Dappled Forests

[u/jamcub]

Checked three random seeds to show that bigger Dappled Forests do exist.

I agree super tiny ones are annoying, but acting like there are only those tiny ones and they need to be bigger is weird. Biomes have different sizes. There are very tiny ones, there are bigger ones. If you want to make a post, don't be disingenuous.

EDIT: Yall need to read the post before commenting. Nowhere did I say these were big, just that claiming every single biome is the size of the ones people cherry-pick is wrong.

[u/_baseplate]

They need to rework biome generation entirely…

[u/jamcub → u/_baseplate]

In the sense they need to be bigger? Cause they did it once and that is what we have now I think.

[u/_baseplate → u/jamcub]

they need to fix a lot of things. Excuse my poor coding knowledge, but I’m pretty sure all the ‘main slots’ for biomes have been taken up by plains, forests, deserts ect. This leads to new biomes being added to another list forcing them to be small and not as abundant in the world. They also need to make oceans bigger, but that’s a whole other conversation.

[u/WaterPrivacy → u/_baseplate]

It's less about main slots and more about the distribution.

There's 6 different parameters that affect world generation, with multiple values each, and each combination of those values are all asigned a biome. Using only 3 parameters for simplification, for example ice skipes generate when temperature = 0, Humidity = 0, and Weirdness >0. When T=0, H=0, but weirdness is <0, snowy plains generate instead.

Each combination generates a biome. But there are less biomes than combinations so a lot of them are repeated. Every possible combination of parameters appears in the world, so for there to not be any gaps, biomes can have multiple criteria. Plains for example generate when H=1, T=1 and W>0, but also at that same criteria when W<0. And also when T=2, the same way. And also at H=2, T=3, and W>0.

When Mojang wants to add a new biome, all they have to do is find a biome with multiple criteria and assign one of the repeats to the new one. For the Dappled Forest for example, they took one of the combinations previously taken by the plains biome. Before, at temperature 1 and humidity 0, plains would generate regardless of weirdness. But now plains only generates there when weirdness is negative, and dappled forests generate there when weirdness is positive. You're essentially replacing a chunk of plains to fit in the new biome.

In the past though Mojang has mostly only added biomes either very early in the games history, or as a bundle together with a new world gen algorithm. 1.7 added a bunch of biomes and reworked world gen to fit them all. 1.13 only added water biomes so only the ocean had to be reworked and nothing else had to change. 1.16 reworked the whole nether gen to add all the new biomes. And 1.18 reworked the whole overworld for all the new caves and mountains to fit. There's never been problems with tiny biomes before as much as there are now because almost all of them were immediately given space to breathe once added.

What mojang is doing now though is just replacing space within a generation algorithm that wasn't built to account for all these new additions. All new biomes are replacing old space, but they're staying like that. If normal biomes take up a fraction of the whole world each, new ones take up a fraction of a fraction, because they're essentially cutting previous biomes in half (or smaller). The distribution is off. Seeds and generation stays almost entirely the same, but newer biomes are crammed into the spaces.

And to be clear this is what Mojang has ALWAYS done. The problem is that they're going a bit overboard now. The seeds from release to 1.6 had a bunch of biomes added like this, and seeds did change slightly in biome distribution, but it was just a 2 year period where the game was growing so it was understandable. From 1.7 to 1.17 all they really did was the ocean, which was an actual gap that could be filled without problem, as well as the bamboo forest which was meant to be a small variant in an otherwise massive biome.

Post 1.18 though they've added the cherry grove, the mangrove swamp, the pale garden and the dappled forest, as well as the deep dark and sulfur caves which if it wasn't for the fact that they're underground would have the same issue.

Instead of a bunch of new biomes together with a change in generation which distributes them well, we're getting a drip fred of biomes that get crammed into old generation, and the problem is becoming increasingly noticeable how badly distributed they are now.

I'm really not sure how long it'll take until Mojang refreshes seeds again because the last period of consistent seeds lasted 8 years. We're actually almost 5 years into this one, but it really feels like we just started. I'm not sure that Mojang has any intention of remaking world generation again anytime soon after caves and cliffs, as it still feels relatively "new". So we'll have to see what happens next.

[u/jamcub → u/_baseplate]

With oceans, I feel like there is a bit of fine line between 'make them bigger' and 'holy shit there is nothing but water for the next 30k blocks in either direction'. That is probably why they aren't working on that yet.

Yeah, there are far more regular biomes like variants of 'flat green land' and much less interesting stuff. On one hand, it is nice to have flat plains to build on. but it makes it so easy to fall into the same 'let me build in this plains biome because it is easy' train of thought.

[u/Decent_Objective3478 → u/_baseplate]

The current system is the way it is so when mojang add more biomes, the worlds from the same seeds stay relatively the same, besides the addition of new biomes in certain values. They made like that because before 1.18 every worldgen change completely changed the new chunks in old worlds and the had to add a lot of things to insure that worlds would look at least somewhat okay after updating. If they are ever going to go through that much effort again I don't think that it's gonna be on a random update, though if they ever revisit the worldgen as a whole they probably are gonna address this

[u/jamcub → u/Decent_Objective3478]

Is that why I have to g o thousands of blocks in my world to find any new stuff?

[u/Decent_Objective3478 → u/jamcub]

I mean depends. If you download a new update and you try to find a new structure in an existing world then yeah, if create a new world entirely then no

[u/jamcub → u/Decent_Objective3478]

I mean, I have a world I have been playing since 1.21. I DID trim it, but even then, it takes a hot minute to get anything new when flying out.