A new Minecraft: Bedrock Edition beta is available, and through the Preview

As we approach the end of the week, Mojang Studios is releasing a new beta for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition players. The beta contains plenty of normal fixes and general improvements, as well as various technical updates, but it also includes several interesting changes.

On top of arriving on Minecraft Preview and enabling multiplayer between Windows and iOS platforms, Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.18.20.27 also features several balancing changes for mob damage, bees, and more. Many of these changes apply to all difficulties, and aim to make damage more consistent and accurate.

The latest Minecraft beta comes on the heels of the most recent Minecraft: Bedrock Edition update, which continues to layer improvements on top of the Caves and Cliffs Update. Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.18.20.27 is now available on all beta platforms, including those with Minecraft Preview.

In case you missed it, Minecraft: Java Edition also received a new snapshot this week. Neither of these early access builds contain new features or content from The Wild Update, but we’re likely not far off from testing beginning in earnest for the upcoming major Minecraft update.

When The Wild Update arrives in 2022, it’ll add new biomes, mobs, and quality-of-life improvements to Minecraft, which already assures itself as one of the best Xbox games you can play.

The full changelog for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Beta 1.18.20.27 includes:

Minecraft Preview

• Minecraft Preview players on Windows and iOS can now join each other’s games!

Known issues

• We are aware that some Android devices may experience a crash when creating a world. This will only happen once at most, after which you can create worlds as usual

Features & bug fixes

Gameplay

• Fixed actor definition identifiers not being recognized if the item or block name contains “.”
• Damage is now calculated more accurately; we now properly calculate and store partial damage for larger damage
• Mobs across higher and lower difficulties have their damage adjusted slightly accordingly
• Armor and protection reduction calculations have been made more accurate
• Dragon’s breath attack now properly deals damage
• The player’s position when rejoining a world will remain the same if they quit while in lava
• Players can now fly down through ladders and other climbable blocks such as vines in creative without stopping
• Fixed a bug where shield blocking animation stops playing smoothly after blocking once

Graphical

• Fixed a bug where “carrots_stage_3” texture filename was incorrect and did not show up in-game

Mobs

• Bees no longer become angry when Beehives are destroyed by Silk Touch
• Blaze fireballs, Fang attack damage, and Shulker bullets now deal consistent damage across all difficulties
• Small Magma Cubes do slightly more damage, from 2 to 3 on normal
• Spiders deal slightly less damage, from 3 to 2 on normal
• Baby Zoglins deal slightly less damage, from 1 to 0.5 on normal
• Skeleton melee attack does slightly less damage, from 3 to 2 on normal
• Wolves deal slightly more damage, from 3 to 4 on normal
• Baby Hoglins no longer attack players
• Cows, Pigs, Chickens, and Sheep no longer spawn in cold taiga biomes

User interface

• Buttons in touch controls no longer get stuck in pressed state when players go outside of the button area
• Fixed an issue where text would display incorrectly on certain Android devices in the new UI
• Fixed a crashing issue that could occur when hovering over the search bar in the crafting menu when playing with a controller

Marketplace

• Coin Purchase Screen now includes “Coin Starter Bundles” for purchase on some platforms
• Game no longer hangs / crashes when clicking “View More”
• Marketplace tags now fit in description section
• Download popup no longer flickers when closed
• Client now supports multiple player count tags in Marketplace pages
• Added warning popup on Marketplace pages when attempting to equip skin pack skin while character creator item is equipped

Character Creator

• Fixed an issue that caused some emotes to have unintended rotations when near the end of their animation

Technical updates

AI Goals

• Exposed new data parameter calculate_new_path_radius for the Go Home Goal. This is for specifying a distance in blocks that the mob is considered close enough to the end of the current path. A new path will then be calculated to continue toward home
• Added Knockback Height Cap value to Knockback Roar Goal

Animation

• Fixed a bug where timeline events at 0.0 would sometimes not run in looping animations

Mobs

• Fixed command block failing to summon mob in Extreme Speed Runner Marketplace map

Technical experimental features

• Due to engine limitations, minecraft:geometry data used for blocks with the Holiday Creator Features experimental toggle is now restricted to only allow geometry in the [0,0,0] to [15,15,15] space
• Any blocks loaded from behavior packs that exceed this limit will render as the info_update block and show a content error in the log

GameTest framework

• Exposed the following components for Actors. Each of these has a value property that contains the data of the component:
  • minecraft:variant
  • minecraft:skin_id
  • minecraft:mark_variant
  • minecraft:friction_modifier
  • minecraft:ground_offset
  • minecraft:scale
  • minecraft:push_through
• mojang-gametest module:
  • Removed radius argument from command /gametest clearall
  • Modified the behavior of functionattack() to make the simulated player swing even when no target is found
• mojang-minecraft module:
  • Added event entityHit(entityHitEvent: EntityHitEvent, options?: EntityEventOptions) — Fires when an entity or block is hit by another entity
  • function playSound(soundID : String, soundOptions : SoundOptions) — Plays a sound for a player, cannot be heard by entities other than that specific player

Interact component

• Now have two new fields, GiveItem and TakeItem, specifying if it is possible to give / take items from an entities main hand slot. Taking the item also drops the inventory of the mob

Items

• Weapon events are correctly applied when the Weapons are used by Mobs