Better Than Wolves

August 19th, 2013

• Added Hardcore Hell. This involves several tweaks to the nether (mostly to ghasts) to substantially increase its difficulty as it was feeling very weak compared to what it used to be. There was a time when just waltzing around in the open in the nether was really not a feasible option, and that brought along with it a sense of tension and specific building requirements that were unfortunately lost somewhere in MC's ongoing development. I've basically tried to restore the nether to being the terrifying experience I remember it as when I first started playing Minecraft (shortly after the nether was first introduced), and in the process extended the mid-game portion of BTW giving players good reason to spend time upgrading their equipment at the iron and diamond levels before progressing further.
• Added wool as a new item, which is dropped from sheep instead of wool blocks. Wool blocks may still be created by surrounding a Wicker block by 4 wool items in the crafting grid (plus sign pattern), with the resulting color of block being a mix of the colors of wool used in its creation. This was done to reduce the effectiveness of wool in the early game in creating cheap barricades, to make wool blocks feel more "solid", and along with other changes in this release, to increase the value of keeping sheep as livestock (particularly in the early game where shearing them can provide a renewable source of cloth and padded armor). Thanks to DaveYanakov for this idea!
• Added a visual indication of fat level to the player model so that others will have a better idea of when someone is a particularly nutritious food source.
• Added recipe to convert snow blocks back into snow balls.
• Added some variance to where you will respawn after dying in the same area multiple times with Hardcore Spawn. This was done both to decrease the number of incidents where the player would continually respawn in the same location only to be killed again by the same monsters, and to decrease the viability of intentionally killing yourself to exploit the hunger/health system. You'll still respawn in the same general area, but your precise location will usually be different.
• Changed the Wool Slab recipe to require three Wool Blocks side by side in the crafting grid, similar to the recipes for vanilla slabs.
• Changed the Padding recipe to consist of 2 fabric with 1 wool in the middle, in a vertical line.
• Changed the wool armor recipes to use the new wool items instead of wool blocks.
• Changed the wool armor recipes to produce armor of a color that's a blend of the various colors of wool that are used in its crafting.
• Changed (decreased) the regrowth rate of wool on sheep. Similar to cows producing milk, they will now need to consume grass several times before their wool grows back. Also added a sound effect for when the wool regrows.
• Changed the chance of fire spreading to be identical across difficulty levels. It now always works as it did on hard difficulty previously.
• Changed (increased) the spawn rate of ghasts in the nether to increase the difficulty of the nether overall.
• Changed (increased) the hit point value on ghasts as despite their large size, they were actually one of the weakest mobs in the game, and their hit points were never adjusted when bows became more powerful with the "adventure update". This also helps to further promote the use of Broadheads in the late game, or at least the use of normal arrows as opposed to rotted ones when first visiting the nether, since archery is the primary method of dealing with ghasts.
• Changed (increased) the minimum distance at which ghasts can spawn from the player, to reduce instances of players getting blasted soon as they first emerge from a nether portal, or having a ghast pop up out of nowhere to immediately start shooting at you. This should also mean that once you clear an area of ghasts, it should at least temporarily remain that way until they wander back into range.
• Changed a small thing about Hardcore Nothing To Worry About, which you also shouldn't worry about.
• Fixed vanilla problem with ghasts not actually aiming at the player (often it would be over your head if the ghast was above you).
• Fixed vanilla problem with "living" sounds on entities (chickens clucking, cows mooing, ghasts moaning, etc.) tending to play all at once for all entities when you first loaded the game or changed dimensions. This was particularly noticeable with ghasts and caused a fair amount of stutter when entering the nether, but may result in an overall performance boost on game/chunk load.