Is 1.17 Going the Right Way About Fixing the Problems with Mining?

It has been 17 days, or one Mediterranean cruise, since Mojang blew our socks off by doubling the depth of the underground. As I mentioned in a previous rant, it's perhaps one of the most fundamental changes to Minecraft there has ever been. It shook foundations that have been set in bedrock since PRE-ALPHA days. A decade of 64 blocks underground, all of a sudden doubled to 128 overnight. And some massive caves to go with it!

At the time of writing, there have since been two more iterations and two rebalancings of ore distribution, as well as a new type of stone at the deeper levels. I am fully aware that the update is far from complete, and in the coming weeks there will be plenty more iterations to come. We've not even seen the new biomes yet.

But I am going to look at the third iteration of the caves critically, and ask in early days: is this update headed in the right direction?

At Minecon 2020, they stated they want to add more strategies to mining and make mining more fun and enjoyable. For over a decade, things have been the same: mine down to y11 and mine indefinitely in a straight line until you find all the diamonds you need. There is no doubt that the new snapshots are going to change that: but will it change for the better?

Current Mining Strategies as of 21w08b

As of today, the latest snapshot is 21w08b. I must say this snapshot is leagues better than 07a, which made huge caves WAY too rare. I have played 08a/b quite a lot, and even after they reduced the amount of diamonds that generate exposed to air, a massive cave is still by far the best way to find diamonds. They have added strategy in that diamonds generate linearly the lower you go. However, there is still no real danger to going lower other than being further from the surface. There's no more lava down low than up top. I'm sure this will be addressed in later snapshots, but mining at y-52 feels similar to mining at y40. So I guess there is more strategy in that the better way to find diamonds is to look in caves. The reduction of diamond exposed to air does not make stripmining more feasible per se, it merely balances things. Before, in a massive cave, you could find a stack of diamonds in minutes. I'm glad they have balanced that.

Another "strategy" they've added is needing to be at different layers to gather different resources. Copper will only generate near the surface, Emeralds generate more higher up, and Diamonds and Redstone are only found low down. This is also a good change, however, it relies on the debug mode for the player to see if they're in optimal levels or not. I think they need to add some sort of depth meter that allows the player to see how far down they are, or visualise where on the vertical axis they are.

The final proper strategy they've added with these snapshots, is making diamonds and gold generate more frequently in flooded caves. Flooded caves are MUCH more dangerous than regular caves, needing potions and enchantments to not drown. As such, you get greeted with double diamonds! I'm in two minds about how balanced this is, however, as I feel exploring flooded caves is TOO much of a risk just for double diamonds. Then again, flooded caves also aren't crawling with mobs.

All in all, what we see here is definitely the start of Mojang adding strategy to mining. The new caves have also given really great use to the Potion of Night Vision and the Spyglass - two items that previously didn't have a whole lot of use. However, I do feel there are some ways to go, even after everything we've seen so far is balanced and optimised. I still see some areas of lacking that are in need of improvement when it comes to mining and caving for resources.

Issues Still Present With Mining/the Underground in 1.17

With the doubled height, more content is needed to fill the space. The biomes will go a long way in doing this, but I feel there still needs to be more structures and things to find underground. The abandoned mineshafts have had an incredible facelift, but I feel there should be new underground structures, and new mobs. We already have the Warden coming, but imagine if you were also competing with a goblin civilisation of miners. Or there was some strange creature down there on a smaller scale to the Warden. The underground seems a little barren right now. Maybe this will seem different once we have the biomes, the Warden, the axolotl, and maybe the Glow Squid to populate the flooded caves.

The doubled underground also now has room for a lot more ores. They added only one new ore in 1.17 - copper. There is PLENTY of room in the grimstone deepslate layers for an exclusive ore which can only be found low down. I'd have thought a mining update would have a lot more than one new ore, especially as it's basically the first mining update ever.

There is also the issue with mobs. Too many mobs. I am sure this will eventually be rebalanced, but currently the spawnrate of hostile mobs in the big caves is absolutely broken. It is also near-impossible to light the whole cave up. This makes the caves challenging, but for all the wrong reasons. Having to stop and fight 50 zombies and skeletons is not fun. It just feels like a bit of a slog, like it's permanently night in the Overworld. It also just feels a little uninspired. This ties into my earlier point of having more new hostile mobs in the underground, that could actually offer a very different gameplay experience of mining in the big caves, rather than just facing hordes of the common night-time mobs. Maybe some hostile bat, or even the Great Hunger - something like that. The Warden will be a great mob, but I feel more variety to the mobs in the underground is needed. There is no mob unique to the Dripstone caves even.

I also feel caves themselves should be more inherently dangerous than just mob spam. More cracks in the terrain that can lead you falling to your death if you're not careful. More lava at lower levels. Stalactites which actually fall and you have to be careful not to be standing under them - maybe they can have signs that they're about to break and you have to use your Spyglass to look out for that. You know... things to make the caves themselves dangerous and not just because they're crawling with mobs. Ores should also be rebalanced per biome so that the more dangerous area you go, the more diamonds you'll find. The Deep Dark, with the Warden, has the most diamonds, followed by the Dripstone caves, then the generic caves, then the safe lush caves having the least exposed diamonds. That way, you can choose to enter a dangerous biome at the risk of getting more diamonds. I think they have started going this way with the flooded caves, but we'll just have to see.

Finally, there is one more area that I feel the update has so far lacked: and that is some new mining tools. Fundamentally, even now, mining still consists mostly of one tool: the pickaxe. There is no real alternate way to mine. At least, in the Overworld. In the Nether, blast mining is preferred, but it's completely impractical in the Overworld. They should add new alternative ways to mine that don't involve pickaxing rock. The archaeology system may be somewhat of a new strategy, but as I mentioned in an earlier rant, I am not sure if archaeology will quickly grow old and tedious. We'll have to wait and see on that one. The depth meter I mentioned earlier could be a good start, and also maybe some throwable explosive such as dynamite or an explosive that is specialised in breaking stone/deepslate could shake things up a lot.

Final Thoughts

In tackling the issue of mining being boring and one-note, and trying to make mining more strategic and fun, the words that come to mind with the snapshots we've seen so far is: "They've made a good start". There definitely is more strategy with the ore distribution, and the use of Night Vision and the Spyglass, but there is still a long way to go. I do believe some of these issues I mentioned will be addressed in later snapshots with content that has yet to be released (e.g. the Warden), but I feel there are things the underground and caving still needs which appear to be beyond the scope of 1.17 - such as more inherently dangerous caves and new ores.

All this said, even if the finished does go only three-quarters of the way in fixing some of these issues, I have absolutely no doubt that mining and caving after 1.17 will be LEAGUES better than it was before 1.17. I highly commend the Mojang team for their incredible work on completely revamping the underground.