Results and changes for 1.16 Stress Test
This is a summary of the changes we are making to the 1.16 server, following the feedback from the earlier survey. 168 of you responded and your feedback is valued. While we have not followed all your preferences to the letter, we are nonetheless making some changes to the 1.16 server based on your feedback. This is not an exhaustive list of 1.14-1.16 changes, but it does cover the big things the survey asked about.
World size
The initial world size will be 8750 blocks (diameter)
This only applies to the overworld. Other worlds will have their own sizes.
We previously announced our intention to make the 1.16 world smaller, for a variety of reasons. The 1.14 world size was too heavy on disk space, with the Dynmap taking up almost 100GB. In addition, only 0.92% of the 1.14 world's surface area was ever claimed, and the Dynmap still shows large unexplored areas. With the additional world changes discussed below, some larger builds will no longer be present in the overworld too, further reducing the need for space.
As a result, despite 49% of survey respondents saying the world size was "Just right", we will be using a smaller initial size for 1.16. We have opted for a size of 8750 blocks, which is in-between the 2 most popular alternative sizes - 10k (19%) and 7.5k (10%). This is roughly 80% smaller than the 1.14 world but should still offer plenty of space. Further expansions can always be considered if the world ends up too full, as well as for 1.17 and its expected mountain changes.
If this size proves inadequate for a good biome selection, we will consider slightly larger sizes.
The world will be square
Exactly 2/3 voted for keeping the world square like 1.14, and we will be doing so. A square world also allows the world border to remain visible, which will help with world wrapping. This results in a world with a similar surface area to the 10k circular 1.13 world.
The world will wrap around
There is a surprising majority - 58% - who would like to see a wraparound world, where reaching the border will teleport you to the other side. We are up for trying this, so it will be enabled in 1.16. It can always be disabled again if it proves too confusing or buggy. Since the world is square, the visible world border will give a visual indication of where wrapping will occur, which should make it less jarring.
Server Settings
The difficulty level will be set to Hard
This is one of our bigger departures from the survey results. In the survey, 67% of responses preferred normal difficulty, with 29% wanting hard. However, after a discussion with staff, and some survey participants, we are keen to try and experiment with hard difficulty. Staff are generally for this idea, and several comments within the survey, and conversations outside the survey have shown that some normal voters are willing to try hard difficulty.
We feel that the additional challenge added by hard may make the game more interesting, as food is more important, and mobs hit harder. In the end it is unlikely to be a significant difference, as Minecraft is significantly easier in a multiplayer setting, but we would at least like to give it a try.
Existing gamerules will remain the same
Many responses wanted all the listed gamerules to stay at their 1.14 settings, or had no preference:
mobGriefing - Remains Enabled
65% wanted mob griefing to remain enabled. This is unsurprising due to issues like villagers being unable to pick up items when it is disabled. Note that is does not affect the ability for mobs to damage claimed areas, or explosions above sea level. These are managed by other settings we will cover below.
doFireTick - Remains Disabled
64% preferred fire spread to remain disabled and remain disabled it will be. Fire will therefore not spread, as in 1.14.
doInsomnia - Remains Enabled
In one of the closest results of the whole survey, 41% of responses wanted phantoms to remain enabled, with 38% wanting them disabled. With such a close result, we decided to go with our personal preference of keeping them enabled, which also avoids issues with membrane becoming extremely hard to find.
doImmediateRespawn - Remains Disabled
49% did not want immediate respawn to be enabled, and 38% had no preference, so the 1.14 behaviour will remain. Dying will still present you with the respawn screen and will allow you to try and work out where you are, while also risking your items despawning while doing so.
doPatrolSpawning - Remains Enabled
Pillager patrols will continue to spawn as they did in 1.14, as 74% of responses preferred this setting.
doTraderSpawning - Remains Enabled
The wandering trader will also continue to spawn, with 82% of responses preferred this setting.
doLimitedCrafting - Remains Disabled
Enabling this gamerule was unlikely to ever be considered, nonetheless 86% voted against it. Crafting with be unrestricted as a result.
disableRaids - Remains Disabled
Raids will remain enabled, with the support of 2/3 of the responses.
keepInventory - Remains Disabled
Another unlikely consideration which received little support, with 52% preferring it disabled and 23% having no preference. Dying will therefore drop items as normal.
doWeatherCycle - Remains Enabled
90% of responses wanted weather to remain enabled, as it likely would have anyway.
doDaylightCycle - Remains Enabled
The day/night cycle gets the highest level of support of all the gamerules, with 95% in favour. Time will continue to progress normally in 1.16.
Newly added gamerules will use their default values
The 2 new 1.16 gamerules received large majorities for their default settings, which we will keep:
forgiveDeadPlayers - Remains Enabled
82% preferred players to be forgiven by angry mobs, if said mobs see them die.
universalAnger - Remains Disabled
Nearby innocent players will not get attacked by angered mobs, after 49% of responses wanted this gamerule to remain at its default disabled value.
Some server settings will change
We will be changing some spigot/paper/Tuinity settings based on the survey results and wanting to experiment with new things:
nerf-spawner-mobs - Will be Disabled
This setting was enabled in 1.14 and helped reduce lag from mob spawner farms. However, it also makes random spawner-created mobs encountered in caves completely unresponsive to the player, which makes them pose no challenge at all.
More players would prefer it to remain enabled over being disabled, with 44% vs 17%, however 39% of responses expressed no preference on either side. As a result, we would like to start 1.16 with this disabled, to make mobs in caves less of an embarrassing waste of space. Naturally, we will turn it back on if this causes performance issues.
fix-zero-tick-instant-grow-farms - Remains Enabled
Zero tick farms are apparently fixed in 1.16, however if they somehow reappear this setting will be enabled to prevent their use. 57% of responses were in favour of this remaining enabled.
use-faster-eigencraft-redstone - Remains Enabled
This setting improves the performance of Redstone, at the cost of potentially breaking some particularly complex machines. Some comments in the survey did express concerns over this setting as a result of this risk. In the end though 47% remained in favour of it, with 36% having no preference, so we shall leave it enabled.
auto-replenish - Remains Enabled
Lootable containers that have been looted and left empty will continue to refill themselves after a delay for newly visiting players, with the support of 82% of responses.
flat-bedrock - Will be Enabled
Bedrock will be generated as a flat layer in 1.16 after receiving strong support at 45% in favour and 25% with no preference.
disable-player-crits - Remains Disabled
Crits will continue to exist, with 52% in support and 38% having no preference.
disable-sprint-interruption-on-attack - Remains Disabled
58% of responses wanted sprint interruption behaviour to remain as it was in 1.14, with another 27% unsure.
disable-relative-projectile-velocity - Remains Disabled
Projectiles velocity will continue to use 1.14 behaviour, with the support of 42% of responses and 47% with no preference.
pistons-can-push-tile-entities - Will be Enabled
Testing has shown pushable tile entities allows bypassing of chunk limits. This option will therefore remain disabled unless a fix for this is found.
One of the most significant 1.16 changes will be the enabling of this setting. This allows pistons to push some tile entities, such as single chests, furnaces, campfires and more. This naturally depends on the feature being implemented in 1.16 Tuinity, which is not guaranteed. However, if it is, we shall be enabling it with the support of 45% of responses, plus 33% without a preference.
Grief Prevention settings will remain the same
The following Grief Prevention settings received support for their current 1.14 settings, and will remain the same:
BlockSurfaceCreeperExplosions - Remains Enabled
With 71% in favour, explosions above sea-level will continue to do no block damage.
EndermenMoveBlocks - Remains Enabled
58% supported endermen continuing to move blocks, with 22% having no preference. This behaviour will therefore remain enabled.
CreaturesTrampleCrops - Remains Disabled
Mobs will remain unable to trample crops, with the support of 77% of responses.
RabbitsEatCrops - Remains Enabled
Rabbits will still be able to eat crops in 1.16, after 43% voted for this to remain enabled, with 33% expressing no preference.
Claims
Claims will not automatically expire
32% of responses preferred claims to not expire due to inactivity, with 60 days just behind at 29%. After some discussion, we have decided to go with no automatic expiry, so large high-effort builds will not get griefed because the builder took a long break.
Staff can remove claims and builds at their own discretion
While claims will not automatically expire, staff will be free to remove claims at their discretion. For example, claimed unfinished builds by long inactive users, low effort builds and inactive builds in the way of active ones will all be removable. We feel this is the best compromise to ensures that high quality builds do not automatically lose protection, whilst unfinished or low-quality ones can be removed to clean up the world and leave space for others to use.
Players who are affected by an inactive claim near them can continue to create modreqs as before, and we will deal with them on a case by case basis.
Lectern reading will be allowed, but other protections remain the same
71% of responses preferred that lecterns not require access trust to read. We will be following this, assuming it does not allow the reading player to steal the book.
All other protections will remain the same, which includes:
- Explosions - Protected: 84% in favour
- Fire spread - Not applicable as doFireTick is disabled: 80% in favour
- Fire block damage - Not applicable as doFireTick is disabled: 80% in favour
- Wooden doors - Not Protected: 52% in favour, 19% with no preference
- Wooden trap doors - Not Protected: 44% in favour, 21% with no preference
- Gates - Protected: 46% in favour, 20% with no preference
- Ender pearls - Protected: 42% in favour, 19% no preference
Additional Worlds
Mall, Pixel Art and Amplified worlds will be added
These suggestions had 68%, 85% and 64% in favour, respectively.
Adding a Mall world allows for easier expansion of the mall if required. It also reduces the minimum possible size of the nether hub and removes a possible source of FPS drops for players who visit the hub, even if they are not interested in the mall.
A Pixel Art world allows us to create an area more suited to pixel art creation, with the ability to fly and claimable plots laid out in a way that works with maps. It also frees up space in the overworld for normal builds, as we can now require pixel art to only be built in its dedicated world.
The amplified world existed in 1.14 and was a good source of sand as well as being cool to explore. There is no real downside to bringing it back in 1.16, so we shall do so.
Farm world will not be added, at least to start
Whilst the farm world idea did attract strong support at 66% in favour, we will not be adding it at the start of 1.16. The main reason for this is the possible performance improvements may not come to pass. A world dedicated to farms will likely result in more of those farms being ticked if a single person visits, even if they are not using many of them, simply due to their proximity. Preventing this issue by spacing them out would be additional work and causes issues with players having to travel further to reach them.
We are however open to the idea of having another hive-style world in 1.16. However, this would be on a smaller scale, and will require more planning to ensure server performance is not affected. We are considering either putting together a trusted group for this or taking pitches for farms designs. Either way, this is for the future.
Plugins
Most plugins will remain
Liquid Tanks is not being added to the 1.16 server, due to allowing a dupe exploit.
The following plugins will remain on the 1.16 server:
- Hive bee counts: 76% in favour, 22% with no preference
- Item Stats: 72% in favour, 24% with no preference
- Lore Tokens: 54% in favour, 42% with no preference
- Dynmap: 89% in favour, 10% with no preference
- Prefixes: 80% in favour, 15% with no preference
- Shops: 92% in favour, 5% with no preference
- Sleeping Improvements: 88% in favour, 10% with no preference
- Player Stats: 80% in favour, 18% with no preference
- Custom Items/Event medals: 77% in favour, 19% with no preference
- Liquid Tanks (With XP): 63% in favour
The Compass plugin will be removed
Whilst the compass plugin still received support, with 60% in favour, with the addition of lodestones in 1.16 we consider it obsolete and will be removing it. Lodestones can perform the main function of the compass plugin (pointing to your bed), and work in all worlds, whilst the compass plugin works only in the overworld. In addition, lodestones are a craftable block, which make it feel much more "Minecraft" than a random command can be.
The TrainCarts plugin will be added from the start
Due to it receiving strong support (71% in favour), we will be adding the TrainCarts plugin from the start of the 1.16 server. This plugin made a brief appearance during the 1.14 server, and while it received some positive reception, it also caused plenty of issues for minecart based farms. The main issue was that TrainCarts altered the behaviour of minecarts in a way that broke existing farms. Many of these issues were fixed but adding it from the start will prevent any remaining changes from causing issues, as players can design around them in the initial build.
We will not be enabling all features of TrainCarts immediately, as we will need to assess the impact of the more non-vanilla automation it offers, but the basic cart behaviour and vertical/inverted rails will be there. The ability to suspend minecarts from iron bars will also be present.
Custom generation for The End will be considered
59% of responses were supportive of the idea of adding a custom world generator, with 21% having no preference. We are therefore looking into the possibility of using a custom world generator for The End (which will not be open from the start), with the goal of making the end more interesting by adding more things to discover within.
The existing end house plugin has the support of 64% of responses, so we may still include this, or replace it with generator provided features if they exist.
An armour stand plugin will be added
A plugin for editing armour stands will be added in 1.16, following the idea getting significant support in the survey, with 85% in favour. We have not yet decided whether we will use the one currently in use on the creative server, or an alternative such as the vanilla tweaks datapack.
Some VanillaTweaks datapacks will be added
We investigated VanillaTweaks after a good number of comments recommended we do so. We believe some of the packs they offer are good quality of life changes or offer interesting new features. As a result, we will be adding the following packs:
- More Mob Heads: Mobs will sometimes drop their head
- Redstone/Terracotta Rotation Wrenches: Wrenches which will rotate placed redstone/terracotta blocks by right clicking
- Wandering Trades: Adds mini blocks to the Wandering Trader's trades
- More Trapdoors: 6 wood crafts 12 trapdoors, instead of 3
- More Bark: 4 logs now craft 4 bark blocks, instead of 3
- Back to Blocks: Stairs and slabs can be crafted back into full blocks
- Craftable Gravel: 4 flint can be crafted into a gravel block
- Double Slabs: 2 slabs can be crafted from a single block
- More Bricks: 4 clay bricks now crafts 4 bricks instead of 1
- More Stairs: 6 wood now crafts 8 stairs instead of 4
- Craftable Coral Blocks 3x3: 3x3 coral tubes/fans can be crafted into a coral block
- Sandstone Dyeing: Red dye and sandstone can be crafted into red sandstone
- Unpackable Ice: Packed/blue ice crafting can be reversed
- Unpackable Nether Wart: Nether wart block crafting can be reversed
- Universal Dyeing: Dyed blocks can be redyed, or undyed with ice (except wool and concrete)
- Unpackable Wool: Wool can be crafted into 4 string
The Nether
Claims will be enabled in The Nether, a certain distance from spawn
In line with 52% in support of Nether claims, and 17% with no preference, we will be enabling claims in The Nether. A few comments did draw attention to a large problem this would create however - interference with portal creation. Players would be able to claim areas containing other player's portals to prevent them being edited, and claims could also be unintentionally griefed by newly created portals from the overworld.
To fix this we are restricting claims to the area of The Nether beyond the overworld size, as portals in the overworld will never reach this area which avoids the problem. We are currently working with 1500 blocks from spawn, which allows the overworld to be expanded a bit without bringing the portal issues back. All the space outside of this range will be free to claim, whilst areas inside will work just like the 1.14 nether.
Nether roof travel will be allowed, with spawns disabled
36% of responses supported nether roof access without mob spawns, with another 23% wanting access with spawns. A further 20% had no preference. We believe the best compromise here is to enable access with spawns disabled.
The Nether Hub will be much smaller
As the Mall will be in its own world (62% voted in favour of this), the 1.16 Nether Hub does not need to be anywhere near as large as the 1.14 hub. The staff-created 1.16 hub will have a total size of 62x62 blocks, centred on spawn. This has several beneficial effects. Firstly, we will not have cases of portals getting created inside the hub, as the 1.16 hub is now smaller than the equivalent size of the overworld spawn area. Secondly, the smaller hub results in community created areas being much closer to spawn, so the community is now in more control of the hub's appearance. This overall brings us closer to the 1.13 hub style, while retaining some structure in the form of the spawn area and equipment rooms remaining admin claimed.
The portal search radius will be smaller
The portal search radius will be reduced from its default of 128. This will limit the distance that portals link to each other from, making it easier to create a portal that does not unintentionally link to an unrelated one.
Trusted players will be able to edit the directory
With 42% of responses supporting it, we will be limiting directory editing to a group of trusted players. We are doing this to ensure the directory remains free of unsuitable locations, whilst avoiding the extra moderation overhead that would result from making it mod only. Who will be trusted/what criteria there are for trusted will be discussed at a later date.
Directories will be restricted to Towns, Farms, POIs
98% and 78% voted for adding towns and farms to the directory. We have decided to avoid adding settlements to the directory, despite the 70% in support for them, to reduce clutter. The 1.14 directories are rather cluttered, containing more locations than they were designed to, and not all of these are locations many people will visit. Limiting it to just towns and other notable locations reduces the possible amount of locations to more manageable levels.
Dynmap markers will be used more extensively
Of course, some players will want to be able to find settlements and smaller locations too, so we will be making greater use of Dynmap markers this time around. The trusted directory players will be able to add/edit Dynmap markers, removing the need to create modreqs for them. Locations that do not meet the directory requirements can still have a Dynmap marker, so they may still be found. Dynmap layers will be added for Towns, Settlements, Farms and POIs.
Farms
Additional rules will be in place for farms
The survey results show strong agreement for wanting farms to look nice (59% agree) and not wanting to be near ugly farms (61% agree). As a result, we will be enforcing this. Naturally, some leeway will be given for in-progress or recently completed builds, as farms are typically built in the open at first. However, if some time passes without an attempt to make a farm look presentable, mods will take appropriate action.
71% of responses agree that farms should be removed or limited if server performance is affected. We will therefore act on farms that we suspect are affecting server performance, either requesting they be removed/resized, or immediately removing them ourselves if the situation is severe enough to warrant it.
64% of responses supported the view that farms should be appropriately sized based on demand, with 57% saying that excessively sized farms should not be allowed. With this in mind we will be acting on excessively sized farms, such as melon farms which have always filled chests. Actions will include requests to fix or mods resizing/removing themselves depending on severity.
87% agreed that farms should have a way to disable them if problems occur, so we will also be making this a requirement. where possible.
These new rules will be documented in more detail before the server launch.
Coordinates
Coordinates will be enabled outside of The End
The coordinates results provide some interesting reading, so they are presented here in full:
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Coordinates are an important part of the gameplay experience Strongly Disagree: 8.33% |
I cannot enjoy the game with coordinates disabled Strongly Disagree: 35.12% |
Servers should be free to choose whether coordinates are enabled Strongly Disagree 2.98% |
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I consider coordinates a "crutch" which people are too dependent on Strongly Disagree: 26.79% |
I prefer a server map to having coordinates enabled Strongly Disagree: 6.55% |
1.16 lodestones make coordinates less important for navigation Strongly Disagree: 8.93% |
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I want coordinates to return for 1.16 Strongly Disagree: 6.55% |
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In the end they show strong support for server choice, strong disagreement with enjoyment being impossible without them, very mixed views on their importance, especially in 1.16, and preference for a map over coordinates being enabled - with a surprising number of people in the middle throughout. There were also plenty of comments on all sides of the debate. In the end though, the result is clear, a lot of people want coordinates back, and this will be done.
The community response to their initial disabling remains unacceptable and was a large factor in the decision to never reenable them, lest the more toxic players be encouraged to act similarly to any future change they disliked. However, this is now a chance for a fresh start, and many of those players have since left, so now is a good time to enable them again.
It was a nice experiment, but there are indeed areas of the game that are rather dependant on them, and valid non-navigational uses for them. Hopefully, it has at least reduced dependency on coordinates and shown there are alternative ways to find your way in the world.
The one exception to this change is that coordinates will remain disabled in The End (when it opens), in a similar way to Dynmap's end limitations. After some discussion we all agree this is a fair compromise, as The End's challenge and appeal comes from exploration to find rare items. The addition of lodestones in 1.16 now also makes it possible to have a compass that points back home too.
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