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1.17 Ore Distribution

While I highly enjoy the look and feel of the caves, it is ruined due to the lack of rare ores to be found. Diamonds are far too hard to find, along with iron and even lapis. I know it's been said already, but I haven't seen anyone mention this idea yet.

Make it far more common for diamond, iron, and lapis to be exposed to the air, however. For diamonds, make it only possible for one or two ores to be exposed to the air. Make veins of 8 diamond ores still possible, but not possible to be exposed to the air. This way, strip mining still has meaning and it still feels rewarding to explore the caves. For Iron and Lapis, don't make it one or two, but make it a maximum of maybe 4. Make larger veins only accessible by mining and have smaller veins exposed to the air. It is far too hard to find diamonds, iron, and lapis currently in the caves, making it feel like a waste of time to explore.

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• April 03, 2021 00:41
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  • April 04, 2021 06:18
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  In the latest snapshot, they made veins with 0-23 Diamonds possible, though they only attempt to generate 1/9 times in each chunk as opposed to 5 times for veins with 0-5 Diamonds (which are seperate veins). Decreased air exposure is more of an interesting mechanic because it doesn't apply to aquifers, which are very common, so now there are advantages to exploring in aquifers. It doesn't actually buff regular strip mining that much at all, because if you're only making a tunnel, you'll cover a very small area in a given amount of time compared to the areas you could cover through caving within the same time, so it's much better to explore than just endlessly mine a tunnel. This combined with the huge Diamond veins definitely encourages players to explore a lot. You now might really want to use TNT to clear away huge chunks of Stone/Deepslate and be able to cover unexposed ores quickly, which can be pretty fun, so now there are new methods for strip mining that weren't very useful before. Also, Iron and Lapis don't have reduced air exposure. You can find the most Iron underground at level Y-16 and the most Lapis at Y-0. You can find as much Iron and Lapis as you're used to at these levels (even more because of the huge caves). Check the Minecraft Wiki Caves & Cliffs page to get the exact details.

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  • April 08, 2021 20:52
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  I still believe that they should increase the air exposure spawn rates more because it makes exploring the caves much more worthwhile. I didn't realize that up to 23 diamond ore's can spawn now. That's good, even if it's rare. It will make the reward much more satisfying. 

  I think they should just increase the air exposure while keeping it only one or two ores every time so that way it'll be much more worthwhile to explore caves. Otherwise, we will always just go to the aquifers every time instead of exploring the actual cave.