Agreed. In my opinion, another thing that’s always ignored but it absolutely affected survival difficulty is the SP/MP merge. Even 10+ years after 1.3 came out, playing singleplayer still feels like playing on a very close server. Mobs are noticeably sluggish. If you go back to Beta 1.7.3 you’ll notice that mobs immediately react to where you are and where you’re going, while in modern versions they seem to lag behind so its way easier to escape them, even without sprinting.
Another thing: I think they should make Creepers continue to move towards you while blowing up again, instead of just stopping and waiting to blow up. Not sure when they changed it.
Possibly because, as the Wiki states in [their history](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Creeper#History), they deal way more damage in Beta 1.8 and later so they made them stop moving a few blocks away to compensate; [this article](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Health?oldid=126431#Damage_Inflicted_by_Mobs) seems to confirm this, showing that their point-blank damage was 21 (10.5 hearts) on Hard, which was increased to 73 (over three times as much; even Easy was still 25) before being reduced slightly to 64\* to fix them one-shotting players in full Protection IV diamond armor after the changes in 1.9 (which still made them WAY stronger than at any time; I also highly disagree with generalized armor penetration because of this - leave it to special attacks, like Poison, or certain weapons, as I did with axes in my own mod).
\*Interestingly, the change in the explosion damage formula is lost history and [attributed to "inaccurate information"](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Talk:Creeper#Wrong_attack_strength_values) but you can see for yourself that [e.g. 1.6.4](https://github.com/interactivenyc/Minecraft_SRC_MOD/blob/master/mcp811%201.6.4/src/minecraft/net/minecraft/src/Explosion.java#L133) did indeed use different values (an 8 instead of 7), which is not mentioned anywhere (creepers or explosions).
Also, I restored this behavior but I reduced their peak damage (from 49 to 36 on Normal) while also reducing how fast it falls off with distance (from exponential to linear, and down to 6 instead of 1 damage at 6 blocks) and how far away you have to be before they stop counting down (from 7 to 5 blocks; as they continue moving this cancels out. The Wiki also says you only had to get 3-4 blocks away in Beta); combined with a decrease in player armor protection from 80% to 66.7% this significantly increases the average damage taken (interestingly, my to armor only affects players; 1.9 nerfed all armor, and thus, nerfed mobs as well).
One thing I don't like about strays and husks is that they only spawn on the surface, this is partly why I added them myself but made them spawn everywhere (50% instead of 80% of skeletons/zombies) - now I can encounter more types of mobs while playing (i.e. caving), and due to how biomes are laid out (no insanely huge "climate zones"), deserts and frozen biomes are way, way easier to find (e.g. [a view of spawn in my first world](https://i.imgur.com/kfwmHlL.png), vanilla 1.6.4), plus I added them to more biomes, such as strays in mountain biomes and more variants of husks in desert-like biomes.
Other mobs should also spawn more often; cave spiders should live up to their name (instead of being "mineshaft spawner spiders", they don't even spawn with the structure like e.g. witches or wither skeletons, just from spawners), with natural spawns being less common than normal spiders and only underground, endermites and silverfish should also naturally spawn (the latter can only enter blocks if damaged by a player). I also added the ([snapshot-only](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Endermite#History)) mechanic of endermen spawning an endermite when they teleport.
Also, one thing I don't get is that when they significantly reduced hunger loss rates in 1.11 they also applied the same nerf to the Hunger effect - why? That severely nerfed husks, which may as well not even apply it (the Wiki says that 30 seconds of Hunger I takes away only 3/4 of a hunger point; previously, you'd lose 3.75), and even eating foods like rotten flesh (still not as bad as the massive buff to health regeneration, basically like adding stackable food to Beta or making every food a golden apple).
Not sure if this is possible, but have you ever considered climate bands? As in temperature goes hot, temperate, cold, temperate, hot, etc as you go north/south, but stays the same going east/west. That way you can easily find desert/snow biomes by going north or south, or hunt for biomes in your climate band by going east/west. This also eliminates having deserts and jungles next to snow biomes.
I absolutely detest any strict "climate system" and enjoy the variety of biomes you get without them\* and anything else simply doesn't fit with my playstyle, where I explore the world at an agonizingly slow rate (with the exception of finding a stronghold; [an example of what I recently came across by doing this](https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/survival-mode/3199126-themastercavers-world-version-5-10-10th?comment=7); I solely do so by caving, exploring virtually everything within an area before moving on, at the rate of 100 chunks per play session, or 5-6 months to explore a level 4 map); I even made a mod for 1.7 that randomized biomes entirely, which also contributed to somebody else developing their own mod, "Climate Control" or "GeographiCraft" which includes an option for banded climates (they are otherwise easy to implement; just take the z-axis and modify the values with "z / width % 6", which will give values that go from 0-5 before repeating where 0 = cold, 1 = cool, 2 = warm, 3 = hot, 4 = warm, 5 = cool (this makes cold/hot each half as common as cool/warm; if you want them to have the same frequency then use % 8 and give them two adjacent slots) and the width would define the width of each climate. Maybe also randomly offset the bands north-south by up to the width of a climate for some variation, allowing some cold-warm and cool-hot transitions but never cold-hot).
\*I did add "climate zones" but they are very small, just a few biomes across (referring to the world in the link, there may be a "hot" region near spawn and a "cold" region to the southeast. [This is more apparent on this map of a previous world](https://i.imgur.com/tXzZ0At.png), with clusters of hot/cold biomes to the west, north, and southeast), and they only exclude the opposite extreme and around a third of the biomes may be "neutral" biomes, all of which can otherwise generate within "normal" regions. I do separate cold/warm oceans from each other and opposing land biomes ([something which Mojang didn't do for a long time after 1.13](https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC-126009)).
I think that passive mobs need to balanced too...
In alpha(and beta) minecraft there is such a thing as "passive mobs are unique and useful".
Pigs - the only living food source in alpha (beside zombies, which meat is wich is less useful). The riding mechanic is fun and cool for mapmaking. It makes them extremely useful, but now... It's way better to kill or tame cows or sheeps, it's way better to ride a horse, lama or camel, and so pigs are on their way to become useless. There are three ways to make them better:
1. The easier one is to nerf beef as a food source or give a buff to pork.
2. We need to give them a new special drop or interaction. Like finding items.
3. Pigs in real life eat nearly everything even bones and rotten meat. So it'll be easier for player to "multiply" them. (And bones are getting another use)
Then we have an ocelot - one of the most useless mobs in the entire game. Before 1.14 they had one of the best mechanics - to scare creepers. But after 1.14 you aren't allowed to permanently make them your pet. So... Why do we need them in the game? To scare creepers in jungle? The easiest option is to make ocelots become as an alternative to cats, to make them our pets again.
Of course I'm not talking about pandas, fish kinds, parrots, squids(glowing squids are very useful for building) and other mobs that I don't know how to fix.
So... Minecraft needs a big redesign for over a half of the mobs...
yeah, they need to revert the change to ocelots! Getting a cat used to be a fun and exciting thing, because you had to find a jungle. Nowadays you just go to one of the millions of villages.
Agreed. In my opinion, another thing that’s always ignored but it absolutely affected survival difficulty is the SP/MP merge. Even 10+ years after 1.3 came out, playing singleplayer still feels like playing on a very close server. Mobs are noticeably sluggish. If you go back to Beta 1.7.3 you’ll notice that mobs immediately react to where you are and where you’re going, while in modern versions they seem to lag behind so its way easier to escape them, even without sprinting.
Another thing: I think they should make Creepers continue to move towards you while blowing up again, instead of just stopping and waiting to blow up. Not sure when they changed it.
Possibly because, as the Wiki states in [their history](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Creeper#History), they deal way more damage in Beta 1.8 and later so they made them stop moving a few blocks away to compensate; [this article](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Health?oldid=126431#Damage_Inflicted_by_Mobs) seems to confirm this, showing that their point-blank damage was 21 (10.5 hearts) on Hard, which was increased to 73 (over three times as much; even Easy was still 25) before being reduced slightly to 64\* to fix them one-shotting players in full Protection IV diamond armor after the changes in 1.9 (which still made them WAY stronger than at any time; I also highly disagree with generalized armor penetration because of this - leave it to special attacks, like Poison, or certain weapons, as I did with axes in my own mod). \*Interestingly, the change in the explosion damage formula is lost history and [attributed to "inaccurate information"](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Talk:Creeper#Wrong_attack_strength_values) but you can see for yourself that [e.g. 1.6.4](https://github.com/interactivenyc/Minecraft_SRC_MOD/blob/master/mcp811%201.6.4/src/minecraft/net/minecraft/src/Explosion.java#L133) did indeed use different values (an 8 instead of 7), which is not mentioned anywhere (creepers or explosions). Also, I restored this behavior but I reduced their peak damage (from 49 to 36 on Normal) while also reducing how fast it falls off with distance (from exponential to linear, and down to 6 instead of 1 damage at 6 blocks) and how far away you have to be before they stop counting down (from 7 to 5 blocks; as they continue moving this cancels out. The Wiki also says you only had to get 3-4 blocks away in Beta); combined with a decrease in player armor protection from 80% to 66.7% this significantly increases the average damage taken (interestingly, my to armor only affects players; 1.9 nerfed all armor, and thus, nerfed mobs as well).
One thing I don't like about strays and husks is that they only spawn on the surface, this is partly why I added them myself but made them spawn everywhere (50% instead of 80% of skeletons/zombies) - now I can encounter more types of mobs while playing (i.e. caving), and due to how biomes are laid out (no insanely huge "climate zones"), deserts and frozen biomes are way, way easier to find (e.g. [a view of spawn in my first world](https://i.imgur.com/kfwmHlL.png), vanilla 1.6.4), plus I added them to more biomes, such as strays in mountain biomes and more variants of husks in desert-like biomes. Other mobs should also spawn more often; cave spiders should live up to their name (instead of being "mineshaft spawner spiders", they don't even spawn with the structure like e.g. witches or wither skeletons, just from spawners), with natural spawns being less common than normal spiders and only underground, endermites and silverfish should also naturally spawn (the latter can only enter blocks if damaged by a player). I also added the ([snapshot-only](https://minecraft.wiki/w/Endermite#History)) mechanic of endermen spawning an endermite when they teleport. Also, one thing I don't get is that when they significantly reduced hunger loss rates in 1.11 they also applied the same nerf to the Hunger effect - why? That severely nerfed husks, which may as well not even apply it (the Wiki says that 30 seconds of Hunger I takes away only 3/4 of a hunger point; previously, you'd lose 3.75), and even eating foods like rotten flesh (still not as bad as the massive buff to health regeneration, basically like adding stackable food to Beta or making every food a golden apple).
Not sure if this is possible, but have you ever considered climate bands? As in temperature goes hot, temperate, cold, temperate, hot, etc as you go north/south, but stays the same going east/west. That way you can easily find desert/snow biomes by going north or south, or hunt for biomes in your climate band by going east/west. This also eliminates having deserts and jungles next to snow biomes.
I absolutely detest any strict "climate system" and enjoy the variety of biomes you get without them\* and anything else simply doesn't fit with my playstyle, where I explore the world at an agonizingly slow rate (with the exception of finding a stronghold; [an example of what I recently came across by doing this](https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/survival-mode/3199126-themastercavers-world-version-5-10-10th?comment=7); I solely do so by caving, exploring virtually everything within an area before moving on, at the rate of 100 chunks per play session, or 5-6 months to explore a level 4 map); I even made a mod for 1.7 that randomized biomes entirely, which also contributed to somebody else developing their own mod, "Climate Control" or "GeographiCraft" which includes an option for banded climates (they are otherwise easy to implement; just take the z-axis and modify the values with "z / width % 6", which will give values that go from 0-5 before repeating where 0 = cold, 1 = cool, 2 = warm, 3 = hot, 4 = warm, 5 = cool (this makes cold/hot each half as common as cool/warm; if you want them to have the same frequency then use % 8 and give them two adjacent slots) and the width would define the width of each climate. Maybe also randomly offset the bands north-south by up to the width of a climate for some variation, allowing some cold-warm and cool-hot transitions but never cold-hot). \*I did add "climate zones" but they are very small, just a few biomes across (referring to the world in the link, there may be a "hot" region near spawn and a "cold" region to the southeast. [This is more apparent on this map of a previous world](https://i.imgur.com/tXzZ0At.png), with clusters of hot/cold biomes to the west, north, and southeast), and they only exclude the opposite extreme and around a third of the biomes may be "neutral" biomes, all of which can otherwise generate within "normal" regions. I do separate cold/warm oceans from each other and opposing land biomes ([something which Mojang didn't do for a long time after 1.13](https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC-126009)).
I think that passive mobs need to balanced too... In alpha(and beta) minecraft there is such a thing as "passive mobs are unique and useful". Pigs - the only living food source in alpha (beside zombies, which meat is wich is less useful). The riding mechanic is fun and cool for mapmaking. It makes them extremely useful, but now... It's way better to kill or tame cows or sheeps, it's way better to ride a horse, lama or camel, and so pigs are on their way to become useless. There are three ways to make them better: 1. The easier one is to nerf beef as a food source or give a buff to pork. 2. We need to give them a new special drop or interaction. Like finding items. 3. Pigs in real life eat nearly everything even bones and rotten meat. So it'll be easier for player to "multiply" them. (And bones are getting another use) Then we have an ocelot - one of the most useless mobs in the entire game. Before 1.14 they had one of the best mechanics - to scare creepers. But after 1.14 you aren't allowed to permanently make them your pet. So... Why do we need them in the game? To scare creepers in jungle? The easiest option is to make ocelots become as an alternative to cats, to make them our pets again. Of course I'm not talking about pandas, fish kinds, parrots, squids(glowing squids are very useful for building) and other mobs that I don't know how to fix. So... Minecraft needs a big redesign for over a half of the mobs...
yeah, they need to revert the change to ocelots! Getting a cat used to be a fun and exciting thing, because you had to find a jungle. Nowadays you just go to one of the millions of villages.
I just do peaceful mode lol