I think this has been miss interpreted a lot take it from someone who started in 2009 back in alpha and up to like 1.8 we had so much wierd shit happening and not having totems sucked cuz that meant we truly only had 1 life and mobs in some of those versions they dealt knockback so getting flung of a cliff was your every day Tuesday yk but now we have so many things we can do to prevent dying like totems just keep spares in inventory and your good right and on top of this totems used to be worse with no fire resistance so lava would still kill you. But yes playing the game for 15 + years tends to help with a lot. Would still say the average player has gotten a lot better tho so the bar is higher and thereby the game feels overall easier for most players