Reclaiming Classic Mining with the No Raw Ores Datapack
When Minecraft 1.17 Caves & Cliffs arrived, it brought a wave of underground wonders, but also a fundamental change to mining that divided the community. Suddenly, iron, gold, and copper no longer dropped their familiar ore blocks. Instead, players collected raw ore items that needed to be smelted before they became usable ingots. For many, this extra step felt like an unnecessary departure from the game’s long-standing rhythm. If you’ve ever missed the satisfying clink of an ore block landing in your inventory, the No Raw Ores datapack is exactly what you need to turn back the clock while keeping all the modern features intact.
What the Datapack Actually Changes
No Raw Ores is a lightweight datapack designed for version 1.17 and above. It surgically alters the loot tables for gold, iron, and copper ores, both in their regular stone forms and the newer deepslate variants. Instead of dropping raw ore items when mined with a pickaxe, these blocks will now drop themselves as collectible ore blocks—just like they did in every version prior to the Caves & Cliffs update. You still need a pickaxe of the appropriate tier, and Fortune enchantments work exactly as you’d expect, multiplying the number of ore blocks you receive.
The datapack doesn’t delete raw ores from the game entirely. The raw ore blocks—those decorative, compact storage blocks introduced in 1.17—remain fully functional and craftable. This is where the design gets clever: you can still craft a raw ore block using four matching ore blocks (regular or deepslate). Conversely, you can uncraft a raw ore block back into four regular ore blocks. This creates a seamless conversion loop that lets you transform deepslate ores into their standard stone counterparts, which is perfect for builders who want a consistent look in their storage rooms.
Crafting and Storage Perks
Beyond the nostalgic mining experience, the datapack introduces a surprisingly useful storage mechanic. Raw ore blocks now serve as a universal compression method. If your inventory is bursting with iron ore from different layers, you can condense any combination of stone and deepslate ores into a single raw iron block. Later, when you’re ready to smelt, break that block back down into four uniform ore pieces. This effectively gives you a portable ore converter that doesn’t require any additional resources. It’s a small but meaningful quality-of-life improvement that makes inventory management during long caving sessions much smoother.
Installation Made Simple
Adding datapacks to your world is usually a straightforward process—you drop a folder into your save’s datapacks directory and reload. However, keeping track of updates and ensuring compatibility can become tedious if you manage multiple worlds. A modern approach that many players are adopting involves using launchers that handle these details automatically. If you’re looking for a hassle-free way to manage datapacks and mods, the foxygame.net launcher lets you download and install them directly from its menu, making it a flexible and modern choice for any player who wants to spend less time configuring files and more time mining. Once the datapack is active, you can verify it by simply breaking an iron ore block and watching the block itself pop out.
Compatibility and Multiplayer Considerations
No Raw Ores is built purely with vanilla loot table modifications, which means it doesn’t require any mod loaders or server plugins to function. It works flawlessly in singleplayer worlds and on multiplayer servers, provided the server owner adds the datapack to the world folder. Since it only touches loot tables for the three ore types, it won’t conflict with most other datapacks or mods that add new ores or dimensions. It’s also safe to add to an existing world; any raw ores already in your chests will remain, but newly mined ores will follow the updated rules. This makes it a low-risk addition for anyone curious about trying the classic mining style without starting a fresh save.
Why This Datapack Resonates with Players
At its core, No Raw Ores addresses a subtle shift in game feel that many veteran players noticed immediately after updating to 1.17. The raw ore system, while realistic, added a layer of inventory clutter that interrupted the flow of branch mining. Instead of seeing a stack of iron ore blocks and knowing exactly how many furnaces you’d need, you now had to mentally convert raw iron into ingot counts. By reverting the drop to ore blocks, the datapack restores that immediate, tactile feedback. It also brings back the visual satisfaction of placing down a full block of ore as a trophy or decoration before smelting it.
The conversion feature between deepslate and regular ore is another quiet triumph. Deepslate ores are abundant at lower Y-levels, but many players prefer the classic stone texture for their smelting arrays or storage chests. The ability to cycle through raw ore blocks gives you complete control over your ore’s appearance without needing a silk touch pickaxe, which was the only way to obtain deepslate ore blocks in vanilla.
Final Thoughts
No Raw Ores is a testament to how a single, well-crafted datapack can reshape your entire mining experience without overhauling the game. It strips away a mechanic that felt jarring to many and replaces it with a system that honors Minecraft’s history while cleverly repurposing the new raw ore blocks. Whether you’re a builder who wants uniform ore storage, a redstone miner who values inventory efficiency, or simply someone who misses the old days, this datapack delivers exactly what it promises. It’s a small change that makes every pickaxe swing feel right again.