Diamonds do have uses, it's a matter of skill and taste if you use them. I die often so I don't, to avoid risking losing them.
I wonder how much this is due to not using diamond though - diamond armor has double the protection of iron (less so after 1.9 due to armor perpetration, but its "armor toughness" property reduces the effect). My own experience backs this up - nearly all of my deaths were back when I only used iron gear in my earliest worlds, partly due to the impression that diamond was something only to be used in special circumstances, like the dragon fight (I even used iron pickaxes to mine with).
That's not to say the reduction in deaths is solely due to using diamond; I still don't wear maxed-out armor and you can exceed its protection by adding enough enchantments to iron (using the 1.6.4 values diamond chestplate/leggings/boots with 2x Protection IV = 77.6% damage reduction, 30% against damage sources that aren't reduced by armor; full iron with 4x Protection IV = 84% / 60%). I also have Feather Falling boots but only enchantments reduce fall damage so the type of armor doesn't matter.
This goes back to experience - many long-term players claim that newer versions are much easier when that isn't true; it is just that they have gotten better at the game. For example, prior to Beta 1.8 diamond was more common with about twice as much above lava level, only partly offset by a 20% increase in overall density in 1.8, and prior to 1.0.0 diamond swords dealt as much base damage as a Sharpness V diamond sword today, and Mojang has even considered nerfing them further (-1 damage to all weapons, meaning that netherite would be the same as diamond currently is).
Assuming that you find iron first, you don't fall in lava or a cave when you're digging straight down, and you are able to fight off the mobs you encounter if you come across a cave...
Which is why you dig diagonally.
Are we really going to pretend it's hard or time consuming to safely dig down to level 12?
You also have a pretty great chance of hitting both iron and coal before you get to the bottom.
Ancient debris isn't nearly that common, some can ignite 10 explosions and not find it at all, while some can strip mine and find it faster (depending on their mining speed).
I literally just tested it out and confirmed that ancient debris is indeed that common. One stack of TNT is 64 explosions, which can easily cover a 128 block long tunnel, which will yield quite a lot of ancient debris. I was able to convert a complete set of diamond armor and some tools. Go try it.
Utilizing TNT is also a fairly dangerous way to mine, and gunpowder could be really hard to come across since it is only dropped by mobs, and not actually found anywhere.
I mean, first of all, gunpowder literally "found" in temples and dungeons and chests all over the place, not to mention it's a completely renewable item which you can easily have limitless supplies of with one rudimentary mob farm.
Second of all, utilizing TNT is actually perfectly safe. Dig a tunnel at level 14 Nether about 100 blocks long, then back up, placing TNT, once you're at the end, you ignite the last bit of TNT and walk back, away from the tunnel. All the explosions will be moving away from you. It's perfectly safe. And fun.
Further, creepers must be killed from a range or they'll blow up, dropping nothing.
A simple mob farm yields more gunpowder for TNT than you'll ever need.
Also, you can easily kill creepers melee. Run, hit, back up. Repeat three times.
In the nether, you could kill ghasts, but that isn't a guaranteed drop and ghasts are extremely hostile and annoying to deal with. The TNT method may be viable for 1 or 2 mining sessions but will end up getting expensive if you plan on doing it every time.
Gunpowder is 100% renewable, and sand is one of the most abundant materials in the game.
I'm not sure why we're pretending any of this is difficult. What's even more baffling is that anyone would resist the idea of mining with TNT, which is not only the obvious end game use of the item, but probably one of the most fun and satisfying activities you could be doing in the game.
Every one of these conversations makes me feel like I'm back in 2010 and people are coming up with heated arguments against adding smooth lighting to the game because it would make it less "Minecrafty". I've never seen people more blindly resistant to change than Minecraft players.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to Steve. This is the dimension of imagination, an area which we call... The Blocky Place.
It is a myth that diamonds are rare in real life, and are artificially made far more valuable than they should be:
MYTH #1: Diamonds are expensive because they’re so rare.
Diamonds are not particularly rare. In fact, compared to other gemstones, they’re the most common precious stone found. Generally, the cost per carat (or weight of a gemstone) is based upon a stone’s rarity; the rarer the stone, the more expensive. Therefore, rubies, emeralds and sapphires are much rarer and, in turn, far more expensive than diamonds.
MYTH BUSTER: So, what makes diamonds so valuable? It’s simple: market demand.
For centuries, diamonds have been a sign of power, wealth and status. The stone was a rare find and therefore was worth more. However, in the 1800s, a veritable diamond trove was unearthed in Kimberly, South Africa. This newfound mine had the potential to flood the market with diamonds and bring down the cost for the precious stone. To prevent too many diamonds from hitting the market, De Beers quickly intervened, bought up the mine and maintained tight control over the global diamond supply. De Beers released only enough diamonds to meet annual demand. This gave the illusion that diamonds were exceedingly rare. In turn, the seemingly-limited supply inflated the cost of diamonds.
You just cited an article explaining that diamonds' high value over the course of history has been due to its immense scarcity, and even after DeBeers discovered a large trove of it in South Africa, its high value was maintained by deliberately keeping it scarce. Thank you for proving my point.
For comparison, a Minecraft world has around 52 trillion diamond ore which can make 5.8-13 trillion diamond blocks, with a total weight of 20-45 trillion metric tons (without Fortune to Fortune III).
My dude, you can't data troll away the fact that diamonds are, quite obviously, valuable due to their scarcity and high usefulness. If diamonds were as common as sand, you and I both know they would have no comparable value. The whole concept of diamonds, throughout history, literature, lore, culture, etc. is that of a precious, scarce gemstone, obsessively sought after and coveted for its beauty and usefulness. There is no mystery as to why they were added to the game, or what the concept of them was. Stop trying to pretend otherwise, it's embarrassingly disingenuous.
Also, I think it is bad game design to add something that can only be practically used by a small subset of players (like myself, who spends literally all their time caving).
No, it's bad game design to make a precious gemstone so preposterously over abundant that it becomes everyone's standard gear rather than the flex.
By the way, Iskall85 just mined 1,756 diamonds in a single day for an episode of Hermitcraft. He was only seeking to obtain 1,000. I mean, you can keep pretending that diamonds aren't preposterously over abundant, but it's comical at this point.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to Steve. This is the dimension of imagination, an area which we call... The Blocky Place.
Iskall just spent an entire day holding forward and click. It must've been a really boring day. I feel pretty bad for him, to be honest. Strip mining might be an effective technique, but it sure is a boring one.
You said "straight down", which is an objectively dangerous way to mine.
Are we really going to pretend it's hard or time consuming to safely dig down to level 12?
You also have a pretty great chance of hitting both iron and coal before you get to the bottom.
Yet it won't necessarily happen, so it's not always going to be as easy as you say, it's just likely to.
I literally just tested it out and confirmed that ancient debris is indeed that common. One stack of TNT is 64 explosions, which can easily cover a 128 block long tunnel, which will yield quite a lot of ancient debris. I was able to convert a complete set of diamond armor and some tools. Go try it.
I actually did try it, and I was able to go at least 200 blocks without finding ancient debris of any kind. The wiki says that ancient debris only generates twice per chunk, one of them containing a maximum of 3 debris, while the other containing a maximum of 2. The first one generates low down in the chunk, while the second can generate at basically every level. Assuming that both spawn within the level that you're mining, a 128 block tunnel would yield a maximum of 40 ancient debris (8 chunks; max of 5 per chunk;). Yes, that is enough to upgrade a full set of armor and 4 tools, but it's maximum and assumes that both veins spawn nearby and that you get the maximum possible amount from each vein (they can generate a maximum of 3, but likely there will be 1 or 2). How likely is that?
I mean, first of all, gunpowder literally "found" in temples and dungeons and chests all over the place, not to mention it's a completely renewable item which you can easily have limitless supplies of with one rudimentary mob farm.
I will admit that I forgot about generated chests, but these chests do not at all spawn "all over the place". It's renewable, but not in an easy way unless you create a mob farm, which is considered an unintentional part of the game in the first place. Killing creepers is extremely tedious and annoying unless you have some fancy machine.
Second of all, utilizing TNT is actually perfectly safe. Dig a tunnel at level 14 Nether about 100 blocks long, then back up, placing TNT, once you're at the end, you ignite the last bit of TNT and walk back, away from the tunnel. All the explosions will be moving away from you. It's perfectly safe. And fun.
Make a mistake during even one of those steps, and you take damage, if not die. Digging with TNT also has a higher chance of unearthing lava, which you must deal with in a relatively careful manner.
A simple mob farm yields more gunpowder for TNT than you'll ever need.
Again, it's an unintentional part of the game and does not justify its relative rarity.
Also, you can easily kill creepers melee. Run, hit, back up. Repeat three times.
That takes about 3 times longer than killing any other mob, and it's about twice as difficult to do correctly.
Gunpowder is 100% renewable, and sand is one of the most abundant materials in the game.
This is simply false. I can think of 12 more abundant materials right now: stone, coal, netherrack, wood, water, dirt, gold (thanks to the new nether ore), iron, redstone (since one ore drops so much), sugar cane, wheat (just break some grass and start an intentional farm), carrots (if you find a village). I didn't even have to try.
I'm not sure why we're pretending any of this is difficult. What's even more baffling is that anyone would resist the idea of mining with TNT, which is not only the obvious end game use of the item, but probably one of the most fun and satisfying activities you could be doing in the game.
If mining is the end-game use of TNT, it's a horrible item, considering that stone itself is explosive resistant and almost no ores drop anything when they're blown up. TNT has the same use as bombs in real life - it's intended to cause damage. It's also not much more fun than strip mining, as it's just as repetitive and it produces irregular terrain that you have to traverse.
Every one of these conversations makes me feel like I'm back in 2010 and people are coming up with heated arguments against adding smooth lighting to the game because it would make it less "Minecrafty". I've never seen people more blindly resistant to change than Minecraft player
What arguments are reminding you of this because I don't see the connection...
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
Also, I can't take seriously anyone who says >just use mob farms or >keeping things the same is always bad!
Smooth lighting is optional, you can filter it in settings and this is what should happen to ore rarity too. In fact it's what will come from snapshot 21 given enough time because custom worlds are now being reconsidered.
By the way, Iskall85 just mined 1,756 diamonds in a single day for an episode of Hermitcraft. He was only seeking to obtain 1,000. I mean, you can keep pretending that diamonds aren't preposterously over abundant, but it's comical at this point.
How much coal and iron did they find? Based on my hourly rates the last time I played I'd mine about 22200 ore, including 15046 coal, 5773 iron, and 47 diamond over a 24 hour period (based on long-term averages I'd mine about 21700 ore, 14700 coal, 5210 iron, and 103 diamond). Again, this illustrates how much mining technique matters, and anybody can mine thousands of diamonds if they spend enough time, and I doubt most players want to spend all day mining, based on the prevalence of farms for even resources like iron - I've even mined over 2000 emerald ore (which was only half as common in 1.6.4 even within Extreme Hills; the Wiki claims it currently generates 11 times per chunk but in 1.6.4 it only generates 3-8 times, averaging 5.5).
Here is what I found the last time I played (the only mods I use in my first world that might impact how fast I can collect resources are "rail blocks", 9 rails = 1 block, and "cobweb blocks", 4 cobwebs = 1 block, the latter effectively having no impact since before I added them I didn't use Silk Touch shears and crafted the string from cave spider spawners into wool. Of course, in modern Minecraft I could just use shulker boxes, not unlike the backpack mod I used back in 2013):
Note that "resources" is blocks mined, not individual resource drops, same for "ore"; I do not use Fortune so the average drops is whatever the ores drop (7 diamond ore = 7 diamonds, I did not find any in part of a mineshaft I explored):
This only includes common Overworld hostile mobs but I rarely kill anything else (mostly bats that get in my way and around 200 chickens every once in a while when I need to repair my sword as a brand-new sacrifice is too expensive):
I played for about 3 hours and 34 minutes, a more or less typical session length (averaging about 3 hours and 29 minutes over the lifetime of this world):
2020-05-20 15:35:45 [SERVER] [INFO] Starting integrated minecraft server version 1.6.4
2020-05-20 15:35:45 [SERVER] [INFO] Generating keypair
2020-05-20 15:35:46 [SERVER] [INFO] TheMasterCaver[/127.0.0.1:0] logged in with entity id 1 at (-1151.300001011921, 27.000000001, -1820.699998988079)
2020-05-20 15:35:46 [SERVER] [INFO] TheMasterCaver joined the game
2020-05-20 15:35:46 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving and pausing game...
2020-05-20 15:35:46 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/Overworld
2020-05-20 15:35:46 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/Nether
2020-05-20 15:35:46 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/The End
2020-05-20 19:09:09 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving and pausing game...
2020-05-20 19:09:09 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/Overworld
2020-05-20 19:09:09 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/Nether
2020-05-20 19:09:09 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/The End
2020-05-20 19:09:11 [SERVER] [INFO] Stopping server
2020-05-20 19:09:11 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving players
2020-05-20 19:09:11 [SERVER] [INFO] TheMasterCaver left the game
2020-05-20 19:09:11 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving worlds
2020-05-20 19:09:11 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/Overworld
2020-05-20 19:09:11 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/Nether
2020-05-20 19:09:11 [SERVER] [INFO] Saving chunks for level 'World1'/The End
This is a before and after rendering of what I've explored so far within the current level 4 map, with the area I just explored near upper-left, while in the upper-right is the output from MCMap, including a count of the number of torches found within the area, with 1154 placed during the last session (click to view full-size):
A surface rendering which helps show how large of an area the above rendering covers:
Some screenshots of caves I explored:
If you really want diamond to be rare, why not just use mods, even if just to pre-generate a custom world (until Mojang re-adds them, which is likely to be in 1.16)? This is basically what I've done in TMCW, if not by nerfing its abundance but its stats (it is basically the same as iron in vanilla but with more durability; iron itself is also worse, and so on) and adding a new top-tier resource, much as Mojang has done with netherite (diamond was nerfed in 1.9 and possibly again in an upcoming combat update if they decrease the damage of all weapons by one, so netherite would be the same as diamond currently is) and armor remains at fulls strength regardless of attack damage). Branch-mining can also be fixed by making diamond generate across a much wider range, even the full height limit, which would make it only 1/16 as common on a given layer (based on a peak efficiency of about a stack of per hour you'd now only find around 4, similar to what I average by caving, which itself wouldn't see much of a change overall but you'd have to fully explore everything, not just a narrow range (11-15).
Of course, I won't ever do that myself because I don't want to spend forever mining to get the resources that I need early on; I even made TMCW's amethyst much more common below cave lava level and I still spend around 3 hours mining, upgrading my pickaxe to iron and diamond as soon as I find them and enchanting them, eventually enchanting a diamond pickaxe with Fortune III so I don't need to find as much (the abundance in caves is set so I just barely get enough without Fortune; I even slightly decreased the abundance relative to diamond from 1/8 to 1/9 in TMCWv4):
// Adjusted for distribution of air relative to vanilla and 59 vs 52 layers (lava level = 4).
// Note that redstone and diamond generate up to their expected max (15-7 = 8), but without
// a drop-off in the upper layers
this.genStandardOre(2, Block.oreGold.blockID, 8, 1, 30, 27);
this.genStandardOre(8, Block.oreRedstone.blockID, 7, -4, 12, 8);
this.genStandardOre(1, Block.oreDiamond.blockID, 7, -4, 12, 8);
this.genLapisOre(12, 16);
this.genAmethystOre(-4, 12, 8);
private void genAmethystOre(int min, int max, int maxHeight)
{
// Amethyst is about 1/9 as common as diamond above y=2, becoming more common below that
// Distribution prevents two adjacent chunks from having a vein above y=2
int y = this.rand.nextInt(max - min) + min;
if (y > 0)
{
int x = (this.chunk_X / 16 + 2000000) % 3;
int z = (this.chunk_Z / 16 + 2000000) % 3;
if (y <= 2 || x == 0 && z == 0)
{
x = this.chunk_X + this.rand.nextInt(16);
z = this.chunk_Z + this.rand.nextInt(16);
this.generateOreVein(Block.obsidian.blockID, 1, 7, x, y, z, maxHeight);
}
}
}
Also, note that diamond has been nerfed many times over the years; back in in Beta a diamond sword dealt 10 damage, which was then reduced to 7 until 1.6, which increased it to 8 (weapons now added their damage to your unarmed damage) before being reverted in 1.9 (weapons once again replace your unarmed damage). Enchantments were also nerfed in 1.9; Sharpness V now adds only 3 damage instead of 6.25 - prior to then a Sharpness V diamond sword was truly a force to be reckoned with, killing nearly everything in two hits or less, even Endermen only need 3, with unlimited damage per second. Now you can't even kill zombies in two hits unless one of them is critical! This means that the 202 zombies I killed yesterday would require 50% more hits, costing that much more durability (not that this matters thanks to Mending) and time and/or more effort to make critical hits, and the 17 cave spiders I killed would require twice as many hits, unless I brought two extra swords with Smite and Bane of Arthropods.
Likewise, prior to 1.9 diamond armor reduced damage by a constant 80% no matter how much damage you took at once; even on Hard you only needed unenchanted diamond armor to survive a creeper exploding inside of you (73 peak damage, reduced to 14.6), now you die unless you have maxed-out Blast Protection, which is enough by itself since you get 80% damage reduction from enchantments alone; for full diamond armor every 4 points of damage penetrates one armor point so 20+ damage will make it worse than iron was before 1.9 and the 73 peak damage from a creeper will reach the penetration cap of 80% of armor points, or a mere 4 armor points remaining - worse than leather (7) used to be!
Well, I guess if you only count the time spent strip mining? I don't watch YouTube much for Minecraft.
I can't believe some people are actually trying to justify making an already rare item more grindy to get, and to impose this on every player who doesn't agree with them without even a compromise like world options or a newer difficulty mode like very hard mode, a tier above hard but below hardcore.
I hope Mojang never caves into that lot, as you said earlier in the thread not everyone has as much time to play video games as others, like some friends of mine with jobs that don't bless them with a lot of spare time in the evenings. They don't want to be spending weeks of strip mining just to get only 1 stack of diamonds with a Fortune pickaxe, first of all this isn't what makes the game fun, doing repetitive tasks for unreasonable lengths of time can never be fun, anyone who thinks and says that is doesn't know what they're talking about.
I can't believe some people are actually trying to justify making an already rare item more grindy to get, and to impose this on every player who doesn't agree with them without even a compromise like world options or a newer difficulty mode like very hard mode, a tier above hard but below hardcore.
I hope Mojang never caves into that lot, as you said earlier in the thread not everyone has as much time to play video games as others, like some friends of mine with jobs that don't bless them with a lot of spare time in the evenings. They don't want to be spending weeks of strip mining just to get only 1 stack of diamonds with a Fortune pickaxe, first of all this isn't what makes the game fun, doing repetitive tasks for unreasonable lengths of time can never be fun, anyone who thinks and says that is doesn't know what they're talking about.
Tastes can vary, but so can time.
I doubt Mojang caves in to too much given they reject any idea that could affect their very particular idea of balance.
Netherite is already rarer now that piglin brutes exist and netherite armour is removed (although diamond stuff and netherite scrap is still in there).
The secret to mining netherite well is to get the ideal diamond mending pickaxe first and use that, using beds or TNT to mine in the nether is slower overall. My luck with mining netherite in my java realms has varied a bit wildly but rule of thumb is that if you turn around and change elevation a lot, you will cover an area extensively enough to find plenty.
I doubt Mojang caves in to too much given they reject any idea that could affect their very particular idea of balance.
Netherite is already rarer now that piglin brutes exist and netherite armour is removed (although diamond stuff and netherite scrap is still in there).
The secret to mining netherite well is to get the ideal diamond mending pickaxe first and use that, using beds or TNT to mine in the nether is slower overall. My luck with mining netherite in my java realms has varied a bit wildly but rule of thumb is that if you turn around and change elevation a lot, you will cover an area extensively enough to find plenty.
I wouldn't mind diamonds to be removed from structures and diamond gear to be removed from trades, that wouldn't affect me all that much as I know how to strip mine.
But I wouldn't tolerate a change in the standard game that forced us to spend weeks just to get 1 stack of diamonds with a fortune pick, as diamonds are needed to get Obsidian to make Nether portals, not just armour and tools.
Currently I can get a stack of diamonds in a matter of hours, although I have accepted that not everyone can. I'm not some elitist that wishes to impose ridiculous changes in a game just to satisfy my own selfish wants.
I would hope those asking for ores to be made 10x rarer would want a world option and a newer difficulty mode exclusively for this feature, because imposing it on everyone else in the standard game and ruining their experience is unfair.
I wouldn't mind diamonds to be removed from structures and diamond gear to be removed from trades, that wouldn't affect me all that much as I know how to strip mine.
But I wouldn't tolerate a change in the standard game that forced us to spend weeks just to get 1 stack of diamonds with a fortune pick, as diamonds are needed to get Obsidian to make Nether portals, not just armour and tools.
Currently I can get a stack of diamonds in a matter of hours, although I have accepted that not everyone can. I'm not some elitist that wishes to impose ridiculous changes in a game just to satisfy my own selfish wants.
I would hope those asking for ores to be made 10x rarer would want a world option and a newer difficulty mode exclusively for this feature, because imposing it on everyone else in the standard game and ruining their experience is unfair.
100% agree (although it's great having renewable diamond stuff lol)
I wonder how much this is due to not using diamond though - diamond armor has double the protection of iron (less so after 1.9 due to armor perpetration, but its "armor toughness" property reduces the effect). My own experience backs this up - nearly all of my deaths were back when I only used iron gear in my earliest worlds, partly due to the impression that diamond was something only to be used in special circumstances, like the dragon fight (I even used iron pickaxes to mine with).
That's not to say the reduction in deaths is solely due to using diamond; I still don't wear maxed-out armor and you can exceed its protection by adding enough enchantments to iron (using the 1.6.4 values diamond chestplate/leggings/boots with 2x Protection IV = 77.6% damage reduction, 30% against damage sources that aren't reduced by armor; full iron with 4x Protection IV = 84% / 60%). I also have Feather Falling boots but only enchantments reduce fall damage so the type of armor doesn't matter.
This goes back to experience - many long-term players claim that newer versions are much easier when that isn't true; it is just that they have gotten better at the game. For example, prior to Beta 1.8 diamond was more common with about twice as much above lava level, only partly offset by a 20% increase in overall density in 1.8, and prior to 1.0.0 diamond swords dealt as much base damage as a Sharpness V diamond sword today, and Mojang has even considered nerfing them further (-1 damage to all weapons, meaning that netherite would be the same as diamond currently is).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Which is why you dig diagonally.
Are we really going to pretend it's hard or time consuming to safely dig down to level 12?
You also have a pretty great chance of hitting both iron and coal before you get to the bottom.
I literally just tested it out and confirmed that ancient debris is indeed that common. One stack of TNT is 64 explosions, which can easily cover a 128 block long tunnel, which will yield quite a lot of ancient debris. I was able to convert a complete set of diamond armor and some tools. Go try it.
I mean, first of all, gunpowder literally "found" in temples and dungeons and chests all over the place, not to mention it's a completely renewable item which you can easily have limitless supplies of with one rudimentary mob farm.
Second of all, utilizing TNT is actually perfectly safe. Dig a tunnel at level 14 Nether about 100 blocks long, then back up, placing TNT, once you're at the end, you ignite the last bit of TNT and walk back, away from the tunnel. All the explosions will be moving away from you. It's perfectly safe. And fun.
A simple mob farm yields more gunpowder for TNT than you'll ever need.
Also, you can easily kill creepers melee. Run, hit, back up. Repeat three times.
Gunpowder is 100% renewable, and sand is one of the most abundant materials in the game.
I'm not sure why we're pretending any of this is difficult. What's even more baffling is that anyone would resist the idea of mining with TNT, which is not only the obvious end game use of the item, but probably one of the most fun and satisfying activities you could be doing in the game.
Every one of these conversations makes me feel like I'm back in 2010 and people are coming up with heated arguments against adding smooth lighting to the game because it would make it less "Minecrafty". I've never seen people more blindly resistant to change than Minecraft players.
There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to Steve. This is the dimension of imagination, an area which we call... The Blocky Place.
You just cited an article explaining that diamonds' high value over the course of history has been due to its immense scarcity, and even after DeBeers discovered a large trove of it in South Africa, its high value was maintained by deliberately keeping it scarce. Thank you for proving my point.
My dude, you can't data troll away the fact that diamonds are, quite obviously, valuable due to their scarcity and high usefulness. If diamonds were as common as sand, you and I both know they would have no comparable value. The whole concept of diamonds, throughout history, literature, lore, culture, etc. is that of a precious, scarce gemstone, obsessively sought after and coveted for its beauty and usefulness. There is no mystery as to why they were added to the game, or what the concept of them was. Stop trying to pretend otherwise, it's embarrassingly disingenuous.
No, it's bad game design to make a precious gemstone so preposterously over abundant that it becomes everyone's standard gear rather than the flex.
By the way, Iskall85 just mined 1,756 diamonds in a single day for an episode of Hermitcraft. He was only seeking to obtain 1,000. I mean, you can keep pretending that diamonds aren't preposterously over abundant, but it's comical at this point.
There is a sixth dimension beyond that which is known to Steve. This is the dimension of imagination, an area which we call... The Blocky Place.
Iskall just spent an entire day holding forward and click. It must've been a really boring day. I feel pretty bad for him, to be honest. Strip mining might be an effective technique, but it sure is a boring one.
You said "straight down", which is an objectively dangerous way to mine.
Yet it won't necessarily happen, so it's not always going to be as easy as you say, it's just likely to.
I actually did try it, and I was able to go at least 200 blocks without finding ancient debris of any kind. The wiki says that ancient debris only generates twice per chunk, one of them containing a maximum of 3 debris, while the other containing a maximum of 2. The first one generates low down in the chunk, while the second can generate at basically every level. Assuming that both spawn within the level that you're mining, a 128 block tunnel would yield a maximum of 40 ancient debris (8 chunks; max of 5 per chunk;). Yes, that is enough to upgrade a full set of armor and 4 tools, but it's maximum and assumes that both veins spawn nearby and that you get the maximum possible amount from each vein (they can generate a maximum of 3, but likely there will be 1 or 2). How likely is that?
I will admit that I forgot about generated chests, but these chests do not at all spawn "all over the place". It's renewable, but not in an easy way unless you create a mob farm, which is considered an unintentional part of the game in the first place. Killing creepers is extremely tedious and annoying unless you have some fancy machine.
Make a mistake during even one of those steps, and you take damage, if not die. Digging with TNT also has a higher chance of unearthing lava, which you must deal with in a relatively careful manner.
Again, it's an unintentional part of the game and does not justify its relative rarity.
That takes about 3 times longer than killing any other mob, and it's about twice as difficult to do correctly.
This is simply false. I can think of 12 more abundant materials right now: stone, coal, netherrack, wood, water, dirt, gold (thanks to the new nether ore), iron, redstone (since one ore drops so much), sugar cane, wheat (just break some grass and start an intentional farm), carrots (if you find a village). I didn't even have to try.
If mining is the end-game use of TNT, it's a horrible item, considering that stone itself is explosive resistant and almost no ores drop anything when they're blown up. TNT has the same use as bombs in real life - it's intended to cause damage. It's also not much more fun than strip mining, as it's just as repetitive and it produces irregular terrain that you have to traverse.
What arguments are reminding you of this because I don't see the connection...
Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQdu9LKAdIU
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
15w14a is on this link:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/15w14a
1.RV-Pre1 is here:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/1.RV-Pre1
Minecraft 3D is here:
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Java_Edition_3D_Shareware_v1.34
Ptolemy summarized it pretty nicely.
Also, I can't take seriously anyone who says >just use mob farms or >keeping things the same is always bad!
Smooth lighting is optional, you can filter it in settings and this is what should happen to ore rarity too. In fact it's what will come from snapshot 21 given enough time because custom worlds are now being reconsidered.
How much coal and iron did they find? Based on my hourly rates the last time I played I'd mine about 22200 ore, including 15046 coal, 5773 iron, and 47 diamond over a 24 hour period (based on long-term averages I'd mine about 21700 ore, 14700 coal, 5210 iron, and 103 diamond). Again, this illustrates how much mining technique matters, and anybody can mine thousands of diamonds if they spend enough time, and I doubt most players want to spend all day mining, based on the prevalence of farms for even resources like iron - I've even mined over 2000 emerald ore (which was only half as common in 1.6.4 even within Extreme Hills; the Wiki claims it currently generates 11 times per chunk but in 1.6.4 it only generates 3-8 times, averaging 5.5).
Here is what I found the last time I played (the only mods I use in my first world that might impact how fast I can collect resources are "rail blocks", 9 rails = 1 block, and "cobweb blocks", 4 cobwebs = 1 block, the latter effectively having no impact since before I added them I didn't use Silk Touch shears and crafted the string from cave spider spawners into wool. Of course, in modern Minecraft I could just use shulker boxes, not unlike the backpack mod I used back in 2013):
This only includes common Overworld hostile mobs but I rarely kill anything else (mostly bats that get in my way and around 200 chickens every once in a while when I need to repair my sword as a brand-new sacrifice is too expensive):
I played for about 3 hours and 34 minutes, a more or less typical session length (averaging about 3 hours and 29 minutes over the lifetime of this world):
This is a before and after rendering of what I've explored so far within the current level 4 map, with the area I just explored near upper-left, while in the upper-right is the output from MCMap, including a count of the number of torches found within the area, with 1154 placed during the last session (click to view full-size):
A surface rendering which helps show how large of an area the above rendering covers:
Some screenshots of caves I explored:
If you really want diamond to be rare, why not just use mods, even if just to pre-generate a custom world (until Mojang re-adds them, which is likely to be in 1.16)? This is basically what I've done in TMCW, if not by nerfing its abundance but its stats (it is basically the same as iron in vanilla but with more durability; iron itself is also worse, and so on) and adding a new top-tier resource, much as Mojang has done with netherite (diamond was nerfed in 1.9 and possibly again in an upcoming combat update if they decrease the damage of all weapons by one, so netherite would be the same as diamond currently is) and armor remains at fulls strength regardless of attack damage). Branch-mining can also be fixed by making diamond generate across a much wider range, even the full height limit, which would make it only 1/16 as common on a given layer (based on a peak efficiency of about a stack of per hour you'd now only find around 4, similar to what I average by caving, which itself wouldn't see much of a change overall but you'd have to fully explore everything, not just a narrow range (11-15).
Of course, I won't ever do that myself because I don't want to spend forever mining to get the resources that I need early on; I even made TMCW's amethyst much more common below cave lava level and I still spend around 3 hours mining, upgrading my pickaxe to iron and diamond as soon as I find them and enchanting them, eventually enchanting a diamond pickaxe with Fortune III so I don't need to find as much (the abundance in caves is set so I just barely get enough without Fortune; I even slightly decreased the abundance relative to diamond from 1/8 to 1/9 in TMCWv4):
Also, note that diamond has been nerfed many times over the years; back in in Beta a diamond sword dealt 10 damage, which was then reduced to 7 until 1.6, which increased it to 8 (weapons now added their damage to your unarmed damage) before being reverted in 1.9 (weapons once again replace your unarmed damage). Enchantments were also nerfed in 1.9; Sharpness V now adds only 3 damage instead of 6.25 - prior to then a Sharpness V diamond sword was truly a force to be reckoned with, killing nearly everything in two hits or less, even Endermen only need 3, with unlimited damage per second. Now you can't even kill zombies in two hits unless one of them is critical! This means that the 202 zombies I killed yesterday would require 50% more hits, costing that much more durability (not that this matters thanks to Mending) and time and/or more effort to make critical hits, and the 17 cave spiders I killed would require twice as many hits, unless I brought two extra swords with Smite and Bane of Arthropods.
Likewise, prior to 1.9 diamond armor reduced damage by a constant 80% no matter how much damage you took at once; even on Hard you only needed unenchanted diamond armor to survive a creeper exploding inside of you (73 peak damage, reduced to 14.6), now you die unless you have maxed-out Blast Protection, which is enough by itself since you get 80% damage reduction from enchantments alone; for full diamond armor every 4 points of damage penetrates one armor point so 20+ damage will make it worse than iron was before 1.9 and the 73 peak damage from a creeper will reach the penetration cap of 80% of armor points, or a mere 4 armor points remaining - worse than leather (7) used to be!
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Iskall actually took 2 days and a little more for that. He did a mixture of strip mining and caving.
Well, I guess if you only count the time spent strip mining? I don't watch YouTube much for Minecraft.
I can't believe some people are actually trying to justify making an already rare item more grindy to get, and to impose this on every player who doesn't agree with them without even a compromise like world options or a newer difficulty mode like very hard mode, a tier above hard but below hardcore.
I hope Mojang never caves into that lot, as you said earlier in the thread not everyone has as much time to play video games as others, like some friends of mine with jobs that don't bless them with a lot of spare time in the evenings. They don't want to be spending weeks of strip mining just to get only 1 stack of diamonds with a Fortune pickaxe, first of all this isn't what makes the game fun, doing repetitive tasks for unreasonable lengths of time can never be fun, anyone who thinks and says that is doesn't know what they're talking about.
Tastes can vary, but so can time.
I doubt Mojang caves in to too much given they reject any idea that could affect their very particular idea of balance.
Netherite is already rarer now that piglin brutes exist and netherite armour is removed (although diamond stuff and netherite scrap is still in there).
The secret to mining netherite well is to get the ideal diamond mending pickaxe first and use that, using beds or TNT to mine in the nether is slower overall. My luck with mining netherite in my java realms has varied a bit wildly but rule of thumb is that if you turn around and change elevation a lot, you will cover an area extensively enough to find plenty.
I wouldn't mind diamonds to be removed from structures and diamond gear to be removed from trades, that wouldn't affect me all that much as I know how to strip mine.
But I wouldn't tolerate a change in the standard game that forced us to spend weeks just to get 1 stack of diamonds with a fortune pick, as diamonds are needed to get Obsidian to make Nether portals, not just armour and tools.
Currently I can get a stack of diamonds in a matter of hours, although I have accepted that not everyone can. I'm not some elitist that wishes to impose ridiculous changes in a game just to satisfy my own selfish wants.
I would hope those asking for ores to be made 10x rarer would want a world option and a newer difficulty mode exclusively for this feature, because imposing it on everyone else in the standard game and ruining their experience is unfair.
100% agree (although it's great having renewable diamond stuff lol)