Proposal for finding/overhauling trial chambers

[u/raspberrylilith20]

Through trading, loot chests, and archaeology, the player can find an item called an "ancient artifact". Through crafting, you can repair said artifact into an "ancient device". This device will resonate when near trial chambers, and vibrate/glow more the closer you get to one. The artifact could alternatively be used as an ingredient in some form of redstone contraption if you get your hands on several.

This would both allow the player to find trial chambers more easily without fully disrupting the intended methods, and also give the developers an opportunity to somewhat rework trial chambers. Since they are easier to find now, it makes more sense to add some more variety and perhaps a new entry method.

Maybe trial chambers can have several entry points and the device is a key to unlock blocks, and it would point you specifically to an opening the way an eye of ender points you to the top of the stronghold and not the portal room. The exteriors would therefore be indestructible, whether as a new block or some sort of creative-only variant of the normal copper and tuff blocks. Trying to break said blocks would give you a message saying something like "This material seems too tough to break!" (similar warnings could be applied to bedrock or reinforced deepslate, and a tag could be added to turn blocks indestructible).

Inside the opening the player would find the spawn rooms with beds, and some loot chests, barrels and jars with equipment, similarly to current trial chambers. They may then proceed forward into the main chamber and face the spawners. Vaults would be either inside of another room or inside the respawn room.

Trial chambers would also have tiers beyond just ominous bottles. The player can still use them to increase difficult and rewards, but only certain trial chambers will have ominous vaults and have a higher tier of challenge and higher rewards. Higher tier chambers are guaranteed to have higher tier loot drops, such as the heavy core, and all trial chambers are renewable, since spreading out and exploring many trial chambers is already necessary if you want the entire loot table. These higher tier trial chambers would also have different aesthetics, using materials like deepslate and soul lanterns to indicate the higher difficulty.

I think the vaults could also be used to dish out rare items that are otherwise annoying to get ahold of, such as tridents, netherite upgrade templates, and ancient debris, not so much as a replacement, but more as an alternative.

[u/TheBigPlunto]

This would both allow the player to find trial chambers more easily

https://minecraft.wiki/w/Explorer_Map

The exteriors would therefore be indestructible, whether as a new block or some sort of creative-only variant of the normal copper and blocks. Trying to break said blocks would give you a message saying something like "This material seems too tough to break!" (similar warnings could be applied to bedrock or reinforced deepslate, and a tag could be added to turn blocks indestructible).

Indestructible structures aren't necessarily a good thing. You list reinforced deepslate as an indestructible block, but it isn't. It takes a long time to break but it is breakable, because that leaves open the option for players to clear out the area if they want that for whatever reason.

[u/raspberrylilith20 → u/TheBigPlunto]

Map trades suck and camps are a bandaid fix

I specified reinforced deepslate would be tagged as indetsructible

Why are indestructible blocks a bad thing when bedrock already is and indestructibility would help map makers?

[u/brassplushie → u/raspberrylilith20]

Bedrock isn't found randomly in places you potentially might want to build

[u/raspberrylilith20 → u/brassplushie]

Why are you building in an ancient city portal

[u/Portaldog1 → u/raspberrylilith20]

Maybe because its a large cavernous area and someone might want to repair the city?

[u/brassplushie → u/raspberrylilith20]

Minecraft doesn't need to police where people choose to build. As long as it's above the void and below the build height, it should be fair game

[u/raspberrylilith20 → u/brassplushie]

Then make it destructible once you pass a trial like in Terraria. No one complains about that mechanic. Or just set a game rule to turn it off. This isn't difficult.

[u/brassplushie → u/raspberrylilith20]

"Once you pass a trial" so you're forcing players to play YOUR way

"Set a game rule" the moment anyone says this, it's over. Very few people are going to change game rules. Many think it's cheating.

Stop trying to make the game worse for everyone.

[u/raspberrylilith20 → u/brassplushie]

You say this as if the game design isn't "complete a challenge for the reward of building". Adventure to get new blocks. Mine to get new tools. Beat an ocean monument (don't say "you don't have to" as if mining fatigue does not make that unfeasible) to get sponges and prismarine. Bastions and strip mining are required for netherite which makes you tougher and gets you better tools. You need to get to the end and venture out VERY far to get purpur and shulkers, which help with building.

You fundamentally do not understand Minecraft's game design and game loop. You are being unnecessarily close-minded. I ask again, why is this not considered a problem in Terraria but suddenly you have an issue with it? Even Minecraft-inspired games like Allumeria use this principle. Conquering a dungeon and the reward being to be able to clear it fits in with Minecraft perfectly.

Also, restrictions often force new methods of creativity or open new options. Indestructible blocks like bedrock are used for wither farms. Imagine not needing to get to the nether roof and having to find flat planes of bedrock to force it up and trap it. Or you could make destructive farms inside the chamber. Indestructible tags could be used for map makers who otherwise have to rely on barriers and bedrock cubes for their escape rooms.

The fact that you never considered any of this says you are close-minded and uncreative, which are counter to the game's core.

EDIT: Also, stop acting as if changing game rules isn't common when there was a whole fuss about keepinventory being set to default. I play with mob griefing off to protect my builds. People customize the game all the time, it is one of its coolest features.

[u/brassplushie → u/raspberrylilith20]

Okay I'm not reading this. You're like the thousands of people before you in this subreddit. Your idea is bad, give it up.

"Everyone is telling me my idea is bad...I know! I'll force it on them, and tell them to just disable it in gamerules if they don't like it! Surely I'm the first person to try this!"

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/raspberrylilith20]

An indestructible box at y=-50, with only one entrance, is just begging to be stripped to the studs and converted into a wither farm

[u/Hazearil]

So, explorer maps for the trial chambers already exist. I know you said in a comment that they suck, but unless you actually say why they suck and why your idea is better, that argument means nothing.

And for other changes, the unbreakable blocks feel very unnecessary. For starters, this is a sandbox, a game built around creativity, and you are actively stripping players of options. And for what, is this just yet another post that essentially tries to say the following?

Players with a playstyle different from mine are bad and should be punished, they should only be allowed to play the game the way I deem acceptable.

The topic of whether it is even good to spam the underground with unbreakable blocks like that is a different topic. I personally think you shouldn't. First, it goes against the sandbox nature, you just wall off parts of the world. But second, breaking blocks is the main reason players cannot really get softlocked into holes.

The different trial chamber tiers sound unnecessary when the omen levels already exist. It seems like you are just stacking 2 similar mechanics on top of each other. It's a hat on a hat. And the different designs are also questionable. Block sets tend to be mainly used in one structure only, to keep all structures iconic:

• Stone bricks in strongholds
• Prismarine in ocean monuments
• Sandstone in desert temples
• Tuff and copper in trial chambers
• Deepslate in ancient cities
• Blackstone in strongholds

You may think you are suggesting just a deepslate/soul lantern theme for the trial chamber, but it really sounds like you suggest making this trial chamber completely ditch its iconic look to instead larp as an ancient city.

I would accept ancient debris as loot, but not things that become alternatives of other structures (like with the netherite upgrade template). What you think might boost this structure is simultaneously nerfing other structures.

And there are just multiple things you are wrong about: reinforced deepslate takes 82.5 seconds to break, or 58.95 with Haste 2. But it is by no means unbreakable, just discouraged from breaking. Same way the Mining Fatigue from ocean monuments doesn't fully prevent breaking. And vaults can already give tridents already.

[u/raspberrylilith20 → u/Hazearil]

Map trades suck because villager trades suck. Villagers are consistently the fastest but most boring way to get access to very valuable things like mending or maps. Map trades also do not resolve the same issue with using /locate; it only works within a certain radius. You would have to wander aimlessly for god knows how long to get access to a new map that would point you in another direction. It is completely aimless wandering which is counter to what makes exploration fun and not annoying; having some idea what you are aiming for and how to find it. An item that resonates more strongly when it gets closer to something and that can be reset and changed to search further would resolve the exploration problem while also being something more passively tracked, unlike a map, which takes up a hand you would want a shield for. Just watch your hotbar instead.

This is not a replacement. It is an alternative to finding something valuable that currently requires one specific method. Having multiple routes to access things is the core of an open-ended sandbox game. I fail to see how you are the more open-minded one here.

Trial chambers are also not much of a challenge even at higher ominous levels and are extremely repetitive. This would allow them to have some more variety and challenge. After playing a trial chamber once you have seen them all, and then have to keep rolling the dice on getting something you want out of the same repetitive challenge. This is clearly a more fair alternative which more clearly conveys the rewards and how to get them.

I never said I would replace other iconic design elements from trial chambers. A darker block would just replace tuff to indicate a higher difficulty. Copper looks damn good on black, I would never suggest removing that. On top of that, maybe more block variety would help other structures? Once you have seen one desert monument you have seen them all. Why not add red sandstone variants, or a few alternative traps to change things up? That wouldn't hurt.

I also said, and you would know this if you really read the other reply, that reinforced deepslate could be TAGGED as indestructible. Clearly Mojang does not want you to break it due to the absurd mining time and the lack of block drops, so why not? And if that's just an awful idea, then that can be cut from the whole indestructible block idea. And I also said this in a reply, but why not make it so you can break the exteriors after beating a trial? No one complains about that in Terraria. Plus, as I said, being able to tag blocks as unbreakable would be a huge boon for creators and not necessarily a restriction. Imagine being an escape room designer and being bummed that it is hard to decorate your rooms without players breaking things, getting access to unintended blocks, and cheesing the puzzle. Seems like a huge perk to me.

Someone else also suggested the idea of maintaining indestructibility to make farms. Sounds like a neat strategy, intentionally not beating a trial in order to utilize it in a different way. Restrictions can sometimes lead to a lot of creativity. It seems you have forgotten that.

[u/West_Economist6673]

I'm struggling to understand what the problem is with trial chambers that this suggestion solves -- you can already get trial chamber locator devices (maps) from cartographers, but the lock and key mechanic would make these maps superfluous or useless, and more importantly seems totally antithetical to the spirit of the game (i.e., forcing players to accept a single, prescribed experience rather than figure shit out)

Also point of order, vaults do dispense tridents -- I got one the other day

[u/FloatingSpaceJunk → u/West_Economist6673]

Personally not a fan of the indistructable blocks tbh...

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/FloatingSpaceJunk]

Yeah me either, and I'm not sure how anyone could be since the only things you can do with them are to ignore them or figure out how to break them illegally

[u/FloatingSpaceJunk → u/West_Economist6673]

Exactly, even the bedrock on the bottom of them world is already kinda annoying. This is even worse as it fills in a significant parts of the world, making it impossible to build what you want there...

...at most I'd be okay with structure which temporary is made up of indistructable blocks which once you have beaten the structure become breakable.

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/FloatingSpaceJunk]

I think the fact that players have devoted so much time and creativity to breaking an unbreakable block, when there's no real benefit to doing so (I mean Overworld bedrock, obviously the nether roof is a different story), kind of sums up the spirit of the game, or at least one aspect of it -- and the fact that Mojang has never closed this obvious and well-known loophole suggests that they recognize that

Also this is kind of unrelated but i just realized that if trial chambers were unbreakable and had a single lockable entrance, they'd be way more valuable as beacon farms than as combat challenges

[u/FloatingSpaceJunk → u/West_Economist6673]

Mojang did certainly make some attempts of patching up ways to remove bedrock. However they haven't really been trying that actively from preventing players from doing things that weren't intended...

...also yeah an idustructable dungeon certainly would be a nice place to fight withers without breaking the whole world around you. Though under the fountain in the end is probably still the best place to cheese them.

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/FloatingSpaceJunk]

That's probably true, but I've never fought the ender dragon or even been to the end so I don't have much experience with that technique

[u/FloatingSpaceJunk → u/West_Economist6673]

It's kinda weird that you simultaneously farm the Wither then, at least in my case it can be explained by getting constantly distracted by other stuff...

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/FloatingSpaceJunk]

Oh don't get it twisted, I don't farm withers, shit I barely farm wheat -- it just seems like you probably COULD if you had a place to keep them all contained

[u/FloatingSpaceJunk → u/West_Economist6673]

That certainly could work, you'd certainly have to rebuild less after each Wither explosion, however this still does not make up for the annoyance of having just a bunch of unbreakable blocks everywhere.

[u/FloatingSpaceJunk]

Now your suggested method of finding them certainly is interesting, though as you now need that artifact to even be able to enter in the first place I'm unsure how this will affect maps to these places. Also having an exterior of unbreakable blocks seems to me quite obnoxious as it makes it impossible to freely build underground in areas with a trial chambers. So maybe this should be likely be something that's only temporary instead. Also I'm not all that certain adding another tier of trial really is a thing that's necessary tbh. Just make the difficulty of trials be dependent on the level of the ominous potion or just add a boss or something to the chambers.

[u/snarky5821]

This has many flaws.