(Image alt: 3D rendering of one of the new spring variants. It is much shallower and wider than the previous designs, featuring a water pool around 8 blocks in diameter, surrounded by a sulfur and granite ring. It also extends down into the ground with tuff and granite.)
Of course, the one pictured is only one of many variants, you can see a full list here:
I personally think it's a good step in the right direction. It's obviously a response to all the negative player feedback as of late regarding the original spring designs and I feel like it addresses it well.
They add new gameplay systems and fundamental mechanics all the time, including entirely new weapon types, a new tier of tools, weapons and armour kn the form of Netherite, the ability to leash entities together which changed technical Minecraft entirely, a new type of 'wireless redstone' triggered by sound events in the form of Skulk Sensors, and entities that can interact with redstone literally last week.
They're also moving the entire game to Vulkan right now, and datapacks are basically a vanilla modding API now. The game's changing rapidly.
I don't get why people want Mojang to fundamentally change the game into something it is not, or turning it into some kind of RPG, breaking backwards compatibility and risking upsetting large sections of the community. The game is perfectly fine as it is and I am happy about the exact kinds of updates they've been making to it.
I feel like a lot of the criticisms against the game updates come from people parroting common YouTuber's claims or folks who basically gave up playing ten years ago in their childhood and now mourn their childhood wonder, not people who actually experienced the updates or who play the game regularly. "Why not add seasons or something" can only really come from an armchair fan who hasn't played the game in a decade, since it ignores entirely how that would fundamentally change every mechanic most builds depend upon, including observer-based machines, anything working with leaf decay, natural builds integrated into the environment, art pieces. Such an update would absolutely skewer the active community.
