Better Than Wolves Forum

Version 4.71 of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!

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This release contains the following changes:

-Added Hardcore Fishing. This makes a number of changes to the way fishing works to make it a more interesting part of the game. First, fishing rods must be "baited" by combining them with various items in the crafting grid. Most "useless" meaty items work as bait, such as rotten flesh, spider eyes and Creeper Oysters. You can still go through the motions of fishing with an unbaited rod, but you won't catch anything. Each time you get a nibble, there's a chance that you'll lose your bait in the process, and when you catch a fish, you will always lose your bait. Also, fishing may only be performed above ground, and if the bobber is in large bodies of water (away from the shore and in deep water...cast into a lake or ocean and you'll be good to go). The chances of catching fish are also much higher in the day than at night, also increased during rain and further increased if you do it during dawn or dusk. The exception to these rules is that fishing at night on a full moon will provide the best chances of all.

-Added Hardcore Piles. When the player digs dirt, sand, or gravel, using a tool other than a shovel (or Mattock), they will get piles of the corresponding material instead of the full block. These piles may be crafted back into blocks, at a cost of 4 piles per block (blocks may also be split into piles if you so desire in the crafting grid), but it should be noted that you only get 3 such piles when digging without a shovel. In other words, if you don't use a shovel, some of the material you are digging is lost as you scrape away at it with your bare hands. This was done to make shovels a more integrated part of the game, and more useful tools overall. Note that at present all piles pass through Wicker filters unmodified (this is particularly relevant to gravel), but future features will address that.

-Added Bat Wings as a new bat drop to further incentivize batting bats while exploring bat caves. Note that Bat Wings may be used as bat bait for Hardcore Fishing.

-Added Cut Scoured Leather. This is simply for convenience, to allow leather to be cut before being Scoured in a Mill Stone, and then Tanned, so that players don't have to worry about cutting excessive leather or what have you, then not being able to tan it as a result. Note that tanning Cut Scoured Leather, will require two pieces per Dung, plus the corresponding number of logs.

-Changed fishing rod recipe so that it consists of two sticks diagonally, with 2 string, and an iron nugget. In relation to the vanilla recipe this means the top stick is replaced by a string, and the bottom string by the nugget. I've also added the ability to melt down the various types of fishing rod (regular, baited, and carrot on stick) in the Crucible to recover the nugget.

-Changed (rebalanced) the hardness of various vanilla blocks so that they make more sense relative to each other.

-Changed (increased) the amount of time it takes to harvest blocks "by hand" when an appropriate tool is not used to further emphasize the advantages of proper tool use.

-Changed the crafting table so that it may not be used if it has a solid block above it, similar to chests and other similar blocks.

-Fixed vanilla problem that was introduced back in 1.3 with blocks insta-harvesting under certain circumstances. This was most noticeable with netherrack and vegetation.

-Fixed vanilla problem where blocks like slabs, or mod blocks like moulding, would change orientation immediately after being placed in SMP.

-Fixed problem with the sides of snow on slabs not always displaying correctly.

-Fixed problem with bone meal not immediately appearing on the blocks on which it is placed in SMP.

-Fixed problem with tools not breaking at the correct time in SMP.

Enjoy! :)

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If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:

Dude, Hardcore Piles? LMAO!

EDIT: The piles distracted me. Thanks for another inspiring update. I look forward to trying out the fishing now. See just how much one can catch on a full moon. It used to be such a boring mechanic before. Sitting there waiting for the magic bob. Now I have a reason to build fortified fishing docks too. Always love having reasons to build new stuff.

The intuitive changes continue to flow! So good, thank you!

Comparatively vMC appears more and more like a silly creative mode with each update.

This looks really good. Love the fishing changes. Anything that gives me a reason to go outside in the rain is good.

Thank you for another great release, FC. I've been waiting a long time for someone to do something about fishing. Now it actually requires thought. Further, the hardcore piles are genius. Time to make some shovels...

Hardcore fishing with relevance to the phase of the moon.

Are you a God?

You are on a roll! Can't wait for work to be over to try out the changes! Thanks for your creative talent!

Great update as usual. Hardcore fishing feels awesome! I like how the moon phases ties into it, and it never did feel right to fish under ground. Thanks! :)

loving the changes to fishing :D its my main food resource and I've just finished building my fishing hut, this will be interesting. Thanks!

The first building in my water village she has purpose again! Finally! Thanks for the awesome update man! I can't wait to see how you continue to make this game more awesome!

Thank you for making fishing more natural feeling FC! Now I can actually use what I know about fishing in real life in minecraft.

Hah! I love these hardcore names :D Great stuff, can't wait to try it out later.

Perfect timing! I've been playing on a server with my friends with fish being our main form of substanance but it just felt off. I actually tried baiting my fishing rod hoping it was part of the previous fishing changes and now it is!

oh the snickers I did, Hardcore Piles. =D Thanks for another great update of fun and bugfixes.

wow the fishing change sounds huge! i really like it! :) , But i still dont understand why everybody is loling about hardcore piles ><

Gunnerman21 wrote:wow the fishing change sounds huge! i really like it! :) , But i still dont understand why everybody is loling about hardcore piles ><

Well I can't speak for everyone but I know that personally I thought it was going to have to do with dung and how the dung/wolf system works... Then it was about dirt and I certainly got a kick out of that one.

That's quite strange, I was just fishing in my world yesterday thinking about how it would be nice to have bait that increased the rate. Great minds think alike.
Thanks for this release, it's much appreciated, as always.

The piles are a startling but not unwelcome change. Honestly, adding a cost for not using appropriate tools is a phenomenally cool idea. And yet we'll still be able to burrow in to a hillside without tools if it's necessary.

The other changes are very interesting as well, I look forward to trying them in game. Keep up the great work FC!

When I first read the HC Piles feature I panicked and assumed that I would have to dig 8 dirt by hand to get a few slabs going. Very glad this is not the case but it made me realize that every single kneejerk reaction in the history of the mod (possibly just all of history...) has been the result of a misunderstanding of the basic concepts being communicated. Kudos for recognizing that and not backing down under pressure, man.

This is what's awesome about BTW.

Now I want to fish, I've haven't fished since it first came out in vMC, and then I only fished for about 30 seconds because it was so boring and pointless. (I might have fished more had I known that cat's scare creepers, but I only recently found out about that). Now I actually want to fish!

"Mmmm, unprocessed fish sticks."

Ah...waking up after putting out a release without a single bug report being submitted has to be one of my favorite things :)

Glad you're enjoying it guys!

The fishing changes sound great.
Working tonight so can't try it out untill tomorrow but I hope it means you actually have a higher chance to catch fish now, if/when you do it with all the proper variables cared for that is.
The part of fishing with just sitting around waiting for the bobber to bob just wasn't for me, atleast not when that was all there was to it.

Gunnerman21 wrote:wow the fishing change sounds huge! i really like it! :) , But i still dont understand why everybody is loling about hardcore piles ><

Ok, guess I should explain. Piles is a disease where the rectum swells painfully causing pain when you sit on your ass, etc. Thus why it's so funny and falls in line with BTWs continued focus on all things anal ;) Particularly apropos for this feature seeing as FlowerChild has been trying to break people of their anal retentive nature to horde (I'm as guilty of this as anyone).

I feel like with the changes to bats, I should be biting their heads off instead of their wings...

Joking aside, after checking out the release, the changes definitely makes sense, as always. I really like the added incentives for using proper tools for the proper jobs(especially shovels), and gameplay is starting to feel quite Robinson Crusoe-ish to me :)

Hardcore fishing changes definitely add more depth the the fishing system, but getting no fish at all without bait feels a little off. I really haven't played around with hardcore fishing enough to make a concrete statement about it, but it's setting off warning lights in my head, and it's something I'll look into more and possibly post about if there happens to be a balance thread for this version at some point.