Brown Mushrooms

[jstu9]

I can understand why you have made brown mushrooms harder to get to. (However, I really love the new growing mechanic on them though). But I hope I can make a case for you to reconsider it.

One really big feature of BTW that I love is that items in vanilla that have no or little use have these awesome uses in BTW. So, cobblestone is actually useful, rotten flesh has a use, vines have a use, pumpkins have a use etc.

And brown mushrooms were an absolutely critical and important early game food source. When I started playing BTW, those mushrooms were awesome. Loved that about this mod. I never do anything with brown mushrooms in vanilla. I remember waiting in my base for those pesky brown mushrooms to grow, slowly starving to death. Or out exploring and needing that tiny bit of food to get me to the next highest hunger level and coming across a swamp biome and rejoicing in those glistening brown mushrooms. Lots of fun early gameplay.

Now they have little or no early gameplay.

By the time you find brown mushrooms, you likely already have a solid food source and those mushroom omelets are an afterthought.

Now in my current game it hasn't been a big deal as I have adapted. Found different food sources. I found 6 mushrooms in a ravine out exploring and I put a couple down to check out the new growing mechanics. But I have generally ignored them.

As I understand it, brown mushrooms become important later in the mod. So I guess they still have a use, which is good. But this one thing has just kinda bugged me as i have played over the last week or two.

Just something to consider. Thanks.

[FlowerChild]

By the time you find brown mushrooms, you likely already have a solid food source and those mushroom omelets are an afterthought.

My primary question here would be: what is the alternate food source you've already developed at that point?

Personally, I tend to head straight for diamonds before worrying about sustainable food, and hitting diamond level is roughly the requirement for finding mushrooms now. I find there is more than enough animal life around to keep me fed beyond that point and thus the "upgrade" provided by mushrooms to your food supply was largely irrelevant as it was almost immediately gained. It thus became the base-line for food early game.

Mushrooms were also way easier to obtain than eggs, when again, they act as an upgrade to that source of food, and thus turns the "bonus" they provide upside down making it the default standard.

As for surviving entirely on shrooms if you found a swamp: I personally hated that as it took a lot of the ticking clock pressure off of early game survival. A recent respawn in particular where I chose to live in a swamp due to it being bordered by mountains and not wanting to deal with silverfish while mining, I realized that given the abundance of brown shrooms I basically had zero survival pressure whatsoever, and wound up even ignoring them entirely as I walked around because I already had so much food in my base that it didn't even warrant clicking on them anymore.

[jstu9]

I understand the argument where mushrooms can be overpowered. I see that point. They might quite possibly provide more early food than you want to provide. That makes sense to me. And just going around killing animals is what you seem to do and what I basically did.

And maybe my experiences from the past are just experiences due to inexperience and not fully grasping the best way to find food. This current time I am better, more experienced and thus have not really needed mushrooms.

But mushrooms provided early gameplay to me in the past. They provided a use that vanilla does not have. And I liked that about BTW. It doesn't come down to how much food mushrooms can produce, it comes down to that mushrooms actually had a purpose, they provided gameplay, something interesting. That's my point.

[DiamondArms]

Might be a Hoe-first vs. Pick-first thing.

People who pick hoe as their first iron tool usually end up getting sustainable chickens and eggs long before brown mushrooms, which is irrelevant by the time they have more iron for an iron pick and go diamond hunting. (I'm a hoe-first person. )

Pick-first (like yourself, FC) go for tech first before sustainability, and pick up things along the way (like brown mushrooms). Admittedly, it's a very efficient way of doing things. However, it does involve using up more early resources than some are comfortable with.

It largely comes down to playstyle. Cautious players are unlikely to get brown mushrooms soon due to fear of the depths. More experienced and confident players deal with the trade-offs better.

Personal Opinion: I'm terrified of caving. It's dangerous and I panic easily. I'd rather be safe and progress slowly. I get windmills faster than I get diamonds.
I'm not too bothered by the lack of mushrooms. As an early game source of food, they're optional.

Jstu, I feel you've missed the point. mushrooms (as early game content) are something you get if you go caving early. I don't think you need to feel so bothered as mushrooms are largely optional in this case. They still have a use, just not to you.

[Mason11987]

I understand the argument where mushrooms can be overpowered. I see that point. They might quite possibly provide more early food than you want to provide. That makes sense to me. And just going around killing animals is what you seem to do and what I basically did.

And maybe my experiences from the past are just experiences due to inexperience and not fully grasping the best way to find food. This current time I am better, more experienced and thus have not really needed mushrooms.

But mushrooms provided early gameplay to me in the past. They provided a use that vanilla does not have. And I liked that about BTW. It doesn't come down to how much food mushrooms can produce, it comes down to that mushrooms actually had a purpose, they provided gameplay, something interesting. That's my point.

You didn't really address his question. What is your solid food source? I just found mushrooms just before finding my first 3 diamonds and all I have is two chickens and 4 brand new hemp plants. I actually can't use mushrooms right now because I haven't even gotten chickens set up.

[jackatthekilns]

I agree that the effect of this change is different based on play style (Hoe first for me). I think mushrooms definitely needed a rebalance(especially in swamps). The change meant two things for me: first - I focus on getting shears in order to milk cows, second - I am motivated to explore and find wheat much earlier than I used to. BTW has a history of making changes that encourage players to adjust playstyle. Compared to earlier changes, the shroom change is pretty minor. I would love for brown mushrooms to be a little easier to find but I can't think of a reasonable alternative.

[AddyBaha]

I for normaly wander of away from spawn (to keep the animals at spawn alive until I can secure them) until I either find pumkins and mushrooms or wheat. In my current world I wandered till I found an semi-abandoned village. It's the first time I found wheat before mushrooms and I am not sure wether it's because the new update or the seed of my current world.
To answer FCs question you can have renewable food even before leaving stoneage and therefor way before diamonds/cave-mushrooms. I don't even need a hoe, since the village has tilled farm land and occasional fishing generates enough tasty sandwiches to affort manuel grinding.
That's probably far form standart gameplay but it works.

[jakerman999]

occasional fishing generates enough tasty sandwiches to affort manuel grinding.
That's probably far form standart gameplay but it works.

I usually find myself fishing as my first sustainable food. The one iron investment really pays off, and if I can keep track of the moon well enough I can normally keep myself fed until I get to hoe (hoe before pick here). That said, it's extremely boring and I have actually built massive pumpkin farms just so I can sustain myself on seeds rather than spend an entire night fishing. Getting a chicken back home feels like a godsend.

[dawnraider]

Personally, I always go pick first, and try and tech up as quickly as possible. I really never even touch mushrooms until villager trading and hearty stew. My main focus in the early game is getting more and more raw materials, with sustainability basically as an afterthought. Because of this, before even getting renewable food I had explored 2/3 of the hardcore spawn area just from searching for new caves (and the rare death), which more than sustained me in terms of the animals killed. I never bothered with anything renewable until I got wheat, when I finally started breeding the animals I had secured previously. I understand that I am the extreme minority here, but it does show that the "horns of plenty," as FC stated about swamps previously, really aren't necessary. Living just outside a swamp, I, too, found myself passing by mushrooms without a second thought, even leaving them to despawn in some cases, which is always a sign that something is off.

[Sarudak]

For me I never really used the mushrooms much and never built a mushroom farm as anything other than a curiosity. The reason is that early game meat is so plentiful and then once I start farming I can produce a plethora of eggs (semi-automated) with much lower effort then mushrooms or milk. Eggs gives me ham and eggs for expeditions and fried or later poached eggs for around the base where I don't care about density and I've found this to be more than adequate up until I find wheat.

[Niyu]

Y always go for the iron pick first, but I ussually gather enought iron for the rest of the tools before finding the dimonds so i end up with a pumpkin farm before getting the diamonds.

Also, once you have diamonds you can quickly get some netherrack to start chocolate production and breed pigs.

[Rob]

Flowerchild, if I recall correctly, brown mushroom nerf to hunger replenishment was due to their over abundance. Now that brown mushrooms are less plentiful, harder to find and a little harder to farm safely. Have you given any thought to changing the mushroom omelet recipe requirement back to 1, and increasing their shank replenishment when eaten singularly?

[FlowerChild]

Flowerchild, if I recall correctly, brown mushroom nerf to hunger replenishment was due to their over abundance.

Yes, as were the recent changes because I judged that original nerf to be insufficient.

Now that brown mushrooms are less plentiful, harder to find and a little harder to farm safely. Have you given any thought to changing the mushroom omelet recipe requirement back to 1, and increasing their shank replenishment when eaten singularly?

No, because that would be moving in the opposite direction of where I've been trying to go. Please don't turn this into a random suggestion thread.

If you'd like to point out an area that you view to be a problem, that's entirely cool. However, I do not believe mushrooms being in any way underpowered has been successfully identified as an issue (I consider whether they are or not to be the main point of discussion here), and thus jumping to the solution stage is both premature and unwanted.

[Rob]

Was more questioning your thought process behind and into the future of the brown mushroom. Sounds reasonable as you explain it.

Will word my posts more carefully in the future, as I didn't intend to position a solution.

[FlowerChild]

Was more questioning your thought process behind and into the future of the brown mushroom.

Well, we're really talking about two separate things here that are only related by them being associated with the mushrooms themselves :)

For the change to where they spawn naturally (deep earth as opposed to surface/swamps), my overall intent with it was to de-emphasize their role as a base-line food item which I found neutralized much of the survival pressure of the early game under certain circumstances (like a swamp spawn), and in the process pushed the player towards the monotony of chowing down on countless abundant mushrooms rather than doing something more interesting like hunting. Instead, I wanted to emphasize their role more as a bonus item that could be acquired through exploration which helps to boost other food sources. I wanted to take them from simply being a given, to an "oooo!" when you find them, that feels like an actual upgrade.

With the changes I made to farming them requiring darkness: mushrooms are still exceedingly easy to farm in the early game, not even requiring progressing to an iron hoe like pumpkins do (the hoe being why I felt comfortable leaving pumpkins relatively easy to find, even if a tad more rare). That change was more oriented towards making farming them more interesting rather than more challenging. Previously, they were exceedingly dull to farm in comparison to other crops, whereas now you at least have to think about it a bit, and likely undertake a small construction project, rather than just plunking them down wherever for some free food whenever you happen to walk by.

Really, I don't at all mind being asked about the reasoning behind various design decisions if they're ever unclear, and am generally happy to talk about them unless they've already been discussed to death or act as spoilers for stuff I'm still working on ;)

[jakerman999]

Really, I don't at all mind being asked about the reasoning behind various design decisions if they're ever unclear, and am generally happy to talk about them unless they've already been discussed to death or act as spoilers for stuff I'm still working on ;)

Personally I always enjoy reading about behind design decisions, it's a skill set that I don't have but works closely with he skill set of development that I do.

Seeing:

my overall intent with it was to de-emphasize their role as a base-line food item which I found neutralized much of the survival pressure of the early game under certain circumstances (like a swamp spawn), and in the process pushed the player towards the monotony of chowing down on countless abundant mushrooms rather than doing something more interesting like hunting.

really adds something; as in my mind the problem with brown mushrooms was that they were too powerful, not that they were being used in the wrong way. Framing them as more of an upgrade rather than a base item changes the context, and I didn't really get that design change up until now.

I would also be interested in seeing these easy early game mushroom farms. Perhaps I just lack imagination but I can't think of anything that doesn't create a bunch of unfriendlies as a side-effect.

[jstu9]

For the change to where they spawn naturally (deep earth as opposed to surface/swamps), my overall intent with it was to de-emphasize their role as a base-line food item which I found neutralized much of the survival pressure of the early game under certain circumstances (like a swamp spawn), and in the process pushed the player towards the monotony of chowing down on countless abundant mushrooms rather than doing something more interesting like hunting. Instead, I wanted to emphasize their role more as a bonus item that could be acquired through exploration which helps to boost other food sources. I wanted to take them from simply being a given, to an "oooo!" when you find them, that feels like an actual upgrade.

I have no doubt you have considered the ramifications of the effects of the change on brown mushrooms more than I have. And I think its cool that we can have an interesting discussion on one single item within one mod and it be interesting. That's probably a sign of an interesting game.

I brought it up because I felt the use of mushrooms in early game has been largely removed. I don't see using mushrooms or mushroom omelets as a food source again. From the responses and your comments, most people don't see it as an issue. And if it isn't, then that's fair enough.

I didn't bring this up to bring mushrooms back the way they were.

[Zhil]

Different players have different play-styles. For example, I usually go to the nether and find a fortress even before I start on my hemp farm. There's just so many animals that it really doesn't matter if you have renewable food I find. When I start on my hemp farm, I start making a chicken farm at the same time, so I can use the hemp seeds for the chicken breeding and also so I can use the renewable eggs to crank out the windmill.

As a result of my playstyle, I don't think I've ever used mushrooms much. When I was playing SMP, other players always seemed to hand me mushroom omelettes and that always confused me and made me go out on a hunting trip, as I categorized making mushroom omelettes as being too lazy to hunt for food.

My last single player world had a swamp spawn and I never made mushroom omelettes either, so for me, it has nothing to do with how much mushrooms I have.

[FlowerChild]

I don't see using mushrooms or mushroom omelets as a food source again.

See, on that point I disagree, as in my current game I am keeping myself fed on a combination of mushroom omelets, scrambled eggs, and ham & eggs. I am post diamond and working my way up to a hemp farm for my windmill, so I'm trying to stockpile enough food to grind the hemp. I've also already acquired diamonds and popped over to the nether for a quick collection of netherrack for a cauldron setup. My supply of pork is limited if I don't want to start going further afield for hunting, so the mushrooms (and milk) are helping a lot in stretching my food supply. I have not felt comfortable going into a jungle for cocoa, and am not even certain if there's one near my current base, so chocolate for pig breeding is not yet an option.

So, for myself I know I still definitely want to make omelets and feel motivated to do so, and working on expanding my mushroom farm has provided a good nighttime activity while I wait for my hemp to grow. That may be situational and dependent on a player's preferred path through the tech tree, but I'm cool with that, again, with the idea that mushrooms act as more of a bonus item than a staple food source.

I didn't bring this up to bring mushrooms back the way they were.

Please don't interpret debate as dismissal man. It's quite the opposite: if I take the time to discuss something and provide counter arguments it's usually because I see some potential validity to what is being said and am trying to get to the root of a matter :)

[MaxAstro]

I don't tend to worry about mushrooms until late game in any case - I find the amount of room they need to grow annoying, and I tend to rush ham and eggs. Since I'm also pretty lazy about feeding my chickens as much as I could, I spend most of my eggs on that; I don't think I've ever used mushroom omelettes. I haven't played the latest version yet, but since I typically don't need mushrooms until hearty stew, I imagine I'd have no problem finding them by then.

I'm definitely hoe-first, though, so this is probably a case where the change doesn't affect my playstyle. If anything it just reinforces it, honestly - I'm even less likely to bother with mushroom omelettes, since it seems like I'd probably have ham and eggs going before I'd typically find any mushrooms.