A Critique of Minecraft's Crafting System

When I called Minecraft out for its crafting system in my last video, I was met with some backlash. Of course, this is expected, because people love Minecraft almost as much as I love an inconsistent upload schedule. But after reading the comments, people were actually bringing up good points, so I decided to set my pride aside and rethink my argument.

Now let’s get one thing clear—I hate crafting in video games. In many games, crafting is like my haircut in quarantine: outdated, shitty, and more of a nuisance than anything. If you want to know why I think this, again, I have a whole video on it that you should check out. But perhaps I overlooked something in Minecraft. I mean, in many ways, the game is an anomaly, an independently published, pixelated game that somehow overtook the world in just a few short years, defined a generation of childhoods, and remains popular, against all odds, to this day.

So, I gritted my teeth, and bravely hopped back into the world of Minecraft.

#meraki #minecraft #crafting

Chapters:
Intro - 0:00
The Essence of Minecraft - 1:35
Dissecting the Gameplay Loop - 4:02
Crafting a Better System (haha) - 5:14
The Breakdown - 8:13

BACKGROUND VISUALS/WALLPAPER
Firewatch

MUSIC
Various Nintendo Songs
DR. KEYZ - Minecraft LoFi Remix and Sweden Remix

MY GEAR

MY SPECS

[merakimerakimeraki]

fun fact: i look at my script 1726389228 times during this video!

[itsray]

*kills sheep. Sheep drops shears.*

Yeah, I see why we need the crafting system now.

[ghostoastt]

whoever made that sweden remix at the title card is a god

[raulrincon]

"every single block is gatherable for use"
*Looks at bedrock*

[zoltanslayer]

bro, where you at? we haven't seen you in 5 months

[tranq_]

You’re a totally underrated channel. The editing is smooth, the script flows really well, the jokes are on points, and it provokes thought! I hope you blow up soon!

[realkingofantarctica]

Minecraft’s crafting is weird. I’ve only just started playing it for the first time a couple days ago and it’s really strange.

Having to make the specific image in the crafting menu is unique but sometimes doesn’t feel like it makes sense. I guess playing it years ago would be more of a trial and error system, which could be more enjoyable.

I like how there aren’t recipes you need to learn or milestones you need to pass before you’re allowed to make stuff. As long as you have the ingredients, you can make it.

Minecraft’s gameplay loop is up there with series’ like Monster Hunter. It’s fun to see your improvements little by little. It’s something tangible like a building or a minecart highway or a huge farm instead of just seeing stats incrementally increase.

[spencerdrums]

Dude what shaders does he use they’re beautiful

[The_Original_Trippy]

If Merakl Came back to Youtube and did frequent uploads. even if the videos are just lets plays. I would watch him when ever I can. He's young. He's fresh, He's new. and he could honestly become very successful. there's just something but his personality that's down to earth and "vibey". I can see a lot of people can connect with that. his content is relaxing and entertaining. Hope he comes back.

[rekh]

Bro you need to start uploading again, I miss you so much! Much love, one of your loyal fans!

[theredpanda]

It looks to me like you liked your own video. I'm pretty sure that is a cardinal sin.

[cornbois]

S-someone changed their mind on the internet!!! In all seriousness though I appreciate the time and effort that was put into the the analysis even though the last video came out months ago. I watch all of your videos and I have to say that you make some of the more entertaining videos out there. Keep up the good work my guy :)

P.S. I appreciate you putting my comment in your vid it was very surprising

[bnt]

Looks like he forgot his youtube password

[SrsBismuth]

If anyone is looking for that Sweden remix from the title sequence, it's on Dr. Keyz's Soundcloud. Doesn't appear to be on YouTube.

[gs]

And when the world needed him most, he disappeared,


( much like Sam O’nella)

[ups_]

Damn I can't believe you don't have 1M subs yet

[vicid]

6:25 i was playing hardcore and when i herd that sound i almost crapped myself

[sproga_]

I'm posting this when I'm ~2 minutes into the video. I've been playing since Beta 1.7, and my biggest critique is probably of the "recipe book."

Back when Minecraft was one of those forum-based games (before the wiki), people would post asking "how do I craft a piston?" This community learning was a novel feature of survival crafting systems.

Then, in 1.12, to widen the game's appeal, they added the recipe book. It was apparently implemented to guide players through the game. For some reason, the book would guide you through making a furnace, but not making a hopper. For some reason, the book shows you some recipes from the moment you have the ingredients, but only others after you've already crafted them. This gives players a half-baked idea of what the game has to offer, only to be met with frustration when they needed to figure out how to craft certain items (or learn that these items exist at all).

In 1.14, the Village and Pillage update added a ton of functional blocks that players would benefit from knowing how to craft and use. Did the book show you these? No. If you didn't read the patch notes, you would have no idea they even existed, ruining the whole point of their alleged convenience and ease of crafting. I am still getting used to using these new blocks, as I have to unlock (and therefore Google or remember their recipes) in every new world.

My second main critique is one of options, and this is why I tend to avoid survival in general.

For such an open ended game, it really forces you down some annoying paths to be able to interact with some of its mechanics. Do you want to make literally any advanced redstone system? That's going to require a steady source of slime balls. But how do you get slime balls? Theoretically, slimes spawn in swamps, but that's at a rate too slow to be of any use to even a casual player. If you want slime without using third party tools, you need to dig out massive areas near the bottom of the world. Why would you ever do this without someone telling you to? We're already at a giant gameplay non sequitur, but it only gets worse. Slimes spawn low in the world, but only in specific chunks, or 16x16 areas. If you see a slime spawn in your giant dug-out area, you know it spawned in a slime chunk and that's where you should dig out more area and make a slime farm. But does the game tell you what the borders of this spawning area are? Not normally, no. You have to know to press F3+G (I think) to show chunk borders. If you're going to use a debug feature to find where one of the game's necessarily farmable mobs spawn, then you might as well use a third party tool to find your slime chunks in the first place.

And if you like playing in peaceful, you're just fucked, because slimes don't spawn at all.

For some reason they implemented honey, a way to farm a sticky substance without needing to make a mob farm, then did fuck all with it. Yes you can make some neat looking blocks and a new version of slime blocks that sticks to itself but not slime blocks (which is actually super useful), but it can never serve as an actual replacement for that bullshit gameplay path for getting slime balls. Why? Because you cannot make sticky pistons with honey. You cannot use the game's only other sticky substance to make sticky pistons.

Watching Mojang implement alternative ways to get certain items, only to make these systems entirely separate, removing player agency, has been incredibly frustrating.

My final critique is of what systems Minecraft actually let's you bypass. If you know what new features *are* exploitable, you can bypass half the game. Forget mining for cobble, then iron, then diamond, then obsidian to make diamond tools and an enchantment table. Forget killing endermen to access the end. Forget gaining 30 levels of experience and killing tons of cows so you can actually enchant your gear. All I need is a wooden axe and a couple villagers. There's a type of villager that you can change any other villager into which can give you emeralds from sticks. Because I know of this mechanic, I now have infinite emeralds. I can use my infinite emeralds and knowledge of easy profession switching to get an infinite amount of maximally enchanted tools (including mending, the single rarest enchantment in the game. It doesn't even show up in the normal enchanting system), armor, ender pearls, rare blocks, name tags, and an assortment of other things. This completely broken mechanic ensures I never have to even dig through stone to get diamonds.

Yet for some fucking reason, no matter how knowledgable you are about villager trading, you'll still need to dig out a 16x16x39 area determined by some random slime chunk finding website just to make a sticky piston.

[DrKEYZ]

The return! Thanks for using my Sweden remix!

[brianbaker]

I absolutely love the quality of each of the videos you put out! So smooth and everything seems to fit together perfectly. The shaders, of course, really help that as well. I'm assuming it is SEUS?