How does random tick speed affect gameplay in Minecraft?

Tick speed is a time measurement in Minecraft. Players have noticed that time in Minecraft runs differently compared to the real world. One in-game day takes significantly less time than a real one, and the same goes for other, lesser measurements of time. Everything in Minecraft runs on a clock, and tick speed is that clock.

Minecraft, when unaltered, runs at a fixed rate of 20 ticks/second. This means that one tick happens every 0.05 seconds, which makes one in-game day last exactly 24000 ticks, which is roughly 20 real minutes.

Night time takes half that time, at 12000 ticks. Tick speed represents the passage of time for certain occurrences in Minecraft.

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Changing tick speed in Minecraft: What does it do?

Changing the tick speed changes how fast something happens in Minecraft. The standard tick speed in Minecraft is 3 (it's 1 for Bedrock on most platforms). One can find this in the world settings. It can be found if players scroll to the bottom of that section.

It can then be changed or reset back to the original number there. In fact, it can be set to pretty much any number.

Altering the tick speed will result in both positives and negatives. Players can utilize this to accelerate the decay of leaves or the growth rate for grass on newly placed dirt blocks.

On the other hand, having an extremely high tick speed can cause the game to run really slowly and experience serious issues, especially if it's not the world's strongest computer.

Tick speed increases the growth rate for crops. (Image via Minecraft)

The most affected occurrences are the growth of trees, the spreading of things like sculk, fire spreading, lava flow and the growth of other plants. For those who are trying to farm trees, changing tick speed is the best way to go about it as they will grow back extremely quickly.

It will also make crops grow faster. Wheat, melons, pumpkins, beetroot, carrots and potatoes will grow back much faster when tick speed is increased. This makes it a lot easier to get large amounts of crops, which can be good for having food or for trading with farmer villagers.