree with you Antice. Apparently a lot of people want to get wrought iron by day 2. I still don't get it, but maybe that's just because I usually get bored once I have an empire built. To me, Minecraft without struggle is just not as fun. Heck, I play multiplayer just so the lag makes it harder to fight mobs.

[Antice 2]

Totally agree with you Antice. Apparently a lot of people want to get wrought iron by day 2. I still don't get it, but maybe that's just because I usually get bored once I have an empire built. To me, Minecraft without struggle is just not as fun. Heck, I play multiplayer just so the lag makes it harder to fight mobs.

this has been my greatest weakness all along as well. once the survival part is taken care of and all the needed contraptions for a life of ease has been made i get bored. i always end up restarting at that point.

I've tried being a builder, and in the time before they made the new creative mode that kinda worked out ok for a while. but grinding materials just so one can build a so and so castle out of this or that material is just boring to me. if i want to build somehting just for the looks i jut end up using NEI or creative mode. (redpower sub-blocks really adds a lot of nice creative options for building)

My latest craze is recording hardcore survival mode games and seeing how far i get before I die. terrafirmacraft is just perfect for this since it adds a layer of complexity and variety that is sorely lacking in vanilla minecraft.

My recording skils may be a bit lacking, but at least i'm having a great time doing this.

[RogueHydra 32]

Building for me is more of a mood thing. Depending on my mood I'll build in creative on SP, but other times I really wish I had a partner or team to work with for a common goal - in which case I thoroughly enjoy SMP. In fact, sadly, I have only 1 friend that plays MC but he's never on when I am.