LAP feedback

Originally sent on 2020-03-23:

I watched the latest packmaking stream archive yesterday. Here's my feedback about it and the pack in general, @slicedlime:

+++Part 1: The latest advancement stream+++
· You wondered whether you could do the gold armour check in one line. You could, with execute … unless @s[nbt=!{…helmet…}] unless @s[nbt=!{…chest…}] …. That might even slightly improve performance, at the cost of code quality. Whether it actually improves performance depends on how functions are optimised.
· The thing that you couldn't make because applying items to entities doesn't increase their "use" statistic (just like bartering) was probably healing an iron golem (which you implemented in an approximate way because of that). And I think there was also something with trusting foxes or similar, which has no trigger and no statistic either.
· You might have already planned this, but you (or anyone) should definitely test all the advancements in a new world when you're done, to test the scoreboard setup and so on.
· Nitpick: In theory you would have to track all dropped gold ingots through their entire lifetime and keep checking for piglins, because it could also be sent away in a waterstream or stuff like that. But of course, effort, performance, etc.
· You could also grant the endermen+grass block advancement when killing an endermen that holds melon blocks, as an easter egg referencing Panda's, Meri's and RedstoneSpire's automatic melon block farm. And maybe also podsol or mycelium, as someone else suggested. Those are the only two blocks other than grass that can only be obtained with Silk touch or an enderman.
- And other potential name for this advancement would be "Silk man" or "Ender silk" or anything like that. Something that points to Silk touch also doing this, in case a player doesn't know. I think I've heard before of people who got their only grass blocks from endermen.
· You wondered why the block held by endermen is not just an item in "HandItems". One advantage of that is that you can give them special blocks with commands, like a wall sign with text, water, etc.
· In the enderchest advancement and the insta-mine advancement you gave the display icon pickaxe a damage of 0 manually. Is there a specific reason why that's necessary? (This is also the case for some other advancements in the pack.)
· Another good name for the insta-mine advancement: "One-punch man" (but "one-hit wonder" is good as well, probably even better)
· Some more backgrounds for the collection tab: Cobblestone or furnace top (in reference to the ultimate collector achievements in modpacks, usually octuple compressed cobblestone or filling a chunk with some compressed cobblestone variant), iron block (because so many people have tons of iron from farms and because it's a good background), some beacon part (I don't know if you can use only the middle blue part, that might look nice as a background. Also, something expensive fits the collector tab.), netherite block (for a similar reason).
· I'm surprised about your description of how bad Sweden handles Corona. Usually Swedish politics is better than German politics in every way, but Germany actually positively surprised me in this case.
· Stone advancement: Netherrack is literally called "rock" with a pun, so it should definitely be included. Also, its tool is a pickaxe and it makes up the majority of a dimension, just like regular stone and end stone.

+++Part 2: The pack in general, existing advancements+++
(mild PiroPito LP spoilers ahead)
I'll only give feedback to the ideas, not to the implementation (except these: item tags are missing Netherite tools and combat/use_sh→ei←ld), I haven't tested anything. Barely any of these advancements will ever be implemented the same way in Vanilla anyway.
A general issue that I have with this pack is that it makes discovering many things trivial. That might be good in a way for new players, but there is still the wiki and it also means that something like PiroPito's LP becomes completely impossible. That's a considerable loss and there is nothing comparable to it in any other game. I agree that some things should be explained better, but not everything.
You also risk making Vanilla Minecraft like a modpack in the sense that people might think that there's nothing (interesting) to do beyond those quests, if you describe too much. That's a very common problem in modded Minecraft, it ends basically every modded LP with one or a few players once all tasks are complete.
My feedback here will still assume that you want to keep teaching everything that is not obvious on its own.
· You forgot the "get all advancements" advancement.
· The description of adventure/fly is just "Glide using elytra". That should be more precise, PiroPito for example had problems with it. It's pretty apparent from the texture that elytra can be used to fly, but that it is used in the chestplate slot and that you need to jump in mid-air, which you usually never do, is not obvious. Maybe something like "Equip elytra and jump in the air to glide".
· Maybe adventure/framed_map ("Map wall") should only be awarded if there are multiple item frames with maps inside them already nearby. You can't easily check if they are in a proper map wall, but the most common situation in which there are multiple maps in item frames in one place is a map wall. This is also more likely to teach the player how maps of neighbouring areas work, which is very unintuitive.
· What does adventure/map teach you? It's pretty apparent what a map does once it's used. And it appears in the recipe book when unlocked.
· The description of adventure/ride_skeleton_horse ("It's a trap!") makes it sound like something bad would happen when you ride a skeleton horse. But I also don't have a better naming idea.
· I think adventure/shear_golem should be removed. That is an easter egg and you said you didn't want to explicitly teach easter eggs.
· adventure/visit_any_structure seems weird to me. I'm not sure if it should be an advancement.
· (The entire brewing tab should of course not be a series of advancements in Vanilla, but a brewing recipe book or a similar system. But you know that already.)
· Maybe collector/wood_types should be saplings instead of logs. You can get little bits of different logs in various ways, but only saplings give you a guaranteed way to get more wood.
· Are your ideas for more collector advancements available somewhere? I would like to see them.
· I think combat/arrow_kill should mention a bow either in icon or description. Currently it's all just arrows.
· combat/bullseye should say "target block", not just "target". A target can be many things. Also, why does it need to be an arrow?
· combat/bullseye uses advancements.adventure.bullseye.title as title, which is currently "Bullseye" (without resource packs). combat/sniper uses "Bullseye" as a title, which, in absence of a resource pack, is the same.
· What about an armour stand (combat/armor_stand) is challenging or teaching? They are in the recipe book, using them shows that they can be placed and using armour on them is a pretty straightforward thing to do based on their name.
· enchanting/mend_item doesn't really teach you how to obtain Mending.
· I think enchanting/anvil should be about combining two things and maybe another advancement for renaming. Just crafting an anvil is pretty apparent from the recipe book.
· adventure/elytra is the same as end/elytra.
· I think end/ender_chest should be about putting items into an ender chest and the description should make clearer that it's the same no matter which enderchest you open (to differentiate it from just portable storage like shulker boxes). Something like "Put items into your ender chest, which you can get back from any ender chest in the world."
· I think it's pretty obvious that the dragon can barely be killed without preventing it from healing and that something (literally) connects the dragon with the end crystals. Therefore I don't think end/kill_end_crystal is needed.
· end/summon_dragon doesn't mention the portal frame, so I think some additional explanation could be useful here.
· The description of end/root sounds a bit like there would be another dimension beyond the End. It's also not very exciting for the "final boss arena". Maybe someone has a better idea?
· What does husbandry/book_and_quill teach you? That book&quill can be used to write? Isn't that pretty obvious when you have it? And how to make it is easy as well, when it appears in the recipe book.
· husbandry/customize_banner doesn't really teach you anything except the one thing that a loom does, shortly. But the loom UI already has a banner icon and shows what you can do with it when you put an item into it. So I don't think that it's needed.
· Parrot dancing could maybe be seen as an easter egg. It's not in the minecraft.net changelog. If you consider it an easter egg, the advancement husbandry/parrot_dance should be removed.
· What does iron_age/blast_furnace teach that you can't already learn with the recipe book and just trying to put stuff into it? Its UI looks basically identical to a furnace. When you put an ore into it, you will likely see the increased speed and when you try to put something else into it, you will see that it doesn't work. There is nothing else to learn about it. And there is no advancement for the smoker either.
· The same for iron_age/flint_and_steel. I didn't say this about the chorus fruit one, because it might be dangerous to use in some situations, but the flint&steel texture and name is pretty clear, so just using it already teaches you what it does.
· I find the crafting advancements in tutorial, iron_age, precious and nether a bit weird. It's just crafting. It's not difficult, it's easy to figure out and you don't progress in the game by crafting a stone shovel. If anything, they should be in collector, but those usually require more effort.
· Judging from how many problems PiroPito had with a portal, maybe you should mention "rectangle" in the title or description of nether/portal.
· You have adventure/nether_star and nether/nether_star. The one in adventure is better, so the other one should get removed.
· The description of ocean/conduit should say something about how it's activated. I don't even know which blocks can be used and in what distance.
· village/breed_villagers could use a more detailed description. I think just " using beds and food" at the end would suffice.

+++Part 3: More advancements?+++
· You don't really have anything about redstone. PiroPito wasn't able to figure out anything on his own beyond basic button→piston interaction for a long time. An entire new category about redstone might be good. Detecting entire contraptions is basically impossible, but for example powered rails, tripwire, putting comparators on various things, locking a repeater, various dispenser uses, rail junctions and so on could be explained with advancements.
· Cleaning leather armour or banners in a cauldron is a non-obvious game mechanic that could benefit from an advancement.
· Maybe something about getting close to a mob without being spotted by wearing its type's head?
· creating grass paths, debarking logs?
· putting a book into a lectern? It's not quite obvious, especially considering that there is no interaction between books and bookshelves.
· repairing elytra with a phantom membrane
· something about turtle breeding, many people ask about that on gamingSE because they don't understand why their turtles don't breed
· something about cat taming that says to not move quickly?
· leashing mobs to fences
· all gateways unlocked