Minecraft Ideas Academy – Why Minecraft Updates Take Time

Minecraft is the biggest game of all time, with over 200 million copies sold. It has an extremely simple premise, but the amount of freedom the player has results in a rather complex game to design for. Ideas might seem easy to think of, because Minecraft draws

A lot of inspiration from real life, and has a SEEMINGLY generic fantasy theme. And due to its potential, there will always be a part of the game that can be expanded upon. Because of this, players might be fooled into believing development is very easy, and wonder why updates

Take so long to come out, especially since a large portion of the Caves and Cliffs update was postponed to the end of the year. Let’s explore why updating Minecraft is so complex, and what really goes on in the development process – there will even be an opportunity

To take part in some development yourself! A common criticism I see of Mojang’s development process is how mods seemingly take less time to implement content on a similar level of quality to vanilla updates. This speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of how much effort goes into designing new content. YouTubers

Sometimes release videos claiming to have made updates early, by installing a bunch of mods that superficially resemble announced content. One such video, made after Village and Pillage was announced, featured mods with villages that were identical to the old ones, animals with little depth, and scaffolding and crossbows that were far less polished

Than their vanilla counterparts. And Pillagers, workstations and the trading overhaul were nowhere to be seen. Even if the latter two had been showcased at Minecon, I doubt there would have been any mods that sufficiently resemble them. Village and Pillage’s content was constantly iterated upon, resulting in a more cohesive

Experience. Iteration is at the heart of game design – ideas need to be refined, prototyped, adjusted and tested many times. What matters is not the surface level idea, but its implementation. Minecraft’s scaffolding, for example, has convenient placement mechanics, movement physics,

A larger range and the ability to create new columns from falling blocks. It took many iterations and much discussion to settle on that specific design, the overwhelming majority of which we never saw! And you can always iterate further – I made a few suggestions

On how to improve their usability in a video a while back. The main idea in that video, however, required an algorithm that would either have to be computationally expensive or have a lot of unintended side-effects. Making sure your idea actually works in the

Game is all part of the iteration process. When all this work is already done for you, of course it would be easy to recreate the concept in a mod. If mods want to reach Mojang’s current standard of quality, they too need to iterate. I’m

Attempting to do some iteration of my own, with an enchantment I mentioned in my video on the Cave Update. Called Momentum, it speeds up tools with every consecutive block of the same type mined, making it useful for mining large amounts of the same block quickly, such

As obsidian or ore veins. In fact, it’s an adaptation of the popular modded ore vein miner enchantment, but avoids breaking Minecraft’s “One Block at a Time” design principle. The general idea of a tool that speeds up has a lot of potential use cases – meaning

Players can have fun experimenting with it, but it could upset the enchantment meta. If its maximum speed is uncapped, it could potentially make Efficiency 5 netherite tools and Haste 2 beacons obsolete, which are used in tandem to instamine many blocks in vanilla. If its

Maximum speed is capped below instamine, then it wouldn’t mine ores any faster than an Efficiency 5 netherite pickaxe. And since they are meant to have their own niches, I made Efficiency and Momentum mutually exclusive – you can’t have both enchantments on the same tool.

I had to get constant feedback from players in the technical community and others at endgame, so I could figure out how to balance this enchantment. I considered nerfing its speed-up rate, but that would make ores slower to mine. Adding a durability penalty to instamining

Had potential, but XP farms make repairs with Mending a breeze. I also considered making it only work on certain blocks, but that proved unintuitive and arbitrary. What I settled on was allowing only the first several blocks to be instaminable, unless the player also

Had Haste 2. I then scaled the charge-up time with block hardness. This means small ore veins could be cleared quickly, whereas obsidian, which would take many more blocks to reach instamine, would still require Haste 2 to clear large amounts. Efficiency 5 would be

Optimal for clearing lots of different blocks, since Momentum resets its speed when a different block is mined. And the idea likely needs a lot more iteration. The nerfs are there, but the exact values will need to be balanced and the enchantment playtested, to see how

People use it in a survival setting. If you want to help with the development by testing the enchantment out, stick around until the end of the video. All that work was for just one enchantment, too. Meanwhile, the Mojang team has to iterate

On entire updates of content. They also have to consider accessibility and different control schemes, like mouse and keyboard, console controllers and touch screens. This is especially relevant to Jeb’s redesign of the entire combat system. How do you port it to mobile,

Which has no cursor and no right click? You have to compromise – for example shields are instead activated when the player is sneaking. But sneaking also dismounts the player – so when the player is riding a mob the shield is always active. And since button mashing

Is much easier using a mouse, it would be unfair to non PC players, so auto-click functionality was added to all platforms! The combat redesign also needs to appeal to as many player types as possible – pvp and survival players, java and bedrock players. Overhauling fundamental

Systems or changing the meta requires an enormous amount of iteration, especially after how poorly received the 1.9 combat changes were. There have been 8 main combat snapshots so far, and Jeb hasn’t even started fine-tuning the values yet, since he’s still revising

The mechanics. The Deep Dark has had over a dozen iterations over 3-4 months: tweaking how the Sculk Sensor works with redstone, how scary the Warden was, and preventing players from cheesing it. Everything from hiding your health and hunger to making it completely

Invulnerable needed to be considered – nothing was off the crafting table when it came to making the big bad of the deep dark. Modders, on the other hand, have far less responsibility. Java edition doesn’t run on consoles or mobile devices. Plus, the mods are ultimately optional – if a player doesn’t

Like one, they can remove it. Playstyles are something vanilla definitely has to keep in mind, while mods only have to appeal to the playstyles of their targeted audience. This is likely why people see mods as superior – because for their specific playstyle, modders

Do in fact create content faster than Mojang. Their audience has a lot less variation! Because of this, far less effort needs to go into making sure the features are as polished as possible. However, content that didn’t go through iteration and detailed development

Usually becomes stale quickly. For instance, many mods make their new tools and armour attractive to players simply by making them better than the vanilla versions – tools with faster mining speed, tougher armour, and more deadly weapons. This creates a dominant strategy

For players: quickly obtain the best tools and armour and stick with them for the duration of your world. While some modpacks make this process a ‘goal’ of the game, it still leaves players with a distinct end to the gameplay that the mod provides and no incentive

To swap between different sets strategically. And that’s the problem with all games with a dominant strategy: once you get the toughest armour and the best tools and the perfect enchantments, there’s nothing left to do but try not to lose it all! Vanilla still

Has some instances of this, like applying Unbreaking 3 and Mending to virtually everything you own, but they’re adding alternatives too. In recent updates, new mechanics like elytra flight, leather boots walking on powdered snow, gold armour pacifying piglins, and water breathing from turtle helmets have broken up the armour meta, asking players to choose

What they’re going to wear and when they’ll switch it up. These strategic alternatives provide ongoing gameplay value and are ultimately more fun than a single dominant strategy, and they didn’t exist when Minecraft was first released. This also applies to the creative

Side of the game. If Mojang had added dyed planks, there would’ve been no reason for crimson and warped planks to exist, potentially stealing the Nether Update’s thunder as a result, as well as any other wood types they might decide to add. Thinking more about

The mechanics of blocks, as well as how builders might use them, allows artists, coders and designers to maximise the creative value of the block. That’s the power of iterative design, and it’s one reason why Mojang takes the time to craft updates this way. Good game

Design simply takes longer, even without other considerations. Hopefully we will see more mods adopt this approach! Concepts also need to translate well to code. This is why Mojang doesn’t have a separation between designers and developers. Just like ideas, programming also ties into their iteration

Cycle. Mojang uses a methodology called Agile, which values flexibility, collaboration and simplicity, among other things. Let’s take a look at how this might be applied to the Caves and Cliffs update. First, Mojang figures out some user stories from the community,

For example the desire for a decluttered inventory, a bright place underground to rest, or a scary challenge. These inspire ideas, like the bundle, lush caves and the deep dark. Through meetings and other intercommunication, these ideas are either rejected or prioritised, then released

In a snapshot for user feedback. This process is then repeated. Of course, things might not go as smoothly, which is why developers need to prototype and experiment to decrease risk. In 1.18, the world height will be extended by 128 blocks, with ramifications on memory

Usage and chunk loading. This change was likely prototyped much earlier to ensure it would be technically possible. Prototypes can also address other risks, such as gauging how much money or time is needed to develop a feature, or how the community might react to it. This

Actually happened with the Warden – kingbdogz made a tweet before it was released asking for people’s thoughts on more horror in Minecraft. And even then things can still go wrong – the risk is only decreased, not mitigated. That’s why Caves and Cliffs was

Ultimately split into two updates, the latter being delayed 6 months. To get prompt user feedback, snapshots are released early and often, which can result in unfinished features. When there is no progress seen on these, players can start to lose hope

And assume that they are complete but inadequate. For example, bundles have been the subject of much criticism, but they were not released officially in 1.17, so it is safe to assume that there is more work planned for them. There’s a similar issue with Archeology:

People have only seen the prototype at Minecraft Live, which used programmer art and showcased only a tiny portion of the concept. Could this mean Mojang needs to communicate with their community more thoroughly? Possibly. But that won’t reduce the need for informed user feedback on each iteration of a concept.

Snapshots also serve as a way to track down bugs and other minor issues. Since Minecraft is a sandbox and so much is possible, the potential for bugs is enormous. As well as the public bug tracker, Mojang has their own internal tools – a couple years ago Henrik

Kniberg, a Mojang developer and expert in Agile design, created an automated program inside a Minecraft world to test delicate and sensitive systems like Mob AI, pathfinding and redstone. This helps developers to keep track of when seemingly unrelated changes cause these tests to fail, and also encourages test-driven development, where a developer

Creates tests for a feature before that feature is even implemented. Of course, code is also reviewed and tested internally before being put into a snapshot. All of these protocols are required to develop a stable and reliable product for the playerbase. And that’s just

New features. Minecraft’s engine is also constantly maintained and improved, to support less obvious (but still important) features like pathfinding, worldgen, realms, UI, sound, commands, game modes, save formats, chunk loading, biome magic, performance improvements, bug fixes, and many more. All of these time-consuming and deliberate tasks, from Agile development and snapshot

Cycles to bug fixing and version parity, contribute to an update’s quality and development time. In contrast, modders are under no obligation to do the same. This doesn’t make modders inferior – they simply fill a different niche to vanilla. They have a smaller audience,

Which allows them to explore novel concepts and mechanics, and contribute to genres such as Magic and Tech mods. Bugs and compatibility problems are more easily forgiven, and mediocre features can be disabled. Whereas vanilla’s content comes as a complete package, so it

Requires a lot of internal development before it is considered good enough to release. Mojang developers who came from the modding community, like kingbdogz of the Aether and cojo of Tropicraft, have adapted to vanilla’s methodology – and when they say it’s different to modding,

They know what they’re talking about; they have experience on both sides of development. Not only do features have to be well designed and developed, they also have to appeal to a wide and diverse audience – possibly THE widest audience in gaming right now: literally

Every single Minecraft player. An update has to have something for adventurers, builders, technical players, mapmakers, datapackers, modders, speedrunners… Catering to all play styles helps keep the community thriving and the game culturally relevant. Sometimes the wishes of one type of player contradict others’, for example players who want a more challenging

Experience might advocate for more difficult monsters to fight in the overworld. But if that were added without much thought, players who only want to build might enjoy the game less, since there’s more obstacles to playing the way they want to. It isn’t possible to fully satisfy everyone.

But Mojang does want to satisfy as many people as possible, because Minecraft’s business model isn’t just based on game sales. There’s also the marketplace, realms subscriptions, and merchandise like toys and apparel, which likely make up the majority of revenue and

Depend on the game doing well. That is why we continue to get free quality updates. Microsoft’s goal is to maintain Minecraft as a subcultural phenomenon, so it can be used as a stable investment, and to wield its brand recognition to promote its products. Microsoft won’t

Make updates paid, or skimp on quality, because the best way to maintain Minecraft’s popularity is to keep adding well-designed content. Mods, on the other hand, don’t have this infrastructure depending on it and are mostly made to cater to the modders’ tastes, so they don’t

Have to please everyone, meet a deadline, or return on an investment. Mojang has even more considerations to make. They have to support two main versions, not only doubling their work but also requiring clear communication between the two developer

Teams. The Notch era left Java edition with a lot of technical debt, meaning they often have to rewrite entire systems to add what they need to, fix bugs, or improve performance. Bedrock Edition is also hard to add features to, since they mustn’t break marketplace

Maps. And, unlike so many other game studios, we don’t see crunch culture at Mojang – the Caves and Cliffs split is testament to that. Not only is crunching unethical, it also makes for a subpar gaming experience, as seen during the release of Fallout Battlefield 2077. As

Shigeru Miyamoto said, “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” Or in Minecraft’s case, bad until it’s updated again. But it’s better to get it right the first time. One possible rebuttal could be, “Then why not hire more developers? Microsoft is one

Of the biggest companies in the world, surely they could fund Mojang more to speed up content?” Well, they have been hiring new developers, but it’s not a simple process – they need time to get integrated into the team, get used to the work culture, and become acquainted

With the codebase. (Modders, of course, have a head start on the latter.) Additionally, hiring more developers doesn’t always result in a better game. Most Triple A studios have a lot more staff because they have relatively separate departments of artists, programmers,

Musicians, lawyers, etc. Even if individual mechanics are well designed, the lack of intercommunication doesn’t result in a cohesive game. But this works well enough for the Triple A industry because the games have a very established formula for success. However, there is no

Room for a new vision to unify behind, resulting in only technical or superficial improvements to the previous game. Minecraft, on the other hand, is constantly updated, and uses the Agile development model, which only works with small-medium sized teams because of how much communication is necessary, both within the team and with the community.

Minecraft is an extremely versatile game, with highly interconnected features. Changing or adding anything can create bugs, affect the meta, or alienate significant sections of the playerbase. That is why so much time is spent iterating on design and development, and that’s before technical considerations and business decisions are introduced. To

Achieve all this, developers need to be able to communicate effectively and have a stress-free environment, so they can enjoy their work. This in turn keeps the community alive, and the game a worthwhile investment for Microsoft. Development might seem slow, but all that

Time is necessary, and makes the vanilla game far higher quality than that of mods’. And, with over 100 million monthly players, it definitely shows. So, back to my Momentum enchantment. In the description of this video, and at the i-card

In the top right hand corner of the screen, I’ve included a link to a curseforge page where you can download the Momentum Enchantment for Forge 1.16. Any feedback is welcome – about how it feels, any bugs, situations where you think it is underpowered or overpowered, when

And how you used it, or any other relevant information. You can post feedback on the curseforge page or the comments of this video. So, how are you all liking Part 1 of Caves and Cliffs? Feel free to comment below. Do

You have anything to add? I’d love to hear it! And if you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a like, and if you really like what we do, please consider supporting our modding team on Patreon. Patrons and people who Nitro boost our discord servers get access

To beta builds of all of our mods, including unreleased ones! We also have a slew of existing vanilla style mods, which you can browse through on our website. I have a podcast coming up with Mojang developer kingbdogz later, and we’re going to talk about the Warden and

Minecraft’s game design, so if that interests you, subscribe and hit the bell, and soon it should be up for you to enjoy! Links to our other social media are in the description down below. Until next time, stay abnormal! Special thanks to patrons: Shock Micro, Catscythe and Shatscythe, ZoeyDerps, Ava, Wooden Crate,

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