Minecraft Dev Tracker

The biggest problem I see with 1.9 is that it's harder for new players to understand. The feedback is also quite consistent that 1.9 doesn't work as well for PvP.

Since the end goal is to bring Java and Bedrock to parity, I need to be careful of what changes we want to bring to the millions of Bedrock players.

It's correct that these changes make Java Edition considerably easier in PvE.

I will think about it (endlag), but Minecraft is a bit different to most other games. I think I want to find something that keeps the simple and fun.

It's true that "most" players won't know about the reach bonus and that's fine. It's primarily intended as a concept for PvP. Competitive players will learn systems on a different level. One example is w-tapping, which has little use to a casual PvE player.

You can still "spam click", but from playtesting it was clear that the timed +1 reach attack added tactical options and played better.

Here's combat test snapshot version 7c!

I received some 3000 comments on the last post, and also got help from players testing some PvP changes (hence version "c"), so a number of changes have been reverted back to be more similar to version 5. This is a good thing, because now it feels like we're getting closer to a simple - yet deep and exciting - design for the combat mechanics.

Features that have been changed back:

• Returned the attack indicator
• Returned the "200% time" attacks (let's call them "charged" attacks) and the +1 reach bonus
• Returned sweeping to only work for charged attacks and when having the Sweeping enchantment
• Returned base reach to 2.5 blocks
• Removed the bow inaccuracy for holding too long
• Removed the eating interruption for getting hit

Features that have been adjusted:

• Missed attacks are still fast, but they don't count as charged. Because of how the programm...

Oh great catch! I've forgotten to update the Netherite items in this branch

Great feedback.

Yes I agree, shields should block explosions. I should look more closely on the damage types and make exceptions for more than just projectiles.

Regarding the armor vs weapon balance. The reason why we needed to make armor weaker was because the difference between having armor and no armor was too big. We had to give mobs really high attack values to make them matter for armored players, but non-armored would get slammered.

And then players already deal damage similar to the strongest mobs (Ravagers deal 12, which is similar to a crit by a player). Tuning this down slightly felt like the right move.

Regarding food I think there will be opportunities to add variety to food types, but I'd also like to make potions better somehow.

I'd rather improve potions somehow

Initially I actually had 6 (3 hearts) but lowered it to 5 so that a non-crit diamond sword would pass through one point of damage.

Another reason for lowering it was that it allows us to add better shields in the future. One suggestion was that a banner on a shield would increase its strength by 1, but this feature isn't implemented on Bedrock yet.

Yes, in the next version I've reintroduced the charged attacks. Adds more options.

Regarding auto-attack... One of the reasons for the combat tests is to bring Java and Bedrock to parity. It will be greatly helpful when we are designing features in the future. But on Bedrock we have millions of controller players, and being able to hold the trigger to attack is a necessity. Removing auto-attack from Java, or putting large penalties to it, will move us out of parity again.

Note: This is a test snapshot, not to be confused with the 1.16.2 pre-releases!

After half a year of hiatus, here's version 6 of the combat test snapshots!

Again there are some radical changes, which means we're still not ready to move on to phase 2 of the tests (which means, fewer system changes and more focused on number balancing). If you have a keen eye you will notice that we are slowly progressing more and more towards something similar to 1.8, but recent twitter comments are saying v5 was great, so... I'm trying to find the sweet spot. Remember, squeaky wheel gets the oil!

Changes compared to previous test

Redesigned aim assist again. Different approach this time, NO LESS CONTROVERSIAL!

• Removed "Coyote Time"
• Entities with bounding boxes that are smaller than 0.9 of a block are inflated (for targeting purposes) to be 0.9 of a block (rabbits, bats, etc)
• Swords always have sweeping...

Hey hey hey!

Here is the fifth version of the combat mechanics tests. The snapshot is based on the 1.15.2 pre-release, but is - as always - not compatible with the main game.

This snapshot contains some rather impactful changes. The reason is that I'm trying to pinpoint the problems of 1.9 PvP while making sure PvE still feels enjoyable. There have been two major - though slightly contradictory - points of feedback.

First, armor is too weak and barely matter. In particular low quality armor. Secondly, 1.9's food regeneration encourages defensive and evasive gameplay. The first problem makes fights too quick, and the second problem makes them drag out and feel boring.

After a lot of thinking on these problems I decideded to make the following main changes:

• Make weapons weaker
• Remove the regeneration boost from food saturation

In detail, weapons:

• Stone tier lowered to +0 (same as wood, was +1)
• ...

That's cool! When I brought this up internally, it turned out that people already had been game-jamming similar things for Bedrock. We'll see what happens in the future.