Minecraft is Getting a New Combat System!

Jens Bergensten, lead developer of Minecraft: Java Edition, posted on Reddit about the new combat system and included a link to the test snapshot.

In general, the developers are unhappy with the following:

• Java Edition
  • PvP is too slow
  • Damage per second is too low, making it impossible to overcome regenerating health items
  • The combat system is too complex for new players
• Bedrock Edition
  • It's impossible to fight effectively with gamepads/controllers
  • Weapons are too similar
  • Armor is unbalanced

In the first snapshot, the developers changed the following:

• Attacks are faster
• Attacks only occur at full charge, even if you click rapidly
• You can now hold the attack button for continuous attacks
• Weapons now have different attack ranges
• After stopping an attack, the attack timer continues charging up to 200%
• At 200%, you can perform special attacks (critical, sweeping, knockback), and these attacks have greater range
• Sweeping attack only works with the Sweeping Edge enchantment and can damage multiple targets at once
• Critical attacks bypass shields
• Shields no longer have a warm-up delay

Downloading and installing the new snapshot is done as follows:

1. Download the zip archive from the link https://launcher.mojang.com/experiments/combat/610f5c9874ba8926d5ae1bcce647e5f0e6e7c889/1_14_combat-212796.zip.
2. Extract the folder from the archive into the "versions" folder of your Minecraft installation
3. Create a new launch configuration and select "1_14_combat"
4. Launch the game; it will start downloading additional files
5. Create a new world. This snapshot is incompatible with other game versions!

We don't yet know what the new combat system will look like in Bedrock, but it's likely that information will be revealed at Minecon 2019 later this year!