User:245e/List of well known misconceptions in the Minecraft community

This page intends to collect and debunk multiple well known misconceptions regarding game mechanics, blocks, items, and other elements of the Minecraft franchise.

Disclaimer: NOT all the information on this page are necessarily well known and some may be personal opinions on misconceptions that are well known but aren't actually.

Game mechanics

Misconception: Obsidian, bedrock, and other blocks normally considered "blast-resistant" can't be blown up even with large enough amounts of TNT.

• It is not possible to blow up blocks such as obsidian and bedrock simply by using large amounts of TNT. A sufficiently large explosion power is needed to detonate these blocks, and TNT explosions have a strength of 5 regardless of how many TNT blocks explode within a given range or time.
  • Obsidian was able to be blown up with TNT in versions before Alpha v1.0.14, however. Before Infdev 20100618, Obsidian had the same blast resistance as stone and would react as such. From Infdev 20100618 to Alpha v1.0.13_01, Obsidian had a higher blast resistance than stone, but still within the range that TNT can blow up. Alpha 1.0.14 made Obsidian completely TNT resistant. Additionally, TNT minecart explosions combined from 1.5 to 1.8, allowing them to destroy obsidian that year.
  • The only way in vanilla Minecraft is using NBT/component tags on creepers and TNT to create a sufficient explosion for blowing up blast-resistant blocks.

Misconception: Hardness is the same as blast resistance.

• Hardness and blast resistance are not the same. For instance, cobblestone has a blast resistance of 6 and a hardness of 2.
• Hardness determines the time it takes for a block to be broken by mining, and has nothing to do with explosions.
  • Blocks with higher hardness takes longer to break than blocks with lower hardness, when using the same tool. For example, deepslate has a hardness of 3, and stone has a hardness of 1.5, thus deepslate takes longer to break than stone when using the same pickaxe.
  • Additionally, blocks that have different preferred tools but the same hardness takes the same amount of time to break when using their respective tools of the same tier. For example, logs and cobblestone both have a hardness of 2, which means breaking a log with an iron axe and mining a block of stone with an iron pickaxe take exactly the same amount of time.
• Blast resistance determines the difficulty for a block to be broken in an explosion.
• Blocks with a higher hardness usually have a higher blast resistance, but not always. Two blocks can have the same hardness but different blast resistance, and vice versa. For instance, planks and cobblestone have the same hardness of 2, but cobblestone (6) is much more blast resistant than planks (3). In addition, a block with a high hardness can have a lower blast resistance than that of another block with a lower hardness value; ore blocks are a notable example of this.

Misconception: In Java Edition, mobs spawn more frequently at lower altitudes.

• It is not the lower altitude that increases the spawn rates of farms built low in the world; instead, it's the lower total height that the game needs to check in order to spawn a mob. When the total height is lower, mob spawning checks are performed faster, and thus mobs spawn faster.
  • This is why it is recommended to remove the terrain on top of a slime-chunk-based slime farm, as that reduces the total height of the farm. If the myth were true, then removing the terrain on top would make no difference.
  • This theory can be tested by creating a glass ceiling at world height limit above a mob farm. This decreases the rate of the farm, since the total height of the farm is increased.

Misconception: Walking depletes hunger.

• Ever since Java Edition 1.11, normal walking does not increase hunger exhaustion at all.
  • However, jumping still increases hunger exhaustion. Therefore when hungry, the player should prevent unnecessary jumps, and walk up stairs or slabs if possible, as doing so doesn't deplete hunger.

Misconception: Mobs drop more loot if a Looting sword is held in the off-hand.

• The truth is exactly the opposite. Looting can be applied only if the Looting sword is held in the main-hand.
  • Please note that this mechanic is marked as a bug (MC-3304) on Mojang's official bug tracker, meaning it can be fixed at some point.

Misconception: Ore blocks drop more experience if mined using a Fortune pickaxe.

• Fortune increases only the yield of items; it does not affect the yield of experience.
  • Similarly, Looting does not affect the amount of experience dropped by mobs.

Blocks

The missing model is a model, not a block, and is used only by blocks and items with incorrect or flawed model data.

Misconception: A block using the missing texture exists in the game.

• While there has never been a placeholder "missing texture block" in Java Edition, many blocks and items have used the missing texture at certain points, particularly the locked chest. These were solely due to texture or model data being undefined for that particular block or item.
• Bedrock Edition does have a specific block ID reserved for error handling, however it uses a dirt texture with a faint question mark instead of the iconic pink-black checkerboard.

Misconception: Sugar cane grows to four blocks tall on sand.

• The sugar cane growing code has no checks of the block they stand on. They grow up to three blocks tall, and nothing more. They can sometimes appear up to four blocks tall in world generation, which also has no checks of the block they stand on, which may have caused this rumor to spread. The myth that it happens on sand may be because sugar cane spawns most frequently in deserts, so players are most likely to see four block tall sugar cane on the sand of deserts.

Misconception: Sugar cane grows faster on sand than on dirt.

• Sugar cane does not grow faster on sand than dirt. Again, this is because the game's code doesn't check the block the sugar cane is grown on and the rate of growth is based solely on the random tick speed.

Misconception: Water cannot exist in the Nether.

• While the common methods of placing water (water buckets, melting ice, wet sponges) do not work in the Nether, other methods exist. Water can, in fact, be summoned in the Nether using the /setblock and /fill commands, and once summoned in, it can continue to exist. There have also existed several unintended methods of bringing water into the dimension as well, which have since been patched. Water can also exist in a cauldron in the Nether. The Nether dimension does not forbid the existence of water.

Misconception: All Torches can break falling blocks because they are non-full blocks.

• This statement is half-true. Falling blocks don't drop in item form when they fall through a torch that's not attached to a wall (MC-3262 — resolved as "Works As Intended".).
• This is because when a falling block lands on a solid surface, it checks whether it can turn into a block at that location. If the location is occupied by a non-full (for example, by a torch), then it cannot become a block, and therefore drops as an item.
  • This is also why soul sand can break falling blocks: when a falling block entity lands on soul sand, it is technically "in" the soul sand, because the soul sand is less than a full block tall, and thus the falling block entity cannot turn into a block at that location (since it's occupied by the soul sand).

Misconception: Mycelium prevents all mobs other than mooshroom from spawning.

• It is the mushroom fields biome itself that prevents other mobs from spawning there. Hostile mobs can spawn on mycelium in other biomes just like they do on any other solid block.
  • Also, mycelium outside of mushroom fields biomes does not spawn mooshrooms.

Misconception: Putting a torch on a monster spawner prevents the monster spawner from spawning hostile mobs.

• It is the light level from the torch that prevents the monster spawner from spawning mobs. Therefore, the torch doesn't have to be placed on the spawner itself; it can be put either on the wall or the ground, as long as the entire spawning range of the monster spawner is covered, no mobs can spawn. Light sources other than torches can be used as well.
• Torches also don't necessarily work for monster spawners that have different light level requirements: silverfish and blazes can spawn at light level 11 or lower, so torches with a light level of 14 don't work as well; magma cubes can spawn at any light level, making torches completely useless against them.

Items

Misconception: Maps don't work in the Nether because they always show the bedrock ceiling.

• Maps are intentionally programmed to show a red-gray static pattern in the Nether; it has nothing to do with the bedrock ceiling.
  • In fact, even if the bedrock ceiling is removed, or something is built on it‌, the map will not reflect these changes.

Mobs

Misconception: Mobs can summon the warden by causing vibrations to trigger naturally-generated sculk shriekers in the same way players can.

• It is not possible for other entities such as bats to summon the warden. Only naturally-generated sculk shriekers are triggered, and therefore summon the warden, in response to vibrations produced explicitly by either the player or projectiles directly produced by a player. However, after being summoned, the warden attacks non-player mobs that make vibrations.

Misconception: Rana existed at the same time as Steve, Black Steve, and Beast Boy.

• The Dock mob Rana never co-existed with the other Dock mobs (Steve, Black Steve, Beast Boy). Rana was originally made as a test for md3 mobs, and was originally added in Indev 20091223-0040. The aforementioned Steve mobs were added a month later in Indev 20100129, replacing Rana, and then removed two days later in Indev 20100131.

Misconception: Zombified piglins that appear near nether portals in the Overworld came through from the Nether.

• These zombified piglins actually spawned inside the nether portal, and did not come through from the Nether.
  • To prove the point, the player can create a nether portal that links to a biome in the Nether that doesn't spawn zombified piglins (e.g. a soul sand valley), and zombified piglins still appear near the portal on the Overworld side.

Misconception: Eggs and snowballs do damage to the ender dragon.

• While this was true before Java Edition 1.9, it is no longer the case since then.

Misconception: Wardens and elder guardians are bosses.

• Despite being commonly portrayed as a boss for some players due to having 500HP × 250 health and 45HP × 22.5 damage on Hard, the warden not considered a boss mob, but rather, a "force of nature" as confirmed by Minecraft developer kingbdogz.
• The elder guardian's status as a boss or simply a powerful mob is ambiguous. While it lacks important characteristics of a boss, chiefly a health bar, it has been grouped with boss mobs and addressed as one by Mojang before. The elder guardian was also marketed as a boss in Bedrock Edition, having been introduced in the Boss Update.

World

Misconception: Brick pyramids were intended to be an early source of bricks.

• Brick pyramids were actually implemented as a way to test large structure like world features, not as an early way to obtain bricks. Entities did not work at all in the version brick pyramids were implemented in, and as such collecting bricks from these structures before entities were re-implemented in Infdev 20100316 was completely impossible.
• Brick pyramids existed only between Infdev 20100227-1414 and Infdev 20100325.

Misconception: Ice spikes is an entirely fictional biome.

• Although the ice spikes biome is often thought of as a fictional or fantasy biome, the ice spikes are probably based on a real type of ice formation called penitentes which can form in large quantities in cold, dry locations, although, on Earth, they don't get as big as in Minecraft.

Misconception: The Nether is one eighth as large as the Overworld.

• The Nether is equally as large as the Overworld, both of which are surrounded by the world border‌ 30 million blocks away from the world origin.
• The 1:8 distance conversion ratio is a feature of the game itself, not a side effect of the Nether's size.

Development

Misconception: Java Edition 1.0.0 was the first release of Minecraft.

• Java Edition 1.0.0 is not the first ever release of Minecraft. It was the first "official" release of Java Edition in its final development phase which has persisted to the current day, however it is preceded by two and a half years' worth of prior development across six other development phases.
  • Also, despite the launcher calling it "1.0", the version number is "1.0.0" with two zeros.

Misconception: Herobrine was actually added to the game.

• Herobrine was never in the game. Nothing even close to Herobrine was ever added to Minecraft.

Misconception: Minecraft is a ripoff of Infiniminer.

• Although Notch lifted Minecraft's voxel-based worlds, and potentially the concept of mining, directly from Infiniminer, little else of Infiniminer's gameplay and style was reused in Minecraft, as Infiniminer was a much more limited and simplistic type of game, which stopped being updated before Minecraft was even released.

Misconception: The Minecraft Launcher has every version of Minecraft.

• While the Minecraft Launcher has many versions available to play, it is far from having every version. There are dozens of versions archived that are not in the Minecraft Launcher. In fact, some of the versions in the Minecraft Launcher were modified, rather than being the original copies as they were on release.
• Some versions are lost (no copy is available) to this day.

Misconception: Newly implemented blocks, items, entities and other such objects can collectively be referred to as "updates".

• This is a misuse of terminology which appears to be unaccountably prevalent on sites such as YouTube. The term "update" generally refers to a release version, often major and named. While an existing feature can be "updated" via changes to behaviour and functionality in subsequently released game versions, it is incorrect practice to use the term "update" to refer to anything but a game version.

Technical

Misconception: Direct item forms of blocks (ItemBlocks of technical blocks) are completely nonexistent In Java Edition.

• If a block exists, its item form exists in active or inactive way. ItemBlocks (BlockItems) of technical blocks are just hidden and inactivated, and can be activated by registering them manually via simple modding but rendering the correct item icons of these items requires more extensive modding + resource packs.

Miscellaneous

Misconception: Minecraft is named after mining and crafting, two essential elements of the game.

• This is a false etymology. The name "Minecraft" first appeared in the pre-Classic development phase on May 15, 2009, and crafting as a mechanic was not added to the game until the Indev development phase on January 28, 2010.
  • Therefore, the game couldn't have been named after its crafting mechanic. It's more likely to have been named in a similar manner to Warcraft, with "-craft" as a suffix.

Misconception: The terms "feature" and "update" are interchangeable, hence popular videos titled along the lines of "n Updates in Minecraft 1.xx".

• An update refers to a (typically new) version, not a feature. Changes to existing features can be referred to as updates to that feature. However, calling newly implemented features "updates" is incorrect.

Other media

Misconception: The naturalist of the Minecraft: Mobestiary is a reliable narrator.

• The Minecraft: Mobestiary was officially confirmed by the author to be an unreliable source, as the book was written from the perspective of an in-universe naturalist who heavily speculated about the subject matter that he wrote about.

Misconception: The teaser trailer for A Minecraft Movie is just a trailer, not a teaser trailer.

• The teaser trailer for A Minecraft Movie is in fact, a teaser trailer. The title of the video contains the word "Teaser" in the name along with the thumbnail.