Thank you so much for talking about my pack!
Now, if I could, I’d like to offer some of my thoughts, and frankly, ask for some advice.

Firstly, I think I also agree, that I made a big mistake when saying “casual” I realise, now, when I was watching other people play, that that isn’t what I was trying to do. Or rather, that casual meant two different things to people, and I was using a word that others mistook for something else. I was trying to come up with a word that was the opposite of technical, those who do not like building mob *grinders*. I like building sheep farms and having cows by my house, I was really trying to target people who don’t want to build a creeper farm to get gunpowder. So to offer a word to contrast “technical” I chose “casual”. Which was a mistake. I’ve been struggling the past few days trying to come up with a better word for this. Really and truly, I haven’t got an idea, so if you do, I’d really appreciate some help with that.

Also, the mob balancing issues.
I'm working right now on a way to rebalance mobs, add more fun ways of getting silver, fix multiplayer bugs, add more structures etc, etc. You get it.
I like fast zombies, but I understand that they are annoying and can be frustrating. I wanted to bounce some ideas off of you to help with the mob balancing.

Zombies fulfill simultaneously the tank and striker roles, which is bad, I think. It should be one or the other. So, I was thinking of adding Husks to spawn in all biomes, give them more or the same amount of health, increase their attack damage, and make them slow. And nerfing all zombies to have much less health, and a little less speed. Skeletons as artillery I think are a good role, I'm working on spider buffs and maybe creepers depending.
But importantly I want to implement difficulty scaling AND for the gamemode difficulty to affect the buffs each mob is given. So as the players get warding, light the portal etc, the mobs get more buffs.
Anyways, Id like to know what you think about that as I’m working on it right now.

As for the textures...I know its weird and stupid, I know Hell is really dark, and I know the renames are useless...but I like it. I like the desaturated colours, I love grey much more than bright greens, and I like the word Hell more than the Nether. Its stupid, its my curse, but before i make this pack for other people I’m making it for me first. I know it isn’t to everyones taste, some people love matcha ice cream, others hate it. But I'm really grateful you took the time to give me some feedback, and I really look forward to your insight.

I mean, I get that fent makes people look like zombies, but that doesn't describe what these zombies are like. Fent slows you down. Crack speeds you up.

great seeing genuine criticism of this pack, since it's not really going to improve if people just echo that "it's good." glad the dev is also super receptive to feedback, that helps a lot. I think I'll give this a try once it's been improved more.

I find it really funny that the pack aimed towards casual players also happens to make all zombies gain superspeed.

honestly, what impresses me most about matcha flavored is the fact that it is just a datapack. it does more than some modpacks that i've played have done, and it's pretty decently balanced while doing so. pretty far cry from the image in my head of datapacks being small tweaks and basic changes (aka basically command blocks+) that are decidedly a step below what a proper mod can do lol

From my perspective the zombies were made super fast as a way to fix a problem removing hunger created. Since you can now sprint all the time, fighting became something you can completely avoid and nullify a lot of the game's difficulty. Now I don't know if this was the only solution but after playing for a bit? I kind of love the fast zombies. It surprised and scared me in a way I could only compare to my first night I ever played of Minecraft.

Cant wait for Minecraft: Crack Flavored where its just ULTRAKILL

Matcha has done something that regular minecraft couldnt for a while.
It made me care about actually packing food into my inventory that would be of use and start a farm to sustain it.
Even Leathercrafting and otherwise is such a non-issue that I have only a humble farm of a few animals outside. And I even made stables for horses. Multiple. And a Donkey.
Klei has an honestly really great vision. And the only thing I wish he would refer is the darkness changes. The Dark Caves were really really fun and creepy while also still be relaxing and engaging.

Also the various new items gave me the drive to just... make little areas for them. The cross itself, I actuallly hung up above my door with an item frame. I am not religious. But it felt so fitting as it is a tool to ward off evil spirits. Now, it doesnt work. But the thought is there right?

Some of the things mentioned, like needing a lot of ender pearls,  sheep giving more wool and crystal hearts requiring a lot of grinding is actually fixed by just getting villagers.
You can trade for ender pearls, the shepherd gives you enchanted shears with looting and you can trade the books you find while exploring like the divine comedy for crystal hearts. The rarer books give you enchants.

I didnt spawn my villagers for such a long  time, because i wanted to build a cute village first, but when i did i was delighted with how many things are made easier, like being able to just buy stacks of logs.

The hearts issue is certainly something.
Using a fishing rod with Luck of the Sea III, Lure III and Unbreaking III, I was able to farm 25+ crystal hearts early game, which put me at the max hearts very quickly with an abundance of crystal hearts that were useless.
Fun fact: You can eat Crystal Hearts, and it will give you a poison effect because the item tag is poisonous_potato

I think the keep inventory isn't just "making death less punishing" but is actually just about removing graverunning, a mechanic I hate. If you're ill-equipped for an area and wnd up dying it should make you prepare better for the area, not run back in with even less equipment than what you had in your first run.

Also a nitpick, if you're wandering aimlessly searching for a mountain, you're not wandering aimlessly. You have an aim, finding a mountain.

15:20 all roads lead to Better Than Wolves

I've definitely been enjoying Matcha Flavored a lot myself recently, but I agree with a lot of these criticisms. I'm definitely not down with every single change in the datapack, but it's got a ton of good ideas in it. I don't feel a huge amount of desire to go back to vanilla after playing it, and that's saying something. It's not saying as much as it would from some other people, but it is saying something.

That said, I'm not planning on playing Matcha Flavored long-term. I'm a bit of a dab hand at creating datapacks myself, so the biggest inspiration Matcha Flavored has had on me is convincing me that I'm completely allowed to just do the same thing. So on the side I've begun planning out and working on my own total overhaul, with a lot of the same ideas. There are a lot of things I'm changing, naturally, and I haven't decided on everything for sure just yet, but it's pretty fun so far. But this isn't a space for self-promotion, even if I don't know if I have any plans to actually release my own take.

My biggest contention is actually the food system. I don't think the individual recipes are very well designed. Some recipies arbitrarily require estus ash, and some recipes with easier to obtain ingredients don't require estus ash and still recover more health. Estus flasks themselves aren't a very good healing solution unless you've somehow ended up in a situation where you're killing a bunch of monsters and don't have any food but you inexplicably have a bunch of glass bottles on you. The potion effects thing is really fantastic, and I have a bundle that's just filled up with various food items I'm keeping on hand purely for their beneficial effects, but some of them are ludicrously easy to get high-level high-duration versions of. Needless to say I've been doing a lot of thinking about food design for my own interpretation.

8:30 To be honest, i think the zombies would be better if they leaned more into their regular java gimmicks, being they have superior detection range and the ability to call reinforcements to make up for their mediocre stats compared to other mobs, possibly have them spawn in groups that stick together and try to corner you, or have them stalk or actively chase you slowly from afar, even able to know where you are through thin walls, until they all catch up and you realize you're being ambushed

my biggest gripe is the immediate damage from water in cold biomes, was such a jumpscare when teying to swim up a water collumn in a cave

tangentially related, cracking open this datapack to examine it's internals was kinda amusing. klei didn't know the recipe folder could have subfolders, so he made new namespace level folders for sorting out the recipes. also the main folder for it's internals and functions is literally. just. `main`. instead of being labeled `matchaflavored` or something similar like a normal datapack does. i get it, it's not meant to be played with other datapacks and content mods, but that's not really good practice... he'll learn :P

Not to play armchair developer here, but I think the farming problems and death punishment problems could be solved together: When you gain XP, you slowly build up Loot and Fortune, to make the grind speed up the longer you're at it. You die, and you lose the buff. You won't lose your precious items, but you WILL lose precious time.

Honestly? In my opinion, one of the best ways to deal with the death mechanic is to do the same way terraria does. You lose some resource that is important but not trivial (in terraria's case: money), and you keep your stuff. "oh what if players wanna use death as a fast travel back home?" Just give them a way to go back home quickly, it makes it more convenient to travel back once you're inventory is full and  yes, it can save you from some life or death situations (e.g.: Falling in lava, being swarmed by enemies, falling in the void, drowning, etc) but i still feel it functions better than what minecraft does. Of course it limits transportation a bit because you can just teleport home but still a far better option than just having to go to god knows where to get your loot that you worked hours to get, specially in minecraft's case since the world is big asf

The art style of the datapack really reminds me of the more de-saturated style of Don't Starve, with the naturalistic feeling of Vintage Story.
Me? I just like going to the mines, getting some resources, and having a discussion on where i can place my farms and builds in the world.
Also steel armor has drastically decreased the stress level of me accidentally being smacked off of platforms. (and the Heavy Leather boots are really nice)

All your cons you mentioned made me think of the quote that goes something like "Players will optimize the fun out of everything"
And yeah, that's completely true. Things in this pack that are meant to be less technical and grindy just makes it technical and grindy in a different way, if you want to get lots of something.