Minecraft's Biggest Gameplay Issue Which Has Only Got Worse With Each Update

The Pocket Problem...

If you've ever explored your Minecraft world in modern versions for any substantial length of time, you will have experienced the following: 

You are deep underground, mining through all the stone types as you try to find diamonds. You have several stacks of iron ore. You have loads of half-stacks of andesite, granite, tuff and diorite. And some gravel too. And a random flower. And dirt. By the time you find Diamonds, you're not picking them up. Blast. Inventory is full again. Later in that same mine, you've found a lot more resources. But when you need to go into a new stack of diamond... Blast. Inventory is full again. I've thrown away all the stacks of stone and still can't make room. I'm going to have to throw away a stack of redstone.

You are in a Nether Fortress trying to get your hands on a Wither Skull. You're carrying random Nether resources such as shroomlight, crying obsidian, blaze rods, some netherrack, coal, bones etc. You finally get a Wither Skull, but won't pick it up. Blast. Inventory is full again. Back to the Ender Chest. Blast. That is full too. Full of random scraps of Nether Quartz, Nether bricks, diamonds, Netherwart, potions of fire resistance, a back-up weapon, warped wart block, nylium, more Netherack, soul sand, magma cream... I need all that, I can't toss any of it away...

You are in a Bastion, and you have found some really amazing loot in a treasure room chest. Magma cubes are hopping all around you waiting to yeet you into the lava, Piglins coming at you from all angles, got to be fast..... blast! Inventory is nearly full! Must spend ages picking and choosing which loot to take!

You see the problem here. Minecraft's number of items since its early days has ballooned. And I mean, BALLOONED. But storage options have not. A few have been added over the years, but as updates keep coming and bringing over 100 new items and blocks, these storage strategies simply cannot keep up. "Blast, my inventory is full again". "Blast, my ender chest is full again".

One of the most heavily-requested features is the addition of another row of inventory space. Currently, including the hotbar, there are 36 main inventory slots. This has NEVER changed. Our mining expeditions and Nether extravaganzas often quickly see us yearning for that extra row of inventory space. The fact the inventory fills up so fast is a problem, because it is simply frustrating to have to constantly re-organise. And because there are SO many blocks and items now, it really does not take long before you start having to throw out "semi-valuables" or put a chest down miles and miles away from home. Even Ender Chests fill up very fast. Between food, tools, building/bridging blocks, totems, torches and all the loot you pick up (some of which doesn't stack), it really feels like 36 slots simply is not enough anymore. This has become more and more of a pressing problem as the updates have rolled out, and really not much has been done to fix it.

Ways Mojang Have Tried to Mitigate the Issue...

Over the years, Mojang have added several new storage options. But I feel many of these do not address the problem of inventory space very quickly running out. Here, I will look at some of the storage options and whether or not they are useful.

The first is the very simple chest. 27 more inventory slots. The early game and very first storage container you will use. It's good for what it is, but it has a number of shortcomings. If you break it, all the stuff comes out. It is not portable. And because there are SO many different items and items that don't stack, you will fill up chests very quickly. Established survival worlds often have to designate entire rooms, and later, entire BASEMENTS for chests stacked high on top of each other, lining the walls.

Certain items can be crafted into a block using 9 of the mineral, and turned back again. This is known as a "storage block". Nine stacks of a resource, such as iron ingots, can be condensed nicely into 1 stack of iron blocks. The fact they gave the new raw minerals storage blocks too is a really good thing. Other items such as wheat have a storage block in the form of hay. These storage blocks definitely do help with clutter to a degree. But the trouble is, far too few items have storage blocks. There is no storage block for flint, or for charcoal. And many items would not make sense to be turned into storage blocks. You can't exactly have an egg storage block unless you want something REALLY cursed. You can't turn 9 totems into a cat totem that gives you 9 lives. Storage blocks are a good idea, but not many items actually have storage block counterparts.

Going back to containers, Ender Chests are really only great for transporting items long distances and across dimensions, rather than actual additional storage space and managing clutter. They only have 27 slots, so there is only room for valuables. No clutter.

The most recent attempt at fixing the clutter problem is the new bundle, coming in Caves and Cliffs..... part 1. They allow the player to stack different items that wouldn't stack with each other, such as different types of flower or odd drops you get from nighttime mobs. But you can't put non-stackable items in there like swords or buckets of water. They are only limited to 64 items. While this is certainly useful in some situations, there are definitely some issues with the bundle that need to be ironed out. They are a PAIN to unpack. They need a better UI to unpack them and sort them. 64 slots is maybe too few for the fact you need rabbit hides to make them. I'd go with 99, or even 128. And finally, there are certain situations where this won't help you out. If you're mining, it may help if you pick up some errant flint or mob drops or something that you don't want to throw out, but it won't solve the problem of your inventory getting totally loaded with minerals to the point you have to start discarding.

The final option is by far the most useful: the Shulker Box. The Shulker Box is the closest thing we have in Minecraft to an actual backpack, or additional inventory slots. They are like chests, but the stuff doesn't spill out when you break them. These blocks are basically an entire second inventory that you can carry around in your main inventory. They are GREAT. Each one gives you 27 more slots. There is a reason these have become a staple in survival worlds. But even these have one issue. They are VERY late-game. And I mean, in terms of core progression, Shulker Boxes are about as late-game as it gets. The Shulker is the last new mob you'll meet in Minecraft's core progression, typically only spotted after beating the ENDER DRAGON.

Great, you get the perfect storage solution... but only after you're really well-established and can beat the Ender Dragon. So basically, for all of the early, mid and most of the late-game, you're still endlessly battling with clutter.

My Solutions...

So for starts, the obvious mitigation is adding more inventory slots. They could add another row and give us 45 inventory slots. But they could also bump that up to 50, by making the inventory a 5x10 grid. Currently, we select our hotbar using the 1-9 keys.... but there is a "0" key too. If the 0 key was utilised to select a hotbar item, we could have a 10th hotbar slot, and the entire inventory grid could be expanded similarly. While I think this could help, I really don't think this will fix the problem entirely on its own. It may allow us to go on longer mining stints before our inventories fill up, and may allow us to gather some more loot from chests without having to start pick-and-choosing. But even with 50 slots, your inventory will still fill up fairly fast. It's like putting masking tape over a bicycle tyre puncture.

The bundles are definitely a step in the right direction, but even they need improving. What we could have as well as a general bundle, are additional and more specialised containers. For example, some sort of mining backpack. This could allow us to carry an additional stack of each mineral. There could be a slot for iron, a slot for gold, a slot for diamond, redstone, amethyst, emerald etc., and these slots could take the minerals in their ore form, raw form, raw block form, smelted form, or even block form. Other specialised containers could include flower baskets and crop baskets, which allow us to carry 9 additional inventory slots of plants and food respectively. There could even be a toolbox which allows us 9 additional inventory slots for tools (non-stacking still of course). I feel these additional bundle-type items would allow us to group certain types of items together, nine stacks each, and allow more main-inventory space for loot that is collected on expeditions.

Finally, new storage blocks such as blocks of flint and charcoal would be welcome additions.