This is a duplicate of the now resolved MC-243079 bug report which was hastily closed as "Works As Intended." I believe that bug was not well reported and deserved further consideration.
It has been a well-known mechanic since 1.13 that /setworldspawn will allow players to respawn as close to the set y value as possible, instead of on top of the highest block (like in 1.12). This works regardless of the spawnRadius set. From my brief testing, it seems to require at least a 1x3 location at any y value. If that is not met, the player is respawned at the next highest block.
This behavior has been reverted to 1.12 behavior sometime in the development of 1.18 (which is unfortunate considering the stunning new cave generation making underground spawn points more enticing). /setworldspawn will now always pick the highest block in the column (including leaves, unlike 1.12).
Steps to Reproduce:
Open a world between 1.13 and 1.17.1 and another in 1.18.1 (and another in 1.12 if you wish to compare)
/setworldspawn
/fill ~-20 ~10 ~-20 ~20 ~10 ~20 minecraft:stone
/kill and respawn
Repeat at any y value of your choosing with at least 1x3 space to spawn. Invalidate spawn location and the 1.13 - 1.17.1 game will pick the next highest valid location to respawn the player.
Related issues
duplicates
Comments
migrated
migrated
Duplicates MC-243079
violine1101
Thank you for your report!
We're tracking this issue in MC-243079, so this ticket is being resolved and linked as a duplicate.
That ticket has already been resolved as working as intended, which means this is not considered a bug and won't be fixed. Please do not leave a comment on the linked ticket.
If you haven't already, you might like to make use of the search feature to see if the issue has already been mentioned.
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migrated
You two clearly did not read my bug report. I am well aware that it duplicates MC-243079 and stated why I created this one. It follows that if I know the bug report exists, I also know how to use the search feature.
violine1101
After reading multiple times, I honestly don't know what you think is different. The world spawn is always on the highest possible block irrespective of at which y value you set it.
migrated
Did you even try in 1.13 - 1.17? They clearly do not act that way. I can make you a video of each version if that would convince you. 1.18 reverted the behavior.
migrated
The previous report was closed as "Works As Intended" because the assignee was under the impression that it has always worked that way stating, "This is a well-known mechanic." I am pointing out that it has not worked that way for 3 years. The previous report did not go into that detail so I opened a new one rather than comment on a dead report.
Can confirm 1.18