If the reason for this suggested tree mechanics is ‘realism’, then they should implement block gravity, cause I can mine out a mountains all ties to the ground, and we will have a floating mountain. Oh and I just built a floating island, without any floating blocks. Blocks arent affected by gravity, they maybe could implement it, but I dont think it will happen, and its not good if it will only affect trees, cause floating rocks still ‘unrealistic’ but we already have a lot of unrealistic things in the world of Boundless (like cuttletrunks, flying tentacle monsters, wtf… Japan is that you?). Its already unrealistic that if I make a floating rock that will be not affected by gravity, but if I drop (not place) that rock from my inventory, that will. But thats the “physics” of this voxel world.
Harder trees, I aggre, we need some harder natural blocks beside resources, which ones needs better tools to be able to harvest them. So most starter trees/rocks/soil should be able to be harvested even with a totem, but there could be harder ones, like where you need at least silver tools for them, and not even that, but if starter tree blocks are 3 hits with a silver axe, then harder tree blocks should be 5 hits with a silver axe. But thats just a question if there will be different block HP for natural blocks too.
Tree seeds… well I dont know I am ok with it but not really need them, anyway, if it will be implemented they should be planted only inside beacons, cause you know world regeneration and stuff. Oh and if the seeds can rot then meat, berrys, etc should rot too. And I am ok with rot mechanics, but again, I am ok without it too.
Axes will only affect trees (like hammers for rock and shovels for soil), they did before some months ago but something went wrong, they will fix it.
Leaves. Well they are not only leaves, they are leaf blocks, so braches included. Of course they should be faster to harvest than the actual trunk blocks, but they should remain solid, until they change them from blocks to props (or resources), and if they do, than we need a compactor recipe for them: compact leaves, so leaf blocks could be crafted.
I agree with the suggested mod drop. So every animal should drop at least one meat, bone and tallow (except if that animal dont have it, like cuttletrunks without bones), and bigger/stronger animals should drop more, and with this they should change the recipes, cause we will swim in meat, bone and tallow. Only the rare drops should be chance based, like dark blood and oort stones.
With the current fluid mechanics I dont think that lava-buckets are good idea, cause players could just flood important areas with lava. Water-buckets are on the way, but im still afraid about them too, until they introduce a swimming suit and/or a breathing device.
About ore detection: my suggestion
Block placement are ok for me at least.
Durability display will be fixed.
Smart stacking bugs/glitches will be fixed.
Auto stack, auto sort will not happen I think, and yeah equipment wheel place and inventory place coupling is just weird, but manageable.
Creature HP is visible, but more visual improvements for it too are on the way like guilds and element system. And I hope more movement gadgets like you suggested too.