(New ideas are emboldened.)
Currently, placing scaffolding more than 6 blocks away horizontally from a pillar causes the block to fall to the ground. This lowers its usefulness below dirt and slime blocks in terms of convenience, as extra time, resources and inventory slots must be sacrificed to build additional supports. It is useful for creating a safe way down as you can drop enough scaffolding to make a new pillar, but this could also be achieved by adding the ability to place blocks below scaffolding, perhaps by looking down and sneak placing. Scaffolding’s structural rules do correspond with its most useful property: If a scaffolding block is supported, it will break when that support is removed. However, a tiny selection of blocks are affected by gravity and those play by simple rules: if there’s not a block directly below them, they’ll fall. Further contributing to confusion is how scaffolding can only be horizontally supported by adjacent scaffolding. It’s consistent with the rest of its behaviour, but not with Minecraft as a whole.
To solve this, replace the current support behaviour with what I will call “base block” behaviour. It works as follows: when scaffolding is placed on a non-scaffolding block, it will take on a slightly different texture, signifying it is a base block, which will only be broken if mined. All other scaffolding will be stabilised by any scaffolding it touches, regardless of the direction. If it is no longer stabilised, it will break. This way, you can have as many base blocks as you like, and destroying the whole structure is as simple as destroying all the base blocks. Distance from supports would be irrelevant, meaning it would never fall under any circumstances. No confusing physics, less scaffolding required, and easier construction and destruction. Speaking of destruction, it would also be useful for all the blocks to drop at the base block when destroyed, to save the hassle of picking them all up.
The latest snapshot has made scaffolding excel at its current uses. But if the base block behaviour were added, they would be suitable for a larger range of activities, such as quick bridges across hostile environments like the Nether or End. And if this lies too far outside the developers’ vision for scaffolding, there could be a new tier - iron scaffolding, which could also be immune to fire, have a higher blast resistance, allow you to climb faster and even prevent you from falling off as if you were always sneaking. It could also allow you to hang from the bottom for increased accessibility.
In conclusion, Mojang's execution of scaffolding is more versatile than that of mods, but its reliance on supports has made the block significantly less useful. However, Village and Pillage has included a massive amount of community suggestions, which proves they are definitely listening to us. If you agree with these ideas and want to see the scaffolding block improved, please upvote this post. Special thanks to GreasyTroll and OreoLamp who helped with the ideas and Nox for the textures.
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