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Revert Nether Fortress Rarity to 1.15 Levels

Nether Fortresses were made about 2-3x rarer in 1.16. 1.15 Nether Fortresses were already fairly rare and often required exploring much of the Nether to find.

Personally, I remember being frustrated with my inability to locate a Nether Fortress on several occasions. They are essential for brewing and for progressing to the End. This is unlike most other structures, which are justifiably somewhat rare. Other structures don’t have basic mechanics locked behind finding them (save the Stronghold, which you don't need to just randomly stumble into.) If a rare structure in the Nether is wanted, it would be much better if it is not something essential for basic game mechanics that have existed since beta.

While rarity is not inherently bad - making diamonds common would just be silly - it’s not always good either. I think Nether Fortresses were already rare enough. While they do incentivize exploring the new Nether more if they’re rare, Bastion Remnants, the ability to use portals for fast travel, and Netherite already do this.

There are also other ways the main problems with Nether Fortress rarity could be addressed, by adding other ways to access brewing and the End. This could be done by adding Blaze Rods and Nether Wart to Bastion Remnant chests or bartering, among other things.

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  • 1
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    I don’t mind having to look farther for fortresses once I have an elytra, but you need to have already been to the end and getting there isharder.

    I think adding small nether wart patches (3-5 nether wart) in soulsand valleys could be a good way to get nether wart in the beginning. This would also encourage players to explore the soulsand valley, which is really just a death trap at the beginning of the game.

    I also think that blazes should spawn in nether waists to get blaze rods.

  • 0
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    I love how there were new nether brick blocks introduced into the Nether update that would perfectly fit into the fortress, yet they neglected to update it and that they'll update it at a later date. The fortress was literally the reason why people went to the Nether in the first place so the fact they didn't update it at all was a HUGE missed potential. They could've had time to update the fortress but instead they focused on... DANCING PIGLINS. Such a disappointment, let's hope that 1.17 isn't a "mountain update" otherwise I'll be severely angry.

  • 0
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    You are right, but they very common before 1.16 so they decrease their rarity but not as before. In 1.15 ( or 14 as a bedrock player) there was 3 fortresses around my spawn portal but after resetting the nether I had no fortresses and the nearest one was 500 block away. That is frustrating cuz you will need to make a blaze farm in one and a wither skeleton farm in one and maybe a general fortress mob farm in one so that is very impractical for farms other than what you said.

  • 1
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    Another concern is that they removed them being generating in stripes on the X or z axis. I cannot remember which. So before the update the mechanics was to search on the axis opposite to what they generate on so you pass multiple fortress stripes. Once you find one, you can go on their axis to find others. That was the way before 1.16. Now they are very random such like bastions which is very bad for vital and unique structures. They should decrease rarity and add a reliable way/ mechanic to locate them.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I very much agree. My friends and I are getting frustrated in the Nether because we can't find Nether Warts/Fortresses. We've continued to make new worlds constantly, but we can never seem to find them anymore.

    It doesn't help that we have the Bedrock edition, which doesn't have the "reset nether" option like the Java edition does.

     

    I wouldn't necessarily say to "revert" it back to it's old rarity, but maybe make it to where we can have a navigation tool that guides us to the nearest nether fortress? Or maybe a Nether Wart detector. Idk. Just give us some sort of incentive to find that fortress that doesn't involve stumbling into it randomly by chance because I swear we can never seem to find one anymore. They are WAY too rare.

  • 0
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    I doubt anyone will read this comment, but I have to say I totally disagree. I thought this post was 'make nether fortresses rarer', and I was going to vote for it!

    Nether fortresses generate in soul sand valleys, nether wastes, and basalt deltas. Soul sand valleys have a completely insane amount of nether fortresses. I literally once found 4 seperate nether fortresses all within 100 blocks of each other. Nether wastes are just as common as before, and nether fortresses are rather rare in basalt deltas, but not unheard of.

    If you're speedrunning, I suggest you toughen up and face the dangers of the soul sand valley. I usually find a nether fortress in just about every soul sand valley biome.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    no. The added rarity makes you explore the nether more, which I like.

  • 2
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    Maybe there could be some way to locate a nether fortress. Like a special compass you can craft or get from a cartographer. 

  • 0
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    I think that the new rarity is fine because now there is easier ways to get ender pearls which if they stayed the rarity that they were the biomes would be filled with them

  • 0
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    I just spent an hour digging myself out of a crimson forest crater I spawned into, and still couldn't find a fortress. (I've already spent quite some time looking before realising I was completely boxed in) Eventually I had to resort to mapping tool (I never use that and consider it cheating), found 2 fortresses >800(!) blocks away, start digging towards one, got attack by a bunch of skeleton (they spawned on a soul sand valley BELOW THE LAYER I'M ON), came across a lava lake 500 blocks from the fortress on map. Rode a stider across the lake, got attacked by a big magma cube near shore, tried to move away and found that striders can't jump. I died in lava loosing all my enchanted gear. After all these I still did not see the nether fortress.

    I then copied the word and switch to creative to see how to get to the second closest fortress. Even that requires jumping between layers. I got lost many times even though I am flying and with coordinates showing. All of these are moves I normally consider cheating, but I got so tired of just wondering around, looking at dangerous ledges thinking if I take the risk, will there be a nether fortress there, then dying and losing all my stuff.

    It is really disheartenly for new players like me who just started 3 weeks ago and could not move on to the next stage without finding a blaze and nether wart.

  • 1
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    Maybe, like a stronghold, there should be a lodestone compass in chest loots that points to nether fortress.

  • 0
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    It’s soo hard to find nether fortresses now they need to be more common

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    For the love of god Mojang
    I was a new player 6 months ago, my GF got me into Minecraft and i loved it. Built a huge base with farms, mined a ton, built a sky-rail-way to another new mine, a sky island, a moat, rebuilt walls with stone from dirt, fought off a raid on a village, enchanted a few sets of armor/weapons, even ventured north a thousand blocks or so to find the ocean and an underwater monument.

    Now i cant play for twenty minutes without getting frustrated and turning it off. I've spent countless hours running through nether caves, getting blasted by the Boo ghosts from behind, shot by skeletons, slowed by soul sand, and wasting almost two weeks in a remnant bastion because i thought there would be blaze spawner's at the top. (When the game doesn't freeze on the Mojang screen and make me uninstall and redownload it).

    I have no desire to play this game anymore as it feels futile. You've taken the one thing needed to even attempt to finish the game and made it (even more) ridiculously hard to find in what feels like an attempt to make us suffer through all the new biomes for biomes sake. I understand you wanted to make the nether prettier, but when it gets to the point that i feel more optimistic about just stumbling onto the end portal stronghold in the overworld than ever hoping to find a single blaze rod in the nether, then somethings definitely gone wrong somewhere.

  • 0
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    I am a casual player and decided to start a long-term world for 1.16. I was so excited to do my best to get all the achievements, no cheats, etc etc etc. But I can't find a fortress ANYWHERE, which means no blaze rods, which means no potions, no End, no Elytra, no shulker boxes... I don't enjoy playing now because it feels like I've been locked out of half the game, and have no way of accessing the useful tools for big build projects..

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Yes. I am very mad. My whole inventory was filled up with cobblestone blocks, and I was searching the nether for hours on end. 

  • 0
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    This has ruined game progession for me, as a casual player it's a big time suck out of my already limited play time

  • 1
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    The Minecraft Wiki tells no decrease in Nether Fortress spawn rates. Not saying it didn't happen and the Wiki forgot about it, but they seem just as common as before to me. It just takes longer to navigate the Nether because of the new biomes and dangers.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    yeah I looked for soooooo long and still haven't found one. Needs a fix :(

  • 0
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    As a person who mostly plays survival mode,I agree with this.The thing I do to find a fortress is copy the world itself.then open the copy and put it on creative, and lastly I use the /locate command so it can show me the exact coordinates of the fortress!Like I don’t like doing this EVERY SINGLE TIME I can’t find a fortress!Mojang should revert the rarity to 1.15.

  • 0
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    I absolutely agree with this idea, and when I read it, I came up with an idea for this. My idea, however, is that the Nether Fortress itself should not become more common, but instead a new structure called “Nether Lair” or “Firefort” or something like that. This structure would be a large open room with a blaze spawner inside with a portal to the End for an End Update. This portal will not go to 100, 0 in the End, instead into Ender Lairs with an enderman spawner in that. Of course, the portal in the Ender Lairs to go back to the nether lair/firefort will not activate until the Ender Dragon is defeated. This idea will give yet another reason to explore the Nether, that being the ability to get to the outer islands of the End! If this structure is the same rarity as Nether Fortresses, getting blaze rods will become twice as common. This idea inspires me to make my own End Update suggestion.

  • 0
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    I think the final Paragraph is the most important one in this request. And I'm kinda Shocked that the Mojang team hasn't already come up with some kind of alternative crafting access for NetherWart and Blaze Poweders.   Why not just allow players to render-down the Red Netherwart Blocks while adding Blaze Rods to the Piglin trading Offers?   This team usually addresses the super obvious issues really fast but here they've totally let this one slide during the entire time period that the "New Nether" was supposed to be getting all of it positive buzz.  What gives?

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    This is really stupid decision to make fortress so rare in 1.16. I've been waiting RTX all that time and the new biomes. Never finished the game in the past due to the lack of time. And now finally I have NVidia card, some corona time and RTX to enjoy the beauty of the game and my nearest fortress -150:-720 blocks away. This is terrible. It totally brakes the game. Who's responible for it? I demand a flogging! Stupid guy hates all the players. I hope he dies in lava!

    F**k this! I'll wait some more when you fix the issue...

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Absolutely. They NEED to bring it back down to 1.15. Most great minecraft worlds I have often get deleted because I travel literally thousands of blocks for about 5 hours (no exageration) only to die and not have enough time to get back to my items. I think the problem is that they only start generating when there in a soulsand valley, nether wastes, and those HORRIBLE basalt deltas. Mojang should make it so that they can generate in EVERY biome instead, most commonly in those giant lava oceans which are the perfect places for them. To avoid making it TO common though, they can make it so that fortresses can only start generating 200/500 blocks away from your first portal.

  • 2
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    I definitely think that fortresses are currently too hard to find as well, but I think that there are more interesting ways to fix it than simply reducing their rarity. I think it would be better to add a way to guarantee you find a fortress, similar to how throwing an eye guarantees you find a stronghold. Perhaps all fortresses could have a lodestone somewhere inside it, and a small, very common structure (like a nether dungeon) would contain a compass linked to some fortress's lodestone. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Yes,This would be useful Specialy to Mobile Player Out there cuz its so hard to navigate Nether Fortresses Since we arent able to use First and third person mode in one click just like Win10 or Java Players

  • 2
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    I agree with the need to have reliable access to nether fortresses, but I also agree with the need for nether exploration and fortress rarity. So, as gremwave mentioned in a previous comment, adding an alternative way to find nether fortresses would be an excellent way to reduce the random nature of obtaining critical fortress-sourced items while still encouraging extensive exploration of the nether.

    Possible options:

    1. Assorted audio cues when looking in the direction of a fortress if the player does not have the achievement related to entering a fortress for the first time

    2. Compasses point to fortresses when within x/z blocks of one by default (overridden by lodestones).

     

    P.S.

    Personally, I am in favor of limiting fortress spawns to farther out than an x/z-block radius from the first point where the nether is loaded (similar to the first ring of stronghold spawns), but that suggestion might be more suited for a different thread.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I found a fortress like every 2 minutes (in creative)

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Alternatively, make it so you can find random dungeons that are similar to overworld dungeons, but with blazes and a chance of nether wart in the chest. It would make sense, and would require less work than adding a completely different structure to the nether.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Alternatively, given that nether fortresses are so broken up, there could be smaller bits of nether fortress ruin scattered more commonly throughout the nether, sometimes containing leftover netherwart.

    Blazes could then uncommonly spawn in the basalt delta, since the only thing that spawns there currently are magma cubes.

    These things combined would make it somewhat easier to start brewing and progress to the end, but you would still need to locate an actual fortress to get wither skulls, and for fortress loot (which needs to be made more worthwhile).

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    YES OMG I have logged about 18 hours on this world I’m playing on and 3 of them were spent looking for a fortress! Eventually I gave up and started doing other things, but I was really looking forward to having elytra and shulker boxes early game.