7 MORE Things I'd Love to See in Caves & Cliffs

This is a follow-up to a post I made several months ago: https://minecraftrants2.blogspot.com/2021/02/7-things-id-love-to-see-in-117.html

With Caves & Cliffs having its development cycle extended by 6 months, people have wondered if they will "compensate" for the delay by adding more features. I do not believe this to be the case, as they have delayed specifically to give them more time for the features they are already working on. That being said, there are still features I would love to see in Caves & Cliffs. I am not actually expecting to see any of these in Caves & Cliffs or any future update, nor am I affiliated with Mojang in any way. These are simply ways I would flesh out the update even more if I were on the team and the team had unlimited time to make Caves & Cliffs.

1 - Ice Caves

One of the most requested features in Caves & Cliffs is Ice Caves that generate beneath icy biomes, or underneath mountains. It's understandable people yearn for more than three underground biomes, but with how ambitious they have been with this update, it's incredible we got any to begin with. That being said, I think Ice Caves would be an incredible addition. Caves lined with snow and ice walls and aquifers are frozen. I say this because it just doesn't make sense to be in a frozen tundra wasteland, and dig straight down into a lush cave.

I am aware ice caves have been accidentally added to a Bedrock Beta. It's a bug, but I hope they keep it! In the past, "happy accident" bugs have become actual features. Crawling was never meant to be added, for example. Somehow, though, I think they will remove this feature/fix this bug.

2 - Mushroom Caves

Another commonly-requested cave type is the mushroom cave. A cave with large mushrooms or even new types of mushrooms. Bioluminescent mushrooms have been commonly requested, and it does make sense for a cave update. Mushrooms, especially bioluminescent ones, are commonly associated with caves. In order to not render Mushroom Islands obsolete, however, I think maybe this type of cave should be very rare, or only spawn under Mushroom Island biomes.

3 - Variation to the Mobs in Deepslate Layers

I feel that as you go deeper, the game should naturally get more challenging. They have started moving in the right direction with this - such as some aquifers in the deepslate layers becoming lava-fers. It's more variation like this I think would be really good. For example, in the deepslate layers, 20-40% (depending on difficulty) of Spiders spawn as Cave Spiders. Maybe Zombies have a significant chance to spawn with a pickaxe (as some new Zombie Miner mob) and deal extra damage that way. Maybe 10% of bats can be aggressive. Or even some entirely new mob found only in deepslate (that is less of a unit than the Warden). Just something to make the game more progressive and not have the same exact mobs on the surface as 120 blocks underground.

4 - Copper Electrification with Lightning

This is an idea I had a while ago and submitted to the feedback site. But of course it got deleted and never saw the light of day. But I have always thought copper should have SOME electrical property. And I think what we could see is copper having the ability to become electrified briefly if it is struck by lightning. Either naturally, or if conducted through a lightning rod. All unoxidized copper blocks, waxed or otherwise, within 8 blocks of the copper block or lightning rod that was struck, if they have a direct connection through copper blocks to the source of the strike, become electrified. The electrification effect would last half a second, and would deal 2.5 hearts of damage to anything standing on or making contact with a copper block that becomes electrified.

This may seem like a pointless feature, until you realize what this could do for farms. Assuming there's a thunderstorm. Maybe there'd be another way to electrify copper... like if Mojang ever add a lightning staff to the game.

5 - Throwable Glow Ink

Imagine how useful it would be if you could throw glow ink at the walls of a really dark cave, creating an "ink splatter" on the block it hit, which served as a light source with a light level of 12 or 13. You could light some faraway or high-up wall of a cave, which would be incredibly useful. The ink splatter would be an overlay "block" similar to vines or glow lichen. This would add another use to the Glow Squid and Glow Ink too. The ink sac when thrown could take a trajectory similar to the trident, and the splatter can be reclaimed if you managed to reach it. If you "break" the splatter off the block, it will drop as a glow ink sac again.

6 - Different Geode Shapes

I'm just going to say it - geodes are one of my favourite features in Caves & Cliffs. But imagine if there were more shapes of geode than the spherical ones. Imagine if geodes could generate as ovals. Or filled with water. Or even, rarely, an almost mini-cave! Geodes are incredible as they are, but more variation to them could be even better!

7 - Deepslate Strongholds (with wardens)

The fact they added deepslate bricks and even CRACKED deepslate bricks, AND INFESTED VERSIONS of these blocks, is almost BEGGING for deepslate strongholds to be added! That is, strongholds below y0 now generate with deepslate brick blocks instead of stone brick blocks! The deepslate brick blocks have this really foreboding, prison-like feel to them. The stronghold looks like, for all intents and purposes, it is or was a prison. Oh, and staying with prisons for a bit... what else do real prisons have? WARDENS!!!

Basically, this update has the potential to make strongholds a lot better. They are looking a bit dated now. And imagine how much more exciting looking through a stronghold would be if every stronghold had a Warden lurking its grim corridors!

And that's it! 7 more things I think could make Caves & Cliffs even better!

There is one more thing though.

Bonus Item

BEANS!!! We got the bean blocks, but no beans!!!! Come on Mojang, let's have some singular beans to go with the new blocks!