A Few Ideas to Make the Game More Realistic

[Pot_Tx]

1. Brick ovens go out when blocked in front of the bottom half (because of the lack of oxygen).
2. Decorative plants (flowers, grass, etc.) drop the dead version of themselves (or their parts, or just nothing) when broken (with improper tools), and can be harvested alive via breaking the block they are growing on.
3. Dead plants cannot be placed again (especially sugar canes & cactuses, currently you can even put some dead parts together to make a living plant).
4. The chest requires one iron nugget to be crafted (considering its look).
5. Wolves get sick (or get food poison effect) when fed rotted flesh instead of transforming into an infernal monster (to match players' reaction to eating rotted flesh).
6. More weapons & tools are able to block attacks. E.g. clubs, axes.
Sorry if any of the suggestions look offensive. I'll post more if I'm able to come up with any more good ones.

[dawnraider]

Realism is not an inherent good. Realism is useful as a heuristic so that the player can know what to expect from some mechanics, but not any further than that. The effect it has on gameplay and the overall experience is far more important than whether or not it's realistic. When adding features, it should be analyzed as "what would this add to the game - why should it be added?" rather than asking "why not".
- 1, 2, and 3 simply fall into this category, where they really don't add a whole lot to the game. As for 1 in particular, ovens already don't work when the front is blocked because then you can't put fuel in.
- Regarding 4: A storage rework is coming, which may result in the cost of chests going up (and may include iron). It's important to note, however, that the impetus for this is from gameplay and not based on look.
- 5 would decrease the value of gameplay provided by that interaction, because the Beast is already an interesting interaction which can be a threat naturally, or an interesting problem to solve when the liver of the beast is required. It is also fairly well established that the player is not the same as other inhabitants of the world, for example not being corrupted by the nether.
- 6 would devalue the upgrade a sword provides. It's entirely intentional that iron tools and weapons are so much better than their lower tier counterparts.

[Pot_Tx]

Yeah, I see what you mean. Maybe I should focus less on realism and more on the whole gameplay. Actually I've been developing a modpack lately but wouldn't release anything to the public because of not being satisfied on many details that were just not realistic enough, but those need tons of work to change.
As of the first one, maybe I didn't say that clear enough. I mean that whenever an oven is blocked, the fire goes out immediately but the fuel stays in it. Burning requires air.

[Pot_Tx]

Oh hey, there's one thing I forgot to mention earlier - modified reach distance, meaning that players' reach & attack distance gets smaller than vanilla value (5 blocks), and gets varied additional reach distance depending on tools being held. This would not only make the game more realistic and challenging, but also further encourage players to use tools instead of slapping mobs with a bare hand I think. I'm not sure if it's possible to apply that to mobs too; I can see that currently hostile mobs' pathfinding ability is slightly enhanced, which is great, but they are still kinda weak, therefore don't really pose a threat that large.

[dawnraider]

I think the idea there is perfectly fine, though honestly I feel like the incredibly slow mining times, and the fact that almost nothing drops its normal drops when mined by hand, means that the player is already well enough encouraged to use to appropriate tools. If I did anything with that it'd probably be as a buff to steel tools or something, but idk.

[IssaMe]

I think it would be annoying if I had to switch to an item to interact with things, e.g. brick ovens, baskets, etc. It wouldn't be game breaking, but I don't see it adding that much either since tools have their own advantages anyway.

[Pot_Tx]

Yeah, right-click interacting would be kinda wierd if you have to hold a tool to lengthen reach, but I still believe the overall effect would be fine. Or maybe, interacting distance can exclusively be fixed.