Minecraft Snapshot 23w31a

I was personally quite convinced that the game was already perfect, but it seems that our developers disagree. We are now releasing the first snapshot for Minecraft 1.20.2!

This snapshot brings changes to Diamond Ore generation, the ability to waterlog Barriers, and a change to Villager curing. It also brings a new Experimental Toggle that updates Villager trading, which we are eager to hear your feedback on. As well as a big batch of bug fixes, you will find a whole lot of technical features and changes in this snapshot, including new commands, function macros, persistent command history, network performance improvements, and much more.

Happy mining!

New Experimental Features in 23w31a#

Villager Trade Rebalance#

This snapshot introduces a new experimental Feature Toggle that updates the Wandering Trader and Librarian trades. You must turn on this Feature Toggle in the Experiments Menu when creating a new world if you want to test the new trades. You can find more information about Feature Toggles here.

As this is an experiment, we would really appreciate your feedback as work continues and to help us decide on the future direction for Villager trades. Visit this link to share your thoughts!

Librarian Changes#

Before these changes, players could get any village enchantment from any Librarian. A novice Librarian could sell the best enchantment in the game! For some players, this felt too random and made trading feel overpowered when compared to using the Enchanting Table or searching for Enchanted Books in structures.

With the new rules, Librarians from different biomes sell different enchantments, and each village biome has one enchantment that is only sold by master Librarians.

Players will have to work towards getting the best trades instead of relying on random chance. We hope this makes Librarian trading more interesting and skillful, while also revealing some clues about their history of each village type through the enchantments that are sold there.

• Librarians from different biomes now sell different Enchanted Books
• Each village biome has one special enchantment that is only available from Master Librarians with full XP
• This means that players must visit all seven village biomes to get the full set of villager enchantments
• There are two secret village biomes where villages do not generate
  • A player must build these villages to access their trades!
• Some enchantments have been removed from village trading and must be found in other ways

Wandering Trader Changes#

Some players felt that the Wandering Trader had unfair prices and didn't sell many useful items. We have lowered their prices, added more trades and increased the amounts available. The Wandering Trader will also now buy useful items from players, so it's possible to help them on their journey by giving them supplies even if you don't feel like buying anything.

• Wandering Traders now have lower prices and have a higher amount of each item in stock
• Wandering Traders now sell Logs
• Wandering Traders can now buy many items, instead of only selling

Changes#

• Diamond Ore is now generated more frequently in the Deepslate layers of the Overworld
• Curing a Zombie Villager now only gives a big discount the first time
  • There is no longer a bonus discount for reinfecting and curing the same Villager multiple times
• Barrier blocks can now be waterlogged by players in Creative mode
  • Water cannot be placed in them or taken out by non-direct interactions such as Dispensers
• Players will no longer be able to crouch while riding vehicles
• Chorus Flower no longer provides support for hanging or standing blocks

Diamond Ore Distribution#

In this snapshot, we have increased the amount of Diamond Ore found in the deepest parts of the world. Our goal is to make it more rewarding to mine for Diamonds in the Deepslate layers. We want your feedback on this! Please try out your favorite mining technique and let us know how it feels on this feedback site.

Technical Changes#

• The resource pack version is now 16
• The data pack version is now 16
• History of used commands is now saved and accessible across worlds
• Optimized the way chunks are sent to clients to allow players with low-bandwidth internet connections to play on multiplayer servers
• Added support for multi-version packs
• Changed network protocol to allow for more data-driven content in the future
• Added new log-ips option to server.properties
• Added validation for symbolic links in datapacks and resource packs
• When hitboxes are displayed through F3+B, entities that have a passenger will display the passenger's attachment point

Command History#

• The last 50 commands that you sent in chat will be remembered across game sessions
• You can access the command and chat history by pressing up or down arrows in the chat
• Regular chat is only persisted within the same game session (leaving a server or world clears them)
• Recent commands are stored in command_history.txt in the game folder

Chunk Sending Optimization#

• Chunks are no longer sent over the network to the client in one big continuous batch
• They are instead sent in smaller batches depending on the available bandwidth. This means that:
  • Clients with extremely low-bandwidth connections will not time out while loading the world
  • Clients with low-bandwidth connections can interact with the world while some chunks are still loading
• Only chunks within the client's render distance are now sent

Multi-version Packs#

New features have been added to datapacks and resource packs to allow creation of packs that are compatible with multiple versions of game.

Pack Metadata#

• Pack metadata now includes an optional field supported_formats which describes a range for pack formats that this pack supports
  • Examples: 16, [16,17], {"min_inclusive": 16, "max_inclusive":

Overlays#

• Packs can now contain overlay directories ("overlays")
• Overlays are sub-packs applied over the "normal" contents of a pack
  • These directories have the same layout as the top-level pack, including the assets and data directories
  • Overlays can be applied if they support the client's pack format
  • Overlays can add and replace files, but not remove them
    • For example, if the overlay foo is applied, the file foo/assets/minecraft/textures/bar.png will replace contents of assets/minecraft/textures/bar.png

Network Protocol#

As part of ongoing work towards more data-driven features, the network protocol has been changed to include a new configuration phase.

• Configuration phase automatically starts after login phase (i.e. after client account has been verified) and lasts until the player joins the world (play phase)
• Clients can stay in configuration phase indefinitely - it's up to server to release it to the world
• Servers can also request clients to re-enter the configuration phase after it has entered the play phase
  • Other players will see such clients as disconnected
• Users in configuration phase will not be visible on the player list
• Actions allowed in configuration phase (moved from play phase)
  • Configuration of data-driven registries
  • Configuration of enabled features
• Actions shared between configuration and play phases:
  • Application of server resource packs
  • Update of tags
  • Exchange of custom packets
  • Ping and keep-alive packets
• The server will now negotiate resource pack in the configuration phase
  • This means that the player will no longer be in world when answering prompts and reloading resources

server.properties#

• New option: log-ips (default true)
  • When set to false, will prevent player IPs from being included in the log when players join the game

Symbolic Link Validation#

To improve safety, the game will now also detect symbolic links used inside data- and resource packs.

• This feature expands on symbolic link validation in worlds added in the previous release
• The game will now warn users if a pack added via drag and drop contains disallowed symbolic links
• Packs containing disallowed symbolic links will not be visible in UI and commands
• Additionally, directories and files that are not recognized as packs will no longer be copied via drag and drop
• For a detailed explanation, see this help article

Telemetry#

• Added a button to the Telemetry Data Collection Screen that links to the Microsoft Privacy Statement

Resource Pack Version 16#

• The process of upgrading your pack can be assisted by using this automated Slicer tool
• All textures containing multiple sprites in a sheet for GUI have been split into individual sprites under textures/gui/sprites (automated by Slicer tool)
• All textures in the realms namespace have been moved into the minecraft namespace (automated by Slicer tool)
• villager2.png has been renamed to villager.png (automated by Slicer tool)
• and GUI sprites are animated with declarations instead of individual sprites (automated by Slicer tool)

GUI Sprite Sheet#

• Sprites used in GUI drawing have been split into individual sprite files instead of larger sprite sheets
  • For example, widgets/button.png and widgets/button_highlighted.png have been split from widgets.png
• Each sprite can now be individually overriden by a resource pack instead of replacing the entire sheet
• Sprites are loaded into the gui atlas from the textures/gui/sprites directory

GUI Sprite .mcmeta#

• Any sprite can now be animated using .mcmeta files, similar to other atlases
  • icon/trial_available and realm_status/expires_soon are now animated this way
• Sprites in the gui atlas can now configure scaling behavior through a new gui section in files

Data Pack Version 16#

• Gamerule randomTickSpeed now affects the rate of accumulation of snow and ice the same way it affects crops and other blocks affected by random ticking
• Added a random command
• New form of the execute command: execute if function
• New form of the return command:

Commands#

random#

A new command for randomizing values and controlling random sequences. The value and roll forms can be used to draw a random value. In the case of roll, the resulting value is also shown in chat for all players.

Syntax:

random value|roll <range> [<sequenceId>]
random reset *|<sequenceId> [<seed>] [<includeWorldSeed>

Parameters:

• range: A range of values to randomize between, inclusively
  • For instance, 1..6 is a regular D6 roll
• sequenceId: The name of a random sequence to sample or reset
• seed: A seed to use for the random sequence after reset
• includeWorldSeed: A boolean [default: true] specifying whether to include the world seed when seeding the sequence
  • means the sequence will evaluate to the same regardless of which world the command is run in

By default, all sequences are seeded as 0, true, true. Using * instead of a sequence ID resets all sequences and sets the default parameters.

If no seed is specified, the sequence resets to the default parameters.

Note that random value|roll <range> used without a sequence id is available to non-operator players.

execute if function#

A new execute sub-command that runs a function or function tag and matches the return value(s). If a tag is given, all functions run regardless of the results of prior functions. Syntax:

execute if|unless function <function> <continuation>

Parameters:

• function: The function or tag to run

Matching#

The matching of the result value of the function(s) that run:

• At least one of the functions must succeeed for the match to succeed
• A succeessful call is defined as a function that:
  • Uses the return command to return a value
  • The return value is not 0

return run#

A new form of the return command is now available, return run. Syntax:

return run <command>

This takes the result value from running the specified command and returns that as the return value of the function. In all other aspects, it works like return with a specified return value. If the given command fails, the return value is 0.

Functions#

• A single backslash \ as the last non-whitespace character of a line now allows a command to be continued on the next line
  • Leading and trailing whitespace of the following line are stripped before appending

Macros#

Functions can now contain macro lines, making them Function Macros.

• Any line beginning with $ (as the first non-space character) marks a macro line
• A macro line also contains one or more substitutions in the form of $(variable)
• When calling a function macro a compound with data for all argument variables must be provided

Calling Function Macros#

The function command has new forms:

function <id> <compound> function <id> with <data source> [<path>]

New Arguments:

• compound: A data compound, enclosed in {}
• data source: A data source specification, like what could already be used for data get
• path: An NBT path specification

Notes:

• The data source and path must specify a compound data entry
• The compound must contain one entry for each variable used in the macro
• More data may be present in the compound and if so is ignored
• Calling a non-macro function with a data compound is silently ignored
• When a macro is called, the values provided are substituted in place of the variable specifications and the resulting commands are executed
• Any syntax errors in the lines resulting from variable substitution result in the entire function call being skipped

Performance Considerations#

Using a macro means commands must be re-evaulated after variable substitution. This has an extra cost compared to running pre-parsed functions.

Regular commands (non-macro lines) are still pre-parsed. Only commands with variable substitutions in them are parsed when a macro is called and the game will attempt to cache the result of a certain parameter set being used in a call.

This makes repeated calls with the same parameter set cheaper than new calls with different parameters, but an overhead still remains compared to regular functions. Note that only the values references by macro as parameters are included in this cache, so any extra data in the provided compound is ignored.

Display Entity Interpolation#

• Display entities now start updating their client-side position and rotation on the first tick after an update
  • In previous versions, updates were applied in the same tick, causing uneven motion
  • New behavior is now similar to armor stands, mobs and players
• On the server, position and rotation are still updated immediately
• Duration of this interpolation is controlled by the field teleport_duration
  • 0 means that updates are applied immediately
  • 1 means that the display entity will move from current position to the updated one over one tick
  • Higher values spread the movement over multiple ticks
  • Please note that this value is clamped to avoid glitches due to periodic position updates
  • The new value will apply only to position and rotation changes made after it changed
    • That means any current movement will continue unchanged
• Note: behavior while riding remains unchanged from previous versions

Attributes#

• Added new attribute generic.max_absorption
  • generic.max_absorption acts similar to generic.max_health, but instead of being the upper bound for Health, it is the upper bound for AbsorptionAmount
  • The mob effect absorption increases as well as fills the to the max when applied

Game Events#

• entity_roar and entity_shake game events have been removed and replaced with entity_action game event

Tags#

• Added no_knockback damage type tag which causes knockback to not be caused by the damage itself
  • Used in Vanilla for damage that is caused by events, such as explosions, which apply knockback separately
• Added non_controlling_rider to represent entities that don't override their vehicles movement control
• Added concrete_powder block tag for Concrete Powder blocks
• Added camel_sand_step_sound_blocks block tag for blocks that produce entity.camel.step_sand sound

Fixed bugs in Snapshot 23w31a#

• MC-29371 Several buttons and icons use the old tooltip design upon being hovered over
• MC-67532 Bottom 2 rows of pixels in selected hotbar slot texture don't appear in game
• MC-69387 The "/item" command cannot replace items within jukeboxes
• MC-80876 Entity riding vehicle has always same offset
• MC-85582 Entity models in the inventory can render outside the boundaries of the black box
• MC-93320 Water freezes even if randomTickSpeed is 0
• MC-121772 Can't scroll while holding SHIFT on macOS
• MC-122296 Horizontal scrolling does not work on Mac [Magic Mouse]
• MC-122547 Barriers can produce fall particles
• MC-140646 Text fields don't scroll while selecting text with Shift
• MC-147766 Shift key stays pressed until press any other key
• MC-164080 Entities riding on Ghast are partially or fully inside it
• MC-181190 The discount for curing a villager is multiplied if the villager is reinfected and cured again
• MC-190815 Shulker boxes don't conduct redstone when open, but don't trigger redstone updates when opened
• MC-215768 Sculk sensors do not detect turtles clearing away sand
• MC-228420 World not loading / falling through the world when joining a server / travelling between dimensions / respawning
• MC-230732 Minecraft local difficulty setting is calculated/displayed wrongly when running a world in a server
• MC-232840 Baby zombie legs clip through heads of mobs they are riding
• MC-242076 The skeleton of a spider jockey sits "inside" of spider model rather than on top of the spider