Player Based Difficulty Released! "Play Your Way"

Discussion in 'Empire Updates' started by Aikar, Apr 26, 2014.

  1. I don't understand why you are seeing this behavior. At level 5 you should be seeing good drops from enraged mobs.

    When the system was first released, it was very generous and I was sometimes getting diamonds from standard mobs and frequently getting diamonds and emeralds from enraged creepers.

    If you are just running around killing mobs as you find them, then they shouldn't be getting their drops nerfed.

    I'm not trying to say that this isn't happening to you, rather, this isn't the intended behavior. I don't know what loot adjustments have been made with the more recent token updates, but I can say that after a couple of hours of playtime on level 5, the special drops I saw from enraged were a flame bow and 5 shiny flesh. That seems a little light compared to what I was getting a few weeks ago. I was getting group token and xp and resistance perks, but I hadn't thought about drops.

    Aikar has been working pretty regularly at the new system, so maybe something got broke or maybe he turned the loot down just a little too much. If the mob difficulty system was just a tiny bit off kilter, it could make a big difference
  2. I dont know, but I know im not the only one who is pretty upset about it. Now im just logging off and back on to despawn the mobs. Its not even worth the 5 seconds to kill them anymore.
  3. Please test your difficulty with /diff as this is def not expected behavior and no-one else is reporting this.

    5 is the baseline to be exactly the same as before the update.

    Are you receiving any messages in chat about mob not being able to reach you? Does /diff still report 5 or 7?

    Level 5 should be giving random things such as torches even. Especially level 7 should have decent drop chances.
    607 likes this.
  4. ive noticed the system notes knockback as the mobs not being able to get to you, i didnt screen it cause i was fighting at the moment but i was knocking back an enraged zombie on 7 got the message a couple times saying rewards adjusted and then got no loot or tokens. does this mean i have to let mobs hit me to get rewards?
  5. That's weird because I use a sword with knockback and I've never gotten that message. I went out hunting yesterday (lvl 5) and after 30 minutes I had 12 diamonds, 4 golden apples, and some shiny arrows and flesh. I'm not always that lucky but it seems, at least for me, that the drops are working fine.
  6. its only happened to me once, and the mob was in water so maybe thats why
  7. I have had that msg when mobs have had difficulty getting to me because of water
  8. I got the message when fighting nether hounds in lava. I was using a ko sword and intentionally tossing them into a lava flow to slow them down. I guess using tactics is too much like farming to easily control. I guess I didn't care much about not getting tokens because I just didn't want to get destroyed.
  9. I've gotten the message while fighting nether hounds when they were able to get to me just fine, but I didn't let them hit me. No lava or knockback sword involved (I -hate- knock back).

    Oh my god so I'm not insane? I keep finding random stuff on me like bread, torches, and steak that I didn't have before, and I thought I was losing my mind! :eek:
    607 and autumnrain26 like this.
  10. I have noticed that message both when farming mobs and when fighting them fairly. In a fair fight, with nothing keeping the mob from getting to me, if I keep hitting them before they have a chance to hit me, the system considers it cheating. It seems to me the only time I got full credit, was when I killed the mob on the first or second hit. I understand it is difficult to get a good balance so that players earn the good drops, not farm them.
    607 likes this.
  11. After writing this I decided to spend a few days in the wild mob hunting. I've killed around 15 enraged mobs and all I've gotten is junk. No diamonds or emeralds. Don't give up Mage, I think it's just all really random.

    One of the things I love most about EMC is that mob hunting is a legit profession. On lvl 5 I can make enough diamonds and emeralds to not only cover armor repair, but also make a little profit. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for any lvl over 5.

    I understand that Aikar has to try and strike a balance between grinders and regular game play but it seems to me, that it's an incredibly fine line he's walking. He has to make sure that people with darkroom spawners and other mob traps don't have an unfair advantage over the legit mob hunters and he has to try and do it without destroying the game for the legit players.

    Have to ever considered banning darkroom spawners? Seems like that would be the easiest fix.
  12. That would actually be the most difficult way to fix this. For one thing, spawner blocks themselves do not produce enraged, so banning them wouldn't do a thing to help. Secondly, how would we regulate the use of darkrooms? I could block my stone quarry from the sun and call it a dark room because now it spawns mobs for me. . .

    As the system is now, it is already near impossible to farm enraged and benefit from it. To get any special loot, you would need to let enraged mobs loose on you, meaning a legitimate fight would be the only option in the end. All a farm would do is bring the occasional enraged to you, the majority of the time receiving normal mobs.

    Might I also remind us all that farms actually take work to build? It sure doesn't make itself. . . Also remember we are looking for a balance in the system. Those who go out and kill mobs out in the open are actually making more in tokens and diamonds than those using farms. Though it's not really a "balance" (which it might never be, since its use is relative to the user), it is the goal of the system for that to happen.

    It's just the code that needs to be tweaked. Whether enraged are having difficulties pathfinding or simply having difficulties attacking the player could be the difference causing a fault. When it comes to grinders, mobs cannot get to the player, so that player will have to either fight fair or suffer losing loot. All that needs to be done is find out why it bugs for players who are fighting "fair". The system has done its toll on farm users, it simply needs to be adjusted to work correctly for frontier hunters.
    DragaoNimhe, jkjkjk182 and Aikar like this.
  13. I am going to let it all out there, I have held on it for too long. I do NOT agree with this whole system, I know I am not the only one. This is not "play your way", this is "play as you are told or leave". Minecraft is NOT a MMORPG, I don't care how much you try and shape this game, it NEVER will be. This is an open ended build game, period. The fighting mechanics are lame and boring. Mobs are an after thought. So why are they now ruling this server? I don't care about loot, but this game forces you to need exp. So I BUILD an area to get mobs to spawn so I can kill them and get exp, if they happen to drop stuff too, bonus. But NOW these mobs resist being attacked so I can't even get exp to fix my gear that I used to BUILD it. I do not feel like I belong here any more, I do not feel welcome because I don't like fighting mobs. There is NOT a balance to this system, it's all of nothing. So I feel like I am being pushed away. With all the past griefing issues and now mobs resisting be attacked, that might be the straw that breaks the camels back...
  14. I'm sorry you are frustrated with the changes. I don't like fighting mobs either.

    Maybe my way of doing things will help you. I found that if I use a good enchanted sharp diamond sword when farming mobs, I can kill them on the first hit, when at level 5. This reduces the the mob resisting the attacks to 1 in 30 or 40. When I get the resist attack message, I just wait a few minutes. The next time I attack, it gets through and the mobs have built up numbers again. I hope this helps.
    DragaoNimhe likes this.
  15. as far as i know the resisting attack only applies to the enraged mobs, which you can disable from targeting you on level one and still get the full exp from normal mobs. how is this affecting your gameplay (if im right that normal mobs cannot resist)?
  16. I've had zombie pigmen and wither skellies resist too.
    dresden72 likes this.
  17. The enraged mob effected all other mobs in the "kill box", I could not kill any of them. :(
  18. That's weird! I have a pigman spawner and I've never had any resist.
  19. are you guys fighting on level one?
  20. I've never had one resist in the spawner itself, but when I have an angry one chasing me and I run through my fence gate, then close it and try to kill it from the other side, it resists. Also the wither skelly resisted when I put a stair down to keep away so I could kill it while in a 1 block wide hallway.