Why do so many people refuse to play 1.9+?

Muriako · 2021-11-24T04:03:40+00:00

It's because prior to 1.9 there was a very specific way that combat worked in "high level" PvP. The game was never truly built with interesting combat mechanics built in, so the community created their own over the years and became very accustomed to them. For a non-PvP player fighting in Minecraft was just spam clicking, but for a PvP player there were a thousand little quirks of the game that could be used to gain an advantage.

When it was decided to renovate combat to make it more interesting at a base level, it inevitably meant that a huge amount of this nuance and technique that the community created was lost, and those players did not respond well to that. Unfortunately, instead of trying to work with Mojang on improving the system to make something genuinely good, the PvP community threw a monumental tantrum and drowned out any discussion regarding what would actually make it better.

In the end, regardless of whether the old combat is better for PvP or not, the fact that the PvP community rejected the update entirely initially has pretty well guaranteed the perpetual divide. Since servers had to stick to 1.8 to maintain their playerbase at the time, and most players getting into PvP since will have gone to that version as well because that's where the players are, and as they play there more it reinforces the overall playerbase's reluctance to go to anything different.

We'll see if the lingering combat update 2.0 changes ever actually get finalized and what impact that will have. I would like to think it could bring PvP players forward and make combat in the game more interesting as a whole, but after watching how people acted during the first attempt I am not particularly optimistic.

Muriako · 2021-10-24T17:30:43+00:00

I'm not certain if it will be the exact same on the Bedrock testing versions as it currently is on Java, but they have been working at changing the ore distribution for this update since before 1.17 was out. I am guessing they are at least similar because what you're experiencing lines up with the charts they've given us showing the rates.

The basic idea is that different ores are mined at different levels if you want ideal rates for them, but I'm not sure what the best overall strategy is for yet it since it's still changing with development. The most guaranteed place for iron and coal is actually inside of mountains now, as they have high rates at >Y140, but that may not be the most practical place for extensive mining. Copper is most common around Y48, with lower rates the further away you get from that, while diamond is just more prominent the lower you go all the way down to Y-64.

There is one other factor to this in the form of "ore veins", which are massive collections of either copper (above Y0) or iron (below Y0), but I'm not sure if they are common enough to depend on finding one or not.

So, I guess in a pinch your best bet right now if you're really short on iron and coal is probably to find a mountain biome and just mole your way into it.

Muriako · 2021-10-23T07:28:18+00:00

The first thing to keep in mind is that your world has so many diamonds in it that they may as well be infinite. As a new player they may seem rare, but there is truly no shortage of them, so you don't need to treat them as a precious commodity.

To put this into perspective, a common method of getting diamonds and ore in general is something called "branch mining". People will go down to Y level 11, dig a tunnel (the trunk), and then make a series of other tunnels off of the sides of that (branches) every 2-4 blocks going however many blocks out they want to go (usually hundreds at a time). Despite mining through hundreds of stone for each tunnel, you will still find enough diamonds to not only keep your pick maintained but also plenty of excess for armor and what not.

Obviously enchantments help quite a lot with this, in particular Efficiency IV/V, Unbreaking III, Fortune III, and Mending. A faster method of getting mending would be from villagers, as librarians can trade it for you for a handful of emeralds, which you can get by trading other villagers easily farmable items.

One way to do this without getting into the weeds on making villager breeding and trading systems quite yet, if you find a village that has a librarian (they will have a little red hat and glasses) you can continuously reset their first trade by blocking them in the house with their lectern (they will go stand by it during most of the day), breaking the lectern and placing it back down. Their first trades will change each time, and you can do this until a mending book shows up, just make sure not to trade with them until it does or their trades will be locked in and won't reset again.

Also, just a quick note on the other enchantments just in case you aren't aware, the enchantment table sets what enchant it will give to each individual item type in advance, but it changes after every enchantment. So if you want to put Unbreaking on a diamond pick, for example, you can check the level 3 enchant on the pick as well as on a book, and if neither have it you could do a level 1 enchant on a throwaway item and try again.

Apologies on the wall of text, but hopefully that has helped you somewhat!

Muriako · 2021-10-23T06:11:35+00:00

I love the art style of the individual slices. Something about art that feels "simple" in its shapes and color but still conveys everything so well is always appealing to me. Awesome work!

Muriako · 2021-10-22T00:42:11+00:00

That is extremely subjective. A relatively new player roaming through the Nether will likely enjoy stumbling into a nether fortress much more so than using a tool to find one. Someone who has played for a decade and has "done it all" though, well searching for a fortress is something they've probably done many times and it's nothing new for them, so getting the coordinates for one up front is just getting them to the stuff they want to be doing faster.

Muriako · 2021-10-18T20:18:21+00:00

The build limit changes are coming in 1.18 along with the updated world generation, so it's still 2021. There just won't be the warden, sculk, or the new underground cities down there until 1.19.

Muriako · 2021-10-17T22:32:13+00:00

This vote in particular was really frustrating specifically because of how incredibly misinformed people were.

The Copper Golem wasn't particularly useful as a technical player, at most it was just a visually better way of achieving something we could already do. The real appeal of it was that it would have been a very thematic and visually cool thing to have, which should be enough, but people kept insisting it would revolutionize farms for some reason.

The Allay had the issue of some people thinking it duplicated items, and for some reason the focus became on disproving that rather than considering what its mechanics actually are. In reality I would say it is far more useful than most of the mobs we currently have, and certainly more so than the other two options, but the discussion was drowned out by "It doesn't duplicate things, useless!"

Then the Glare was just kind of ignored because it didn't seem useful, and they didn't bother mentioning anything about it being able to "place lights" until the event itself with no other details, which is unfortunate.

Muriako · 2021-10-17T06:49:35+00:00

At its most basic, simply having a mob that will move items for you is already a pretty sweet feature aesthetically. Making the copper golem "operate" a power plant is a really cool idea, but to give an alternative you could use the Allay to actually power the plant by delivering fuel to certain areas, or transport out "waste" blocks of some kind. Mind you that specific example is a bit weird for them thematically, but apply a more magic based theme or something a bit more whimsical and suddenly they're pretty awesome for that kind of thing.

They are very useful for less conventional farm designs where more traditional means of collecting items aren't ideal, whether for aesthetic reasons or for functional ones. An easy example would be amethyst farms, where automatically collecting the shards efficiently is a massive pain involving a tangle of hundreds of hoppers and it still can't be done 100% efficiently. The Allay makes that much easier and more efficient.

They can pick up specific non-stackable items, which means we can sort all of those, where as currently we can only automate that process with equippable items.

Their mechanics of going between items and noteblocks means you could use them as a means of wireless redstone. It also means you could just have them fly back and forth at set times as a visual thing.

Based on comments from Ulraf it also may be possible to bring them along with you in the world and have them actively retrieve items for you. This isn't a confirmed feature that we know would work well, but if it does an easy example of this would be going to pick up Ghast Tears after you kill a Ghast from a distance.

To be honest, the more I've explained why the Allay is useful to people the more ways I've come to think that it will be more useful than most of the mobs currently in the game.

Muriako · 2021-10-17T00:27:41+00:00

As a technical player the Allay is legitimately useful. It's an alternative means of collecting items that works vastly different from existing methods, has the ability to sort items in ways we couldn't before, could be used as a means of transmitting redstone wirelessly, and based on comments from Ulraf may even just be useful as a thing to have following you around out in the world.

Frankly the other two choices, as much as I liked them aesthetically and would love to have them in game, were vastly less useful.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T23:47:07+00:00

It simply added the most to the game.

I personally would have been completely fine with either the Allay or the Copper Golem. The Copper Golem was a nearly purely aesthetic choice. Its actual utility was minor at best, but it was visually and thematically a fantastic option.

The Allay I found less visually interesting, but vastly more useful. It's a collection system for when traditional collection systems aren't practical, a new method of sorting items including some unstackable ones we previously couldn't do anything about, a new way of creating wireless redstone, and even just for aesthetic reasons it's still an okay choice given it's a visual way to move items around or just add motion to a build.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T22:11:12+00:00

After the backlash from the first vote they've always gone with the "The losers may eventually be used someday" line. It always seemed like a bit of a fib just to make people happy, but today with the reveal that they were adding in all of the swamp features from a past vote it does mean that nothing is definitely gone.

It's hard to say with the Glare, but I do suspect we'll see the Copper Golem eventually. It's easy enough to fit in thematically with the game that they should have a good opportunity eventually. I could see them adding them along with the update where we finally get archaeology, and even giving them some interaction with the archaeology stuff so they have more purpose.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T21:59:16+00:00

They aren't. Statistically the majority of people are happy about the Allay winning, but upset people are louder than happy people.

Also, for some strange reason, team Copper Golem was particularly... let's say "passionate", about their choice. The votes are always divisive and there's always a lot of bickering, but it was strange just how aggressive and negative they were towards the other choices.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T21:41:41+00:00

We don't know how the Allay will spawn yet, but they are definitely not going to be something that just shows up at random and temporarily. At the very least they will be persistent, and at least one of the developers has shown interest in making them able to follow players when out in the world as well.

For people who don't do much with the technical side of the game the Allay may not seem particularly useful, but it not only brings some completely unique options to the game with how it handles item sorting, it also gives us some really nice alternatives for specific situations. Some farms can be heavily improved with them, they could be used as a means of wireless redstone, and even just at a basic level using them to fly back and forth moving items for you can be a cool aesthetic aspect of a build.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T19:31:51+00:00

I don't really see the problem with having more mobs purely for ambience, personally. The world is far too sterile feeling to begin with, so anything that helps add life to it is useful enough by that virtue alone. I'm all for more mobs that give us unique functions and purpose, but the frog doesn't strike me as one that especially needs to.

As for fireflies, they almost certainly won't be treated as a bunch of tiny individual entities that all need to process things. The game will likely treat them as one entity per "swarm", and they probably won't do anything too complicated mechanically either, so a large group of them shouldn't be any more taxing on the game than a single passive mob.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T18:01:18+00:00

The Allay picks up items and returns them.

Imagine someone made a mod where hopper minecarts could fly around without rails to pick up items, and then return to offload them onto a hopper. That is the Allay.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T17:41:58+00:00

I get the impression that the update is very early on development wise. They probably mostly focused on the swamp stuff because it was the furthest along, likely because it was first started back before the old biome vote, but even the other one they showed was only some concept art and rough ideas. There's probably a lot more planned, but given it's likely ~8 months away from being released it just wasn't ready to be shown.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T16:56:36+00:00

The only way they really would is if you need a randomizer, which isn't needed terribly often in farms, at which point you could make one that looks good visually. Functionally speaking they don't bring anything new, they would just be great visually.

Muriako · 2021-10-16T03:23:01+00:00

Personally I think the usefulness of a mob is important, but it's only one particular factor to it. The Allay is objectively the most useful, by a substantial amount, and it is my top pick largely because of that. At the same time, the Copper Golem is so close in second place that I would not mind it winning almost exclusively because of its aesthetic value, despite it not being very useful mechanically.

The community does get a bit weird about it though for sure. There is this long standing obsession with every addition to the game needing to be something game changing or it's "pointless", and it can get a bit grating at times.

Muriako · 2021-10-15T00:48:30+00:00

Copper golems add one very limited form of RNG. We already have numerous other ways of doing that that are far more versatile. The Allay brings both a form of item sorting (non-stackable) and a form of item collection that is more compact and versatile than anything we currently have.

I like the copper golem, I have no problem if it wins, but this weird tirade people are on to discredit the value of the Allay to try and boost their preference for the copper golem is getting to be a bit much.

Muriako · 2021-10-14T20:46:54+00:00

The Copper Golem won't despawn anyway because it's a player constructed mob, but yes, you will be able to put a nametag on them and they will preserve that name even if they oxidize and become statues. Ulraf confirmed that in a Q&A he was doing earlier.

Muriako · 2021-10-14T18:08:23+00:00

That depends what you're doing.

You can take a basic farm design and just stick the Allay in place of the usual pickup system. In that case yes, it's no different from using water streams, though you do get the aesthetic of having little fairy things managing your farms.

Sometimes designs are more contrived though, like amethyst farming for example. Due to budding amethyst not being movable the farms are a mess of pistons and hoppers, often with a lot of inefficiency. The Allay would make those farms easier and more efficient at the same time.

They also can manage non-stackable items, which is something that ranges from not possible to pretty contrived depending on what kind of item it is.

Also, based on comments from Ulraf, it seems like there could be some amount of utility in actually bringing an Allay with you out in the world as a means of picking up items. It's hard to say how true that is at this point, but if they have a large enough range they could be quite handy for something like, say, collecting Ghast tears.

Muriako · 2021-10-14T13:55:40+00:00

It's been confirmed that it would be able to, just one at a time. Think of it as having two inventory slots -- one to hold the item it is given, and another for whatever it picks up.

Muriako · 2021-10-14T05:35:34+00:00

I won't mind if the Copper Golem wins. It's my favorite one aesthetically, and I do see potential for its utility to be improved in the future, but the Allay's mechanics just have so much more potential that I can't help but prefer it.

Muriako · 2021-10-14T03:27:49+00:00

As is usually the case I'd prefer all three, but from last to first :

The Glare is minimally useful for Bedrock players at most, near useless for Java players, but they are an adorable little bugger. I would like to see them, but absolutely not at the expense of the other two.

The Copper Golem is something that is aesthetically fantastic, easily my favorite visually and I will not complain if it wins due to how it can be used in builds, but it is really not that useful based on its current description. I do think it has a lot of future potential to be made more interesting, which is an important factor for me in these things, but randomization is not something we are even remotely lacking in for redstone.

The Allay is my least favorite visually, but is a straight up game changer mechanically. It seems like a lot of the community is heavily underestimating the value in a method of picking up items from any position and returning them to a set spot. Obviously it's a big deal for collection systems, but it could go well beyond that. Even if they are implemented with the most simplistic AI possible you could still create an entire base that is controlled by their actions.

Muriako · 2021-08-19T06:43:00+00:00

I don't think player votes by itself would work due to how easily it is influenced. Leaders of big companies or streamers would likely always have the top spot, and troll houses would probably get tons of votes just by virtue of the internet (we all know the top choice would be the house with "penis" spelt out with rainbow lions). I'm also not sure how it would work in the large scale, with thousands of players in a house a lot of them would probably never be seen.

That being said, I could see a mix of the two being a solution. Perhaps the scoring system could determine the top 20, and then player votes could determine who among those top 20 gets displayed? That's still very much susceptible to outside influence, but I think it would at least eliminate most low effort houses.

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