Minecarft: Survival Gameplay Rebalance
2 mai 2024 15:38
1.20 Mob Functions Recipes Advancements Structures Predicates Loot Tables Qualityoflife Challenge Trading Extensive Adventure Survival Food Nether Minecarts Fishing Block Sand Teleportation Difficult Beds Compass Lodestone Clock Spawneggs Craftingimprovements Transportation Mobheads Craftingrecipe Phantoms Beacons Survivalplus Weaponsandarmor Fishingrods Recoverycompass Furnace Minecart Chest Minecart Treasuremaps 1.19
Minecarft is a survival rebalance:
The goal was to strike a better balance between challenge, reward and fun. I aimed for a strongly vanilla+ experience as much as I could, with most changes being extensions of existing features.
Minecarft is difficult, but it isnt sadistic:
All challenges are designed to be something you can overcome with effort. Compared to vanilla you will start off much weaker and end up much stronger.
Minecarft is about minecarts:
They are the namesake and most central feature of this pack - I highly recommend reading their changelog section ahead of time. For everything else the recipe book and in-game hint system should be enough.
Overview of major changes:
Minecarts have been rebalanced to be the best form of simple transportation in the game
The eye of ender recipe now acts as a guide for your main questline
Mobs get stronger the deeper in the overworld you are, with deepslate mobs even getting special effects
Beacons now expand their radius depending on the materials used in their base, up to 300 blocks horizontally
Compasses, clocks and recovery compasses now display useful information when held in place of F3
Many chests now have a chance to contain treasure maps that lead to randomized structures
If you want to get a better idea of what the game is like I included some more major changes below. Once again I highly recommend reading the minecart section in the detailed changelog below if you haven't already.
Detailed Changelog:
The goal was to strike a better balance between challenge, reward and fun. I aimed for a strongly vanilla+ experience as much as I could, with most changes being extensions of existing features.
Minecarft is difficult, but it isnt sadistic:
All challenges are designed to be something you can overcome with effort. Compared to vanilla you will start off much weaker and end up much stronger.
Minecarft is about minecarts:
They are the namesake and most central feature of this pack - I highly recommend reading their changelog section ahead of time. For everything else the recipe book and in-game hint system should be enough.
Before Installation
Minecarft was designed to be played on hard difficulty, with reduced debug info enabled, and phantom spawning enabled. Play with whatever difficulty you find suitable but the experience is supposed to be challenging.
Minecarft should be installed during world creation as it modifies world generation. I do not recommend playing minecarft with large biomes but you do you.
Minecarft should be installed during world creation as it modifies world generation. I do not recommend playing minecarft with large biomes but you do you.
Modifying Minecarft/Removing Features
Download minecarft.zip
Extract contents of minecarft.zip into a folder. The folder can have any name but I will refer to it as the "modcarft" folder for clarity
Open the data folder within the modcarft folder. Inside you will see two folders named minecraft and minecarft.
the minecraft folder has features pertaining to world generation modifications, nether coordinate scaling, chest, entity and fishing loot tables and modified vanilla recipes.
The names of the recipe files within the "recipes" folder refer to the output of the crafting recipe, so if you wanted to change or remove the eye of ender recipe you would delete the file named "ender_eye".
You can delete any folder within the "minecraft" folder except for "tags" without breaking the datapack.
the minecarft folder has features pertaining to custom mechanics and new recipes. The "functions" folder handles custom mechanics, and "recipes" folder handles new recipes.
The names of the recipe files within the "recipes" folder also refer to the output of the crafting recipe.
Any folder within the "functions" folder can be deleted or modified without breaking the rest of the features. Do not delete any of the files within the functions folder. The names of the folders within the functions folder are fairly descriptive of the mechanics they cover, deleting the beacons folder will remove the custom beacon mechanics, etc.
I do not recommend deleting any folders within the minecarft folder. I do not recommend deleting any of the contents of "advancements", "item_modifiers", "predicates" or "tags".
After making whatever modifications you like simply install the "modcarft" folder as you would for any datapack
Extract contents of minecarft.zip into a folder. The folder can have any name but I will refer to it as the "modcarft" folder for clarity
Open the data folder within the modcarft folder. Inside you will see two folders named minecraft and minecarft.
the minecraft folder has features pertaining to world generation modifications, nether coordinate scaling, chest, entity and fishing loot tables and modified vanilla recipes.
The names of the recipe files within the "recipes" folder refer to the output of the crafting recipe, so if you wanted to change or remove the eye of ender recipe you would delete the file named "ender_eye".
You can delete any folder within the "minecraft" folder except for "tags" without breaking the datapack.
the minecarft folder has features pertaining to custom mechanics and new recipes. The "functions" folder handles custom mechanics, and "recipes" folder handles new recipes.
The names of the recipe files within the "recipes" folder also refer to the output of the crafting recipe.
Any folder within the "functions" folder can be deleted or modified without breaking the rest of the features. Do not delete any of the files within the functions folder. The names of the folders within the functions folder are fairly descriptive of the mechanics they cover, deleting the beacons folder will remove the custom beacon mechanics, etc.
I do not recommend deleting any folders within the minecarft folder. I do not recommend deleting any of the contents of "advancements", "item_modifiers", "predicates" or "tags".
After making whatever modifications you like simply install the "modcarft" folder as you would for any datapack
Overview of major changes:
Minecarts have been rebalanced to be the best form of simple transportation in the gameThe eye of ender recipe now acts as a guide for your main questlineMobs get stronger the deeper in the overworld you are, with deepslate mobs even getting special effects
Beacons now expand their radius depending on the materials used in their base, up to 300 blocks horizontally
Compasses, clocks and recovery compasses now display useful information when held in place of F3
Many chests now have a chance to contain treasure maps that lead to randomized structures
Even More Major Changes
Nether coordinates now scale 1:1 with the overworld to encourage the player to build minecart tracks in the overworld. To compensate, dragons breath has a new mechanic that allows the player to warp to their spawnpoint from anywhere at the cost of XP and the dragons breath bottle itself. Combine blaze powder, amethyst shards, phantom membrane and a bottle to craft
Beds are locked behind armor tiers. Skipping night is unlocked once the player has equipped a set of iron armor, and changing spawnpoints with a bed is unlocked once the player has equipped a set of diamond armor. Respawn anchors still work independent of armor tiers incase you want to move from world spawn earlier. Oh and phantoms can only spawn now if the player is above y=128.
Pigs have gone feral! Hoglins spawn in place of pigs in the overworld making early game exploration more difficult and food more scarce. Zoglins spawn in place of hoglins in the nether, nerfing nether based hoglin farms and adding an additional layer of chaos to the nether
Diamonds and iron ingots have been removed from most of the overworld surface chests, replaced with more interesting loot, while shulker shells now have a chance to be found in bastion chests
Fishing rods have been completely reworked with new loot tables buffed to be more rewarding for the time spent. Fishing rods can even "catch" certain entities by hooking them, turning them into spawn eggs and preserving entity data such as name, ownership and coloration. Their crafting recipe however has also changed to be slightly more difficult to craft, now requiring leads instead of string to craft
Use a compass on a lodestone while inside certain structures to convert compasses into structure locators! Hold the structure locator compass to be told how many blocks away the nearest structure of that type is from anywhere. An in-game /locate command balanced for survival. Only applies to certain structures
Dezombification trading discounts have been nerfed, especially for librarians, armorers, weaponsmiths and toolsmiths, and can only be applied once per villager
Renewable sand can be farmed from drowned! The drowned must not be killed by the player in order to drop sand
Beds are locked behind armor tiers. Skipping night is unlocked once the player has equipped a set of iron armor, and changing spawnpoints with a bed is unlocked once the player has equipped a set of diamond armor. Respawn anchors still work independent of armor tiers incase you want to move from world spawn earlier. Oh and phantoms can only spawn now if the player is above y=128.
Pigs have gone feral! Hoglins spawn in place of pigs in the overworld making early game exploration more difficult and food more scarce. Zoglins spawn in place of hoglins in the nether, nerfing nether based hoglin farms and adding an additional layer of chaos to the nether
Diamonds and iron ingots have been removed from most of the overworld surface chests, replaced with more interesting loot, while shulker shells now have a chance to be found in bastion chests
Fishing rods have been completely reworked with new loot tables buffed to be more rewarding for the time spent. Fishing rods can even "catch" certain entities by hooking them, turning them into spawn eggs and preserving entity data such as name, ownership and coloration. Their crafting recipe however has also changed to be slightly more difficult to craft, now requiring leads instead of string to craft
Use a compass on a lodestone while inside certain structures to convert compasses into structure locators! Hold the structure locator compass to be told how many blocks away the nearest structure of that type is from anywhere. An in-game /locate command balanced for survival. Only applies to certain structures
Dezombification trading discounts have been nerfed, especially for librarians, armorers, weaponsmiths and toolsmiths, and can only be applied once per villager
Renewable sand can be farmed from drowned! The drowned must not be killed by the player in order to drop sand
Detailed Changelog:
Minecarts
Minecart top speed increased to exceed blue ice boat (~90m/s)
Crafting default and powered rails now yield 32 and 16 items respectively
Boats cannot be used to power minecarts
Furnace minecarts now load the chunks they are in while they are fueled
Chest minecarts can now automatically place rails and powered rails
Crafting default and powered rails now yield 32 and 16 items respectively
Boats cannot be used to power minecarts
Furnace minecarts now load the chunks they are in while they are fueled
Chest minecarts can now automatically place rails and powered rails
How to Use Chest Minecarts
-Insert rails and/or powered rails into the chest minecart
-Insert iron ingots to tell the chest minecart to place its regular rails
-Insert gold ingots to tell the chest minecart to place its powered rails
-Push, ideally with a furnace minecart
The amount of gold and iron ingots in its inventory will determine how many powered rails and normal rails it will place consecutively before placing the other rail type.
For example, if you had both rail types in the chest minecart with 1 gold ingot and 6 iron ingots, then the chest minecart will place tracks in a pattern of 1 powered rail and 6 regular rails. If you only want it to place one type of track you only need to put in one type of ingot.
The chest minecart will automatically start laying tracks on the ground in the direction you push it, spending the tracks in its inventory while (generally) adhering to the same rules as the player when placing tracks. The chest minecart cannot replace previously placed tracks.
The chest minecart can go up and down hills automatically, but cannot detect when it should turn. However, if you place rails ahead of time to create a curved rail at each intended corner of the track it will follow the change in direction. Use this to your advantage.
I go over more nuanced features of the chest minecart in the section below. I recommend experimenting a bit with chest minecarts in a creative world to see first hand how turning and rail patterns work.
-Insert iron ingots to tell the chest minecart to place its regular rails
-Insert gold ingots to tell the chest minecart to place its powered rails
-Push, ideally with a furnace minecart
The amount of gold and iron ingots in its inventory will determine how many powered rails and normal rails it will place consecutively before placing the other rail type.
For example, if you had both rail types in the chest minecart with 1 gold ingot and 6 iron ingots, then the chest minecart will place tracks in a pattern of 1 powered rail and 6 regular rails. If you only want it to place one type of track you only need to put in one type of ingot.
The chest minecart will automatically start laying tracks on the ground in the direction you push it, spending the tracks in its inventory while (generally) adhering to the same rules as the player when placing tracks. The chest minecart cannot replace previously placed tracks.
The chest minecart can go up and down hills automatically, but cannot detect when it should turn. However, if you place rails ahead of time to create a curved rail at each intended corner of the track it will follow the change in direction. Use this to your advantage.
I go over more nuanced features of the chest minecart in the section below. I recommend experimenting a bit with chest minecarts in a creative world to see first hand how turning and rail patterns work.
More details (optional)
A fresh chest minecart will start its pattern with whatever rail-ingot combo is first inserted. For example, if a chest minecart has both rails and powered rails and you put a gold ingot in before putting in an iron ingot then the pattern will start with powered rails first.
You can swap what rail type the chest minecart starts with by making the other rail type invalid. For example, for a chest minecart with both rails and powered rails and both types of ingots, you could remove and reinsert the gold ingots (or powered rails) to get the pattern to start with regular rails.
If the chest minecart cannot fulfill its current pattern (ie it runs out of powered rails/rails when it needs to place a powered rail/rail) it will stop placing any tracks until it's inventory is replenished for that rail type. Once the chest minecarts inventory is replenished it will start placing rails again and resume the pattern.
You can swap what rail type the chest minecart starts with by making the other rail type invalid. For example, for a chest minecart with both rails and powered rails and both types of ingots, you could remove and reinsert the gold ingots (or powered rails) to get the pattern to start with regular rails.
If the chest minecart cannot fulfill its current pattern (ie it runs out of powered rails/rails when it needs to place a powered rail/rail) it will stop placing any tracks until it's inventory is replenished for that rail type. Once the chest minecarts inventory is replenished it will start placing rails again and resume the pattern.
Justifications
I thought minecarts as a transportation option were very cool yet under utilized, and I figured this was because they were relatively underpowered and very expensive. I imagined they offered pretty fun gameplay and so to address this I made them faster than its main competitors, elytras and ice boats.
I wanted minecarts to only slightly edge out iceboats so that there could be use cases for both, but ultimately I wanted the edge to go towards minecarts since the whole purpose of this datapack was to promote the usage of minecarts.
The boat change is to prevent players from using boats to bypass the need for powered rails, which I thought was less interesting than actually earning powered rails.
During playtesting I found that designing and making the track was very fun, but placing the rails wasn't very fun over long distances so I made an option to automate the process. I often found myself trying to aim for a specific ratio of rails to powered rails and so I created mechanics that could allow the player to specify what ratio they wanted for their track.
During playtesting I found that pushing around the chest minecart was kinda finnicky, and so the furnace minecart seemed like a perfect companion. I made them load chunks so the player could do other stuff while the rails were being placed but only when the furnace minecarts were powered, to prevent them from being easy chunk loaders.
I wanted minecarts to only slightly edge out iceboats so that there could be use cases for both, but ultimately I wanted the edge to go towards minecarts since the whole purpose of this datapack was to promote the usage of minecarts.
The boat change is to prevent players from using boats to bypass the need for powered rails, which I thought was less interesting than actually earning powered rails.
During playtesting I found that designing and making the track was very fun, but placing the rails wasn't very fun over long distances so I made an option to automate the process. I often found myself trying to aim for a specific ratio of rails to powered rails and so I created mechanics that could allow the player to specify what ratio they wanted for their track.
During playtesting I found that pushing around the chest minecart was kinda finnicky, and so the furnace minecart seemed like a perfect companion. I made them load chunks so the player could do other stuff while the rails were being placed but only when the furnace minecarts were powered, to prevent them from being easy chunk loaders.
Beacons
Beacons increase their range of effect depending on the quality of blocks used in the base
Beacons apply their effects regardless of player y value
One gold/emerald block = 0.5 block radius increase
One diamond block = 2.5 block radius increase
One netherite block = 5 block radius increase
The total radius increase is then added on top of the vanilla radius for the given beacon (20 for min level beacon, 50 for max)
The maximum radius for a beacon is 300 blocks, any beacons with ranges greater than 300 are reduced to 300
Beacons apply their effects regardless of player y value
One gold/emerald block = 0.5 block radius increase
One diamond block = 2.5 block radius increase
One netherite block = 5 block radius increase
The total radius increase is then added on top of the vanilla radius for the given beacon (20 for min level beacon, 50 for max)
The maximum radius for a beacon is 300 blocks, any beacons with ranges greater than 300 are reduced to 300
Justifications
I thought beacons were cool but I thought for the amount of effort and cost they took to build the range was unsuitably small, especially when compared to conduits. I figured it would be more interesting if for using more valuable resources the player could get a larger ranged beacon.
I didnt want the player to grind all day for a netherite or diamond beacon, so I balanced the blocks such that by just using renewable blocks you could not reach max range, and by just using non-renewable blocks you would go way past max range for no benefit, meaning the player would have to find their ideal middle ground.
I didnt want the player to grind all day for a netherite or diamond beacon, so I balanced the blocks such that by just using renewable blocks you could not reach max range, and by just using non-renewable blocks you would go way past max range for no benefit, meaning the player would have to find their ideal middle ground.
Fishing Rods
Fishing rods now require leads instead of string to be crafted
Buried treasure now has a chance to contain an enchanted fishing rod
Hooking most passive entities with a fishing rod will "catch" the entity and give the player a copy of the entity as a spawn egg
All relevant nbt data tied to the entity (professions/trades, custom names, ownership, inventory, health, age etc) is preserved in the spawn egg
Entities compatible with this change are typically non-hostile and lack convenient methods to be transported quickly, easily and precisely
The exhaustive list is as follows:
Allays, bats, cats, cows, dolphins, foxes, frogs, glow squids, goats, horses, llamas, mooshrooms, ocelots, pandas,
parrots, polar bears, rabbits, sheep, squids, trader llamas, villagers, wandering traders and wolves
Right clicking a monster spawner with a spawn egg will now destroy all spawners within 10 block cube centered on the player and you will lose the spawn egg as well
Buried treasure now has a chance to contain an enchanted fishing rod
Hooking most passive entities with a fishing rod will "catch" the entity and give the player a copy of the entity as a spawn egg
All relevant nbt data tied to the entity (professions/trades, custom names, ownership, inventory, health, age etc) is preserved in the spawn egg
Entities compatible with this change are typically non-hostile and lack convenient methods to be transported quickly, easily and precisely
The exhaustive list is as follows:
Allays, bats, cats, cows, dolphins, foxes, frogs, glow squids, goats, horses, llamas, mooshrooms, ocelots, pandas,
parrots, polar bears, rabbits, sheep, squids, trader llamas, villagers, wandering traders and wolves
Right clicking a monster spawner with a spawn egg will now destroy all spawners within 10 block cube centered on the player and you will lose the spawn egg as well
Justifications
Fishing rods in the base game were pretty easy to get and of pretty low value use. Since they became way more useful in this datapack I wanted to make them a bit harder to get. The idea was essentially that if I could change fishing rod availability such that the player will likely have to transport their first livestock with seeds/wheat/etc then that would make getting fishing rods feel a lot better.
Buried treasure loot had been nerfed and so I wanted to put in a decent reward that would still be useful, especially in the early game.
I felt like entity transport sucked, especially for non-hostile, non-rideable entities so I wanted to create a non-tedious option specifically for non-hostile, non-rideable entities. Horses were eventually added to this list to synergize with the introduction of the spawn warp option.
I felt like being able to change what was spawned from a spawner with spawn eggs was a bit too powerful, I didnt like how many unique farms it could eliminate either, so I made it so the player couldn't use this mechanic.
Buried treasure loot had been nerfed and so I wanted to put in a decent reward that would still be useful, especially in the early game.
I felt like entity transport sucked, especially for non-hostile, non-rideable entities so I wanted to create a non-tedious option specifically for non-hostile, non-rideable entities. Horses were eventually added to this list to synergize with the introduction of the spawn warp option.
I felt like being able to change what was spawned from a spawner with spawn eggs was a bit too powerful, I didnt like how many unique farms it could eliminate either, so I made it so the player couldn't use this mechanic.
Fishing
Fishing loot tables have been rebalanced to be more rewarding/useful
Junk and treasure loot tables now have a 12% chance of being rolled each
Junk and treasure loot tables contain new items designed to be more interesting/useful for the player
Treasure: ender pearls, skeleton skulls, tridents, turtle eggs
Junk: scute, slimeballs, sea pickles, bamboo (any biome)
Junk and treasure loot tables have also had less interesting items removed
Treasure: enchanted bows
Junk: water bottles, bowls
Junk and treasure loot tables now have a 12% chance of being rolled each
Junk and treasure loot tables contain new items designed to be more interesting/useful for the player
Treasure: ender pearls, skeleton skulls, tridents, turtle eggs
Junk: scute, slimeballs, sea pickles, bamboo (any biome)
Junk and treasure loot tables have also had less interesting items removed
Treasure: enchanted bows
Junk: water bottles, bowls
Justifications
I felt like fishing loot just didnt make much sense in the base game. Most of the loot was fish and you were better off just manually catching fish in rivers than actually fishing for fish. Not to mention fish as a food source was already pretty bad. The base activity of it however I felt was pretty fun and created a nice low effort, low complexity activity the player could benefit from.
To address this, I increased the rates at which the player would catch either junk or treasure, this was to reduce the amount of fish caught overall. Since exploration was quite a bit more limited due to other changes, I figured fishing loot could make for a good universal access point for useful items in small quantities, a sort of small stepping stone before the player makes more proper farms.
I added ender pearls because they are very fun to use and are useful without actually making the player any more powerful really. Aesthetically they make a little less sense, but at the end of the day they are pearls and water does kill endermen.
I added skeleton skulls mostly for the flavor, but also because they were now used in an important crafting recipe and this would offer an alternative route
I added tridents because I didnt find hunting drowned for tridents to be fun and felt this would make way more sense than bows in the fishing loot table, and also because bows were now found in another surface chest loot table.
I added turtle eggs because they were again thematically fitting as fishing loot, but also because I found the turtle breeding process pretty unfun, so this would provide an alternative route for the player who only needs one or two.
I added scute as junk for the same reason I added turtle eggs to treasure, but also for the fact that scute, while still useful, is still less useful than turtle eggs
I added slimeballs because I always thought it was pretty weird how useful slime was, even in the early game, in comparison to how hard it was to get? I figured it would be more fun to have slightly earlier, easier access to such a resource.
I added sea pickles mostly for flavor, but also because they look pretty and can be hard to find.
I added bamboo to be available in every biome because I though bamboo would be a tangible reward for the player as it has many interesting uses and exploration was quite a bit harder with some of the changes I made.
I removed bottles and bowls because I thought they were legitimately just stupid things to have as loot and the time input of fishing was in itself enough of a cost for the act of fishing.
To address this, I increased the rates at which the player would catch either junk or treasure, this was to reduce the amount of fish caught overall. Since exploration was quite a bit more limited due to other changes, I figured fishing loot could make for a good universal access point for useful items in small quantities, a sort of small stepping stone before the player makes more proper farms.
I added ender pearls because they are very fun to use and are useful without actually making the player any more powerful really. Aesthetically they make a little less sense, but at the end of the day they are pearls and water does kill endermen.
I added skeleton skulls mostly for the flavor, but also because they were now used in an important crafting recipe and this would offer an alternative route
I added tridents because I didnt find hunting drowned for tridents to be fun and felt this would make way more sense than bows in the fishing loot table, and also because bows were now found in another surface chest loot table.
I added turtle eggs because they were again thematically fitting as fishing loot, but also because I found the turtle breeding process pretty unfun, so this would provide an alternative route for the player who only needs one or two.
I added scute as junk for the same reason I added turtle eggs to treasure, but also for the fact that scute, while still useful, is still less useful than turtle eggs
I added slimeballs because I always thought it was pretty weird how useful slime was, even in the early game, in comparison to how hard it was to get? I figured it would be more fun to have slightly earlier, easier access to such a resource.
I added sea pickles mostly for flavor, but also because they look pretty and can be hard to find.
I added bamboo to be available in every biome because I though bamboo would be a tangible reward for the player as it has many interesting uses and exploration was quite a bit harder with some of the changes I made.
I removed bottles and bowls because I thought they were legitimately just stupid things to have as loot and the time input of fishing was in itself enough of a cost for the act of fishing.
Beds
The player cannot skip night until they have equipped full iron armor
The player cannot change their spawnpoint with a bed until they have equipped full diamond armor
Even if the player changes their spawnpoint with a bed their bed will break on death
The player cannot change their spawnpoint with a bed until they have equipped full diamond armor
Even if the player changes their spawnpoint with a bed their bed will break on death
Justifications
Early game exploration I felt was very powerful and so I thought it might be more interesting to try and push back the viability of exploration in the early game and have the player earn it. I felt like the bed contributed to this in a significant way.
Since sleeping through nights felt less powerful than changing spawnpoints I wanted it to be easier to unlock. Lastly, I wanted spawnpoint changing to be unlocked by the time the player had actually valuable equipment. Losing valuable equipment isnt fun and changing spawnpoints I feel can help prevent that to some degree.
Lastly, I felt that locking bed functionality behind armor upgrades had really good synergy with the mechanic that made mobs more difficult the deeper you go
Since sleeping through nights felt less powerful than changing spawnpoints I wanted it to be easier to unlock. Lastly, I wanted spawnpoint changing to be unlocked by the time the player had actually valuable equipment. Losing valuable equipment isnt fun and changing spawnpoints I feel can help prevent that to some degree.
Lastly, I felt that locking bed functionality behind armor upgrades had really good synergy with the mechanic that made mobs more difficult the deeper you go
Spawn Warp
Dropping a dragons breath item gives the player the option to warp to their spawnpoint, costing one dragon breath item, 15 levels of xp and resetting their insomnia counter
Dragons breath can now be crafted with 1 glass bottle, 1 blaze powder, 1 amethyst shard and 1 phantom membrane
Dragons breath can now be crafted with 1 glass bottle, 1 blaze powder, 1 amethyst shard and 1 phantom membrane
Justifications
Dragons breath maybe has the greatest amount of justifications tied to a single change.
Since access to elytras was much delayed, and nether coordinate scaling was changed, and the importance of exploration was much higher, this lead to a lot of exploring long distances and a lot of rather boring and long backtracking, and so I wanted a solution to this problem.
Since crafting ender chests had changed to be more expensive, the option to dump your items in your ender chest and purposely die was less viable as a strategy to teleport home, so I wanted to create a cheaper alternative.
Since access to the ender dragon was much delayed, and mobs were made more difficult, and tipped arrows are cool, I wanted to give the player earlier access to dragons breath.
Since phantom spawning was reworked to be less annoying, and phantom membrane was even less useful than it already was in vanilla because access to elytras was delayed, and since both dragons and phantoms were flying mobs, phantom membrane was chosen as a crafting ingredients for dragons breath.
Since blazes were symbolic of heat (like a dragons breath) and magic (like a dragon), and because blaze powder was associated with eyes of ender but no longer was due to a recipe change, blaze powder was chosen as a crafting ingredient for dragons breath.
Since amethyst shards had very few functional uses and matched the coloration of dragons breath (and also because amethyst shards are just aesthetically cool), amethyst shards were chosen as a crafting ingredient for dragons breath.
Since librarians devalued enchanting, and hence devalued xp, I wanted to tie another useful function to xp, as it was the only true cost to dying in the game, and would provide a use to accumulating large amounts of xp at a time.
Since the ender dragon fight is kindve boring, and the time and cost of resummoning the ender dragon is also fairly large, I wanted to provide an alternative method to get dragons breath.
Since dragons breath is an aesthetically rich item and fairly ignored item in survival, I wanted to make dragons breath useful.
Since dragons breath is tied to the ender dragon, which itself is tied to endermen, who teleport, it made sense to me that the item embodiment of the "strongest end dimension entity" should provide the strongest teleport option.
Since the ender dragon has such a strong connection to xp (the only tangible reward given by the enderdragon outside of dragons breath) this also felt like it made sense for the dragons breath teleport to cost xp.
The decision to use a text-based system to support this system was to prevent accidental misfires, which while rare, could be catastrophic, which I think justifies its non-vanilla interaction method.
Since access to elytras was much delayed, and nether coordinate scaling was changed, and the importance of exploration was much higher, this lead to a lot of exploring long distances and a lot of rather boring and long backtracking, and so I wanted a solution to this problem.
Since crafting ender chests had changed to be more expensive, the option to dump your items in your ender chest and purposely die was less viable as a strategy to teleport home, so I wanted to create a cheaper alternative.
Since access to the ender dragon was much delayed, and mobs were made more difficult, and tipped arrows are cool, I wanted to give the player earlier access to dragons breath.
Since phantom spawning was reworked to be less annoying, and phantom membrane was even less useful than it already was in vanilla because access to elytras was delayed, and since both dragons and phantoms were flying mobs, phantom membrane was chosen as a crafting ingredients for dragons breath.
Since blazes were symbolic of heat (like a dragons breath) and magic (like a dragon), and because blaze powder was associated with eyes of ender but no longer was due to a recipe change, blaze powder was chosen as a crafting ingredient for dragons breath.
Since amethyst shards had very few functional uses and matched the coloration of dragons breath (and also because amethyst shards are just aesthetically cool), amethyst shards were chosen as a crafting ingredient for dragons breath.
Since librarians devalued enchanting, and hence devalued xp, I wanted to tie another useful function to xp, as it was the only true cost to dying in the game, and would provide a use to accumulating large amounts of xp at a time.
Since the ender dragon fight is kindve boring, and the time and cost of resummoning the ender dragon is also fairly large, I wanted to provide an alternative method to get dragons breath.
Since dragons breath is an aesthetically rich item and fairly ignored item in survival, I wanted to make dragons breath useful.
Since dragons breath is tied to the ender dragon, which itself is tied to endermen, who teleport, it made sense to me that the item embodiment of the "strongest end dimension entity" should provide the strongest teleport option.
Since the ender dragon has such a strong connection to xp (the only tangible reward given by the enderdragon outside of dragons breath) this also felt like it made sense for the dragons breath teleport to cost xp.
The decision to use a text-based system to support this system was to prevent accidental misfires, which while rare, could be catastrophic, which I think justifies its non-vanilla interaction method.
Mobs
Mobs come in three y-dependent levels of difficulty: Surface, cave and deep.
(Buffs listed are relative to default mob in increments of potion effects where applicable)
Surface (y > 64)
Zombie: Strength +1, Speed +1
Spider: Strength +1, Speed +2
Cave (0 < y < 64)
Zombie: Strength +2, Speed +1
Spider: Strength +1, Speed +2, Absorption +1
The Deep (-64 < y < 0)
Zombie: Strength +2, Speed +2, Immune to Fire Damage
Spider: Strength +2, Speed +2, Invisible, 2 Seconds Blindness on Hit
Creeper: Explosions Create Fire
Skeleton: Convert To Strays on Spawn
Zombies by default are capable of breaking doors
Ghast fireball explosion power increased
Phantoms now only spawn above y=128
(Buffs listed are relative to default mob in increments of potion effects where applicable)
Surface (y > 64)
Zombie: Strength +1, Speed +1
Spider: Strength +1, Speed +2
Cave (0 < y < 64)
Zombie: Strength +2, Speed +1
Spider: Strength +1, Speed +2, Absorption +1
The Deep (-64 < y < 0)
Zombie: Strength +2, Speed +2, Immune to Fire Damage
Spider: Strength +2, Speed +2, Invisible, 2 Seconds Blindness on Hit
Creeper: Explosions Create Fire
Skeleton: Convert To Strays on Spawn
Zombies by default are capable of breaking doors
Ghast fireball explosion power increased
Phantoms now only spawn above y=128
Justifications
A lot of the older mobs in the game felt very weak in comparison to how powerful the player could get in modern versions. I didnt like how I could run around at night at essentially no risk and dive to the bottom of caves with no armor on and get by fine, but I did like how fast it was to kill mobs so I didnt want to just increase their health either.
Zombies and spiders on the whole felt very weak compared to skeletons and creepers, so I buffed them the most.
To make running around at night riskier I wanted spiders to be about as fast as a sprint-jumping player and to deal more damage than vanilla. The idea was that encountering a spider gave the player a chance to reposition advantageously if they had good enough movement, but risked taking relatively significant damage if they couldnt move fast enough.
To prevent the player from just diving to the bottom of the map for diamonds I wanted to create distinct difficulty levels for each main vertical region, that in order to graduate to the next level, you'd likely have to get the next tier of armor.
In order for this to be readable for the player, I tried to make sure each layer was visually distinct (which is why I picked surface vs stone caves vs deepslate caves) and I tried to attach visual changes to mobs to reflect different balancing, mostly in potion swirls and in potion swirl coloration.
I balanced such that having no armor in deepslate levels is nearly impossible to survive, having diamond armor is realistically survivable, and having max enchant netherite armor in deepslate levels is nearly impossible to die, making armor progression more meaningful and allowing the player to "graduate" from the difficulty.
I thought zombies breaking doors was a cool mechanic that was underutilized and lead to cool moments, so I enabled it on all zombies.
Ghasts I thought were really fun mobs but were essentially just big floating targets and not very threatening unless bridging over a large gap. I wanted the nether to be more difficult though (not much more of course), as the overworld changes to mobs made the nether feel a bit tame in comparison, so this was one of the ways I set out to do so.
I felt like phantoms had a lot of potential as mobs, but their implementation was what kept them from being an enjoyable feature. By restricting phantom spawning to higher y levels the player is less likely to accidentally engage with their mechanics. A high y-value also has very clear visual indications for the player to recognize, which makes engaging with phantoms a conscious decision. Thematically I think it also makes sense that phantoms, a flying mob, would be found high in the sky instead of sea level.
Zombies and spiders on the whole felt very weak compared to skeletons and creepers, so I buffed them the most.
To make running around at night riskier I wanted spiders to be about as fast as a sprint-jumping player and to deal more damage than vanilla. The idea was that encountering a spider gave the player a chance to reposition advantageously if they had good enough movement, but risked taking relatively significant damage if they couldnt move fast enough.
To prevent the player from just diving to the bottom of the map for diamonds I wanted to create distinct difficulty levels for each main vertical region, that in order to graduate to the next level, you'd likely have to get the next tier of armor.
In order for this to be readable for the player, I tried to make sure each layer was visually distinct (which is why I picked surface vs stone caves vs deepslate caves) and I tried to attach visual changes to mobs to reflect different balancing, mostly in potion swirls and in potion swirl coloration.
I balanced such that having no armor in deepslate levels is nearly impossible to survive, having diamond armor is realistically survivable, and having max enchant netherite armor in deepslate levels is nearly impossible to die, making armor progression more meaningful and allowing the player to "graduate" from the difficulty.
I thought zombies breaking doors was a cool mechanic that was underutilized and lead to cool moments, so I enabled it on all zombies.
Ghasts I thought were really fun mobs but were essentially just big floating targets and not very threatening unless bridging over a large gap. I wanted the nether to be more difficult though (not much more of course), as the overworld changes to mobs made the nether feel a bit tame in comparison, so this was one of the ways I set out to do so.
I felt like phantoms had a lot of potential as mobs, but their implementation was what kept them from being an enjoyable feature. By restricting phantom spawning to higher y levels the player is less likely to accidentally engage with their mechanics. A high y-value also has very clear visual indications for the player to recognize, which makes engaging with phantoms a conscious decision. Thematically I think it also makes sense that phantoms, a flying mob, would be found high in the sky instead of sea level.
Trading
Curing a villager multiple times will only stack the curing discount once
Armorer, toolsmith, weaponsmith and librarian trades all benefit 10x less from dezombification discounts
Armorer, toolsmith, weaponsmith and librarian trades all benefit 10x less from dezombification discounts
Justifications
I thought trading was a really cool system that was kinda broken by dezombification discounts. I figured it would be more interesting for the player to focus on setting up more effortful and diverse emerald supplies for their trading. I still thought dezombification was cool though so I made a system that limited the discount to one stack per villager.
Upon playtesting though it was clear this wasnt enough. Not all trades are affected by dezombification discounts the same way, and the professions that offered the most "problematic" trades also happened to provide the largest dezombification discounts. I still felt there was a place for these trades to exist, but not at clearance pricing and so I nerfed the dezombification discount on these trades.
Upon playtesting though it was clear this wasnt enough. Not all trades are affected by dezombification discounts the same way, and the professions that offered the most "problematic" trades also happened to provide the largest dezombification discounts. I still felt there was a place for these trades to exist, but not at clearance pricing and so I nerfed the dezombification discount on these trades.
Food
Cows and mooshrooms no longer drop leather
Cows and mooshrooms now drop 1-2 beef (from 1-3)
Hoglins replace pigs in the overworld with 20 health points instead of 40
Hoglins now drop 1-2 porkchop (from 1-3)
Hoglins now drop 1-2 leather (from 0-1)
Porkchops provide reduced saturation (9.8 from 12.8)
Zoglins replace hoglins in the nether
Zoglins now drop 0-1 leather (from 0)
Golden apples now replenish 5 shanks and 20 saturation (making them the best stackable food item in the game)
Golden apples no longer give absorption or regeneration
Enchanted golden apples are now craftable with 8 gold blocks and an apple (and still give all effects)
Eating glow berries temporarily applies a glowing effect to the player
Village hay bales have been replaced with oak logs
Cows and mooshrooms now drop 1-2 beef (from 1-3)
Hoglins replace pigs in the overworld with 20 health points instead of 40
Hoglins now drop 1-2 porkchop (from 1-3)
Hoglins now drop 1-2 leather (from 0-1)
Porkchops provide reduced saturation (9.8 from 12.8)
Zoglins replace hoglins in the nether
Zoglins now drop 0-1 leather (from 0)
Golden apples now replenish 5 shanks and 20 saturation (making them the best stackable food item in the game)
Golden apples no longer give absorption or regeneration
Enchanted golden apples are now craftable with 8 gold blocks and an apple (and still give all effects)
Eating glow berries temporarily applies a glowing effect to the player
Village hay bales have been replaced with oak logs
Justifications
I didn't like how rewarding early game exploration could be for food, I felt it would be more interesting if the player was incentivized to create a renewable source of food while not having as much access to food as they might in typical vanilla settings. To make hunger a genuine threat for the early game, and a problem the player could truly overcome.
I knew I wanted to replace one of either cows or pigs with a hostile alternative. This was to make exploration feel more dangerous, to make the early game feel even earlier than in vanilla, and to reduce the players access to pork or beef. I decided trading pigs for hoglins made more sense than trading cows for hoglins (or ravagers) so I went with that. During playtesting their vanilla health level felt a little too much so I reduced it by half.
Since hoglins were so much more dangerous and hard to kill than cows I figured it made sense to make cows drop worse items, and so I reduced the overall amount of food drops and I removed their leather drop. The idea being that cows would be the safe, farmable option, while hoglins were something you could be incentivized to fight occasionally.
I wanted to discourage the player from cheesing hoglins for food, so I reduced the amount of food dropped by them, reduced the quality of the food dropped, and increased their leather drop. To create a reward for killing hoglins in the early game I made bundles craftable with leather. This way the primary motivations for killing a hoglin are to clear out your starting spawn area and to get leather. Clearing out the spawn area felt like a unique challenge, and the low spawnrates of hoglins prevent it from feeling like a chore, and getting a bundle felt earned and adequately timed. Reducing the quality of porkchops also helped contribute to this goal while also making the villager trade for porkchops less rewarding, as trading for porkchops felt a little too powerful in the early game as well.
It felt a bit weird having hoglins both in the overworld and in the nether, and I wanted to nerf nether hoglin based pork farms so I replaced hoglins in the nether with zoglins. I felt like zoglins were pretty aesthetically rich yet underused in the base game so this felt like a good use case for them. The additional layer of chaos created by zoglins in the nether felt fitting too.
I wanted to provide a true end game food for the player that would be a bit more challenging to get. Eating food is a forever task, and so by providing a "absolute best option that there can be" I can provide the player an opportunity to "graduate" from the task. At first I tried to make rabbit stew stackable, but this was over complicated, buggy, and the player could just trade emeralds for it anyways so the intrigue was lost. I thought regular golden apples were cool aesthetically and had cool ingredients that were interesting to acquire, and in practice their effects were underwhelming, so I rebalanced them to be a food food instead of an effect food.
Enchanted golden apples however I thought were very cool but I thought their rarity made them underutilized for how infrequently an enchanted golden apple is truly useful for. I also wanted a competing gold sink for powered rails and overall more uses for gold.
I wanted an easy method to locate other nearby players when playing multiplayer. I went through a lot of iterations before settling on this change, which I think has good aesthetic justification and makes finding and collecting glowberries a bit more meaningful.
Lastly, village hay bales contributed heavily to the players immediate food supply and also made early game exploration more rewarding than the cost and effort of doing so justified. The existence of haybales also eliminated the need for a wheat farm, you could have wheat in high numbers without ever planting a seed. Oak logs replacing them felt like a decent aesthetic fit while not providing the player with anything particularly meaningful.
I knew I wanted to replace one of either cows or pigs with a hostile alternative. This was to make exploration feel more dangerous, to make the early game feel even earlier than in vanilla, and to reduce the players access to pork or beef. I decided trading pigs for hoglins made more sense than trading cows for hoglins (or ravagers) so I went with that. During playtesting their vanilla health level felt a little too much so I reduced it by half.
Since hoglins were so much more dangerous and hard to kill than cows I figured it made sense to make cows drop worse items, and so I reduced the overall amount of food drops and I removed their leather drop. The idea being that cows would be the safe, farmable option, while hoglins were something you could be incentivized to fight occasionally.
I wanted to discourage the player from cheesing hoglins for food, so I reduced the amount of food dropped by them, reduced the quality of the food dropped, and increased their leather drop. To create a reward for killing hoglins in the early game I made bundles craftable with leather. This way the primary motivations for killing a hoglin are to clear out your starting spawn area and to get leather. Clearing out the spawn area felt like a unique challenge, and the low spawnrates of hoglins prevent it from feeling like a chore, and getting a bundle felt earned and adequately timed. Reducing the quality of porkchops also helped contribute to this goal while also making the villager trade for porkchops less rewarding, as trading for porkchops felt a little too powerful in the early game as well.
It felt a bit weird having hoglins both in the overworld and in the nether, and I wanted to nerf nether hoglin based pork farms so I replaced hoglins in the nether with zoglins. I felt like zoglins were pretty aesthetically rich yet underused in the base game so this felt like a good use case for them. The additional layer of chaos created by zoglins in the nether felt fitting too.
I wanted to provide a true end game food for the player that would be a bit more challenging to get. Eating food is a forever task, and so by providing a "absolute best option that there can be" I can provide the player an opportunity to "graduate" from the task. At first I tried to make rabbit stew stackable, but this was over complicated, buggy, and the player could just trade emeralds for it anyways so the intrigue was lost. I thought regular golden apples were cool aesthetically and had cool ingredients that were interesting to acquire, and in practice their effects were underwhelming, so I rebalanced them to be a food food instead of an effect food.
Enchanted golden apples however I thought were very cool but I thought their rarity made them underutilized for how infrequently an enchanted golden apple is truly useful for. I also wanted a competing gold sink for powered rails and overall more uses for gold.
I wanted an easy method to locate other nearby players when playing multiplayer. I went through a lot of iterations before settling on this change, which I think has good aesthetic justification and makes finding and collecting glowberries a bit more meaningful.
Lastly, village hay bales contributed heavily to the players immediate food supply and also made early game exploration more rewarding than the cost and effort of doing so justified. The existence of haybales also eliminated the need for a wheat farm, you could have wheat in high numbers without ever planting a seed. Oak logs replacing them felt like a decent aesthetic fit while not providing the player with anything particularly meaningful.
Compasses
Holding a compass now displays the players coordinates and the cardinal direction they are facing
Holding a clock now displays the players coordinates, the cardinal direction and biome
Sneaking while holding a clock displays the players current biome and total number of days passed
Holding a recovery compass now displays the players coordinates, cardinal direction and biome
Sneaking while holding a recovery compass now displays the number of days, the players spawnpoint coordinates and deaths
Clock crafting recipe changed, replacing redstone dust with a compass to craft
Recovery compass recipe has been changed to 1 clock surrounded by 4 echo shards
Holding a clock now displays the players coordinates, the cardinal direction and biome
Sneaking while holding a clock displays the players current biome and total number of days passed
Holding a recovery compass now displays the players coordinates, cardinal direction and biome
Sneaking while holding a recovery compass now displays the number of days, the players spawnpoint coordinates and deaths
Clock crafting recipe changed, replacing redstone dust with a compass to craft
Recovery compass recipe has been changed to 1 clock surrounded by 4 echo shards
Justifications
I didnt really like the F3/debug screen. It looks very cluttered and not very "gamey"? I wanted to provide an in-game solution to this.
At the same time, I felt like compasses and clocks on the whole were pretty useless, so I wanted to give them a use, and thematically they were perfect for the job of displaying info.
To gamify this system I wanted to treat info display like any other progression system in the game, and so for more valuable materials more info would be displayed. I tried to tie in information for each tier based on aesthetics and the importance of the information. Adding the current day count to clocks was because it is a clock, but adding the biome youre in to clocks was because I figured the player would want access to that information sooner rather than later.
The recipe changes were for three main reasons. Firstly, I wanted to emulate the sort of "you use the previous tier item to get the next item" mantra seen in pickaxes, armor sets, and even trading to an extent. Secondly, I wanted a narrative thread that explains why each tier displays all the same info as the previous tier. Lastly, I wanted to homogenize the recipes for these items across the board, as seen in other tiered systems.
At the same time, I felt like compasses and clocks on the whole were pretty useless, so I wanted to give them a use, and thematically they were perfect for the job of displaying info.
To gamify this system I wanted to treat info display like any other progression system in the game, and so for more valuable materials more info would be displayed. I tried to tie in information for each tier based on aesthetics and the importance of the information. Adding the current day count to clocks was because it is a clock, but adding the biome youre in to clocks was because I figured the player would want access to that information sooner rather than later.
The recipe changes were for three main reasons. Firstly, I wanted to emulate the sort of "you use the previous tier item to get the next item" mantra seen in pickaxes, armor sets, and even trading to an extent. Secondly, I wanted a narrative thread that explains why each tier displays all the same info as the previous tier. Lastly, I wanted to homogenize the recipes for these items across the board, as seen in other tiered systems.
Lodestones
Creating a lodestone compass within certain structures allows the player to know how many blocks away the nearest structure of that type is from the player
The exhaustive list is as follows:
Desert pyramids, end cities, fortresses, mesa mineshafts, monuments, pillager outposts and swamp huts
The lodestone compass will lose its ability to display coordinates
A 10 second server-side cooldown is present per location check to inhibit lag
This system only works when the player is holding a single compass when triggering a lodestone, and will ignore attempts with stacked compasses
The exhaustive list is as follows:
Desert pyramids, end cities, fortresses, mesa mineshafts, monuments, pillager outposts and swamp huts
The lodestone compass will lose its ability to display coordinates
A 10 second server-side cooldown is present per location check to inhibit lag
This system only works when the player is holding a single compass when triggering a lodestone, and will ignore attempts with stacked compasses
Justifications
The idea essentially was a gamified version of the /locate command.
With delayed access to the elytra and changed nether coordinate scaling I wanted the player to have an easier time finding certain structures, especially to find the closest structure that the player may want a minecart line out to. I still wanted the player to have to find these structures manually at least once, but the process of manually finding the closest version of this structure for any given point I thought should be automated.
Lodestones just so happened to provide both a thematic justification and a useful trigger point to base operations off to allow this whole thing to work. Not to mention they were pretty absurdly expensive for a fairly useless function, but this new functionality I feel justified the existing cost.
With delayed access to the elytra and changed nether coordinate scaling I wanted the player to have an easier time finding certain structures, especially to find the closest structure that the player may want a minecart line out to. I still wanted the player to have to find these structures manually at least once, but the process of manually finding the closest version of this structure for any given point I thought should be automated.
Lodestones just so happened to provide both a thematic justification and a useful trigger point to base operations off to allow this whole thing to work. Not to mention they were pretty absurdly expensive for a fairly useless function, but this new functionality I feel justified the existing cost.
Gamerule Changes
gamerule reducedDebugInfo true, solved in game via changes to compasses/clocks
gamerule doInsomnia true, solved in game via phantom y-level spawn criteria (player must be above y=128)
gamerule doInsomnia true, solved in game via phantom y-level spawn criteria (player must be above y=128)
Misc Gameplay Mechanics
Items dropped on death despawn after 20 minutes (from 5)
Breaking an enderchest with a pickaxe always drops an enderchest
Each zombie, creeper and skeleton killed by a charged creeper is now guaranteed to drop their head
Ringing village bells now applies glowing effect to all raider mobs within 100 blocks of the player
Numerous hints for in game mechanics added in this datapack are now present
Typing /function minecarft:uninstall deletes minecarft scoreboards and disables the pack
Breaking an enderchest with a pickaxe always drops an enderchest
Each zombie, creeper and skeleton killed by a charged creeper is now guaranteed to drop their head
Ringing village bells now applies glowing effect to all raider mobs within 100 blocks of the player
Numerous hints for in game mechanics added in this datapack are now present
Typing /function minecarft:uninstall deletes minecarft scoreboards and disables the pack
Justifications
With a harder game comes more deaths. Dying is a good punishment, the risk of losing your items even better, but the actual losing of those items can have very far reaching implications that are pretty unfun. I wanted to lessen the risk of this. 20 minutes was the highest round number I could put on items before their item data would roll back over to 0 and so I left it at 20 to avoid making a more complex system.
Ender chests are used and transported a lot, and I felt the freedom gained by not having to bother with silk touch was worth it. The usefulness of high density obsidian transportation is pretty low for the average player, and the recipe change to ender chests also made this application pretty expensive and didn't make much sense.
It was actually during playtesting I found out that it doesnt matter how many mobs are caught in a charged creeper explosion, only one mob head will ever be dropped. I thought this was pretty silly, and it ruined my plan for mob heads to be a eye of ender recipe ingredient, so I made it so every mob would drop a head instead.
This was another playtesting moment where the behavior was just a bit inadequate for what it was supposed to do? The vanilla requirements for bells to highlight raiders are surprisingly overcomplicated and ineffective for the application, so I employed a more effective system, though the exact number used for the range was picked pretty randomly. In theory the player could exploit this to locate witches that spawned inside caves but I dont think this is a particularly powerful technique.
Ender chests are used and transported a lot, and I felt the freedom gained by not having to bother with silk touch was worth it. The usefulness of high density obsidian transportation is pretty low for the average player, and the recipe change to ender chests also made this application pretty expensive and didn't make much sense.
It was actually during playtesting I found out that it doesnt matter how many mobs are caught in a charged creeper explosion, only one mob head will ever be dropped. I thought this was pretty silly, and it ruined my plan for mob heads to be a eye of ender recipe ingredient, so I made it so every mob would drop a head instead.
This was another playtesting moment where the behavior was just a bit inadequate for what it was supposed to do? The vanilla requirements for bells to highlight raiders are surprisingly overcomplicated and ineffective for the application, so I employed a more effective system, though the exact number used for the range was picked pretty randomly. In theory the player could exploit this to locate witches that spawned inside caves but I dont think this is a particularly powerful technique.
Crafting Recipes
NOTE: All recipes unique to this datapack are given to each player upon entering the world for the first time
Eye of ender recipe changed to: bottle o' enchanting, totem of undying, dragons breath, sponge, ender pearl, overworld mob heads, echo shards, wither rose and netherite ingot
Enderchest crafting recipe changed to 7 obsidian, 1 ancient debris and 1 enderpearl
Clock crafting recipe changed, replacing redstone dust with a compass to craft
Recovery compass recipe has been changed to 1 clock surrounded by 4 echo shards
Dispenser crafting recipe changed, replacing bows with tripwire hooks
Shield crafting recipe now requires 2 blazepowder in addition to its vanilla recipe
Conduit crafting recipe now requires only 2 nautilus shells (from 8)
Fishing rod crafting recipe now requires 2 leads, replacing string
Bamboo block crafting recipe now requires 8 bamboo and 1 vine
Bone blocks can now also be crafted from 3 bones
Arrow crafting recipe now yields 8 arrows (from 4)
Bundles can now be crafted with 4 leather
Sponge can now be crafted with 2 dead coral blocks and 2 prismarine shards
Live coral blocks can now be crafted with 4 live coral plants of the respective coral block
Enchanted golden apples can now be crafted with 8 gold blocks and an apple
Dragons breath can now be crafted with 1 glass bottle, 1 blaze powder, 1 amethyst shard and 1 phantom membrane
Sandstone and clay blocks can be crafted back into their component parts (sand and clay balls)
Eye of ender recipe changed to: bottle o' enchanting, totem of undying, dragons breath, sponge, ender pearl, overworld mob heads, echo shards, wither rose and netherite ingot
Enderchest crafting recipe changed to 7 obsidian, 1 ancient debris and 1 enderpearl
Clock crafting recipe changed, replacing redstone dust with a compass to craft
Recovery compass recipe has been changed to 1 clock surrounded by 4 echo shards
Dispenser crafting recipe changed, replacing bows with tripwire hooks
Shield crafting recipe now requires 2 blazepowder in addition to its vanilla recipe
Conduit crafting recipe now requires only 2 nautilus shells (from 8)
Fishing rod crafting recipe now requires 2 leads, replacing string
Bamboo block crafting recipe now requires 8 bamboo and 1 vine
Bone blocks can now also be crafted from 3 bones
Arrow crafting recipe now yields 8 arrows (from 4)
Bundles can now be crafted with 4 leather
Sponge can now be crafted with 2 dead coral blocks and 2 prismarine shards
Live coral blocks can now be crafted with 4 live coral plants of the respective coral block
Enchanted golden apples can now be crafted with 8 gold blocks and an apple
Dragons breath can now be crafted with 1 glass bottle, 1 blaze powder, 1 amethyst shard and 1 phantom membrane
Sandstone and clay blocks can be crafted back into their component parts (sand and clay balls)
Justifications
I wanted to prevent players from rushing to the end to get the elytra, as this could invalidate the whole purpose of this pack, getting players to build minecart tracks, so I made the eye of ender recipe very expensive. I wanted the individual activities to be unique and span as much of the game as possible, including interacting with new features I introduced (like dragons breath). This created greater incentive to do certain activities while also creating an interesting sortve long term goal to work towards the encouraged a lot of exploration which I thought was really fun, but maybe not so fun to do all at once, which I think is ideal for the purpose.
The enderchest recipe change was to accompany the change to the eye of ender recipe. I didnt think inventory management options should be that restricted, but I did want something as powerful as the ender chest to be locked behind the nether so it could feel earned.
Clock and recovery compass recipe changes are explained in their section, and in short are to imply a progression
Dispenser crafting has always been pretty unenjoyable so I wanted an alternative ingredient to bows in its crafting recipe. The inclusion of tripwire hooks in the crossbow recipe was my inspiration for this change.
Shields i felt were really powerful for how cheap they were, especially in the early game, and not to mention a bit uninteresting compared to bows. I figured if I locked shields behind nether exploration then even if the first thing the player did was use buckets to build a nether portal and rush to a fortress to craft a shield then they would've earned its use. In reality though I imagined that by the time the player has reached the nether they would likely have gear that is more interesting to have than to lose, and the safe reliability of shields would be ideal at that point as well.
I thought the process of collecting nautilus shells was very unfun, especially for how cool and yet not powerful conduits were. This would also help aid the player in doing monument stuff, but on the whole just felt like a unnecessarily restricted opportunity for cool gameplay.
Fishing rods were made a lot more useful, so I wanted make getting fishing rods slightly more difficult
Bamboo farms felt a bit too strong now that you can use them both as infinite fuel and as infinite wood, so I nerfed the crafting recipe to make bamboo wood farms to be less effective
Bone block crafting was pretty unfun, unnecessarily so, so I reduced the number of crafting steps required to process bones to bone blocks
My idea for early game progression was that instead of shields, the player could use a bow. Bows are ultimately more powerful than shields, but shields I felt were a bit too cheap for how much protection they could lend. In the early game especially, making and using a bow definitely felt more taxing and that felt fitting, but grinding for flint was really tedious, in a low-level kinda early game way that I thought was fitting, so I just wanted to reduce the amount of grinding needed for the same amount of arrows.
I think item management is pretty unfun, and so in general I wanted to give players access to inventory management options sooner rather than later. I felt like bundles were perfect for the early early game due to their low power but high utility for dealing with lots of items in small quantities
I thought sponge was super cool and allowed for very cool builds, but the fact it was non-renewable and difficult to acquire in large quantities was a pretty silly decision. Types of coral in the real world have been historically used as sponges, and it fit with the water theme, AND they didn't really have any use outside of aesthetics so coral seemed fitting. I still wanted sponge to be locked behind monuments though, which is why prismarine shards are in the recipe.
The principles of minecraft definitely wouldnt agree with the utilization of coral reefs to make sponge, and so I wanted to provide a less destructive alternative for engaging with the sponge recipe.
Dragons breath recipe justification is given in the spawn warp section
Sand and clayballs are useful materials, especially in bulk. This allows players to transport more sand and clay at a time, with faster harvesting and faster decomposition.
The enderchest recipe change was to accompany the change to the eye of ender recipe. I didnt think inventory management options should be that restricted, but I did want something as powerful as the ender chest to be locked behind the nether so it could feel earned.
Clock and recovery compass recipe changes are explained in their section, and in short are to imply a progression
Dispenser crafting has always been pretty unenjoyable so I wanted an alternative ingredient to bows in its crafting recipe. The inclusion of tripwire hooks in the crossbow recipe was my inspiration for this change.
Shields i felt were really powerful for how cheap they were, especially in the early game, and not to mention a bit uninteresting compared to bows. I figured if I locked shields behind nether exploration then even if the first thing the player did was use buckets to build a nether portal and rush to a fortress to craft a shield then they would've earned its use. In reality though I imagined that by the time the player has reached the nether they would likely have gear that is more interesting to have than to lose, and the safe reliability of shields would be ideal at that point as well.
I thought the process of collecting nautilus shells was very unfun, especially for how cool and yet not powerful conduits were. This would also help aid the player in doing monument stuff, but on the whole just felt like a unnecessarily restricted opportunity for cool gameplay.
Fishing rods were made a lot more useful, so I wanted make getting fishing rods slightly more difficult
Bamboo farms felt a bit too strong now that you can use them both as infinite fuel and as infinite wood, so I nerfed the crafting recipe to make bamboo wood farms to be less effective
Bone block crafting was pretty unfun, unnecessarily so, so I reduced the number of crafting steps required to process bones to bone blocks
My idea for early game progression was that instead of shields, the player could use a bow. Bows are ultimately more powerful than shields, but shields I felt were a bit too cheap for how much protection they could lend. In the early game especially, making and using a bow definitely felt more taxing and that felt fitting, but grinding for flint was really tedious, in a low-level kinda early game way that I thought was fitting, so I just wanted to reduce the amount of grinding needed for the same amount of arrows.
I think item management is pretty unfun, and so in general I wanted to give players access to inventory management options sooner rather than later. I felt like bundles were perfect for the early early game due to their low power but high utility for dealing with lots of items in small quantities
I thought sponge was super cool and allowed for very cool builds, but the fact it was non-renewable and difficult to acquire in large quantities was a pretty silly decision. Types of coral in the real world have been historically used as sponges, and it fit with the water theme, AND they didn't really have any use outside of aesthetics so coral seemed fitting. I still wanted sponge to be locked behind monuments though, which is why prismarine shards are in the recipe.
The principles of minecraft definitely wouldnt agree with the utilization of coral reefs to make sponge, and so I wanted to provide a less destructive alternative for engaging with the sponge recipe.
Dragons breath recipe justification is given in the spawn warp section
Sand and clayballs are useful materials, especially in bulk. This allows players to transport more sand and clay at a time, with faster harvesting and faster decomposition.
Loot Tables
Shipwreck treasure, buried treasure, desert pyramid, weaponsmith and toolsmith chests no longer contain diamonds or iron ingots
Shipwreck treasure chests have emeralds or gold ingots in place of diamonds and iron ingots
Shipwreck supply chests now have a chance to contain cactus
Buried treasure chests now contain enchanted fishing rods
Desert pyramid chests now have a chance to contain enchanted bows
Bastion chests now contain netherite scrap instead of ancient debris
Shulker shells can be found in bastion chests
Ancient city chests no longer contain bottles o' enchanting
Drowned now drop sand when not killed by the player
Fishing loot tables have been reworked to be more useful
Many chest loottables now have the chance to contain a map that leads to a randomized destination
(generally: underground structures give maps to other underground structures, surface structures give maps to surface structures)
Shipwreck treasure chests have emeralds or gold ingots in place of diamonds and iron ingots
Shipwreck supply chests now have a chance to contain cactus
Buried treasure chests now contain enchanted fishing rods
Desert pyramid chests now have a chance to contain enchanted bows
Bastion chests now contain netherite scrap instead of ancient debris
Shulker shells can be found in bastion chests
Ancient city chests no longer contain bottles o' enchanting
Drowned now drop sand when not killed by the player
Fishing loot tables have been reworked to be more useful
Many chest loottables now have the chance to contain a map that leads to a randomized destination
(generally: underground structures give maps to other underground structures, surface structures give maps to surface structures)
Justifications
These loot tables contributed heavily to the imbalance of surface exploration in the early game and I felt more interesting loot options had been added to the game since these loot tables were first made, so I wanted to revamp things a bit.
The original loot table change I made for this chest just removed all gold, iron and diamond ingots from the shipwreck treasure chest, and it made for a pretty underwhelming looting experience, so I figured including more emeralds and gold ingots would still have that wow factor without directly contributing to player equipment progression.
During playtesting I had a spawn point that was over 4000 blocks away from the nearest desert. While I was able to find a potted cactus in an igloo, I didn't want players to rely on something like that. Cactus is invaluable for automated minecart terminals and so I wanted to make sure players anywhere could get a hold of cactus with a bit of searching.
To compensate for the removal of diamonds and iron from buried treasure loot an enchanted fishing rod felt like a thematically and functionally appropriate reward for the player, especially when considering the changes to fishing rods
Enchanted bows were put in desert pyramids to account for the removal of diamonds and iron ingots from their loot tables. This also contributed to the removal of enchanted bows from fishing treasure loot.
Netherite scrap was put in place of ancient debris because shulker shells could be found in bastion chests now, and because the ender chest recipe used ancient debris in its crafting recipe. I didnt want bastions to be the one stop shop for inventory upgrades, so I decided to make bastions the pve challenge for inventory upgrades and to make nether mining the resource gathering challenge for inventory upgrades.
Shulker shells were put in bastion chests because I think bastions are genuinely the most difficult and enjoyable pure PVE experiences in the game, and also because access to the end was severely reduced with the eye of ender recipe change. I still wanted the player to have access to shulkers, and this creates a smoother upgrade path for shulkers where you can get shulkers non-renewably in the nether, but for unlocking the end you can get renewable shulkers.
Ancient city loot tables were becoming one stop shops for the eye of ender recipe, so I removed bottles o enchanting as they were already pretty widely obtainable compared to most eye of ender ingredients.
I wanted to create an in game solution for renewable sand as sand is great but manually harvesting it sucks. Having husks drop sand felt a bit over played, so I figured a drowned farm might be more interesting. The drop requirements are to prevent the player from using reinforcement based farms.
Fishing loot table rework is discussed in the fishing section
I thought treasure maps were really cool, but the existing cartographer system I felt was pretty inadequate, and the buried treasure system lacked variety. Additionally, the importance and difficulty of exploration is quite higher compared to vanilla, so I wanted to give the player a chance at some quality of life and a potentially meaningful reward for exploration that wasnt just diamonds.
The original loot table change I made for this chest just removed all gold, iron and diamond ingots from the shipwreck treasure chest, and it made for a pretty underwhelming looting experience, so I figured including more emeralds and gold ingots would still have that wow factor without directly contributing to player equipment progression.
During playtesting I had a spawn point that was over 4000 blocks away from the nearest desert. While I was able to find a potted cactus in an igloo, I didn't want players to rely on something like that. Cactus is invaluable for automated minecart terminals and so I wanted to make sure players anywhere could get a hold of cactus with a bit of searching.
To compensate for the removal of diamonds and iron from buried treasure loot an enchanted fishing rod felt like a thematically and functionally appropriate reward for the player, especially when considering the changes to fishing rods
Enchanted bows were put in desert pyramids to account for the removal of diamonds and iron ingots from their loot tables. This also contributed to the removal of enchanted bows from fishing treasure loot.
Netherite scrap was put in place of ancient debris because shulker shells could be found in bastion chests now, and because the ender chest recipe used ancient debris in its crafting recipe. I didnt want bastions to be the one stop shop for inventory upgrades, so I decided to make bastions the pve challenge for inventory upgrades and to make nether mining the resource gathering challenge for inventory upgrades.
Shulker shells were put in bastion chests because I think bastions are genuinely the most difficult and enjoyable pure PVE experiences in the game, and also because access to the end was severely reduced with the eye of ender recipe change. I still wanted the player to have access to shulkers, and this creates a smoother upgrade path for shulkers where you can get shulkers non-renewably in the nether, but for unlocking the end you can get renewable shulkers.
Ancient city loot tables were becoming one stop shops for the eye of ender recipe, so I removed bottles o enchanting as they were already pretty widely obtainable compared to most eye of ender ingredients.
I wanted to create an in game solution for renewable sand as sand is great but manually harvesting it sucks. Having husks drop sand felt a bit over played, so I figured a drowned farm might be more interesting. The drop requirements are to prevent the player from using reinforcement based farms.
Fishing loot table rework is discussed in the fishing section
I thought treasure maps were really cool, but the existing cartographer system I felt was pretty inadequate, and the buried treasure system lacked variety. Additionally, the importance and difficulty of exploration is quite higher compared to vanilla, so I wanted to give the player a chance at some quality of life and a potentially meaningful reward for exploration that wasnt just diamonds.
World Generation
Nether coordinates now scale 1:1 with overworld coordinates (from 1:8)
Village hay bales have been replaced with oak logs
Pillager outpost generation rate slightly increased
Shipwreck generation rate slightly decreased
Village hay bales have been replaced with oak logs
Pillager outpost generation rate slightly increased
Shipwreck generation rate slightly decreased
Justifications
In playtesting, changing the nether coordinate scaling made for significantly more enjoyable minecart creation and ridership, in every way. Cannot be overstated. Every single aspect of minecarts as transportation was significantly improved by this change. This change has some pretty big ramifications, but a lot of effort went into creating additional features that mitigate the problematic consequences while preserving the benefits.
Hay bale change is covered in the food section.
A few of the changes made in this pack make raids a bit more important, and in playtesting finding a pillager outpost felt a bit too rare without lucking out and getting a treasure map to one, so I made them a bit less rare.
During playtesting finding shipwrecks started feeling more like a mandatory chore rather than a reward, so I made them appear less frequently.
Hay bale change is covered in the food section.
A few of the changes made in this pack make raids a bit more important, and in playtesting finding a pillager outpost felt a bit too rare without lucking out and getting a treasure map to one, so I made them a bit less rare.
During playtesting finding shipwrecks started feeling more like a mandatory chore rather than a reward, so I made them appear less frequently.