The Glow Squid... Bad Mob or Unfortunate Circumstances?

Hello my one person reading this out there, it is June 8th 2021, and you know what that means???? It means it's the 159th day of 2021! How exciting!!!! It also means it was May 2021 nine days ago and will be July 2021 in 23 days!!! Exciting, fun stuff!! Oh yeah there may be some update of some game releasing today as well, but who knows as I haven't signed into Steam since 2015.

On 1.17's release day, you (singular) may be wondering why of all things in the update, on this momentous day, I'm choosing to rant about the Glow Squid. Well, I think of all the things in 1.17, the Glow Squid has been by far the most controversial. And that's what we do here, right?

Duck Duck Glow Squid

In amongst the 1.17 hype on Discord, I asked the good folks what their favourite of the three new mobs coming in 1.17 is. I repeated the poll on Reddit. In both cases, there was a very clear pattern. At first, one mob totally stole the show, and it's completely obvious which one this was. But there were also a surprising number of people on Team Goat as well. Goats have a cult following of their own, it turns out!

In both cases, the results ended up pretty close. It's clear the Axolotl and Goat both have their fans.

But what about the Glow Squid? Well..... let's just say if the three mobs were running in a race, the Glow Squid was the one who tripped over their shoelaces at the start of the race, faceplanted onto the track, then broke their nose in the fall and had to pull out and go to A&E.

Not only did almost nobody say the Glow Squid was their favourite, many people outright slammed the mob, often simply saying it was "bad".

But there were also many others who slammed it on grounds of comparison to other mobs - most prominently one that won't even be added - the Iceologer.

This had me wondering... hold on a second.... is the Glow Squid REALLY totally bad, or is there a stigma against it because of the somewhat shady circumstances of its addition? Are there people that do like the Glow Squid but won't admit it because they'll get attacked by Team Iceologer?

The Stigma Against the Glow Squid

Any mob that gets implemented to the game as part of a vote is not going to be popular. There will always be some bitterness from the people who wanted to see one of the losing mobs in the game. This is why I made a whole rant about why these votes should be scrapped completely.

But still - the Glow Squid DID win. It got nearly 53% of the votes in round 2. So why have less than 5% of people voted for it, in comparison to a pretty much even split between the other two?

Well, simply put, the Glow Squid does have stigma against it, naturally, as being part of a poll. But a LOT of people are still resentful that the Glow Squid beat the Iceologer. I still to this day see this come up frequently in chats about the new mobs. People STILL aren't over the fact the Glow Squid beat the Iceologer. But not only this, a lot of people have referenced Dream's manipulation of the mob vote as a reason they do not like the mob. I've seen countless comments along the lines of "We only got this squid because Dream wanted it!" And as the public opinion on Dream has started to take a bit of a turn for the worse - particularly after he cheated in a speedrun - the opinions on the Glow Squid may have soured a bit. Clearly, quite a lot of people associate the Glow Squid with Dream, and it's safe to say some people REALLY don't like Dream.

This is all I will say regarding Dream, because I do not want this to turn into a witch-hunting rant against Dream.

It's natural that people will not like a mob that beat out the one they were hoping for, so this could be a major factor in why the Glow Squid is such the obvious "loser" of this update. Even though it won. Huh.

What's the Word... Pre... Pre... Premonition... no... Presentiment? no.... ugh... premise... no... AH YES, PRECONCEPTIONS!!

I want to point out that because of the vote and the circumstances around the Glow Squid's addition, I know a LOT of people were unwilling to even give the Glow Squid a CHANCE. Many people instantly wrote it off as "it was going to suck". Their debut snapshot, 21w03a, almost caused a resurgence of the bitterness, upset and downright toxicity that came following the initial vote. It almost re-opened the wound for a lot of people. When people finally got to play with the Glow Squid, they were willing to jump on every single issue and find any excuse to attack every flaw of the mob. 

The Axolotls were buggy and half-baked when first implemented, but people were far less harsh against it. The preconception for Axolotls was a really cute, adorable, unique and interesting mob populating the amaze-balls new Lush Caves biome. People were going to love this mob, assuming it didn't break farms or affect speedruns. Meanwhile, the preconception for Glow Squids was "a mob that displaced a much cooler mob because of a powerful content creator's manipulative and dishonest behaviour, a reskin of already one of the worst and most useless mobs in the game, and it doesn't even glow!"

The circumstances behind this mob and the stigma against it have made it very difficult for a lot of people to see and rank this mob unbiased. But is it really inherently all that bad?

Is the Glow Squid Inherently Bad?

Right as I type, the people on Discord are trashing the Glow Squid. 

"The Squid's AI is bad!"

"A huge missed opportunity!"

"They are just an exact copy of the Squid!"

Oof. People REALLY don't like this mob, huh. Even amongst the hype in Discord as 1.17 may be MINUTES from release, people STILL have it out for the Glow Squid.

So, from an objective standpoint, the Glow Squid does share AI with the standard Squid. The standard Squid's AI is... far from stellar. The Squid is a very old mob, from Notch's day, and the first water mob implemented. They are slow-moving, derpy, and constantly beach themselves and die. Back when I was a noob, Squids were a HUGE meme for how bad and useless they were. How derpy and broken their AI was, and still is. From an AI standpoint, yeah, Glow Squids suck as much as the original. But hey, at least they are not STUPIDLY broken to the point they barely function. Bad, yes. Utterly hideous, no.

But AI isn't the only deciding attribute of a passive mob. Its textures, sounds, and useful drops can still save a mob. And in my opinion, the Glow Squid DOES look good. Especially when you see one in a dark cave, it is quite the sight to behold. For a lot of people, this will not make up for the circumstances of their addition or the fact they are a reskinned squid with bad AI, but I've seen very few who say the fresh and modern coat of glowy paint makes the mob WORSE. A lot of people also dig the particles and twinkly sounds the Glow Squid produces.

Perhaps one of the most fundamental and important attributes of a mob that shapes its public opinion, whether it's passive or hostile, is its drops. The Glow Squid has 1 drop - the Glow Ink Sac.

The Glow Ink Sac has 2 uses: making a Glow Item Frame where the frame and item within it are "back lit", and to make text on signs glow. While a lot of people think these are good quality-of-life changes, a lot including myself feel they are very situational and that more could've been done with the idea of making things glow. I've seen countless suggestions for glowing banners, or having the Ink Sac brewed into a Potion of Glowing, for instance. A lot have pointed out that the glowing concept could've been made so much more. The fact the Glow Ink Sac only has 2 uses has left a lot of people feeling the Glow Squid had a lot of missed potential. And they are right - the Glow Ink Sac could've had so many more uses. I even made a far-fetched suggestion of having ANY solid block be dyable with Glow Ink Sacs!

And remember, due to the preconceptions and circumstances surrounding this mob, people are already a lot harsher on this mob than they otherwise would've been. For a lot of people, the limited uses of the mob's only drop (and use) have not been nearly enough to justify its addition, especially it winning a mob vote. The texture, particles, sounds and overall beauty of the mob have also failed to distract people from this.

So... Is the Glow Squid Bad or Just Stigmatised? Final Words.

Like with a lot of these "this or that?" rants, I'm going to have to conclude a bit of both. Well, in this case, a lot of one and a bit of the other. The vote is obviously still a huge sore spot within the community, even though it was 8 months ago now. If it's still had an impression after this long, clearly it's had a major impact on how this mob is perceived. The popular opinion has obviously been sunken by this.  I feel that if the Glow Squid wasn't part of any vote and was just added as part of the update, a lot of people would've really liked it, and seen it as a positive addition - a really nice touch to the new caves. It does have quite a bit going for it - it IS absolutely stunning to see in a dark cave, and the new drop does have SOME use, if very niche and situational. Was it worth having this modern squid in place of a new enemy with unique attacks and a unique structure that would have populated an area of the game that's not got a lot of content, and possibly have come with a cool new drop? To a lot of people, the answer to that question has been a rather resounding no. But I'm sure if the Axolotl had similar preconceptions it would've been just as hated.

There are always more things they could've done with the Glow Squid, and the expectations have naturally been raised a lot due to it winning the vote. But in my humble opinion, the Glow Squid isn't bad. Its AI is broken, but it's got other attributes going for it. It could've been a lot more, but the same could be said for many mobs.

I voted Iceologer, and sure I was incredibly pissed off by the whole situation, but I still don't think the Glow Squid is overall a terrible mob, or an amazing mob. But I do think it absolutely was hurt a LOT by its circumstances.

Dear Mojang: Please don't do a vote in MineCon Live 2021.