Pre-scriptum TL;DR: updates are depressing and oversaturated hey guys, I'm an older MC and EMC player (some of you may recognize my username). I first joined EMC ~4 years ago, and have been off and on since. I also used to play a different server a few years prior to that, with a bunch of my middle school friends. I've tried to keep a consistent-ish vote record on EMC, and because of that I always end up coming back for a few months after hiatuses. And I almost always enjoy returning. But I'm kind of dreading it this time, due to MC updates. I'm getting into that "change is bad" phase, and i don't like that change, which is super meta. We keep getting all of these updates of new blocks and mobs and it's driving me insane. MC feels, to me, way too saturated in content, to the point where keeping up with it all is very overwhelming. My hours of mod downloading are also thrown to waste way too quickly it seems, and many of my favorite mods never get updated. I really don't like the two-handed update, especially because of the tool pull-up time. and that ridiculous sword animation cooldown thing, that doesn't even work for god's sakes. It's all ruining every aspect of multiplayer nostalgia that I have for this game I love. And it's all morally debilitating. Does anyone else feel this way?
You're not alone. I hate 1.9. I'm fine with new blocks, but changing the game in the way 1.9 did is just stupid. Mincraft is a building game, when they try to make it more centered around combat it's just not fun anymore.
To be fair there was a large and vocal group of players for several updates whining about how combat needed to be updated, and after it updated a new (although in part made of the same people) group of players immediately started complaining about how they updated combat. There are competing groups of players who think the game is about different things, and mojang has the task of trying to make them all happy.
It should take a few days to get used to the new combat system and if you want to start a Chorus Farm check my guide right here, https://empireminecraft.com/threads/chorus-farming-101.65343/ anyways change seems to be coming a lot faster in Minecraft now. Mojang even said that they are doing more updates more often, about 2-3 a year and I don't expect mods to keep up easily. Who knows we could be in 1.13 by the end of the year.
I can't really comment on mods because I more or less gave up on that a little bit ever since Aikar had introduced the compass update. I mostly used the mini map mod but now that we have a compass which can point us to the most important locations (outpost, bed, death point) I no longer need a mini map. But I can see where you're coming from. Personally I actually like all the new blocks because I think they actually add up and make sense. The chorus plants which you can use to create purpur blocks and mimic Endermen (eat chorus fruit and you'll bzzzp or 'pling' away just like an Enderman does) really add up for me. It is complex but very satisfying: one chorus flower can be all you need to build yourself a whole chorus collection (if you got some end stone to plant it on!). And the ability to have passengers in a boat is just awesome IMO because it can really help to get a move on. The only thing I still dislike is the new brewing system. I think it's plain out stupid that they added a requirement for blaze powder in order to brew. Because if the blaze powder does the 'filtering' these days then why do we need a blaze rod to make a brewing stand? I'm also a little meh about the combat update. I like that we can now use shields but I think it's a bit poorly implemented. When a burning zombie hits your shield you can still be set on fire, which makes no sense to me. And don't get me started on the lag: I've seen it happen multiple times (not only on the Empire!) where I timed my sword strike, it did the swoop thing but didn't didn't hit for some reason. Totally annoying! And also totally absurd because the only time you can do the swoop is when you're near mobs. Mining... At first I was really happy to have 2 hands for mining (one pickaxe and one with torches) but that turned out to be a disappointment also. Because every time you break blocks with a pickaxe your off hand also starts to jitter. Going up and down and up... It drives me -completely crazy-. So utterly annoying! So I stopped using that system because of that. 1.10 should fix the jitterness a bit but so far it doesn't do that on the Empire. So when it comes to mining I'm still doing things the old fashioned way. Its kind of ironic though. I always thought that the new sounds would drive me crazy but I got a little bit used to those. Instead the system which I was actually looking forward to (two hand mining, easier torch placement) turned out to be my number one annoyance. SO yeah, you're definitely not alone here!
I found that if my cursor isn't directly over the mob when I swing that the animation will play but it will do no damage. (e.g. it misses.) I tested this a lot when fighting packs of small slimes...pretty much you must swing while directly pointed at your target.
