Minecraft Experimental Snapshot Patch Notes

Want to know what got added in Minecraft Snapshot? Check out our Patch Notes here!

Andrew Vaughan

Published: Oct 14, 2021 09:35 am

Snapshot is a special demo and update test that the developers Mojang occasionally release to help fix and improve future releases and help get ready major updates like the approaching Cliffs and Caves part 2 ready for the public.

MINECRAFT SNAPSHOT 21W41A

CHANGES IN 21W41A

The main menu backdrop now shows a Caves & Cliffs: Part II scene
Badlands mineshafts generate higher up
Geodes now only generate up to height 30 and their rarity has been adjusted to match 1.17 levels
The angle at which sprinting against a block does not break your sprint has been increased a bit

TECHNICAL CHANGES IN 21W41A

Changed the prioritization order of the chunk rendering pipeline
- Unrendered chunk holes in the world should not appear anymore while flying fast with a high render distance
Server classes are now signed
New random number generator for Overworld generation

FIXED BUGS IN 21W41A

MC-118134 Item frame texture as an item uses texture of oak planks
MC-137950 Signs textures does not correspond to the actual texture of their handle
MC-142385 Campfire texture has one pixel extending into hotbar outline
MC-148182 The zombie villager "profession" texture uses villager-skin-colored pixels
MC-152506 Wither skull projectile has faces with old texture
MC-160256 Texture of door items does not match the blocks
MC-166508 Glitchy chunk rendering since 1.15 pre-release 2
MC-173339 Comparators lit base texture is incorrect
MC-203155 Enchanting table GUI uses old lapis texture
MC-225949 Parity Issue: different Bedrock and Java sign items textures.

MC-227398 Misplaced pixel on cave vines texture
MC-230302 Glow Item Frame item texture is missing two pixels
MC-236620 Nether biomes don't generate correctly
MC-236650 Minecraft in 1.18 has 2^48 seeds instead of 2^64 seeds.
MC-237330 Worlds created with seed "REDApRES" (0) crash when trying to load new 1.18 mountain biomes / java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "dfw.a(double, double, double)" because "this.a" is null
MC-237457 Snowy Slopes biome no longer generates stone cliff feature from experimental snapshots
MC-238003 Stone in jagged peaks is always covered by snow blocks
MC-238561 Axolotls aren't able to spawn at all in lush caves (recurrence of MC-218701)
MC-238661 InhabitedTime value/Local Difficulty doesn't increase

Minecraft 1.18 Experimental Snapshot 7 Patch Notes September 8th

Related: All Teams Competing in Minecraft Championship 17

CHANGES IN EXPERIMENTAL SNAPSHOT 7 COMPARED TO SNAPSHOT 6

Noodle caves can generate at any height, no longer capped at y 130. This means you'll sometimes find tiny cave openings and cracks in mountain peaks. Tread with care.
Some parts of the terrain are ever so slightly smoother (less 3d noise in tech speak)
Elytra doesn't take durability damage when gliding, only when using rockets. So you don't HAVE to have mending or unbreaking enchantments to use your elytra, especially now that there are higher mountains and cliffs to launch from.
Elytra rocket boost is a bit weaker, so you can't fly as fast with rockets. We are testing this for several reasons:
- Elytra rocket boosting is so fast that other means of transport become almost redundant. We want to balance it out a bit.
- Even in earlier versions of Minecraft most servers get laggy when players fly around with elytra & rockets because they fly faster than chunks can load. With the new world height this would probably get worse.
- There is so much more cool terrain to enjoy now, wouldn't want to zoom past it all too fast right? 🙂
- Note that gliding speed is unchanged. This affects just rocket boosting.
That's it. I told you. This is a tiny snapshot.
What? The swamps, you ask? Nope, we didn't change the swamps, and they have mixed feelings about that.

CHANGES IN EXPERIMENTAL SNAPSHOT 6 COMPARED TO SNAPSHOT 5

Tweaked placement of the new mountain biomes so they match the mountain terrain and temperature better. Grove and snowy slopes are less likely to generate on mountain peaks. In cold climates grove and snowy slopes tend to start much lower down, while in temperate and hot climates they tend to start higher up.
Tweaked biome placement to reduce the risk of cold microbiomes, such as a small splotch of snowy tundra in the middle of a forest (birdpoop microbiomes). It can still happen, but not as often.
Fixed an accidental change from last snapshot that made lush caves smaller and more fragmented. Now they should be about as common as in snapshot 4 again.
Giant tree taiga and giant spruce taiga no longer count as cold climates from a biome placement perspective. So these biomes are less likely to mixed in with snowy biomes. This caused a small reshuffle of other biomes to maintain the overall balance.
Slightly reduced the number of water springs.
Slightly increased underwater magma, to increase the chance of finding air when diving in aquifers.
Cavier ocean floors! Aquifers under oceans/rivers are more likely to link to the underground. This means you are more likely to find cave openings on ocean floors that actually lead somewhere instead of being cut off. One consequence of this is that caves at y0-40 below oceans are more likely to be flooded. If you dive into an underground lake you might end up inside one of those flooded caves and pop out at the bottom of an ocean.
Underwater ravines are back. Cave carvers can now carve through sand and gravel on ocean floors, so underwater ravines and caves will no longer be hidden under a layer of gravel or sand. As opposed to MC 1.17, we no longer use a specific carver for underwater ravines, we just use normal noise caves and carvers but on ocean floors. So the underwater ravines won't look exactly the same as in 1.17, but we get a lot more natural variation. Magma may still generate inside them, as with all flooded caves.
Horses, Mules, and Donkeys now follow players holding golden carrots, golden apples, and enchanted golden apples. Makes it easier to get your horse across that deep river! Similarly, llamas follow hay bales.
That's all.
No wait, one more thing. Almost forgot the swamps. Swamps can now generate in dry areas. They couldn't in last snapshot, which seemed to make sense, but it turned out that sometimes a very small area will be drier than the surrounding area, causing microbiome issues like small spots of desert in the middle of a swamp. Swamps should be less fragmented now, and they appreciate that.

CHANGES IN EXPERIMENTAL SNAPSHOT 5 COMPARED TO SNAPSHOT 4

Peakier peaks! In some areas mountains have jagged peaks, like in the beloved bedrock beta mountains.
Made mountain areas and peak biomes slightly larger on average.
Raised the average mountain height, fixing an unintentional change from snapshot 4 that made mountains lower and smoother. But then we had to lower the mountain height again to fit the peakier peaks, so maybe it evens out. We deliberately avoid having peaks or mountains that go above y260 or so, because we want players to have space to build cool stuff on the peaks. So any peaks that try to sneak too high up get mercilessly cut off into a plateau.
Fossils with diamonds no longer generate above deepslate level.
Moved swamps slightly more inland, since they were leaking murky swamp water into the ocean. Oceans are happy about this, swamps are a bit grumpy. Also swamp trees can grow in slightly deeper water than before, so swamp lakes should be less barren.
Cave carvers can carve through red sand and calcite, so those blocks aren't left hanging in the air.
Tweaked the depth of rivers and the steepness of river banks. They are less likely to be super deep or get choked off in flat areas. Also rivers integrate better with swamps, the river tends to get shallow and merge with the swamp instead of carving through. Swamps like that, feels less disruptive.
Small lakes features are no longer placed in dry and hot biomes (desert, savanna, badlands). Reduced the number of lake feature placements in other biomes.
Small hills and overhangs (3d noise in tech speak) generate more often in flat areas, like in snapshot 3. This was accidentally removed in snapshot 4, causing flat areas to be a bit too flat and featureless.
Reduced the amount of shattered terrain and shattered savanna biome, replacing some of that space with flatter beaches instead.
Water springs can generate in more types of blocks such as dirt and snow, increasing the likelihood of small mountain streams and waterfalls. Also added springs to lush caves.
Fixed an indent in the code. Doesn't matter at all so I don't know why I'm mentioning it here.
Made badlands slightly smaller on average. Just a bit. But don't worry they still tend to be quite big.
Added (well, re-added) jungle edge biome. If we keep it we'll probably rename it though, because it isn't really an edge biome any more.
Tweaked mushroom fields biome so it matches the shape of the islands better.
Dripstone caves biome place stone surface instead of grass surface when leaking out of cave entrances. This should make dripstone cave entrances less grassy.
Removed the height-based spawning change that was made in snapshot 3. We appreciate the community discussions about this. We decided to undo the change for now and will come back to this when we have more time.

CHANGES IN EXPERIMENTAL SNAPSHOT 4 COMPARED TO SNAPSHOT 3

Temple tweaks: Desert temples tend to be partially buried, and Jungle temples and Desert temples no longer generate on water.
Badlands and deserts are larger and less likely to show up as ugly microbiome splotches. Terracotta bands go higher. Wooded badlands grass and trees start higher.
Made biome placement a bit smoother and less noisy (again). This should result in fewer microbiomes (again). Tweaked biome placement in general to reduce the risk of harsh collisions.
Removed surface freezing for hot biomes, and raised the altitude at which snow layers are placed. This should result in fewer weird things like jungle trees with snow on top.
Made snowy slopes less dirty. Again. For real this time.
Made extreme hills terrain less unextreme. And fiddled with the placement of shattered terrain and extreme hills in general, to make it fit in with the terrain better.
Reduced the likelihood of rivers being cut off and turning into steep dry river gorges in mountainous terrain. Instead rivers will tend to either carve a fjord through the mountain range, or raise the terrain to form a saddle valley between the peaks. This should make the terrain friendlier for both walking and boating. I think it also makes rivers a bit wider in general.
Reduced the number of diorite/andesite/granite blobs on the surface. This should reduce the spray-paint look of stone shores and such.
Stone shores sometimes generate layers (strips) of gravel, diorite, andesite, or granite. Stony peaks sometimes generate layers of gravel, calcite, andesite, or granite. No more need to destroy geodes to get calcite 🙂
More iron! You'll still mostly have to go caving or mountain climbing to find it. But you'll find more iron when you do!
Swampier swamps. Tweaked swamp placement a bit, just to keep them happy. They are less likely to extend far out from the coastline now, and rivers in swamps tend to be shallower.
Bigger copper blobs in dripstone caves. Go to that biome if you want more copper! Either that or find a large copper vein.

CHANGES IN EXPERIMENTAL SNAPSHOT 3 COMPARED TO SNAPSHOT 2

Tweaked biome placement to reduce the risk of temperature clashes (such as a snowy biome in the middle of a desert). Temperature clashes still happen, but not as often.
Tweaked biome placement to allow for more noisiness and diversity again, essentially dialing back some of the changes from last snapshot. This means microbiomes are more likely to happen again, but they will usually be of matching temperatures (for example a small forest inside a plains biome).
Red sand is back! Tweaked badlands so they sometimes show up in flat areas next to plateaus, and made the red sand generate higher up (to account for the generally higher terrain).
Made peak biomes and meadows less likely to generate in flat low elevation areas.
Smoothed out the cliffs in shattered terrain a bit, so they don't look like chunk errors.
Snowy slopes and snowcapped peaks no longer place dirt under the snow. Mountains look less dirty now 🙂
Added a new mountain biome: Stony peaks. This is just a variant of lofty/snowcapped peaks that uses stone and gravel instead of snow and ice, and is used to avoid temperature clashes such as a snowcapped peak sticking up from a jungle.
Added structures to some of the new mountain biomes. Pillager outposts generate in all the new mountain biomes. Villages generate in meadows.
Tweaked beaches a bit, to make them more inclined to show up on flat coastlines rather than hilly areas. Also reduced the amount of stone shores.
Coastlines and river banks are less likely to get messed up by aquifers. That is, local water levels are mostly used in terrain that doesn't border a river or ocean. Cave openings and ravines that intersect an ocean or river will mostly use sea level.

Inland low-elevation areas are less likely to have flooded caves all over the place.
Aquifers can go deeper and are more likely to connect with cave systems further down. That means if you dive into a deep lake on the surface (or in a mountain), you will sometimes encounter air pockets that lead to a cave system.
Added more high-frequency variation to aquifers, to reduce the risk of massively huge areas with waterfilled caves everywhere. Underground lakes and flooded regions are more likely to be spread out instead of concentrated in one region.
Fixed goat spawning (they weren't spawning in the new mountain biomes)
Swamps are less likely to overlap cold or dry biomes, and they no longer place hanging water. Swamps are even happier now.
Desert temples spawn on the surface rather than at a fixed y level.
Eroded badlands no longer create floating pillars on top of the water surface.
Grass no longer generates under water
Reduced the risk of incorrect surface placement such as grass patches in deserts.
Reduced the risk of river biome generating in dry mountain gorges. We don't have support for actual rivers generating above sea level, so if a mountain gorge is above sea level then it will be dry.
Mob spawning no longer speeds up in low terrain or slows down in high terrain. The new spawning speed is similar to 1.17 spawning at y=64. This change is intended to make spawning more consistent in the updated overworld.
Fixed an issue where players in multiplayer can face far more or far fewer enemies than intended, particularly when other players are flying. Each player now gets their fair share of mobs.

CHANGES IN EXPERIMENTAL SNAPSHOT 2 COMPARED TO SNAPSHOT 1

Biome placement is a bit smoother and less noisy. Fewer microbiomes dotting the terrain. Biomes tend to be a bit larger and less fragmented.
Raised cloud level from 128 to 192
Renamed mountains (= old mountains biome) to extreme hills, and gravelly mountains to gravelly hills, to reduce risk of people getting confused when they use /locatebiome to find the new mountains and end up in the old mountains...
Beachier beaches! Beaches are generally wider. But also in some places there are no beaches at all, to provide some variation.
Sheep spawn in meadows. Also more rabbits and less donkeys
Blue orchid no longer spawns in meadows. The swamps were sad because this was their unique thing.
Swamps now generate properly. They generated in weird places before and were sad about that. Swamps are happier now.
Added missing biomes: Ice Spikes and Eroded Badlands
Underground biomes interfere less with surface biomes. They can still leak out of cave entrances sometimes though (because it looks kinda cool!)
Increased the height of some of the peaks. Now they can reach up to 220-260 or so, but rarely.

Slightly increased the chance of finding large areas with flat terrain
Meadows sometimes spawn a lone tree, often with a bee nest
Monsters spawn in the new mountain biomes
Emeralds and infested stone generate in the new mountain biomes
Made ore veins slightly larger and more frequent, since very few people seemed to actually find them in survival.
Structures now show up in the right biomes (mostly). Found the right amount of duct tapeto put in the right place in the code.
Toned down the megacave entrances a little bit, and made them less likely to go all the way down to deepslate level. Getting to diamond zone was just a bit too easy.
Made cheese caves a little bit smaller on average (they can still be huge though!), and a bit less likely to intersect the surface
Reduced the chance of sand and gravel being placed in such a way that they immediately fall down on generation. Replaced with sandstone or stone in those cases. The falling blocks were messing up the terrain as well as performance. Still happens but not as often.
Zombie, Skeleton, Spider, and Cave-Spider spawners now spawn mobs up to block-light level 11. Although the mobs spawning in complete darkness did not affect the difficulty of vanilla spawners, we recognized that these spawners haven't been a real challenge for a while now. We hope this change will make conquering a spawner a more exciting challenge!
Spawners have a new "CustomSpawnRules" tag, which lets you override the spawn rules of the spawned mob. In the tag you can specify "BlockLightLimit" which indicates the highest block-light the spawners will spawn mobs at. This change is to enable map-makers to use spawners in a more customizable manner to spawn mobs in any light levels they choose!

CHANGES COMPARED TO CAVES & CLIFFS: PART I

New world height and depth
New mountain biomes (lofty peaks, snowcapped peaks, grove, meadow, and snowy slopes)
New cave generation (cheese, spaghetti, and noodle caves)
Local water levels and lava levels in the underground
New cave biomes generate naturally underground and inside mountains (lush caves, dripstone caves)
Natural variation in terrain shape and elevation, independently from biomes. For example, forests and deserts could form up on a hill without needing a special biome just for that.
New ore distribution (see this chart)
Large ore veins
Integrated mountains, caves, and cave entrances
Monsters will only spawn in complete darkness