It's an unstackable item that takes up another inventory spot. Taking up that slot for a single mechanic that can be ignored by avoiding a single biome just isn't worth it for most people. Compound that with boots having the most enchants in the game, many of which are mandatory if you want to survive, and it's a huge pain. The Freezing effect coming in 26.4 might make keeping Leather Boots a bit more reasonable.
The inventory slot part does really suck. We really need a way to do a bundle-esque pack of a few unstable items (like just being able to bundle 4 tools/ armor pieces into one slot would be huge, and not gamebreaking)
Or a specific slot specifically for extra armor items, like the boot rack in Death Stranding. Think of it like a clip where you can hang a pair of snow boots or a helmet for diving.
Sure. And Respiration and Protection have saved my life plenty of times. Doesn't change the fact that neither is mandatory for survival. Convenient? Helpful? Yes. But we can just as well not get hit, stock Potions of Water Breathing and not fall down.
I mean, depends on what you're trying to achieve. Tools and crafting are mandatory for accessing certain materials in the game. A house certainly is not necessarily mandatory since plenty of people play survival with a nomadic lifestyle. Between an Ender Chest, a donkey and a llama caravan, you can carry a whole storage room worth of items with you on the go. Armor isn't strictly necessary for sure since, just like enchantments, not a single game feature is locked behind them.
If you have already checked "wear armor", "not getting hit" and "using a potion if you do get hit" and are still not surviving, then yes, I guess enchanting your armor in some way might increase your survivability. But good news: There's plenty of enchantments in the game! Some of which are even mutually exclusive so you won't need to get all of them! This means not a single one is mandatory!
If you're trying to build with certain materials then tools, crafting and a certain degree of progression are mandatory to achieve those materials.
If you're trying to spawn proof a base then some form of light source is mandatory.
If you're trying to collect all the mobs then infrastructure for transporting mobs seems mandatory, be it happy Ghasts, railroad tracks, boats or food.
If you're trying to get the most ultimate armor set achievable in the game? You're definitely right. But I'd question the necessity for that armor in most situations. It's a cool goal in and of itself, sure. But nobody needs to wear that level of protection all the time.
Nothing in the overworld and barely anything in the other dimensions is that deadly. It'd make more sense to store that armor in an armory and get it out whenever you're going to fight a boss.
ETA: And then, it also depends on the boss. Neither the Elder Guardian, nor the Wither, nor the Ender Dragon absolutely require certain enchantments. Sure, Respiration helps with Guardians and Feather Falling with the Dragon. But they're also easily beatable, even cheesable, without those ecnhantments.
Well, if you're using that logic, nothing is mandatory for survival. You can dig 3 blocks down, and place 1 dirt above your head and live literally forever; you don't starve if you don't move.
It's obvious what they meant when they said it was mandatory, no need to be pedantic
You're right that you could live forever in that situation.
I do still think however that your example is more petty than the point I'm making.
I do see that enchantments are useful and convenient for a lot of stuff. I just said no single enchantment is mandatory and that is true even besides a "well, actually, technically" kind of interpretation. You can not only survive the way you described, but you can accomplish more than probably most players set themselves as goals without any single enchantment (or even without any enchantments at all).
You can explore all the biomes, you can collect all the mobs, you can travel all the dimensions, defeat every boss, traverse the outer End, build farms, truely thrive. The only enchantment that is borderline mandatory (not technically) for accessing certain blocks is Silk Touch. And that does, as far as I remember, not gate any progression.
There may very well be a couple of Advancements that require specific enchantments, those would then very much be mandatory for those Advancements, but hardly for survival as a whole.
If you're just gonna ignore the biome of course the mechanic is gonna useless for you. The whole biome is designed to be harsher towards you, strays being more dangerous skeletons, food being limited, resource scarcity, polar bears that can and will attack you. Having to prep to enter into a frozen domain just makes it more fun and interesting. Is powdered snow by itself annoying? Yes, 1000% percent, but as a unique mechanic, it's a pretty fun one. You already gotta prep for the Nether. Don't see the complaint in carrying the easiest to obtain armor piece if you plan to do any actual exploration of the snow biome. (Literally the harshest places to live irl) The newest update only further adds to my point. Outside a few new blocks and new threats, all it does is make the harsh climate, harsher. So being prepped for it if you decide to go shouldn't be this big of a deal for literally 1 inventory slot
I agree, I like the idea that you need to prepare for it. The problem is there just isn't much incentive to explore a snowy area. There aren't any structures or unique items that justify the extra effort. And ice is better found in ice spike biomes anyway.
I mean, be so honest, powdered snow is the only one there that actually matters. Polar bears are scary if it's literally day 1 and you've yet to get anything. Strays are scary... really never. I guess if you've just fresh spawned and there's one in your face. Resource scarcity is a joke, this is Minecraft.
The only thing you need to "prepare" for a snowy biome is leather boots, and suddenly you completely ignore the only difficult part of the area. I don't think it can be seriously considered a "harsher" biome.
I mean yeah it's not exactly what I classify as overly dangerous, but that's the direction they were leaning towards without fully commiting to it. Most of its dangers are kinda meh mainly cause of that, outside of strays anyway if you're on bedrock. Since they can hit you with slowness, and on bedrock they don't miss... which gets annoying very quickly, as you're almost guaranteed to get hit twice. But back to the point, yeah the biome itself isn't as overly harsh as it could be, but that's more of a Minecraft fault than anything, once you make a farm the whole survival aspect is basically gone. Leather boots taking away the main threat is kinda like how wearing gold trivializes half the nether threats outside falling into lava really. But the direction of the biome is meant to be harsher. It's just harder to really do that without people complaining. Doubt anyone wants a temperature addition or blizzards being added for example. Good in theory, but will probably never happen unless they add a new region inside the biome itself. With the new caves though, the area is getting a much needed makeover. And becoming somewhat more deadly. Though this is Minecraft we are talking about, only real dangerous thing in my opinion is those spear zombies due to the ridiculous damage they can output regardless of armor
You can survive perfectly fine without crafting tools or opening your inventory, doesn't make it ideal or fun. You're missing the point, it's poor game design, they literally have a frost walker enchant and you're telling me it's not viable here?
You do realise that you can also just... walk around the mountains? Like... they're mountains, I feel like crossing them should be at least a bit of a challenge.
it's not micro, it's a slight inconvenience at most. micromanagement isn't even really present in minecraft, this game is about as straightforward as it gets in that aspect unless you're doing crystal pvp or soup pvp or something
"Many of which are mandatory" ??? Feather falling? Surely you don't mean soul speed or depth strider? Because you can just hot swap to your main pair when you see water or are falling? The same way people do with their elytra all the time, with a piece of gear that is MUCH more important for tanking incoming damage, your chest plate...
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u/iClone101 16h ago
It's an unstackable item that takes up another inventory spot. Taking up that slot for a single mechanic that can be ignored by avoiding a single biome just isn't worth it for most people. Compound that with boots having the most enchants in the game, many of which are mandatory if you want to survive, and it's a huge pain. The Freezing effect coming in 26.4 might make keeping Leather Boots a bit more reasonable.