You should add an ambient freezing effect to cold, snowy/icy biomes as a challenge/adventure to the player's explorations. The following would help the player counteract the effects of the cold:
"Fur Armor":
-Can be crafted from the furs of animals and any variant of armor (except dyed leather & chainmail). 1 fur is required for a helmet, 6 for a chestplate, 4 for leggings, and 2 for boots. Worn to slow down the freezing prior to damage (see further below). A full set of fur armor will eliminate the freezing effect completely. The armor's durability and protection from regular damage is equal to the regular armor variants.
- Polar Bear fur (gives the mob more purpose, but does not increase durability or freezing resistance)
- Llama fur
- Rabbit Hide
Another Armor Enchantment (an alternative to Fur Armor): Insulation:
-This freezing-resistance alternative is an argument for those who may disagree on adding fur-trimmed variants to the game's armor. Like an opposite to the Frost Walker enchantment, Insulation could be an enchantment applicable to any piece of armor that resists the freezing effect. Not wearing a full set of armor where all armorpieces carry the enchantment will only slow the speed of the freezing, but a full set will eliminate the effect completely.
Magma/Torch/Fire/Lava:
-Will provide protective warmth in a radius based on the block/block entity (blocks are listed above in level of effectiveness)
What the Freezing Effect Does:
-When under the freezing effect, the player's hp bar will start to turn icy blue from the left to the right. The different tiers/levels of this effect determine the speed of the ice creeping along the row. Once the entire row is "frozen over", the player will take damage until death, until a full set of fur clothes is worn, or until a heat source is reached. The player only takes damage when the whole row is frozen, not as it is freezing or partially frozen. The point where the whole row is frozen is when the player is too cold.
Sprinting:
-In line with heat source blocks and fur armor, sprinting (double w or ctrl+w) could perhaps be a way to slow down the player's hp bar from freezing over due to sped up body temperature, the cost being their hunger bar depleting more rapidly. (https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Sprinting)
Difficulty:
For those who don't want cold biomes to fully change any favored mode of play in survival, the menu's difficulty option could turn off the cold biomes' influence of automatically freezing players on Peaceful. Easy, Normal, and Hard could bring different levels/speeds of the freezing effect: levels 0, 1, and 2 respectively. The following chart shows when these levels of freezing effects could be reached:
*Note that this chart's listings are all conditioned in snowy biomes with snowy weather. Other coolish biomes could be incorporated if reasonably possible.
Freezing as a Potion Effect:
-If useful as a potion or splash potion, a Potion of Freezing could be brewed the same way you brew a Potion of Weakness (with a Fermented Spider Eye), if the Brewing Stand is placed on Packed Ice. The results on a mob would be like a delayed wither effect. The freezing over of the hp would be timed on how much max health the mob has, so long as the potion's effect lasts longer than the freezing can cover. This could make an interesting additional mechanic to maps.
-Extra: for better integration and continuity, the Stray skeleton's arrows of slowness could be replaced with arrows of freezing, or perhaps giving them a mix or random chance of either arrow, making them a more interesting variant.
*The Freezing effect inflicted by the frozen biome itself will only effect players, not mobs, naturally spawning and command-generated. Mobs could however be affected by the freezing effect via potions, tipped arrows, or /effect.
To me, temperature regulation in video games always seems annoying rather than immersive. I understand that some people find it really awesome, but I can only support this kind of idea if it is an optional setting for people who want to add an extra layer of difficulty.
@WolveReighner781 & ClayGoddessSari it would be. Look in the description.
I think it is a great idea but maybe it should only be as such in "normal" and "hard" difficulty? In "hard" it may be even colder than in "normal" so the character freezes faster
I like this. Maybe the freezing should be similar to starvation; 0% on peaceful, 50% on easy, 95% on medium, an 100% on hard difficulty. It should start freezing hearts from the right, and as they freeze, the player moves slower. Also, frozen hearts do not count towards the player’s health, meaning that if they only had a half a heart unfrozen, anything could kill them.
If they go into a warmer biome, the effect will slowly wear off.
High enough light levels prevent and heal freezing, such as daylight, torches, and lava.
Strays should shoot arrows that freeze 1/2 a heart on easy, 1 1/2 hearts on medium, and 3 hearts on hard.
No new armor though.
@Bilbo Baggins thank you for your input! I was thinking about how the freezing status effect could help in having a possible new hostile snow mob, but I like your indication for replacing the stray's slow arrows with freezing arrows. I might put that in this post!
On the contrary, I think the hearts should freeze from the left, not the right, as indicated in the image above. The left is the bad end of the HP bar, as that's where the lowest hearts are. Also, if the freezing started on the right end, the player wouldn't be able to see that he has full health when the bar isn't fully frozen over. Keeping it to the left would help avoid more than needed confusion.
And why can't we have a set of warm armor to protect against the freezing? It would be quite a number of fur-trimmed variants added (excluding dyed and chainmail armor as indicated), but it would make a much better alternative to carrying a bunch of torches aboveground in a cold biome when traveling to and from a stationary heat source or exploring for other biomes and resources.
i honestly really like the idea of the freezing effect, how about an enchantent for armour that slows or stops it, maybe called 'insulation' and have 3 levels, 1st and 2nd slowing the effect and 3rd level granting immunity. also, i have to agree with bilbo about the fur armour. its a great idea but im not sure about it.
I was trying to say that the hearts that are frozen wouldn’t count toward the player’s health. If the player loses all of their unfrozen hearts, they die. It would work better for this for the hearts the hearts to freeze from the right and the player to take damage from the left. When all unfrozen hearts are gone, the player dies.
@BilboBaggins so you're saying the hearts bar shouldn't freeze over all the way and basically give the player a smaller maximum hp?
What the original idea was that the whole bar freezes over over time then the player slowly loses health as if drowning or poisoned. The player wouldn't be able to see how much hearts he has as taking damage, or the hearts and lack of hearts could be different shades of blue underneath the coat of ice. The different tiers of the freezing status effect, whether by cold biomes, their snowfall, potions, or commands, would determine the speed of the ice creeping up the hp bar before actual damage is taken by the player.
This will be edited into the post for more clarity.
Yes. On hard, they could freeze all the way.
@Bilbo Baggins I don't think you understand. At any level the entire bar will freeze all the way. If the freezing effect doesn't cover the whole bar eventually, the player won't take damage as described, so how would this make any impact?
The chart I just posted in should explain it a little better to you.
I think that this is an amazing idea, I have played similar games to Minecraft that implemented this feature and it really added a sense of vulnerability.
Unless I missed it you didn't give the actual effect the cold would have on a player except when the bar is fully blue they take damage. Could I suggest slowness? Maybe deep snow/snow drifts would make you walk slower also?
@TheILastIKnight I'm glad you considered something more the effect could do before actual damage. The problem with slowness though, depending on the level, is how difficult does it need to be for the player to reach a heat source before they start taking damage?
If you stay for too much time in a cold biome, the game will play an animation of ice getting frosted on the screen borders. This tells the player of the effect starting and the effect lasts 5 minutes, after this time, if the player has not find any heat source and has not frozen to death, the animation will play again and the effect will restart.
The frozen hearts starting from the left to right are like a hazard that slowly comes to get you, when the frozen hearts starting from the right to left are a hazard that do not let you see your health points and after a while will give you damage. It's clear that the second is more challenging but may be too hard.
The leather armor could grant more resistance to freezing than the others
Excellent idea! However, I think it should be a TEMPERATURE affect...in cold biomes you get really cold and need to take precautions to stay warm (fur, fire, hot drinks/food etc). In hot biomes you need to stay cool, so if you are wearing full metal armour you heat up quickly. Either taking off the armour, frequently immersing yourself in water, drinking lots of water allows you to stay cool. Not doing these things (either in hot or cold biomes) means you take damage, at an increasing rate the longer you freeze/stay hot.
These ideas would make adventuring in minecraft that much more challenging and fun!!