Phantoms exist to encourage the player to sleep. Also, their membrane repairing the elytra does make sense, because what else are you gonna repair it with? They're one of the few mobs in the game with wing that fly around. Encouraged to sleep when there was no reason to encourage in the first place. Several other items that already exist could have filled that void where phantom membranes take.
They also drop feathers, which are required to craft arrows with. Skeletons are my prime source of arrows. Put Looting III on and go to town. You get ample amounts of arrows AND you don’t have to craft them.
What are you talking about, "applied elsewhere"? The Rabbits Foot is literally one of the main ingredients of a Leaping potion. I meant another item could easily take its place. Use a slime ball. Get it? Bouncey. But. Slime balls and in turn slimes are useless too.
Mooshrooms have to exist. They gotta. No argument against it. They have to. For...what reason? They’re very neat, for sure, and I want them in just as you, but they don’t have to exist one bit. Herd some cows and set up a mushroom farm and you’re set.
Wolves assist in attacking mobs. (Hit a mob with a sword while your wolf is with you and it'll attack/distract the mob, while you can also hit it. They don't do much damage, yes, but it's something.) Again, not gonna risk my dog to do what my diamond sword takes care of easily.
That right there also renders the original suggestion useless by "my logic".
Don't put words in my mouth, buddy. I want to note I did not mean you in particular. I apologize i should have worded that better. But on the other hand, you refuted 5 out of about 23 arguments I made about “useless” mobs. With not very strong arguments at that.
No, the argument of "it's useless" is pretty useful in this case. What are you gonna do with cheese? Mojang themselves have even said that they're not gonna implement food that's been done by mods. Then they’ll run out of food items fairly fast. As i noted with the cheese, it was simply a suggestion as a way to make mice more useful to the beginning of the game when you found a village.
You certainly don’t have to like the ideas I suggested for utilizing their materials. But to say they’re useless without utilization and THEN say the ways suggested to make them utilizable are bad without offering an alternative is just roundabout.
I want to thank everyone here who supports this. As for most of the first few posts, I have to question if this level of aggression is allowed on this forum.
Off to an excellent start, already attacking opposition.
For mobs such as mice the reason I even made up the cheese thing was because I saw people passed off “useless” mobs. Of course, Mojang wants fun, creative ideas, and mice and cheese are a cartoon logic classic. It’s funny that people say these mobs have no significance, as no mob added to the game ever has significance without it being programmed to have use.
This isn't a valid point at all. You literally said "mobs that don't have uses are useless," which isn't even right. Mobs can be exploited through their intentional effects for unintentional benefits. Take for instance the Shulker. Levitation is meant to be a deterrence, but carry one of those guys back to the Overworld? You have an elevator. Furthermore, Withers breaking blocks? Automatic cobblestone farm.
* Tropical fish drop nothing useful when they die, they’re only really good for decoration when caught.
Tropical fish drop themselves when killed, and in Java they can drop bonemeal.
* Bats, of course, have no use.
I know in an earlier post I said bats are useless, but I just realized how often I rely on them squeaking to locate caves. I don't need to mention why finding caves is good, do I?
* Nitwits have no use, yet I believe they were campaigned to be it in simply because dataminers found them?
Nitwits can be used as villager fodder. Iron golem farms, zombie bait, villager breeders, et cetera.
* How often does anyone ever see an Endermite? When one ACTUALLY appears, it’s ever really a threat?
Endermites also despawn. They do have a use, though. Endermen are hostile to Endermites, and that can be exploited for an efficient XP and Ender Pearl farm.
* Surely, there would be others to produce black ink besides keeping squids in?
I don't understand what this point is, but before 1.14 you had to destroy squids to get enough ink sacs for basically anything.
* Ocelots ONLY use has now been taken away by stray cats. Still in.
Ocelots can scare creepers and phantoms, too.
* What’s the use of a polar bear? Tough as hell to kill, stalks you to the ends of the earth for getting near their young, and drop fish that you can CATCH with a cheap fishing pole.
Polar bears were added to fit the Frostburn update and because Jeb said he would add polar bears if he had a child, which he ended up having and naming Björn.
* A silverfish simply exists too be annoying, and are RARE.
Have you ever seen a real-life silverfish? They're tiny and can basically do nothing. They'll eat your paper, though. Plus they are made to be annoying, based on the spawner in front of the lava-adjacent end portal in a room full of stone bricks.
* Looking at the wandering trader, their trades are about as useful as the fletcher or butcher.
Sand and red sand were previously nonrenewable. Plus there's also packed/blue ice, cacti, saplings, Nautilus Shells and slimeballs. Slimeballs are VERY useful.
* Pandas have no use, but are a cool addition none the less.
Pandas were added as a community vote, and can be used as pets to kill some time by breeding them.
* Once you finally get enough scutes to make a turtle shell (which adds another apparently infamous armor type), turtles are useless.
Resistance 4 potions? How about that?
Drops rotten flesh, which has so very little use people rarely ever keep a stock in their chests, only ever useful for selling generous amounts to a cleric for a single emerald.
It's an easy-to-get early-game food source. I don't know how many Hardcore worlds of mine zombies saved.
Rarely, an iron ingot. One alone is hardly what you call useful.
One iron ingot in the early game is great when the player is low on iron and doesn't have an efficient mineshaft. That one ingot is over 75 stone blocks to be mined.
A carrot/potato once in a blue moon. Unless you somehow haven’t found a village with plenty to spare, useless, if not neat to finally see one drop.
That last sentence is very out of place. Acknowledge how it can be useful, but then essentially say "but that doesn't matter."
Husks drop the same exact things, and are mere annoyances that really, could have been omitted altogether by increasing the amount of zombies wearing helmets.
Helmet zombies don't give Hunger when they attack. Husks also look like mummies and thus fit the THEME of 1.10.
Drowned as well, their spawn rates are insane and once you get a couple tridents for Riptide and Loyalty, they’re one of the biggest thorns in your side if you live near water. Changing their iron ingot to gold doesn’t make the ingot anymore valuable.
I started playing again in 1.13, so I don't have enough experience with Drowned to make my argument valid.
Donkeys are slow and hardly carry any extra inventory
Your first issue is that donkeys can't carry anything at all. I notice you didn't put horses here, either. Chances are, both horses and mules aren't going to be used on any expeditions. I'd rather take a mule since those extra few spaces could be spent on unstackable items.
Llama caravans are useful on such a rare basis because of the layout of Minecraft’s overworld it’s not funny.
Caravans are mainly sued for transporting between player locations in multiplayer. Plus, there's the whole roleplay aspect behind using them you conveniently didn't mention.
Mules fair only slightly better.
Mules have charged jumps and can auto-climb and sprint. They're much better than llamas.
You all go on about “useless mobs”. Most, if not all of them are, if it weren’t for a single item that they dropped, and that can be remedied by making it available elsewhere. Your arguments are made moot by what is there already and what people would campaign to get back.
This is where I stopped caring about your opinion. Of course something's going to be made useless if you replace where its source is. Do you think everybody would farm ghasts for ender crystals if you got a free crystal in each blacksmith chest? No. Does that make ghasts any less useful? No. Does that make the Ender Dragon any less useful? No. Since the Ender Dragon spawns new directions of Outer End Portals, does changing the source of ender crystals make the Elytra less useful? No.
* Phantoms don’t “need” to be there and phantom membranes fixing elytra makes zero sense.
I completely agree with the first point. I hate phantoms. As for the second point...
Blazes drop rods that magically started to be required to brew potions. Does that make sense? Furthermore, an Elytra is based on the elytron, a thin protective layer over a beetle's wings. Membranes fixing these layers makes more sense than leather.
* Pigs offer pork chops which offer the same food and saturation as beef, the only thing that sets a pig apart from a cow is your ability to ride it. For no reason.
Porkchops existed before beef in Minecraft.
* Chickens offer even LESS, with cooked chicken offering less food and saturation then beef or pork chops and their eggs making food items no one uses.
Chickens are smaller. What sets them apart is their egg-laying and baby hitbox. Their eggs can be used as a self-sustaining food source that requires no player intervention other than construction and collection. I rely on chicken farms in almost every one of my worlds because chickens are self-sustaining Newton Balls, only requiring an initial force before entering perpetual motion.
* Rabbits even LESS so, as you must use a ton of their skin to make a single leather and meat that offers less hunger/sat., and a rabbit’s foot whose use could have been applied elsewhere.
I can't think of anything other than them being added in the Bountiful Update, so their addition allows for more reward to not staying holed up. They made the world that much more interesting.
* You rarely, rarely ever see a Mooshroom without explicitly making an expedition for one, and even then leading it tens of thousands of blocks back to your base is unreasonable.
Mooshrooms only spawn in mushroom biomes, and they're meant to be a rare find. A kind of prize for those who search for them. After all, their only difference is infinite mushroom stew, which is non-stackable. You have to consider the appeal of finding such a rare mob.
* Skeleton horses. Running under water isn’t as useful as it sounds.
It's the appeal of finding them. They're living (undead?) trophies.
* Pufferfish. As a mob, it’s useless. As an item, it rarely offers a useful potion.
With everything now underwater and the removal of intant breath refills, Water Breathing is much more useful. Even with Respiration 3 enchantments.
* Dolphins. Why have them lead me to underwater ruins when simply having the world load or watching where I swim I see most of them anyway?
Underwater visibility isn't always perfect. Just because it applies to you, doesn't mean it applies to everyone else.
* Wolves. I tame them, bring them back to my base and they sit there. Why risk the dog I had to work to get?
Players have the option of hoarding them and unleashing a swarm of angry dogs on whatever they please. You don't have to risk your wolf, but using your opinion as a "valid point" doesn't work.
Your issue is thinking the code directly dictates their usefulness. Minecraft goes beyond the code. Mojang gave the framework of redstone, but everything it practically can do was invented. Players form their own experiences. Your opinion does not dictate how useful everything is. Mobs can have appeal as trophies, the game can be roleyplayed, and so on. If it weren't for players forming their own memorable experiences with encouragement to experiment, I can guarantee Minecraft wouldn't be the best-selling game of all time. (I'm not counting Tetris because those count every version instead of an individual.)
I can't get the framing to work, and since this post is already so long I will critique the suggested mobs themselves in another post.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Watch out for the crabocalypse. Some say the day will never come. But it will.
Feel free to drop by for a chat whenever.
If you'd like to talk with me about other games, here are a few I play.
Team Fortress 2
Borderlands series (Borderlands 2 is my favorite game, ever. TPS combat is a lot of fun and makes up for the lower-quality story, in my opinion)
Elder Scrolls series
Warframe (IGN is something like That_One_Flesh_Atronach)
Pokémon series (HGSS forever)
Rocket League
Fallout series
Left 4 Dead 2 (Boomer files always corrupt though)
SUPERHOT (SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!)
Dead Rising series (Dead Rising 2 is one of my favorite games, and the 3rd was a lot of fun. 1st has poor survivor AI and the 4th is bad)
Just Cause series
Come to think of it, I mainly play fighting-based games.
Agreed. Since this is a suggestion, what do you suggest for uses of alligators and mice?
Mice I would see to be equivalent to bats. You only get xp and sad feelings for killing one.
As for gators, I I could see them potentially dropping a unique foodstuff, but there's so much food in the game already.
I'm not against the idea of gator hide armor, I just don't like that it basically is a rarer (and objectively worse) version of a boat, and thus wouldn't see much use.
Alligators are stealthy predators, they ambush their prey. So maybe gator armor could make you undetectable by underwater mobs up to a certain point? Or, if you’re on the water’s surface mobs on the ground won’t see you? I know that’d help me at some points where I have a nice group waiting for me on the shore.
I would love to see more life in the sky, especially since the existence of the Elytra. Players can fly now and that's a BIG change. The existence of mobs in the overworld gives more activity to the game because the player used to expend a lot of time in there. Now, with the aquatic update, we have lots of aquatic mobs so the player won't feel so bored while swimming. Flying mobs it's the next logical step for Minecraft. You can fly? Cool. You can reach anywhere at the speed of light. But what if we add some things to make the the flying experience something more than "gotta go fast"? I have some ideas for this:
Hawks: with nests in large biomes that will become hostile to any entity that comes close to their nest. Also, they will fly around hunting animale such a Sheeps or Chickens.
Budgerigar: little passive mobs that while stay on trees eating fruits and making sounds. It would be great ambience sound and visuals in forests.
Owl: they will be around in forests but only at night. I think that there can be a visual effect (buff) related with them.
(Interesting) Bat: they are there but... that's it. Minecraft could have bats cloud in caves and the could also and some drops to this little guys that are nothing but wanderers.
Butterfly: More colorful creatures that would fly around. They could be captured by the user in jars.
Firefly: More insects, yes! They could also be captured by the player in crystal jars and them be used as an reduced light source.
I like them! I think owls should be hostile to bunnies and other small mobs as well. As for butterflies and fireflies, you may be able to condense adding a jar to the game by capturing them with regular bottles, replace bottles with jars and have potions and water in jars instead. Also if a budgerigar were to be added I think apples would have to become visual on tress. Like, leaf blocks with apples would have them appearing on the block too
Everything else I support. Atmospheric mobs are a lot of fun. They are not useless.
Then why are you here? Are you angry at Mojang for FORCING us to play Update Aquatic?
No one likes my mice lol. And I put so much thought into it than the others. XD it’s cool, I know peole would be so annoyed seeing holes in their houses. But I’d still like to see them. If nothing else, instead of holes in wood, maybe have them make burrows.
As for making the mobs hostile, yeah, most of them could easily be hostile with reason. The deer maybe not so much. I’ve only ever had one stag ever get testy with me and I lived in the woods as a kid, and it was because its kid and mate were nearby.
Deer: I think this is an actually nice suggestion! However, I don't really think stags should be hostile; Jeb made a rule that only monsters could attack on sight, and, while I think it kinda screws over a few animals, it fits deer perfectly fine. Also, I don't think you can make a deer suggestion without having them drop venison.
Crabs: As is the case with the deer, I like this suggestion! Perhaps they could spawn on beaches and flee into the water if you get nearby?
However, I'm a little iffy on the claw hook thing. Isn't grabbing items from afar basically part of what a Fishing Rod can do? That is, unless you want it to be smoother than the fishing rod-item grab mechanic; I'm pretty fine with that.
Mice: No. No. Just no. Having some tiny rodents grief my house is more annoying than challenging. In addition to this, the "cheese" drop is so overplayed, it's not even funny (mice don't even like cheese IRL, for crying out loud). Just having them be passive ambient mobs that scamper around at night would be way superior to this, IMO.
Scorpions: TBH, I think they fit better as nighttime monsters (like the spiders are), but eh, I guess either way can work.
Butterflies: Is there really anything to criticize here? They're butterflies. They work perfectly fine.
Alligators: As with the stag, alligators should not be hostile. As Jeb's rule applies here, the main reason why I keep on asking for alligators to be added over crocodiles in Minecraft is their temperament; while the larger crocodiles are pretty aggressive, alligators are surprisingly calm, only attacking if you provoke them. I do like the armor suggestion, though; even if it needs to not be a wearable Dolphin's Grace buff, I feel it can work... somewhat...
Anyways, IMO, ambient mobs only work if they're small. I love the bats because they fit the purpose they were designed for, and the fish (even though they drop an item and are not really counted as ambient) are also pretty cool, but the reason I dislike the polar bears is because they're big and can actually have many uses or provide some sort of challenge, but all they do is lumber around like reskinned cows. I'd also be fine with parrots being mostly decorative (I do feel their voice-mimicking ability could actually be somewhat more useful, though), but dear lord, their AI is just so bad and they seriously feel like soulless child bait (much like anything Illumination Entertainment pushes out)...
Overall, I like this suggestion! Not only did you suggest mobs that do fit the game (none of them are overly exotic), but all of them could actually look nice in the game due to having wonderful AI (I'm glad you didn't suggest any flying birds because Mojang would probably reuse the terrible parrot AI for them). They do need some improvements, but they're a step in the right direction.
People keep saying the crab claw would be like the fishing rod, but I don’t think fishing rods can actually hook items? What I mean by that is, say you die in a ravine, or you accidentally toss an item across a gap, and can’t necessarily grab it easily. Maybe you forgot your building blocks to make a bridge or something. You can use the crab claw you grab an item from like say, a 4 block distance to get it back.
Orrrr, you can kill enough crabs to collect their shells and make a special kind of shield? I don’t know anything about them, I play Bedrock, but it seems like you can only make one kind of shield. Some variety might be cool.
People keep saying the crab claw would be like the fishing rod, but I don’t think fishing rods can actually hook items? What I mean by that is, say you die in a ravine, or you accidentally toss an item across a gap, and can’t necessarily grab it easily. Maybe you forgot your building blocks to make a bridge or something. You can use the crab claw you grab an item from like say, a 4 block distance to get it back.
Orrrr, you can kill enough crabs to collect their shells and make a special kind of shield? I don’t know anything about them, I play Bedrock, but it seems like you can only make one kind of shield. Some variety might be cool.
Fishing rods can hook items, though. It's just as efficient as hooking a mob (in other words, it depends at which angle you're at), but still.
A new shield would be seriously cool, but I'm not sure about how much sense it'd make; even in a game where pig riding is a thing, I think there's a line between what sounds convincing and what doesn't. Either way, if it turns out to be acceptable by everyone's standards here, it'd be nice.
What's with this insistence that every mob must have a purpose? They'd add a little bit of visual variety to the game; they'd make the world feel a little less barren. I don't understand why this is something to be avoided.
Even if they have similar drops to something else, I feel like having the option to choose whether I want to slaughter a cow in the field for meat versus hunt a runaway deer for meat in the forest would be a good thing. Why is more options bad?
What's with this insistence that every mob must have a purpose? They'd add a little bit of visual variety to the game; they'd make the world feel a little less barren. I don't understand why this is something to be avoided.
Even if they have similar drops to something else, I feel like having the option to choose whether I want to slaughter a cow in the field for meat versus hunt a runaway deer for meat in the forest would be a good thing. Why is more options bad?
Firstly, you contradict yorself: even if only to "add a little bit of visual variety to the game" there is a purpose.
A better expression of the argument to which you object would be:
The net effect of any addition must be sufficiently positive to warrent the costs (both initial and ongoing) of that addition.
or that:
the benefit derived from having a 'thing' in the game must exceed the cost of both coding to add it and the computational overhead to 'run' it.
Your choosen example ("slaughter a cow in the field" versus "hunt a runaway deer … in the forest") is also more than "a little bit of visual variety"; the description encompasses a major change in the AI, not simply a reskin of the model.
(The OP deer proposal goes farther, introducing an entire new set of tool tiers…)
There can certainly be times when great variety can be added cheaply enough to be desirable: the way the 1.13. tropical fish types are combinationally produced (by 'spinning' a fairly small set of characteristics) is a good example of how cosmetic variety can be added at (comparatively) low cost.
As a counterexample, Wikipedia lists 68 species of extant birch: adding all 68 (or even a dozen) is unlikely to be seen as desirable. [In contrast to reskinning the trees with different, biome-dependant, colors.]
"Feeping creaturitus" [a hackerish neologism somewhat more stodgily defined as 'feature creep'] is an all too common result of continuing to add features to an already successful program.
This quote (from the above page)
The most common cause of feature creep is the desire to provide the consumer with a more useful or desirable product, in order to increase sales or distribution. However, once the product reaches the point at which it does everything that it is designed to do, the manufacturer is left with the choice of adding unneeded functions, sometimes at the cost of efficiency, or sticking with the old version, at the cost of a perceived lack of improvement.
gives a more staid expression of an argument I usually present as a dislike for "bells & whistles & chimes & gongs".
It also gives an unpleasant appearance of being the direction in which MC seems to be headed… while there are still good and inovative ideas being added [the composter being a lag reducing, SJW-placating, realism enhancing, single-source avoiding example], but the (more or less) announced corporate stategy of making a biome-by-biome tour – adding a few gew-gaws to each – can be seen as exemplifying the approach that leads into this quagmire.
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"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
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Here's what I think of the suggested additions along with some of my own
Deers. I think they should drop antlers to the ground every XXth day or just as they do in real life. In this way antlers as a way of obtaining bone for dogs and bonemeal in peaceful apart from finding bones in chests is ok with me.
Crabs. Since ocean biomes are already pretty lively from the recent oceanic update, I wouldn't make them a priority.
Mice. Not fond of game mechanics destroying builds (sorry creepers and endermen, I still love you)! Scorpions. Would greatly to add to deserts atmosphere. I don't think they should not be aggressive unless stepped on, giving a strong poison effect as suggested.
Butterflies would be a simple way to make flower biomes more alive and atmospheric. Of course with the main base in my survival world in a flower biome I love this idea! But similarly, jungles and swamps could have dragonflies.
Alligators. I think a new tree growing in the water in addition to or even replacing oak would improve swamps more. Mangrove would be a good choice, it is found worldwide. Having it yield a white/grey plank would also nicely add options in the building palette. As for animals, I'd prefer swimming lizards or snakes similar to fish.
So, let me repurpose mice, since it has overwhelming negative feedback:
Mice make burrows in a single dirt or grass block, and are usually found within 15 blocks of said hole and found all over the world, though they do like villages. Mice will eat crops within this range, but they can be relocated by destroying the block (this, btw, will only add *two* new blocks to the game if any). When killed, a mouse will drop minimal XP and an assortment of fruits, veggies, and grains. This would be helpful if a mouse if found early game. Destroying the hole would have a 15% chance of producing a single fruit or veggie as well.
You certainly don’t have to like the ideas I suggested for utilizing their materials. But to say they’re useless without utilization and THEN say the ways suggested to make them utilizable are bad without offering an alternative is just roundabout.
Buckle up, because this is going to be long.
Off to an excellent start, already attacking opposition.
This isn't a valid point at all. You literally said "mobs that don't have uses are useless," which isn't even right. Mobs can be exploited through their intentional effects for unintentional benefits. Take for instance the Shulker. Levitation is meant to be a deterrence, but carry one of those guys back to the Overworld? You have an elevator. Furthermore, Withers breaking blocks? Automatic cobblestone farm.
Tropical fish drop themselves when killed, and in Java they can drop bonemeal.
I know in an earlier post I said bats are useless, but I just realized how often I rely on them squeaking to locate caves. I don't need to mention why finding caves is good, do I?
Nitwits can be used as villager fodder. Iron golem farms, zombie bait, villager breeders, et cetera.
Endermites also despawn. They do have a use, though. Endermen are hostile to Endermites, and that can be exploited for an efficient XP and Ender Pearl farm.
I don't understand what this point is, but before 1.14 you had to destroy squids to get enough ink sacs for basically anything.
Ocelots can scare creepers and phantoms, too.
Polar bears were added to fit the Frostburn update and because Jeb said he would add polar bears if he had a child, which he ended up having and naming Björn.
Have you ever seen a real-life silverfish? They're tiny and can basically do nothing. They'll eat your paper, though. Plus they are made to be annoying, based on the spawner in front of the lava-adjacent end portal in a room full of stone bricks.
Sand and red sand were previously nonrenewable. Plus there's also packed/blue ice, cacti, saplings, Nautilus Shells and slimeballs. Slimeballs are VERY useful.
Pandas were added as a community vote, and can be used as pets to kill some time by breeding them.
Resistance 4 potions? How about that?
It's an easy-to-get early-game food source. I don't know how many Hardcore worlds of mine zombies saved.
One iron ingot in the early game is great when the player is low on iron and doesn't have an efficient mineshaft. That one ingot is over 75 stone blocks to be mined.
That last sentence is very out of place. Acknowledge how it can be useful, but then essentially say "but that doesn't matter."
Helmet zombies don't give Hunger when they attack. Husks also look like mummies and thus fit the THEME of 1.10.
I started playing again in 1.13, so I don't have enough experience with Drowned to make my argument valid.
Your first issue is that donkeys can't carry anything at all. I notice you didn't put horses here, either. Chances are, both horses and mules aren't going to be used on any expeditions. I'd rather take a mule since those extra few spaces could be spent on unstackable items.
Caravans are mainly sued for transporting between player locations in multiplayer. Plus, there's the whole roleplay aspect behind using them you conveniently didn't mention.
Mules have charged jumps and can auto-climb and sprint. They're much better than llamas.
This is where I stopped caring about your opinion. Of course something's going to be made useless if you replace where its source is. Do you think everybody would farm ghasts for ender crystals if you got a free crystal in each blacksmith chest? No. Does that make ghasts any less useful? No. Does that make the Ender Dragon any less useful? No. Since the Ender Dragon spawns new directions of Outer End Portals, does changing the source of ender crystals make the Elytra less useful? No.
I completely agree with the first point. I hate phantoms. As for the second point...
Blazes drop rods that magically started to be required to brew potions. Does that make sense? Furthermore, an Elytra is based on the elytron, a thin protective layer over a beetle's wings. Membranes fixing these layers makes more sense than leather.
Porkchops existed before beef in Minecraft.
Chickens are smaller. What sets them apart is their egg-laying and baby hitbox. Their eggs can be used as a self-sustaining food source that requires no player intervention other than construction and collection. I rely on chicken farms in almost every one of my worlds because chickens are self-sustaining Newton Balls, only requiring an initial force before entering perpetual motion.
I can't think of anything other than them being added in the Bountiful Update, so their addition allows for more reward to not staying holed up. They made the world that much more interesting.
Mooshrooms only spawn in mushroom biomes, and they're meant to be a rare find. A kind of prize for those who search for them. After all, their only difference is infinite mushroom stew, which is non-stackable. You have to consider the appeal of finding such a rare mob.
It's the appeal of finding them. They're living (undead?) trophies.
With everything now underwater and the removal of intant breath refills, Water Breathing is much more useful. Even with Respiration 3 enchantments.
Underwater visibility isn't always perfect. Just because it applies to you, doesn't mean it applies to everyone else.
Players have the option of hoarding them and unleashing a swarm of angry dogs on whatever they please. You don't have to risk your wolf, but using your opinion as a "valid point" doesn't work.
Your issue is thinking the code directly dictates their usefulness. Minecraft goes beyond the code. Mojang gave the framework of redstone, but everything it practically can do was invented. Players form their own experiences. Your opinion does not dictate how useful everything is. Mobs can have appeal as trophies, the game can be roleyplayed, and so on. If it weren't for players forming their own memorable experiences with encouragement to experiment, I can guarantee Minecraft wouldn't be the best-selling game of all time. (I'm not counting Tetris because those count every version instead of an individual.)
I can't get the framing to work, and since this post is already so long I will critique the suggested mobs themselves in another post.
Watch out for the crabocalypse. Some say the day will never come. But it will.
Feel free to drop by for a chat whenever.
If you'd like to talk with me about other games, here are a few I play.
Team Fortress 2
Borderlands series (Borderlands 2 is my favorite game, ever. TPS combat is a lot of fun and makes up for the lower-quality story, in my opinion)
Elder Scrolls series
Warframe (IGN is something like That_One_Flesh_Atronach)
Pokémon series (HGSS forever)
Rocket League
Fallout series
Left 4 Dead 2 (Boomer files always corrupt though)
SUPERHOT (SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!)
Dead Rising series (Dead Rising 2 is one of my favorite games, and the 3rd was a lot of fun. 1st has poor survivor AI and the 4th is bad)
Just Cause series
Come to think of it, I mainly play fighting-based games.
This thread derailed quickly.
Agreed. Since this is a suggestion, what do you suggest for uses of alligators and mice?
Mice I would see to be equivalent to bats. You only get xp and sad feelings for killing one.
As for gators, I I could see them potentially dropping a unique foodstuff, but there's so much food in the game already.
I'm not against the idea of gator hide armor, I just don't like that it basically is a rarer (and objectively worse) version of a boat, and thus wouldn't see much use.
Alligators are stealthy predators, they ambush their prey. So maybe gator armor could make you undetectable by underwater mobs up to a certain point? Or, if you’re on the water’s surface mobs on the ground won’t see you? I know that’d help me at some points where I have a nice group waiting for me on the shore.
I would love to see more life in the sky, especially since the existence of the Elytra. Players can fly now and that's a BIG change. The existence of mobs in the overworld gives more activity to the game because the player used to expend a lot of time in there. Now, with the aquatic update, we have lots of aquatic mobs so the player won't feel so bored while swimming. Flying mobs it's the next logical step for Minecraft. You can fly? Cool. You can reach anywhere at the speed of light. But what if we add some things to make the the flying experience something more than "gotta go fast"? I have some ideas for this:
Hawks: with nests in large biomes that will become hostile to any entity that comes close to their nest. Also, they will fly around hunting animale such a Sheeps or Chickens.
Budgerigar: little passive mobs that while stay on trees eating fruits and making sounds. It would be great ambience sound and visuals in forests.
Owl: they will be around in forests but only at night. I think that there can be a visual effect (buff) related with them.
(Interesting) Bat: they are there but... that's it. Minecraft could have bats cloud in caves and the could also and some drops to this little guys that are nothing but wanderers.
Butterfly: More colorful creatures that would fly around. They could be captured by the user in jars.
Firefly: More insects, yes! They could also be captured by the player in crystal jars and them be used as an reduced light source.
I like them! I think owls should be hostile to bunnies and other small mobs as well. As for butterflies and fireflies, you may be able to condense adding a jar to the game by capturing them with regular bottles, replace bottles with jars and have potions and water in jars instead. Also if a budgerigar were to be added I think apples would have to become visual on tress. Like, leaf blocks with apples would have them appearing on the block too
Animals should not be hostile.
Mice griefing wood isn’t fun.
Everything else I support. Atmospheric mobs are a lot of fun. They are not useless.
Then why are you here? Are you angry at Mojang for FORCING us to play Update Aquatic?
Whilst I do support the idea of adding ambient mobs and your ideas sound nice.
erictom333 does bring up a valid point. You should probably have added an
option to be indifferent/abstain or even be against the idea in that poll.
Otherwise it might seem a little bit one sided (even though this slight oversight
was in all likelyhood unintentional due to giddyness and wanting to present
an idea with a lot of heart and mind behind it).
Oh and did I already mention I like the idea of having a bit more wildlife
that does not exist purely to my benefit?
-Support.-
No one likes my mice lol. And I put so much thought into it than the others. XD it’s cool, I know peole would be so annoyed seeing holes in their houses. But I’d still like to see them. If nothing else, instead of holes in wood, maybe have them make burrows.
As for making the mobs hostile, yeah, most of them could easily be hostile with reason. The deer maybe not so much. I’ve only ever had one stag ever get testy with me and I lived in the woods as a kid, and it was because its kid and mate were nearby.
I wouldn’t have said I was “giddy” per se, lol, but yeah, it was simply an oversight. But since they were looking for a fight...
I’ve seen that in other threads. Thank you for the support, and thanks everyone for making this is the highest viewed thread in the last two pages!
Never mind. You get used to it. I remember when even the mere
mentioning/suggestion of adding potions, pistons, horses and now
crossbows was "go download a mod for that!" or "worst update ever!".
People like playing their games the way they like it and have their own
specific tastes. I'm sure they meant no harm but were actually being
sincere. I for example like the idea of an arquebus but am honest
enough to myself to consider that others might see those as immersion
breaking or at least diminishing to their overall gaming experience.
Luckily the crossbow (while not being a primitive firearm per se) comes
close enough in said function while still being a bow that fits the inverse
weaponry.^^
Hm...maybe I should be somewhat sober when posting stuff...that could help
avoid some typos. XD
Here's what I think...
Deer: I think this is an actually nice suggestion! However, I don't really think stags should be hostile; Jeb made a rule that only monsters could attack on sight, and, while I think it kinda screws over a few animals, it fits deer perfectly fine. Also, I don't think you can make a deer suggestion without having them drop venison.
Crabs: As is the case with the deer, I like this suggestion! Perhaps they could spawn on beaches and flee into the water if you get nearby?
However, I'm a little iffy on the claw hook thing. Isn't grabbing items from afar basically part of what a Fishing Rod can do? That is, unless you want it to be smoother than the fishing rod-item grab mechanic; I'm pretty fine with that.
Mice: No. No. Just no. Having some tiny rodents grief my house is more annoying than challenging. In addition to this, the "cheese" drop is so overplayed, it's not even funny (mice don't even like cheese IRL, for crying out loud). Just having them be passive ambient mobs that scamper around at night would be way superior to this, IMO.
Scorpions: TBH, I think they fit better as nighttime monsters (like the spiders are), but eh, I guess either way can work.
Butterflies: Is there really anything to criticize here? They're butterflies. They work perfectly fine.
Alligators: As with the stag, alligators should not be hostile. As Jeb's rule applies here, the main reason why I keep on asking for alligators to be added over crocodiles in Minecraft is their temperament; while the larger crocodiles are pretty aggressive, alligators are surprisingly calm, only attacking if you provoke them. I do like the armor suggestion, though; even if it needs to not be a wearable Dolphin's Grace buff, I feel it can work... somewhat...
Anyways, IMO, ambient mobs only work if they're small. I love the bats because they fit the purpose they were designed for, and the fish (even though they drop an item and are not really counted as ambient) are also pretty cool, but the reason I dislike the polar bears is because they're big and can actually have many uses or provide some sort of challenge, but all they do is lumber around like reskinned cows. I'd also be fine with parrots being mostly decorative (I do feel their voice-mimicking ability could actually be somewhat more useful, though), but dear lord, their AI is just so bad and they seriously feel like soulless child bait (much like anything Illumination Entertainment pushes out)...
Overall, I like this suggestion! Not only did you suggest mobs that do fit the game (none of them are overly exotic), but all of them could actually look nice in the game due to having wonderful AI (I'm glad you didn't suggest any flying birds because Mojang would probably reuse the terrible parrot AI for them). They do need some improvements, but they're a step in the right direction.
Partial Support
People keep saying the crab claw would be like the fishing rod, but I don’t think fishing rods can actually hook items? What I mean by that is, say you die in a ravine, or you accidentally toss an item across a gap, and can’t necessarily grab it easily. Maybe you forgot your building blocks to make a bridge or something. You can use the crab claw you grab an item from like say, a 4 block distance to get it back.
Orrrr, you can kill enough crabs to collect their shells and make a special kind of shield? I don’t know anything about them, I play Bedrock, but it seems like you can only make one kind of shield. Some variety might be cool.
Fishing rods can hook items, though. It's just as efficient as hooking a mob (in other words, it depends at which angle you're at), but still.
A new shield would be seriously cool, but I'm not sure about how much sense it'd make; even in a game where pig riding is a thing, I think there's a line between what sounds convincing and what doesn't. Either way, if it turns out to be acceptable by everyone's standards here, it'd be nice.
This doens’t seem to work in Bedrock Edition, hopefully it gets added soon.
9 crab shells to make a shield might not be too farfetched...by RPG standards lol.
What's with this insistence that every mob must have a purpose? They'd add a little bit of visual variety to the game; they'd make the world feel a little less barren. I don't understand why this is something to be avoided.
Even if they have similar drops to something else, I feel like having the option to choose whether I want to slaughter a cow in the field for meat versus hunt a runaway deer for meat in the forest would be a good thing. Why is more options bad?
Firstly, you contradict yorself: even if only to "add a little bit of visual variety to the game" there is a purpose.
A better expression of the argument to which you object would be:
or that:
Your choosen example ("slaughter a cow in the field" versus "hunt a runaway deer … in the forest") is also more than "a little bit of visual variety"; the description encompasses a major change in the AI, not simply a reskin of the model.
(The OP deer proposal goes farther, introducing an entire new set of tool tiers…)
There can certainly be times when great variety can be added cheaply enough to be desirable: the way the 1.13. tropical fish types are combinationally produced (by 'spinning' a fairly small set of characteristics) is a good example of how cosmetic variety can be added at (comparatively) low cost.
As a counterexample, Wikipedia lists 68 species of extant birch: adding all 68 (or even a dozen) is unlikely to be seen as desirable. [In contrast to reskinning the trees with different, biome-dependant, colors.]
"Feeping creaturitus" [a hackerish neologism somewhat more stodgily defined as 'feature creep'] is an all too common result of continuing to add features to an already successful program.
This quote (from the above page)
gives a more staid expression of an argument I usually present as a dislike for "bells & whistles & chimes & gongs".
It also gives an unpleasant appearance of being the direction in which MC seems to be headed… while there are still good and inovative ideas being added [the composter being a lag reducing, SJW-placating, realism enhancing, single-source avoiding example], but the (more or less) announced corporate stategy of making a biome-by-biome tour – adding a few gew-gaws to each – can be seen as exemplifying the approach that leads into this quagmire.
Here's what I think of the suggested additions along with some of my own
Deers. I think they should drop antlers to the ground every XXth day or just as they do in real life. In this way antlers as a way of obtaining bone for dogs and bonemeal in peaceful apart from finding bones in chests is ok with me.
Crabs. Since ocean biomes are already pretty lively from the recent oceanic update, I wouldn't make them a priority.
Mice. Not fond of game mechanics destroying builds (sorry creepers and endermen, I still love you)!
Scorpions. Would greatly to add to deserts atmosphere. I don't think they should not be aggressive unless stepped on, giving a strong poison effect as suggested.
Butterflies would be a simple way to make flower biomes more alive and atmospheric. Of course with the main base in my survival world in a flower biome I love this idea! But similarly, jungles and swamps could have dragonflies.
Alligators. I think a new tree growing in the water in addition to or even replacing oak would improve swamps more. Mangrove would be a good choice, it is found worldwide. Having it yield a white/grey plank would also nicely add options in the building palette. As for animals, I'd prefer swimming lizards or snakes similar to fish.
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
So, let me repurpose mice, since it has overwhelming negative feedback:
Mice make burrows in a single dirt or grass block, and are usually found within 15 blocks of said hole and found all over the world, though they do like villages. Mice will eat crops within this range, but they can be relocated by destroying the block (this, btw, will only add *two* new blocks to the game if any). When killed, a mouse will drop minimal XP and an assortment of fruits, veggies, and grains. This would be helpful if a mouse if found early game. Destroying the hole would have a 15% chance of producing a single fruit or veggie as well.
Better?