Just an Idea: Phantom Changes

Phantom's Early Design. Taken from official Minecraft website.

Even though I think that Minecraft's mob vote have long since overstayed their welcome, let's be fair to its positive aspects. It had a great start at Minecon Earth 2017 with everyone's favorite Phantom. I voted for "The Monster of the Night Skies" since I believed that the game needed more regular flying enemies and I still stand by this choice, but I'll say that getting Wildfire would've been great too. Seriously, I like these undead folks, and it's not just me being overly sarcastic about them. I regularly sleep in Minecraft anyway, so Phantoms never really annoyed me.

It's fair to say that many players won't agree with me. Not only regular users and some content creators can sometimes express their dissatisfaction with these mobs, but even Mojang Studios talks about how bad Phantoms can be in an act of self-awareness. They can distract players from their current goal and force them to spend a few seconds to use a bed. The only real reason to letting them spawn is to get an ingredient for Potion of Slow Falling: you can use Phantom Membrane to repair Elytra, but there's no reason to do that with Mending enchant. It might take you a long time to get enough membrane from cat's gift after sleeping, but this route is just easier. You might as well just turn off a game rule responsible for Phantom's appearance in your world in original Minecraft and/or Bedrock Edition.

While I initially thought of this Just an Idea post as a compilation of random Minecraft ideas based on already existing stuff, I've come to realize that it would be much better to focus all my attention on this lovely monster and everything related to it. How can you make Phantoms even better? What to do with Insomnia effect? Can you add something new into the mix? At the very least, it's just so fun to throw out so potential and/or stupid solutions to game's problems that only you find interesting.

The Monster of Outer Skies.

I believe that there're some differences between Phantoms in both editions of Minecraft, but I won't dive deep into this stuff. When they were first added into the game as part of snapshot 18w07a for Update Aquatic, these mobs also spawned in The End. I think it would be great to reintroduce this feature to add something to outer islands of barren dimension, but in return turn Phantom into neutral undead mob that attacks players only if they have Insomnia effect or got attacked by them. Just to be clear, I'm talking about natural spawning. I think that this change is asking for Phantoms spawning in the Nether when it's possible, so player's can't escape them that easily.

The only new drop that comes to mind is Phantom Head, similarly to upcoming Piglin Head with new Note Block functionality. I know that it would be more like a "Phantom Blindfold" on player's model, but who cares if it looks ridiculous? At least, this "blindfold" might come in handy to reduce detection... It's probably going to be useless for Insomnia players, to be fair. This head should drop similarly to Wither Skeleton Skull because going for Charged Creeper trick is going to be just too annoying & stressful.

As for Phantom Membrane... How about Phantom Slippers? Just a unique variation of Boots, that provide you a Slow Falling effect for, let's say, 5-10 seconds after players starts falling (similarly to how Turtle Shell works when player wears it). Hey, I've already said that I think Phantoms are cool and this is probably why I struggle with this part of "article".

Insomnia Dilemma.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel since Bad Omen already presents a great example of how Insomnia should be handled. Making it appear in-game with dedicated icon would be great start already. Players would still succumb to Insomnia after 3+ days of not sleeping, but they would have to become vulnerable to it first. How? By killing the Ender Dragon. Once she dies, Insomnia is on the loose and the only way to make things go back to normal on regular basis and disable it again is to resurrect the Dragon and let her be.

Now it gets tricky, because we should consider Mojang Studios' current development approach to Minecraft before going forward. You most likely heard about the fate of Fireflies and how they were cut from the game since they're poisonous to certain frog species in real life. Don't ask me about why you can still feed cookies to parrots in Minecraft, I don't know either. Insomnia is also a real sleeping disorder that can be really harmful for people. Perhaps that's why Mojang haven't touched Phantoms yet? Because they have no idea how to deal with Insomnia effect?

I've already mentioned how currently there's no incentive to allow Phantoms to spawn, but "Fireflies Incident" suggests that game's won't reward players for carrying on Insomnia effect. It's more likely to serve as an additional "New Game Plus" challenge for players while also emphasizing how harmful this disorder can be. Since Insomnia is all about people having trouble sleeping, it would make sense for making it harder to actually get into bed. However, this particular case of staying true to realism doesn't lead to good gameplay experience and will instead just annoy players. You won't be able to get away by just slap an element of randomness on this version of aforementioned status effect.

There's a lazy idea that I think can work though. Just pick some existing negative effects from Minecraft and make it so every ~2-3 minutes players can be hit by such effect for a few seconds. This example of randomness can work as it turns Insomnia into potential challenge for certain players while also being "educationally annoying" for others and everyone gets the important message that is "Insomnia is bad".

Here's an example of what kind of effects can be used in this case:

• Slowness.

• Mining Fatigue.

• Nausea.

• Blindess.

• Weakness.

• Darkness.

There're no effects that actually damage player as that just seems a bit too much. Each effect can still screw you over in specific scenario, resulting in unfair death. Speaking of which, this is perfect moment to mention that player's death obviously shouldn't affect Insomnia effect. I know that people voted for this back in a day, and it makes sense as you usually respawn at your bed, but we go back to Fireflies... Well, let's just say that this gameplay detail can be considered pretty problematic nowadays. Same goes for Milk Bucket. Drink as many buckets of milk as you want, but it just won't help you.

Hug The Egg.

All that's left is to present an option to deal with Insomnia that doesn't revolve around respawning the Ender Dragon. In fact, I have two suggestions in mind: one is regular & realistic, another is wacky & logical. I had multiple experiences with actual Insomnia and likely will meet it again in the future. One of the things that helped me not only with that, but also with feeling sick is Milk with Honey. Get a glass of milk, add a teaspoon of honey, mix it together and drink. Not only it's just damn good, but it helps you with getting a good sleep. Just put together a Milk Bucket and Honey Bottle on crafting grid to get Milk & Honey Bucket that not only cures you of all special effects (with one exception), but also provides you with Sleepiness effect that allows to bypass Insomnia effect for a moment.

Now we head over to part of a concept where everything potentially falls apart. If Insomnia effect can be implied to players only after and when Ender Dragon is dead, how does Dragon Egg fit into this ordeal? What if it gains a function similarly to Beacon and Conduit, but without a need for build a specific structure for its activation? Dragon Egg is already tricky to pick up and teleports around, so I think it's a good trade off. As for the functionality, I think it's obvious: it creates an Insomnia-free area for players within its radius on, for example, 30 blocks. Yes, this idea sounded better in my head.

Problem with it is that this additional trait of Dragon Egg would negate proposed version of Insomnia. After all, why bother with Milk & Honey Bucket or resummoning Ender Dragon if you can just place an egg close to your bed or carry it around for when its needed? I guess you can make it so it only prevents Phantoms from spawning, so it only makes your long building session slightly less annoying. I initially thought that there should be a way of getting more than one Dragon Egg for players in multiplayer, but now I'm thinking that keeping it as is would be better. This item becomes much more valuable and kind of broken, therefore its scarcity is reasonable.

There're likely better way of revisiting Phantom. While my suggestions are clearly flawed and potentially not even original, but I do feel like it's the type of change that would fit right in some latest Minecraft update. That's not me trying to joke about Mojang Studios: I'm just hiding an excessive self-criticism under the mask of irony. I mean, there's some potential here... right?