Minecraft Bedrock Speedrunning

MCBE RSG Strats and Meta for 1.16

The article has been written by Danny15.

Introduction

MCBE Speedrunning is vastly different to that of Java Edition and very few people other than the runners themselves actually know how it works. In this document, I will be explaining the major strats and the “metas” that we have. First, I will explain the three major metas in short, before I dive deeply into them. Secondly, I will explain how MCBE Structure generation works. Lastly I will explain the strats such as one cycling and bastion routing.

Meta #1 “Classic/Warped”

The first meta is entering quickly and getting a fortress and a wastes or a warped to exit the nether at a decent pace. These runs are typically the slowest meta but are the least reset heavy. Classic is much more common than warped.

Example Runs:

Meta #2 “Bastion”

The second meta is to enter quickly, locate a bastion, route it, and pearl to a fortress and then blind at good blind coordinates or use the home portal to perform educated travel. This is the least used meta as it is relatively reset heavy and is not much more rewarding than the first meta. However, occasionally, you might spawn into the nether where you see both a fortress and a bastion immediately, and this can be extremely fast.

Example Run:

Meta #3 “Stronghold”

The third meta is to reset for good coordinates and find a village. Villages at least 32 chunks from 0,0 have a chance of having a stronghold beneath them. This is the most reset heavy meta but very rewarding. It, along with meta #1, is commonly used, especially among players playing for world record.

Example Run:

Meta #1 (in depth)

Typically runners playing this meta will reset for an enter (lava pool, deep ravine, or ruined portal) or a blacksmith; however, some will reset for just a village and dig off the village.

Village routing on bedrock is similar to java, except we need more food (hunger runs out very fast on bedrock), the iron golem kill is faster, we only need 3 beds, and we only need 3 iron from the golem (because of wood lighting). Once a player has finished the village routing (a good village routing time is about 1:15), he will either use the enter he reset for (lava) or dig down for lava (if he didn’t reset for an enter).

If he just resets for an enter and does not have a village, this overworld is played almost identically to java with the exception that the player will not acquire flint (because of wood lighting). This however is usually slow and results in lots of runs lost to food. You need much more food in Bedrock runs.

Because of the village grid and spawning at z4-z32 in every run, finding villages is very common on bedrock. A runner usually just needs to look a positive z direction and into the closest village grid from spawn and very often he will get a village. Approximately 20% of seeds have a village visible from spawn (on sixteen render distance).

Once the player enters the nether, he can play for Meta #1 or Meta #2 at this point - if he gets a fort at spawn, usually meta 1 is played; however, if he gets a bastion, usually the player will switch to meta 2. It should be noted that nether structures are about twice as rare as they are on java.

Since bedrock does not have the f3 screen, the only thing to aid bedrock players in finding structures is the nether quadrants (which are just like java except about 50% larger). Typically, the best way to find a quick structure is in the positive positive quadrant (since you almost always enter in this quadrant and structures don’t need to wait eighty blocks before generating).

For Meta #1, after getting six or seven rods (most good runners leave on 6 since finding the stronghold village only requires one or two eyes), the player will either play for classic trades or kill endermen in a warped forest. The classic trading on bedrock works very similar to how java does, with the exception of fast barter. The warped forest strat however is quite a bit different than how players on java would play it (although this really isn’t or wasn’t used on java at all). When java players are forced to kill endermen in a warped forest, they typically will lure them into boats and crit them with their axe. On bedrock, typically players will either tower up or put a roof over their head, preventing endermen from getting to them, and swinging their sword at every endermen repeatedly until the player has enough pearls.

Once the pearls and rods have been acquired, the player will leave the nether through his enter portal, and travel to the stronghold. A player will usually just throw one eye and continue in the exact direction until they find a village. Since there is no f3 screen, there is no distance estimation or more complicated method of locating the stronghold. Once they find the stronghold village (most, although not all of the closest strongholds generate under villages) they dig down using a strat which will guarantee they dig down at the correct 4,4 for the starting staircase. Once in the stronghold, the player will navigate it before entering the end.

Meta #2 (in depth)

Meta #2 is basically the java meta with the exception of the overworld usually being different. In addition, home portal educated is much more common on Bedrock. Because of the village grid, it is not hard at all to hit the majority of educated travel second portals within a couple hundred blocks of the stronghold village. The player starts off with a similar overworld to meta #1; however, an iron pickaxe is of course more important to get in the overworld than Meta #1. Since the player generally doesn’t know whether he’s playing Meta #1 or Meta #2 until he finds his first nether structure, the iron pickaxe isn’t forced, but if he enters through a cave, he will usually grab iron ore and enough cobblestone to make a furnace in the nether. Just like Java, you can roll the iron in the bastion chests, but these often slow down bastion routes, especially bridge. Once all pearls are obtained from one of the bastion routes, the player will pearl to a neighboring quadrant and look for a fortress. With bedrock quadrants being 480x480, the player should look a little deeper into the quadrant than java.

After the rods are acquired, the player will pearl to good blind travel coordinates, just blind travel randomly from the fortress, or pearl back to the original portal for educated travel. Once the player exits his second portal, he will finish off like Meta #1.

Meta #3 (in depth)

Meta #3 is by far the most popular amongst top runners. For Meta #3, players will reset for good coordinates because of the unique bedrock spawn relocation. Once a player gets good coordinates (usually players reset for something like 600-1800), he will look for a village, optimally around 868-1139x or 1300-1571x (these 2 village grids groups [those are the x coordinates, the z coordinates have multiple village grids with those x coordinates] have about a ⅙ and ⅛ chance of generating a stronghold underneath respectively); however, other villages grids may be used, although strongholds are rarer in those. After the player finds the village, he will route it like normal and after he will use SprinkzStrat or memorized 4,4 coordinates to dig directly into the starting staircase. If the player rolls a stronghold, he will navigate it and enter the nether through a portal in the end portal room. This meta is extremely good as there have been countless sub3 enters through the stronghold portal room, and even a couple sub2 enters through the portal room; however, it is a bit more reset heavy compared to other popular metas. For the nether, the player will either use bastion, classic, or warped to obtain pearls and will obviously return through the portal back to the stronghold before entering the end.

Bedrock Generation Differences from Java

MCBE generation is by far the main reason speedrunning is so different between the two editions. The main POIs which generate differently are fortresses, bastions, ruined portals, ravines, lava pools, villages, shipwrecks, and strongholds.

Caves

On bedrock, caves generally extend much farther than they do on java and are part of large cave systems. A large amount of surface caves extend all the way to y11 so it’s very viable to just run down a cave if you are playing meta 1 or 2.

Fortresses

There are two main things to note when comparing bedrock fortresses to those on java:

Bastions

Bastions are rarer because the quadrant sizes are much larger. The routes are largely changed. Bridge, Housing, Stables, and Triple Chest Stables are faster than Java. Upper treasure is slower, and bottom treasure is about the same as Java. Armor is generally more important in routes (except bridge). The routes can be found down below in the Strats section.

Ruined portals

Per block of obsidian, there is a 20% chance it is replaced by crying obsidian - on Java, this is reduced to 15%. This doesn’t sound like a large difference but actually makes most portals about twice as likely to not be enterable from about 5% to about 2.7%. However, an upside to ruined portals on Bedrock is that terrain cannot prevent the chest from generating. The only scenario where a chest is found to be missing is when another structure overrides it.

Villages

The way villages (and strongholds) generate is one of the single largest changes between MCBE and MCJE speedrunning. MCBE villages only generate in certain locations, called “grids” in a gingham pattern (only 1 village generates per grid as of 1.11 [village and pillage {1.14 java}]). Since usually the 3 closest strongholds generate under villages, this vastly effects where strongholds will be. 25% of villages on bedrock are abandoned as of 1.11. Since village grids on Bedrock are smaller than they are on Java, villagers are more common.

Mega Ravines

In addition to standard ravines, Bedrock also has ravines which extend to y11 and have lava covering the entire bottom of them. This obviously provides a free nether entry. From estimation, I would say the slight majority of ravines are those you would also see on Java.

Lava Pools

Lava pools are rarer, do not have any preferred biome such as the desert on Java, and do not generate underground other than at Y11 on Bedrock. A positive to Bedrock lava pools is that they are rarely only one block deep and running out of lava is extremely rare, even if you accidentally turn the entire surface into obsidian.

Ocean Structures

Gamma 5.0 is allowed on Bedrock, but it is useless - as soon as you open the game, it is automatically reverted to Gamma 1.0. This makes seeing anything underwater very difficult on Bedrock. But, even if we could see stuff in the ocean, it is almost always useless.

Shipwrecks only generate the treasure and food chest about one third of the time each. The buried treasure map in a shipwreck will always point to the buried treasure closest to 0,0 (1.16 bug).

Buried treasures generate 8,8 instead of 9,9 like Java. Since there is no F3, mapless buried treasure isn’t possible except with dolphins. This method is slow and inconsistent.

“Surface” magma ravines do not contain lava. Instead, obsidian replaces it even though no contact with water has ever happened. Caves and underground magma ravines still contain lava, but these are much harder to find.

Elder Guardians in ocean monuments instantly give you the mining fatigue effect once coming within fifty blocks of the elder guardians. This cannot be avoided and drinking milk only removes the effect for less than a second before you receive it again. Render distance manipulation isn’t possible on Bedrock.

Strongholds

On Bedrock, three, and only three, strongholds generate under villages. These strongholds are usually the three closest strongholds; however, if biomes do not permit plenty of villages to spawn close to 0,0, some of these strongholds (and rarely, all three) will spawn farther out. Either way, there will ALWAYS be 3 total stronghold villages.

Bedrock does not have stronghold rings and the strongholds that are close to 0,0 (which are always the main strongholds used in speedruns) are almost always dictated by the village grid.

Bedrock strongholds also only need to be about 450 blocks out from 0,0 to start generating; however, strongholds at this distance are very rare and most don’t start generating till at least 800 blocks (Euclidean distance) out. On the vast majority of seeds, the closest stronghold is under a village that is between 700 and 1900 blocks from 0,0.

Bedrock stronghold navigation is done similarly to Java, but going deeper in every direction by a couple rooms. Due to no f3 screen, preemptive navigation is not possible. Hidden rooms function the same as Java. On rare occasions, Bedrock strongholds can have far over sixteen room portal rooms, with the farthest known portal room documented being thirty-two rooms deep. One out of seventeen strongholds does not generate with a portal room. This is supposedly a feature and still exists in modern updates.

Strats and Routes

F3

Due to the fact that Bedrock has no F3 screen, many advanced technically strategies are not possible:

Pausing and Timing

Opening the pause menu on Bedrock does not pause the game. Therefore, you cannot change settings without wasting time. Bedrock is unfortunately timed in RTA, so loading screens do count towards the final time.

Spawn relocation

MCBE only has four spawnable biomes - plains, forest, taiga, and jungle. The game initially attempts to spawn the player at coordinates 44,4, but if there is not a spawnable biome it relocates the player four blocks positive X constantly until it finds a viable spawn biome (it may also move the player up to a higher z [max of z32] if that lets the player spawn in a spawnable biome closer to 0,0 than relocating on +x), this allows the player to spawn near strongholds.

Overworld Meta

Almost all Bedrock runs involve a village, which is then followed by an entry through a lava pool, stronghold portal room, ruined portal, mega ravine, etc.

Wood Light

Using wood to light a portal is the most common method on Bedrock. The RNG is much lower using this method than on Java and usually takes about three seconds. To wood light on bedrock, the player just places 2 blocks up on the front of the portal with lava on top of them (against the top obsidian) and after the lava flows twice, it lights most of the time.

Fortresses

When blaze bedding, frontside blaze bedding and topside (only one block separation between the bed and the spawner) are most common. Blazes and wither skeletons have different AI than java. Blazes on bedrock cannot shoot from farther than sixteen blocks away, but their shots are extremely accurate and hard to dodge. Wither skeletons are very glitchy and can reach about the same distance as the player, resulting in the player getting hit quite easily from them.

Piglins and Bastions

Piglins have different AI and can only see gold on the same Y layer as their head of feet. When a block considered valuable to a piglin is broken (gold block, gold ore, gilded blackstone, chest, etc.) it causes piglins holding gold to instantly trade and pick up more gold; this mechanic is known as fast barter. Because of fast barter, most bastion routes are faster, but are much different from Java. Bastion routes are linked here and piglin AI is linked here.

Educated Travel

Home Portal Educated Travel is much more commonly used than on Java. For Educated Travel, the player returns to his original portal and throws an eye in the overworld. He then sees what the approximate angle is and using the village grid, he can figure out approximately where to place down his second portal (note: this requires more than just knowledge to do well; you also need a lot of experience).

One Cycle

For the one cycle, the player has to activate quadruple damage to the dragon by throwing a projectile at her neck, place lava to slow her down as she leaves and explode 3 beds to kill her. All of this is done once she is perched. A tutorial for killing the dragon will be linked here (note that this tutorial is a bit outdated and the most common projectile that players use is an ender pearl).

Tags: