What is the point of Minecraft?

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My previous video got a ton of views, comments, and overall engagement. I wanted to respond to rebuttals and clarify some points I made as well as delve a little deeper into what Minecraft is really about.
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[TheGeekFactor]

I actually have one more thing I’d like to add:

I disagree with my point about automation. I think automation is really cool in some aspects. I love redstone and it’s seriously impressive what people can do. I don’t think I emphasized that enough in my previous video.

My issue is with people who specifically automate everything and abuse the game’s mechanics only to then go “muh why game boring?” My brother in christ, you sucked the fun out of it for yourself lol

[AwesomeDomi]

It’s not just about the progression being extremely short, it’s the fact that it barely received change in like 12 years! When it started out in 1.0 it was a good idea with room to improve, but when you don’t add any major changes in 12 years, yeah it becomes boring. That’s why I’m going to be starting a 1.6.4 mod pack series because I enjoy old modded Minecraft way more than modern vanilla versions

[tronic]

"When people claim that Minecraft is about building, they're kind of wrong." - 11:10

Me with fully enchanted netherite armour living in my 5x5 cave 'base' that I mined out within the first two minutes of my world:

[JessJ_]

Im someone who doesn’t care about progression too much. I love building and exploring. But even I see myself often getting bored with nothing to do. I don’t think we need MUCH progression, but I think having much more lasting and impactful progression would make me want to play longer

[jonaw.]

Minecraft is about whatever I want it to be at the time I play it. When I'm feeling lonely, Minecraft is about finding meaning in an empty world. When I feel happy, Minecraft is about community. When I'm feeling daring, Minecraft can be about horror and eeriness. When I'm feeling adventurous, Minecraft is about going on an epic journey and fighting a dragon.

Minecraft is about making the best of what you're given, in the way you want to.

[bazingaswine]

I think the issue with Minecraft's progression is that its implementation falls flat, in the way that, it doesn't encourage the player to interact with the contents of the world. Minecraft is a survival sandbox game, yet for some reason both of those factors feel largely disconnected between themselves. The game fails at using the survival aspects to extrinsically give goals to the player, that would then guide them into engaging with the sandbox aspect more and thus help the player find their own intrinsic goals. You can't simply throw any player into a world and expect them to continue playing solely through their own intrinsic goals. Some people can find intrinsic goals on their own, but not all people can and a good sandbox needs to subtly guide the player into engaging with the world, so they can then start looking inwards on their own. The easiest way to prove this imbalance is simply by the sheer volume of washed up mechanics and natural constructs that players simply ignore, not to their own fault, as the game's balancing has been horrendous. As per your example with the ocean monument, why go to one when a random and far more common and easier to loot shipwreck can give better loot? And then involving mechanics, look at travel, why make minecarts? Just use boats with ice, it's even cheaper! Why use horses? Just fly around with your elytra, there's zero disadvantages. Why even go caving for loot? Hunting for natural constructs like shipwrecks and trading through villagers gives you an abundance of loot right off the bat. There's so many paths a player can take, which is good! But many of them are strictly worse than others in both yield and efficiency, there's simply nothing unique between the different options. Furthermore, there's even many of the newer additions that are standalone and don't compare to anything else but also don't provide much of anything. Why go through the arduous process of acquiring and hatching a sniffer egg, for 2 flowers that don't even have unique features? Where's the payoff? All in all, Minecraft absolutely has the tools to create a better environment regarding progression and tying it with intrinsic goals, it's always had them, but they have not used them properly to balance the game and its varying ranges of its freedom, often making a lot of additions feel meaningless and thus discourage the player from interacting with the rest of the world.

[Vyrvaraneth]

I think my biggest issue with enjoying Minecraft is how good I’ve gotten at it over the years, which in turn makes progression incredibly simple and easy because I know EXACTLY what I’m doing now. Y’know the whole: “Gamers will optimize the fun out of the game, ” is very true.
So, I’m thinking of making a new world and just giving myself a wall of restrictions/self imposed challenges, and see how that goes. No enchants, villagers, using rockets with elytra, no over-torching or walling off my base from mobs, natural regeneration, etc. Essentially FORCING myself to explore, be more creative, etc, since I can’t just: “Hurr durr god enchanted items that never break, ” “Elytra + rockets invalidate almost all forms of travel, ” etc.
So, I’ll dedicate some time over the next 1-2 weeks to that, and see how this: “forced progression” goes for me! I’ll probably post an update some point soon 🙏

[BlueJayFFS]

Minecraft is an absolutely amazing game. It truly is one of the greatest forms of expressions in our time. There's also so much good that the game does. A friend of mine is a child therapist, and I've been helping her build a Minecraft world for the kids she works with in order to use the game as a safe space to help work out their issues, and it's coming along quite well. There's also the massive library that people made in Minecraft to help certain pieces of literature and news reports get into countries that would otherwise censor and ban them. Most of all, it has a great community filled with friendly and funny and talented people, who have a tendency to help each other out. In other games I've played, if you ask for help as a beginner, you often get laughed at or called a "filthy casual" or whatever, but never once in my life have I seen that in the Minecraft community. Whenever someone asks for help, people swarm them to give them advice, share their knowledge, and send links to helpful sources for them. Plus the art that these people make is breathtaking. Entire life-size cities made in hardcore survival, adventure maps with incredible writing and creative use of the game's basic tools, parkour maps that people love to play over and over and over again. My personal favorite is an old Minecraft Let's Play back from like, 2012ish, that starts out as a basic guide to the game, but gradually builds up an amazing narrative with twists and turns and an amazing climax that really emphasizes what Minecraft is about. I'm thankful that we all have a game as amazing as Minecraft at our fingertips, flaws included.

[AtomicRobloxProductions]

I actually like this video a lot more than your last one talking about Minecraft's progression. It feels a lot clearer cut and easy to understand whereas the first one felt like you were comparing Terraria a bit too heavily with Minecraft. This video is straightforward and clarifies your point so much more and what you're trying to say WITH the comparison. The original felt like your point was bogged down by too many comparisons at some points. In my opinion at least.

As for a lot of features feeling half-assed and structures feeling pointless.. I really agree with you here. I wish they had added more interesting loot to multiple structures, or at least reasons to go to them. For me, one of the things that makes this point stick out to me greatly is Woodland Mansions. Like.. I'd argue the main reason to go to them is to look for totems of undying, but that's not always even the case, you can get them from raids on villages! They feel, while quite neat in design.. pointless, like you said.

For me, I tend to go to them because Mojang decided to only have the Allay spawn inside these structures, and I actually like the allay both as a pet and a useful mob. But it feels like it's addition to the mansion feels.. last minute. Like, it feels like they were thinking they might as well add it to the mansions because people think structures are mostly boring. It also feels that way with the sniffer and its egg being found in ocean ruins. It feels like they're trying to add band aids to structures and make them more worth exploring but.. not, really.. adding anything that sticks out at the same time, or at least something non-mob related. There really should be more variety, or at least something that stands out much more in these structures that players would want to get other than a mob many would argue is useless.

Apologies if my previous comment on your other video talking about progression seemed aggressive or mean spirited, and in the off chance that you see this, hope you have a good night or day wherever you may be! I think this format of video got your point across much better than the last.

[kyceessadki]

also the extrinsic progression also hides the intrinsic progression as it focuses your attention on it, and if you complete all the extrinsic goals, then it feels like there's nothing else to do, despite the intrinsic goals you can make. that's why people go through the "2 week minecraft phase" now, because they complete all the extrinsic goals and forget that you can do whatever you want.

[firestarter]

If you want actual progression in a game somewhat similar to Minecraft, Vintage Story has all that you need!

[Alureon]

I understand your perspective… it’s disappointing to see your favorite game fall short because of some fixable issues. These points definitely come out of love for the game and a desire to make it the best it can be.

[lasercraft]

On the topic of progression, its a little silly how huge of a jump there is between iron and diamond, and how much smaller the jump between diamond and netherite is in comparison. But of course they won't add anything in between... that's _too different, _ and will harm that precious nostalgia, y'know?

That's one of my personal pet peeves about the game. They don't want to make meaningful updates because they're more afraid of angering the nostalgic fans rather than making a well-designed game. And yeah, for every person saying they need a combat update and better progression, there are people cursing Mojang's name because their beloved childhood game is so different (and yeah, its been over a decade, it _should_ be different). I for one quite love a lot of the new features. I wish they weren't so bland and surface level, but there's a lot of untapped potential there, and conceptually they're great.

[ImminentFates]

I think the problem with the last video was the fact you had direct comparisons but they were surrounded by the presentation being very terraria heavy I actually found myself at one point being like what the hell thought this was about minecraft but luckily I stopped myself and actually processed what you were saying further

[ConstantinSPurcea]

I have never, ever gone into an ocean monument after the first time many many years ago just to see how it is and cause I wanted sponge.

[LazerDisk]

Loved the video! I’d love for you to think about this possibility: Extrinsic motivators over the years have declined in quality, even if they have grown their amount. The desperate need to survive pushed players to build, seek resources, and make fun things. The basic need to survive pushed you to experience most of it. At the end of the day, I think more overarching needs that allow for an insurmountable amount of ways to play is what I think Minecraft needs.

[BasementDweller_]

The point of the game is to find a point.

[jazzyjswift]

The problem is that Minecraft is a sandbox. It's a world meant for creative expression. By giving Minecraft objectives and a very obvious line of progression, it performs this psychological trick on player's minds into thinking that that is point of the game. By giving us an objective, they cripple our ability to give ourselves one.

This is actually a phenomenon that has been observed in real life situations as well. I've worked in management in various companies over the years, and I've personally had to go through the learning curve of leadership as well. I've seen what happens to employees who are not given enough freedom to approach a task in their own way - they stop thinking for themselves and begin to lean on leadership for what to do in situations they very easily could handle themselves with a little bit of creativity. By handholding someone, even grown adults who are competent and capable, there's a psychological effect that makes them more prone to depend on further instruction later down the line.

I think that public schooling has a similar effect, and thus we see many people fresh out of high school who can't seem to think for themselves. I'm pretty sure I've never met an 18 year old high school graduate with critical thinking skills that allow them to think for themselves effectively. That is something that develops after you've been forced to build it out in the real world where people don't hold your hand and tell you what to do, and you have to figure stuff out on your own.

In Minecraft, the effect is far less minimal, but still exists: the hand holding nature of advancements and the very obvious "objectives" of 1. getting diamond. 2. Going to the nether. 3. Going to the End. 4. Defeating the Ender Dragon tricks players into thinking there is a specific line of progression that this game expects you to follow. The credits rolling after you beat the dragon feels like a conclusion, and even though there's countless more things to do, even within the in-game progression system (elytra / deep dark / ocean monuments / etc) the damage has been done. It no longer feels like there's a driving purpose to keep playing.


So I propose that we normalize the idea of ignoring the progression of the game.

[kingwolf]

I see minecraft as a partially blank canvas, one that has some paint here and there, but its not the focal point of the Canvas.

Meaning it is essentially what the player makes of it.

[patrickd]

What would be interesting would be an alchemy or reputation system. Reputation in particularly would be really interesting, having to make more spacious villager halls and provide some supplies. Also, it may be interesting to have like shards in different structures to make artefacts which could be given to different villages in different biomes to unlock special items. By making only some accessible after defeating bosses (beating the elder guardian allows player to enter a section of the ocean like a Peruma triangle with many new islands and stuff, wither = citadel or something and etc…) it could add more progression while also giving players a choice if they want to do that.