I’ve been playing Minecraft off and on for a very long time now, and I thought that I had it all figured out by now. As far as I knew, any and all challenge in the vanilla survival mode was contained to the opening couple of day/night cycles and specific places like unexplored caves, the Nether and the End. That hasn’t been true of my most recent run in the game though; I’ve died several times at surface level so far, and often right near the entrance of my base. What’s going on???
I’ve been playing Minecraft off and on for a very long time now, and I thought that I had it all figured out by now. As far as I knew, any and all challenge in the vanilla survival mode was contained to the opening couple of day/night cycles and specific places like unexplored caves, the Nether and the End. That hasn’t been true of my most recent run in the game though; I’ve died several times at surface level so far, and often right near the entrance of my base. What’s going on???
From the start, this run of Minecraft has been something of a struggle. Instead of getting dropped in the middle of a field or near a village, I instead spawned in the middle of some densely wooded hills with lots of large caves and a giant crevasse nearby. In other words, I was right in the middle of a Minecraft mob’s paradise. With so many dark or shady spots around, mobs can spawn literally anywhere at any time and make problems for me, and boy have they.
I figured that building a little house out in the open would only end with me getting blown up by a creeper, so I opted to carve out and light up my own section of a large cliffside cave instead. This kind of worked, but only after beating back a small army of cave spiders and hurriedly erecting a big ol’ dirt wall on all sides. I did indeed claim my territory, but it was far from easy. Neither was claiming the rest of the cave. It was a long process of putting down torches, killing everything from spiders to creepers and sealing-off any and all side-tunnels I found. With some actual space cleared out, it was time to set up a mine.
This part wasn’t so bad until I reached the new, massive underground area that was added in the last update. Here, the mobs not only spawn more quickly, but they seem to also be more aggressive and notice you from further away. Continuing my tunnel downward came at the price of several more deaths and setting up enough barriers to keep from being overwhelmed as I fought individual enemies and built my tunnel. I eventually had to close the tunnel off completely from the rest of the cavern because the mobs found ways around each and every one of my barriers! Suffice it to say, I started to get really tired of turning around and finding creepers and skeletons behind me while I was mining for diamonds.
Back at the surface, the ordeal wasn’t over. Every time I’ve gone out to get wood or food, I’ve found myself practically surrounded by mobs! I’m just playing on normal difficulty too, so I don’t get what’s changed here! They’re so much more numerous, aggressive and persistent this time! I’ve had to go so far as to completely fence-off the ledges way above my cave lair because the mobs were climbing down in order to get at me! I don’t think the AI or anything got updated recently, but it sure feels like it! Even after everything I’ve done, I still think they’re going to find ways to get in and ruin my day somehow. I guess I’ll try sealing off the cave and putting a big window in. Maybe that’ll stop them?
Have you had any difficulties in Minecraft lately? Do you think that they made the mobs smarter?
Screenshot by The Duck of Indeed
VIRTUAL BASTION 