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I think it's because the Warden was talked about by the community as if it were a boss that you can fight, instead of what it actually is, an environmental obstacle you have to overcome like pools of lava, or underwater caves. You're not supposed to fight it because it's meant to be part of the terrain. It's not like the Wither or the Ender Dragon where they were designed to be fought for a reward.
No, I let her choose but i always make sure there is one tinner (seemingly) bigger part and and actual big part that looks tinier. In other ways I trick her in every way I can imagine.
It was specifically stated in several streams to be an obstacle, or a natural disaster
Maybe when it was first revealed, it wasn’t super clear, but like?? This logic isn’t sound
Oh I know, that's why I specified "talked about in the community," because Mojang was very clear up front with what the Warden is supposed to be.
However, for the community, the closest points of reference we had to "big mob with tons of health in a new update" were the Wither and the Ender Dragon so when the Warden came out everyone naturally called it a boss mob. Which it isn't, but at that point the discourse around it stuck.
This is a thing that I observed happening frequently where Mojang's vision for Minecraft is very different from the Community's vision for Minecraft.
You see this with the 1.20 update where Mojang thought it would be great to foster intrinsic motivation with armor trims, hanging signs that are more about identlty whereas the community wanted adventure, biome updates, and more mobs to fight. (Basically end update)
Its also good to take a look at the modded minecraft scene since for the most part the most popular mods are what defines this community vision for minecraft.
As someone who started playing Minecraft around the warden introduction and wasn't watching Minecraft live then..
It has a body, it acts like a thinking creature (sniffing, tracking, etc..) It attacks, path finds and spawns in a specific way and has a health bar. That makes it a hostile mob.
The fact it has a rediculously large health bar like the ender dragon or wither makes it a mob boss.
If you want it to be an environmental factor it needs to look/act like an environmental element. Something like a myst that causes the darness effect that flows like water would be perfect.
I don't care what the designers had in mind when they were coming up with it. Just how a player is going to perceive it.
I also know I recently killed my first warden.
We committed to it once we figured out how we could range atrack it. Once you can do that the 250 hearts stops being a problem and becomes a grind.
Similarly we thought we would get a mountain of xp or something new but the skulk generator drop and zero xp put a major downer on the achievement.
Yea, this is less on the Warden's design and more on Mojang's absolute reliance on players looking outside the game for what things are and how to play.
As much as I love Minecraft, it really does not have a good new-player experience.
Me and friends looted a couple of ancient cities. Got a lot of the shiny gapples. We decided for fun, that I'd down all the gapples I have while tanking a lot of Wardens.
All we got was a sense of thrill and nearly broken armor. We got about 5 of them before we had to run away because my armor was getting low, and I was out of gapples.
I believe the Warden should have some sort of reward. Like at least a shit ton of XP when you kill it, y'know my armor is expensive to fucking repair. Just my 2 cents.
You chose to fight the thing that literally isn’t supposed to be fought, what did you expect??
Edit: Also the entire deep dark is made of xp, just mend through that
Ah, so it's down to poor communication on the designer's part then.
I'm a player who doesn't really engage with the community or dev cycle- how was someone like me supposed to know that the new hostile mob wasn't supposed to be fought?
There was no in-game indication that this mob was supposed to be treated differently from any other mob so before this thread I had zero idea that the intentions for the Warden were for it to be an environmental hazard,
The Warden can kill you in 3 hits even in fully enchanted Netherite armor, shoot an unavoidable projectile that can go through blocks, bypasses armor and shields, and kills you in 2 hits, and has more than double the Ender Dragon's health.
It's pretty obvious that you're not supposed to fight it, even if you ignore the fact that it doesn't drop anything useful, gives 0 exp and doesn't even count towards the Monsters Hunted advancemet unlike every other hostile mob in the game.
It's not a fault of the designers' communication, they make it as clear as they possibly could that it's meant to be an enviormental hazard that's supposed to be avoided and ran away from, not a boss you fight, and if the player still doesn't understand that, then that's entirely on them and not the designers.
And how much of that information is available to players who encounter it organically?
Players who do might not realise that the projectile is unavoidable- I didn't.
They might not know it bypasses armour and shields- I didn't.
They might now realise it has so much HP- I didn't.
It's not communicated effectively. At all.
There is no argument there. It just isn't.
All you have to do is try to block it once to realize it bypasses shields. Same with realizing it's unavoidable or that the Warden has a ton of hp. It's told to the player the same way they are told that monsters spawn in the dark or that bedrock can't be broken: by letting them figure it out through gameplay.
We did not read the patch notes back then. We just went with a shallow understanding of Ancient Cities, and the update in general. It's fun to discover, but definitely not fun when we discovered too much and almost got our asses handed to us.
As you can tell, we are monkeys.
Tbh if they made the Warden immune by all survival-possible means, and could not be killed, only despawn, it might have had it's intended purpose better.
(And for creative mode people, just make it so the Warden's invincibility can be disabled through commands etc)
Mojang explained that they didn't give it (useful) loot on purpose, they don't want to encourage killing of it in any way.
As soon as a mob drops something useful, it becomes a farmable thing. They don't want the warden farmed, they want the warden avoided.
The only reason they made it killable in the first place (as opposed to just being immune to damage/infinite hp) is because of the potential world-bricking consequences of an immortal mob that can spawn but can't be gotten rid of.
It's an environmental hazard, nothing more.
I just wish it was made a bigger impact on the actual environment as a disaster. Like you HAVE to deal with it or else it spreads. I am fully aware how it works and spreads.
What i do now is to just settle in my world far enough away that those chunks are never loaded. And i just explore the other way instead
I mean, to be fair to people, this is the first ever mob in Minecraft that was designed for you to run from and avoid, and all other mobs in Minecraft are meant for you to befriend and/or smack until they die.
To Mojang's credit, they have made it painfully clear that you don't need to kill this guy: huge health, wall hacks, and an arguably mid tier drop. But because players like having fun and experimenting, they'll figure out how to kill them anyway. I don't mind those players, but I don't get people who complain about the Warden being different than all the other ones, as if something new isn't exciting and groundbreaking and exactly what Mojang should be doing more of.
My main gripe with it personally is that for such an enemy mechanic it requires good level design built around the creature but Minecraft's generation will never perfectly accommodate that
I'm not upset that it's in the game. It's fine. But it's not for me. "The point of the warden is to avoid it" well then that's not much of a point. I'll just go ahead and avoid it then, and not experience the hard work they put into the feature.
I've done the ancient city and deep dark now, and experienced the warden. So it's not like I missed out. But I have no desire to go back. Unless one day I want to make an underground build to exploit the non spawning mechanic.
Very cool looking addition to the game that ultimately adds very little to the overall experience. Most players are annoyed with stealth / waiting / one shot / warden mechanics. The rewards aren’t worth it either.
The rewards maybe aren’t worth it to someone who condenses the game down to a resource farming simulator, but as a casual player, the increased ore generation, mountains of free experience, discs, recovery compass, lore implications, and unique enchantment are all very worth it.
The rewards are hardly worth it straight up, resource farming simulator or not. The recovery compass I could probably write a whole paragraph about why it’s a terribly placed reward in the deep dark.
Obviously this is a per player situation but I think if you researched around Reddit and other hubs of Minecraft players you’d find the common Deep Dark opinion to be negative for a pretty justifiable reason.
The loot table has a couple unique things worth your time (5 disc, Swift Sneak) but otherwise End Cities are less dangerous, faster, and easier to find.
Enchanted golden apples are the main loots from ancient cities, averaging about 2 per city (which is a huge step up from the like 1/5 chance per desert pyramid)
It’s niche and that’s intentional, I’ve gotten use out of it 3 ish times, all largely separated but still worth it
I’m sorry I’m not like, the perfect player lmao
It doesn’t need to directly be said, the recovery compass is literally built to be an item to assist in a skill issue, most of the people who complain about it (aside from those complaining about its placement in the ancient city, which, in complete fairness, is NOT a good place to put an item like this) don’t find use in it bc they simply don’t die.
You said it yourself. The recovery compass is stupid because by the time you can conquer an ancient city, you're probably not dying much anymore. Anyone good enough to take down an ancient city is also definitely good enough to sit in a tower and take down a raid so they get plenty of totems, which further invalidate the recovery compass.
The nice thing about ancient cities is that they can be raided in the early game with no armor since no other mobs spawn. A recovery compass could be useful then.
>by the time you can conquer an ancient city, you're probably not dying much anymore
Why? The stuff you can use for making it easier (wool/shears, snowballs, any bow) isn't very expensive. Or are you using elytra wings/fireworks for it?
Ender pearls are also a really good method of escape, in ancient cities where 25 blocks are replaced with air in the ceiling you can easily throw one across half the entire structure
I don't think the ancient city can entirely be considered anywhere on a early game to late game spectrum.
Done correctly, you can raid an ancient city and take the same amount of damage as you could even with full protection 4 netherite. The mechanics of the deep dark are almost entirely on the player's immediete skill/movement/inputs, not their gear or how far they've progressed in the game. The warden itself is the only mob in the game that up doesn't give a shit about the player's armor and has an attack that can deal "true damage".
Obviously you're more well equipped against the warden in full prot 4 netherite. But if you were to ask me if I would rather take on an end city or an ancient city with nothing but a pickaxe, bread, and some blocks, I would probably choose the end city.
The issue is, people who know how to navigate an ancient city butt naked with no gear are almost certainly extremely skilled players who know mechanics inside and out. They aren't the intended audience for the recovery compass and probably won't use it.
If I'm a new player and I'm mining and see this pitch black region that makes creepy noises and screaming sounds when I walk around, I'm not going in there to loot whatever structure there is.
The recovery compass would be much better as a trade from Wandering Traders. A fairly early game source of treasure that actually has use. Since you'll probably be pretty weak and will be dying often to actually make use of it.
I usually do ancient cities during the iron stage, as I’m pretty good at the stealth part. I also don’t really farm raids or amass totems, I feel like it cheapens the experience.
Yeah absolutely not. I'm a pretty good survival player and even I have times where I get cocky and slack off and die to something stupid. The recovery compass absolutely is useful.
I’m an exception then. I die a lot but I can navigate the dark city pretty well without dying. The recovery compass is wonderful and I’ve used it several times since I got one.
>The rewards maybe aren’t worth it to someone who condenses the game down to a resource farming simulator
Or someone who's already gained all those through normal means? Most of the loot isn't unique. It doesn't take the top 1% to get them before the ancient city.
>increased ore generation
By the time you get there you'll likely have most of the ore you'll need.
>mountains of free experience,
Plenty elsewhere. More is always good, but it isn't *that* notable. Especially when you're risking *all* of it being down there with a mob you aren't meant to kill.
>discs
Probably not worth it or useful for the casual player.
>recovery compass
Mid by this point. Just use a totem. They're way easier to get and far more useful.
>lore implications
Does a casual player even care? What percentage of them even try to figure that stuff out on their own instead of watching a 1 hour deep dive documentary that's been professionally put together?
>unique enchantment
About the only thing worthwhile there
The rewards aren't worth it. Most of the community agree on this. While this post isn't the best breakdown of the loot, I think it gives a good idea why people don't care for it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/s/bb4JnNaNYC
Idk I find it a fun thing, ore generation increased is not worth it strip mining is more effective. Finding nether quartz is more efficient for XP farming and less dangerous. And unique enchantments? Now that I'm curious about I never thought about that much I'm the guy in hardcore maxing out a fishing rod and fishing safely for enchanted books for hours so I need to look up what unique ones it offers
The unique enchant from the ancient cities is swift sneak. It genuinely is a wonderful QOL enchant, allowing you to move at much higher speeds while sneaking than normal. Note, if you go get it, it is a legging enchant despite sounding like a boot one.
As a casual player, none of that makes it worth going to. I can get ore and xp elsewhere. I don't die enough to warrant seeking out a recovery compass. Lore implications? As a casual player, I make Minecraft my own. I don't seek in-game lore.
Swift Sneak is absolutely worth it. One of my favorite enchantments these days, I get annoyed when I don't have it. Plus, I like collecting armor trims.
For me at least when I play, no. Maybe one or two trips to collect a few but I rarely find myself needing or eating them in the first place. The benefits I’d want to use them for I can achieve for cheaper and easier with other sources of items or options.
For a casual player, potentially. If you find yourself dying a lot an egap might help you - but you also might not be good enough to get to the rewards (this is why a lot of players don’t bother - the deep dark is too annoying and tedious).
For an experienced player… maybe? The fire resistance and regeneration is kind of useless considering you can brew more potent or lengthy versions of those as potions. Absorption is cool for sure, the main appeal. Resistance is also neat if you don’t wanna go for turtles I suppose. But also… does an experienced player *need* enchanted golden apples?
Obviously to each their own. Personally, I think it’s a misplaced reward in terms of progression and the players who want it.
Good point, I forgot it’s significantly better at that than the regen you get from options. Very nice for a potentially bad situation, although for this kind of thing I see why people carry a lot of totems on them
yeah thats kinda the problem, theyre so un-useful that some of us dont even remember exactly what they do. why carry a stack of apples AND some totems when the totems do what the apple is supposed to do but better? prevents you from dying except you dont have to predict when to eat it.
thats why i say its un-useful, it clearly is a good item and has uses but if youre even slightly ok at playing the game, you'll never need those uses. you arent downing gapples to bring up your hunger, thats a waste. you arent saving yourself from death with apples, you have totems.
as a food item they kinda suck and as a health item they kinda suck.
if youre playing regular, single player, unmodded minecraft, you never need egaps at all anyway.
im the kind of person who saves their strongest healing potion and then you get to the end of the game and its still there in your inventory. ive played a crazy amount of hours in minecraft and in the past 5 or so years, ive never needed golden apples. just never needed them, once you understand how the game works, you know how to not put yourself in situations where youll need them so you just dont.
In general there are two kinds of Minecraft players: the kind that mostly like to build stuff and enjoy some obstacles to getting the things that let them build more stuff; and the kind that mostly see Minecraft as a challenge game and are interested in mechanics that let them access more challenges.
Minecraft was a building sandbox game; it's always been a building sandbox game. But in recent years more and more people from the second camp will play for a week, beat the dragon and wither, maybe get some tough achievements, and then quit because they don't care about the sandbox aspects. This panics the beancounters at Microsoft because they want kids to play the game forever, so they keep trying to add more "gamey" aspects.
Unfortunately, this doesn't go over well with the builder group because all it does is add difficulty with no tangible rewards to the game experience; they don't get satisfaction over successfully "winning" a challenge. The devs are constantly running into problems when a new mechanic is liked by one side, but not the other. Minecraft is trying to be two games at once and often fails at this.
The Warden and Ancient Cities pleases neither group very well. It's not a very good challenge because it's not a boss and can be cheesed very easily so the hardcore gamers don't care about it; and it gets in the way of exploring and harvesting blocks from a neat area, so the builders hate it.
Not much to add here. Generally speaking, I'm fine with the game's current status, but as a builder by nature the latent RPG/narrative/challenge elements can get in the way.
Creative is too easy, but sometimes survival just feels too hard or convoluted.
I desperately want a survival difficulty that takes away monsters AND still allows me to loose hunger and not auto regens my health. I’m tired of having to constantly switch to peaceful.
Yeah. The fact that the world isn't actively trying to kill you doesn't necessarily mean you should be indemnified from death. Maybe I want to risk my demise by building a wooden house on top of a mountain in a thunderstorm.
As a builder I’d love the warden more if stealth was more “Fun” or if the rewards to remain stealth existed. Like better loot if you remain stealth idk
The only point of the warden is as an (extreme) endgame flex, when you have unlimited totems of undying, you can transport a warden 5000 blocks from where it spawned into your base's zoo.
It can get annoying when a deep dark exists without an Ancient City. The warden will still spawn but there is no reward, unless you also have an unlimited supply of wool.
My biggest gripe about modern minecraft is how new content is designed around the elytra being a prerequisite, and the insane amount of resource and preparation that goes into making a world, sustainable (Worlds end in 2 weeks because they aren't sustainable resource wise). want to start a raid? go around a 2000 block radius and good luck finding a pillager outpost!
I stand in the middle.
When the warden was first announced I was totally fine with having a mob you couldn't kill and essentially had to avoid, it brought interesting gameplay to the underground and personally it made minecraft "scary" again
However, after playing modded minecraft and adding loot/drops for the warden, I must say it does add more fun/variety to the game as well. There isn't a wrong answer for each tbh, I think it boils down to perspective/how that person wants to play.
Do you want to have a mob you cannot kill and make minecraft more "horror-like" or would you rather have another "endgame" boss for you to take down, it's entirely up to the player.
Best example I can give is;
You have xp farms but you feel like fighting a boss so you respawn the ender dragon again knowing that you will get little to no xp fighting again
Hope that makes sense.
If there is no reason to kill him, then you only need to avoid him.
And this means when you make a mistake and trigger him, you just run tf away, and come back.
Every single time you make one mistake.
It gets tedious and annoying.
If the shriekers are doubled or tripled up close to each other, it's impossible not to trigger them when breaking. And you GOTTA get rid of them or it's so annoying to return to the ancient city. Not that I'm complaining, I think the added challenge is fun.
No, you can place wool around the shriekers to deafen them without making any sound. There is plenty of wool lying around in aincient cities ready to grab
Sometimes I’m just mining and suddenly a skulk sensor triggers a loop that activates a shrieker. That or a bat flies in and sets it off. Then I just can’t mine that way anymore. Kinda annoying in that scenario. Still haven’t found an ancient city because that happens every time I look through the deep dark.
I do, but 10 minutes is the kind of timeframe where I would get back, figure out what I should do in the meantime, prepare, and just as I get in the mindset of actually doing something, it'd be time to go back.
the warden goes back in the ground after 60 seconds if it doesn't detect anything. all you have to do is keep at least 16 block distance for 1 minute and he'll leave. you don't have to wait 10 minutes unless you want the safety buffer of 3 extra shrieker triggers.
Well that's a pretty specific detail I didn't know about, and you probably didn't either until you looked it up. There were times where I tried standing still, but he still knew where I was, so I just assumed he will always know where you are initially, and I must run.
Utilize and get better at the wool mechanics, or simply let the shriekers cool off. The threat system works on time since last shrieker activated, so if you literally cannot go without activating one somehow, then just wait. There are ways to make ancient city runs perfectly efficient anyways.
> so if you literally cannot go without activating one somehow, then just wait
This is the part people don't like. The "go hide and wait" mechanic isn't exactly one I'm looking for in games. In all other scenarios I can fight back hard enough where I don't have to run away
I prefer the “be more careful, but stay active” method. Adds a bit of excitement knowing you only have one more chance before it’s time to bail. I’ll usually build some quick escape paths that I can run away if I have to. Panicking and running into hole when your blind really sucks, or getting stuck on a corner and not realizing it
The problem isn't that there is no way to avoid it. The problem is that there will be mistakes made, and dealing with them just isn't fun. And like you said, I could also just wait, but that's fkn boring.
> The problem isn't that there is no way to avoid it.
There kind of is. Most ancient cities are big enough you can run/Shift to another part of the city. So when one Warden spawns in, you move to another area and while waiting for that Warden to despawn, loot chests in areas you haven't already looted.
This runs the risk of having multiple Wardens active at once (if you hit another shrieker) but given it only takes 1 minute for the Warden to despawn, it can be effective when done right.
Even if you do trigger him, he's laughably easy to avoid because Mojang is petrified of putting something that's actually punishing into the game. I've seen people straight up full sprint around the Ancient City and not even aggro a single warden despite there being 15 on the map because their AI just sucks
The warden is the only mob that actively restricts the player's freedom of mobility. For a game that is generally designed with very few imposed "rules" on the player, the deep dark is the only part of the game that does force them upon the player.
This is either a very good or very bad thing, depending on who you ask.
There is an incredible amount of diverse loot for the Warden. It’s in all the chests in the Ancient City. All sorts of crazy treasure. Don’t even have to beat the warden, just gotta be quiet and stealthy, or take out all the skulk stuff.
I just don't like the darkness effect. It feels like artificial difficulty. The thing with the warden is that you have to sneak past it, and that's not really possible when you can't see where it is.
>The thing with the warden is that you have to sneak past it
No you're suppose to sneak past shriekers & run away when Wardens spawn. If you're watching the Warden come out of the ground & trying to walk past him they you're doing it wrong. Like they can still smell you if you're near them.
That's not even stealth gameplay then. That's just minesweeper but 3D and worse.
The Warden shouldn't be some gate to lock you out of the ancient city until it gets bored and leaves. It should be an imposing threat that you have to steal from while keeping it distracted and being quiet enough that it doesn't notice you.
Even with it being just a temporary lock, the darkness effect makes that worse too. I've seen so many people fly straight into walls or down a hole because they can't see where they're going whilentrying to escape it.
The actual reason for this is the end progression is bad. Any new thing that is not in the way of end progression is worthless for a lot of people. I am fine if mojang actually recognizes this and retool the end progression to actually include raids, ocean monuments, ancient cities and trial chambers.
For me the issue isn't the warden, its the fact I have no reason to go there.
They are badass af, well designed, awesmoe work, but I've never wanted to go to one, unless its right under my base.
Look I don't mind the Warden. In fact I think it's pretty cool.
EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT DESPAWNED ALL OF MY BRAND NEW FULLY ENCHANTED, TRIMMED ARMOUR THROUGH A 5 BLOCK THICK WALL WITH THE SONIC BLAST THINGY.
My only gripe with it is that stupid bug/glitch. Otherwise it's a really good addition.
I think it's due to the fact that a boss hasn't been added to the game in like 8 years or something and people were hoping for it to be one since it's so stupidly strong.
I've written about the developers starting to dictate [policy on top of providing the mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_mechanism_and_policy#Rationale_and_implications). (e.g no strip mining, you should be exploring for resources; interact with the Warden this way, not that way etc)
Minecraft is a sandbox game where the players sculpt the story on top of the mechanics. When any creative endeavour interacts with the real world, it will necessarily be changed; computer games are no exception. And sometimes these changes are improvements.
For example: the most famous line in Jaws ("You're gonna need a bigger boat") is an ad-lib. How would that film be regarded today if Steven Spielberg had put his foot down and cut it from the film?
The point is, sometimes creators have to let go and let the art live.
Probably because it's a hard area to get around with an almost impossible mob to kill for basically no reward. There's nothing worth getting from ancient city imo
There should be a new types of mobs to put the Warden somewhere.
Because a boss, needs a health bar.
A mob is not absurdly strong.
I'd say the Warden should be in a new tier cammed "Guards", aka mobs that guard a certain reward
I’m not sure why so many folks are furious about the Warden and Ancient Cities. I think there are a lot of gamers that are overly involved in the *slaughtering* aspect of Minecraft rather than the building or lore aspect.
I really enjoy the whole Warden concept, including it’s insane resiliency and one-shot mechanics. It adds a distinct fear aspect to the game that also makes deep exploring an interesting challenge. Even on Creative mode, I enjoy lurking in the ancient cities and observing the mob’s design and behavior.
As for the cities: I always find them fascinating to explore, and I’m always looking for one on every playthrough (regardless of whether I’m playing survival or creative).
Probably because they see it as a boss, when it's not intended as one. Yeah, it's boring to slay because it wasn't designed to be slayed. Anybody can kill one, it's not hard. Just build out of his reach and arrow him to death, it's more of a test of patience than skill.
I love the Deep Dark, it's one of my favorite additions in the past 10 years. However the only criticism I think is kinda true, is the loot honestly fairly early/mid game, it quickly goes down in value as there are much less risky ways to get the same loot, with the only items that are unique being the recovery compass and Swift Sneak books. It's great if you need books early game, regular and an assortment of enchanted books, but otherwise, there's little reason to go in once you find a Swift Sneak III book.
I'm not gonna lie.
The gameplay of avoiding him stealth style sucks,
it's not "Minecraft" like at all
the rewards for avoiding him aren't all that worth it
and it just doesn't make sense that it posseses more hit points than the fucking ender dragon, which is the final boss of the game, or even the wither
point being, he sucks
know one player who removed all the trigger points in aa ancient city and made it into their very bright base, drops are minimal, but the chests are worth raiding, shame about the noise
I think the online community isn’t always representative of real-world players. The warden, the deep dark, and the ancient cities are some of my favorite things they’ve added since I started playing and I’m not alone in my real-world circles. I love that exploring deep dark areas has a completely different feel and thrill. I can’t just rely on my perfectly enchanted netherite armor. I have to adjust my play style.
I like the *idea* of the Warden. The concept of an unkillable one shotter wandering a city with valuables is pretty cool to me, I love that kind of risk-reward in games. But in practice the Warden I feel is more boring than thrilling, because if you accidentally make it appear, your only response is to run out of its sniffing zone and wait until it burrows down again. Anything else-- building, sneaking away, distracting with projectiles-- is useless, the sniff mechanic means you'll get killed. So in practice the Warden is just a punishment of a jog away and a minute's wait, which I think is pretty boring.
If the sniffing mechanic was ditched (or at the very least if it didn't cause Anger) then the Warden would become something you sneak *around*, rather than just run from. I think then I'd like it a lot more. It would bring back that risk-reward, if only a little. And you could then build on it from there-- what if having a Warden around improved the loot tables? Would you take the risk? What if 3-5 Wardens spawned in every City, without the burrow mechanic? Then you *have* to sneak around. I'm not a game developer so I'm sure there's things I'm missing, but as a player I think this would make the Warden a lot more fun.
>Anything else-- building, sneaking away, distracting with projectiles-- is useless,
You can (and I have) do all of those. If you throw an egg, snowball or fire an arrow near a sensor in the opposite direction you're going it distracts the Warden. You can also pillar up with wool.
It is way too easy for the Warden to sniff you out. It has a surprisingly big range to which it can do that, and it makes most strategies near worthless. Even if you try throwing projectiles, he’ll still get mad at you for throwing too many.
The issue with removing the sniff/track mechanic is that it results in the same scenario but the role of the player and the warden reversed. Assume this somehow *does* prevent the player from running from the warden. Instead of running away, you're now waiting for the warden to run from *you* (or whatever point of interest it happens to be guarding). Effectively the same concept, but with RNG pathfinding thrown into the mix.
Running has always been an option against most of Minecraft's extrinsic threats for those who are perfectly comfortable playing the game without interacting with those gameplay elements, or at the cost of overall slowing down progress. What you're describing here are just basic stealth game mechanics: "sneak - alert - disengage" (with the latter part including running or simply waiting to reset back to the sneak phase). I think if Mojang wanted to fully embrace the mechanic they'd have to make the ancient city far more restrictive, something like the original concept shown in Minecraft Live, where the player would have to sneak across a narrow corridor with the warden occupying it. For one half of players, this solves the issue. For the other half, it makes a problematic design even worse.
I don’t hate it, but it does tend to become annoying when you run into them every 20 blocks in a big cave and you have to practically disinfect the area. Had one cave I was working, and I kid you now I had killed 5 in a row and still going breaking sensors and fighting more.
[I made a meme about this very topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/MinecraftMemes/comments/svz2al/brb_gona_go_punch_a_tornado/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
The Warden and the Ancient City design is great.
The issue is that the entire Ancient City is an area specifically designed for the player to avoid.
The loot there is only really good for the first time. Once you get the disc fragments, Swift Sneak, enough echo shards, and a Enchanted Golden Apple or two, you don't have any reason to return.
So you end up with a situation where most players actively avoid the structure (as they're supposed to do) but instead of it feeling like a cool place, it's more of a feeling of dread when they come across it while mining/playing. It's a feeling of 'oh another ancient city. Guess I'll mine around it to avoid potentially spawning the Warden.'
What's missing is a lure for the player to keep them coming back. To make it an actual choice to maaaaybe go in again. Something that is enticing. The armor trims are rare enough that they'll keep some of the dedicated players coming back but I think some large collection that can't be obtained elsewhere would be worthwhile for Mojang to consider.
For instance, adding mob heads at a chance of 20% per Ancient City chest would be really interesting. Having the chance to get mob heads you can't otherwise obtain would be very enticing to some. Need a head or two to complete your perfect farm? Go to the Ancient City. Want to flex on your friends with a whole collection of dyed sheep heads? Go to the Ancient City. You'd probably get *some* each time you visit. But you would struggle to find every type (+ you would get some duplicates). Some type of Ancient City vault could also be interesting as well to keep players from quickly raiding the whole structure for those rare heads.
There are other ideas that fit in the Ancient City but my main point is that player lure does not exist beyond the first visit (aside from maybe the trims). So after one visit, chances are you never see or even want to see it ever again which is odd for the biggest structure in the game and arguably its most interesting 'boss' type mob.
Because to many I guess Minecraft is not supposed to be a horror/stealth game - what the creator of the warden is a fan of.
From reading the comment through the years, you figure out a lot of people just aren't interested by the ancient cities because of the risk/reward ratio.
The warden was an interesting monster but I really feel they wasted everything by making it near invincible with terrible loot.
>it’s designed as something you need to avoid at all costs
Which I think was a terrible choice for a game monster.
An *natural obstacle* monster ?
That's... honestly a terribly weird idea.
Simply making it a boss like the wither would've been a much better idea.
I mean some people may like to scream and run... I and many others prefer to gear up and go on monster hunts...
It’s just not really fitting for minecraft I guess. Minecraft is not a game about rules. It is a game where a person with enough blocks and gear can utterly dominate any and all things. And that’s the point. This is YOUR world. Zombies and skeletons and even the wither exist because you allow them to exist. You can go through temples and monuments and stuff the “right” way. But you can always just grab a pickaxe and tear them down, block by block. If you really felt like it, you could drain the lava seas of the nether, or create a massive farm to endlessly kill iron golems, or mine every nearby block to create a chasm to bedrock. You are god, as long as you have the time and determination. Except… with the Warden. You must deal with it the “right” way. You gotta play by its rules. Which is somewhat annoying.
Ancient city loot isn't worth it at all and is a waste of time. The warden is blind which sounded cool but I don't see how/why it feels like it needs to make me blind too, would actually give night vision a better use if it'd actually work. Plus if you try to run you either get sniffed out or 1 shot with a Kamehameha. Sure is fun spending 40 minutes covering everything with wool just to get that sweet sweet swift sneak that really has no use except for the ancient cities, but I'm already on my way out. I love Minecraft and hate to whine and moan but I think I'd be happier without all of that. The fact there's a setting to remove only the Warden tells me enough.
I think they should have made the Warden have unlimited HP/take zero damage. Then it would be a straight up environmental hazard. If you fight it you die.
I like the warden overall as an obstacle but still think it's stupid that it drops absolutely nothing other than a catalyst on death. Like I don't expect anything actually useful, just a little trinket to say "You killed a warden".
I understand you can't really compare minecraft and terraria, but regardless terraria has an enemy in it called a dungeon guardian that is supposed to just be an instant kill for trying to access the dungeon too early, but you CAN kill it if you work hard enough to do so, and doing it rewards you with a completely useful but ultimately neat little accessory.
I wish the warden had something like that because otherwise you can literally just run through the deep dark looting chests without a care as long as you're careful to avoid areas you summoned a warden, there's zero reason to care about it if you're good.
It would be cool if the warden dropped a head on death, though perhaps. Make it so it won't drop if you kill it with a bow to make it actually hard.
>you can literally just run through the deep dark looting chests without a care as long as you're careful to avoid areas you summoned a warden
More than one can spawn at a time though, so one would spawn where you are, and eventually there'd be wardens all over the city.
You are completely correct :)
The community has turned the mob into something meant to be killed and farmed. I personally believe Mojang should've made it immune to all damage. It's part of the landscape of the deep dark.
Also the deep dark has *plenty* of rewards. Tonnes of diamond stuff, a unique enchant, a music disc, unique armour trims, and not to mention the hundreds of levels of xp.
Some people start optimising the fun out of the game, by waiting out the shrieker cooldown, etc. It's like burrowing yourself into the ground or waiting in a boat off the coast to avoid night time, and I think some people think it's bad game design having that option available to them.
At one point having the Warden be immortal was the plan, but that was changed later on. Which was certainly for the best, people who fight the Warden enjoy doing so just because they can in spite of their not being much of a reward. Making the Warden immortal locks people out of that option to deal with them.
And then to that bottom point, people really do look at one of the many strategies for beating the Ancient City and act like it's a bad thing there's ways to do it better once you get experianced. Ignoring how not everyone would be like that, and anyone could do an Ancient City at any point in progression and be fine. And thus wouldn't have certain options.
My opinion: I do think Minecraft also needs to invest in stuff for players who like adventure, not just building.
However, I don't think the Warden has to drop anything. The Ancient City loot is the reward, Enchanted Golden Apples and more.
There is stuff in the sculk that is.worth exploring, it doesn't have to come directly from the Warden, he's part of the sculk.
I like that you can CHOOSE to fight it or not.
I don't like that it negates armour. If it's going to drop nothing and be annoying and guard some of the best loot, I think it should be a real mob, make it even harder IDC. Just respect my gear
The only reason I don't like the warden is because I was already terrified of the caves even before the caves and cliffs update, so having an unkillable enemy lurking around valuable resources is horrifying :')
I agree with you on this. I think it’s just the simple fact that it can be damaged and killed that people want to do so. It’s like if you put a 1,000 block tall mountain into the game that is there just to look cool people will still want to climb it. It is just human nature that we want to do things that seem even remotely possible.
I raided an ancient city a few weeks ago and I have to say what annoys me the the complete lack of avoiding them
I was sneaking, walking on wool, every precaution I could think of, and every time I open a chest (open or break) a warden spawns and I have to sprint back to my little hole in the wall on the other side of the city
What I think is fun, is the idea that you have to be careful and sneaky, what I don’t like the mediocre execution on the idea. It’s not awful, if I sneak walking won’t do anything, but I feel like there’s no intuitive way to get loot without spawning them
I see the Warden like the level 0 encounter in my hero academia: it's a massive threat, but it's worth no points. So it's best to avoid it if you can.
It's like an iron golem on steroids holding a subwoofer on bigger steroids.
I love the Ancient Cities & explore them A lot & the people saying it's not worth exploring fr the loot are just wrong. God Apples are super rare & you can get alot of them in cities & Swift Sneak is awesome. The Warden isn't a boos doesn't matter if it's stronger than other bosses, it doesn't have a health bar on top of the screen & a boss can't be spawned 5 minutes into the game if you spawn near a deep dark. Wither & Dragon you need items to get to them while you just need to walk past something to spawn them. Also if you didn't know the Warden wasn't suppose to be fought that's a you problem because most things in Minecraft aren't spelt out for you & needs a little research.
I have you know I killed the warden twice. And he only killed me 5 times in the attempt. For real. You kill him and a new one spawns. It's better just to sneak. Or explore on peaceful.
The Minecraft community seems to have a pattern of imagining things before they have been fully revealed and being disappointed by the results when they are. And even though the game has an infinite number of ways to be played (with categories like builder, explorer, combat players, speed runners, etc) some people don’t like when a feature doesn’t fit perfectly to support their play style.
I am shit at the game, all I do is farm potato's and mine. But I love the warden, it gives me a heart attack every time I hear a skulk thing and it's terrifying. I would love more things like that, where being sneaky and fast is good rather than having good fighting skills
I personally hated the warden because I wore my good gear like a moron and died and lost it all before I could get it…it took a lot for me to get back to that level because I just couldn’t bring myself to do it again for a while.
Then I actually paid attention to how it works and started wearing iron armor and putting away my good gear in an ender chest when i get to loot the city. Never had issues with it after that.
I want to mine, and build, and sometimes explore. The warden kinda fits the explore mechanic, except that it has a "forced" stealth component, in a sandbox game that had/has no real stealth mechanics to speak of. I just feel like it's shoehorned in.
I get that the game is trying to incentives players to avoid spawning the warden but they should've just made it unkillable.
Why is it the hardest mob in the game and doesn't drop anything even tho it's killable. Thats what makes it seem like an optional challenge.
I recently started playing minecraft again for the first time since like the end got added and I genuinely think the game is so inconsistent gameplay wise it's such a mess. But I'm glad there's a casual game for my and gf to play lol
I quite like the Warden...in Ancient Cities. I think having the Warden spawn in just any old Deep Dark cave is (a) total bullshit and (b) in direct conflict with the original intention behind it. The whole point of the Warden is to be a protector of the "late game" loot of ancient cities, forcing you to traverse them stealthily and strategically. So having shriekers in any old cave that could be within earshot of any other cave without you knowing, there's no reward to be had from outsmarting the Warden there. It just forces you to turn back and come back to that branch of the cave once it despawns. Completely ruins the fun of exploring 1.18 caves for me to be honest
the warden kind of functions like the leviathans in subnautica if you think about it. killing it is a pain, but you can do it if you like. the loot isn’t any sort of material reward. it’s the batshit faces i made every time i got jump-scared looking for swift-sneak books.
Personally I think they are uggly and I am annoyed about the ammount of deep dark, I think they should be less common, it get's in my way with mining quite often.
Otherwise, I don't care much about it.
I also think the sniffer is uggly and more or less useless, but that's my personal opinion...
Dominion.
Until the warden Minecraft was full of mobs of varying levels of challenge but could all ultimately be overcome. And that's how games are generally designed to; there's bad guys and you figure out how to kill the bad guys.
Not that it's never been done before, but Mojang did something really interesting in designing a different gameplay element with the Warden by creating a mob that's so difficult to kill it strains the rules of the game and simultaneously making it pointless to make the effort by hiding nothing of value behind the achievement. The catalyst block is almost a "fuck you" and is clearly deliberate.
In doing so you're denied dominion over the Minecraft world. You may defeat the Wither, the Dragon and wander the nether and every cave in enchanted netherite armor but you will never truly be top dog in the Minecraft world because deep down in the dark the Warden is the real top dog and you have to chose to coexist. No matter what you do you aren't safe and dominant everywhere and that's a deviation from most games and some people just can't handle that.
My complaint though ... I can deal with the Warden being tough but not that portal not leading somewhere or being explained.
The annoying part about the warden isn’t the mob itself, it’s that for some reason mojang’s whole idea for it is that you interact with it as little as possible. Which just sucks. It’s incredibly easy to never see once you understand the mechanics, and when you do see it you’re either dead or immediately leaving. There’s no reason to kill it even though it’s possible and very hard. Its pretty much just wasted mob design in its current form.
I think the Warden is too easy to avoid. Especially in the Ancient City. It's too easy to avoid triggering his spawning in the first place, and it's too easy to avoid him after he's spawned (again, this is especially apparent in the Ancient City).
Tapping the sign again:
We know it's not supposed to be a boss, we think that's stupid and it should be a boss. Using the best visual design in the entire game for a glorified stage hazard is just ridiculously lame, and it completely ruins the uniqueness of the mob when you can have like 10 of them walking around in the same place
I actually like Wardens a lot as they are.
Though I feel like adding the ability to one-tap them with a new weapon... that sorta calls into question the design intention of "don't fight the Warden, kids."
(I don't actually know if you can one-tap, but I know you can do massive damage)
Tl;dr: The warden is scary as heck and I love it for it.
I remember one late night, maybe around 12 AM for me, my friend and I were playing minecraft. We had wanted to get through an ancient city, so we decided to play regardless of the unfortunate houe. We were on call, laughing and joking around as we prepared. Shulker boxes full of wool, Night Vision potions, etc. Right before we entered, we established one very basic rule between us: "In every situation, I will be by your side to help you. But if the Warden spawns, its every man for himself."
By the time we got to work slowly clearing up the ancient city, both of us had been pretty tired. Its late for both of us, so as we were going, we were chatting idly about random things and then the first shrieker. You could have heard a pin drop with how quiet both of us went at the first strike, something which had sent a devastating amount of fear despite it being a game. Regardless, we pressed on.
And then the second strike. I nearly jumped out of my seat and physically left, had it not been for the fact that my headset wires held me back. But frankly, nothing could have prepared me for the warden spawning.
We hadn't seen the animation yet. We expected it to appear, not crawl out of the ground beside that. The rule set in place made us immediately book it out of there, with either ender pearls or an elytra, both of which caused us to take damage and for it to hear.
The panic of running away from a horror you KNOW you cannot kill reminds me of those nightmares; chasing you through unfamiliar territory, hearing your footsteps, its distant heartbeat the only indicator of where it is as the darkness overtakes your vision.
Both of us survived that night, but we walked away with a very different mindset about the Warden. This is not an enemy you fight. This is not a monster you can kill. It is an unstoppable force of nature, which will stop at nothing. It will hunt you, smelling the air and listening for your footsteps. And if it finds you?
Good luck.
Just another example of people optimizing all the fun out of the game and then complaining that there’s no reason to actually interact with the world because it doesn’t give them some op item that can’t be cheesed through boring means. People love to do that around here.
Just want to say Ancient Cities are the coolest thing ever since me revisiting Minecraft. I went into it with only surface level knowledge and damn the whole thing feels like a totally new dimension but under the overworld, especially with the music. This kind of stuff makes me love Minecraft.
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I think it's because the Warden was talked about by the community as if it were a boss that you can fight, instead of what it actually is, an environmental obstacle you have to overcome like pools of lava, or underwater caves. You're not supposed to fight it because it's meant to be part of the terrain. It's not like the Wither or the Ender Dragon where they were designed to be fought for a reward.
ngl running from the warde with my friends has been one of the most memorable moment, it's so fun.
I also like it to trap my sister in a room together with the warden
Damn next you're gonna tell me if yall gotta share a piece of food and you broke the food apart, you'd always give her the smaller piece.
No, I let her choose but i always make sure there is one tinner (seemingly) bigger part and and actual big part that looks tinier. In other ways I trick her in every way I can imagine.
It was specifically stated in several streams to be an obstacle, or a natural disaster Maybe when it was first revealed, it wasn’t super clear, but like?? This logic isn’t sound
Oh I know, that's why I specified "talked about in the community," because Mojang was very clear up front with what the Warden is supposed to be. However, for the community, the closest points of reference we had to "big mob with tons of health in a new update" were the Wither and the Ender Dragon so when the Warden came out everyone naturally called it a boss mob. Which it isn't, but at that point the discourse around it stuck.
Oh true, mb Yeah folks just kinda… run with shit, and that really annoys me lmao
This is a thing that I observed happening frequently where Mojang's vision for Minecraft is very different from the Community's vision for Minecraft. You see this with the 1.20 update where Mojang thought it would be great to foster intrinsic motivation with armor trims, hanging signs that are more about identlty whereas the community wanted adventure, biome updates, and more mobs to fight. (Basically end update) Its also good to take a look at the modded minecraft scene since for the most part the most popular mods are what defines this community vision for minecraft.
As someone who started playing Minecraft around the warden introduction and wasn't watching Minecraft live then.. It has a body, it acts like a thinking creature (sniffing, tracking, etc..) It attacks, path finds and spawns in a specific way and has a health bar. That makes it a hostile mob. The fact it has a rediculously large health bar like the ender dragon or wither makes it a mob boss. If you want it to be an environmental factor it needs to look/act like an environmental element. Something like a myst that causes the darness effect that flows like water would be perfect. I don't care what the designers had in mind when they were coming up with it. Just how a player is going to perceive it. I also know I recently killed my first warden. We committed to it once we figured out how we could range atrack it. Once you can do that the 250 hearts stops being a problem and becomes a grind. Similarly we thought we would get a mountain of xp or something new but the skulk generator drop and zero xp put a major downer on the achievement.
A big difference between the Wither & Dragon is you can make Warden farms. That's a big reason why Wardens don't drop big loot.
Wither farms exist and dragons don’t drop anything either
Dragon drops a significant amount of xp. Which to be fair can seem like nothing pretty easily if you've built any half decent xp farm.
Ender egg for first time defeating it
Yea, this is less on the Warden's design and more on Mojang's absolute reliance on players looking outside the game for what things are and how to play. As much as I love Minecraft, it really does not have a good new-player experience.
To be fair this has always been a major aspect of Minecraft; classic Minecraft didn't even give you any clues as to how to craft things.
0 xp??? Super lame
Me and friends looted a couple of ancient cities. Got a lot of the shiny gapples. We decided for fun, that I'd down all the gapples I have while tanking a lot of Wardens. All we got was a sense of thrill and nearly broken armor. We got about 5 of them before we had to run away because my armor was getting low, and I was out of gapples. I believe the Warden should have some sort of reward. Like at least a shit ton of XP when you kill it, y'know my armor is expensive to fucking repair. Just my 2 cents.
You chose to fight the thing that literally isn’t supposed to be fought, what did you expect?? Edit: Also the entire deep dark is made of xp, just mend through that
Ah, so it's down to poor communication on the designer's part then. I'm a player who doesn't really engage with the community or dev cycle- how was someone like me supposed to know that the new hostile mob wasn't supposed to be fought? There was no in-game indication that this mob was supposed to be treated differently from any other mob so before this thread I had zero idea that the intentions for the Warden were for it to be an environmental hazard,
The Warden can kill you in 3 hits even in fully enchanted Netherite armor, shoot an unavoidable projectile that can go through blocks, bypasses armor and shields, and kills you in 2 hits, and has more than double the Ender Dragon's health. It's pretty obvious that you're not supposed to fight it, even if you ignore the fact that it doesn't drop anything useful, gives 0 exp and doesn't even count towards the Monsters Hunted advancemet unlike every other hostile mob in the game. It's not a fault of the designers' communication, they make it as clear as they possibly could that it's meant to be an enviormental hazard that's supposed to be avoided and ran away from, not a boss you fight, and if the player still doesn't understand that, then that's entirely on them and not the designers.
And how much of that information is available to players who encounter it organically? Players who do might not realise that the projectile is unavoidable- I didn't. They might not know it bypasses armour and shields- I didn't. They might now realise it has so much HP- I didn't. It's not communicated effectively. At all. There is no argument there. It just isn't.
All you have to do is try to block it once to realize it bypasses shields. Same with realizing it's unavoidable or that the Warden has a ton of hp. It's told to the player the same way they are told that monsters spawn in the dark or that bedrock can't be broken: by letting them figure it out through gameplay.
We did not read the patch notes back then. We just went with a shallow understanding of Ancient Cities, and the update in general. It's fun to discover, but definitely not fun when we discovered too much and almost got our asses handed to us. As you can tell, we are monkeys.
THATS something i can respect
I know about the deep dark being full of xp, not back then tho.
Because people, and especially gamers, take those words as a challenge, not a statement of fact. Logic has no part of it.
Tbh if they made the Warden immune by all survival-possible means, and could not be killed, only despawn, it might have had it's intended purpose better. (And for creative mode people, just make it so the Warden's invincibility can be disabled through commands etc)
I would’ve liked for it to at least including *something*. Nothing crazy, but still anything half decent would’ve been nice
Mojang explained that they didn't give it (useful) loot on purpose, they don't want to encourage killing of it in any way. As soon as a mob drops something useful, it becomes a farmable thing. They don't want the warden farmed, they want the warden avoided. The only reason they made it killable in the first place (as opposed to just being immune to damage/infinite hp) is because of the potential world-bricking consequences of an immortal mob that can spawn but can't be gotten rid of. It's an environmental hazard, nothing more.
Yea you can already make Warden farms easily, if Wardens dropped OP loot it would ruin the game
That would defeat the point.
I just wish it was made a bigger impact on the actual environment as a disaster. Like you HAVE to deal with it or else it spreads. I am fully aware how it works and spreads. What i do now is to just settle in my world far enough away that those chunks are never loaded. And i just explore the other way instead
I think Mojang confused the situation when they added the sculk catalyst to it as a drop to make it "renewable"
That was literally one of the few changes they very clearly explained their reasoning behind: "renewability and tech players"
Doesn't mean the players end up listening to it, or even hear the reasoning given once or twice in a twitter / reddit post years ago.
So what is it people just can’t get the concept of running?
I mean, to be fair to people, this is the first ever mob in Minecraft that was designed for you to run from and avoid, and all other mobs in Minecraft are meant for you to befriend and/or smack until they die. To Mojang's credit, they have made it painfully clear that you don't need to kill this guy: huge health, wall hacks, and an arguably mid tier drop. But because players like having fun and experimenting, they'll figure out how to kill them anyway. I don't mind those players, but I don't get people who complain about the Warden being different than all the other ones, as if something new isn't exciting and groundbreaking and exactly what Mojang should be doing more of.
I don’t agree with this.
My main gripe with it personally is that for such an enemy mechanic it requires good level design built around the creature but Minecraft's generation will never perfectly accommodate that
Well we have DeckedOut2 at least
I'm not upset that it's in the game. It's fine. But it's not for me. "The point of the warden is to avoid it" well then that's not much of a point. I'll just go ahead and avoid it then, and not experience the hard work they put into the feature. I've done the ancient city and deep dark now, and experienced the warden. So it's not like I missed out. But I have no desire to go back. Unless one day I want to make an underground build to exploit the non spawning mechanic.
What's the incentive to even visit the Warden and Ancient City in the first place?
usually the loot like swift sneak and the special blue compass, plus there's sculk which is a nice building material.
silence armor trim is my favorite trim as well. only found in ancient cities
So, aesthetics?
Very cool looking addition to the game that ultimately adds very little to the overall experience. Most players are annoyed with stealth / waiting / one shot / warden mechanics. The rewards aren’t worth it either.
The rewards maybe aren’t worth it to someone who condenses the game down to a resource farming simulator, but as a casual player, the increased ore generation, mountains of free experience, discs, recovery compass, lore implications, and unique enchantment are all very worth it.
The rewards are hardly worth it straight up, resource farming simulator or not. The recovery compass I could probably write a whole paragraph about why it’s a terribly placed reward in the deep dark. Obviously this is a per player situation but I think if you researched around Reddit and other hubs of Minecraft players you’d find the common Deep Dark opinion to be negative for a pretty justifiable reason.
The loot table has a couple unique things worth your time (5 disc, Swift Sneak) but otherwise End Cities are less dangerous, faster, and easier to find.
Enchanted golden apples are the main loots from ancient cities, averaging about 2 per city (which is a huge step up from the like 1/5 chance per desert pyramid)
Please explain how the recovery compass is useful.
It’s niche and that’s intentional, I’ve gotten use out of it 3 ish times, all largely separated but still worth it I’m sorry I’m not like, the perfect player lmao
He said the words, get 'em!
> I'm sorry I'm not like, the perfect player lmao Nobody said you were but alright.
It doesn’t need to directly be said, the recovery compass is literally built to be an item to assist in a skill issue, most of the people who complain about it (aside from those complaining about its placement in the ancient city, which, in complete fairness, is NOT a good place to put an item like this) don’t find use in it bc they simply don’t die.
You said it yourself. The recovery compass is stupid because by the time you can conquer an ancient city, you're probably not dying much anymore. Anyone good enough to take down an ancient city is also definitely good enough to sit in a tower and take down a raid so they get plenty of totems, which further invalidate the recovery compass.
The nice thing about ancient cities is that they can be raided in the early game with no armor since no other mobs spawn. A recovery compass could be useful then.
>by the time you can conquer an ancient city, you're probably not dying much anymore Why? The stuff you can use for making it easier (wool/shears, snowballs, any bow) isn't very expensive. Or are you using elytra wings/fireworks for it?
I just run around like a mad man with wool and if I summon a warden, I fly away.
Ender pearls are also a really good method of escape, in ancient cities where 25 blocks are replaced with air in the ceiling you can easily throw one across half the entire structure
I don't think the ancient city can entirely be considered anywhere on a early game to late game spectrum. Done correctly, you can raid an ancient city and take the same amount of damage as you could even with full protection 4 netherite. The mechanics of the deep dark are almost entirely on the player's immediete skill/movement/inputs, not their gear or how far they've progressed in the game. The warden itself is the only mob in the game that up doesn't give a shit about the player's armor and has an attack that can deal "true damage". Obviously you're more well equipped against the warden in full prot 4 netherite. But if you were to ask me if I would rather take on an end city or an ancient city with nothing but a pickaxe, bread, and some blocks, I would probably choose the end city.
The issue is, people who know how to navigate an ancient city butt naked with no gear are almost certainly extremely skilled players who know mechanics inside and out. They aren't the intended audience for the recovery compass and probably won't use it. If I'm a new player and I'm mining and see this pitch black region that makes creepy noises and screaming sounds when I walk around, I'm not going in there to loot whatever structure there is. The recovery compass would be much better as a trade from Wandering Traders. A fairly early game source of treasure that actually has use. Since you'll probably be pretty weak and will be dying often to actually make use of it.
I usually do ancient cities during the iron stage, as I’m pretty good at the stealth part. I also don’t really farm raids or amass totems, I feel like it cheapens the experience.
I think raids are fun, I understand the way to build a tower and cheese them....but I play the g a Mr for fun
Yeah absolutely not. I'm a pretty good survival player and even I have times where I get cocky and slack off and die to something stupid. The recovery compass absolutely is useful.
I’m an exception then. I die a lot but I can navigate the dark city pretty well without dying. The recovery compass is wonderful and I’ve used it several times since I got one.
Exactly my thoughts
Not in Hardcore but it is for survival players.
>The rewards maybe aren’t worth it to someone who condenses the game down to a resource farming simulator Or someone who's already gained all those through normal means? Most of the loot isn't unique. It doesn't take the top 1% to get them before the ancient city. >increased ore generation By the time you get there you'll likely have most of the ore you'll need. >mountains of free experience, Plenty elsewhere. More is always good, but it isn't *that* notable. Especially when you're risking *all* of it being down there with a mob you aren't meant to kill. >discs Probably not worth it or useful for the casual player. >recovery compass Mid by this point. Just use a totem. They're way easier to get and far more useful. >lore implications Does a casual player even care? What percentage of them even try to figure that stuff out on their own instead of watching a 1 hour deep dive documentary that's been professionally put together? >unique enchantment About the only thing worthwhile there The rewards aren't worth it. Most of the community agree on this. While this post isn't the best breakdown of the loot, I think it gives a good idea why people don't care for it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/s/bb4JnNaNYC
Idk I find it a fun thing, ore generation increased is not worth it strip mining is more effective. Finding nether quartz is more efficient for XP farming and less dangerous. And unique enchantments? Now that I'm curious about I never thought about that much I'm the guy in hardcore maxing out a fishing rod and fishing safely for enchanted books for hours so I need to look up what unique ones it offers
The unique enchant from the ancient cities is swift sneak. It genuinely is a wonderful QOL enchant, allowing you to move at much higher speeds while sneaking than normal. Note, if you go get it, it is a legging enchant despite sounding like a boot one.
When would you need to sneak at higher speeds outside of the ancient city or in a multiplayer world?
Lol. Lmao even
As a casual player, none of that makes it worth going to. I can get ore and xp elsewhere. I don't die enough to warrant seeking out a recovery compass. Lore implications? As a casual player, I make Minecraft my own. I don't seek in-game lore.
>The rewards aren’t worth it either. God apples are pretty good, and swift sneak is great. (Edit) also the silence armor trim
Swift Sneak is absolutely worth it. One of my favorite enchantments these days, I get annoyed when I don't have it. Plus, I like collecting armor trims.
the insane amount of egaps arent worth it?
For me at least when I play, no. Maybe one or two trips to collect a few but I rarely find myself needing or eating them in the first place. The benefits I’d want to use them for I can achieve for cheaper and easier with other sources of items or options. For a casual player, potentially. If you find yourself dying a lot an egap might help you - but you also might not be good enough to get to the rewards (this is why a lot of players don’t bother - the deep dark is too annoying and tedious). For an experienced player… maybe? The fire resistance and regeneration is kind of useless considering you can brew more potent or lengthy versions of those as potions. Absorption is cool for sure, the main appeal. Resistance is also neat if you don’t wanna go for turtles I suppose. But also… does an experienced player *need* enchanted golden apples? Obviously to each their own. Personally, I think it’s a misplaced reward in terms of progression and the players who want it.
Doesn't it give like regen 4 or something? It regens your health way faster than a potion.
Good point, I forgot it’s significantly better at that than the regen you get from options. Very nice for a potentially bad situation, although for this kind of thing I see why people carry a lot of totems on them
yeah thats kinda the problem, theyre so un-useful that some of us dont even remember exactly what they do. why carry a stack of apples AND some totems when the totems do what the apple is supposed to do but better? prevents you from dying except you dont have to predict when to eat it. thats why i say its un-useful, it clearly is a good item and has uses but if youre even slightly ok at playing the game, you'll never need those uses. you arent downing gapples to bring up your hunger, thats a waste. you arent saving yourself from death with apples, you have totems. as a food item they kinda suck and as a health item they kinda suck.
if youre playing regular, single player, unmodded minecraft, you never need egaps at all anyway. im the kind of person who saves their strongest healing potion and then you get to the end of the game and its still there in your inventory. ive played a crazy amount of hours in minecraft and in the past 5 or so years, ive never needed golden apples. just never needed them, once you understand how the game works, you know how to not put yourself in situations where youll need them so you just dont.
in regular single player you can get by with full enchanted iron armor and steak so I don't think that's an representative comparison.
In general there are two kinds of Minecraft players: the kind that mostly like to build stuff and enjoy some obstacles to getting the things that let them build more stuff; and the kind that mostly see Minecraft as a challenge game and are interested in mechanics that let them access more challenges. Minecraft was a building sandbox game; it's always been a building sandbox game. But in recent years more and more people from the second camp will play for a week, beat the dragon and wither, maybe get some tough achievements, and then quit because they don't care about the sandbox aspects. This panics the beancounters at Microsoft because they want kids to play the game forever, so they keep trying to add more "gamey" aspects. Unfortunately, this doesn't go over well with the builder group because all it does is add difficulty with no tangible rewards to the game experience; they don't get satisfaction over successfully "winning" a challenge. The devs are constantly running into problems when a new mechanic is liked by one side, but not the other. Minecraft is trying to be two games at once and often fails at this. The Warden and Ancient Cities pleases neither group very well. It's not a very good challenge because it's not a boss and can be cheesed very easily so the hardcore gamers don't care about it; and it gets in the way of exploring and harvesting blocks from a neat area, so the builders hate it.
I curse loudly whenever I accidentally build something over the deep dark.
Not much to add here. Generally speaking, I'm fine with the game's current status, but as a builder by nature the latent RPG/narrative/challenge elements can get in the way. Creative is too easy, but sometimes survival just feels too hard or convoluted.
I desperately want a survival difficulty that takes away monsters AND still allows me to loose hunger and not auto regens my health. I’m tired of having to constantly switch to peaceful.
Yeah. The fact that the world isn't actively trying to kill you doesn't necessarily mean you should be indemnified from death. Maybe I want to risk my demise by building a wooden house on top of a mountain in a thunderstorm.
As a builder I’d love the warden more if stealth was more “Fun” or if the rewards to remain stealth existed. Like better loot if you remain stealth idk
The only point of the warden is as an (extreme) endgame flex, when you have unlimited totems of undying, you can transport a warden 5000 blocks from where it spawned into your base's zoo. It can get annoying when a deep dark exists without an Ancient City. The warden will still spawn but there is no reward, unless you also have an unlimited supply of wool. My biggest gripe about modern minecraft is how new content is designed around the elytra being a prerequisite, and the insane amount of resource and preparation that goes into making a world, sustainable (Worlds end in 2 weeks because they aren't sustainable resource wise). want to start a raid? go around a 2000 block radius and good luck finding a pillager outpost!
Can you help me understand what you mean about the wool?
I stand in the middle. When the warden was first announced I was totally fine with having a mob you couldn't kill and essentially had to avoid, it brought interesting gameplay to the underground and personally it made minecraft "scary" again However, after playing modded minecraft and adding loot/drops for the warden, I must say it does add more fun/variety to the game as well. There isn't a wrong answer for each tbh, I think it boils down to perspective/how that person wants to play. Do you want to have a mob you cannot kill and make minecraft more "horror-like" or would you rather have another "endgame" boss for you to take down, it's entirely up to the player. Best example I can give is; You have xp farms but you feel like fighting a boss so you respawn the ender dragon again knowing that you will get little to no xp fighting again Hope that makes sense.
If there is no reason to kill him, then you only need to avoid him. And this means when you make a mistake and trigger him, you just run tf away, and come back. Every single time you make one mistake. It gets tedious and annoying.
You get 3 strikes every 10 (or maybe 20) minutes
Ok so I'll just wait 10 minutes then. Great design. I love doing nothing in my video games.
You trigger 3 shriekers every 10 minutes? Then it sounds like you’re rejecting the stealth challenge of the deep dark.
If the shriekers are doubled or tripled up close to each other, it's impossible not to trigger them when breaking. And you GOTTA get rid of them or it's so annoying to return to the ancient city. Not that I'm complaining, I think the added challenge is fun.
No, you can place wool around the shriekers to deafen them without making any sound. There is plenty of wool lying around in aincient cities ready to grab
Sometimes I’m just mining and suddenly a skulk sensor triggers a loop that activates a shrieker. That or a bat flies in and sets it off. Then I just can’t mine that way anymore. Kinda annoying in that scenario. Still haven’t found an ancient city because that happens every time I look through the deep dark.
You really have nothing else to do anywhere in the world?
I do, but 10 minutes is the kind of timeframe where I would get back, figure out what I should do in the meantime, prepare, and just as I get in the mindset of actually doing something, it'd be time to go back.
the warden goes back in the ground after 60 seconds if it doesn't detect anything. all you have to do is keep at least 16 block distance for 1 minute and he'll leave. you don't have to wait 10 minutes unless you want the safety buffer of 3 extra shrieker triggers.
Well that's a pretty specific detail I didn't know about, and you probably didn't either until you looked it up. There were times where I tried standing still, but he still knew where I was, so I just assumed he will always know where you are initially, and I must run.
Utilize and get better at the wool mechanics, or simply let the shriekers cool off. The threat system works on time since last shrieker activated, so if you literally cannot go without activating one somehow, then just wait. There are ways to make ancient city runs perfectly efficient anyways.
> so if you literally cannot go without activating one somehow, then just wait This is the part people don't like. The "go hide and wait" mechanic isn't exactly one I'm looking for in games. In all other scenarios I can fight back hard enough where I don't have to run away
I prefer the “be more careful, but stay active” method. Adds a bit of excitement knowing you only have one more chance before it’s time to bail. I’ll usually build some quick escape paths that I can run away if I have to. Panicking and running into hole when your blind really sucks, or getting stuck on a corner and not realizing it
The problem isn't that there is no way to avoid it. The problem is that there will be mistakes made, and dealing with them just isn't fun. And like you said, I could also just wait, but that's fkn boring.
> The problem isn't that there is no way to avoid it. There kind of is. Most ancient cities are big enough you can run/Shift to another part of the city. So when one Warden spawns in, you move to another area and while waiting for that Warden to despawn, loot chests in areas you haven't already looted. This runs the risk of having multiple Wardens active at once (if you hit another shrieker) but given it only takes 1 minute for the Warden to despawn, it can be effective when done right.
I think it's 4 minutes but yeah.
I know there is a way to avoid it.
Even if you do trigger him, he's laughably easy to avoid because Mojang is petrified of putting something that's actually punishing into the game. I've seen people straight up full sprint around the Ancient City and not even aggro a single warden despite there being 15 on the map because their AI just sucks
The warden is the only mob that actively restricts the player's freedom of mobility. For a game that is generally designed with very few imposed "rules" on the player, the deep dark is the only part of the game that does force them upon the player. This is either a very good or very bad thing, depending on who you ask.
There is an incredible amount of diverse loot for the Warden. It’s in all the chests in the Ancient City. All sorts of crazy treasure. Don’t even have to beat the warden, just gotta be quiet and stealthy, or take out all the skulk stuff.
I just don't like the darkness effect. It feels like artificial difficulty. The thing with the warden is that you have to sneak past it, and that's not really possible when you can't see where it is.
>The thing with the warden is that you have to sneak past it No you're suppose to sneak past shriekers & run away when Wardens spawn. If you're watching the Warden come out of the ground & trying to walk past him they you're doing it wrong. Like they can still smell you if you're near them.
That's not even stealth gameplay then. That's just minesweeper but 3D and worse. The Warden shouldn't be some gate to lock you out of the ancient city until it gets bored and leaves. It should be an imposing threat that you have to steal from while keeping it distracted and being quiet enough that it doesn't notice you. Even with it being just a temporary lock, the darkness effect makes that worse too. I've seen so many people fly straight into walls or down a hole because they can't see where they're going whilentrying to escape it.
I think it's a bit of a dud addition to be honest... The most mysterious mobs/structures in the game have zero application or interactable features.
The actual reason for this is the end progression is bad. Any new thing that is not in the way of end progression is worthless for a lot of people. I am fine if mojang actually recognizes this and retool the end progression to actually include raids, ocean monuments, ancient cities and trial chambers.
For me the issue isn't the warden, its the fact I have no reason to go there. They are badass af, well designed, awesmoe work, but I've never wanted to go to one, unless its right under my base.
Look I don't mind the Warden. In fact I think it's pretty cool. EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT DESPAWNED ALL OF MY BRAND NEW FULLY ENCHANTED, TRIMMED ARMOUR THROUGH A 5 BLOCK THICK WALL WITH THE SONIC BLAST THINGY. My only gripe with it is that stupid bug/glitch. Otherwise it's a really good addition.
I think it's due to the fact that a boss hasn't been added to the game in like 8 years or something and people were hoping for it to be one since it's so stupidly strong.
I don't like scary, so I just disable the warden. it's okay for people who do like it, it's just pretty meh.
How do you disable him? I dislike dealing with him to the point that I'll pack all my stuff and move if I find an ancient city under my base...
It's in gamerules
Oh, sweet... Thank you
I've written about the developers starting to dictate [policy on top of providing the mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_mechanism_and_policy#Rationale_and_implications). (e.g no strip mining, you should be exploring for resources; interact with the Warden this way, not that way etc) Minecraft is a sandbox game where the players sculpt the story on top of the mechanics. When any creative endeavour interacts with the real world, it will necessarily be changed; computer games are no exception. And sometimes these changes are improvements. For example: the most famous line in Jaws ("You're gonna need a bigger boat") is an ad-lib. How would that film be regarded today if Steven Spielberg had put his foot down and cut it from the film? The point is, sometimes creators have to let go and let the art live.
Probably because it's a hard area to get around with an almost impossible mob to kill for basically no reward. There's nothing worth getting from ancient city imo
I'm obsessed with the Warden. I love watching him. I personally think Mojang nailed his atmosphere!
There should be a new types of mobs to put the Warden somewhere. Because a boss, needs a health bar. A mob is not absurdly strong. I'd say the Warden should be in a new tier cammed "Guards", aka mobs that guard a certain reward
Does changing its label make a difference? Seems unnecessary
I guess, but could make a reason for the drop
I’m not sure why so many folks are furious about the Warden and Ancient Cities. I think there are a lot of gamers that are overly involved in the *slaughtering* aspect of Minecraft rather than the building or lore aspect. I really enjoy the whole Warden concept, including it’s insane resiliency and one-shot mechanics. It adds a distinct fear aspect to the game that also makes deep exploring an interesting challenge. Even on Creative mode, I enjoy lurking in the ancient cities and observing the mob’s design and behavior. As for the cities: I always find them fascinating to explore, and I’m always looking for one on every playthrough (regardless of whether I’m playing survival or creative).
Probably because they see it as a boss, when it's not intended as one. Yeah, it's boring to slay because it wasn't designed to be slayed. Anybody can kill one, it's not hard. Just build out of his reach and arrow him to death, it's more of a test of patience than skill. I love the Deep Dark, it's one of my favorite additions in the past 10 years. However the only criticism I think is kinda true, is the loot honestly fairly early/mid game, it quickly goes down in value as there are much less risky ways to get the same loot, with the only items that are unique being the recovery compass and Swift Sneak books. It's great if you need books early game, regular and an assortment of enchanted books, but otherwise, there's little reason to go in once you find a Swift Sneak III book.
I'm not gonna lie. The gameplay of avoiding him stealth style sucks, it's not "Minecraft" like at all the rewards for avoiding him aren't all that worth it and it just doesn't make sense that it posseses more hit points than the fucking ender dragon, which is the final boss of the game, or even the wither point being, he sucks
know one player who removed all the trigger points in aa ancient city and made it into their very bright base, drops are minimal, but the chests are worth raiding, shame about the noise
The music in ancient cities is great.
I think the online community isn’t always representative of real-world players. The warden, the deep dark, and the ancient cities are some of my favorite things they’ve added since I started playing and I’m not alone in my real-world circles. I love that exploring deep dark areas has a completely different feel and thrill. I can’t just rely on my perfectly enchanted netherite armor. I have to adjust my play style.
I like the *idea* of the Warden. The concept of an unkillable one shotter wandering a city with valuables is pretty cool to me, I love that kind of risk-reward in games. But in practice the Warden I feel is more boring than thrilling, because if you accidentally make it appear, your only response is to run out of its sniffing zone and wait until it burrows down again. Anything else-- building, sneaking away, distracting with projectiles-- is useless, the sniff mechanic means you'll get killed. So in practice the Warden is just a punishment of a jog away and a minute's wait, which I think is pretty boring. If the sniffing mechanic was ditched (or at the very least if it didn't cause Anger) then the Warden would become something you sneak *around*, rather than just run from. I think then I'd like it a lot more. It would bring back that risk-reward, if only a little. And you could then build on it from there-- what if having a Warden around improved the loot tables? Would you take the risk? What if 3-5 Wardens spawned in every City, without the burrow mechanic? Then you *have* to sneak around. I'm not a game developer so I'm sure there's things I'm missing, but as a player I think this would make the Warden a lot more fun.
>Anything else-- building, sneaking away, distracting with projectiles-- is useless, You can (and I have) do all of those. If you throw an egg, snowball or fire an arrow near a sensor in the opposite direction you're going it distracts the Warden. You can also pillar up with wool.
It is way too easy for the Warden to sniff you out. It has a surprisingly big range to which it can do that, and it makes most strategies near worthless. Even if you try throwing projectiles, he’ll still get mad at you for throwing too many.
Not really. I shoot a far off skulk sensor as soon as the darkness effect is gone and sneak in the opposite direction.
The issue with removing the sniff/track mechanic is that it results in the same scenario but the role of the player and the warden reversed. Assume this somehow *does* prevent the player from running from the warden. Instead of running away, you're now waiting for the warden to run from *you* (or whatever point of interest it happens to be guarding). Effectively the same concept, but with RNG pathfinding thrown into the mix. Running has always been an option against most of Minecraft's extrinsic threats for those who are perfectly comfortable playing the game without interacting with those gameplay elements, or at the cost of overall slowing down progress. What you're describing here are just basic stealth game mechanics: "sneak - alert - disengage" (with the latter part including running or simply waiting to reset back to the sneak phase). I think if Mojang wanted to fully embrace the mechanic they'd have to make the ancient city far more restrictive, something like the original concept shown in Minecraft Live, where the player would have to sneak across a narrow corridor with the warden occupying it. For one half of players, this solves the issue. For the other half, it makes a problematic design even worse.
The loot isn’t what the warden drops, the loot is in the ancient city, which the warden is guarding.
Y Yeah?? That’s implied?? what??
Yes but people complain about the warden not dropping good loot (I was agreeing with you)
The City's loot is also pretty bad tbh tho
I don’t hate it, but it does tend to become annoying when you run into them every 20 blocks in a big cave and you have to practically disinfect the area. Had one cave I was working, and I kid you now I had killed 5 in a row and still going breaking sensors and fighting more.
My only complaint is the Warden's ranged attack, otherwise I completely agree!
[I made a meme about this very topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/MinecraftMemes/comments/svz2al/brb_gona_go_punch_a_tornado/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
The Warden and the Ancient City design is great. The issue is that the entire Ancient City is an area specifically designed for the player to avoid. The loot there is only really good for the first time. Once you get the disc fragments, Swift Sneak, enough echo shards, and a Enchanted Golden Apple or two, you don't have any reason to return. So you end up with a situation where most players actively avoid the structure (as they're supposed to do) but instead of it feeling like a cool place, it's more of a feeling of dread when they come across it while mining/playing. It's a feeling of 'oh another ancient city. Guess I'll mine around it to avoid potentially spawning the Warden.' What's missing is a lure for the player to keep them coming back. To make it an actual choice to maaaaybe go in again. Something that is enticing. The armor trims are rare enough that they'll keep some of the dedicated players coming back but I think some large collection that can't be obtained elsewhere would be worthwhile for Mojang to consider. For instance, adding mob heads at a chance of 20% per Ancient City chest would be really interesting. Having the chance to get mob heads you can't otherwise obtain would be very enticing to some. Need a head or two to complete your perfect farm? Go to the Ancient City. Want to flex on your friends with a whole collection of dyed sheep heads? Go to the Ancient City. You'd probably get *some* each time you visit. But you would struggle to find every type (+ you would get some duplicates). Some type of Ancient City vault could also be interesting as well to keep players from quickly raiding the whole structure for those rare heads. There are other ideas that fit in the Ancient City but my main point is that player lure does not exist beyond the first visit (aside from maybe the trims). So after one visit, chances are you never see or even want to see it ever again which is odd for the biggest structure in the game and arguably its most interesting 'boss' type mob.
Because to many I guess Minecraft is not supposed to be a horror/stealth game - what the creator of the warden is a fan of. From reading the comment through the years, you figure out a lot of people just aren't interested by the ancient cities because of the risk/reward ratio. The warden was an interesting monster but I really feel they wasted everything by making it near invincible with terrible loot. >it’s designed as something you need to avoid at all costs Which I think was a terrible choice for a game monster. An *natural obstacle* monster ? That's... honestly a terribly weird idea. Simply making it a boss like the wither would've been a much better idea. I mean some people may like to scream and run... I and many others prefer to gear up and go on monster hunts...
It’s just not really fitting for minecraft I guess. Minecraft is not a game about rules. It is a game where a person with enough blocks and gear can utterly dominate any and all things. And that’s the point. This is YOUR world. Zombies and skeletons and even the wither exist because you allow them to exist. You can go through temples and monuments and stuff the “right” way. But you can always just grab a pickaxe and tear them down, block by block. If you really felt like it, you could drain the lava seas of the nether, or create a massive farm to endlessly kill iron golems, or mine every nearby block to create a chasm to bedrock. You are god, as long as you have the time and determination. Except… with the Warden. You must deal with it the “right” way. You gotta play by its rules. Which is somewhat annoying.
Ancient city loot isn't worth it at all and is a waste of time. The warden is blind which sounded cool but I don't see how/why it feels like it needs to make me blind too, would actually give night vision a better use if it'd actually work. Plus if you try to run you either get sniffed out or 1 shot with a Kamehameha. Sure is fun spending 40 minutes covering everything with wool just to get that sweet sweet swift sneak that really has no use except for the ancient cities, but I'm already on my way out. I love Minecraft and hate to whine and moan but I think I'd be happier without all of that. The fact there's a setting to remove only the Warden tells me enough.
I think they should have made the Warden have unlimited HP/take zero damage. Then it would be a straight up environmental hazard. If you fight it you die.
Why complain about a group you say is a select few?
I like the warden overall as an obstacle but still think it's stupid that it drops absolutely nothing other than a catalyst on death. Like I don't expect anything actually useful, just a little trinket to say "You killed a warden". I understand you can't really compare minecraft and terraria, but regardless terraria has an enemy in it called a dungeon guardian that is supposed to just be an instant kill for trying to access the dungeon too early, but you CAN kill it if you work hard enough to do so, and doing it rewards you with a completely useful but ultimately neat little accessory. I wish the warden had something like that because otherwise you can literally just run through the deep dark looting chests without a care as long as you're careful to avoid areas you summoned a warden, there's zero reason to care about it if you're good.
It would be cool if the warden dropped a head on death, though perhaps. Make it so it won't drop if you kill it with a bow to make it actually hard. >you can literally just run through the deep dark looting chests without a care as long as you're careful to avoid areas you summoned a warden More than one can spawn at a time though, so one would spawn where you are, and eventually there'd be wardens all over the city.
minecraft players can't comprehend any type of challenge that is not a boss
You are completely correct :) The community has turned the mob into something meant to be killed and farmed. I personally believe Mojang should've made it immune to all damage. It's part of the landscape of the deep dark. Also the deep dark has *plenty* of rewards. Tonnes of diamond stuff, a unique enchant, a music disc, unique armour trims, and not to mention the hundreds of levels of xp. Some people start optimising the fun out of the game, by waiting out the shrieker cooldown, etc. It's like burrowing yourself into the ground or waiting in a boat off the coast to avoid night time, and I think some people think it's bad game design having that option available to them.
At one point having the Warden be immortal was the plan, but that was changed later on. Which was certainly for the best, people who fight the Warden enjoy doing so just because they can in spite of their not being much of a reward. Making the Warden immortal locks people out of that option to deal with them. And then to that bottom point, people really do look at one of the many strategies for beating the Ancient City and act like it's a bad thing there's ways to do it better once you get experianced. Ignoring how not everyone would be like that, and anyone could do an Ancient City at any point in progression and be fine. And thus wouldn't have certain options.
The thing about Ancient city is reward VS risk
I've never heard this
My opinion: I do think Minecraft also needs to invest in stuff for players who like adventure, not just building. However, I don't think the Warden has to drop anything. The Ancient City loot is the reward, Enchanted Golden Apples and more. There is stuff in the sculk that is.worth exploring, it doesn't have to come directly from the Warden, he's part of the sculk. I like that you can CHOOSE to fight it or not.
I don't like that it negates armour. If it's going to drop nothing and be annoying and guard some of the best loot, I think it should be a real mob, make it even harder IDC. Just respect my gear
I don't mind the warden I hate when he spawns because I revert back to 12 year old me who was scared of zombies in the pe demo.
The only reason I don't like the warden is because I was already terrified of the caves even before the caves and cliffs update, so having an unkillable enemy lurking around valuable resources is horrifying :')
I’m glad they gave it a drop because it’s the only renewable source of sculk catalysts to my knowledge
I agree with you on this. I think it’s just the simple fact that it can be damaged and killed that people want to do so. It’s like if you put a 1,000 block tall mountain into the game that is there just to look cool people will still want to climb it. It is just human nature that we want to do things that seem even remotely possible.
I raided an ancient city a few weeks ago and I have to say what annoys me the the complete lack of avoiding them I was sneaking, walking on wool, every precaution I could think of, and every time I open a chest (open or break) a warden spawns and I have to sprint back to my little hole in the wall on the other side of the city What I think is fun, is the idea that you have to be careful and sneaky, what I don’t like the mediocre execution on the idea. It’s not awful, if I sneak walking won’t do anything, but I feel like there’s no intuitive way to get loot without spawning them
I just think the Wardens AI needs to be improved
I see the Warden like the level 0 encounter in my hero academia: it's a massive threat, but it's worth no points. So it's best to avoid it if you can. It's like an iron golem on steroids holding a subwoofer on bigger steroids.
I love the Ancient Cities & explore them A lot & the people saying it's not worth exploring fr the loot are just wrong. God Apples are super rare & you can get alot of them in cities & Swift Sneak is awesome. The Warden isn't a boos doesn't matter if it's stronger than other bosses, it doesn't have a health bar on top of the screen & a boss can't be spawned 5 minutes into the game if you spawn near a deep dark. Wither & Dragon you need items to get to them while you just need to walk past something to spawn them. Also if you didn't know the Warden wasn't suppose to be fought that's a you problem because most things in Minecraft aren't spelt out for you & needs a little research.
Out of topic but ancient cities are bad, high risk low reward
I have you know I killed the warden twice. And he only killed me 5 times in the attempt. For real. You kill him and a new one spawns. It's better just to sneak. Or explore on peaceful.
The Minecraft community seems to have a pattern of imagining things before they have been fully revealed and being disappointed by the results when they are. And even though the game has an infinite number of ways to be played (with categories like builder, explorer, combat players, speed runners, etc) some people don’t like when a feature doesn’t fit perfectly to support their play style.
I am shit at the game, all I do is farm potato's and mine. But I love the warden, it gives me a heart attack every time I hear a skulk thing and it's terrifying. I would love more things like that, where being sneaky and fast is good rather than having good fighting skills
I personally hated the warden because I wore my good gear like a moron and died and lost it all before I could get it…it took a lot for me to get back to that level because I just couldn’t bring myself to do it again for a while. Then I actually paid attention to how it works and started wearing iron armor and putting away my good gear in an ender chest when i get to loot the city. Never had issues with it after that.
I want to mine, and build, and sometimes explore. The warden kinda fits the explore mechanic, except that it has a "forced" stealth component, in a sandbox game that had/has no real stealth mechanics to speak of. I just feel like it's shoehorned in.
I get that the game is trying to incentives players to avoid spawning the warden but they should've just made it unkillable. Why is it the hardest mob in the game and doesn't drop anything even tho it's killable. Thats what makes it seem like an optional challenge. I recently started playing minecraft again for the first time since like the end got added and I genuinely think the game is so inconsistent gameplay wise it's such a mess. But I'm glad there's a casual game for my and gf to play lol
I quite like the Warden...in Ancient Cities. I think having the Warden spawn in just any old Deep Dark cave is (a) total bullshit and (b) in direct conflict with the original intention behind it. The whole point of the Warden is to be a protector of the "late game" loot of ancient cities, forcing you to traverse them stealthily and strategically. So having shriekers in any old cave that could be within earshot of any other cave without you knowing, there's no reward to be had from outsmarting the Warden there. It just forces you to turn back and come back to that branch of the cave once it despawns. Completely ruins the fun of exploring 1.18 caves for me to be honest
the warden kind of functions like the leviathans in subnautica if you think about it. killing it is a pain, but you can do it if you like. the loot isn’t any sort of material reward. it’s the batshit faces i made every time i got jump-scared looking for swift-sneak books.
Personally I think they are uggly and I am annoyed about the ammount of deep dark, I think they should be less common, it get's in my way with mining quite often. Otherwise, I don't care much about it. I also think the sniffer is uggly and more or less useless, but that's my personal opinion...
Dominion. Until the warden Minecraft was full of mobs of varying levels of challenge but could all ultimately be overcome. And that's how games are generally designed to; there's bad guys and you figure out how to kill the bad guys. Not that it's never been done before, but Mojang did something really interesting in designing a different gameplay element with the Warden by creating a mob that's so difficult to kill it strains the rules of the game and simultaneously making it pointless to make the effort by hiding nothing of value behind the achievement. The catalyst block is almost a "fuck you" and is clearly deliberate. In doing so you're denied dominion over the Minecraft world. You may defeat the Wither, the Dragon and wander the nether and every cave in enchanted netherite armor but you will never truly be top dog in the Minecraft world because deep down in the dark the Warden is the real top dog and you have to chose to coexist. No matter what you do you aren't safe and dominant everywhere and that's a deviation from most games and some people just can't handle that. My complaint though ... I can deal with the Warden being tough but not that portal not leading somewhere or being explained.
The annoying part about the warden isn’t the mob itself, it’s that for some reason mojang’s whole idea for it is that you interact with it as little as possible. Which just sucks. It’s incredibly easy to never see once you understand the mechanics, and when you do see it you’re either dead or immediately leaving. There’s no reason to kill it even though it’s possible and very hard. Its pretty much just wasted mob design in its current form.
I think the Warden is too easy to avoid. Especially in the Ancient City. It's too easy to avoid triggering his spawning in the first place, and it's too easy to avoid him after he's spawned (again, this is especially apparent in the Ancient City).
Tapping the sign again: We know it's not supposed to be a boss, we think that's stupid and it should be a boss. Using the best visual design in the entire game for a glorified stage hazard is just ridiculously lame, and it completely ruins the uniqueness of the mob when you can have like 10 of them walking around in the same place
Cause its scawy
I actually like Wardens a lot as they are. Though I feel like adding the ability to one-tap them with a new weapon... that sorta calls into question the design intention of "don't fight the Warden, kids." (I don't actually know if you can one-tap, but I know you can do massive damage)
Most environmental obstacles do not blind you and pursue you.
Tl;dr: The warden is scary as heck and I love it for it. I remember one late night, maybe around 12 AM for me, my friend and I were playing minecraft. We had wanted to get through an ancient city, so we decided to play regardless of the unfortunate houe. We were on call, laughing and joking around as we prepared. Shulker boxes full of wool, Night Vision potions, etc. Right before we entered, we established one very basic rule between us: "In every situation, I will be by your side to help you. But if the Warden spawns, its every man for himself." By the time we got to work slowly clearing up the ancient city, both of us had been pretty tired. Its late for both of us, so as we were going, we were chatting idly about random things and then the first shrieker. You could have heard a pin drop with how quiet both of us went at the first strike, something which had sent a devastating amount of fear despite it being a game. Regardless, we pressed on. And then the second strike. I nearly jumped out of my seat and physically left, had it not been for the fact that my headset wires held me back. But frankly, nothing could have prepared me for the warden spawning. We hadn't seen the animation yet. We expected it to appear, not crawl out of the ground beside that. The rule set in place made us immediately book it out of there, with either ender pearls or an elytra, both of which caused us to take damage and for it to hear. The panic of running away from a horror you KNOW you cannot kill reminds me of those nightmares; chasing you through unfamiliar territory, hearing your footsteps, its distant heartbeat the only indicator of where it is as the darkness overtakes your vision. Both of us survived that night, but we walked away with a very different mindset about the Warden. This is not an enemy you fight. This is not a monster you can kill. It is an unstoppable force of nature, which will stop at nothing. It will hunt you, smelling the air and listening for your footsteps. And if it finds you? Good luck.
Just another example of people optimizing all the fun out of the game and then complaining that there’s no reason to actually interact with the world because it doesn’t give them some op item that can’t be cheesed through boring means. People love to do that around here.
Just want to say Ancient Cities are the coolest thing ever since me revisiting Minecraft. I went into it with only surface level knowledge and damn the whole thing feels like a totally new dimension but under the overworld, especially with the music. This kind of stuff makes me love Minecraft.
Because they made it killable yet drops worse loot and XP than mobs that are easy to kill