Minecraft's Growing Problem With Passive Mobs

For the first time in years, I've been properly committed to a survival world. Me and a friend have been playing it a lot, and I can see an ever-growing problem in Minecraft with its passive mobs. And with at least three more passive mobs on the horizon for 1.17, and many more in the biome vote pipelines, I think this problem is only going to get worse with time.

This has been an issue since about 2016. That's around when they started adding lots of random real-life animals for the sake of it.

Other than the OG passive mobs like pigs, cows, chickens, horses and donkeys, most passive mobs in Minecraft don't really add much and feel like they're there for the sake of more mobs. The last real-life animal mob I'd consider truly useful was the Rabbit in 2014. It is also the last new animal mob to drop meat before Minecraft was sold to Microsoft and went all vegan.

What's infuriating though is that they TRIED to give some of these mobs a use... but none of these uses are in any way practical. Dolphins will lead you to treasure chests, but you can just use your eyes to find treasure chests. It's not hard, they're not rare. Llamas have that caravan feature, which sounds good on paper, but come on... has anyone ever actually used that to move lots of items? Turtles give a useless potion that takes way too long to get for anyone to ever practically brew. Bees give mostly decorative blocks and items... and a really crappy food source. Polar Bears, Foxes, Pandas and Parrots are completely useless and add absolutely nothing. They don't have any really interesting mechanics. Although again, they tried, especially with the Panda by giving them actual GENETICS, but even that concept, although cool, feels wasted on the Panda.

If you want to look at a new passive mob that actually serves a really cool purpose, look no further than the Strider. THAT is how a passive mob should be.

I get that Mojang is obsessed with animal rights and must tread very carefully in order to not "promote animal cruelty", but the game is filling up with all these animals which don't really have useful mechanics or drops, outside of really situational or niche ones that nobody's ever going to use. I'd even argue the SQUID has its legit use - the source of black dye!

But with Axolotls just added which defeat Guardians.... that's incredibly situational. The Goat which has the goat horn (through some really annoying mechanic that involves... waiting... because they won't have it drop after a kill)... it makes a noise. And don't even get me STARTED on the Glow Squid, because that will just make me angry about how Dream meddled with the mob vote. (I say that as someone who was actually torn between Iceologer and Glow Squid btw). But is THAT going to drop anything?? Probably not.

And who even knows what they'll try with Vultures, Ostriches, Meerkats and Frogs. But to be honest I'm not hyped for those animals.

Honestly, I just wish at this point they added fewer real animals and added more fictional ones. I know they can't add a hostile mob that's a real-life animal as that goes against their code of conduct, but can't they add a passive mob that doesn't really exist? More Striders, please! If they added fictional passive mobs, they wouldn't have to think of "realistic uses" for all these real-life animals that ultimately add nothing. With a fictional mob they can do what they like. This is why I keep harking back to the Strider, it really is one of the very few passive mobs - perhaps the ONLY - since 2014 that is actually useful. It's completely fictional, so they aren't bound by the fact riding one would be animal cruelty or whatnot.

I'm sure someone out there will find an axolotl army funny for all of a few minutes, but the novelty will wear off fast. Much like 1.12's Parrot, Axolotls are cool now, but I can tell you a year down the line, 95% of us will forget they even exist. Meanwhile, we're all going to be saddling our striders and coasting across lava for years to come.

TL;DR - Less goats, more striders!

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