Hey hey hey!

Here is the fifth version of the combat mechanics tests. The snapshot is based on the 1.15.2 pre-release, but is - as always - not compatible with the main game.

This snapshot contains some rather impactful changes. The reason is that I'm trying to pinpoint the problems of 1.9 PvP while making sure PvE still feels enjoyable. There have been two major - though slightly contradictory - points of feedback.

First, armor is too weak and barely matter. In particular low quality armor. Secondly, 1.9's food regeneration encourages defensive and evasive gameplay. The first problem makes fights too quick, and the second problem makes them drag out and feel boring.

After a lot of thinking on these problems I decideded to make the following main changes:

• Make weapons weaker
• Remove the regeneration boost from food saturation

In detail, weapons:

• Stone tier lowered to 0 (same as wood, was 1)
• Iron tier lowered to 1 (was 2)
• Diamond tier lowered to 2 (was 3)
• Swords lowered to 2 (was 3)
• Axes lowered to 3 (was 4)
• Trident lowered to 5 (was 6)

For example, a Diamond Sword now deals 2 2 2=6 points of damage. This was 2 3 3=8 in the previous test, and 1 3 3=7 in 1.9/1.8 (base damage is 2 now, same as on Bedrock).

In detail, food rebalance:

• Saturation boost removed
• Eating food is now slower (40 ticks, was 32 ticks)
• Natural healing works longer (down to 6 food points, used to be down to 18)
• Natural healing is faster (every 3 seconds, was 4)
• New: Natural healing now always drains food points. Saturation is not used when healing damage, and is only relevant as a "pause" until food drains (as originally intended)
• Sprinting is no longer affected by the food value

Other changes:

• Various block-hitting and air-swinging bug fixes
• Made it possible to hit players with snowballs (TODO: game rule)
• Reintroduced upwards knockback when hitting players in the air... Probably too strong right now, but can be balanced later
• Changed the swing animation to emphasize the rythm of the attacks
• Added cooldown to egg

Bonus controversial edit...

• Added a kind of "Coyote Time" that activates for a fraction of a second if you aim at something but attack outside its bounding box. The background to this change is that since you can't attack between swings, it often gave the impression that your input was "lost". It also made fighting small and fast targets (rabbits or baby zombies) unneccessarily frustrating

Again, thank you all for your input!

First post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/c5mqwv/a_custom_java_edition_snapshot_to_test_new_combat/

Second post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/cqnp5b/update_custom_java_edition_snapshot_to_test_new/

Third post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/dq2v7o/updated_combat_test_snapshot_number_3_and_a/

Fourth post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/e3gt34/since_doing_something_this_the_last_minute_on_a/

Installation instructions:

• Download this zip file: https://launcher.mojang.com/experiments/combat/52263d42a626b40c947e523128f7a195ec5af76a/1_15_combat-6.zip
• Unpack the folder into your "versions" folder of your local Minecraft application data folder (see below if you are confused)
• Create a new launch configuration in the launcher and select the "pending 1_15_combat-6" version
• Start the game and the remaining files will be downloaded
• Play in a new world! This version is not compatible with other snapshots!

Finding the Minecraft application folder:

• Windows: Press Win R and type %appdata%.minecraft and press Ok
• Mac OS X: In Finder, in the Go menu, select "Go to Folder" and enter ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft
• Linux: ~/.minecraft or /home/<your username>/.minecraft/

Once you have the launcher set up you can download the server files from there as well.

FEEDBACK SITE

In addition to replying here on reddit, you can head over to the feedback site to discuss specific topics here: https://aka.ms/JavaCombatSnap

Cheers!