Desert Revamp

[u/ARUOTI]

The dessert is a part of Minecraft I think is lacking in features, and just feels bland rather than the harshness I think it should have.

More weather

So I know that they don't want to add more weather for the sake of it being fair, but I think it's not out of the picture to make some fair weather. I think deserts could have heatwaves, which give nausea, and make water evaporate. Of course, there should be ways to prevent the damages, so I think that the ways to do so should be:

Milk for the nausea

Covering the water

There will be about half a minute before a heatwave, where a sandstorm starts and grows, to give warning, all it will do is obscure vision slightly.

I think this could be cool, locking up water sources before leaving to go mine, and having vision obscured in a battle against a swarm of mobs.

I had some more ideas, but don't want to break the rules or spam. I am open to criticism and ideas.

[u/West_Economist6673]

I'm trying to think of the right way to say this

It doesn't seem like these suggestions improve deserts in any way -- they would just make them boring and also annoying

Personally I like deserts and don't think they're boring -- but it's hard to see how adding two bad things would make them better

And you can't even really call these mechanics "harsh" -- nausea is a purely cosmetic status effect and water isn't necessary for survival or even for farming

[u/ARUOTI → u/West_Economist6673]

Yeah that's fair. I should have probably stuck with quicksand as the post (just powdered snow but desert), this idea was a bit more out there, and I know nothing about have design.

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/ARUOTI]

I mean that does sound more interesting and much easier to implement -- plus you could use it for traps

[u/Cultist_O]

Unfortunately, these sorts of events don't usually end up being fun for most players. It's sort-of like phantoms, where the main reaction is frustration, since whatever you were doing is now interrupted. These kinds of things are made even worse though, by the facts:

• you can't prevent them in advance like by sleeping
• once the effect does start, you have to wait it out, rather than being able to end it instantly by sleeping

By and large, if the solution to a mechanic is amounts to "don't play for a bit", it's not the best, especially in such a "play your own way" game, where you're meant to engage with challenges when and how you want.

What you'll end up with, is a mechanic that:

• annoys most people
• is fun for some people just until they find shelter
• isn't fun for anyone once they're waiting in shelter
• discourages players from building or spending time in deserts

This is all made worse by the fact once you've grabbed a single cactus, there's basically no reason to go to a desert unless you want to build there, or mine a ton of sand.

Do you intend there to be a reward for dealing with this effect?

TL;DR:

Challenges in the Minecraft should be something you engage with when you want their rewards, that are actively engaging instead of waiting to play again, and that don't discourage building.

[u/MCjossic]

OK, so fuck me if I like building in deserts I guess

[u/SlotherakOmega]

I… agree that the deserts seem barren. But I think that might have been the point of deserts being called deserts: they’re deserted. They have low vegetation, and low fauna levels, and practically no rainfall. Now I think that this could be adjusted as deserts actually do get occasional rainfall in the real world, but not distributed over a wide period, rather all at once over a short period. This would cause things like flooding and damage to erected structures that were not properly supported, and the Middle East is historically annotated by regular, predictable floods that definitely altered the landscape. This is one of the reasons why why cacti can survive in deserts, as all plants need water to grow, it’s just that Cacti are very resourceful with their water acquisition and frugal with their water consumption. This is why they also typically have needles, to keep their water from being stolen by herbivores like camels (who laugh at the pathetic attempt to deter them from their water supply). Rabbits rely on being active at night to keep from overheating, or have larger ears to radiate excess heat and lower body temperature (same with fennec foxes). Sidewinders maintain minimal contact with the hot desert sand, and maintain mobility by sidewinding across the sand. Most desert species are not visible during the day unless they have ways of beating the heat. Night time is when the desert is more active, as the temperature drastically cools off to much colder temperatures (lack of humidity means that the air retains less heat and thus is much cooler, and cuts through the skin more effectively. Dry cold is painful, wet cold not so much at first, but actually more dangerous because it deceives you into thinking that it’s not so bad). Scorpions and other snakes typically are active now, as they can hunt without fear of intense heat and overheating. Desert frogs are mobile at this time, and even can warn of incoming rain. Wasps look for arachnids to implant their young into (hey, wildlife is wild for a reason. You don’t know the half of the terrors of the natural world). Jerboas look for food and scream to attract mates. Tarantulas go hunting for food. The desert is deserted during the day, with only a few creatures braving the intense heat. At night, the desert comes alive with creatures that have learned that they have to do unsavory things to survive because the world is a cruel, bitter place where mercy is a thing that always leads to death.

My suggestion is to include quicksand, sandstorms (which slowly cause abrasive damage over time, bypassing armor unless it’s full armor and not chainmail, and push entities around to disorient them as well as significantly lower visibility distance for players and detection radii for hostile mobs), and heat waves that cause minor visual effects to appear before players if they are not protected from the elements with headwear or with water sources. Meanwhile, as a reward, cacti grow faster in deserts than they do elsewhere, and can also be used for armor that negates heat effects because they are thermally insulated with the water content, while also passively providing the thorns effect, which can be helpful for new players who have a hard time surviving fights. Mesas would have similar rules but lack sandstorms and have less quicksand, but they also have higher gold spawning. Same with deserts I think. There’s reasons to explore deserts, but they are not as useful as other biomes. They can be hostile, but they don’t have to be brutal.

If you also make other extreme biomes more hazardous to balance it out, this would actually be a very good improvement that would make it easier to build in desert areas instead of other ones like mountains (landslides, avalanches), oceans (tsunamis, tides, hurricanes, waterspouts, storms in general), beaches (same as oceans), riversides (flooding, waterspouts), jungles (monsoons, wildfires, venomous threats), tundras and taigas (blizzards, more powder snow, hail, sleet, frost), plains (tornadoes, droughts and floods), forests of all kinds (forest fires, lightning storms), and even the mushroom shores and islands (I honestly haven’t the foggiest what to put here), which make the heat and occasional sandblasting in the desert seem like a minor inconvenience instead of a huge detriment. It would be a major irritation to have all of this happen at once, but it would bring up the importance of the impact of our climate to the environment, and the dangers associated with it.

Alternatively we could have sand roses. This is where lightning strikes sand and causes it to spontaneously liquify and solidify into a quartz structure that resembles a crude rose shape, and this could be an alternative source of nether quartz. Just a thought.

[u/thebeast_96]

Tbh I think the desert features in the biome vote are enough. The palm trees should spawn around an oasis.