Ok but like let's be real who actually fights with their wolves instead of just leaving them sitting in their base somewhere. Can the armor be dyed? That might help a bit
As a non gamer this completely ruined the game for me ngl. I couldn't explore caves or hang out at night outside of peaceful mode anymore, lest I get my shit rocked by a skeleton armed with what may as well have been hollow point heat seeking arrows.
I feel like letting pets/horses respawn sitting at pet beds/hay bales would massively increase their useage. You'd still have to go back home if you want to keep exploring with them, but not you can have some investment without easily losing everything.
Some smarter AI that actively avoids lava and cactus would be nice. Retreating when hurt could be good too.
Probably.
I'll be surprised if they don't finally stop this noncense this year or next with all the negative feedback it got last year.
Just give us the new features without threatening us with other features "lost forever".
That being said, I will always give credit where credit is due - for a game fullly released in 2011, the fact we have gotten significant free anual updates for the past 13 years is insane. Unlike the other major 2011 release (Skyrim) that seems to only update to break mods for fun.
I did not keep up with Minecraft over the years, only just looked into this now, but yeah, this seems so arbitrary. There's a mob (armadillos), then an intermediate item (armadillo scutes) and the only usage for that is crafting wolf armor.
Whatever happened to not having a million different items? Like, that's pretty much game design 101, to combine mechanics where possible. They could have allowed equipping a leather body armor on a wolf for the same gameplay mechanic.
But it really does look like they wanted to add some animal for the publicity and then needed to shoehorn any purpose at all for it.
Right, I even forgot about horse armor. That's been in there for a while, but I'd remove that item, too. I have been doing Minetest, so that's probably where all the opinions come from. 😅
Seems like you're some kind of purest...go back to the Alpha versions? Which, they actually make really easy.
Personally I like features that provide a new purpose and build off of existing systems. Horse armor is a a natural progression for protecting your horse. Its mirrors the player armor system with materials (leather to diamond). Wolf armor breaks the mold, it could mimic player/horse armor in mechanics and material progression, but instead it comes from armodillo scales with seemingly no way to upgrade. They even copied the ability to dye the armor - they probably copy pasted the code for leather and made a new redundant item.
Originally it was small pieces you combine in creative ways to build something.
Now all the sets have these huge specialty pieces that are barely usable outside of that 1 set design. Like the giant cockpit things that are 1 big hinged piece.
One option: They could have used leather for basic armor and then turtle shells for a better set and then gold for the best. Just use existing things and combine them in new ways. It is so much better that way.
There are SO many things in MC that have exactly 0 or 1 purpose and nothing more and that is such a shame.
It is unfortunate, but there is also reason to be optimistic. It's clear that they want to make use of existing items, especially under-utilized ones from previous releases. It's something that they've repeatedly talked about over the past year. It's even one of the design principles from Jeb's internal handbook. Take copper: added in 1.17, used for brushes in 1.20, and used for copper bulbs, doors, grates, and trapdoors in 1.21. They even briefly played with copper horns in Bedrock. Or tuff: also added in 1.17 as a totally useless block, with variants fleshed out in 1.21 that makes it surprisingly useful for building. Not to mention the crafter and potions of infestation/oozing/weaving are entirely made from existing items, or the new paintings that don't require any new items at all. Even completely new items are tried to have as many uses as possible from the start: wind charges have tons of different applications. I think Mojang has been paying attention to this trend for longer than most of us have, and we're finally starting to see it shift how they approach update design.
Those are good points. I've played MC since early alpha, but haven't played much of the 1.20+ content yet. I still haven't fought the Warden! Ahhhh!!!
I do really appreciate hearing that Jeb has that mindset and goal. And you are right that they have eventually added more uses for things that started useless.
From a design standpoint it is often surprisingly difficult to remember to use older content and mechanics on new content. You see it in RPGs and story type games often. In level 1 you unlock a skill or item, have to use it over and over for a dungeon or level, and then by level 3 you never ever use it again. Sometimes games will manage to remember the "old" things and keep them relevant and when I notice that I always really appreciate it. Several of the Zelda series games manage this. E.G. the Deku Nuts/Sticks still being used in the last dungeons.
Oh goshdarnit, I was so confused why they made the wolf fur this weird salmon/brick color. Apparently, that's an armadillo shell...? They really turned Minecraft into modded Minecraft, didn't they?
I mean, I can get behind that. It doesn't increase gameplay complexity and people enjoy having their doggos in different colors.
But adding a whole new mob and items for one specific niche purpose, that increases complexity quite a bit. New players will have no idea what to do with the armadillo drops, without looking it up or being told by that AI narrator thing, I guess.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be puzzles. I'm criticizing that this puzzle is impossible to solve.
No one will wish to protect their dog and then realize they need to place 6 armadillo scutes in a chair-like pattern into a crafting grid.
Some might try to brute-force crafting patterns with armadillo scutes, but that is not fun.
And just looking up what to do with armadillo scutes, that is not fun either.
I can see your point. Other have sad that it should follow the horsearmor pattern. Which would make it a guess like "I wonder if I can use this animal part like the other animal parts which fill the same role."
That way you could formulate an educated guess and be happy when it turns out right.
Hm, sounds like the opening paragraph to a mod, we should call it “better than armadillo’s” and essentially fork Minecraft into the game we think it should be.
Oh, what’s that? Modders did that with wolves 10 years ago… oh, I’m old.
Let's not besmirch the name of modded Minecraft. I just got my mekanism fission reactor running and the nuclear fallout from messing that up would make a 8 chunk area unlivable for 29 game days.
I don't know what mods it was, but I remember playing with friends in s very chill server, each doing whatever crap they wanted when suddenly we all died and our mountain base was wiped and one of them was like "I didn't cool well the nuclear reactor".
Probably the most I laughed in a game, aside from cyberpunk on PS4 on release day.
There's a couple of mods that do that, but I remember watching a streamer nuke a small town for the luls (his fans were on server and were cool with it). Nowadays most packs have anti-greving stuff, though, which is a double edged sword as claimed chunks can't even get damaged by creepers.
That said, I think my favorite is Thaumcrafts oopsies--- too much magic, you get eldrich horrors tearing the very fabric of reality. It's very unsettling and does turn every block to a corrupted stone that's a pain to break.
scoffs rookie numbers.
No see you need to pay for our painful subscription service. Its $25 monthly and gives you diamond armor every game you play and you can now fly.
Profit margins are more importaint than "enjoyment" ick
