Why Minecraft has become harder to play

Has Minecraft become harder to play? While it's true that Mojang's sandbox title is far from the most difficult game on the market and has variable difficulty settings, recent updates over the last few years and upcoming changes have rankled some fans. This isn't to say that the game itself has gotten more difficult, but that certain tasks have become more laborious, much to the chagrin of some players.

In most respects, Minecraft is the same game it has been for quite some time. However, changes by Mojang have made certain activities much more annoying according to fans, including things like finding resources in massive caves post-update 1.17, needing an additional item to forge netherite gear, and the widely lamented upcoming changes to villager trading.

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Why some fans think Minecraft has gotten harder to play and enjoy

Netherite smithing templates have drawn the ire of some Minecraft players (Image via Mojang)

As a constantly evolving game, Minecraft has introduced several new features and changes over the years to enrich the overall experience. Be that as it may, some players have lamented that certain implementations have made the game more of a chore to play, requiring them to spend more time doing basic tasks like collecting resources.

One of the more pointed complaints is due to the cave generation changes with the Caves & Cliffs update. Fans have remarked that Minecraft got harder to play due to how immense caves are now. They believe that it now takes a substantial amount of additional time to explore caves or find surface-facing ore blocks. This has been compounded by the recent changes to mob spawning behavior.

To be specific, hostile mobs now spawn when the light level reaches zero, but this results in a sizable uptick of hostile spawns in dark areas like caves. Players have stated that they typically just avoid caves since, according to them, massive caves have made Minecraft more difficult. They spend more time fumbling in the dark and are still at risk of being attacked by a high volume of hostile mobs.

The new caves are annoying byu/thebestman3242343 inMinecraft

The 1.9 Combat Update was panned by many fans as it added a cooldown to melee attacks, which in turn made combat against hostile mobs and other players in multiplayer more complex in a way that some considered unnecessary. However, it isn't just the past updates that players have pointed to for making Minecraft harder to play and more tedious.

Minecraft's 1.20 Trails & Tales update, the latest major content release, made it more difficult to craft netherite gear by introducing a netherite smithing template. This new item must now be looted in the Nether's bastion remnants before combining it with netherite ingots and diamond gear to obtain netherite equipment. While these templates can be duplicated, they require diamonds to do so.

Future updates have also caused concerns among fans that the game will become harder to play. Current Experimental Features include a villager trading rebalance that requires players to venture to (or create) villages in certain biomes just to access trades for specific high-quality enchantments, among other items. Players have criticized the upcoming change for making the game unnecessarily tedious.

Villager trading rebalance byu/Infinitypockets inMinecraft

While Minecraft being harder to play may not be completely literal according to fans when it comes to combat, they've seen recent and future changes as killing some of the fun of the game. Exploring caves has become more tedious because of their size and how many light source blocks are required to light them, and the villager trade rebalance is being viewed as an overall nerf to trading.

It's no secret that many players have preferred older versions of Minecraft for quite some time, likely in part because they disagree with the many features and changes that Mojang has implemented. The developer may not have made every facet of the game more difficult, resulting in more deaths, but the recent and upcoming changes seemingly made the game more difficult to enjoy for some.

Perhaps as Mojang continues to tweak the game, it can find a balance that brings back some fans who were annoyed by the title becoming more complicated. If not, those classic versions will continue to exist, and they've become staples across many multiplayer servers.