Why Minecraft Isn't Harder

Do you think Minecraft is too easy? In this video we'll try and explain how Minecraft difficulty works and why making the game harder... is hard!
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[@xaidn6019]

I always play hard mode or hardcore for two reasons: 1. Efficiency of raid farms. 2. Villager conversion works 100% of the time. Hard mode in a way makes my style of playing easier.

[@crunchevo8974]

yep hard mode makes playing with villagers easier. cause if they get killed you can just give them some water with spider bits and mushrooms in it, and a snack plated in gold and they're suddenly alive again lol.

[@superslimanoniem4712]

And reinforcement copper farms

[@reddodeado301]

It honestly reminds me of KH 2 Critical Mode in terms of enemies hitting harder, while you also having a couple of advantages to compensate (in Crit you have extra abilities, higher AP, a 25% damage buff). It's nice to see other games have that instead of just "deal half damage and take double".

[@asdfoifhvjbkaos]

yeah have you seen scicraft play peaceful it's actually extremely challenging for them

[@jasastopar]

Hard mode is my go to

[@pedroyuuhi1677]

Hard is the easier difficulty in my opinion, things are more consistent and you can get your villagers converted 100% of the time

[@snippledipple9515]

Oh yeah, because you have a higher chance of your villager converting, means that hard is the easiest difficulty, totally makes sense.

[@Datboichannel]

Witch poison can kill you though

[@psun256]

@@snippledipple9515 Yeah, size of slimes is another (although probably less important for the majority of players). Once you get out of early game, hard mode is the easiest in my opinion.

[@heatran4109]

@@snippledipple9515 it makes a major difference. Being able to consistently convert villagers makes getting good trades so much faster

[@YounesLayachi]

@Мамонт zombie sieges don't happen on easy difficulty

[@cheezeebutter452]

In my opinion something like an “intrusive mode” would be how you could introduce the kind of difficulty that people want. I’ve heard a lot of people asking Mojang to “bring back the night”, describing how originally the night was an intrusive scary event every time that could not be avoided. Maybe if you activate intrusive mode(or some better name) specific ways to protect yourself are destroyed. You can no longer use a bed, mobs can jump gaps, maybe even climb and or break certain walls. This mode would focus more on survival rather than building. The creativity comes not from building a mansion but rather building a fortress to prevent mobs from climbing the walls and breaking them down. This is just my idea though, not even sure it’ll work.

[@unapersonamas5941]

Sounds great

[@maryzmijski6087]

You should actually suggest that to Mojang, that is a great idea. It could be called something like expert mode. (I get that from a different comment). Or aggressive mode.

[@cheezeebutter452]

@@maryzmijski6087 thanks!

[@maryzmijski6087]

@@cheezeebutter452 no problem

[@jasondixon8653]

This sounds like another game I played: 7 days to die

[@xisumavoid]

Great video Sarc! This depth of understand really highlights how NOT simple Minecraft's balance of features and factors is from a development perspective. I personally would like to see more gamerules for individual mobs and aspects. IE a gamerule for phantom spawning or a gamerule to stop endermen picking up blocks!

[@alephnine]

hello X

[@majeubouwman5359]

A gamerule for phantom spawning does already exist, its called DoInsomnia I believe. Or was that not what you meant?

[@cheddarsunchipsyes8144]

Yooo what’s up x-void. You bing chillin recently or are you angry at the removal of fireflies like me?

[@Loaves_and_fishes]

Yooo it's Xisuma, I'm pretty sure there is a game rule for controlling phantom spawns. Love your videos!

[@SimplySarc]

Cheers man! And I agree, balancing the game is definitely one of the trickiest tasks.

[@bobsock8718]

There's a feature in Minecraft that longer you spend in a single chunk, local difficulty increases and mobs spawn with more armour. So longer you play in your world, the harder the difficulty is. (sorry for probably not very perfect English)

[@Dragonoidalpha]

I had no clue that was a thing

[@majamystic256]

i thought it had to do with moon phases or am i thinking of something else

[@spicytacomc1647]

It's pretty much on point, apart from 'that longer' and 'so longer' but I can tell it's better than what Google Translate would do

[@Assassinboy3000]

its still not particularly difficult

[@reddodeado301]

@@majamystic256 I think Spider potion effects and Slimes spawning in swamps are dependent on the moon cycle as well.

[@rocky2935]

I think giving mobs more gear and making them smarter on harder difficulties would be the way to go. Imagine if skeletons coordinated attacks with zombies and creepers. Or some skeletons would spawn with shields and protect one’s with arrows. Stuff like that would make it harder and could be scaled easily.

[@electra_]

making mobs smart is hard tho ai is tough

[@Che8t]

Local difficulty is already something in the game that Sarc didn't address. The more time you spend in a chunk, the more likely mobs will spawn with gear and enchanted tools.

[@introprospector]

They did improve skeleton aim a while back. That helped a lot, skeletons can be dangerous if they knock you off something or corner you when you're in water

[@wault6027]

Agree

[@josuanygren]

They do spawn decked out already. On easy you don’t see armored enemies, it’s a few here and there on normal and on hard practically half of the mobs spawn with some gear.

[@nuzzlepuff9162]

Y'all forget about peaceful mode. In my opinion that one is the most difficult, not because mobs become more difficult but because they just straight up don't exist. Want string? Gotta find a mineshaft. Want gunpowder? Only found in desert temples. Want a beacon? * laughs in peaceful mode *

[@nanth6480]

One possible scaling to make the game genuinely more difficult could simply be to up zombie speed on higher difficulty. The strat of "just run away" becomes obsolete when you have zombies sprinting as fast as you and they don't need to eat to keep up their health bar.

[@cosmopoiesecriandomundos7446]

I feel like "just as fast" is kinda unfair, maybe make them as fast as spiders are currently. Maybe spiders get just as fast though.

[@Norbert011]

@@cosmopoiesecriandomundos7446 in old mc before sprinting was added everything moved at the players' speed except zombies (50% slower than you) and spiders which were faster than the player so you couldn't escape and had to fight.

[@Norbert011]

generally game balance was a lot better before the adventure update

[@cosmopoiesecriandomundos7446]

@@Norbert011no wonder they added sprinting back in Beta, before the game was even released.

[@Denter86]

You mention the possibility of parts of the game being locked behind the difficulty. I want to note that difficulties do actually have unique mechanics tied to them. Hard is the one difficulty where zombies are able to break doors and where spiders can spawn with permanent buffs. It's part of why I play it exclusively, despite not caring much for the difficulty and even installing grave mods since I can't bear to lose my loot so easily.

[@SimplySarc]

From what I can tell, they actually rolled back the zombie door breaking mechanic. It still exists, but only rare zombies have the ability to do it now which is a shame.

[@davidthecommenter]

@@SimplySarc damn shame

[@arcamoo1610]

@@SimplySarc they have made it so only certain zombies can break doors, but it still can only happen on hard mode

[@Flightning99]

They do have a chance to zombify villagers hated behind difficulty tho. It's 0% on easy, 50% on normal, and 100% on hard. While this was likely made to make defending villagers harder on hard, it also locks out some trading mechanics

[@cosmicking2054]

@@SimplySarc To me, this kind of goes back to the point you made about the careful balance between difficult and tedious / frustrating. In my opinion, zombies breaking down doors falls on the frustrating side, as I often find the door to my base missing because of zombies, who just randomly knock it down.

[@maksymiliankossakowski-lan6978]

Mojang should really add more gamerules. THAT would make everybody happy. The monster spawn rates or their progression would be set before creating the world. Dont Starve Together has a lot of world options that Minecraft really needs. The greatest example is villager curing mechanic that work 100% only on hard difficulty - why is this not a gamerule? Also Warden seems to be the same on every difficulty -You are simply going to die if he sees you.

[@aconnox]

imagine an "armor percentage slider" thats just a simple slider that changes how much armor mobs have on them, that would be kinda cool

[@Dolphin002]

Luckily, the warden can't see you

[@marshalllee6376]

The Warden is blind. Even if it gets angry if you ran away out of the cave then it’s fine

[@Miss_Trillium]

The problem is that doesn't work on bedrock edition--changing gamerules removes achievements. I would love this, but as long as achievements are tied to that, then they need to be considered for vanilla players

[@ED-gw9rg]

Having a Warden HP slider would be pretty good in my opinion, letting people choose whether or not they want the Deep Dark to be more stealth-based. Currently, the Warden is trying to force players into being stealthy, but some players might want it to instead be a defeatable challenge, like the Wither.

[@wigglerlesbian]

I think Peaceful having all aggressive mobs be neutral towards the player would be good instead of adding a bunch of items or adding a game rule that does that, or a game rule that controls mob spawn by category

[@user-uo8ny1kj4c]

finally, some good damn ideas.

[@Justin-ul7fh]

Oh, that would probably be an issue for people who want to not have mobs period since there's no other way other than peaceful. Take note that some people don't want any troubles at all and some people do

[@user-uo8ny1kj4c]

@@Justin-ul7fh how about a new difficulty that's exactly how OP described it called "neutral"

[@Ferrichrome]

The peaceful type items are useful for non-peaceful players too, tho. For example the composter finally gives us something to do with the unused plants and seeds we have laying around. Bees are also super useful for anyone running a farm.

[@pixxL_]

Yeah, that's all I want. I did find a mod that made all instantly-aggressive mobs (not including ones like endermen) be ok until you attack them. Sadly, for obvious reasons, it disabled achievements, so I just keep playing peaceful

[@AngelFrag]

I think they could definitely make the "easy/early game" mobs (zombies, skeletons etc) scale with our Advancements. image this: when you defeat the ender dragon and come back through the portal, you start noticing mobs spawning with better armor, zombies might have more health while skeletons deal more damage. after you defeat the wither you notice that the nether mobs also deal more damage, maybe you find a wither skeleton with armor pieces (could also wear a netherite piece that has a 0% chance to drop) and maybe other things like that.

[@xxizcrilexlxx1505]

that can work really well actually

[@gekkonida]

there's mods or plugins that do that i think

[@xxizcrilexlxx1505]

@@gekkonidaprobably

[@serment2694]

@@gekkonida there’s stuff like scaling health that upgrades hp on mobs

[@kentesart]

Imagine wither skeletons being able to crouching reach you in a 2 block space

[@EVILBUNNY28]

On the topic of scaling difficulty. I remember when Mojang added Local Difficulty in an update a while back. Most players don't even kn0w its exists, you can only see it when you press f3. You'll see a line that says "Local difficulty" followed by a number. The number gradually increases the more time you spend within an area (such as spending a lot of time at your base). I'd love for Mojang to flesh this feature out a lot more. Currently it only increases the number of social zombie spawns (i think), so more use such as stronger mobs would be a good start.

[@destructivforce2894]

A few other things use it, such as reinforcement spawn chance, armor spawned with and chance to pick up items.

[@penguinpingu3807]

I though local difficulty is just spamming mob spawn and balance the mob spawning in servers.

[@grandmasteryoda6717]

yep i literally found out about it today

[@dykrev]

Local difficulty is one of the best (yet woefully underutilized) features they've ever added. Based on the video, I'm not sure sarc even knows about it.

[@xicad1533]

it makes fire spread faster too

[@DelgaDude]

This video is not only a good insight into Minecraft diffculty design but game design as a whole, amazing!

[@jaylegoninjago5615]

Agreed. Also, the reply above mine is stupid

[@QUBIQUBED]

@@jaylegoninjago5615 it got deleted

[@jaylegoninjago5615]

@@QUBIQUBED good

[@gonkdroid4112]

If you want hard, try going on a java server with geyser on mobile at 127 ping with no knowledge of java features. :)

[@xaviersantos6432]

I think Terraria does this really well: Expert mode makes everything more challenging than Normal mode, but accounts for this by adding super useful exclusive drops; and Master mode is more challenging than Expert, but gives the player one more accessory slot right off the bat. Also, great video!

[@tristinwilcox9518]

I couldn't stop thinking about this the whole time I was watching it.

[@thatguydiego4333]

thats why terraria > minecraft

[@something8780]

Not even this, just the shift to hard mode after defeating the wall in my opinion, Minecraft needs something like that.

[@thatguydiego4333]

@@something8780 I'm sayin. Minecraft is just too easy. I can beat a world in a day. But terraria can take me weeks or months to do. And the replayability for terraria is wayyyyy more than minecraft. And I've been playing minecraft way longer than terraria

[@something8780]

@@thatguydiego4333 same with me, I was converted lol

[@holyghost_963]

One of my favourite difficulty balance changes is how the elytra replaces your chestplate. It's a nice trade off of armour for flight and dying with netherite leggings, helmet and boots is definitely still possible

[@shanevogel8997]

There are literally only two bosses. I think the game would benefit from some more, and preferably by making them more challenging.

[@SlantedSlapper]

(Cough cough) Porting the Bedrock Wither to Java (Cough cough)

[@legalnut9950]

You forgot the elder Guardian! Oh wait they're a joke

[@Draconic404]

*Cough cough* Warden

[@YounesLayachi]

@@SlantedSlapper cough all you want, nether stars are a useful item and it doesn't make sense to make them unfarmable. Of course, bedrock is full of nonsense. Minecraft is a sandbox game. If you want linear predetermined challenge, go play dark souls. Nobody cares about the dragon fight. Players just want to go to the end cities to get an elytra and shulkerboxes.

[@zonko]

It could be a completely optional hard boss with a completely optional reward

[@superslimanoniem4712]

As a more technical player, I'll say that playing in any difficulty but hard DOES lock certain features. The ultra efficient copper farms that are based on reinforcement spawning do not work, villagers don't zombiefy, basically anything about mobs is different.

[@jem5636]

Yes. And the problem is that this makes the game easier...... While making it harder for the beginner. It's a complicated mess

[@deadlypandaghost]

Yeah ilmango actually did a series on peaceful challenge to show how hard it can be compared to hard.

[@pixelfrog8281]

Maybe certain mobs could have specific resistances on higher difficulties (for example slimes that barely take damage unless they are burning). Behavioral changes would also be a great option (like creepers moving faster the lower their health is)

[@chocotriscuit4917]

that slime idea sounds sick as hell i like it

[@MrKryptonicMonkey]

An idea that just came up while watching your video (inspired by hunter x hunter's dark continent arc) is reintroducing farlands and making it way more difficult. The challenge is optional for players who want it, the difficulty could scale by distance from spawn (i.e., increasing the occurrence of tough biomes associated with harder mobs and bosses). It could incentivize traveling and exploration with unique terrain generation, block types, and of course loot tables. On top of giving those mobs better gear and smarter AI, they could vary the spawning mechanism so farms are less trivial to make; i.e., early testificate village criteria that birthed Tango's megalith iron farms.

[@whoooadude4804]

I think you're spot on with how difficulty works. Too many games take the lazy route of increasing or decreasing numbers, and to me that approach doesn't work in games like Minecraft where any situation can be negated by pillars, burrowing, or walling off. Also the phantom is not comparable to the Creeper. The phantom is an example of bad difficulty, it just makes things annoying rather than tense. A creeper can be shot, knocked into water, and is easy to escape from. Phantoms automatically spawn on your location, lock onto you and only you, and make annoying sounds while mostly staying out of reach. Phantoms punish you for farming mobs and XP at night, which is ridiculous considering Mojang's stance on automatic farms/machines. The Warden is a good example of how Mojang should approach difficulty. Instead of stat changes, how about giving mobs more options and behaviors? The warden has a ranged attack that can take care of tunneling and pillaging players that aren't careful. Zombies used to be able to break down wooden doors on normal if there was enough of them banging on it, why not extend that behavior to Creepers blowing up blocks if they cannot get to the player? Skeleton archers using Persian arrow storms, piglins that throw fire-charges at the player, so on and so forth.

[@rompevuevitos222]

Reminds me of Payday1/2, they literally just multiplied to the power of 2 for each difficulty level So by maximum difficulty everything dealt 16x more damage and had 16x more health, it was ridiculous Most gear became useless since if it didn't deal ridiculous damage or granted a chance to avoid damage entirely, there was no point to using it This is the kind of stuff that happens when you just ramp up the numbers

[@YounesLayachi]

7:50 mods have long made the peaceful mob issue a non-issue. They just make hostile mobs ignore the player all together. Mob drops can be obtained with no damage or risk.

[@electra_]

wow thats really smart why tf doesnt minecraft do that lmao

[@rlcraftisharder4036]

@@electra_ because mojang likes to procrastinate

[@reddodeado301]

@@electra_ I think they actually have for some recent mobs, at least on Bedrock. Some mobs that can be hostile (like Piglin Brutes) just don't aggro you on Peaceful

[@YounesLayachi]

@@reddodeado301 piglin brutes are useless mobs... Piglins however, are useful for trading. They generate with bastions, are completely peaceful, but they don't spawn naturally anywhere ! Making it difficult to access piglin trades or setup a bartering farm

[@YounesLayachi]

It's not even difficult to code or implement into the vanilla game, it's already there : just go into creative and watch how all the hostile mobs behave

[@gaminggeckos4388]

1:56 _THIS_ is what I want most of all from a new difficulty. New attack patterns would be FANTASTIC. Almost all enemies fall into either the basic melee category (like zombies) or the basic ranged category (like skeletons). I want a zombie that can periodically raise its arms up, and then lunge forward! A skeleton that has a multishot projectile! A spider that can trap players with webs! And iron golem that can raise its arms above its head, and then slam the ground with a large shockwave! A hoglin that will charge forward in a straight line at a very fast speed! Things like this would make combat WAAAY more interesting. It's a lot like what Terraria has with Expert Mode.

[@TheiBunny]

I'm on board with "locking" features behind difficulty settings to better differenciate them. Features like freezing if you're caught in the open during a storm in a cold biome (now a blizzard), or a thirst mechanic that's effected by your movement and location (lose it faster the nether/desert) would be a cool environmental way to up the difficulty and general "survival" feeling of survival on hard mode. Mob ai could also be tweaked in ways that make them more challenging to face the higher the difficulty - maybe scaling back the current challenge with some mobs on lower difficulties for balancing too, for example: skeletons could spawn with more varied weapons oh hard, including shields, meaning you can't always deal with them the same way you usually would any other skeleton - then on easy, have it so piglins won't attack you for not wearing gold, and won't detect you opening their chests while invisible or something... idk Something that's been on my mind ever since they messed with spawners during the caves and cliffs snapshots was what if the light level needed for hostile mobs to spawn scaled with the difficulty - at the very least with spawners so that say, on easy they're blocked by any amount or light, but on hard will spawn mobs no matter what. Maybe things like spawners and budding amethyst blocks can be obtained in easy mode, collected to be relocated at your convenience making your time *easier*, while on hard it stays as it's always been, and if you want to make a farm for those resources, you need to make decisions and work around what your world has to offer. On easy the random tick speed could be buffed so crops grow faster, and brought to a halt on hard - almost necessitating a source of fertilizer. And of course, these things (and older content too) should all be under customizable gamerules, which serve 2 purposes: 1. To show the player what they're getting themselves into if they want to know, and what exactly is different between each difficulty setting, and 2. To give players the option to toggle whatever they chose and play their way

[@ovencake523]

im good with that so long as its all under gamerules

[@user-tzzglsstle585e38]

Not everyone is on board with the idea of locking features though. I think a better way to go about is just by making mob behavior (not just the stats) in Hard Difficulty more challenging in a much more noticeable way, simple concept that can easily differentiate Hard to Normal difficulty if done right and without, doesn't need a bunch of toggles for everything (Just Easy, Normal, Hard like usual) and doesn't content lock at all since there's no new items or features added, just new mob behavior that people don't seek hard difficulty won't feel miss out on at all.

[@godlyvex5543]

Those all sound fine except thirst, thirst just sucks and is a chore. It's just eating, but now you have to manage two bars instead of one.

[@TheiBunny]

@@godlyvex5543 if it was just tacked on in addition to hunger, without changing how the hunger/saturation, regen and "energy" mechanics work either I'd be inclined to agree, but I think thirst could be implemented in ways that shake up the survival aspect of the game without just giving the player a new chore... Choice is an important thing to give the player, and having two related stats that do different things for you and are affected differently depending on the players' actions, or environmental or combat factors - that they may not always have the option to address both, like when in a pinch or strapped for resources, especially early-game, could be interesting... It would also make the game harder if you were ill-prepared for something, like heading into the nether - food is available there, but water sure isn't. In the (long forgotten) combat test snapshots, potions could be stacked, so if that was implemented, it wouldn't be as much of a chore as it otherwise would be if you could only carry 1 water bottle per inventory slot at a time, and if potions also quenched thirst, it would incentivise their use a lot more, even for more passive or QoL effects... Plan on a long caving session? Take a stack of night vision potions. Big nether project? Fire res. Long journey ahead of you? Pack some swiftness... If done right, a feature like that could add a lot more depth to existing parts of the game, though I'm sure it's a tricky line to walk, and I totally get your aversion to it. (Side note: food is definitely overdue for an overhaul... even something as small as different foods having different consumption speeds and cool-downs could shake up the "meta", and encourage players to try different options, weigh the benefits up with time/resources spent to produce it, and find something that fits their playstyle. It also wouldn't hurt to display hidden stats like saturation to the player)

[@TheiBunny]

@@user-tzzglsstle585e38 I can understand where you're coming from, feeling like it'd be locking features behind settings, meaning some players will be missing out, but that's the main reason I suggested all the individual mechanic changes be customizable with gamerules anyway, so that if someone really wanted to play on say... peaceful mode, but with hunger management and harsher weather, they could! It's also just the way some features "are." Theyre all intended to affect the *difficulty* of your experience, so think it's only fitting it'd be controlled more broadly by the already built-in difficulty options, that, currently, dont really do much (what this video is about) By default, Easy mode players wouldn't be "missing out" on features intended to give them a harder time, any more than they would be missing out on peaceful's super fast regen... Or peaceful players missing out on monsters... And if players really felt they were missing out on something, or wanted to try more of a challenging version of the game - they can change the difficulty, like we've always have been able to.

[@M_1024]

I realy like 'hardmode' feature from Terraria: after defating centrain boss, a new enemies spawn, new biome is unlocked and new gear is available. Is like whole new game. I would realy like to see something like this in Minecraft game progresion. Edit: Alot of people get wrong idea. Hardmode has almost nothing to do with difficulty, Hardmode is a progresion stage.

[@jazzling]

then the player dies and loses their stuff and has to fight a charged creeper with enderite armor to get back to their loot

[@redmatter20]

@@jazzling luckily terraria solves this by always having keepinventory on. Although I don't think Minecraft would benefit from this. Maybe a one time consumable that you get late game that let you keep your items when you die.

[@JRexRegis]

This would be neat as a post-dragon experience. Beat the dragon, free the end and the world's magic is unleashed, lacking a controlling presence. Strange monsters start spawning, the world becomes more hostile, magic as a whole becomes more potent, for good and worse. The game would fundamentally remain playable exactly as it is right now - you don't need to kill the dragon, ever, but if you do, you must deal with the consequences of your actions.

[@rompevuevitos222]

Hardmode is not a difficulty as much as it's just progress The world is not infinite, so the only way to bring the new content is to modify the existing world

[@hencethebeetroot]

@@redmatter20 I feel like a permanent keepInventory wouldn't go over well, even if it's technically optional. A better way to do this might be to just have easier ways of getting stuff in the late game; for example, more ways to automate resource collection.

[@Basegud]

Is it just me, or did Sarc get a better mic? I love it!

[@jerry3790]

I think that in a hard mode, hostile mobs should be able to somewhat keep up with your sprinting speed. That’s one of the main things that made alpha harder than modern versions

[@dykrev]

You should've talked about "local difficulty" a bit. It scales certain aspects of game play over time and is capped at different amounts depending on the actual difficulty. It affects things like the odds for mobs to be able to pick up items (something that only happens on hard anyway), the odds of zombies being able to spawn reinforcements, or (most interesting imo) the types of gear mobs are able to spawn with. I think there might be a couple other things it does, but I don't remember off the top of my head. The problems with it are that it can be influenced by things like the moon cycle (making it seem to randomly fluctuate), it ramps up pretty slowly overall (even on higher difficulties), it only ramps up in loaded chunks (meaning exploring new chunks will always be easier than old ones), the gear types still cap at diamond (it wasn't updated with the addition of netherite), and finally, the fact that it doesn't really do much else of note. It's an extremely underutilized mechanic with a lot of potential and I really hope Mojang does more with it.

[@coolj4334]

There's this unused mob, a wither skeleton with a bow that always shoots flame arrows, and I think that would be perfect for hard. Or maybe get a new difficulty as an erect mode, where they can gatekeep hard features. They could even create an "erectcore" gamemode, where it's hardcore, but, say, you can't skip through the night, as a zombie or skeleton will wake you up (like in the old days), basically everything in erect difficulty and you can't respawn.

[@Lordodragonss]

They cut it because it was litteraly a non flying blaze

[@BlockyBookworm]

"erect" w h a t

[@BlockyBookworm]

@@Lordodragonss I swear it's still in the game, just unused.

[@Lordodragonss]

@@BlockyBookworm nope not in vanila files. However its in dungeons

[@Ethobot]

Another Banger as always, Mr. Sarc.

[@xd_joe]

Another Banger as always, Mr. Sack.

[@fyoon4392]

An invasion style of difficulty could be good, I imagine mobs trying to reach you wherever you are as a form of difficulty. The scaling could determine mob count, speed, equipment, detection and varients. I can imagine a slower, louder and tougher creeper with a greater explosion that would slowly walk towards you in an attempt to either blow you up; or blow up whatever is seperating you from its friends. Mojang could have mobs guard and shield it from you, so you'd have to get creative.

[@fyoon4392]

@TheMagician Do you have a link to this mod?

[@tosutosu_]

Minecraft's difficulty problem is with its' progression system which is lacking a lot. There's not much to do if you don't set up your own goals which mostly revolve around building and getting resources you will not use anyway, since there's no purpose for getting that many resources when playing singleplayer. If the game forced you to prepare ahead of tasks, give some more paths throughout the game in kin of games like Terraria, that would ultimately be better. I think Hytale might master that idea.

[@Jamiscus]

this is why i am so excited for hytale. i love terrarias progression, and i also love the building aspect of minecraft, but in survival there’s only so much building i can take before moving on to a new world. whenever i start a new server all of my friends quit once we get diamond gear cause there isn’t much else to do other than build

[@NinjaMaster-og8ti]

It's somewhat jarring that Minecraft's whole story is "see how long you can last and maybe find yourself a nice building project" coming from some of the more narrative driven survival games like The Forest or Subnautica. I think they should update the survival mode and split it into 2 part, a sandbox survival, and a story driven survival where you are led to the final fight against the ender dragon with some nice lore sprinkled in.

[@plaidhatter1674]

Well, the whole point of minecraft Is "do whatever you like." Me and my friends have been on the same realm for a long time because we made warring factions, and that keeps things fresh

[@tosutosu_]

@@plaidhatter1674 The problem is, Minecraft really offers building and advancements as a way to prolong the game time. If we could do whatever we would want to, we would have more longterm alternatives like ex. exploring harder and harder dungeons, trying to cook more and more difficult cooking recipies, creating a well functioning and self sustainable village akin to Minecolonies etc.

[@plaidhatter1674]

@@tosutosu_ Yeah. And MC has the assets already like the deep dark, but has no progression system.

[@user-rc3sw7xk1w]

I’ve been wondering for a really long time why Hardcore mode lacks a difficulty setting… I’ve always wanted the conclusively of permanence when dying, but on a difficulty that doesn’t just artificially spawn more mobs, and nerf my damage. I think a big overhaul of certain spawn behaviors like making the Phantom spawn after 5 days, and increasing the rate that iron golems spawn for villages could go a long way to helping the difficulty slider make more sense. Hard difficulty should be a game of careful and strategic movement and management. The further down the scale you go, the difficulty in those regards should change, not just how much damage you do, cuz that’s artificial and boring. I’m a huge fan of keeping certain features locked behind the difficulty settings, but it should be very small features, like how often fish drop bonemeal, or how much gunpowder is dropped by creepers, or even a skeletons rate of fire. Little things

[@witha1]

the difficulty doesn't change how much damage you do tho?

[@rompevuevitos222]

The game is simply not about challenge and it's made for kids, difficulty is simply a way to let younger players have a chance while keeping veteran ones in their toes If you think easy is too easy, you ramp it up, if it's challenging enough for you, you let it as is The experience you describe is easily achievable with mods

[@user-rc3sw7xk1w]

@@witha1 Does it increase the health or defense of the mobs then? cuz it feels like it takes forever to kill enemies in hardcore... It could be that they spawn with armor more often, so maybe I just made a dumb mistake.

[@user-rc3sw7xk1w]

@@rompevuevitos222 I definitely agree. This hypothetical version of Minecraft is something achievable with mods right now, but I still think it should be part of the base game as an option. Minecraft has always prided itself with it's extensive player options, but locking the difficulty of a mode like hardcore is just unnaturally restrictive when compared to the rest of the game... I also personally think that slight differences in the gameplay between peaceful, medium, and hard could make the game more engaging for those looking at a real change in difficulty, or more variation in play style. The way I see it is; If a game isn't designed with its existing options in mind, then said options shouldn't exist at all... But that's just my take on it.

[@miimiiandco.8721]

@@rompevuevitos222 I don't think it's that the game is for kids, it's that Minecraft isn't designed as a difficult game, it's designed as a creative game, and adding too many hindrances to that would make the game wildly different to some people. With that said, I don't know why they don't use the difficulties for that hard survival experience.

[@prplzbr]

I'm used to playing on hard, and don't find it that difficult. However I play on a realm with some friends, and they always want it to be on peaceful, which makes it kind of unplayable for the way I like to play. No elytra, no shulkers, no brewing... you can't even make ender chests. I would be great if they could do what Sarc suggests and make it so I could do the things I want to do in peaceful, or ideally, make it so we don't have to play on peaceful because my friends can avoid the stuff they don't want to do.

[@Ryan-cu5gg]

You should watch Ilmango's peaceful survival series, he made a lot of progression that's normally considered impossible unfortunately being able to access the end is through a really small chance to have a 12-eye portal, which is really unrealistic without a seed.

[@YounesLayachi]

You can also tell your friends that getting renewable max enchanted gear for cheap is easiest on hard difficulty. Who cares about dying and losing gear when it's a couple trades away from getting brand new ones ;) Plus the more time a player spends without efficiency V and other enchants, the more effort they need to put for the same result. All builds and projects without proper gear become unnecessarily grindy and slow. Not to mention the near total absence of farms

[@rompevuevitos222]

I've never heard of someone playing on peaceful after keepInventory was made a thing, they can just cheat some netherite armor if they are afraid of mobs

[@admincommand2016]

Forcw them to play on hard

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@admincommand2016 Ah yes, the best way to convince someone, force them to play your way

[@EpicNerdsWithCameras]

The idea of changing rewards based on difficulty actually became an issue recently when Kingbdogz was trying to balance the new Ancient City structures. Players can just pop into Peaceful and get all the loot without having to worry about Wardens. Granted that's true for any part of the game, but it's got to be frustrating when your game's own mechanics limit you from truly challenging the player.

[@Meowzipan]

I disagree. It’s player choice and the game doesn’t always have to be about challenging the player: remember, it’s a game. It’s supposed to be fun- and if someone wants an item locator without going into creative and without losing all of their stuff, they should be able to. Player choice in a sandbox world like Minecraft is essential- imagine if you couldn’t get certain (extremely useful) things that everyone else is playing with because the game tells you you’re not skilled enough to get them. That’s hardly fair.

[@Niknokinater]

@@Meowzipan To be fair, by allowing near-limitless choice, you also allow players to choose the unfun option which could ultimately hurt their enjoyment whether they're aware or not. I myself used to peaceful out mobs & used xray when I started ten or so years, and those were terrible ideas that hindered my experience for short term gain. Without rules, there is nothing to overcome, & without anything to overcome, there is no journey. There arises a risk for apathy without rules, such as those that develop unspoken in friend groups on servers, I believe. Minecraft appears to have been shifting away from engagement over the last few years, but the addition of the Warden & Ancient City is a good sign I hope. Consider the sheer amount of videos about staying motivated to play. I can't find videos like that on any other game, not even 7 Days to Die. Minecraft does have some rules (e.g. literally dying, getting crooped, falling in lava), but I can count on my fingers the games I know that don't have even dying. These are pretty much givens. Without a ruleset, what's the real meaning of your choices ? Without challenge, what is skill ? Without engagement, what is... the point ? Rules encourage both choice & the seeking of choice, because choosing becomes incentivized. If there are virtually no consequences, why choose ? In your last bit, it sounds like you would rather knock everyone down than lift up those that need it.

[@Meowzipan]

@@Niknokinater I think you should be allowed to make your own rules on what’s ok what’s not. Hence why player made game modes like 100 days, one chunk survival, removing keybinds, starting in the nether, etc- if you input a bunch of rules and bar a bunch of stuff off, Minecraft loses its sandboxiness for everyone who doesn’t like the combat aspect. Idk not looking to argue don’t get mad at me

[@Niknokinater]

@@Meowzipan Absolutely no worries, my guy. We're both looking out for Minecraft. As for making one's own rules that puts oneself at a disadvantage, that's just as effective as it is in any aspect of life. Sure, it's possible, but it's inessential &, of course, knowingly disadvantageous. Why self-nerf when the rest of the party got the same thing relatively free ? Value cannot manifest from claim alone, not without unworldly discipline. Rules do not restrict creative freedom either, in fact, they enhance & focus it: problem solving. As for sandboxiness, there was a gamemode explicitly designed for limitlessness & no obligatory combat: Creative. Survival is for those who want a survival experience, which, imo, has been eroding, despite difficulty settings. Happy Minecrafting, lad.

[@Meowzipan]

@@Niknokinater hmmm that’s true- I do agree that “hard” and “hardcore” get HILARIOUSLY easy late game, all game modes do, and getting to late game ISNT even that difficult anymore thanks to structures and *especially* villages. I think the issue of scaling could help here- villages could be more picky/expensive on hard? I just don’t like the idea of barring features behind difficulties Yknow?

[@darreldarrenman3334]

Minecraft is a game that combines Creativity and Adventure, so in my opinion the side effect of this is that while they can go hand in hand sometimes, they clash other times. I dont actually mind the fact that most challenges in minecraft have to be sought out but i do wish personally that the mobs were more complex/hard. It is important to have a safe zone to relax tho so they could maybe add some item or something that allows your set spawn area to be safer

[@Paint_The_Future]

The game hasn't been the same since sprinting as added and you can just outrun pretty much everything pretty much all the time. I don't want sprinting removed, so I think mobs should be faster.

[@rompevuevitos222]

I mean, there is a cost to sprinting Overall the game just wasn't made to be difficult, altho higher difficulties could boost mob speed

[@BigMuskachini]

the mobs are just bad and annoying, after you complete the initial fresh survival loop that takes abotu 3 hours the mobs just end up becoming irritating pests as apposed to challenges. The solution isnt to buff the annoying spam spawning zombies but to add dungeons/temples/challenges in the world to encourage you to explore that also hold unique items

[@user-tzzglsstle585e38]

@@BigMuskachini That doesn't really have much to do with difficulty specifically but more about game content in general, because same is true throughout all difficulties.

[@YounesLayachi]

The game hasn't been the same since mining and placing blocks has been added, you can just mine or place 3 blocks to be completely safe from pretty much everything

[@Aysim07]

it would be cool if mobs could coordinate, like a stronger zombie could maybe toss a baby zombie towards you as you're running, or creepers leaping towards you and bringing along other mobs

[@bobsock8718]

I remember when I was a little child and probably just started playing Minecraft, I used to switch difficulty to peaceful to avoid mobs in caves. I'm not even sure how long I play Minecraft! Probably since like 1.8 or 1.6 which isn't too much time

[@crunchywashere3513]

I did this too

[@charlestonianbuilder344]

oh i remember switching the difficulty to peaceful or easy thinking it helps in parkour or something and then complained why there arent any mobs, i placed spawners with eggs in them and waited and waited, until later i realize what peaceful actually meant, lol

[@monothephantom]

I think one of the biggest issues with phantoms is the problems they cause on servers/smps. It can inadvertantly punish players who couldn't have helped it. I think the phantoms swooping mechanics are pretty neat I just don't like the way they spawn or at least the way they torment everyone rather than just punish the insomniacs. I also enjoy having them beefing up the difficulty in places like the end which can be achieved with datapacks and/or mods so I'd rather not disable them.

[@berry2254]

One of my biggest gripes in Minecraft is how much food is a non-problem. It’s only a problem in the very beginning of the game and after that you’ve got so much it’s redundant. Spice of Life is one of my favorite mods because it forces you to eat a variety of things and you can’t just eat 64 porkchops throughout the entire game.

[@shesgotstyle2633]

I think if they gave mobs abilities that only appeared in harder difficulties (like how zombies can only bust doors in hard) would go a long way

[@rompevuevitos222]

There's plenty of these mechanics actually, but they are pretty obscure so it's hard to notice

[@Lordodragonss]

On Hard Spiders can spawn with random potion effects

[@user-tzzglsstle585e38]

@@Lordodragonss Those things should happen more often for it to be more impactful to the game's difficulty, same with zombies and skeleton having more armor or even mobs having slightly different combat AI.

[@nightigal]

@@user-tzzglsstle585e38 this my preferred way add difficulty. For myself and many others a harder challenge should have a better reward whether it's a few more exp orbs or a chance to get the armor a mob was wearing.

[@lixd3054]

What if spiders could spit poison at you from far distances even hights. And creepers when you kill some they just fall over and a countdown to doom.

[@give_me_my_nick_back]

It's already too hard, but like honestly, it is way too grindy... you need too much time grinding and collecting before you can even start building anything for real... It's cool when you are in primary school and can spend 10h daily on MC but later on it gets a bit overwhelming

[@dr.blockcraft6633]

If you Want to Focus on Construction, and Stuff like That, that's What creative Mode is For. i Like to Build a Small base With just The bare Essentials, in A good Spot, in Creative mode, And then I switch To survival Mode, plus The difficulty Setting based On my Mood. Edit: I accidentally Wrote adventure

[@auveus5036]

not really. play terraria to really know what true grinding is

[@dddi2571]

I just imagine a woodland mansion giving ACTUALLY good rewards but being very hard to progress through, or dungeouns hidden throughout the land with harder scaling

[@nerdynerd9346]

After you defeat the Ender Dragon, older mobs will gain new abilities and tools. This would help scale the progression between the player and the mobs.

[@robertskitch]

Interesting that difficulty is talked of almost exclusively in terms of hostile mobs and combat.

[@rompevuevitos222]

I mean, that's what a difficulty slider does, altho difficulty also affects other mechanics, like fire duration

[@ovencake523]

and status effects and environmental hazards (lava, cactus, fire, void) but i mean what else would a difficulty slider even effect? Light levels? Food?

[@itainteasy]

​@@ovencake523 rates of naturally occurring things, ore, generated structures, biomes, non-hostile mobs, technical complexity

[@henriquealves4383]

Difficulty idea: Easy mode: beds skip night Normal mode: beds fast forward time (like terraria) Hard mode: beds only change spawn location

[@pie6029]

How would phantoms work then?

[@ApollyonZKX]

@@pie6029 they stay around every night.

[@henriquealves4383]

@@ApollyonZKX I think it would be annoying but it’s a challenge, which hard mode should be

[@electra_]

I actually like this idea

[@asd_]

@@pie6029 just remove them

[@MarkPegi]

I find your voice very soothing and relaxing, and after re-watching older videos its clear how much you've improved your quality (especially on this video, it seems you got the settings just right), but kept the "style" of your content similar. Keep up the amazing work!

[@Lucpel18]

those visuals you did with minecraft blocks and mobs were great, like the different size slimes for the scaling of things at 9:37

[@imzary]

This video really changed my POV about game difficulties, as a gamedev and as a minecraft player

[@urbimisko8078]

We started a new server with my friends and 2 of us decided to play without using iron. We also banned diamond gear (other stuff like the enchanting table is ok). It made the game really fun in a challenging way. We had to figure out how to build a nether portal. We found a deep enough lava pool and carefully poured water on it and used fire charges we found in a ruined portal chest to start it (the wood we placed next to the portal took too long to light up). Later you can barter with piglins to get obsidian so you can build a nether portal anywhere. How did we build a good crop farm? We dug up a chunk of a swamp to get water source blocks everywhere and then placed the dirt back where we needed it. There are a few more problems that we need to solve and have a few ideas of how to do it but I wont spoil more if you want to try it yourself. We wanna try as many features as possible before we eventually get to the end to get the end gear stuff. One feature we really wanna use is the llamas and we are starting to make a farm for them. I wanna write a data pack for this at some point so if you want to play like this on a server you can make sure other people won't cheat.

[@JamesDayleyMusic]

That's actually an awesome concept

[@keyrren]

GG on 400k my guy! Hope you don't stop posting content like this!

[@zackeroni9]

I feel a way to make mobs more challenging for harder difficulties would be to give them skills or abilities in a sense. Nothing too crazy or abnormal. Things such as: Spiders being able to crawl across ceilings or use their leaping to cross gaps. The Warden being able to break blocks or jump if it can't reach you. Phantoms swooping down more frequently. Endermen being able to pick up more varieties of blocks, and doing so more frequently when they can't reach the player. Maybe calling over nearby Endermen to be aggressive at the player is well. Some sort of coordination in mobs, where they would delay their movement or attack to sync up with other mobs attack g the player such as: Skeletons shooting the player at the same time (or staggering their shots at an irregular pace to even out so it's more like rapid fire if that would be more difficult) Phantoms swooping down at the same time. Mobs like creepers would distance themselves with other creepers so they would all reach the player at the same time so a simple shield block can't protect them. Or maybe even passive mobs could get harder to deal with it use: Hit animals would run around more frantically or maybe faster. Villagers would not offer better trades and often, would overall have higher prices, or not lower their deals at much when being cured or when the player finishes a raid. Some of these things wouldn't be too noticeable, but would definitely make the game feel harder.

[@TacticalBaguette]

I'm not sure if this was just me being bad at the game when I was younger but I could have sworn passive mobs used to react as a herd to one getting hurt and would put a lot more effort into escaping.

[@raemmelparker9012]

​@@TacticalBaguetteunless you hit all of them but i think that is just nostalgia

[@galegopaulista4564]

I just wish Survival was more like it used to be. In the earlier versions of Minecraft there's a relative tension and pressure to make a safe place, because you can't skip the night. But with the bed being so easy to make (and using it even being encouraged due to the existence of phantoms) that tension just doesn't exist. That's why I think the phantom's spawn conditions should be inverted. I think phantoms should spawn after someone sleeps through too many nights, and even spawn during the day, only not spawning in more closed areas (like a house the player built), and only being stopped from spawning once the player stays a whole night awake. The difficulty could change the number of nights one needs to sleep through in order for phantoms to start spawning (maybe in easy they'd spawn after sleeping through 3 nights, in medium after 2, and in hard after just one night).

[@bolicob]

That's a good idea

[@rompevuevitos222]

I mean, the game never was about tension and difficulty, it was about freedom You don't have to use the bed if you don't like skipping nights, why are you using them if you dislike them? Also, phantoms only spawn in places with direct access to skylight, so a player's house would not be a viable spawn for them

[@galegopaulista4564]

@@rompevuevitos222 I don't think survival having a bit more pressure at the very beginning of a world would work against the freedom and creativity of Minecraft. It'd just make Survival Mode's name more fitting, and require the player to be resourceful enough to make a safe place for themselves until the night comes, which I think is only a good thing. Also, I never said that I dislike beds or skipping nights, I just think that they're undeniably overpowered, as they allow you to skip all the dangers of the night for a very low price. And even if I did dislike them, the game still tries to force players into using them with the way phantoms work. Also also, I specifically mentioned how I wouldn't want the phantom to spawn in places like a player's house, so I don't know how that last paragraph counters my points at all (unless I just got it all wrong and you weren't trying to counter anything with that last paragraph, and were just mentioning a cool fact).

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@galegopaulista4564 The game's whole gist is that it's simplistic, that's the main reason so many other similar to it have failed attempting the same gameplay Making the beggining more complex and specially harder would make the game's main selling point worse I do agree phantoms are kind of stupid design wise, but phantoms can be disabled with game rules and again, no one is forcing you to use beds My last point was actually reassurance that there was no danger of that happening and confirming your point

[@Lordodragonss]

I still dont understand why bed doesnt use wool AND at least one feather.

[@GameFraek]

There's also this problem with scaling where it can make getting upgrades feel less impactful. For example I think a interesting way to scale with the players power progression is perhaps spawning enemies with armor and weapons more frequently for stuff like zombies, however by doing this the upgrades do become less impactful. Where you would normally be able to two hit enemies you are now possibly back to a stage where it takes just as much effort as before with possibly more risk. This can make it a bit of a delicate scale although there are some ways around it. It might so become an issue if you (temporarily) lose acces to this power. Say you lost you Netherite gear somewhere and you don't have a OP back-up. You will now be more at risk of losing again of course and if the enemies scale that would be even worse since they are ment to be fought with better gear. Do you now scale the enemies back again? And if so then what is the point of scaling at all, so everything is always around your level?

[@peashootercat]

Another banging video. Your designs for the background footage sets only get better

[@rikuu9]

dude i just wanna say I LOVE your narrating!! Your voice is so pleasing to hear but at the same time lively :D Definetly checking out more of your content

[@ssencipe250]

Yes, difficulty settings in general are kind of outdated. They try to convey a certain level of challenge from developers, but they tend to ignore individual player difficulty. Difficulty is dynamic, it varies from player to player, from playstyle to playstyle, and even over time. As players gain experience and earn more flow they will become more skilled and diminish the overall difficulty they face. Instead, giving players a means of choosing their own level of challenge beyond just difficulty levels is better. Typically you issue optional challenges for this. You could always have dynamic difficulty levels that change with player performance too, but those systems can ruin player experiences if they realize what's happening. It's definitely a very interesting topic as a whole.

[@conflictt3224]

I think a couple easy ways to up difficulty would be a psuedo-Hardocore experience where some items are lost on death regardless of if you get back to your body on time. A more simple and likely less controvertial way is also to just increase mob variety using vanilla mobs. Wither Skeletons with bows shoot flaming arrows already, allow them to spawn in the Nether rarely and in the Fortresses more commonly. Equip skeletons in the overworld with swords rarely on Hard Mode- they move faster and strafe making them a harder challange in melee even though they werent designed for it. Reintroduce the Skeleton and Zombie Horses by having Undead Riders spawn like Jockeys do in Hard. Remove or nerf cheesy mechanics in Hard mode like making Iron Golems drop 3-6 nuggests instead of 1-3 ingots, and reducing the Hero of the Village and other trade buffs like curing a villager etc to make grinding out full Mending harder, etc. Make repeat Boss Fights scale up in difficulty each time, with higher EXP drop rates to reward players for fighting the dragon and wither more often. Make the wither's spawn explosion much larger so people cane cheese it in caves or the nether roof as easily- it makes a more open battlefield for itself (even let it break obsidian in that explosion fuck it). Allow mobs to swim against the flow of water when agro'ed so they aren't helpless in water streams in caves, but mob farms still work. etc

[@miimiiandco.8721]

I don't like the idea of nerfing helpful things for the player, I only want to see buffs for the hostile forces, unless Hard mode had a major shift in design philosophy.

[@zeppie_]

You raise a very interesting point on conditional difficulty. One thing that the game could do is to make it easier to fulfill those conditions. Like raids that can appear at random after some sort of warning, or making ores spawn more in caves and less in the blocks not exposed to air, making the safe option of strip mining less attractive

[@etchyasketch2851]

I think there should be challenge "gates" to the survival experience. You atart out and its typical MC. But once you enter the Nether (for Blaze Powder in terms of progression) the game should get tougher. At the point of wntry the player now has _theoretical_ access to potion brewing and Netherite and are on their way to the End. So AI should get smarter (better more aggressive pathfinding, mob tactics and maybe gear) and mobs who can wear gear are much more likely to have gear. Then once you Beat the Ender Dragon there should be one more difficulty bump, maybe mobs can spawn with some Endermen like purple particles denoting their ability to shoot dragons breath or other new challenges to the standard mob experience.

[@Sunnywastakentoo]

If you’re good at the game, hard is literally easier because of things like zombie villagers.

[@dr_mafarioyt4313]

True, but if you suck at the game, you never get to that point. I am that person who sucks. I get iron and then I die and then delete the world because I only play hardcore.

[@voiiid9108]

@@dr_mafarioyt4313 Then maybe dont play hardcore lmao

[@dr_mafarioyt4313]

@@voiiid9108 But I just give up when I die anyways. Its the one actually fun mode for me, and I love it.

[@user-tzzglsstle585e38]

What if the Zombie Conversion stays at 50% throughout all Difficulties? Cuz I feel like it both makes the game a tiny bit harder for those who don't care about trading and easier to those who trades a lot.

[@voiiid9108]

@@user-tzzglsstle585e38 no i think that would be the worst thing they could do. Making it so you have to rely on luck if your villager who your grinded for survives is just annoying. And that wouldn't make the game any harder. That would just extend the time it takes to get good villagers.

[@YounesLayachi]

1:38 yes let's talk about phantoms which were heavily nerfed according to community feedback. They deal barely any damage now, except if you play bedrock where they still hit like a truck lol. Bedrock developers don't care about feedback

[@bobsock8718]

The last six words almost made me laugh a little

[@dtslawyer6970]

And people complain phantoms are hard on Java. Mate, the phantoms on Bedrock deal the same damage on Easy that they do on Java on Hard, 3. And on Hard in Bedrock, it’s 9

[@rompevuevitos222]

Uh, the feedback applies to both versions equally They are meant to be as identical as possible They either forgot to make it equal or there was a change of plans and maybe Java will have the damage boosted again

[@crunch.dot.73]

@@rompevuevitos222 Bedrock and Java are not at all meant to be consistent with eachother, there are dozens of these strange design differences between the two

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@crunch.dot.73 Mojhang has already said that they want complete parity between both versions Any small differences are things they just didn't get to fix yet OR that are not easily doable with Bedrock's or Java's engine For example, the skin system would take a lot of work to implement in Java

[@broskipro7180]

super well explained and produced. good job!

[@AdVapidKudos]

Imagine scaling based on the dimensions you discover and bosses you defeat. Opening the Nether adds new challenges to the Overworld and reaching the End adds to both. Defeating the End Dragon might release Nether Dragons in the Nether and populate Overworld caves with hidden dragon nests filled loot you couldn't get before. Just by defeating a boss or choosing to access a new dimension says to the game that you are ready for newer and harder challenges. Of course this could all be configured in settings.

[@1gengabe]

phantoms should exist in the second end, also the phantom is hated because it was voted in on and idea that we where told and was changed, and we lost 3 other mobs that could have been, and in MCD have been better

[@rompevuevitos222]

I like that they make elytras renewable, but i don't get why there is a need to punish players for not sleeping, you can still just use a gamerul to disable them

[@1gengabe]

@@rompevuevitos222 I mean elytras are not expendable either, It would just be nice if phantoms where post dragon content, either by flying in packs in the 2nd end, or by flying in packs at night time in the sky, just something thats not spawn on top of you and prevent you from sleeping.

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@1gengabe They only spawn if you haven't slept in 3 days straight

[@1gengabe]

@@rompevuevitos222 true, however night time is important and prior to phantoms bed where just a spawn point and most players played through the night, now if your one of those players who likes playing at night time you have to sleep every 3rd night or if your on a server (which will probably have 1 player sleep set up) you don't get to play at night. Yes you can turn phantoms off, but on a server most people would complain if you did that. Granted mojang having added a game rule to completely disable Phantoms shows how completely useless that mob is overall, they get replaced by mending anyway and they add nothing to the gameplay experience. They are a cool mob I just wish they behaved closer to endermen, (with sleep as the trigger instead of being looked at) and weren't glow squid levels of useless.

[@smorcrux426]

The worst thing is that on easy there's only a 25% chance villagers will turn into zombie villagers when killed by zombies, which is extremely useful in villager trading, and so easy might be harder than hard. BTW I have to say I found it surprising you didn't include a few more recommendations of ways to fix this problem in the video, if you just listed 2-3 creative ideas at the end it would have made the video much better.

[@t00nedd00d]

Honestly the 25% thing isn't hard nor easy, it's just annoying, considering how difficult it is to travel mobs around regardless of the difficulty setting

[@Lordodragonss]

You are not supposed to turn villagers into zombies.

[@smorcrux426]

@@Lordodragonss but most of the time you would actually want the villager to turn into a zombie, because then you can cure them to get reduced prices.

[@user-tzzglsstle585e38]

Just like the top comment; this isn't really making the game more easy or hard, just more convenient or otherwise.

[@darthmauve]

@@Lordodragonss its a literal in game feature, even if you arent trying to abuse it for free discounts its still useful if your village gets attacked by zombies so you can cure them

[@ballslover77]

i found this in my recommended and your voice and the way you talk sre so soothing. i could fall asleep to you talking (in a good way).

[@GeneraleR]

There is one way they can upgrade the difficulty without gatekeeping content: mob ai. They kind of already did this with the zombies being able to break your doors and skeletons shooting faster, but it can be explored more. Imagine this, a creeper in easy mode walks towards you, but it takes more time to explode. Now a creeper in normal is the same, but the creeper in Hard mode can now climb ladders, jump over gaps and has a faster walking speed. And maybe explodes faster. This could expand to other mobs, like skeletons not attacking each other when hitting one another and running away when trying to get close, zombies building up to you when staying on a high up place, the wither could have his Bedrock AI only in hard mode, stuff like this. The only gatekeeping I can see would be needing to make different mobtraps/mobfarms depending on the difficulty, which doesn't really sound gatekeeping. Love the video btw

[@peterv1054]

I personally don't play Minecraft because I want a "challenge". My survival game always consists of industrializing and building beautiful and usefull buildings. If I wanted a challenge, I would play another game.

[@witha1]

@@nicknamedd_ bro if you want to play a difficult rpg like version of minecraft just go play mc dungeons or smth idk not some rip off that's not even official

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@witha1 Imagine calling MC Dungeons difficult, it's literally Diablo for kids Also, if that rip off provides things the game doesn't, that's on the original game, not the "rip off"

[@EpicNerdsWithCameras]

@@rompevuevitos222 So it's the original game's fault when it doesn't have content from mods? Every mod ever? Those provide things that the base game doesn't.

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@EpicNerdsWithCameras It's not it's fault in the sense that they did wrong, but in the way that there's nothing wrong with a game providing those missing mechanics

[@Subject_Keter]

@@rompevuevitos222 If you want to play something Hard, play lile Blightfall or those types of packs. We should let the players decide where they want to be instead of lumping them into X or Y cuz they only want like to use the magic mod.

[@ErzinYT]

Another problem is that hard mode makes stuff like villagers easier to use due to the fact that they will always turn into zombie villagers on death allowing you to cure them 100% of the time.

[@jonnowood8382]

Great video mate! Always love that you find new areas to deep-dive into and explore possible design changes. Have you ever considered getting into game design? I think it would suit you very well!

[@Kligor2]

I think the opt-in threats are my favorite. You go out searching for them when you feel like it. Though theres just not too many of em that change up your gameplay at all. Mansions are fun n cool and they have their own unique mobs but they are so incredibly hard to find and the reward is meh unless you're on hardcore. Ocean Monuments have some nice rewards in terms of all the prismarine, valuables and the sponges but the mining fatigue debuff is just so oppressive it feels less fun to encounter and more "Aw this shit again?" I feel we need more unique items for these that make it worth while to go there, a reason to seek them out other than sightseeing. The Deep Dark does it well imo cause you got some sorta stealth game-like idea going on with the Warden.

[@1gengabe]

Raids work by spawning the scouts on you usually at your base, forcing you to deal with them if you don't have milk you forget you have the debuff, then you have to deal with waves of pillagers at some point in time that frankly you where not prepared for, or they get turned into an extra life/emerald farm. I see lack of player choice here, with the only real option is hunting down a cow for milk, if you remember that the debuff exists

[@rdbs5687]

I mean I personally position myself in a way that they scouts kill their leader while I hold my shield out, i then proceed to kill the rest of them

[@1gengabe]

@@rdbs5687 that is an excellent idea

[@gdb5549]

Idea: make hard mode mobs have more armour and better weapons, but have the chance of those items dropping increase

[@rompevuevitos222]

This is already a thing, altho enchantments are controlled by regional difficulty and is independent of the game being in hard or not

[@gdb5549]

@@rompevuevitos222 I guess they should make it more exaggerated

[@planz1250]

Broo pls keep making these types of vids ! Their style is also perfect and somewhat relaxing . And when it comes to ur voice and narrating skills , i have no words💥

[@blikstar]

Your best video to date, nice explanation Sarc!

[@lightning_11]

It would be cool if difficulties were completely replaced by some kind of system, like the beacon, that makes your world/area harder or easier in exchange for some kind of increased or decreased rewards. (That sounds like the kind of idea Mojang would have to spend months to implement, though!!)

[@rompevuevitos222]

This is already a thing, it's called local difficulty The longer you stay on a zone, the harder it becomes, there are few effects but the feature already exists For example, phantoms spawn in bigger groups, zombies on fire have a higher chance of setting you on fire on hit, mobs with enchanted gear can have higher level enchantments, etc

[@voiiid9108]

@@rompevuevitos222 that is true but its barely noticeable at least for me. Its a great concept but they need to make the difficulty increase way harder to actually be important.

[@afriendlyfox]

Really easy idea: when you build some kind of a structure, something similar to the raid spawns with strong mobs that drop valuables

[@itzangel0735]

(Havent seen the video yet) Making the game harder like, making the overworld mobs strongers will suck, once you have many hours in a world fighting mobs is just annoying. What I think the game needs is being harder in the end game, in exploration, in dungeons. So far the place I think *really* needs to be super super *super* hard is the End dimension.

[@FoxSlyme]

Awesome video and a cool thumbnail as a cherry on top of the cake!

[@evank3718]

Can I just say I love the sets you build for the footage you use

[@tyflon380]

I like to make the game harder by turning of natural regeneration. It turns gold into a better resource, makes potion brewing more useful, inspires you to get a beacon, and encourages you to make suspicious stews in the early game. Combat also feels way more methodical. I use shields way more and calculate my way out of sticky situations, as blocking yourself in doesn't just equate to getting full health again; you still need the regen effects.

[@tyflon380]

@@zanu8147 Basically. I miss UHC :( 😂

[@azreath2503]

The stagnated difficulty has always bothered me. Early game, a single skeleton can kill me over and over. Late game, the only thing that becomes even mildly threatening is high level raids. It feels like the game runs out of challenge after a while. Making mobs more competent and spawning with better gear would remedy the situation by some degree... But I honestly can't think of anything that would make it harder, and not annoying.

[@Thumbsdwn]

Nice video! I am surprised that you didn't mention "local difficulty" and how that is another aspect of minecraft's difficulty scaling

[@christophjacobson8367]

I completely agree with you Also I wanted to say your video style is amazing, I don't know if you know much about cinematography but your shots on your videos are so cinematic and your visual narration is another great thing, keep it up I have a suggestion to possibly improve your videos, between your video sections, you can pause a little bit and have like a 1 or 2 seconds of silence between them to make your video feel less rushed and more calmly

[@ecogreen123]

i either play hard with friends, easy on my own for a more casual experience, or peaceful/normal depending on the modpack.

[@SlayingtheGloom]

One way I've found to scale difficulty well is to increase and decrease mob movement speed. Making mobs faster makes them harder to hit and defend from, it becomes harder to escape them or avoid being ambushed, cheesing tactics like towering and tunnelling aren't as reliable. All these changes actually make the game noticeably different, all just from one change. You don't need to gate content to still make different difficulties into noticeably different experiences.

[@matthewminney1304]

Imo that's exactly what made old versions of night time seem so opressive and scary, since without sprinting outrunning mobs was way harder and being boxed in was deadly. Perhaps spiders should be able to keep up with a sprint atleast

[@witchcraft6365]

The main reason that I play on hard mode, is because I find it easier than easy, because of zombie villager conversions. When zombie villagers were added it was supposed to add difficulty; if you are in a village and let 1 zombie in, suddenly you have a lot more threats. However, now you bring in 1 zombie, heal the villager you let it kill, and buy full diamond with a total of 4 emeralds. But on easy mode there are still no zombie villager conversations making trading with villagers a lot less overpowered.

[@GeeztJeez]

I've managed a small server with my friends on survival (approx 6 people) and on their experiences, they said they like when something challenging happened, even though I spawned it just to trolled them, so I think you're on right track

[@mrmaxmondays]

I never see comments saying this but your cinematography is consistently impressive, absolutely love the aesthetic. Your channel is easily the biggest inspiration for my own vids🙏🏼

[@Yipper64]

The problem I think is that we're thinking of difficulty in the wrong way here. Making the game "harder" doesnt mean its more challenging or fun necessarily, it often times can just make the game more annoying. (phantoms are an obvious example.) 2:35 im not sure about that. Creepers you can prevent like any other mob. It is a annoying, but you just have to "get good" to not have to deal with it. Phantoms on the other hand cant be avoided, unless you sleep through nights, which if the method of avoidance is annoying in an of itself, there's no way its not going to be annoying. So basically we need to replicate that. Make an obstacle with a solution that isnt annoying, but rather making the avoidance of whatever it is *fun,* even if the feature itself could be annoying, making it fun to avoid it makes it simply challenging.

[@witha1]

bro, sleeping is not an annoying task, it's like just right clicking

[@Yipper64]

@@witha1 it is annoying. You have to go out of your way for whatever youre doing, and then right click a bed, and then you cant fight any of the night mobs because they dont spawn in the daytime. It is very annoying. Way more annoying than having to build a base which you would probably do anyways.

[@witha1]

@@Yipper64 i mean when ever i play the game and phantoms spawn i barely even notice them until like 5 seconds until daytime when they just die, they're more of a mild inconvinience at best, wouldn't call them annoying, people can complain all they want but we voted for that mob to get added so like yk

[@cosmicking2054]

@Awbluefy Dude, I love your username! That's absolutely brilliant!

[@Yipper64]

@@cosmicking2054 thanks, I think so too.

[@Pineapple_hozy]

New subscriber here and I love the content ty for this 😁♥️♥️.

[@honeyhiveunderscore]

Honestly, more enemies that have unique things about them could make things more challenging. Having a group of 5 zombies and a few skeletons chase after you can be threatening, however its still often a pushover due to their stone-age AI. However, enemies that bring new things to the table could be interesting. Like you mentioned, the phantoms are interesting, and require you to change the way you view a fight with them, however they're just made in a way that is rather annoying for most. New mobs that spawn regularly like any other mobs could spice up this formula by introducing new tactics to the world, without making it so there is always pressure during the calm periods of the game.

[@ezap5584]

For a start they probably really should add more bosses, and then I'd say it would be a great idea to do what terraria did and add new mechanics to the bosses depending on the difficulty. Another feature could be buffed AI? Like better skelly aim (like it wasn't good enough lol)

[@rompevuevitos222]

The game is not a boss rush, the bosses that exist are there for a reason, like gating content So if they where to add another boss, they would need a good reason to do so

[@ezap5584]

@@rompevuevitos222 Well but of course

[@mathughsyoutubeworld2655]

@@rompevuevitos222 terraria isn’t a boss rush either there’s a lot in between bosses. People just hear boss and assume it’s going to be a dark souls boss.

[@coral3397]

Mob difficulty actually will scale with time, the longer you've been in a chunk the more/better armor/tools mobs will start to spawn with :)

[@testerwulf3357]

True but that feature is kind of pointless when people are often moving around a lot..most don't stick in a single chunk for long making this feature go unnoticed.

[@soufianelaiassi7536]

This is a great analysis on the difficulty system, I thought it was very insightful

[@midasfury6165]

Thank you for releasing vids again :D

[@MmeCromatique]

The only reason I play exclusively on hard is for the villager conversion that is too random to impossible in other difficulty, and that's a gatekeeping feature, in hard you can constantly heal your villager to combat inflation, a thing you cannot do in normal because you will most likely loose them, in my point of view the difficulties are reversed, hard is the easier and peaceful the hardest

[@lavacake3949]

I, personally, would not enjoy scaling difficulty, especially in the realm of mobs becoming more powerful. To me, gaining more powerful armor gives me the new ability to go out at night or build at night without risk of dying. Mobs become something to surpass, like how the elytra makes transport easier, or shulkers make item storage easier. If they remained a constant threat then I might as well just not get armor.

[@burakanilince]

Great visuals…. Thats a really nice presentation

[@theflyingwhale5778]

8:38 Nice point! I played hardcore only, because on survival I just stuffed my Fortune 3 Pickaxe in a chest and just play with iron gears, in Hardcore I just use whatever is the strongest because if you die, you can't lose your stuffs, you lose you entire world.