Java Edition 20w12a

20w12a is the seventh snapshot for Java Edition 1.16, released on March 18, 2020, which adds respawn anchors and polished basalt, as well as several other changes and fixes.

Blocks

 * Polished basalt
 * Obtained by smelting normal basalt.
 * Purely decorative and directional, like normal basalt.


 * Respawn anchor
 * Crafted with 6 crying obsidian and 3 glowstone.
 * Can be used to set spawn points using glowstone as charges.
 * A maximum of 4 charges can be set at once, and one charge is depleted with each respawn.
 * Emits a slight amount of light, which gets stronger for each charge added.
 * Using it in the Overworld or the End causes it to explode and set fire to surrounding blocks.
 * When charged, a redstone comparator gives a signal depending on the number of charges.

Gameplay

 * Sounds
 * Added ambient, interaction and other sounds along with the respawn anchor.

General

 * Tags
 * Added the block tag.
 * Contains soul sand and soul soil.
 * Determines what blocks can support soul fire.

Blocks

 * Nether gold ore
 * Can now be mined with any pickaxe.
 * Now drops 2–6 gold nuggets, instead of itself, when mined.
 * This is affected by Fortune the same way other ores are, for a maximum possible drop of 24 golden nuggets with Fortune III.
 * Nether gold ore, obtained with silk touch, can still be smelted into a single gold ingot.


 * Soul fire
 * Now burns on soul sand in addition to soul soil.


 * Twisting vines and weeping vines
 * Are no longer replaced when an attempt is made to place another block in the same spot.

Items

 * Fungus, roots, and nether sprouts
 * Will grow on nylium if bone meal is used on a nylium block.
 * Crimson nylium will grow vegetation from the crimson forest.
 * Warped nylium will grow vegetation from both the crimson forest and warped forest.


 * Hoes
 * Are now the appropriate tools for mining sponges and wet sponges.

Mobs

 * Bees
 * Reduced the maximum distance a bee can wander away from its home hive when randomly wandering to around 22 blocks.


 * Hoglins
 * Tweaked attack range.


 * Parrots
 * Parrots imitate hostile mobs less often.
 * Parrots do not randomly imitate hostile mobs when gamemode is on peaceful.


 * Piglins
 * Baby piglins can now sit on other baby piglins riding hoglins, up to a stack of 3 baby piglins.

Command format

 * The spawnpoint command now supports being run in any dimension.
 * The spawnpoint command now supports being run in any dimension.

Gameplay

 * Advancements
 * Hoglins are now required for the Two by Two advancement.
 * The "Sweet Dreams" advancement's description has changed from "Change your respawn point" to "Sleep in a bed to change your respawn point."


 * Ambience
 * New mood detection algorithm for cave sounds.
 * Aims to make ambient cave sounds play at more appropriate moments.
 * Mood increases the longer a player remains underground.
 * Mood increases the longer a player remains without or in low sky light or block light.
 * Mood decreases and eventually resets the longer a player is neither underground nor in the absence of light.
 * You can check the percentage of the mood in the sounds info section in the debug screen.
 * When the mood percentage reaches 100%, an ambient cave sound will play.


 * Fishing
 * When fishing, treasure loot can now only be obtained by fishing in open waters.
 * A fishing location is considered to be open water if the following conditions are met:
 * There is at least a 5×1×5 area of water beneath the bobber and a 5×2×5 area of air above (for a combined 5×3×5 free area required).
 * Waterlogged blocks that have no collision, such as signs and coral count as water. However, bubble columns do not.


 * Recipe book
 * The sign recipes are now grouped.
 * The netherite ingot recipes are now grouped.

General

 * Chat messages
 * Changed "Your home bed was missing or obstructed" to "You have no home bed or respawn anchor, or it was obstructed".


 * Loot tables
 * Entity Predicate
 * Added sub-predicate.
 * Check properties of the fishing hook.
 * parameter matches whether the fishing location is open water fishing or not.
 * parameter matches whether the fishing location is open water fishing or not.


 * Materials
 * Weeping and twisting vines now use the "plant" material.
 * Shroomlights now use the "grass" material.


 * Particles
 * Bone meal particles
 * Now use 64-bit floats for spawning, not 32-bit.
 * This means that using bone meal at high distances from the world origin (notably greater than 17 million) will cause the particles to appear in expected places, and not far away from the target.


 * Tags
 * The block tag is no longer used in setting the required pickaxe tier.


 * UUIDs
 * UUIDs stored in NBT are now represented as an array of four integers.
 * Example:
 * Renamed a couple of fields:
 * of tamed animals, area effect clouds, evoker fangs and projectiles is now simply.
 * of foxes is now.
 * of conduits is now.

Video
Video made by slicedlime: