Minecraft Dungeons offers a very risk free environment for players to try out new builds, ideas, and more, resulting in an experience in which very few mistakes are permanent. Despite this, there are still a few things that players can do which will really end up hurting them in the long run, as well as a few short term mistakes which are easy to make if players aren’t careful. None of this is game breaking by any means, as the developers designed the game to be forgiving.
Hailed as a sort of entry level Diablo, Minecraft Dungeons has been well received for the most part. There are some gripes about the game’s length as well as its perceived lack of depth, but for the price it provides hours of fun for people of all ages. Because Mojang Studios knew that a large portion of its demographic was children (over 20% of Minecraft players are under 15), it was important to create an experience which could be both engaging to older and more experienced players while still being accessible to the younger audience. This was accomplished by making the game very forgiving, but there are still some instances when it will punish players for making these mistakes.
Accidentally Dismantling Great Gear
This is admittedly a minor mistake, as throughout Minecraft Dungeons, players will find, enchant, use, and dismantle gear in a never ending cycle. With how fast players tend to find better gear, accidentally dismantling a nice weapon or armor isn’t the end of the world. That said, some Unique weapons can be pretty amazing, to the point where players will still find themselves using them several levels later. Salvaging a piece of gear like this would be extremely disheartening, and players might not have anything great to replace it with until they manage to defeat some mobs without it.
Of course, like all things in Minecraft Dungeons, there’s a few failsafes put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen. First, when a player selects an item for salvaging, they must then confirm that they do indeed want to salvage that piece of gear. Finally, even after salvaging an item, a player can undo the action so long as they don’t salvage or enchant anything else. All of these precautions make it difficult, but not impossible, to make this mistake, and the readily available nature of new gear causes making this mistake to be mostly inconsequential anyway.
Hanging On To a Build
There is no doubt that half the fun of Minecraft Dungeons is crafting unique builds by synergizing equipment effects, enchantments, and artifacts together. Sometimes players will find the exact set of gear they need to make a killer soul-based build, and at times it can be difficult to let go. Regardless, Minecraft Dungeons is built on the principle of out with the old and in with the new, and will require players to swap builds out regularly. Holding on to one build for too long can make things a lot harder than they need to be.
It is somewhat counterintuitive, as video games have taught gamers for years to horde items and focus on a specific build, but sometimes a set of gear with mismatched abilities is a lot better than a meticulously crafted build if the level difference between the items is high enough. Likewise, a level 6 Unique item may carry players through a lot of the game, but will eventually need to be replaced no matter how awesome it is. This mistake is by no means a long term problem, as players will hopefully notice when things start to get a lot harder, but it can be a difficult challenge to overcome for some.
Not Exploring Levels (Or Exploring Them Too Much)
This mistake is incredibly easy to make, especially for those on opposite ends of the completionist spectrum. On the one hand, not exploring levels adequately can result in character power lagging behind the pace of the story. For the most part, this isn’t a huge issue because of Minecraft Dungeons’ adjustable difficulty mechanics, but some levels, such as the final two, cannot be lowered beyond threat level 5 regardless of how powerful the player is. Less adventurous players may have to replay some levels in order to get back up to speed, especially when going through Adventure difficulty.
On the other hand, exploring too much can be detrimental too, but in a much different way. From a purely statistical standpoint, the more exploration the player does, the more secrets and chests they will find, which will result in stronger characters. Although this is objectively good, the time it takes to find every chest, secret, and emerald container in a level is vastly disproportionate to the actual rewards obtained from doing so. This is especially true of secrets, as most secrets are simply standard chests that take twice as long (if not more) to find.
Being Reckless (On Higher Difficulties)
Minecraft Dungeons promotes recklessness early on. At the beginning of the game, players can kill zombies, skeletons, and creepers with a single swing of their sword, and this can sometimes aid in building up a certain level of cockiness. By the last level, however, the game will have tempered players into taking a much more methodical and careful approach, or at least that’s what it tries to do. Players will need to do this on the final two levels of the game as well as on higher difficulties.
What starts out as a mindless hack and slash quickly becomes an exercise in tactical planning, as players will need to target high priority enemies first in order to come out on top. Additionally, knowing when to run in guns (crossbows?) blazing and when to retreat becomes extremely important, as on higher difficulties player will often find themselves outmatched and outnumbered, even when playing with friends. It is extremely important that they figure out ways to overcome the various challenges that Minecraft Dungeons presents in its endgame, or else some obstacles may seem impassable.
Minecraft Dungeons is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
