Source
r/Minecraft•
Chipish

Has there ever been a reason given for the seemingly random 16 stack limits in game?

In one sense, I can see that sign posts would be too unwieldy to carry 64 of, but then so would 64 diamond blocks. Maybe wind was supposed to be implemented?

16 Ender pearls makes sense as not too OP carrying so many, but then snow balls seem to follow this despite very little tactical use, and slime balls, being the same size, stack to 64...

There's no rhyme nor reason to it!! Is there?

Posted Aug 23, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

4425
Jbipp•

It's just gameplay. Snowballs can be used against some mobs to push them (and with plugins, against players), making them pretty good. The same goes for eggs. In 1.8 pvp, I think snowballs and eggs are really good because you can start doing some knockback on someone before doing combos. The fact that you can only throw 16 in a stack makes it fair

29
Seb_Romu•

16 Ender pearls makes sense as not too OP carrying so many ...

Basically this is it, as far as I know.

Same reason for non stacking potions, despite bottles being stackable.

16
Christofin•

Yeah they need to change this. I can carry around a stack of 64 flight duration 3 rockets with my mending, unbreaking III elytra. Carrying around 64 enderpearls is definitely not OP anymore.

11
WildBluntHickok•

Throwing them rapidly in different directions forces the game to load a lot of different chunks in a small amount of time. That was the reason for limiting them. Also why you couldn't use them in creative (but they changed that a few versions back).

5
MrKukurykpl•

Pretty sure that isn't a problem as you can throw the ender pearls at most like 50 blocks away which is less than 4 chunks of distance in any direction, so most of the time the chunks are already loaded. Not to mention now we have a cooldown to prevent throwing them rapidly, and them not being able to be used in creative mode was just an oversight iirc. Still though, it's not really possible to make some serious lag by just throwing around ender pearls, considering also the damage they deal.

6
TheRedstoneBlaze•

good thing you can't throw them rapidly anymore

4
WildBluntHickok•

Non-stacking potions is because items with NBT data don't stack. Same reason 2 different written books don't stack, the first one would overwrite the data of the second one if they stacked. Usually the game doesn't bother to check if the NBT data is exactly the same and then allow THOSE to stack, it's usually just "is nbt data present? Then no."

6
MDBeck•

I read once:

Usable, 1: armor, weapons, tools, potions, water buckets
Throwable, 16: snowballs, enderpearls
Other, 64

It's not 100% accurate but the classification worked for me.

13
SKiiiDMark1•

TIL you can throw empty buckets

8
Zoofule•

You can throw everything just gotta hit q or whatever you may have rebound it to.

8
Subversive•

P. Q was far too close to the movement keys. Kept throwing my gear away by accident.

1
Zoofule•

I use to rebind it, but I have gotten a lot better at not hitting Q by accident

2
MDBeck•

Ummm... yeah, it's the snapshot for 1.15. (I just know someone is going to be a complete idiot and think that statement is serious)

Hah. I didn't know empty buckets were stackable, mine all stay full.

There are probably several items that don't fit the pattern but it seems to be close.

1
ChipishOP•

hey that does make some sense, or at least something to be aimed for. Explains the slime balls too!

7
BuccaneerRex•

My thoughts are that the things that stack to 16 are either 'fragile' or 'unwieldy'. Buckets, bottles, snowballs, eggs, enderpearls.

11
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
mynameisperlI shovel well•

Just gameplay and/or balance.

6
Isord•

To make it even more confusing I just checked the wiki for any info on why they only stack to 16 and when snowballs were first introduced they actually stacked to 64, but that was then reduced to 8, and then increased to 16.

4
scarabcoder•

It's almost as if they're trying to apply realistic limitations. Obviously, that'll never work.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

4
mynameisperlI shovel well•

At various times Snowballs have been much more powerful than now, including causing damage to the Ender Dragon (which is why players used to take Snow Blocks and Pumpkins to build Snow Golems in The End) and when they were the cheapest and most rapid-fire way to deliver Knockback to players in PVP.

2
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
i_nezzy_i•

16 specifically because it's a power of 2, and it's not 64 because of balancing

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

0
WildBluntHickok•

No, commands can't change stack limits.

1
-0-_-_-0-•

Dosen eggs - 16

Excuse the spelling.

-3
Crunchboks•

Dozen =/= 16

Dozen = 12

If you acknowledge your spelling mistake, wouldn’t it be more efficient to correct it as opposed to typing out that you messed it up?

1
-0-_-_-0-•

Oops! My bad! Shows how good my maths is!

Spell checker didn't tell me how to spell it so I had to just go w/that :-p

0