Minecraft Forums

Quote from Canoby»

I'd love more dragons to be added to MC, but I have to agree that outside of mods, I really can't see tamable dragons being able to be balanced enough to make it into vanilla. That said, it still is a cool idea you have

Thank you. I'll continue to update and fix the idea for TDs as much as possible.

Quote from Cerroz»

This is not something that can be "perfected". I hate to be so cruel about this, but you're trying to polish a turd. Tweak, tweak and tweaking the idea won't do that much good. Your dragons are still pure upgrades of many things in the game.

Optimistic much?

You can't blame him for trying. It can be made to be different from other mechanics in the game. Besides, if pure upgrades are bad, why do we have diamond equipment, powered rails, horses, or upgradable potions?

As far as I can tell: if the idea has enough thought put into it, it can still be made perfect.

I just need to work hard enough. (That is the only way to get things done)

Most people don't even bother to take their time and think about the perfect idea. That being the reason for most of the fliers in life.

If I fail, I'll learn from my mistakes. I just need to Identify all the problems and find a way to fix them. (Like finding out the real killer in an investigation [You have to make sure you get the right guy and that they aren't being framed, you can't just look for someone to blame and be done with it])

I know what killed the TDs Idea is the thought of "Endless" flight and the "Probable" uselessness of mobs. But that's just the motive Not the killer.

To find the killer I need to find out how to fix the problem. Until I Find out how to fix the problems I can't find the Killer.

For this! I would require Help. (The best way to find the guilty party)

Their are many clues to suggest where the killer is that say it's the flight, but that's not the only place the killer walked through. ?

Quote from Cerroz»

If that's a strange way of spelling the word *realist instead then yes.

Unless you're saying you possess no bias and are completely objective, then there is no such thing as a "realist," as your view is going to be skewed. You believe that tamable dragons can't be balanced or put in the game, and that causes you to say this, instead of thinking about whether it actually can or cannot be added. For this particular mentality, you can either be optimistic or pessimistic. While there theoretically would be a middle point where you look at this completely objectively, no person can actually be right at that middle point, instead being at least slightly in favor of one mentality over the other.

Again, you listed some bad comparisons. Diamond equipment doesn't last forever (on it's own at least), potion upgrades are actually more of sidegrades and... I don't even understand why powered rails and horses were even mentioned.

They're still sheer upgrades. Powered rails upgrade regular rails and provide faster means of movement than just holding the forward key or using minecarts with furnaces, and horses are upgrades of minecarts, making overworld travel much faster and smooth.

Quote from Acknid»

Oh wow, all of those comparisons fall flat on their faces. Diamond tools are balanced and don't exactly fly us around, they're still hard to get and like the post above me said, they don't last forever - at least not without constant repairing (which can cost more diamonds). How are powered rails an upgrade? What? Sometimes there might be a part where powered rails aren't needed at all.

You're arguing that diamond equipment isn't OP, which was not the point of my comparisons. For powered rails, see above.

Why are horses mentioned? Do you mean they're an upgrade of pigs? If so, pigs are mindlessly useless anyway. I don't know why they were ever made rideable. Potions aren't "upgraded". You can either have more duration or more power, not both. I guess they can be upgraded when you give the base potion glowstone or redstone, but I don't see an issue there.

For horses, also see above (but yes, they are upgrades of pigs). Potions are indeed upgradable, being able to be improved. These upgrades aren't issues, but it proves that upgrades already exist in the game, which is what I was trying to prove, and that makes Cerroz's argument that "dragons are pure upgrades" to be moot.

The first sentence is just not true for all ideas. Some people put a lot of thought into thirst bars and all of those threads still fail hard. Real hard. Some ideas just can't be perfected, so what you're doing here is just showcasing blind optimism by having ballooned hearts in your eyes over an idea that's been established as bad from day 1.

I disagree. Those people may put a lot of thought into them, but they either didn't revise them enough, or simply didn't think everything through. I assure you, there is a way to make thirst in the game that people would like, but people just haven't found the best way to do it.

I admire you for standing by your suggestion, but I don't think you're gonna come out the victor. These dragons are very powerful and perhaps a littletoo useful. It's just something that doesn't fit that good in vanilla. Once I have these dragons, I'll probably never need another wolf again. It's too much. no support.

And that's why you criticize, and the OP edits his post. Obviously, it's not perfect; it needs improvements. Still, that's no reason to just say "this isn't going to be in the game, so you shouldn't even try." If you honestly believe it can't be in the game, then simply don't post and let the thread die. You're only supposed to post on a suggestion to provide criticism or defend the suggestion, but it can't be called criticism if you're doing it with no belief that it can ever be in the game. That's just complaining.

Quote from Cerroz»

You can't put a horse on minecart rails and have automated item storage travel. Upgrades or not, these dragons are still overpowered. Blame-gaming and mentioning other things won't save the idea.

So, in this sense, horse are upgrades to empty minecarts for travel, and complex systems of chest minecarts with hoppers are an upgrade to donkeys. What I was trying to prove is that upgrades already exist in the game and that saying that dragons are bad because they are an upgrade to something else is an invalid statement. I wasn't trying to prove that they're overpowered or not.

Moving up in the ladder of better and better equipment isn't overpowered. Having a dragon that flies you around and shoots magic from its face is.

Your proof? Besides, did you ever think about how difficult it might be to perform said combat on a dragon? Try attacking someone while flying with Elytra.

An Iron Golem on a lead will shred most hostiles around you. Do we really need an upgraded version of that?

Ah, the necessity argument again. I would think you would know by now that saying "do we really need this" is not really a valid statement. We don't need anything in the game.

Still, an Iron Golem will automatically attack enemies, while the dragon won't. I would think that the dragon would be terrible on land, so it would be poor at combat on the ground. It also can't be brought underground due to its size. They'd be useful for different situations.

You disagreeing with something doesn't change how it really works. You can put years of thought into some ideas, but some ideas just never work no matter what. Take a good look at all the Herobrine threads. The thirst thing is just ridiculous. It doesn't matter if you "do it the right way", it's still another game mechanic to monitor. I thought that was universally established by now.

Just because a good Herobrine or thirst thread doesn't exist doesn't mean one can't exist. You're being incredibly narrow-minded in this regard. Going to the moon was once considered a ridiculous notion. What seems impossible or dumb today can be very possible or groundbreaking tomorrow.

There's no point in saying "let the thread die and don't post". If I see flaws in an idea, I list them whether the OP likes it or not. This forum isn't about saying only positive things and making the OP feel all good and bubbly inside. Have you actually read the suggestion guide? You're using a few points that have been disproven years before this thread even existed. I'm not saying "the idea is bad bcuz it's bad!!" I'm actually giving reasons why.

The purpose of a critic is to provide information to the suggester that is helpful and constructive that can be used to improve the suggestion. They don't have to be positive criticisms, but they have to be helpful. Saying that a suggestion can never be in the game.is not a helpful criticism, it's an unfounded opinion that has little relevance to the actual suggestion material. It also shows your bias, which is something that you are supposed to avoid. Because you are biased, your criticisms aren't going to be made with the purpose of improving the suggestion. Because of that, you might as well not post. If you truly believe the idea has no hope of ever making it into the game, then any criticisms you post are pointless, as the idea can never be improved to the point of implementation. You might as well just say "No Support" and move on, but because that isn't helpful and will only promote the thread by keeping it alive, then your best bet is simply to avoid posting, allowing the thread to die.

And yes, I read the suggestion guide and the critics guide on a regular basis. I don't fully agree with Theriasis and Yoshi9048, but I still acknowledge that they bring up several good points, and every post I make on the suggestions forum is made with both threads in mind.

Quote from Cerroz»

They are too powerful. I'm just repeating myself at this point. Dragons flying you around and shooting magic is too much for a tamed mob. You have a wolf that's medium powered that can follow you everywhere, an iron golem that shreds enemies but doesn't follow you, and a snow golem which is super weak but causes distractions. Now you got dragons that have waaayy more pros than cons, breaking the balance.

Well, I do have to apologize here, as I keep forgetting that you haven't seen the in-development version of the suggestion that John has started asking me with help with. We're trying to move it away from just flying and attacking; changing it into something that requires a lot of skill to use effectively. These cons that we're adding are to help balance these pros without being annoying.

Why even have an elytra when you have a sky-taxi dragon?

Because your dragon will get tired, it will be difficult to move it between dimensions, and dragons can't go underground very well.

"Narrow-minded"? lolno. Quite the opposite. If I was narrow-minded I'd support this idea without thinking. Trying to keep an idea afloat where the very core of the idea can't be repaired is just naive. Herobrine isn't touching the game because Mojang openly said this, and it's an old outdated meme that the kiddies don't know how to let go. Adding Herobrine at this point would just be a dorky move that would probably upset people. Thirst isn't gonna happen because... again... micromanagement.

That's not being narrow-minded, that's being dumb and lazy. Narrow-minded means, according to Dictionary.com, "not receptive to new ideas; having a closed mind." You're closed to the possibility of "generally disliked suggestions" being in the game, because your personal bias is against them. What if Herobrine was in the game, but just as an Easter Egg in the End Poem? What if thirst was in the game, but it was a complement to hunger, not an addition to it, and thus required no more micromanagement than hunger already does? Just because no one has ever made a successful suggestion about either topic, and probably never will, doesn't mean it can't.

If I see either of those things enter the game. I will fly to you house and admit defeat, then I will fly to Sweden and punish Mojang by slowly torturing them for adding that stuff.

So, rather than seeing for yourself whether they are good additions or not, you will just throw in the towel?

This is another form of the classic "well suggest what makes the idea better then!" when there's nothing that can be done to make it better. I don't want to join a server where someone effortlessly flies toward me on a dragon and then said dragon hits me with some elemental attack. You mention how the game already has upgrades, but that's not gonna make me "ooooh in that case I support, good point!" Using existing things in the game as an excuse is cheap. For example, "Creepers don't make any sense and are unrealistic, therefore my idea of Superman Skeletons would work fine!"

That would just mean that countering Superman Skeletons based on realism or feasibility would not be a strong criticism. You would have to come up with other criticisms in order to effectively and successfully counter it. Cheap or not, using what's already in the game can help strengthen your suggestion.

Also, you can go on a server now, and get utterly crushed as someone effortlessly runs towards you with enchanted diamond equipment and then uses said equipment to kill you instantly. I don't see anyone complain about that. Besides, public servers are hardly a good balancing point, due to plugins, skill differences between players, and differences in playing time between players.

Maybe another dragon mob might work, just not one that can be tamed with all this decked out stuff.

Perhaps, but it seems like that would be shot down because "it's redundant."

If I allow this the thread to die, that does nothing. There's always gonna be someone else who keeps replying anyway. Again, I'm giving reasons, and not just saying "no support". I'm not unsupporting because the other rejected threads programmed me into thinking this way, it's because this idea is not very different from those other ones. It includes flying in survival, another well hated idea for good reason.

If you post criticism on a thread that will never make it into the game, then that does nothing either. You've just wasted however long on making a post that is pointless in the grand scheme of things. If you give reasons, then they need to be made with the purpose of improving the suggestion, but why bother improving a suggestion that will never be in the game.

Yes, diamond tools, horses, whatever, etc. are upgrades, but they don't have the same setup as these beefy dragons. Minecraft turning into How to Train Your Blocky Dragon isn't appealing.

They still prove that upgrades exist, so that breaks one link in your chain of arguments.

Anyway, Minecraft changes in each version. "Minecraft turning into Horseback Jousting Tournament isn't appealing to me," "Minecraft turning into Realistic Terrain Simulator isn't appealing to me," "Minecraft turning into a dungeon crawler [because it has ocean monuments and end cities] isn't appealing to me." One change or addition doesn't define the game; that's like an inverted "Minecraft is this!" argument. You believe the game is something and adding a particular suggestion will somehow make it completely different.

Quote from Cerroz»

Funny you should mention that. He also PM'd me about the same thing, though I did tell him it was very difficult for me to help out a suggestion I didn't agree with.

Still, you do advertise suggestion assistance in you signature.

I don't see how that refutes my point on elytras.

I'm saying Elytra can still be useful, just in different situations. However, perhaps Elytra should get some kind of bonus.

I've been in game development for almost a decade now. A lot of the mistakes some kiddies are making on this forum are ones I've made 9 years ago. The only difference is those bad ideas are mostly on the TF2 forum dated back to 2007. You pick up which kind of ideas work or which ones don't. Saying "just because there hasn't been a good thread of this idea doesn't mean there never will be" is a bit loaded. So there's yet to be a good thread about NFL Announcers and Bruce Willis ocelots in this game..?

"To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NFL, we are now releasing a skin pack so that you too can resemble famous NFL announcers and players. Oh, and we've been watching a lot of Bruce Willis movies, so now you can get the free BW texture pack to add Bruce Willis ocelots!"

Probably never going to happen, but I'm not going to say it could never happen.

Also, you're in game development? Mind pointing me to a game you've helped make?

Herobrine being mentioned in the end poem isn't the same as having him as a creepypasta mob, but I'd still find that a little stupid. The thirst you suggested is better, sure, but still comes off as a redundant, pointless feature. Especially in a game where can multiply our food for all eternity. Please stop thinking I'm being biased. I don't let the suggestion guide's "bad suggestion" list change my way of thinking, but there is a reason why that list is there, and why those ideas almost never ever work.

Still, they are concepts that you didn't think of that are better than the normal way of suggesting them. If they can be improved that much, who's to say they can't be improved further?

The whole point of posting a suggestion on this forum and not directly on Reddit is to give it feedback so it can be improved. This dragon suggestion can get improved, and made good to the point of possible implementation.

I'm not hating on the idea because it's "hated before", but because I find it unbalanced.

I'll leave this point at that, because the idea is still in private development.

Depends how dumb the idea is. I can't say these dragons would be enough to make me quit the game, but if Mojang added nuke creepers or Burger King villagers, then yeah, I'd probably throw in many towels.

Okay.

And it can also make things worse for people if they have no idea what they're talking about. Blame-gaming is a common excuse and though some people can make sense when they use it, I mostly see newbies try to use that and then hide behind that because they don't know how to defend themselves. Or they're throwing a tantrum because they saw "no support!" too many times and couldn't handle it.

How am I blame-gaming? I'm giving a counter to a point of your argument. You say newbies try to use them, which is true, but you can't automatically assume who's a newbie or not. Besides, it's fairly obvious who's really a dedicated critic/suggester. Someone who remains calm and rational regardless of criticisms can be considered not a newbie and can defend themselves by creating a thought-out argument, even if said argument is "cheap."

I see people complain about that all the time. I've even seen suggestions where people go "make diamond armor slow you downn!!" Regardless, if I encounter a diamond-equipped player, I don't want him to also have a dragon. Then again, if I own a server I'll probably just disable that garbage.

Let me rephrase that: I don't see mature, experienced players complain about that. They acknowledge that there are jerks out there and that servers are difficult to balance, so they grit their teeth and bear it.

Also, think about it. Dragons are big. You'd see them coming from a mile away. You come on a server and you see someone heading toward you with a dragon? Run for cover.

These dragon suggestions usually have the same mechanics. So I don't blame people for calling this redundant.

Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. It's on a per-suggestion basis.

So if a suggestion thread has absolutely no point whatsoever, it should sit there with 0 posts for all eternity?

Exactly. A dumb suggestion that really and truly has no hope of ever getting into the game, no matter how much it is improved, should just be ignored (these are usually joke suggestions, which are also against the rules). Giving it attention is counter-productive, as the suggester clearly has no idea how game development works and trying to critique him usually ends in him ignoring you.

Upgrades or not, you should still know when to draw the line. You don't want to add "super duper diamonds" when we have diamonds. We shouldn't have "rocket bowss!" when we can get super powerful enchantments on bows.

I actually don't see that big of a problem with "rocket bows" as an upgrade, but regardless, yes, there is an upper limit to how powerful something can get in the game. Still, I don't believe that tamable dragons are automatically beyond that upper limit; they can be balanced.

I think you put a little too much emphasis on me saying "How to Train Your Blocky Dragon". I don't expect the game to be solely about dragons if we had this...

Then why did you even say that? It's one mechanic in a myriad of other game-changing mechanics. It won't destroy or hugely change the game.

Quote from Cerroz»

If the dragons were worked into something else, I could maybe be on board, just not this super-useful utility one.

Like I said, this suggestion is still in development. As it stands, I agree with you, but hopefully the idea we're working on will make it more interesting and less overpowered.

I just don't like having the elytra and then a mob that that just flies us around. Cooldown or not.

I see your point here. Still, I highly doubt the Elytra would suddenly become useless or completely redundant.

That's a massive stretch, but I do give credit for turning that into something maybe... quasi-workable. That's uh... still a big stretch though.

That's what you can get if you're open-minded.

Emancipal and few puzzle games that used the same engine. The game was incomplete but we used a lot of leftover stuff in many Source mods. The webspace has been down since 2008 but if you wan't proof that bad, I do have the emails of the people I worked with.

Oh, no, I don't doubt you. I was just hoping to see an example of your work so I could get a better idea of your mindset.

It could be, but as long as it has beefy attacks and flying. I can't see it working too well.

I'm hoping to get the attacks less "beefy," but the flying is pretty fundamental to the suggestion. However, I don't think that flying is really that overpowered; it's like an endgame horse, so it's got the advantage of less obstacles. The new flying would also require skill to use effectively, as you'd want to maximize your stamina.

Sorry to take such a negative road, but I think the improvement of this idea falls on actually removing some things. Each utility mob has pros and cons, but this has more pros than cons.

Perhaps some things can be removed, but the main point you're arguing, flight, can't really be removed since that idea is central to this suggestion. Otherwise, John might as well be suggesting a tank.

You mentioned other upgrades in the game, which granted, they do exist, but still manage to be well balanced and don't have the same setup as these dragons. Just because you mentioned something that already exists doesn't mean you made the idea 100% supportable. And if someone comes in and suggests an upgrade karate creeper that can never be escaped but then goes "oh wait, it's cool, we have other upgrades in the game!" than chances are I might take you for a suggestion newbie.

The problem with the katate creeper is not that it is an upgrade, but that it is overpowered. Now, at the moment these dragons are both an upgrade and overpowered. There's nothing wrong with the first point, and we are trying to fix the latter.

If it's any consolation, I don't take you for a suggestion newb. As you've made the effort to explain your points.

Thank you.

To be honest this is a strange point to argue, as there's too many variables and too many different possible situations. I see flying around on a dragon and and getting diamond gear both powerful, but rest on different arms of balance.

I personally don't see much of a difference. Dragons would basically be "the diamond armor of transportation," albeit it would have some cons making other modes of transportation more practical for other situations.

This is a little too theoretical to make me go "oh I see the point!" What if there's no cover?

If you spawn and there's really not a single tree in sight, then the best course of action is probably to dig a hole and hide. This is, of course, assuming that the server has no kind of spawn protection, which could also be extended to preventing newbies on the server to being instantly slaughtered.

If I make a suggestion that's so terrible, or perhaps it's good but not "Minecraft-good". I think I'd still want someone to tell me why it would never fit in the game and why so I can apply that to my next idea. 0 replies doesn't do anything.

Every suggester has two tools: the suggestion guide, which is literally titled "Please read THIS before making a suggestion," and the search feature. If the suggester is too lazy to use them, then chances are they won't be that receptive to criticism.

If you make a poor suggestion, then yes, I'm going to leave criticism, as you've clearly read the guide before. You know the basics, so now I know you'll respond to the specifics.

It was just an exaggerated phrase to express how much I don't like this overly useless dragon.

First you say it's overpowered, and now you say it's useless? Which one is it?

Quote from Cerroz»

>snip<

As much as I like to argue, this is becoming a bit off topic. We can agree that the suggestion as it is is overpowered, but because the suggestion is in development and you don't know what we're considering behind the scenes, critiques aren't really relevant at this point. Let's pick this back up after John has edited his OP.