Several Hills biomes do not generate sporadically replacing patches of their regular biome counterparts. They generate like a completely separate large patch biomes, making them quite rare.
Example:
Taiga generates small patches of its hills biome.
But - Swamp doesn't.
Affected Biomes: (May be incomplete)
Dark Forest Hills
Tall Birch Hills
Giant Spruce Taiga Hills
Swamp Hills
Comments 3
@Jake Samuels Your explanation applies to the way Nether biomes are generated, but not the way Overworld biomes are generated.
The correct explanation is that these biomes with "Hills" in their names are part of 3 different categories of biome variants. Most "Hills" biomes, such as Wooded Hills, Taiga Hills, and Desert Hills, are the Hills variant, which generates as random small patches within the main biome, usually not near the edges. Wooded Mountains is also in this category. But Swamp Hills and Dark Forest Hills are the Modified variant, which generate in patches which are rarer, larger, and can generate right up to the edge of the main biome, while Tall Birch Hills and Giant Spruce Taiga Hills are the Modified Hills variant.
Contrary to expectations, Modified Hills biome variants do not generate as random small patches within Modified variants, but rather completely separately. (though modified hills patches and modified patches are similar in size and distribution)
Can confirm.
Appears to be the case. I quickly found a swamp hills biome attached to a swamp, but barely even touching it. I then was able to locate another swamp hills all by itself.
The swamp hills biomes seem to be an attachment onto the regular biome rather than a patch. The same for dark forest hills.
Definitely confirmed for tall birch hills and giant spruce taiga hills.
Related to and possibly the cause of MC-208352.
From what I understand, this won't be a simple fix (and I might be wrong about that as I don't really know too much about coding). The way biomes generate is it uses a gradient and picks random noise numbers and picks the closest biome relative to the corresponding numbers. One of the noise numbers it picks is the height, and if the height of the entire area exceeds the regular height of the biome, the entire biome will spawn as a hills biome. I think the fix of this would either require a total revamp of the way biomes are generated, or, if possible, make it so it is forced to generate regular biomes rather than the hills counterpart in some areas, which would cause steep transitions that the game currently tries to avoid.