My Biggest COMPLAINT About Each Update

Let me just say right off the bat that I have absolutely loved MOST of the updates we've received to date. I can only think of a couple that I thought were genuinely lacklustre. That being said, no update is perfect. With each update I have seen in Minecraft, starting with 1.4, I have some gripes. Now, especially with the older updates, there is a discrepency between the gripes I had when the update was being developed, and how the update has aged. For the most part, I am going to try and ignore age-related gripes for older updates, and focus on what annoyed me most about the update at the time it was being developed and released.

I will also not be covering Caves & Cliffs, as it's not finished yet.

1.4 - Wither Skeletons Confined to Fortresses

I was so excited to hear about a new mob in the Nether. I joined the game when 1.4 was in development, and I had BARELY made it to the Nether for the first time when this update released. I'd heard a lot about the Nether, but was a tad disappointed there were only two mobs found in the general Nether. So when I heard another new Nether mob was being added to the mix, I was very excited. But then, I realised they were also confined to the Fortress, which was very disappointing. There were now more mobs unique to the Fortress than the general Nether. The fact I'd have to spend hours in a Fortress rather than find the Wither Skeleton in the general Nether for skulls was very disappointing. And I'm amazed they've STILL not changed this.

1.5 - Overcomplicated

I had only just got my head around repeaters. I was never really that big on redstone even now. So the theme of this update just didn't really do much for me. But some of the new redstone components here, particularly the comparator, just seemed so complicated and convoluted for the simplistic nature of Minecraft. It's hard to judge this update fairly though, as it was very much geared towards a niche of the playerbase that I don't fall in.

1.6 - ZOMBIES!!!

1.6 made zombies SO annoying. On top of adding the Baby Zombie variant which ended Philza's 5-year hardcore world, they made it so Zombies could form these hordes and see you from INSANELY far away. They were later nerfed, but in 1.6 the Minecraft night brought this ceaseless, constant zombie onslaught that was not fun and spelled death for all your villagers. Zombies are STILL very annoying now, but nowhere near as bad as they were in 1.6. But before 1.6, they weren't annoying at all, really.

1.7 - The Worst Bug I Ever Encountered

With 1.7, my biggest gripe does not lie with anything to do with any of the content added in the update, but rather, what remains to this date the worst bug I've ever encountered in Minecraft. This is a very personal and visceral problem, as I have certain hypersensitivities which were very much triggered by this bug. Snapshot 13w42b goes down as the worst by a long shot, because this snapshot started the "overlapping music" bug. One of my favourite things in Minecraft was the music. When the music came on, I sometimes just stopped and listened. This bug made multiple songs play at once, all the time. In my mind, an absolutely game-breaking bug that almost made me stop playing. I literally felt dizzy and nauseous when I encountered this bug. Legit spooked out and not wanting to play anymore. What was even WORSE was that if I turned the music off, it kept turning itself back on as part of the bug. So Minecraft became an ear-rape and there was nothing I could do to stop it. 

And the best part of all this? It took Mojang SIX FREAKING YEARS to fix this bug. Yeugh.

1.8 - The New Stone Types

Diorite, Andesite and Granite never did anything for me. They were basically alternate textures of stone that only served to clutter my inventory. To this day, I still try to mine around them where possible and throw them out if I collect them. I liked what they were going for, by trying to vary up the geology of Minecraft, but they could've done it so much better. At the very least, they could've added some sort of miner's backpack item to carry all these new stone types so they didn't clutter your inventory.

1.9 - The Amount of Time This Update Took

This update took a YEAR AND A HALF to be released. A YEAR AND A HALF!!! 1.8 released before I started my final year of high school. By the time it released, I was well into the second semester of my first year at university! In fact, it took almost a YEAR to even get a SNAPSHOT!! That is INSANE! Basically my ENTIRE last year of school, there was absolutely ZERO releases from Minecraft. I'm not one to complain that modders can do things so much faster than Mojang, as there are MANY legit reasons why Mojang make new features slower than modders - but this was just RIDICULOUS. The update itself added far less than updates nowadays!

As for the update itself, I do think it gets a little too much hate. But the year and a half this update took may have had something to do with that as well.

1.10 - Autojump

Really what is there to say about 1.10 that hasn't already been said a million times? But what nobody seems to remember is that 1.10 added the Autojump option to Minecraft Java. And then set it to "ON" by default!!!!! I get the Autojump feature in versions like Pocket Edition, but seriously, why is it on by default in Java?? And why does it keep resetting itself to being ON!?! There was even a time when I actually DIED because autojump turned itself back on and I was building a tower and fell off because my character kept autojumping!

1.11 - Evokers are Pushovers (Minor Complaint)

Strangely, this is the update I really have the least to complain about. It may be my only update where I have absolutely no big gripe with. It did add the totem which I've ranted about, but that was only made unbalanced by a later update. Really, my only complaint with any feature added in 1.11 is the Evoker being too easy to kill.

1.12 - Wasted Potential with the Theme

They could've done SO much more with the theme of this update, but they just didn't. I've always felt this update should've been AFTER the removal of block ID's, because I feel that really limited them here. In the Colour Update, they didn't even expand upon Notch's 16 colours. All they really did with this theme was add coloured variants to several blocks, such as beds. And a couple new coloured blocks such as glazed terracotta and concrete. They really did so little with the theme, I have to wonder why they chose this theme in the first place.

1.13 - Tridents.

I already did one of my longest rants ever on why tridents suck. But to briefly summarise: getting them forces you to build a farm or spend literally DAYS grinding for them, their durability is bad, their enchantments suck, their usage is incredibly situational... basically an all-around useless tool. And it's a real shame because the trident could've been SO much more, especially being the first new weapon added to the game basically since the sword and bow.

1.14 - Making End-Game Features Too Accessible

You probably saw this one coming from a mile away if you're one of the one people who read these rants. 1.14 threw off the balance with a number of end-game features. Especially, the fact raids made totems farmable and made basically every enchantment ever only cost a few emeralds. I've mentioned the Librarian exploit countless times in my rants, and I'm going to mention it again. It is one of the most unbalanced, OP features/bugs/exploits Minecraft has EVER put out. Oh yeah, and totems being farmable was a REALLY bad move - it totally made Woodland Mansions obsolete too.

The trades are STILL in need of a rebalance.

1.15 - Sheer Lack of New Content

Really, my only complaint with 1.15 is just the sheer lack of new content. I know this isn't that fair because this update's priorities lay with fixing bugs rather than adding new features, but still, as a primarily survival player, there really wasn't much new stuff here that added to or benefitted a survival run. Especially as this update was in production for EIGHT MONTHS. 

1.16 - Lack of Originality with the New Mobs

I've ranted about this a few times, but my biggest complaint with 1.16 has to lie in the mobs. Don't get me wrong, Piglins are a SERIOUSLY great mob for their bartering purposes. But most of the mobs added in 1.16 were based on pigs, didn't really fit the fiery theme of the Nether (heck, most of them aren't even fire-resistant), and didn't even really feel that scary or threatening. It feels they played the mobs here very safe, which is surprising in an update that introduced a new mineral better than DIAMOND. I'm not saying the update didn't add ENOUGH mobs - it added five, which is plenty. But all those pig-themed mobs and variants just felt so uninspired, when they could have made some really awesome and unique mobs this update.

Final Word

And there you have it. My biggest complaint with each complete update I have seen. I will no doubt do a more positive list where I say what my FAVOURITE feature from each update was, or what I liked best about each update! But that's going to be harder, as many of these updates have SO MANY features that I liked, it's going to be a tough choice!