Endermites are nearly useless in current Minecraft. They can only spawn from thrown Ender Pearls with only a 1/20 chance. Their only drop is three XP orbs. Their only worth comes from their rarity, making them great pets, and their Endermen attraction, allowing them to be used in Endermen farms. It's safe to say many players aren't even aware they exist.
I'd say Endermites can be improved in three ways: improve their spawning, make it clear they can come from Ender Pearl throws, and give players a reason to seek them out more than once or twice.
Advancements serve as a natural path of progression through the world. The natural progression of advancements commands players to build a Nether Portal before ordering Eyes of Ender on the search for a stronghold. However, advancements also serve as mini-tutorials to introduce game mechanics, such as 1.16's upcoming advancements "Oh Shiny," which teaches players that dropping gold allows them to barter with piglins, and "This Boat Has Legs," which teaches them that Striders can be ridden across lava by holding a Warped Fungus on a Stick.
As such, it would be fitting to create an advancement teaching players that they can spawn Endermites by throwing Ender Pearls. This advancement could be called "Infestation" since Endermites are considered arthropods and are similar to silverfish, which are considered pests. It would make sense for Infestation to branch off from Remote Gateway since that advancement teaches players how to throw Ender Pearls.
As for improving Endermite spawning, the best option is adding them to the Outer End Islands as semi-rare spawns. (Think natural Witch rarity for reference.) That way, players would be able to find them naturally, and the Outer End will become slightly more dangerous. These Endermites would have a few differences between them and Pearl-spawned ones. Namely, Endermen would not be aggressive towards these natural Endermites for two reasons. One, the Outer End would be just a little more dangerous with two types of mobs ready to attack the player. Two, Endermites have very little health, so Endermen naturally attacking them would result in them all dying before players could find them.
In addition, Outer End Endermites would have a 20% speed boost, equivalent to the Speed 1 potion effect, to help mitigate their squishiness from their eight health. Sure, most players would likely visit the Outer End with at least a Sharpness diamond sword, so they could one-shot Endermites regardless. But they'd have to work a little harder aiming, at least. Or they could use a bow. It's not like the Outer End has anything in terms of difficulty aside from End Cities and the gaps between islands.
And finally, Endermites receive a drop called the Mite Limb. It looks like a purple stick with another small purple section branching off near the top like typical sticks are pictured. (I can't make a visual myself, so if anyone wants to, feel free.) The Mite Limb will only drop from player or wolf kills like Blaze Rods. An Endermite has a 50% chance to drop a Mite Limb, with an extra 10% per level of Looting, maxing out with an 80% chance to drop at Looting 3.
Mite Limbs are chargeable, throwable weapons. They charge as fast as Tridents but can be thrown at any point during the charging sequence. They deal half a heart when under 25% charge, gaining another half a heart per quarter of charge. They max out at two hearts of damage and have significantly less gravity pull when thrown at full charge. However, they also shatter upon impacting anything (with one exception), so they are non-reusable. Their special effect is unique. Thrown Mite Limbs pierce any Protection enchantments or Resistance effects. This seems powerful at first, but a full set of diamond or netherite will reduce this to just about half a heart of damage regardless of magical protection. According to the Wiki, even a full set of Iron armor would reduce this value to one full heart. Regardless, they only drop from player/wolf kills and aren't a guaranteed drop no matter what. They also have a reduced stack size like other throwables, maxing out at 16. This could possibly be reduced further to 8. Then there's also the shattering downside.
The main use of Mite Limbs is against Shulkers. A fully-charged Mite Limb pierces a Shulker's shell by halving its effective armor when dealing damage, allowing it to do either two or three damage points depending on how rounding works. The limb also sticks, forcing the Shulker to exit block mode immediately, and it can't return until another attack shatters the limb. The main reasoning is to deal with those annoying Shulkers that sit in block mode on the bottom of End Cities. That way, the player can snipe them from a distance to chip away at them rather than having to climb, fly or levitate up to them.
Any comments?
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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.
I like gimmick weapons, but I also like tools with a wider variety of possible (sub-optimal) uses so that I can be the judge of what I will do with the tool. The Mite Limb would be optimal against Shulkers but somewhat useful against players or mobs wearing protection-enchanted armor. I'd still like the tool to have more details, and more niche use cases. Here's some suggestions:
a.) It bounces off of a target and uses its remaining momentum to hit another; if it has enough momentum it can hypothetically hit any number of enemies.
b.) Give it some enchantments: more momentum (faster projectile); doesn't fall (flies straight); armor-piercing (reduces target's armor)
c.) Tipped limbs: just like tipped arrows
Enchanted with high speed and no arc could make it effective against Ghasts, since they have low HP and are a huge target but move very fast and attack from very far away.
It should have more damage than you have given it. The time it takes to charge it warrants more power. Since it's strongly limited by available quantity, I would see no issue with giving it the full thrown power than Tridents have. Being able to throw it before fully charging it presents a very niche option--not attractive because it's so wasteful but once in a while it's just the kick you need.
To make the enchantments work: an enchanted stack could work as a single item, and when its quantity reaches zero it would remain in inventory. You could add quantity to the stack by placing any number of unenchanted limbs on top of it, and they would be added as quantity up to its maximum amount. For the record, I think that 16 is a good quantity limit. Compare with over 300 throws available on my Trident and I need some excuse to fill an inventory slot for this weapon. 8 is too few. I would strongly consider using this if I could make it powerful enough to 1-shot a ghast--I'm very interested in any weapon which can snipe ghasts better than a bow can. I had high hopes for the crossbow but alas they are less accurate and the arrow does not travel any faster.
P.S.: I think your weapon name and lore could use some work. "Mite Limb" sounds really weird, and I don't see anything in the Endermite's appearance suggesting its body(parts) could be used in this way. It feels very shoehorned.
PARTIAL SUPPORT
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I want ocean content(thanks Möjang!), nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).
I think endermites are meant to be minor nuisances...
If anything, I think they should drop "ender chitin", that can be brewed to create "potion of poise" that makes ender pearls not harm users and lasts 90 seconds, or 4 minutes if redstone-infused.
As for naturally-spawning endermites - I don't like the concept of these little bugs spawning everywhere and potentially pushing me into the void. I would like to see them as a part of specific end biome with some minor flora there that makes mites able to survive there, or even acts as super-slow mob spawners for endermites, and consists of large, flat islands rather than narrow rocks one can too easily fall out of.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Dwarf gamer found:
Buildings - square, not round
Materials - from rubble mound
Dark caves - lit 'n' cleaned out
Settlements - deep underground
Farmability - to grinder bound
Shields - made creepers but sound
Axes and crossbows - taking mobs out
I like gimmick weapons, but I also like tools with a wider variety of possible (sub-optimal) uses so that I can be the judge of what I will do with the tool. The Mite Limb would be optimal against Shulkers but somewhat useful against players or mobs wearing protection-enchanted armor. I'd still like the tool to have more details, and more niche use cases. Here's some suggestions:
a.) It bounces off of a target and uses its remaining momentum to hit another; if it has enough momentum it can hypothetically hit any number of enemies.
b.) Give it some enchantments: more momentum (faster projectile); doesn't fall (flies straight); armor-piercing (reduces target's armor)
c.) Tipped limbs: just like tipped arrows
Enchanted with high speed and no arc could make it effective against Ghasts, since they have low HP and are a huge target but move very fast and attack from very far away.
I like these ideas. I'd say maybe reduce tipped limbs to only the first tier of potion (no upgrading Glowstone) so they aren't as abusable, but then again, I don't know if tipped arrows have this problem. I'd just assume something with such a high range would be problematic. And I'm not sure how the targeting for the first one would work: would it bounce in a random direction or towards the nearest entity? Would it be able to track who threw it so it wouldn't reflect to them, or would they be placing themselves in danger by staying near it? (That last one would have rather interesting implications. If we gave them a slight damage boost every time they bounce off, then a player could use themselves as a target so it reflects back at their enemy even harder. But then it would cause the problem of "how to not make it a self-destructive weapon in 1v1 fights".)
It should have more damage than you have given it. The time it takes to charge it warrants more power. Since it's strongly limited by available quantity, I would see no issue with giving it the full thrown power than Tridents have. Being able to throw it before fully charging it presents a very niche option--not attractive because it's so wasteful but once in a while it's just the kick you need.
It was probably a bad move on my part, but I partially balanced them around use in PvP servers. If you're on a server, plugins could solve all the collection problems. Then enchantments and infinite range would make them potentially spammable. I do see what you mean, though. According to the Wiki's armor table, if they had the same ranged damage as Tridents (8), they would still deal about 5 points of damage due to their piercing before armor toughness kicks in. The main reason I gave them such low damage was because tridents felt like they threw too quickly and would become spammable (although if they break, this wouldn't really be a problem). And of course, releasing them early can give you that little damage boost when you're in danger, which is why I incorporated it.
To make the enchantments work: an enchanted stack could work as a single item, and when its quantity reaches zero it would remain in inventory. You could add quantity to the stack by placing any number of unenchanted limbs on top of it, and they would be added as quantity up to its maximum amount. For the record, I think that 16 is a good quantity limit. Compare with over 300 throws available on my Trident and I need some excuse to fill an inventory slot for this weapon. 8 is too few. I would strongly consider using this if I could make it powerful enough to 1-shot a ghast--I'm very interested in any weapon which can snipe ghasts better than a bow can. I had high hopes for the crossbow but alas they are less accurate and the arrow does not travel any faster.
This system would mean you only need to roll perfect enchantments once before having them add onto everything. It also doesn't reflect the current system for things that shouldn't be enchantable. Enchantments are NBT tags. Since you can enchant everything in Creative Mode with anything, if I enchanted half a stack of brown mushrooms with Depth Strider 3, they would no longer stack with regular brown mushrooms. They also wouldn't stack with brown mushrooms with, say, Sweeping Edge 3. However, if I took another half-stack of brown mushrooms and added Depth Strider 3 to that, the two half-stacks would be stackable.
Mite limbs should also function that way. You can freely stack any stacks of Mite Limbs up to 16 so long as they all have the same enchantments. This way, you can't duplicate the best ones.
P.S.: I think your weapon name and lore could use some work. "Mite Limb" sounds really weird, and I don't see anything in the Endermite's appearance suggesting its body(parts) could be used in this way. It feels very shoehorned.
Silverfish have visible legs in real life, just not in Minecraft. In the OP, I compared Endermites to Silverfish several times. Even if they don't have visible limbs, I still believe their legs would appear if a non-blocky, real-life Endermite suddenly appeared in front of me.
If it's fine, though, I'd like to update the OP to reflect the damage increase alongside your suggested bouncing, tipping and enchantments.
And now that I think about it, how would you react to increasing the limb's drop rate due to the endermite's semi-rare spawning?
I think endermites are meant to be minor nuisances...
As I stated in the OP, endermites only spawn from ender pearls 5% of the time. They have no other sources. Many players aren't even aware they exist. That, alongside them despawning after a few moments, doesn't sound like much of a nuisance to me. It just sounds like a rare random event.
If anything, I think they should drop "ender chitin", that can be brewed to create "potion of poise" that makes ender pearls not harm users and lasts 90 seconds, or 4 minutes if redstone-infused.
Adding some way to negate ender pearl damage, either through a potion or crafting an upgrade (which I came up with after reading this line) would negate the only downside that Ender Pearls have. This would never be added due to the same logic against Elytra-chestplate combinations: a player should choose between mobility and protection (or in this case, mobility or health).
As for naturally-spawning endermites - I don't like the concept of these little bugs spawning everywhere and potentially pushing me into the void. I would like to see them as a part of specific end biome with some minor flora there that makes mites able to survive there, or even acts as super-slow mob spawners for endermites, and consists of large, flat islands rather than narrow rocks one can too easily fall out of.
I stated in the OP that Endermites would spawn in the Outer End about as frequently as Witches in the Overworld outside for Witch Huts. Go outside one night and count how many Witches spawn. I'd guess you may find around three. As for them knocking you into the Void, I did testing before creating the thread. I had no problem staying on a tiny 5x5 platform with twelve Endermites all with Speed 1 rushing me. It may be due to my experience, but if a player is worried about being knocked into the Void by one rare-spawning Endermite, they can build up two blocks and snipe it (if they're on the island) or bridge away from it before shooting it (if they're not on the island).
A new biome with common Endermites sounds interesting, but this thread isn't about End biomes. It's about the generic Outer End and incorporating Endermites to it.
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.
As I stated in the OP, endermites only spawn from ender pearls 5% of the time. They have no other sources. Many players aren't even aware they exist. That, alongside them despawning after a few moments, doesn't sound like much of a nuisance to me. It just sounds like a rare random event.
Adding some way to negate ender pearl damage, either through a potion or crafting an upgrade (which I came up with after reading this line) would negate the only downside that Ender Pearls have. This would never be added due to the same logic against Elytra-chestplate combinations: a player should choose between mobility and protection (or in this case, mobility or health).
I stated in the OP that Endermites would spawn in the Outer End about as frequently as Witches in the Overworld outside for Witch Huts. Go outside one night and count how many Witches spawn. I'd guess you may find around three. As for them knocking you into the Void, I did testing before creating the thread. I had no problem staying on a tiny 5x5 platform with twelve Endermites all with Speed 1 rushing me. It may be due to my experience, but if a player is worried about being knocked into the Void by one rare-spawning Endermite, they can build up two blocks and snipe it (if they're on the island) or bridge away from it before shooting it (if they're not on the island).
A new biome with common Endermites sounds interesting, but this thread isn't about End biomes. It's about the generic Outer End and incorporating Endermites to it.
1. I don't have problem with a hostile mob that can't be used for farming being pathetic in a direct fight. You do?
As of players not knowing they exist - an advancement + biome should do.
2. At the moment one can enchant boots to make enderpearls deal neglectable damage. Potion has to be carried around, its effects fade after some time, and you got to re-brew it after using. A sceptic might even say such potions would be impractical, because of enchanted boots + food regen.
3. This tread is about endermites, and whether by extension about entire outer end or one specific biome in outer end for sake of lack of hostile mobs is more subjective matter. There are already 5 end biomes - central end, small islands, midlands, highlands and barrens. Besides, I'd prefer to have to fight swarms of endermites in specific areas and have no unconditionally hostile mobs in most other as opposed to having to stay vigilant everywhere due to these little chitin crawlers harrassing me no matter whether I use enderpearls or not, even if I can beat many of them at once, and even if they have so minimal chance of pushing me off a cliff. I don't see fun in that. Just stress. With biome-restricted/item-related spawning I have much clearer situation when to be on guard and when I can relax. And I have influence on whether I get mite-related item or not, and how much.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Dwarf gamer found:
Buildings - square, not round
Materials - from rubble mound
Dark caves - lit 'n' cleaned out
Settlements - deep underground
Farmability - to grinder bound
Shields - made creepers but sound
Axes and crossbows - taking mobs out
Endermites are nearly useless in current Minecraft. They can only spawn from thrown Ender Pearls with only a 1/20 chance. Their only drop is three XP orbs. Their only worth comes from their rarity, making them great pets, and their Endermen attraction, allowing them to be used in Endermen farms. It's safe to say many players aren't even aware they exist.
I'd say Endermites can be improved in three ways: improve their spawning, make it clear they can come from Ender Pearl throws, and give players a reason to seek them out more than once or twice.
Advancements serve as a natural path of progression through the world. The natural progression of advancements commands players to build a Nether Portal before ordering Eyes of Ender on the search for a stronghold. However, advancements also serve as mini-tutorials to introduce game mechanics, such as 1.16's upcoming advancements "Oh Shiny," which teaches players that dropping gold allows them to barter with piglins, and "This Boat Has Legs," which teaches them that Striders can be ridden across lava by holding a Warped Fungus on a Stick.
As such, it would be fitting to create an advancement teaching players that they can spawn Endermites by throwing Ender Pearls. This advancement could be called "Infestation" since Endermites are considered arthropods and are similar to silverfish, which are considered pests. It would make sense for Infestation to branch off from Remote Gateway since that advancement teaches players how to throw Ender Pearls.
As for improving Endermite spawning, the best option is adding them to the Outer End Islands as semi-rare spawns. (Think natural Witch rarity for reference.) That way, players would be able to find them naturally, and the Outer End will become slightly more dangerous. These Endermites would have a few differences between them and Pearl-spawned ones. Namely, Endermen would not be aggressive towards these natural Endermites for two reasons. One, the Outer End would be just a little more dangerous with two types of mobs ready to attack the player. Two, Endermites have very little health, so Endermen naturally attacking them would result in them all dying before players could find them.
In addition, Outer End Endermites would have a 20% speed boost, equivalent to the Speed 1 potion effect, to help mitigate their squishiness from their eight health. Sure, most players would likely visit the Outer End with at least a Sharpness diamond sword, so they could one-shot Endermites regardless. But they'd have to work a little harder aiming, at least. Or they could use a bow. It's not like the Outer End has anything in terms of difficulty aside from End Cities and the gaps between islands.
And finally, Endermites receive a drop called the Mite Limb. It looks like a purple stick with another small purple section branching off near the top like typical sticks are pictured. (I can't make a visual myself, so if anyone wants to, feel free.) The Mite Limb will only drop from player or wolf kills like Blaze Rods. An Endermite has a 50% chance to drop a Mite Limb, with an extra 10% per level of Looting, maxing out with an 80% chance to drop at Looting 3.
Mite Limbs are chargeable, throwable weapons. They charge as fast as Tridents but can be thrown at any point during the charging sequence. They deal half a heart when under 25% charge, gaining another half a heart per quarter of charge. They max out at two hearts of damage and have significantly less gravity pull when thrown at full charge. However, they also shatter upon impacting anything (with one exception), so they are non-reusable. Their special effect is unique. Thrown Mite Limbs pierce any Protection enchantments or Resistance effects. This seems powerful at first, but a full set of diamond or netherite will reduce this to just about half a heart of damage regardless of magical protection. According to the Wiki, even a full set of Iron armor would reduce this value to one full heart. Regardless, they only drop from player/wolf kills and aren't a guaranteed drop no matter what. They also have a reduced stack size like other throwables, maxing out at 16. This could possibly be reduced further to 8. Then there's also the shattering downside.
The main use of Mite Limbs is against Shulkers. A fully-charged Mite Limb pierces a Shulker's shell by halving its effective armor when dealing damage, allowing it to do either two or three damage points depending on how rounding works. The limb also sticks, forcing the Shulker to exit block mode immediately, and it can't return until another attack shatters the limb. The main reasoning is to deal with those annoying Shulkers that sit in block mode on the bottom of End Cities. That way, the player can snipe them from a distance to chip away at them rather than having to climb, fly or levitate up to them.
Any comments?
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.
I like gimmick weapons, but I also like tools with a wider variety of possible (sub-optimal) uses so that I can be the judge of what I will do with the tool. The Mite Limb would be optimal against Shulkers but somewhat useful against players or mobs wearing protection-enchanted armor. I'd still like the tool to have more details, and more niche use cases. Here's some suggestions:
a.) It bounces off of a target and uses its remaining momentum to hit another; if it has enough momentum it can hypothetically hit any number of enemies.
b.) Give it some enchantments: more momentum (faster projectile); doesn't fall (flies straight); armor-piercing (reduces target's armor)
c.) Tipped limbs: just like tipped arrows
Enchanted with high speed and no arc could make it effective against Ghasts, since they have low HP and are a huge target but move very fast and attack from very far away.
It should have more damage than you have given it. The time it takes to charge it warrants more power. Since it's strongly limited by available quantity, I would see no issue with giving it the full thrown power than Tridents have. Being able to throw it before fully charging it presents a very niche option--not attractive because it's so wasteful but once in a while it's just the kick you need.
To make the enchantments work: an enchanted stack could work as a single item, and when its quantity reaches zero it would remain in inventory. You could add quantity to the stack by placing any number of unenchanted limbs on top of it, and they would be added as quantity up to its maximum amount. For the record, I think that 16 is a good quantity limit. Compare with over 300 throws available on my Trident and I need some excuse to fill an inventory slot for this weapon. 8 is too few. I would strongly consider using this if I could make it powerful enough to 1-shot a ghast--I'm very interested in any weapon which can snipe ghasts better than a bow can. I had high hopes for the crossbow but alas they are less accurate and the arrow does not travel any faster.
P.S.: I think your weapon name and lore could use some work. "Mite Limb" sounds really weird, and I don't see anything in the Endermite's appearance suggesting its body(parts) could be used in this way. It feels very shoehorned.
PARTIAL SUPPORT
I want
ocean content(thanks Möjang!),nether biomes(again thanks!!), and savanna passive mobs (meerkats incoming!?).I think endermites are meant to be minor nuisances...
If anything, I think they should drop "ender chitin", that can be brewed to create "potion of poise" that makes ender pearls not harm users and lasts 90 seconds, or 4 minutes if redstone-infused.
As for naturally-spawning endermites - I don't like the concept of these little bugs spawning everywhere and potentially pushing me into the void. I would like to see them as a part of specific end biome with some minor flora there that makes mites able to survive there, or even acts as super-slow mob spawners for endermites, and consists of large, flat islands rather than narrow rocks one can too easily fall out of.
Dwarf gamer found:
Buildings - square, not round
Materials - from rubble mound
Dark caves - lit 'n' cleaned out
Settlements - deep underground
Farmability - to grinder bound
Shields - made creepers but sound
Axes and crossbows - taking mobs out
I forgot this post existed until it was revived, so my responses may be a little off.
I like these ideas. I'd say maybe reduce tipped limbs to only the first tier of potion (no upgrading Glowstone) so they aren't as abusable, but then again, I don't know if tipped arrows have this problem. I'd just assume something with such a high range would be problematic. And I'm not sure how the targeting for the first one would work: would it bounce in a random direction or towards the nearest entity? Would it be able to track who threw it so it wouldn't reflect to them, or would they be placing themselves in danger by staying near it? (That last one would have rather interesting implications. If we gave them a slight damage boost every time they bounce off, then a player could use themselves as a target so it reflects back at their enemy even harder. But then it would cause the problem of "how to not make it a self-destructive weapon in 1v1 fights".)
It was probably a bad move on my part, but I partially balanced them around use in PvP servers. If you're on a server, plugins could solve all the collection problems. Then enchantments and infinite range would make them potentially spammable. I do see what you mean, though. According to the Wiki's armor table, if they had the same ranged damage as Tridents (8), they would still deal about 5 points of damage due to their piercing before armor toughness kicks in. The main reason I gave them such low damage was because tridents felt like they threw too quickly and would become spammable (although if they break, this wouldn't really be a problem). And of course, releasing them early can give you that little damage boost when you're in danger, which is why I incorporated it.
This system would mean you only need to roll perfect enchantments once before having them add onto everything. It also doesn't reflect the current system for things that shouldn't be enchantable. Enchantments are NBT tags. Since you can enchant everything in Creative Mode with anything, if I enchanted half a stack of brown mushrooms with Depth Strider 3, they would no longer stack with regular brown mushrooms. They also wouldn't stack with brown mushrooms with, say, Sweeping Edge 3. However, if I took another half-stack of brown mushrooms and added Depth Strider 3 to that, the two half-stacks would be stackable.
Mite limbs should also function that way. You can freely stack any stacks of Mite Limbs up to 16 so long as they all have the same enchantments. This way, you can't duplicate the best ones.
Silverfish have visible legs in real life, just not in Minecraft. In the OP, I compared Endermites to Silverfish several times. Even if they don't have visible limbs, I still believe their legs would appear if a non-blocky, real-life Endermite suddenly appeared in front of me.
If it's fine, though, I'd like to update the OP to reflect the damage increase alongside your suggested bouncing, tipping and enchantments.
And now that I think about it, how would you react to increasing the limb's drop rate due to the endermite's semi-rare spawning?
As I stated in the OP, endermites only spawn from ender pearls 5% of the time. They have no other sources. Many players aren't even aware they exist. That, alongside them despawning after a few moments, doesn't sound like much of a nuisance to me. It just sounds like a rare random event.
Adding some way to negate ender pearl damage, either through a potion or crafting an upgrade (which I came up with after reading this line) would negate the only downside that Ender Pearls have. This would never be added due to the same logic against Elytra-chestplate combinations: a player should choose between mobility and protection (or in this case, mobility or health).
I stated in the OP that Endermites would spawn in the Outer End about as frequently as Witches in the Overworld outside for Witch Huts. Go outside one night and count how many Witches spawn. I'd guess you may find around three. As for them knocking you into the Void, I did testing before creating the thread. I had no problem staying on a tiny 5x5 platform with twelve Endermites all with Speed 1 rushing me. It may be due to my experience, but if a player is worried about being knocked into the Void by one rare-spawning Endermite, they can build up two blocks and snipe it (if they're on the island) or bridge away from it before shooting it (if they're not on the island).
A new biome with common Endermites sounds interesting, but this thread isn't about End biomes. It's about the generic Outer End and incorporating Endermites to it.
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.
1. I don't have problem with a hostile mob that can't be used for farming being pathetic in a direct fight. You do?
As of players not knowing they exist - an advancement + biome should do.
2. At the moment one can enchant boots to make enderpearls deal neglectable damage. Potion has to be carried around, its effects fade after some time, and you got to re-brew it after using. A sceptic might even say such potions would be impractical, because of enchanted boots + food regen.
3. This tread is about endermites, and whether by extension about entire outer end or one specific biome in outer end for sake of lack of hostile mobs is more subjective matter. There are already 5 end biomes - central end, small islands, midlands, highlands and barrens. Besides, I'd prefer to have to fight swarms of endermites in specific areas and have no unconditionally hostile mobs in most other as opposed to having to stay vigilant everywhere due to these little chitin crawlers harrassing me no matter whether I use enderpearls or not, even if I can beat many of them at once, and even if they have so minimal chance of pushing me off a cliff. I don't see fun in that. Just stress. With biome-restricted/item-related spawning I have much clearer situation when to be on guard and when I can relax. And I have influence on whether I get mite-related item or not, and how much.
Dwarf gamer found:
Buildings - square, not round
Materials - from rubble mound
Dark caves - lit 'n' cleaned out
Settlements - deep underground
Farmability - to grinder bound
Shields - made creepers but sound
Axes and crossbows - taking mobs out