Falling on a hay bale absorbs most of the fall damage.
1.10 (Frostburn Update)
Category
Changes
Movement
Added "Auto-jump" option in the Controls tab. When toggled on, it automatically makes the player jump.
Auto-jump does not activate while sneaking.
Auto-jump activates
Notable uses include: 100% strat for hh 1+1 jumps, easy way for grinding on stairs aka "slab-boosting".
Blocks
Added Magma block, which damages the player when they are standing on it, unless they are sneaking.
1.10.1: Farmland is now 0.9375b tall (15px), instead of 1b.
Other
New Debug shortcut: F3+G shows chunk borders.
1.11 (Exploration Update)
Category
Changes
Movement
Sneaking now prevents falling more than 0.6b (previously 1b)
Blocks
Added Shulker Box - 1×1×1 bounding box, can extend by 0.5b when opened with right click.
The extension increases and decreases by increments of 0.05b every tick.
The shulker box can only be opened if it doesn't end up intersecting with another bounding box.
Interestingly, the opening starts with a surplus of 0.01b, which means the player is actually pushed 0.51b. At the end of the opening animation, the extension's length is brought back to 0.5b.
In general, it does not make more jumps possible, but they now feel easier to perform.
In particular, vines can be climbed without a supporting block.
Sneaking changed:
Sneaking lowers the player's height even more (from 1.65m to 1.5m, allowing them to fit under 1.5b ceilings).
The player can sprint while sneaking.
It takes some time to get out of the sneaking animation. It no longer seems possible to exploit sneaking to build speed on ledges.
Lava's area of effect is one full block (minus 0.001b on every side).
The player can be forced under a ceiling (by using a piston or trapdoor, for example)
Under ceilings between 1.8b and 1.5b, the player enters a sneaking state.
Under ceilings lower than 1.5b, the player enters a swimming state.
Bugfix?: Blips have been "patched": the player can no longer abuse stepping mechanics to gain artificial jump height.
The player can still clip onto the side of blocks when landing against a wall.
A new glitch was introduced: "blip-down", which happens when activating stepping on the edge of a block.
Bug: The player can conserve X speed when colliding with a wall.
Blocks
Added Bamboo:
Bounding box is 0.1875×1×0.1875, even for small bamboos which appear 2 pixels wide.
Placed in a (pre-determined) random position, which rarely aligns with the traditional 16-pixels grid.
Added Bells - 4 variants:
Floor: simple 0.5×1×1 bounding box.
Wall, Double-Wall, and Ceiling: same bell structure (0.5×0.5 base, 0.375×0.375 waist), each variant has a support beam of respective widths 0.125×0.8125, 0.125×1, 0.125×0.125.
Added Campfires
Bounding box is 1×0.4375×1.
Damages the player when not sneaking (even when standing on the edge, unlike Magma blocks).
Added Composter - same bounding box as the old cauldron, except the inner floor is 0.125b high.
Added Grindstone - 0.5×0.75×0.75 stone that stands 1b tall, with two parallel legs that connect it to the floor.
Can be placed against a wall or ceiling, in which case the bounding box is rotated accordingly.
Added Lanterns - Centered bounding box that consists of a 0.375×0.4375×0.375 base, and a 0.25×0.5625×0.25 top.
If hung to a ceiling, the bounding box is shifted 1 pixel upward (0.0625b).
Added Lecterns - Centered bounding box that consists of a 1×0.125×1 base, and a 0.5×0.875×0.5 top.
Added Scaffolding - a semi-tangible block that has similar climbing properties as ladders.
Each Scaffolding has an physical "floor" at its top. If a Scaffolding has no blocks below, it gets an additional floor at its bottom (0.125b tall).
Scaffoldings have no tangible walls or ceilings.
Sneaking makes the floor intangible as well, unless there is no blocks below it. When sneaking inside a Scaffolding, the player moves downward.
Added Stonecutter - 1×0.5625×1 bounding box.
Added Sweet Berry Bushes - similar to cobwebs though less restrictive, but deal damage if the player is moving (past the sapling stage).
Added Wither Rose - no bounding box, but inflicts the Wither effect to the player when standing next to it.
Beds have a more accurate bounding box.
The legs now have individual bounding boxes.
Cauldrons have an even more accurate bounding box.
The legs now have individual bounding boxes.
Other
Added separate "Mouse Controls" tab in Controls, which include the "Raw Input" option.
Added Honey blocks - 0.875×0.9375×0.875 bounding box, has sticky properties:
If the player is standing within the inner surface of a Honey block, they experience the same slowdown properties as soulsand. Also, the player can only jump 0.383m high, owing to an initial jump acceleration of 0.21 units (instead of 0.42). These effects also apply to blocks up to 0.5b above it (including slab).
If the player is near its walls, they will experience a sort of slow falling effect.
Slowdown now only applies to the inner surface. The 0.3m perimeter around it acts as a normal block.
Slowdown applies to blocks up to 0.5b above it (including slab).
If the player manages to get inside a soulsand block, they will find that it has "intermediate floors" that they can stand on. These floors are at heights 0.125, 0.25, 0.375, 0.5, 0.625, and 0.75. The first four are affected by slipperiness.
Other
Elytras can be activated immediately after jumping.
New gamerules: "fallDamage" and "fireDamage", which can be set to false.
1.15.2: status effects are now stored when overwritten.
1.16 (Nether Update)
Category
Changes
Movement
Lava physics improved:
Flowing lava now pushes the player.
The "area of effect" depends on the lava's level. The player can jump out lava if it's low enough.