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Let's talk about ice caves

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We're super excited to finally share ice caves with you! These chilly caverns are as beautiful as they are dangerous. Now that you've had a chance to venture into them, we're eager to hear what you think.

As you explore the ice caves, here are a few things we'd love your thoughts on:

  • How easy or difficult are ice caves to find? Do they appear often enough during your adventures?
  • How do you feel about the amount of ores and resources available inside the caves?
  • What are your thoughts on finding lava within ice caves? Does it feel surprising, interesting, out of place, or something else entirely?
  • How do the caves feel to explore? Are they too dark, or do the ice crystals provide enough light and visibility?
  • If you've played with Vibrant Visuals enabled, what do you think about how ice caves look, especially the water, lighting, and overall atmosphere?
  • Does the amount of ice in ice caves feel right, or would you like to see more or less of it?
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  • 3
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    I would love to see ice caves connect to the surface i think it would be so cool to come across a cave entrance thats all icy! And definitely need block palettes for the different types of ice blocks and calcite and diorite and i think snow too! I think the ice caves should have their own particle effect something like crystals in the air! They should have their own sound effects too! And its would be really cool to have a chance to find some structures in them like ship wrecks or trail ruin and definitely would like to see icy mineshafts!! I think it would be fun to see cold variants of some other mobs too like maybe ice bats or chilly squids or somethings!

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Make the ice crystal light a little brighter.

  • 0
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    • What are your thoughts on finding lava within ice caves? Does it feel surprising, interesting, out of place, or something else entirely?

    Honestly, lava in ice caves doesn't really make sense. I don't think it would be hard for players to find lava in cold biomes if that's the point of having it in ice caves. I mean, it should stand out because of its rarity and encourage players to head to the surface and look for a lava source, like the surface lava pools. Plus, having lava in ice caves already triggers icicles to collapse, which takes away the fun of experiencing a collapse caused by torchlight.

    • How do the caves feel to explore? Are they too dark, or do the ice crystals provide enough light and visibility?

    The ice crystals serve their purpose; they look good and provide a modest amount of light, but I don't entirely agree with keeping light sources that come from lava. it feels out of place if you pay too much attention to it.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    I think it looks good so far, but maybe powdered snow should be added for an extra element of danger?

     

  • 3
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    The ice crystals are good lighting, but some sort of new, bright glowy-ice block should spawn under other ice (shining through the transparency) in the pillars, for less darkness without lowering the amount of mob spawns.

    The caves could be a little bigger on average.

    Lava should totally stay in the ice caves. Minecraft is all about quirks. However, basalt should spawn between lava and ice when lava does generate. That’d be fun and make it feel more intentional!

  • 2
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    We really need Snow Bricks and Ice Bricks!
    Come on Mojang, make it real!

  • 1
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    I think it could be interesting if the ice caves were a biome which fossils could generate.

    Ice is pretty easy to mine, so it could be neat to come across some fossils frozen inside the ice.

     

  • 0
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    There's not enough icicles!

  • 1
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    The Ice Caves are so cool, but from an adventure standpoint, I'm not sure that I would actively choose to look for this biome. The Icicles look great, and so do the ice crystals, but I would like to see these resources used in crafting recipes to incentivize exploring for this biome. The ice crystals could be used to craft a new light source (one bright like torches but won't melt ice; maybe combine with blue ice in a recipe?), or the biome could feature more of the archaeology game features. Such might include needing an item called an ice pick to carefully mine suspicious ice/packed ice for new (more like ancient) artifacts, like more types of pottery sherds, ice-related weapons or frozen tridents, or other frozen treasures that can be used for building and story-telling. Also, what if in adding that, we can get a new type of ice-themed ancient flower that can be obtained through Sniffers? 

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    We would love a Calcite block palette AND an Ice Block palette which should be an ACTUAL blue colour. 
    Also I disagree with adding Lava to Ice Caves. it is just so unnatural and disrupts the blue, cold, chilly ambience of the Ice Caves

  • 1
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    We need ores encased in ice just like there’s a deep slate and nether rack ore version.

  • 2
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    In vibrant visuals: I would like to see more sparkly, icy reflections. I feel like this sparkle would be possible utilizing the PBR texture mapping for snow, ice, and icicles. It would greatly improve the atmosphere of the biome. 

  • 1
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    A small change I would add to Ice caves is a new block of Ice called Thin Ice. Thin Ice breaks when a mob walks on it and has a breaking animation very similar to the ice generated by the Frost Walker enchantment. It melts / evaporates into air faster when exposed to light than regular ice, like 2 times or 1.5 times faster than regular ice melts when exposed to fire / light. As I said Thin Ice also breaks when a player / mob walks on it, requiring either they shift walk across to avoid breaking the ice, or they sprint run / jump across to get past before the ice underneath breaks, or they have the Frost Walker enchantment on their boots which prevents Thin Ice from breaking.

    This would make the floor just as dangerous as the ceiling, requiring players to both watch where they place torches and where they walk. Thin Ice would generate in 2 ways, either a layer over a deep cavern drop (maybe there's ice sickles at the bottom to impale the player) that may result in them falling to death if not careful; or over an underground frozen water lake, which generates with blue ice periodically at the bottom layer (same as potent sulfur) and then at least 1 block and at most 3 blocks of water in the generation covered by the layer of Thin Ice. Then add an effect similar to Potent Sulfur / Nausea but with Blue Ice / Freezing.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Brittle ice absolutely needs a new texture.

  • 1
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    I saw an idea from somebody saying that the water in the ice caves should give the freezing effect

    and that it could work similarly to how the potent sulfur works where instead blue ice is used

  • 0
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    It's urgent that the stray not break the brittle ice or sink into powdery snow either.

  • 1
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    I think Ice Caves could be even more interesting if they had frozen mobs trapped inside the ice, along with a new unique mob hidden deep underground! Players could discover ancient creatures frozen in ice, with some formations hiding rare enemies that awaken when disturbed. The new mob could be exclusive to Ice Caves, adapted to the freezing environment, and drop a unique item. This would give players more reasons to explore deeper into the caves and make every discovery feel more exciting, rather than just mining ores and collecting ice. It could also make Ice Caves feel like a mysterious ecosystem with secrets waiting to be uncovered.

  • 1
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    A new ice tool set and ice cream please.

  • 1
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    Instead of increasing the frequency of stone ores, why not add ice ores? Fragments of ore can be and do get transported by glaciers irl, so why not mimic this by adding ice ores and having them be tiny scattered pockets throughout the ice caves (But not exposed to air as ores irl are typically buried beneath or within the glacial ice), they could be between 1-3 blocks in size, or more depending on the tier of ore.

    I asked ChatGPT about the realism of it and it says that ice ores could be a missed opportunity. I won't link it here incase links aren't allowed here but as you know it would tell you if you asked it so you can see for yourself.

  • 1
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    Idea: Ice Cave Archaeology & Frostling

     

    What if Ice Caves had their own archaeology, with new pottery sherds, unique vase patterns, and rare treasures hidden in suspicious blocks? Players could also discover a frozen Frostling egg and warm it up to hatch a small prehistoric ice creature. Similar to the Sniffer, but with its own personality, the Frostling could help players find hidden treasures in icy caves!