Results and changes for 1.21 Stress Test

This is a summary of the changes we will be implementing for the RTGame Minecraft 1.21 Stress Test Video Game Gaming Server, following the feedback from the recent survey. 73 of you responded and your feedback is valued.

As with previous Stress Test servers, this is a good time for us to experiment with new ideas. Changes we make here may not stay for the final 1.21 Survival Server, and there will be a follow-up survey during the Stress Test to see if the changes have been well received. We would appreciate you keeping an open mind.

Cited percentages are rounded to the nearest percent for readability. Support numbers include "no preference" responses.

What is staying the same

The below things will be left unchanged for the 1.21 Stress Test Server.

Difficulty

90% of players responded positively to the current difficulty, with a enjoyment rating of 4 or above. 73% want the current hard-with-normal-elements difficulty level to remain unchanged.

Gamerules

All gamerules we asked about will remain unchanged:

• doInsomnia - enabled (66% support)
  Phantoms will continue to spawn. In our closest result yet, 36% of players wanted phantoms to continue spawning, with 34% against and 30% having no preference. It is clearly not possible to make everyone happy here, and disabling phantoms raises questions about the availability of Phantom Membrane, so we will leave this setting unchanged.
  
• forgiveDeadPlayers - enabled (100% support)
  Angry mobs will forgive players that have died.
• universalAnger - disabled (88% support)
  Angry mobs will only target the player who attacked them.
• doImmediateRespawn‌ - disabled (95% support)
  You will need to click the respawn button to respawn.
• doPatrolSpawning - enabled (100% support)
  Pillager patrols will spawn as normal.
• disableRaids - disabled (95% support)
  Raids will continue to happen.
• keepInventory - disabled (81% support)
  Inventory contents will still be dropped on death.
• doWeatherCycle - enabled (100% support)
  Weather will remain a thing.

Server settings

The below server settings will remain unchanged:

• nerf-spawner-mobs - disabled (96% support)
  Mobs spawned from spawners will continue to have AI.
  
• flat-bedrock - enabled (93% support)
  Bedrock will still generate as a flat layer.
  
• EndermenMoveBlocks - enabled (71% support)
  Endermen can still pick up and move blocks outside claims.
• use-better-mending - enabled (100% support)
  XP will repair your most damaged mending enchanted equipment first.
  
• shift-right-click-repairs-mending - enabled (97% support)
  Sneak-right-clicking will use some of your current XP to repair mending enchanted equipment, as before.
  
• break-individual-slabs-when-sneaking - enabled (100% support)
  As in 1.20 Survival, breaking a double slab whilst sneaking will instead only break the targeted half.
  
• lootables.auto-replenish - enabled (100% support)
  Empty lootable containers will continue to refill for newly looting players.
  
• sign.allow-colors - enabled (99% support)
  Using formatting codes to colour text on signs will remain possible.
  
• chicken.retaliate - enabled (95% support)
  Chickens will continue to target players that have attacked them.

Fire spread

The current server setting ("Fire spreads and damages blocks outside of claims") remains the most popular option at 37%, and the vast majority of players want to see some form of fire spread on the server. With over half of players preferring fire spread at the current level or above, keeping the current setting seems the best course of action.

Explosions

Almost two-thirds of responses supported the current server setting of explosions damaging unclaimed blocks. This setting will be left unchanged.

Sleeping

The current sleeping mechanics, where night length varies based on the number of sleeping players, will remain in place with 71% support.

PvP

PvP will remain an opt-in feature, with 78% of players preferring this option.

Claims

The following aspects of claiming land remain unchanged:

• Earned block limit - 40,000 (95% support)
  As in 1.20 Survival, the claim block limit will start at 2,000 and increase by 200/hour up to 40,000.
• Claims will never expire
  The current behaviour of manually created claims never expiring remains the most popular option at 36%. We also consider this to be the best approach. Unused automatic chest claims will still expire after 2 weeks.
  We also saw a number of comments complaining about undeveloped claims making areas of the world "unusable". Please note that you are free to create /modreqs to get such claims removed, ideally after first trying to contact the owner yourself.
  
  

  Option	Votes	Percentage
  No, they should never expire	26	35.62%
  Yes, they should expire if they are below a certain size	17	23.29%
  Yes, all claims should expire after a fixed time	9	12.33%
  Yes, all claims should expire at different times based on their size	10	13.70%
  Other	11	15.07%

• Trust requirements
  • Reading lecterns - No trust required (99% support)
  • Opening wooden doors - No trust required (95% support)
  • Opening wooden trapdoors - No trust required (93% support)
  • Using ender pearls - Access trust required (62% support)
  • Triggering raids - No trust required (73% support)
  • Trading with villagers - No trust required (95% support)
    

Worlds

• Amplified world will return (99% support)
  The amplified world will return for the 1.21 Stress Test, albeit with some changes detailed in the changes section.
  
• The Mall will remain in the Overworld
  Only 37% of players wanted to see a return of the Mall world from 1.17 Survival. There were also a number of comments concerned about it feeling isolated from the rest of the server, which was the reason we originally removed it. Moving The Mall back to the Nether also remains impractical due to world scaling and portal creation, so it will remain in the Overworld.
• The Overworld Spawn will be player-built (95% support)
  The Overworld Spawn design will again be up to the community to decide upon. There will be changes to the overall process, which can be found in the changes section.
• The Nether Hub will be player-built (90% support)
  The Nether Hub design will also be up to the community to decide upon. There will be changes to the overall process, which can be found in the changes section.
• Nether roof travel will be allowed (97% support)
• Directory editing and allowed locations will remain the same
  73% of players are in favour of the existing system where only trusted players can edit the directory. The allowed location types will also remain the same, with all types getting >90% support except for player bases with only 30%.
  

Plugins

The following plugins will remain on the 1.21 Stress Test Server:

• Item Stats (99% support)
  
• Lore Tokens (99% support)
• Dynmap (100% support)
  
• Shopkeepers (100% support)
• Player Stats (100% support)
• End Houses (96% support)
• Art Map (100% support)
• Armour Stand Editing (100% support)
  
• Big Doors (96% support)
  
• Furniture (95% support)
  
• Sitting (100% support)
  
• Invisible Item Frames (100% support)
  
• Light Blocks (100% support)
• Emote Items (100% support)
  
• Lumberjack (90% support)
  
• Amplified Portals (100% support)
  
• Concrete Mixer (99% support)
  
• Better Cats (100% support)
  
• Telepipes (92% support)
• Claim Block Vouchers (97% support)
• Plasmovoice (99% support)

Fabric

The server will not be switching to Fabric and will remain on Purpur. 67% of players expressed no preference on the choice of server software, and an investigation into the feasibility of migrating to Fabric quickly showed it would involve significant work that a majority of players will see no benefit from. We remain open to the idea for future server versions if it ever becomes more practical.

VanillaTweaks

The following VanillaTweaks datapacks will remain on the 1.21 Stress Test Server:

• More Mob Heads (95% support)
• Wandering Trades (100% support)
  
• Block Wrench (97% support)
  
• More Trapdoors (97% support)
  
• More Bark (97% support)
  
• Back to Blocks (96% support)
  
• Craftable Gravel (97% support)
  
• Double Slabs (99% support)
  
• More Stairs (97% support)
  
• Craftable Coral Blocks 3x3 (100% support)
  
• Sandstone Dyeing (97% support)
  
• Unpackable Ice (100% support)
  
• Unpackable Nether Wart (96% support)
  
• Universal Dyeing (99% support)
  
• Unpackable Wool (97% support)
  
• Craftable Bundles (100% support)
  
• Rotten Flesh to Rabbit Hide (93% support)
  
• Charcoal to Black Dye (93% support)
  
• Straight to Shapeless (100% support)
  
• Blackstone Cobblestone (99% support)
  
• Powder to Glass (96% support)
  

Client mods

Our overall stance on client mods will remain unchanged. The community is in broad agreement with our assessment of mods which constitute an unfair advantage. Some players had specific questions on macros/scripting and what is considered an unfair advantage, so we will be creating additional documentation on what uses of this we deem acceptable.

What will be changing

Item despawn times are changing

We are making some significant changes to item despawning, with the goal of reducing clutter in the world and making the rules simpler and more predictable:

• Despawn times are determined by how items are dropped
  There will be no separate category of "junk" items which despawn faster. Instead items will despawn at different times depending on how they are dropped:
  • Drops due to player deaths will despawn after 24 hours
  • Any other drops will despawn after the vanilla 5 minutes
• Despawn times are always real-time
  Item despawning is no longer affected by whether the containing chunk is loaded. If an item is set to despawn after 24 hours, it will always be 24 hours.

Claim Block Vouchers will replace direct purchasing

Claim Block Vouchers will now be the only way to increase your claim block limit beyond the default 40,000. The command to purchase blocks will be removed, but a shop selling vouchers at an equivalent price will be located at spawn. There will be no limit to the number of vouchers you can purchase, making your block limit essentially infinite if you have the money. Vouchers will also continue to appear in loot chests.

This change was largely motivated by the underlying claim plugin dropping support for block purchasing, but we also like the idea of using our existing in-world item for this purpose.

More tweaks relating to claims

• Doors will be vulnerable to Zombies outside of claims
  Zombies will be able to break Wooden Doors located outside of claims. Claimed doors will be protected as before, claim doors that you want protected.
• Mobs can trample crops outside of claims
  Crops located outside of claims will now get trampled by mobs. Claimed crops will be protected as before, claim crops that you want protected (use /trust public for public farms). Players will still be unable to trample crops anywhere.
• Gates in claims will require access trust to use
  You will need access trust in a claim in order to use gates, as was the case in 1.17 Survival. We are changing this back due to concerns from players about the security of animal pens, and the unfortunate lack of an "iron gate" to solve this in an equivalent way to doors. If you have a claimed gate you want players to access, you can use a pressure plate.

The Overworld will no longer be infinite

We will be returning to a fixed world size, with a diameter of 20,000 blocks (the 1.15 Survival world size) being the current thinking. Whilst some players enjoy having an infinite world, unfortunately it causes some issues which make it impractical in the long term:

• Higher disk usage
  The 1.20 Survival world is 75GiB vs the 9GiB of the 1.17 Survival world. Disk space on the server is running low as a result.
• Long Dynmap render times
  Dynmap is spending a lot of time rendering newly explored parts of the world, sometimes leading to queues in the millions of tiles. This causes delays of possibly weeks before changes in more active parts of the world are shown.
• Reduced sense of community
  We saw a range of comments in survey responses stating the world feels too big for the server population and the sense of community suffers as a result.

We considered a "hybrid" world border approach, with a soft border that prevents claims outside of it. The rest of the world would then be for exploration/resource gathering only and could be deleted to save space if necessary. We decided against this approach due to the extra work required to adapt plugins for this concept, and because we feel the existing amplified world would function better in the exploration and resource gathering capacity.

Amplified will be formalised as a resource world

Related to the above, we will be formalising the Amplified world as the Amplified Resource World. We are aware many players already make use of this world only for gathering resources, so we will make this and exploration its intended purpose. The world will remain infinite with mobs and structure spawns, but claims will be disabled and the world may be periodically reset with a new seed.

The Arena world will be removed

The Wither Arena will continue to exist but will be moved to the Overworld Spawn, making use of the increased spawn size detailed below. We do not plan to allow Nether Stars to drop outside of the arena, as we still want the boss to be remotely challenging to fight. The Mob Arena will be removed entirely.

The Overworld Spawn, Nether Hub and Mall will be player-built in survival

All 3 major spawn structures will now be community designed and will need to be built in survival mode, rather than being pasted from a schematic as in previous iterations. Players will be able to request permission to edit these areas, and threads will be created for the discussions surrounding them.

For the Stress Test Server we will likely stick with deliberately simple spawn areas and allow players with permission to add to them. Design efforts would be better spent focusing on the final 1.21 Survival Server. The Stress Test Mall will also stick to the usual layout, but we are happy for future designs to explore alternative layouts for shops.

We will provide further information on the spawn building design process at a later date.

PvP arenas can be created

While the majority of players are happy with the global opt-in PvP system we currently use, we have received requests for dedicated PvP arenas to also be possible. We plan to update our PvP plugin to allow for this and a basic arena will also be present at spawn.

The Overworld Spawn area will be larger

We received a range of feedback on the 1.20 Overworld Spawn, and the general consensus seems to be that the current spawn area is too small. We have also heard of the performance issues players are experiencing due to the proximity of the entity-heavy Mall, as well as nearby player builds.

To help solve this we will be increasing the size of the spawn area, likely to around 1.17 Survival levels. This area will enforce a minimum distance from spawn for player builds, and will allow The Mall to be moved further from the spawn point. The remaining space will be used for the Wither and PvP arenas, as well as any future server events requiring bespoke builds.

Invisible Item Frames will be craftable with a Splash Invisibility Potion

To avoid Invisible Item Frames being locked behind The End opening, we will be swapping the Lingering Invisibility Potion for a Splash Invisibility Potion in the crafting recipe.

Light Blocks will be craftable

A number of players requested that Light Blocks become craftable in addition to being found in loot chests. We will be adding a recipe similar to the Invisible Item Frame to allow for this.

Some block limits are being increased

We will be trying out an increase in the Hopper and Piston chunk limits from 32 to 64 per-chunk. This should allow more freedom in building, whilst still enforcing a limit to prevent excessive use and the associated performance impacts.

Misc. entity activation range will be reset to vanilla

The range at which "miscellaneous" entities such as Dropped Items and Minecarts tick normally will be reset to the vanilla value, which is infinite. The changes to item despawning should allow us to do this without performance concerns, and should allow farms using Minecarts to work properly.

Some loot table changes are being reverted

We will be reverting some of our earlier changes to vanilla and VanillaTweaks loot tables:

• Wardens will now drop Warden Heads and Sculk Catalysts
• Iron Golems will now drop Iron Ingots instead of Iron Nuggets

Zombie Villager infection chance will follow vanilla

The chance for Zombie Villagers to infect rather than kill a Villager will be reverted to the vanilla 100% for hard difficulty. This effect no longer stacks multiple times and thus does not need this attempt at balancing it.

The Villager Trade Rebalance datapack will be enabled

We will be replacing our attempt at balancing Librarian Villager trades with Mojang's upcoming solution. See the wiki to learn more about this.

The Camera plugin will be removed

The Camera plugin has been unmaintained since the 1.16 days and has a number of quirks we don't have the resources to fix. The plugin will therefore be removed.

The More Bricks VanillaTweaks datapack will be removed

The changes to Clay generation in 1.18, particularly in Lush Caves have made this datapack less necessary, with some survey feedback saying that obtaining Brick Blocks in mass quantities is now too easy. We will therefore be removing this datapack.

Community event announcements will be posted in #survival-notices on request

We would like to increase the visibility of planned community events, so we will begin taking requests for announcements for events to be posted in #survival-notices.

If you have an event you'd like us to tell players about, including for the current 1.20 Survival Server, feel free to create a modmail using the Contact Staff button in #minecraft-info, and we can talk about it.