Death

This article is about dying and the heart penalty. For the item that restores hearts, see Crystal Heart.

For how this works in unmodified Minecraft, see Death on the Minecraft Wiki.

Death

Crystal Heart

Crystal hearts raise the maximum health that death takes away.

Type	Mechanic

Death in Matcha Flavoured costs the player a heart of maximum health instead of their items. The pack turns on keepInventory, so everything in the inventory is kept, and in exchange each death permanently lowers the player's maximum health, down to a floor that depends on the difficulty and on how far the player has progressed.

Lost hearts are regained with crystal hearts, which raise maximum health up to 30 hearts.

Mechanics

Keeping items

When a player joins a world for the first time, the pack sets the game rules keep_inventory to true and ender_pearls_vanish_on_death to false. The rules are set by the reward of the root advancement, so they can be changed afterwards. Since 1.12.3 they are set only once per world, and a later change stays; in 1.12.2 they were set again whenever another new player joined, or a player first joined after an update. Players keep their items and experience, and thrown  stable voids don't vanish when the thrower dies.

Heart loss

The pack checks every tick for players whose death count has gone up. For each one it lowers the player's stored heart count and sets their maximum health to match, usually while they are still on the death screen.

Difficulty	Maximum health lost per death
Peaceful, Easy, Normal	2 ( × 1)
Hard	4 ( × 2)

Maximum health can't fall below a floor:

• On Peaceful and Easy, the floor is always 10 hearts (20 ( × 10)), the vanilla starting health.
• On Normal and Hard, the floor is the player's own minimum hearts (see below).

Maximum health can never be higher than 30 hearts (60 ( × 30)).

Because the minimum starts at 10 hearts, a new player who has not used any crystal hearts loses nothing by dying. Deaths only start to cost health once the player has gained hearts above their minimum, or once progression has lowered the minimum.

The same heart loss is triggered by the Wither effect: a player who stays withered for 9 seconds on Normal or 6 seconds on Hard (longer with shakudo armor) loses hearts exactly as if they had died (the count is kept per player; in 1.12.2 it was shared, so several withered players lost hearts sooner; see Wither effect#Multiplayer).

Minimum hearts

Every player has their own minimum, which starts at 10 hearts. Seven milestones in the tutorial advancement tab each lower it by 1 heart, whatever order they are earned in:

Advancement	Requirement
Brazier	Obtain a  Copper Ingot
The Stalwart Metal	Obtain an  Iron Ingot
The Resilient Mineral	Obtain a  Diamond
Orpheus	Enter Hell
The End of Dreams	Enter a stronghold
A Zealous Alloy	Obtain an  Electrum Alloy
A Divine Alloy	Obtain an  Adamant Alloy

Each time the minimum drops, the player receives a red flavor message. On Normal and Hard, a gray message follows: "Minimum Hearts is now set to N", where N is the new minimum in hearts. On Peaceful and Easy only the flavor message appears, since the floor there stays at 10 hearts.

Milestones earned	Minimum hearts	Flavor message
0	10	–
1	9	A terrible chill runs up your spine...
2	8	The Dead grow restless...
3	7	The Underworld screams...
4	6	Chthonic Gods swear fealty to a terrible Force...
5	5	Armies gather beneath the Earth... (sent to every player)
6	4	The Dead fear your Power...
7	3	The Dead God fears its undoing...

The minimum never goes below 3 hearts (6 ( × 3)).

On Normal, when a player's minimum drops below 6 hearts (their fifth milestone), the world's difficulty is raised to Hard and every player is told "Game is now set to Hard". This affects the whole world, not just that player, and it can be set back in the world settings.

The minimum is tracked per player, so one player's progress doesn't lower anyone else's floor. Since 1.12.6-alpha, updating the pack keeps a player's minimum and the milestones they have earned. Up to 1.12.5, a player joining on a newer version had their minimum reset to 10 hearts and some milestones revoked, so they could lower it again by re-earning them. See Advancements#Revocation on update.

Regaining hearts

Main article: Crystal Heart

Using a crystal heart raises maximum health by 1 heart, up to 30. Crystal hearts are crafted from diamonds and  Pith, found in chests, fished up, and given by four advancements: Canto I, II and III give one each, and Canto IV gives two.

Difficulty

	Peaceful	Easy	Normal	Hard
Hearts lost per death	1	1	1	2
Lowest maximum health	10 hearts	10 hearts	minimum hearts (10 to 3)	minimum hearts (10 to 3)
"Minimum Hearts" message	no	no	yes	yes
Hearts lost to the Wither effect	1	none	1	2

The difficulty the pack uses is read when the world loads, so after changing difficulty the world has to be reloaded (for example with /reload or by rejoining).

History

0.3-alpha	Heart containers renamed to crystal hearts and the health system refined. Crystal hearts can be crafted, no longer drop from zombies, and are found in chests.
1.10	Crystal hearts work in multiplayer. Killing the Ender Dragon raises the difficulty.
1.12	Fixed a typo that stopped crystal hearts being removed properly.
1.12.1-alpha	New experimental death system. Maximum health can go below 10 hearts, with the floor set by the player's progress through advancements; Easy is exempt. Killing the dragon no longer changes the difficulty on Normal; progress does instead. Hardcore-style hearts added to the resource pack.
1.12.2	The new death system is kept. Minimum hearts are tracked per player instead of per world. The Wither effect now takes hearts.
1.12.3	The Wither heart meter is tracked for each player separately.
1.12.3	Brazier, The Stalwart Metal and The Resilient Mineral are no longer revoked when the pack is updated.
1.12.6-alpha	Updating the pack no longer resets the minimum to 10 hearts or revokes the milestones.
1.12.7-beta	Peaceful follows the Easy rules: maximum health never falls below 10 hearts, and lowering the minimum prints no "Minimum Hearts" message. Before, Peaceful had no floor at all.

Trivia

• The developer turned on keep inventory because losing items "can be really demoralizing", but found that with no penalty at all they were tempted to "jump off a cliff so I can teleport back home". Crystal hearts were the compromise.
• The flavor messages describe a "Dead God" growing afraid of the player. The Ender Dragon advancement is called "Iconoclast", described as "Defile the Dead God's Dream".
• The 1.12.2 release notes still say "difficulty is still set at 5 hearts", meaning the Normal-to-Hard switch at a minimum of 5 hearts.
• Some players criticized the heart system for making the game too easy, since items are kept. The developer has said they are not interested in changing this: "I like it being easy. I don't want to be stressed out." Being sent back to spawn is meant to be the punishment.

See also

• Health
• Crystal Heart
• Difficulty
• Wither effect