Minecraft Forums

Hey everyone.

I would like to suggest an improvement about the heightmap. What I actually want, is that there comes more interesting features in the height.

First, look at this awesomely painted heightmap of what we have now:
See the red arrow pointing at the orange line. Above that line, there is absolutely nothing interesting to see, and you aren't even halfway of where the build capacity lies! That line lies at height 100, so there are 155 layers of height unused. I would like to offer more change in this.

What I want to suggest, is this:

Zoomed-in picture:
.

Immediatly, you see several lines. Those lines indicate where things can be found below or above.

We have these lines:

Orange. These two lines indicate map features. The top orange line indicates how high the ground can reach in '-Hills' biomes, and the bottom orange line indicates sealevel. The -Hills limit will be resized from 100 to 200, the sea level will rise from 67 (old) to 128 (new).
Light-Green. This line indicates the default height of the mainland (except swamp biomes): The surface depth. This will rise from 70 (old) to 131 (new). The light-green line also indicates the minimal depth of where structures can spawn.
Dark-Green indicates where second-tier ores can be found. This include Gold, Redstone, Lapis and Emerald. This will rise from 32 (old) to 64 (new). Nothing will be done at the spawnrates, because of a new feature this suggestion implements.
Cyan. Cyan indicates the minimal level of where Diamond can be found. This will rise from 16 (old) to 32 (new). In addition, the spawnrate of diamond will be twice as low, as its area is resized twice as big.
Red. Red indicates the layer where caves will NOT spawn anymore. Lava, however, still does. Nothing is changed from the old concept, remaining at depth 10.
Light-yellow. This is new. Similair to the nether, a massive layer from Depth 96 to 16 will be filled with a layer of huge caves, similair to the nether. This will make venturing down more interesting to do, and to my experience, people can be really crafty in massive caves. This feature nullifies the need of decreasing spawnrates of gold, emerald, redstone and lapis (see above).

So, what is new?
First, the whole setup of which the layers are devided, all to give more use to the unused 155 layers of build-capable area.
Secondly, a massive cave layer from Depth 96 to 32.

Why would it be usefull?
- We have more adventure to plan using this, and nothing is more exciting than venturing in massive dark caves which can being you some goodies.
- Also, adventure maps can be really wicked when this will be implemented.
- It would decrease the unused blocks rate from 155 to only 55.
- Amazing crafting ideas when being underground for creative or adventure maps.
- Getting in reach of diamonds is more dangerous, instead of just a blunt 'dig to bedrock' trip.
- More breathtaking view from hills (as they are commonly larger) and huge caves.
- Minecraft isn't called Minecraft for nothing.

What would be any downside?
- Height structures, like immense towers, can't be build on hills. On the mainland, though, it still can.
- Rare resources like diamond are harder to reach. although, you were never supposed to be able to 'just' get them.

Things to note + Arguments:

Additional changes along with this concept
- Clouds will be at layer 210, 230 and 255. Clouds on layer 255 will be a bit bigger as well.

Supporters list (040)

The third, and biggest downside to this: more than double the current amount of blocks would have to be loaded every time you entered an area. Minecraft needs to be optimized before any more cpu intensive features are added.

Actually, no. The rendering doesn't take place depending on the chunk, it works with a radius.

Otherwise, pieces of land wouldn't be invisible if you fly high. You would just see what's below.

Also, rock doesn't require much CPU usage. It's one of the most simple blocks (aside air), and once rendered, nothing is wrong. And don't forget that most of the rocks that should be added, are already chucked away to create the massive cave that lies below.


True, it may require a bit more CPU usage, but not noticably more, and compared to our current computer technoligy, it's a fossil you're playing on if you can't render that.

Thank you for your support. I've set up a supporters list in the opening post, I've added you to the list.

I never said anything about chunks.. I know it works with a radius. And I'm not saying I don't like this idea, because I do. But the point remains that this would slow down the game (yes, I know it would be mostly stone and dirt, but you're also going to have significantly more flowers and trees and flowing water, which is where most of the lag is going to come from) and enough things have been added that slow down the game for the time being. The average fps in this game has been steadily going down, and that needs to be reversed before drastic terrain reformatting can occur.

And not that it matters, but I usually play on a fairly current gaming computer. If everyone had one of those, this wouldn't be an issue. Occasionally, I play on my laptop, which is a "fossil", as you call it. You'd be surprised how many people do the same thing and are struggling to get a barely acceptable fps when they play this game. The fact that those computers are outdated does not change how douchey it would be for mojang to suddenly make those players unable to play the game they bought.

Flowers and Trees wont change in ammount at all, it would be the same as it would be now. Trees are known to cause higher fps drops, but nothing will change to that, it's only raised to another height. Water only has a hard time on your fps performance when it's dynamic, for example you place or remove a source block. When it's just flowing in a set direction, nothing happens because all that's active are: Entity motion, animated texture and the fixed area of the water. If it would still be fps lag, oceans would crash your minecraft.

About the fossil, I play on a laptop with a builtin intel graphic card, 4gb ram and 2.1 ghz dual core, and I run minecraft smoothly, and that laptop dates from 3 years ago.

Maybe you're right. I know a fair bit about this, but I also know enough to know there are people out there who know more than me, haha. Like I said, I'm totally behind this if it wouldn't affect performance at all.

I guess three years is the drop off; my laptop is 4 years old, and it runs minecraft fairly smoothly, but only when all the graphics settings are turned all the way down =/

Only performance issues I have, are taiga biomes, forests and jungles.

Trees...

actually I believe the bedrock should a bit lower, but not much. but mountains should (starts music) make me believe I can fly

Quote from Anhrak

Cyan. Cyan indicates the minimal level of where Diamond can be found. This will rise from 16 (old) to 32 (new). In addition, the spawnrate of diamond will be twice as low, as its area is resized twice as big.


What would be any downside?
- Height structures, like immense towers, can't be build on hills. On the mainland, though, it still can.
- Rare resources like diamond are harder to reach. although, you were never supposed to be able to 'just' get them.

Question: You're suggesting diamonds not only get buried deeper, but also spawn less densely in order to keep the per-chunk number of diamonds the same? IMO diamonds' density per volume of rock is the important factor, not the density per chunk.

Right now, given a sufficiently efficient mining strategy you can build a reserve of diamonds at a certain rate, decreasing the density per volume of rock might mean you can no longer mine with diamond tools and expect to recover slightly more diamonds than you spent. (Mining and spelunking being different) This type of change is a legitimate thing to suggest and discuss however I would be opposed.

Disregarding the mucking with the density of resources, I really like this idea!

I fully agree with noc13. You are not keeping the current rarity of diamonds by halving their spawn rate, you are making them almost twice as hard to find.

Also, The light yellow idea is just weird and doesn't fit with the rest of this anyway.

I love the rest of the idea, however. If you remove the two things mentioned you can count me as a supporter, but not until then.

@Tark888 fps rate will remain noticably the same, as the real fps-consuming features are mainly trees, and they do not change in any way with this update.

@Noc13, leaving the rate as it is will cause a double diamond yield. Also, remember that half of the area is blended with the huge caves, so they are practically exposed there. but if the density of diamonds is really troublesome, it can be changed a bit, but I will not take responsibility then about complaints that diamonds will be too much present in one chunk.

@Erasmo, I will not change the immense cave system at 96-32 depth, as that is a major aspect of this suggestion. Leaving that out would create a massive layer of 64 blocks left bare and boring.

Quote from Anhrak

@Noc13, leaving the rate as it is will cause a double diamond yield. Also, remember that half of the area is blended with the huge caves, so they are practically exposed there. but if the density of diamonds is really troublesome, it can be changed a bit, but I will not take responsibility then about complaints that diamonds will be too much present in one chunk.

I'm willing to go to the mat on density per rock volume being orders of magnitude more important than density per chunk. I'd be interested to hear any serious rebuttal to that.

Here's one rebuttal I can think of:
If on a multiplayer server players might have land rights, each piece of land would have more diamonds and if land is scarce given enough time players could find all the diamonds on their land resulting in diamond inflation.
-Land is NOT scarce in Minecraft, however I have to admit I have little to no experience with multiplayer servers and their dynamics.

@Taizz, upgrading is optional and you only limit yourself if you play on older maps when having a new version.

Also, as said so many times, it wouldn't consume FPS performance, as underground features barely take any use of it.@Noc, no offense, but I understood barely anything of what you were trying to say.

Quote from Anhrak

@Noc, no offense, but I understood barely anything of what you were trying to say.

Your not understanding me is almost the opposite of offensive. I like your idea - a lot!

Where we disagree is I thinking keeping the density of diamonds per chunk constant is unnecessary and undesirable. I can totally see people complaining if you took my advice and increased the number of diamonds per chunk in order to keep the density per rock volume constant. I would love to hear the arguments for keeping the number of diamonds per chunk while incorporating the rest of your excellent idea.

The major problem is that lots of massive cannot be built. I know you stated that in the OP, but it would ruin a lot of spawns and bases in SMP. The whole idea is technically revolving around the survival, adventuring aspect of minecraft. Remember that some people in creative such as me like to build huge towers in minecraft. I would also add that I know that plains and swamps are going to be the creative building, but I personally find swamps ugly and plains boring, and even then it would take some time to find those two biomes. If you weed these out, you'll earn my support

Make it optional: problems solved, haters satisfied, my support fully obtained.

Except the diamonds thing, because unless you make a huge quarry or 32-block-high mine, you WILL find half as many diamonds. My mines are 2 blocks high, meaning I would find half as many diamonds. This would be bad.

But seriously, great idea, especially as a world option thingy.

@Noc, sorry for my misunderstandment then, added you to the list

@Woodruff, yes indeedly constructions may be a bit downrated. But know that on anything that does not contain '-hill' is at height 131, so still 120+ layers of building space. This includes taiga's, icy plains, plains, deserts, swamps, forests, jungles.

@Astromap, that is an insanely good idea, to make it a 'improved depth' maptype. However, that doesn't solve the issue for the unused 155 layers of build-capable space.

Quote from Anhrak

@Noc, sorry for my misunderstandment then, added you to the list

@Woodruff, yes indeedly constructions may be a bit downrated. But know that on anything that does not contain '-hill' is at height 131, so still 120+ layers of building space. This includes taiga's, icy plains, plains, deserts, swamps, forests, jungles.

@Astromap, that is an insanely good idea, to make it a 'improved depth' maptype. However, that doesn't solve the issue for the unused 155 layers of build-capable space.

The taigas are much taller than other biomes, I once seen one next to a desert and it's huge faultline like cliff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, might be another snowy biome.

Support! Great idea man

So many unused layers...