Add "Bat's eye view" to pregame actions

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Mdm_J 🩷🖤18 messagesstarted Aug 7, 2026, 4:11 AM

gameplay

Mdm_J 🩷🖤OP2 months ago

So bird's eye view got added and it's a really good feature for being able to strategize off the rip. I'm not sure what the negatives are for something like this but the idea came to me so I figured I would put it here.

Basically you would be able to use space bar and shift to (in addition to accessing bird's eye view with spectator mode) be able to go down a set distance into the ground. For this distance there are three options I can see being considered.

1) Snap to nearest cave.
This option is the more low impact one, as you would just be able to see the extent of whatever cave happens to be closest to the surface, potentially rendering the feature useless in a solid chunk of games. This could potentially work by looking for the highest air block below the block the player is standing on.

2) Snap to specific y-level.
This option (in my opinion) is the second lowest impact, as it would give that chance for x-ray over large distances depending on how far down it snaps and the cave distribution relative to sight lines. I can see interesting situations where someone could notice a specific thing behind a cave system and gain an advantage from that. As with the previous option, there is the potential for this set y value to end up in a micro-cave, rendering the feature useless.

3) Snap to a y-level avoiding air.
This is the highest impact and most consistent of the three options, guaranteeing the x-ray effect. I'm not sure as to the implementation of the avoiding air effect (I can see potential difficulty in trying to make sure that the position ends up far enough away from any caves for the feature to even matter in this form).

Regardless this last option seems the most fun to me, as I believe the core of this idea is to provide a new axis of information about the world to inform the player's early to mid game decision making, creating more pressure on a player's ability to make judgement calls as to which goals to go for and when.

333

Mdm_J 🩷🖤OP2 months ago

A potential additional item of consideration that I will mention (I ran out of characters lol) is an increase to the total pregame time. It maybe would go well with this feature I think, either before or after the drafting.

Mdm_J 🩷🖤OP2 months ago

Anyways, this could be a really bad idea, but it could be fun I think, so I figured I'd just throw it in the suggestions box

emusic2 months ago

I think most people would agree the pregame period could be better worked to give more time/easier ability to spec the world.

Your suggestion was about having an xray/freecam ability pregame, sort of like bird's eye view but underground.

It's not a bad idea, but I think it's way too cheaty. Also, this would make a lot of the strategies and game knowledge (i.e. knowing how to F3 for biome stats, etc) irrelevant

emusic2 months ago

Probably someone could articulate what I'm trying to say better here, but just is my 2 cents

Mdm_J 🩷🖤OP2 months ago

Ok yes I'm glad you mentioned that because I did consider its effect on knowing how to find biomes and all that stuff. The idea I had for that was a view distance limitation that only applies while in this mode. I'm not sure how that would be implemented but that's the idea I had to solve that problem. Cause I agree that this with 32 view distance is a bit much.

emusic2 months ago

yeah, im not sure how this could really be implemented in a slightly less cheaty way other than to nerf render distance

emusic2 months ago

still feels wrong at render distance 2 though

Mdm_J 🩷🖤OP2 months ago

Yeah, cause the main thing I imagine is providing more information for the immediate early to early-mid game. Anything more than at the extreme most like 10 chunks out is probably way too far for what I am imagining.

Mdm_J 🩷🖤OP2 months ago

Maybe render distance two is too low for it to be useful at all tho, I'd have to go into a world and feel it out but off the top of my head I think 4-8 chunks is probably the sweet spot?

Mdm_J 🩷🖤OP2 months ago

Anyways I might add more thoughts in the morning