Pigs have always been a kind of odd creature to me - they don't provide much beyond food, being able to ride them was always an odd choice (even before horses), and the carrots they need to breed are hard to find. I've seen a lot of good suggestions for improving the pig, especially the Mushroom Island Finder and Golden Porkchop ideas, but I think that a simpler approach is really all that is needed to give pigs a place in Minecraft. So here's a few ideas that could hopefully improve pigs and make them something we can all look forward to finding and taming.
1. Replace the Carrot as the pig's breeding food. Firstly, I have never associated pigs with carrots - that isn't a food that pigs like, so far as I can tell. To me pigs favorite foods are truffles and acorns (wild pigs especially love acorns in the USA). Since neither of those things exist in Minecraft, the nearest thing to truffles is obviously Mushrooms. So what if the food used to breed Pigs was switched from Carrots (difficult to find, doesn't fit with the idea of a pigs "favorite" food) with Mushrooms? More specifically, the Red Mushrooms which are currently not finding much use in potions. Makes red mushrooms a bit more useful, and makes it easier to find a pig some lunch.
Another alternative: since pigs are omnivores and can eat almost everything, make it so that you can breed/lure pigs with almost anything edible. Cocoa beans, mushrooms, potatoes, sugar, seeds, bones, porkchops...would make them much easier to tame, which could be their "special" thing. Personally I'd prefer the Mushroom idea, but figured I'd add this as another alternative.
2. Make pigs faster breeders - instead of giving birth to one piglet at a time, they can give birth to 1 to 3, chosen at random. Also, these piglets grow up faster than other animals.
3. Expand on the Carrot on a Stick idea: Instead of just a carrot on a stick, what if they added all sorts of different "Food on a Stick" recipes, and each particular lure would give your saddled Pig a different bonus, like better jumping, faster speed, or the ability to cross water? Here's a brief list of possible Pig powerups:
*Carrot: Boosts Pig speed.
*Apple: Makes Pig a better jumper (because it has to jump up trees to eat apples, you see).
*Potato: Makes Pig able to survive more fall damage.
*Fish: Pig won't knock you off a saddle if you enter water; lets pig swim.
*Bone: Makes the Pig more destructive - will pop flowers, cactus, grass, etc. that it walks over.
*Rotten Flesh: Gives the Pig bad breath, repelling nearby monsters.
Just as with the Carrot on a Stick, activating these powers would use up some of the Food on a Stick's durability, and the effect would only last for a limited amount of ticks.
I like this idea! I'd allow brown mushrooms too, the red ones are actually pretty tough to find. Back before beta 1.8, pigs were the only farm animal that dropped food!
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I like this idea. Simple but it will improve pigs by a lot since right now, a lot of people hate pigs because we have Cows that drop the same food but also drops Leather and you can get Milk. And Horses are far better than Pigs. Although I don't agree with the Rotten Flesh power-up thing. It's very overpowered to repel hostile mobs.
Support. I find that pigs are ugly (to the point that on my prototype texturepack, I lowered their texture opacity to 20% so I did not have to look at them but still had the capability to use my texture.) but if it were easier to use them in the game, that would be nice.
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We all die in the end. Until that day, live as you like. It makes no difference.
GENERATION 9002: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment
1. Replace the Carrot as the pig's breeding food. Firstly, I have never associated pigs with carrots - that isn't a food that pigs like, so far as I can tell. To me pigs favorite foods are truffles and acorns (wild pigs especially love acorns in the USA). Since neither of those things exist in Minecraft, the nearest thing to truffles is obviously Mushrooms. So what if the food used to breed Pigs was switched from Carrots (difficult to find, doesn't fit with the idea of a pigs "favorite" food) with Mushrooms? More specifically, the Red Mushrooms which are currently not finding much use in potions. Makes red mushrooms a bit more useful, and makes it easier to find a pig some lunch.
Another alternative: since pigs are omnivores and can eat almost everything, make it so that you can breed/lure pigs with almost anything edible. Cocoa beans, mushrooms, potatoes, sugar, seeds, bones, porkchops...would make them much easier to tame, which could be their "special" thing. Personally I'd prefer the Mushroom idea, but figured I'd add this as another alternative.
2. Make pigs faster breeders - instead of giving birth to one piglet at a time, they can give birth to 1 to 3, chosen at random. Also, these piglets grow up faster than other animals.
3. Expand on the Carrot on a Stick idea: Instead of just a carrot on a stick, what if they added all sorts of different "Food on a Stick" recipes, and each particular lure would give your saddled Pig a different bonus, like better jumping, faster speed, or the ability to cross water? Here's a brief list of possible Pig powerups:
*Carrot: Boosts Pig speed.
*Apple: Makes Pig a better jumper (because it has to jump up trees to eat apples, you see).
*Potato: Makes Pig able to survive more fall damage.
*Fish: Pig won't knock you off a saddle if you enter water; lets pig swim.
*Bone: Makes the Pig more destructive - will pop flowers, cactus, grass, etc. that it walks over.
*Rotten Flesh: Gives the Pig bad breath, repelling nearby monsters.
Just as with the Carrot on a Stick, activating these powers would use up some of the Food on a Stick's durability, and the effect would only last for a limited amount of ticks.
I have a new account called "Mushroomsock" now, so please do not send me PMs.
Partial Support.
GENERATION 9002: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment