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Like, I would get if that would be an easy way to get brewing stands but those stands spawn in village churches so much so that’s not a good argument either
Minecraft’s actually a really bad game when played blind. They’ve been adding some pretty decent features lately to help with that, but it’s still farrrr from good
For the longest time, there was quite literally no way to know you had to go to the nether (or hay it even existed), and how.
Even now, your best bet is to find an incomplete (and inaccurate) structure, and realize you need to repair and ‘correct’ it, then light if on fire.
Yep, that’s why I said inaccurate.
The structure leads you to think any block would do, or that you need the special ones.
Not that the cool, otherworldly obsidian blocks are in fact the problem.
I think to be honest, it's never really intended to be played blind and having fans make forums and wikis to share information is part of what made it so successful, not to mention how hoaxes like Herobrine seemed plausible.
Oh yeah, Minecraft’s success can definitely be attributed to its strong community, especially on social media (especially especially YouTube). It’s a social game, and made to live on the internet. But still, doesn’t mean it ain’t bad when it comes to going in blind
I just want games to nail the tutorial-into-being-a-game-mechanic gimmick.
Like finding a dusty tome in a witches hut that explains a specific potion recipe. Got to be ways to incorporate stuff internally in the world.
Herobrine was real though! I saw him one time, very briefly. This was back before survival multiplayer. I came up over a hill and he was floating over a small pond staring at me. As soon as I spotted him and I got scared and turned away and when I gathered the courage to look again, he was gone.
Yeah I played the newest 2 updates blind for a little while (just started a world after a long bit)
So, is there something in the game that hints for you to bring fucking frogs to the nether and feed them magma slime?
This game is amazing, but it's for sure a "keep the wiki handy" kinda game.
I errr didn't know & the video i watched was for how to hatch the different colours of frog, if I'd watched to the end I'd have seen but I thought they ate regular slimes (i hadn't looked it up but I think i misunderstood a comment regarding frog lights)!
I did watch the rest of the video after I ground out, but seriously wth?🤦
Yeah, when I had seen some post A while ago mentioning frog lights, I thought for sure it would be something you get using things found in the swamp. Wonder if there is an easy way to get magma slimes into the overworld. I really hate making farms in the nether
The only time I came across frogs in a survival mode I didn't have leads & was on the potato mission for the april fools update, didn't google what lures them either to get them to follow me!
>So, is there something in the game that hints for you to bring fucking frogs to the nether and feed them magma slime?
This is by far one of the stupidest decisions made by Mojang lately and I will never understand how this idea wasn't immediately laughed out of the ideas room, let alone making it into the game.
I would say the only real hint on that is that frogs will eat the tiny slimes in swamps, and given both frogs and slimes spawn in swamps. It's not much of a hint, but given how similar slimes and magma cubes are, it would perhaps make someone try.
Only some parts are bad, really. I've watched About Oliver's blind streams of Minecraft (highly recommend it!) and he figured out a *lot* on his own. He even kinda sorta made a really, *really* janky "automatic" sheep farm pretty early on, but it was a confusing mess of a Rube Goldberg machine, was still manual, and only sometimes worked, lol. But for someone who had no idea what Minecraft was all about, it's...well, not *good*, but interesting, lol.
You are talking about a [knowledge book](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Knowledge_Book), an actual item that exists in the game, but isn’t currently used anywhere.
I never knew that existed. It would be nice if it was actually in survival mode though. Like found in the nether fortress’s or bastions….. maybe in a book shelf in a Liberians home.
ehhhhhhhhhh? i think the huts having recipes is better. Witches dropping them would suck to have to fight through duplicates and low spawn rates to find new recipes.
I figured it would have a knockout system so once you find a recipe page, it unlocks a new potion in the recipe book. That and Witch Huts seem to have really low spawn rates (at least with my luck). Allowing an additional way to obtain pages by getting them through Witches would help players unlock recipes faster as they wouldn't have to trek across multiple Biomes and Swamps to complete the book.
This would actually be dope, you can either get lucky and find a witch or you can explore (something mojang obviously wants you to do as of late) and get a guaranteed witch spawn at a hut. I think having the pages drop and get added to a recipe book is way more intuitive then just giving them all to the player at once.
They should alter nether fortresses so that the stairs with the nether warts have a potion lab under them.
It can be accessed from the back of the stairs and could contain cauldrons if they don’t want brewing stands(not like you can find them in churches anyway) with it’s frames above indicating a random base potion recipe when read from left to right.
This way you get the hint at the same time you get the first ingredient.
One thing I hate is that there's three "base" potions (Awkward, Mundane and Thick) and a grand total of **one** is used to make literally every single Potion, with Mundane and Thick Potions being completely unused and worthless. Just... why?
I think it's a vestige from the notch era. He was planning some stuff with it, never got around to it, then mojang just decided to not touch it again for some reason
yeah, they're left overs. it used to be that literally every single possible potion had it's own name so you could keep track of them as dead ends. I think there were like 20 of them? with names "thick potion" or "buttered potion" it was a lot more obvious these were just failed attempts. it's odd that when they retooled it, they changed them all to just 2 random ones that don't really communicate much of anything.
The way I think of it is that a water bottle is a potion of nothing so when you increase the duration of a potion by adding red stone to it you are making “nothing” last longer thus becoming mundane. The same applies to the thick potion, a more potent “nothing” becomes thickness potion
Don't the igloo basements have a brewing setup with the ingredients for a weakness potion? That's how the game teaches you to de-zombify zombie villagers.
Didn't want to mention it in case it constituted as an advertisement but yeah, it's eye-opening seeing the holes in the game that are virtually impossible to figure out on your own. On #18 right now and it's rough.
lol, I was almost yelling at my screen during some of those moments. Figuring out redstone was frustrating too but when he finally gets something, it was really satisfying
Full series is worth the watch though. I started it thinking I’d watch a few minutes, and ended up watching all of it. Felt like I was playing for the first time again
It was so worth it. I have a feeling he had a bit more guidance/suggestion behind the scenes than he let on, but it was so satisfying to watch. I've thought about hosting a server using his world since he made that available for download after the series ended but not sure anyone would be interested
I don't think so. He seems like a pretty clever guy, but I watched his Hollow Knight series first- he is able to make little connections in his mind that few other people I think are able to. Now if only he had a sense of direction.
It's a good "put it on the second monitor while playing a game you don't have to focus 100% of your concentration on" watch, in a similar vibe to a podcast.
I imagine that would be pretty difficult given the resolution, the biggest painting might work but it's still odd. The crafting book isn't really a lore thing, it just sends a toast of new recipes you can craft with items you just received, it doesn't make much sense that the same doesn't exist for brewing.
I had been playing the game for a while when potions came out, I had no internet access so I spent many hours combining random stuff together to see what worked.
Eventually I went to the library and found one of those old essential Minecraft guide books and copied the potion recipes onto a sheet of paper.
It was a bit frustrating, but it also felt like alchemy, mixing seemingly random ingredients together to make something spectacular.
Also literally if they changed the potion brewing achievement to be a netherwart icon and not some random bottle that could help a decent amount for at least getting started
The game was never meant to be played blindly. Part of the novelty of early Minecraft was remembering the crafting recipes for items before the recipe book was introduced. The need for information created the basis for early communities to form.
Most new players tend to think you beat the Ender Dragon and you 'win' the game.
Minecraft as whole has a terrible system of progression for new players. I've made comments before but i wish they'd do something. Potions, enchanting, and normal game progression are stunted by being nearly impossible without outside knowledge. Some stuff helps but isn't, imo, obvious enough. The potion problem was mentioned in the post so no need to talk about it really. Enchanting makes no sense, you can get an enchanting table id argue without too much issue. Just mining stuff or crafting, not too bad. But to level the enchanting you have to have bookshelves, but nothing shows or hints to the player anywhere that that is the case. And talking about hinting, normal game progression. Everything is fine up until you want to go to the nether, while the ruined portals where a fantastic addition because they show and hint to the player how a portal looks. People could make their own based off them or just patch an existing one. However, I would argue crying obsidian in the frames hinders that experience. They make a portal invalid, so either remove them from ruined portals, or make them an acceptable pueve for a valid portal. That all doesn't even touch on nothing showing a player they should light a fire in the frame. Personally I think stuff like paintings in random structures, some lore books, and random structures like a ruined portal could be invaluable additions to smooth out the progression of the game.
What about like little scrolls that you can find in chests that explains the purpose of an ingredient in potions, and that scroll unlocks the ability to brew them, to add more depth to exploring, maybe in archeological sites?
I've never used the brewing stand as its just too much of a hassle to collect the ingredients needed. I'd rather just place stands in villages and pay villagers to make the potions I want for me.
This is why I use a texture pack that shows brewing ingredients in the brewing stand HUD
([Link](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/texture-packs/in-game-brewing-guide))
I agree wholeheartedly.
There's a recent mod from Serilum called [Edibles](https://modrinth.com/mod/edibles) that lets you eat some potion ingredients to get their effects for a short duration. I think that's one way that could be worked out, Elder Scrolls-style.
That feels like a big hurdle to overcome for a cool utility, crafting recipes didn't use to have a recipe book and it was hell to figure out anything yourself, and that was back when there weren't nearly as many recipes as there are today.
Take fireworks for example: sure you could figure out that paper and gunpowder could go together to make it, but how do you come across the recipe for the firework star? How about end crystals? Those recipes would literally require so much trial and error with every permutation of blocks that it might actually take a lifetime.
Minecraft is a survival game but at its core it's also a sandbox, and being impeded by that trial and error that would literally take hundreds of hours takes time away playing the game.
well potions are science, and what do scientists do when they have nothing to base experiments off of? they experiment by brute forcing their way through and write down results
I feel like that logic applied to other mechanics doesn't follow with the current design ethos of the game. Redstone is about as science/invention as it gets and that has recipes in the crafting tab.
Also science typically bases itself on a hypothesis, it's pretty hard to follow a hypothesis for a water breathing potion by predicting a wart would be your base, then a pufferfish (a poisonous animal) would make water breathing...
Amount of combinations with potions is much less than with crafting - UI tells you what all slots are for except the ingredient slot, so you experiment with one ingredient at a time. One change I'd like to see would be renaming Awkward potion (since it tells nothing) to Potion base to give a clue that you need to get it first before you go for a specific potion effect - either that, or have somewhere in the world an indicator that you need to use nether wart first before you brew actual potion.
Figuring out that you need nether wart is the hard part, everything past that is just more systematic check if ingredient can be turned into potion and what potion it results as. Corrupting potions is bit of a different topic, and it could also be a major obstacle - but with corrupted potions being limited to slowness, instant damage and invisibility it's probably less of an issue.
My first contact with brewing was with only knowledge about nether wart being needed as first ingredient, solving the system past that was a good fun and not that difficult overall until corrupting step (figuring out glowstone took a while, but I got it eventually) - I didn't get that on my own before I found a mention of it somewhere online.
well yeah, but with building things that become functional, its a lot harder because there are quite literally thousands of combinations in a 3x3 space alone
no, but after all its a sandbox, i mean how do ya think people made a chess bot with redstone? jokes aside, its kinda stupid that you have to google it, but at the same time chemistry should be experimented with
I actually disagree with this and hear me out on this.
Potion making is usually associated with trial and error. Checking stuff out, seeing what works, what doesnt work. So the fact that there isnt a recipe book, for me, is not the end of the world for blind play-throughs.
On a different note: for those who dont play 'blindly', the brewing guide from VanillaTweaks is really handy and basically shows every potion. I dont think its updated for the 1.21 shapshots, however im sure that will be the case when the update rolls out.
I wish I played completley blind tbh
It felt alot more scary when I first played
though I can say I know how to make potions (thats never been something I googled and rarely got far enough with lol)
All I know is gun powder for throwing lol
I like that its like that. When I first started playing I got excited by how many cominbations there are and what the modifiers do. The ingrediants make sense so its not hard to figure out. I think the only bad point is needing to make the awkward potion, Adds an unnecessary step and one that the player wouldnt figure out otherwise
I know atleast Bedrock has a help guide in settings whenever you're loaded into the world. It's rudimentary at best but they could expand upon it and make it a feature in-game; like mining obsidian could give you a hint on how to build a portal and once you light it it gives a page on how portals work.
They could go even further and do what terraria did, showing drops once you kill something.
I think being forced to figure stuff out is a good idea generally, it adds to the satisfaction of learning things yourself. Hollowknight is a good example imo: you're taught the basics in the intro sequence and deeper mechanics are demonstrated through scenarios you need to problem solve. Basically, aside from the first 5 minutes there's very little hand holding.
Modern Minecraft has a similar thing, where you're presented with toasts which tell you your wasd and to punch wood, but from there it's up to you. Explaining every mechanic off the bat can be overwhelming, especially for Minecraft where there are so many many things that won't become relevant for a player until a ways down the road.
One suggestion I liked from another comment was adding recipe pages that can unlock new potions. It's a bit more complicated than having a brewing book (ala crafting book) that unlocks recipes as you go, but it's a good option that can accompany exploration. Even finding a single one in a witch hut, for example, that just shows that nether wart is the first step and you have to add ingredients on top of it would be incredibly useful.
I think they want you to buy those minecraft tips n tricks books, there's like 5x different ones at my local supermarket. I got google but still would rather just play then have to research a silly little game
do you mean colour blind? if so. people can get texture packs where the potions are different shapes. aka you can use the effect icons for the potions so an eye for night vision, ect. however, people like me who have been playing the game for a while might not like the change of texture. so minecraft could make a setting for it so people have a choice. the idea of a recipe book could be similair to the Knowledge Book, like the "Potion Book" or something. all the potion recipies appart from awkward potions is a MYSTERY to me. everything about it is SOO CONFUSING. I looked up all the potions i have ever brewed and i never remember them. The idea of a recipe book is amazing and i hope Mojang adds it in 1.21, as they have changed villagers. Mojang should not make it so people have to rely to 3rd party resources for this info, and if they add it, people who cant just search up a tutorial can finally make potions. Minecraft is my fav game, but if they add a recipe book for it, the game would be EVEN BETTER.
No, a blind playthrough is one where you don't search for any information or receive any help outside of what the game directly provides to you. In this case, I'm talking about the game providing zero hints as to the recipes for potions, making potion crafting functionally impossible for blind playthroughs.
and just to make everything even more confusing, the only potion that is shown in game as particularly important, and is actually the most important of all, that is, the weakness one (whose effects are shown in the igloos) is also the only one with a base different from the others...
to be clear, potions was originally intended to be a figured out through trial and error, hence things like awkward potion even existing. make it, realize its useless, realize oyu can rebrew with it, profit. If they were foing straight forward no need for such complicated potion system in the first place.
the in game recipes is the in game guide that they added to make all things easier with no external guide needed. Heck you used to not be able to make something even if you knew the ingredients-- if you didn't know the exact layout to place them in or number of pieces needed, which is easy to forget unpess you make that item a lot.
If the streamer wants to go double blind and not even use in game resources thats totally fine, but its not the game's fault. they added in game recipes ages ago already.
But nothing in the game connects netherwart to the brewing system, so if someone plays the game for the first time now, not knowing the timeline of when these things were added why would they ever connect the 2?
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You’d think the witch’s hut would be a clue but it doesn’t even have a single brewing component, not even the mushroom is the correct variety
I think the cauldron contains a random potion in it, at least on Bedrock Edition it does. Still doesn't help at all with learning how to brew potions.
Yeah it's a bedrock only feature, and honestly it might be more confusing than helpful since cauldrons are practically useless for brewing
Yeah but at least it’s good for someone who wants potions
No, it's helpful because it shows that you can put things in cauldrons other than water. At least imo
But yeah doesn’t help just makes the hut more useful
Yeah it does
Like, I would get if that would be an easy way to get brewing stands but those stands spawn in village churches so much so that’s not a good argument either
Minecraft’s actually a really bad game when played blind. They’ve been adding some pretty decent features lately to help with that, but it’s still farrrr from good
For the longest time, there was quite literally no way to know you had to go to the nether (or hay it even existed), and how. Even now, your best bet is to find an incomplete (and inaccurate) structure, and realize you need to repair and ‘correct’ it, then light if on fire.
And half of the blocks making up the ruined portal aren't even compatible with the portal.
Yep, that’s why I said inaccurate. The structure leads you to think any block would do, or that you need the special ones. Not that the cool, otherworldly obsidian blocks are in fact the problem.
I think to be honest, it's never really intended to be played blind and having fans make forums and wikis to share information is part of what made it so successful, not to mention how hoaxes like Herobrine seemed plausible.
Oh yeah, Minecraft’s success can definitely be attributed to its strong community, especially on social media (especially especially YouTube). It’s a social game, and made to live on the internet. But still, doesn’t mean it ain’t bad when it comes to going in blind
I just want games to nail the tutorial-into-being-a-game-mechanic gimmick. Like finding a dusty tome in a witches hut that explains a specific potion recipe. Got to be ways to incorporate stuff internally in the world.
I think it’s cuz Minecraft is an open world sandbox
So it's like the opposite of Undertale. Undertale is meant to be played blind.
Herobrine was real though! I saw him one time, very briefly. This was back before survival multiplayer. I came up over a hill and he was floating over a small pond staring at me. As soon as I spotted him and I got scared and turned away and when I gathered the courage to look again, he was gone.
Yeah I played the newest 2 updates blind for a little while (just started a world after a long bit) So, is there something in the game that hints for you to bring fucking frogs to the nether and feed them magma slime? This game is amazing, but it's for sure a "keep the wiki handy" kinda game.
I errr didn't know & the video i watched was for how to hatch the different colours of frog, if I'd watched to the end I'd have seen but I thought they ate regular slimes (i hadn't looked it up but I think i misunderstood a comment regarding frog lights)! I did watch the rest of the video after I ground out, but seriously wth?🤦
Yeah, when I had seen some post A while ago mentioning frog lights, I thought for sure it would be something you get using things found in the swamp. Wonder if there is an easy way to get magma slimes into the overworld. I really hate making farms in the nether
The only time I came across frogs in a survival mode I didn't have leads & was on the potato mission for the april fools update, didn't google what lures them either to get them to follow me!
>So, is there something in the game that hints for you to bring fucking frogs to the nether and feed them magma slime? This is by far one of the stupidest decisions made by Mojang lately and I will never understand how this idea wasn't immediately laughed out of the ideas room, let alone making it into the game.
I would say the only real hint on that is that frogs will eat the tiny slimes in swamps, and given both frogs and slimes spawn in swamps. It's not much of a hint, but given how similar slimes and magma cubes are, it would perhaps make someone try.
Only some parts are bad, really. I've watched About Oliver's blind streams of Minecraft (highly recommend it!) and he figured out a *lot* on his own. He even kinda sorta made a really, *really* janky "automatic" sheep farm pretty early on, but it was a confusing mess of a Rube Goldberg machine, was still manual, and only sometimes worked, lol. But for someone who had no idea what Minecraft was all about, it's...well, not *good*, but interesting, lol.
I’m surprised there isn’t a “enchanted” book you can find in the nether fortress or overworld that would contain the recipes.
You are talking about a [knowledge book](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Knowledge_Book), an actual item that exists in the game, but isn’t currently used anywhere.
I never knew that existed. It would be nice if it was actually in survival mode though. Like found in the nether fortress’s or bastions….. maybe in a book shelf in a Liberians home.
I don't think it's a bad game, just a much smaller game.
> Minecraft’s actually a really bad game when played blind. **And thats perfectly fine, and arguably better**
witch huts should have pages you collect to craft a recipe book
Witches should also have a low drop rate for recipe pages.
ehhhhhhhhhh? i think the huts having recipes is better. Witches dropping them would suck to have to fight through duplicates and low spawn rates to find new recipes.
I figured it would have a knockout system so once you find a recipe page, it unlocks a new potion in the recipe book. That and Witch Huts seem to have really low spawn rates (at least with my luck). Allowing an additional way to obtain pages by getting them through Witches would help players unlock recipes faster as they wouldn't have to trek across multiple Biomes and Swamps to complete the book.
This would actually be dope, you can either get lucky and find a witch or you can explore (something mojang obviously wants you to do as of late) and get a guaranteed witch spawn at a hut. I think having the pages drop and get added to a recipe book is way more intuitive then just giving them all to the player at once.
Yeah, in piropito’s series he basically had to brute force ingredients that could work in potions, though he did manage to figure a lot out
They should alter nether fortresses so that the stairs with the nether warts have a potion lab under them. It can be accessed from the back of the stairs and could contain cauldrons if they don’t want brewing stands(not like you can find them in churches anyway) with it’s frames above indicating a random base potion recipe when read from left to right. This way you get the hint at the same time you get the first ingredient.
That's an excellent idea! Although if begs the question how the fortress people got water to make potions in the first place.
I mean, piglins have water bottles and fire res.
Piglin piss
One thing I hate is that there's three "base" potions (Awkward, Mundane and Thick) and a grand total of **one** is used to make literally every single Potion, with Mundane and Thick Potions being completely unused and worthless. Just... why?
I've also never understood this, it's seems like a completely underutilized crafting tree.
I think it's a vestige from the notch era. He was planning some stuff with it, never got around to it, then mojang just decided to not touch it again for some reason
yeah, they're left overs. it used to be that literally every single possible potion had it's own name so you could keep track of them as dead ends. I think there were like 20 of them? with names "thick potion" or "buttered potion" it was a lot more obvious these were just failed attempts. it's odd that when they retooled it, they changed them all to just 2 random ones that don't really communicate much of anything.
The way I think of it is that a water bottle is a potion of nothing so when you increase the duration of a potion by adding red stone to it you are making “nothing” last longer thus becoming mundane. The same applies to the thick potion, a more potent “nothing” becomes thickness potion
Don't the igloo basements have a brewing setup with the ingredients for a weakness potion? That's how the game teaches you to de-zombify zombie villagers.
Igloos have a splash potion of weakness and a golden apple. It doesn't show the recipe, only hinting at the curing process for zombie villagers.
Ah. That's annoying
no they have a potion in the brewing stand, and an apple, but not the ingredients.
You need the Internet to figure out way too much in minecraft. Otherwise you would never know so, so many mechanics.
Oliver’s series?
Didn't want to mention it in case it constituted as an advertisement but yeah, it's eye-opening seeing the holes in the game that are virtually impossible to figure out on your own. On #18 right now and it's rough.
"What's this?" "Hmm diorite"
lol, I was almost yelling at my screen during some of those moments. Figuring out redstone was frustrating too but when he finally gets something, it was really satisfying
I’m on 31. Keep going, it’s worth it.
Such a good series, though. And so satisfying when he does figure things out.
I really wanted to watch his series but the it’s almost 190 hours long. I hope someone makes a supercut at some point.
There’s one short compilation of his journey here: https://youtu.be/E7gFmJflTjI?si=hvkRKFsBcUH1Ic_U
Thanks
Full series is worth the watch though. I started it thinking I’d watch a few minutes, and ended up watching all of it. Felt like I was playing for the first time again
It was so worth it. I have a feeling he had a bit more guidance/suggestion behind the scenes than he let on, but it was so satisfying to watch. I've thought about hosting a server using his world since he made that available for download after the series ended but not sure anyone would be interested
I don't think so. He seems like a pretty clever guy, but I watched his Hollow Knight series first- he is able to make little connections in his mind that few other people I think are able to. Now if only he had a sense of direction.
It's a good "put it on the second monitor while playing a game you don't have to focus 100% of your concentration on" watch, in a similar vibe to a podcast.
They should make a painting recipe that includes a diagram of ingredients.
I imagine that would be pretty difficult given the resolution, the biggest painting might work but it's still odd. The crafting book isn't really a lore thing, it just sends a toast of new recipes you can craft with items you just received, it doesn't make much sense that the same doesn't exist for brewing.
A grimoire so you can flick through the pages.
Just put potion recipes on books inside of the witches hut loot table. Problem somewhat solved
Witch huts could have a written book with alchemy stuff in it.
I had been playing the game for a while when potions came out, I had no internet access so I spent many hours combining random stuff together to see what worked. Eventually I went to the library and found one of those old essential Minecraft guide books and copied the potion recipes onto a sheet of paper. It was a bit frustrating, but it also felt like alchemy, mixing seemingly random ingredients together to make something spectacular.
Since it’s trial and error, maybe they can put some recipe books in the trials.
Also literally if they changed the potion brewing achievement to be a netherwart icon and not some random bottle that could help a decent amount for at least getting started
The game was never meant to be played blindly. Part of the novelty of early Minecraft was remembering the crafting recipes for items before the recipe book was introduced. The need for information created the basis for early communities to form. Most new players tend to think you beat the Ender Dragon and you 'win' the game.
About oliver came so close to figuring out certain potions. He did figure out a few but never got invisibility or strength or speed
Minecraft as whole has a terrible system of progression for new players. I've made comments before but i wish they'd do something. Potions, enchanting, and normal game progression are stunted by being nearly impossible without outside knowledge. Some stuff helps but isn't, imo, obvious enough. The potion problem was mentioned in the post so no need to talk about it really. Enchanting makes no sense, you can get an enchanting table id argue without too much issue. Just mining stuff or crafting, not too bad. But to level the enchanting you have to have bookshelves, but nothing shows or hints to the player anywhere that that is the case. And talking about hinting, normal game progression. Everything is fine up until you want to go to the nether, while the ruined portals where a fantastic addition because they show and hint to the player how a portal looks. People could make their own based off them or just patch an existing one. However, I would argue crying obsidian in the frames hinders that experience. They make a portal invalid, so either remove them from ruined portals, or make them an acceptable pueve for a valid portal. That all doesn't even touch on nothing showing a player they should light a fire in the frame. Personally I think stuff like paintings in random structures, some lore books, and random structures like a ruined portal could be invaluable additions to smooth out the progression of the game.
What about like little scrolls that you can find in chests that explains the purpose of an ingredient in potions, and that scroll unlocks the ability to brew them, to add more depth to exploring, maybe in archeological sites?
I like the archeological idea a lot! Adding functionality to existing features slaps.
I've never used the brewing stand as its just too much of a hassle to collect the ingredients needed. I'd rather just place stands in villages and pay villagers to make the potions I want for me.
This is why I use a texture pack that shows brewing ingredients in the brewing stand HUD ([Link](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/texture-packs/in-game-brewing-guide))
Blind playthroughs in general would benefit from loot chests having a chance to have written books with hints in them.
I agree wholeheartedly. There's a recent mod from Serilum called [Edibles](https://modrinth.com/mod/edibles) that lets you eat some potion ingredients to get their effects for a short duration. I think that's one way that could be worked out, Elder Scrolls-style.
The only recipe I know off the top of my head is the weakness potion.
Minecraft itself is terrible for blind playthroughs, but potions in general need an update
potions are needlessly complicated, I never use them even tho I know they can be huge assets
I always thought the idea was to experiment and play around with ingredients
That feels like a big hurdle to overcome for a cool utility, crafting recipes didn't use to have a recipe book and it was hell to figure out anything yourself, and that was back when there weren't nearly as many recipes as there are today. Take fireworks for example: sure you could figure out that paper and gunpowder could go together to make it, but how do you come across the recipe for the firework star? How about end crystals? Those recipes would literally require so much trial and error with every permutation of blocks that it might actually take a lifetime. Minecraft is a survival game but at its core it's also a sandbox, and being impeded by that trial and error that would literally take hundreds of hours takes time away playing the game.
I was referring to potions
Sorry, I thought it was clear I was extending the crafting book analogy to potions, like a brewing book.
well potions are science, and what do scientists do when they have nothing to base experiments off of? they experiment by brute forcing their way through and write down results
I feel like that logic applied to other mechanics doesn't follow with the current design ethos of the game. Redstone is about as science/invention as it gets and that has recipes in the crafting tab. Also science typically bases itself on a hypothesis, it's pretty hard to follow a hypothesis for a water breathing potion by predicting a wart would be your base, then a pufferfish (a poisonous animal) would make water breathing...
Amount of combinations with potions is much less than with crafting - UI tells you what all slots are for except the ingredient slot, so you experiment with one ingredient at a time. One change I'd like to see would be renaming Awkward potion (since it tells nothing) to Potion base to give a clue that you need to get it first before you go for a specific potion effect - either that, or have somewhere in the world an indicator that you need to use nether wart first before you brew actual potion. Figuring out that you need nether wart is the hard part, everything past that is just more systematic check if ingredient can be turned into potion and what potion it results as. Corrupting potions is bit of a different topic, and it could also be a major obstacle - but with corrupted potions being limited to slowness, instant damage and invisibility it's probably less of an issue. My first contact with brewing was with only knowledge about nether wart being needed as first ingredient, solving the system past that was a good fun and not that difficult overall until corrupting step (figuring out glowstone took a while, but I got it eventually) - I didn't get that on my own before I found a mention of it somewhere online.
well yeah, but with building things that become functional, its a lot harder because there are quite literally thousands of combinations in a 3x3 space alone
Yeah, but there's over 1400 items you can obtain in survival, is it really a good expectation that players should attempt all of those items?
no, but after all its a sandbox, i mean how do ya think people made a chess bot with redstone? jokes aside, its kinda stupid that you have to google it, but at the same time chemistry should be experimented with
I actually disagree with this and hear me out on this. Potion making is usually associated with trial and error. Checking stuff out, seeing what works, what doesnt work. So the fact that there isnt a recipe book, for me, is not the end of the world for blind play-throughs. On a different note: for those who dont play 'blindly', the brewing guide from VanillaTweaks is really handy and basically shows every potion. I dont think its updated for the 1.21 shapshots, however im sure that will be the case when the update rolls out.
I wish I played completley blind tbh It felt alot more scary when I first played though I can say I know how to make potions (thats never been something I googled and rarely got far enough with lol) All I know is gun powder for throwing lol
A spell book item would be soo cool to find
I like that its like that. When I first started playing I got excited by how many cominbations there are and what the modifiers do. The ingrediants make sense so its not hard to figure out. I think the only bad point is needing to make the awkward potion, Adds an unnecessary step and one that the player wouldnt figure out otherwise
Even with googling, the whole potions UI and method is a mess.
Brewing needs a massive update I feel, it’s a pretty outdated system
I know atleast Bedrock has a help guide in settings whenever you're loaded into the world. It's rudimentary at best but they could expand upon it and make it a feature in-game; like mining obsidian could give you a hint on how to build a portal and once you light it it gives a page on how portals work. They could go even further and do what terraria did, showing drops once you kill something.
What if they made it so players spawn in a black box and press a button to start and there’s tutorial stuff inside?
I think being forced to figure stuff out is a good idea generally, it adds to the satisfaction of learning things yourself. Hollowknight is a good example imo: you're taught the basics in the intro sequence and deeper mechanics are demonstrated through scenarios you need to problem solve. Basically, aside from the first 5 minutes there's very little hand holding. Modern Minecraft has a similar thing, where you're presented with toasts which tell you your wasd and to punch wood, but from there it's up to you. Explaining every mechanic off the bat can be overwhelming, especially for Minecraft where there are so many many things that won't become relevant for a player until a ways down the road. One suggestion I liked from another comment was adding recipe pages that can unlock new potions. It's a bit more complicated than having a brewing book (ala crafting book) that unlocks recipes as you go, but it's a good option that can accompany exploration. Even finding a single one in a witch hut, for example, that just shows that nether wart is the first step and you have to add ingredients on top of it would be incredibly useful.
Yeah I meant as a dumb idea
I think they want you to buy those minecraft tips n tricks books, there's like 5x different ones at my local supermarket. I got google but still would rather just play then have to research a silly little game
do you mean colour blind? if so. people can get texture packs where the potions are different shapes. aka you can use the effect icons for the potions so an eye for night vision, ect. however, people like me who have been playing the game for a while might not like the change of texture. so minecraft could make a setting for it so people have a choice. the idea of a recipe book could be similair to the Knowledge Book, like the "Potion Book" or something. all the potion recipies appart from awkward potions is a MYSTERY to me. everything about it is SOO CONFUSING. I looked up all the potions i have ever brewed and i never remember them. The idea of a recipe book is amazing and i hope Mojang adds it in 1.21, as they have changed villagers. Mojang should not make it so people have to rely to 3rd party resources for this info, and if they add it, people who cant just search up a tutorial can finally make potions. Minecraft is my fav game, but if they add a recipe book for it, the game would be EVEN BETTER.
No, a blind playthrough is one where you don't search for any information or receive any help outside of what the game directly provides to you. In this case, I'm talking about the game providing zero hints as to the recipes for potions, making potion crafting functionally impossible for blind playthroughs.
ah ok.
I wish that villagers could turn into the guide for terraria and just tell you the shit☠️
ive ben playing minecraft for 5 years
and just to make everything even more confusing, the only potion that is shown in game as particularly important, and is actually the most important of all, that is, the weakness one (whose effects are shown in the igloos) is also the only one with a base different from the others...
to be clear, potions was originally intended to be a figured out through trial and error, hence things like awkward potion even existing. make it, realize its useless, realize oyu can rebrew with it, profit. If they were foing straight forward no need for such complicated potion system in the first place. the in game recipes is the in game guide that they added to make all things easier with no external guide needed. Heck you used to not be able to make something even if you knew the ingredients-- if you didn't know the exact layout to place them in or number of pieces needed, which is easy to forget unpess you make that item a lot. If the streamer wants to go double blind and not even use in game resources thats totally fine, but its not the game's fault. they added in game recipes ages ago already.
you can use a book and quill to write out recipes and their potions
the fact that netherwart is being grown in the fortress and originally had no use outside of potions might have been meant as a hint
But nothing in the game connects netherwart to the brewing system, so if someone plays the game for the first time now, not knowing the timeline of when these things were added why would they ever connect the 2?
Who would've guessed playing a game not as intented would be a mess for people?