The problem:
Currently shores and rivers look a bit empty. Currently there is also sugarcane, which I find difficult to use decoratively for two main reasons. They have a colour that doesn't really go with much else and you can't place them nicely in the water. Another thing with sugarcane that I find a bit odd is that it's used to craft paper, which seems a bit strange in Minecraft as it requires a lot of processing in the real world.
My solution:
Add reeds as a decorative block and also the new source of paper. Reeds have been used to make paper for thousands of years and this would in my opinion be much more in line with the rest of Minecraft. A change like this would of course mess up a lot of peoples source of rockets, which is bad, but you'll see why it wouldn't necessarily be a biggy further down.
My suggestion for the implementation is that a reed block can consist of 1-4 reed stems. By placing a reed item on the ground in a valid location, you would get a single, one block tall stem. By placing a second item on the same block you'd get two stems and so on up to four (similar to how sea pickles work).
This reed block consisting of 1-4 stems would in time grow to a height of 3 blocks, similar to sugarcane but slower. If broken each block would drop the number of steams it contains, so a three block tall four-steamed plant would drop twelve reed items in total. The idea being that the slower growth rate and higher drop rate cancel each other out so that the overall item yield over time per plant is similar to sugarcane.
If an additional steam is added to a reed plant that has already grown the reed block/s above one block is/are droped as items and the plant starts over with an additional steam. So if an additional steam is added to a two-steamed three block tall plant the top two blocks will be destroyed and drop four reed items and the plant will now be three-steamed and one block tall.
Reeds can be planted on sand and dirt types, immediately next to water (just like sugarcane). Reeds can also be planted in 1-2 blocks deep water (under water they are waterlogged).
Recap
One reed plant consists of 1-4 stems. It will grow in the same conditions as sugarcane, but also in 1-2 blocks deep water. It will grow to a height of 3 blocks and drop a number of reed items equal to the height times the number of steams.
So reeds would be a decorative block and the item will also replace the sugarcane item in the crafting recipe for paper. It would be possible to directly replace existing sugarcane in plantations with reeds and get a similar yield of paper.
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