Back to minecraftBack to minecraft.net

How can we improve the existing moving creatures of Minecraft? Show us your coolest fantasy creatures. We are very interested in ideas that are unique and not just lists of mobs - spamming lists of animal names is spam and violates our posting guidelines. Be sure to check the Previously Considered Suggestion page (no sharks, MINECON Vote rejected monsters) before you post!

← Mobs, Animals, and non-Humanoids
16422

Mob spawning needs to be more balanced on Minecraft

Pinned announced

Here are some of the community comments and observations made regarding mob spawning in Minecraft. 

A balanced mob spawning system is needed with consistent spawning rules. This would mean that during regular gameplay mob spawning is challenging, but not overwhelming. 

Additionally, with balanced and consistent spawning rules, players should be able to pinpoint where mobs will spawn, and utilise that information so that effective spawning platforms and farms can be made.

  • Slimes should spawn frequently in swamps and slime chunks.
  • Endermen should spawn readily on spawning platforms built in the end.
  • Wither skeletons should be regularly spawning in Fortresses.
  • There should be a steady supply of hostile mobs spawning in caves around the player, making the game more interesting and challenging as they explore.
  • Mobs should despawn when out of range of the player, so they don’t hog the mob cap unnecessarily. (Currently they only despawn if they are within a narrow band at a certain distance from the player.)
  • Hostile mobs should despawn unless they have had significant interaction with the player (not just because the mob has looked at the player, for example).
  • Drowned mob spawning should be balanced, as they spawn too often, hindering the spawning of other mobs.
  • Passive mobs should spawn steadily around the player, so that resources can be gathered as needed.
  • Mobs should not spawn if they are beyond a certain distance vertically from the player (The current behaviour effectively breaks traditional mob spawning platforms built in the sky, or in slime chunks)
Avatar
Registered User shared this idea

572 Comments

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Sorted by oldest
  • 12
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I’d like to see java logic for spawning and despawning copied over to bedrock. If device power is an issue or for those that think java spawning is too much, give the slider option. This is by far my biggest gripe for Minecraft since the btu.

  • 17
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    My biggest gripe with the spawning mechanics is the global mob cap implementation. Some sources claim that the global cap is set to 200 and every naturally spawned mob inside ticking areas counts towards this gap. If the information I found on the internet is correct and I understand the situation properly, I see two big flaws with having mob cap as a constant number:

    1. Players get punished for having high simulation distance in their worlds
      Bigger simulation distance -> more active chunks -> Mob cap gets occupied quicker. If the slider was provided to make players with more powerful systems happy, why then it works the opposite way and brings inferior experience in some regards? If a player has simulation distance set to 12, that means there are ~144 active chunks around the player (this calculation could be slightly off). So every chunk can only contain ~1.38 naturally spawned mob, passive or hostile, cave or surface, doesn't even matter. And that's around a single player only which leads to the next issue:

    2. Multiplayer games can destroy monster spawn rates
      Now this is where things go very wrong. For each player the amount of mobs per chunk gets divided, assuming they are not within each other's simulation distance and this is all without even accounting for possible manually set ticking areas in a world.

    These points would explain why after moving my world to a dedicated server mob spawning rates increased dramatically since a) simulation distance is set to 8 on the server instead of 12 and b) there is no extra AFK player serving as a host.

    What I'm trying to say with all this is that in such circumstances, having global mob cap as a constant number is a terrible idea. If there is no hard technical limitation, an easy fix would be a variable global mob cap depending on the amount of active chunks (ticking areas) in a world. How many mobs per chunk would be for developers to decide but hell, even a single mob per chunk could make spawn rates much better in multiplayer worlds.

    But then you might say more mobs - more lag, it's a cross-platform game after all. Well, I think it depends on a host. You can always reduce simulation distance or just move world host to a beefier device. And if non-naturally spawned mob count isn't an issue then naturally spawned mobs shouldn't be too.

    Lastly, I personally don't care much about if the spawning/despawning mechanics are in line with Java Edition, maybe that's not the path that developers decided to take. But at least mob spawning should be CONSISTENT. Because right now every time an additional player joins my server I realize mob spawning rates are going to be worse and that's really annoying.

  • 8
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    This does seem to be a really big issue. Before I've traversed through countless branches of caves and only found a few mobs. Because of this, caves don't feel dangerous.

    Caves aren't the only problem: When I'm outside at night, sometimes I have trouble even finding certain mobs! Once I went a whole night without finding a single creeper. This doesn't seem normal, but that may just be because I'm used to Java.

    Another issue is how ineffective my mob farms have been. The first one may of been due to poor design, but I only got three mobs from it after hours of playtime. My new one I haven't gotten any from, and I don't know why this is the case; I've tried to follow mob spawning rules as well as possible; I should've at least gotten something by this point.

  • 8
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Can we add Creepers able to spawn under trap doors?

  • 7
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    From the beginning of update aquatic I've been trying to find slime in my survival world.  I've camped out in several swamps at night during full moons, and I have cleared out several spawn chunks properly.  With all of this work, I still have yet to see a single slime in my world.  I've also tried looking for them in a creative world and they do not spawn naturally.  It seems that by adding Drowned they have taken up the space for a lot of other mobs.  This really should be fixed.  I've also noticed that fish aren't really spawning in my survival world either.

  • 10
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Devs need to make fixing spawining the top priority.  Right now the game is seriously broken for anything other than creative play and perhaps super-casual easy play.  It has been over 430 days since this bug was reported!
     
    Yeah, there are improvements, particular annoyances to address, and neat ideas, but right now the game is BROKEN.  Just get it working at least to an approximation of the Java version (which is far from perfect).

    Devs really should know this better than we do, but seems like what needs to be done now (needed to be done over a year ago actually):
    - Add console commands to change all the key parameters: mob cap, despawn distance, spawn distance, ect.  Those should have been there from day one... These parameters need testing and tweaking, not just hard-coding to arbitrary numbers.
    - Despawn properly.  Might requite fixing the "has interacted with player" flag.  I assume there is also a timer where untamed/unnamed mobs will eventually despawn regardless... If not, add one, and a console command to set the timeout value of course.
    - Realize the spawning logic is flipped from Java and adjust the spawn rates for mobs with easy to satisfy conditions (eg. Drowned) down and rates for hard to satisfy conditions (eg Slime) way up. 

    Overall, Minecraft in survival on Normal or Hard should be a bit stressful.  Dangerous mobs should seemingly lurk around every other (unlit) corner.  At the moment, Bedrock isn't actually Minecraft, at least for survival.  Going for well over a year with a known game breaking (fundamentally changing) bug is simply unacceptable folks.

  • 8
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Yap,minecraft bedrock edition need hostile mob in option to set ad hostile mob or not

  • 11
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    On the 8th May in 2017 I reported the bug https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MCPE-21856 on the Bugtracker. It's been an issue for all players for now 1 year and 5 months. As professional software developer with 20 years of experience I can not think of a good reason why this has not been fixed.It completely kills any non creative mode gameplay for many many players. 360 votes here, 238 votes on the Minecraft Bugtracker. If you imagine, that only 1% or 10% of the players that suffer from this report or take any action, you are easily at 10k players that do not enjoy the game as it should be.

    There has not been any statement from Mojang about this issue or why it is so hard to fix. Mojang has it's priorities completely messed up if aquatics update is released before this issue has been fixed. Fixing this issue can't be harder than implementing the special mechanics for the aquatics update. It's probably not the developers, but the management who prevents this issue from being fixed.

    New content is important to stay relevant, especially after the Minecraft hype is almost over by now. But the core gameplay has serious issues, not only for realms that people pay monthly for, but also for almost every console player out there.

    If computing power of differnt platforms was the issue, I would understand if there would be less mobs on the Switch or an X-Box 360 (does Bedrock run on that one at all?). But I don't understand why there are not plenty of mobs on: The Realms, my laptop, my beefy gaming PC or the relatively beefy X-Box One. There is no excure other than incompetence if there is no enjoyable experience on these platforms. The original Minecraft even runs on Java, which is not even as fast as a C++ implementation like Bedrock could be. And the Java edition ran Minecraft on more than 10 year old Hardware just fine enough to addict many many players and spwan a huge community. How come, that it's not possible today?

  • 9
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I completely agree with jay, but I also believe four legged mobs need better walking and running animations. The clearest example is the cow's animations. 

  • 7
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    This idea is spot on and being able to add adjustments to this issue would make this game more enjoyable for the players. All my friends are picky about this issue so if this idea was available I would think it could resolve some issues. 

  • 7
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Slimes, slimes, slimes, slimes. Fix this please. 

  • 8
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I would just like to add one more commenter's weight to the ideas put down in this section.  I understand the reasoning behind limiting the spawn rate for less powerful machines, phones, etc.  This however, breaks the experience for people who are playing on moderately decent machines.  Any solution that can give us an option to raise the mob spawn rate so that the game is even slightly meaningful would be much appreciated.  I understand that not everyone can be happy in this instance, but the slider mentioned as an option would be a nice compromise.  It is just not particularly practical to have to find every single cave within the necessary number of blocks to light up.  

    Please fix this.

  • 8
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I think you guys really need to take a page from other games and make certain mobs spawn during "events."

    First off, when it rains, that should cause skeletons to spawn as strays. Alternatively, the rain could draw slimes and silverfish to the surface.

    Second, the new Illigers shouldn't be allowed to spawn every day. There should specifically be days where the player gets a raid notification and suddenly they begin spawning, perhaps moreso in the range of a real village. 

    Finally, and perhaps this is a bit too weird of an idea so bare with me, I believe some kind of "ender invasion" event would be neat. Greatly increase Enderman spawnrates, make Endermites spawn regularly in the world, and maybe summon some kind of "ender pillar" structure in a random place that the player hasn't been building in. Make it easy to tear down (so it isn't stuck there for low-level players), and also make the blocks good for something like support beams in houses.

  • 11
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Not just that, But when I play bedrock survival, I experience a lot of trouble trying to find animals in the overworld. They aren't spawning enough as much as they need to be!

  • 7
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    It's been more than a year that the spawn is broken, there are hard times finding endermen for ender pearls, or even get some experience by fighting mobs since there are almost none around the world.

    > Mobs should not spawn if they are beyond a certain distance vertically from the player (The current behaviour effectively breaks traditional mob spawning platforms built in the sky, or in slime chunks)

    Plus yeah, I hate this thing. Removes all the mob grinders part from the game.

    Beta 1.9 still fixes nothing. Please Microsoft / Mojang c:

  • 6
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Mob spawning in bedrock should be like the Java edition but a bit lighter so it doesn't make too much lag on mobile devices. The following hostile mobs should have better mobile spawning :
    -Creeper
    -Iron Golem
    -Withernsea Skeleton
    The passive mobs should spawn as Java edition.

  • 6
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I totally agree

  • 6
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I spent all day riding a mega farm and this spawn of monsters looks awful, literally I wasted my time creating it would have to leave similar to Java Edition. The way it is, it's very sad to play, I lose all my mood. And look what I'm playing on hard and it's horrible like that.

     

  • 7
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I'd forgotten about this forum, but I'm guessing this is not actually monitored (or at least no one at Microsoft or Mojang Bedrock is willing to reply on it) because I asked 4 months ago if it is monitored and have not seen any indicator that it is monitored since...

    Regardless, this is not rocket science.  As WeirdConstructor said, the architecture for Bedrock should actually be more capable and efficient than the original architecture for Java, and I'd echo/add to the sentiment that there is really no excuse for not being able to adapt the Java spawning rules to Bedrock.  Once the core of the Java rules are mirrored as a base to work from, they'd just need to scale the scope of processing to the lowest common denominator of a device connected to a given world at a given time (most likely by limiting the active chunk radius, but could also include tasks such as bulk despawning when lesser devices connect to a world).

    There probably needs to be something on the server-side to coordinate that, and further it will require (wait for it) TESTING to profile how various devices perform and how processing should be scaled to facilitate the most positive play experience on each device possible; that way, the server can determine at what scale the world should be working based on the devices connected to it and then broadcast that scale configuration to all connected devices (along with any specifics regarding other scaling actions that may not be able to be locally calculated uniformly across various devices).  This information should also be coded into the client so that the same scaling rules can be applied for isolated local instances, and to keep the server-side job as light as possible.

    It doesn't seem testing is a forte for Mojang Bedrock and a lot of the suggestions include user-set configurations (such as chunk sliders), and those two facts (among many, many others) make me VERY concerned that Mojang Bedrock doesn't have their heart in a real solution here.  Most users aren't developers who care about talking about this stuff and don't want to have to tweak the performance on their individual devices because the company couldn't be bothered to take the time to figure out how best to scale for them.

    I've played games in Alpha testing that function better than this, let alone Beta testing, and I really wish that Mojang Bedrock would end this experimentation on our dime and just get the job done already.

  • 6
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I agree. In order to address this issue, can you add some kind of debug mode that allows us to provide better information to resolve this issue?

    Debug mode allows us to share with you information that can be used to improve mob spawning experience and find bugs in your algorithm.

    Mob spawning is very low, I cannot find a single creeper in an area of 200x200 blocks. I thinks that my underground caves are full of mobs or drowned but I cannot figure how to fix this. 

    I think that the issue isn't "how to improve mob spawning", but "how to fix this annoying bug that prevents mob spawning". Mojang has to understand that mob spawning is "simply" broken and it doesn't work.

    I hope hearing from Mojang or Microsoft soon.

    Regards.

  • 5
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I saw some comments and Drowneds annoy me too. Oh, on PE is also a problem. And, when you put down some water, there will start a fish invasion! So we need spawning settings separating passive, hostile and neutral mobs... 

  • 5
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Minecraft Bad Rock Slime Generation Rate, please.

  • 6
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Also please allow mobs to spawn above y128, i dont know why this hasnt been fixed yet 

  • 6
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    maybe a command?

  • 9
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    also you should post this in Bedrock Betas not here...

     

  • 5
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    They need to heavily decrease the spawn rate of drowned. I shouldn't see 4 drowned in a one 3x3 pond when other mobs aren't spawning on land

  • 5
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Mojang shouldn't have called it the "Better Together" update when they're breaking the game for the players that actually have a decent pc/console. I don't know why they can't fix this, but if I had to guess it's because everyone else is being dragged down by the phone players. Here's the simple fix Mojang, split the game. Let the phone kids have a game their device can handle and give the console/pc players something that's actually worth playing(updates w/ java spawn mechanics).

  • 5
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    Spawn and Dispawn are most important problem on Bedrock. The game is not fun like that.
    Mob spawning and dispawning in bedrock should be like the Java edition.
    No Enderman, ni creepers, so no Ender, and no Fireworks :-(
    The fun is to manke factory, tower, etc ...
    Please fix it in priority.

  • 8
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    The last time I played Bedrock Edition seriously, I quit playing when I couldn't find slimes after spending a ridiculous amount of time, from clearing large sections underground in slime chunks, to traveling long distances to several swamps. Since sticky pistons depend on slimes, this is seriously unbalanced as others have already pointed out.

    So here I am, playing it again, this time on our shiny new Nintendo Switch and once again, no slimes... Rather, a few, but they don't seem to respawn, don't show up in slime chunks, don't show up in swamps. Might be time to shelve Minecraft again for a while.

    Either add another way to get slime, or increase slime spawning rates. It shouldn't be easier or faster to find and takeover a Nether Fortress to get a supply of blaze rods than to get slime!

     

  • 9
    Registered User commented
    Comment actions Permalink

    I have to agree about drowned. I have a small lake behind my house in survival and i have used 1 stack of glowstone, at least 7 64's of sea pickles, and jack o lanterns and at least 5 still spawn in my fully lit lake. It's actually so annoying and completely ruins the aqua gameplay. P.S. It took me 30 minutes to find 2 turtles.