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Let's talk about the freezing effect

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Freezing is a new status effect that can be applied by Frostbites and through new freezing potions crafted from ice balls dropped by defeated Frostbites. While frozen, players are slowed down and take damage over time, creating new challenges during exploration and combat.

Whether you're using ice balls, crafting freezing potions, or battling against the freezing effect, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the topics below:
- Does the freezing effect feel balanced?
- How does the freezing effect feel in player-versus-player combat?
- Is crafting and using freezing potions worth the effort?
- How do ice balls feel to throw and use in combat?

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  • 8
    Registered User commented
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    I think the freezing effect should not be completely nullified by a single piece of Leather Armor. It doesn't have to be ALL the armor like it used to, but maybe like a certain threshold of Armor Points? Maybe for example: one Leather Tunic is enough to nullify Freezing, meanwhile one Leather Cap and one Leather Boots would be required in cooperation to be enough.

    I think it would also be nice if other ways of nullifying Freezing were added: standing next to campfires, miscellaneous fire damages, etc. 

    I also think it would be cool if Freezing was VERY slowly applied to the Player in cold biomes, or at least when it's snowing, but I can see how that could be a bit much.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    What if there could be a protective armor enchantment for freezing? If you have netherite armor and don't want to risk being killed by other players by having to put on leather, it would be much easier. The enchantment could be found in chests next to cave spawners in cold caves, or some other way that might take a little longer, making you work for it, so it's not automatically fixed.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Freezing should have varying strengths which stack with how much leather armour you're currently wearing. Having a single piece of leather armour nullify the danger of the effect feels way too easy to counteract.

    So at freezing 1, any piece of leather armour will protect from it, but freezing 2 requires 2 or more pieces to be protected, and so on up to 4 and above.

    Perhaps have it done via attributes so the cold protection value can be added via commands to custom armour, too - Or add an additional "Frost Protection" type enchantment (Single level) which adds the leather armour effect to any other type of armour at the cost of being mutally exclusive of another more dominant enchant?

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    Freezing Potions would be phenomenal if they do excess damage against Nether Mobs.
    Someone posted about camp fires having a 2 block radius effect of instantly curing a player of freezing, but if they also subsequently have a wider radius of hurting strays and frostbitten mobs causing them to run away from the campfire a considerable distance, that would be very cool (pun totally intended).

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    The freezing effect is overall balanced, but it shouldn't be clearable with milk in a similar way that you can't drink milk to stop fire from damaging you. I think that if that change was made, powder snow could also give the freezing effect. Temperature-based threats are very immersive in a survival game, only I wish that overcoming it was a bit more interesting than just bringing a pair of leather boots in your already cramped inventory to wear for a specific scenario, potentially sacrifice better armor protection only to simply stop a singular, somewhat avoidable effect.

    As someone who is interactive in the PvP community, most of the time, players choose to ban tipped arrows or debuff potions from PvP gameplay as highly stackable debuff effects like instant damage or weakness can be unbalanced. This will likely be the case for tipped freezing arrows or splash potions of freezing. However, if the ice balls applied the freezing effect, it could be used in PvP as a means to catch up to fleeing opponents, and would be fairly balanced as Ice Balls are only stackable to 16. Otherwise, they're a glorified snowball, and people will instead choose bows as their projectile weapon.

    Obtaining freezing potions feels fine. I like that the reagent in the recipe is tied to a mob drop, like many other are. Like a lot of potions, though, they're not all that useful and exist for consistency and the sandbox nature of the game.

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    I think it is a very cool addition... but I would like to see more sources that can give the effect to the player.

    My suggestion would be to make the ice crystals generate in the water of the ice caves as well, and if a player swims in water near an ice crystal, they get the freezing effect. I would think this could use the same logic that potent sulfur uses when giving the nausea effect.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    Equivalents to Flame and Fire aspect but for Freezing!! Would be awesome for a new dynamic to combat. I know flame equivalent is already kind of handled by freezing arrows, which is probably more balanced since freezing is more severe than burning. Something for melee combat would be neat though..

    Some kind of protection mechanism against freezing through armor/enchantments as was mentioned would be cool as well,. iirc leather does this, but maybe it could be added to others..? Frost walker...?

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    We NEEDED icicles and a new frozen biome. Thank you Mojang Studios.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Would be great to make the Freezing Effect more efficient by the level of the effect. For example, Freezing II would increase the "TicksFrozen" NBT Tag of an entity by 2 instead of 1 per tick, Freezing III would increase it by 3 per tick, etc.. Even if this feature is exclusive to creative mode because there is no Freezing Potion of level 2, that would add more possibilities for adventure maps or datapacks and make the effect find more fun uses.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    - Is crafting and using freezing potions worth the effort?

    I think they are ok, as it stands they are more like "snowball 2". I think that it would be cool if it had some kind of knock-on effect with the freezing. Maybe freezing would weaken armor as well? That way it stands out a bit more from poison and fire damage (Which are also a little bit similar.)

    If you do the weakening armor thing, then I could see them being an interesting tactical advantage, where you could nullify your opponent's armor for a few moments, making their netherrite useless for just a moment. Maybe that's the perfect chance to get in some good hits.

    For mobs I could see these nullifying enchantments too, that way that annoying skeleton with a power bow could be handled more creatively than just rushing in and hoping you don't die.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    The freezing effect is a great addition, however it gives the game bit more inconsistencies,
    Powder Snow give the effect?
    -No, immediate inconsistency, why have the effect and not use it?
    -Yes, then why freezing is an effect and fire is not?

    I think the best would be:
    -Make the powder snow give the freezing effect
    -Make fire status an actual effect

    Of course this would be bad because of bucket of milk removing all effects, but this mechanic is kinda old, why milk removes ALL effects? I think you should brew a potion with milk to make a milk effect to only that potion effect, then milk wouldn't be use to remove all effects, maybe some, maybe less efficient but not as OP as it is today

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Ice balls are too difficult to obtain for how niche their use is in combat. Snow biomes are usually very rare. Bow and arrow does much more damage. Ice balls need something more to justify them.

    Brewing freezing potions isn’t worth the effort as they’re easily combatted by leather, but the brewing system needs a little bit of overhaul in general (cauldrons are right there!) to make powerful potions like strength more difficult to obtain but weak potions like jump boost and healing and freezing more accessible. Freezing is very fun, though. It’s nice and balanced as an actual status effect. Its interactions with fire and leather are very cool

    I am glad we have a throwable projectile again with ice balls, and snowballs can finally deal KB again. eggs next pleaseee

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    What about how ice balls interact when thrown into water? What if throwing ice balls into water freezes it in a small radius–like a mini Frost Walker enchantment– and then the area subsequently melts (if exposed to daylight or a light source). This mechanic has the potential to be used defensively water vs. surface battles, trapping entities beneath ice. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I think it would be a cool mechanic if entities like players, mobs and armor stands start floating up against their will when inflicted with the freezing effect whilst underwater. This could be used to trap entities in under water spaces during combat or keep them at bay by sending them to the surface.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    I think I would rather the ice ball itself to apply the freezing effect to mobs and players for combat. My take is that the ice ball is basically a "Freeze charge". If there was a potion that had anything to do with the freeze effect it should be more of a freezing resistance potion at the very least.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I also want to mention that freezing arrows should instead be shot by the stray skeletons rather than slowness. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Everything feels balanced I think it should be added into the Trial Chambers!

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I like the freezing effect, and feel it is well balanced - it's cool to see it popping up more often with the new mob. One thought I've considered is that it would make sense if jumping into water that's in these icy biomes would give the effect too. However, I could see that getting around this issue would be annoying since wet leather wouldn't keep you warm, so I'm not sure if it would work. Also please add snow logging and snow leaves to java!!! its the perfect time

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Now when the freezing is it's own potion effect, I think that being in powdered snow should give the potion effect passively similarly how nautiluses give the breath of nautilus. This is a pretty small thing though.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I love it, it's easy to craft and not expensive either. It feels balanced for the most part as well.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Freezing should only be resisted by Ice Related Mobs, Strays, Frostbitten, Snow Golems, Polar Bears, ect.  It makes no sense for a Husk to resist freezing cold just because it eventually turn into a Frostbite.  That's like if Zombies could resist being on fire because a Husk doesn't get burned in the sun.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I think the Freezing effect could be even more interesting if players could use it to discover new secrets in Ice Caves. For example, a rare frozen mob deep underground could have unique abilities related to freezing and drop a special item used to craft new equipment or potions. I would also love to see frozen mobs trapped inside ice formations, making exploration feel more mysterious. This could give Ice Caves more depth and make the new freezing mechanics feel like part of a bigger system, rather than just another combat effect.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Well now that there's a freezing potion I think a burning potion would be nice along with volcanos and magma caves with magma crystals!

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    The cooldown might need to be just a tad longer but i love them otherwise.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Can we get something similar added as an enchantment? Like we have flame bows, why not frost bows? We’ve got fire aspect swords, why not frost bite swords?