So, there's one thing that really bothers me about Minecraft, and I'm looking to solve it. It comes down to the fact that the game has tiers for weapons and armor (wood, stone, iron, diamond for tools, and leather iron diamond for armors), but the lower two tiers are almost completely irrelevant.

For example, in the case of armor, it's actually easier to get iron armor than leather, in some cases, and even if it's not, it takes like 10 minutes to find enough iron and get a major improvement. After that, in two hours you could have full diamond. Same with tools, you only use wood tier for the first 30 seconds of the game (why even bother to add them in the game at that point), and then use stone for the first 5 minutes before you get iron tools.

My point is, a survival minecraft campaign can last months, but you'll have the highest tier of armor and tools from probably the second day. It makes no sense, it's a huge amount of content wasted, and it removes the sense of accomplishment.

I'd like for me to be stuck with stone tools and leather armor for a good while. Iron should be very rare, a treat. And getting to a full set of iron armor and tools should take a lot of days and effort, and feel like a real accomplishment, not take five minutes. And diamond should be insanely rare, something you search for days. I want to feel like each tier lasts for a good part of my campaign, not for the first two hours.

So, I need a mod that either decreases the frequency of ores, or makes it so each ore drops "less" iron, like a nugget, or something to that effect. Honestly, playing the game and skipping every tool in a few minutes and getting to diamond within the first day takes a lot of the fun and accomplishment away from me.

EDIT - I know I'm ignoring Netherite here, but still, I would like getting to Iron and Diamond to feel like accomplishments that take a lot of time.

EDIT 2 - I'm going to use OreTweaker to reduce Ore Spawn and Survivalist to change drops. Thanks for all the help!