Is The Elytra Over-powered Or Under-powered? - Survival Mode

• Tree Puncher
• Join Date: 5/20/2012
• Posts: 26
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I've been using the elytra in amplified survival and I love it! It completely changes the whole game experience, effectively turning impassible terrain into your personal playground. However, there are a few things I find unbalanced about it. It's nice that they provided a great end game item with amazing flight capabilities... But it suddenly becomes a lot less great when you see how easily durability is reduced. After a single Minecraft day/night of flying, I can get the durability down to the red zone with stock elytra. That's pretty pathetic for something that is supposed to be an end game item. This is somewhat counteracted by the fact that elytra don't break and they can be repaired... But who wants to bring a anvil and tons of leather with them while exploring? These puppies should last longer... A lot longer. As an end game item, they should last longer than any of your diamond equipment, effectively becoming an extension of your body. When you apply durability and mending enchantments, the elytra finally becomes "usable" as an exploration tool. Does it seem right to have to double enchant an end game item before it becomes practical for exploration? Another insult comes from having to substitute your chest plate for the elytra, massively decreasing your damage resistance (especially on hard mode). You could say this is balanced by a quick getaway capability and the fact that flying objects are usually light weight, but I think most PVP players will argue that the Elytra is completely worthless in combat due to the decrease in damage resistance. What do you guys think? Would you change the elytra or is it fine as is?

• Zombie Killer
• Join Date: 10/30/2016
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Can't argue with that. I have a elytra with unbreaking III and it still losses durability very fast.

• Enderdragon Slayer
• Join Date: 10/27/2010
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Put mending and unbreaking III on it and then just recharge it at an XP farm when it gets low. With the new patch coming out we'll all be using elytra like crazy with the ability to use fireworks to boost ourselves.

• Lapis Lazuli Collector
• Join Date: 12/15/2010
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Quote from Behelit123 »Another insult comes from having to substitute your chest plate for the elytra, massively decreasing your damage resistance (especially on hard mode).

I actually don't wear any armor anymore when flying after "the incident".

I generally use a punch 2, unbreaking 3, mending, infinity bow with my elytra to allow me to fly as long as I want. You can fly forever(relatively speaking, I think it's actually about 25-30k blocks before your elytra breaks) using that bow. I think the new enchanting change to mending/infinity in the upcoming snapshot is actually a direct nerf on this. So you can't just have your elytra, bow, single arrow, fly around for thousands of blocks and then just go fix it up. Now you'll need to either replace the bows or the arrows.

SO ANYWAYS, one time when I was flying around, I actually broke my fully repaired mending diamond armor(helm/legs/boots) from shooting myself with the punch bow... I figured that the damage reduction would help me save some food to heal, but then I started noticing that I was taking MORE damage, check my inventory... No armor LOL. Needless to say, I don't wear armor when using my elytra anymore and just bring an extra stack of steaks when I'm flying around.

The lesson of the story is that an undamaged elytra will last longer than undamaged diamond armor.

Quote from rodabon »Put mending and unbreaking III on it and then just recharge it at an XP farm when it gets low. With the new patch coming out we'll all be using elytra like crazy with the ability to use fireworks to boost ourselves.

I've been doing it already for months now.

I think that's one of the motivations behind the mending/infinity nerf, to incentivize people to use fireworks instead.

Quote from Swingerzetta »This forum has made me decide that I now want kids, so that when they get old enough, I can forbid them from coming here. it's a terrible place.

• Tree Puncher
• Join Date: 5/20/2012
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Quote from Adversity»

I actually don't wear any armor anymore when flying after "the incident".

I generally use a punch 2, unbreaking 3, mending, infinity bow with my elytra to allow me to fly as long as I want. You can fly forever(relatively speaking, I think it's actually about 25-30k blocks before your elytra breaks) using that bow. I think the new enchanting change to mending/infinity in the upcoming snapshot is actually a direct nerf on this. So you can't just have your elytra, bow, single arrow, fly around for thousands of blocks and then just go fix it up. Now you'll need to either replace the bows or the arrows.

SO ANYWAYS, one time when I was flying around, I actually broke my fully repaired mending diamond armor(helm/legs/boots) from shooting myself with the punch bow... I figured that the damage reduction would help me save some food to heal, but then I started noticing that I was taking MORE damage, check my inventory... No armor LOL. Needless to say, I don't wear armor when using my elytra anymore and just bring an extra stack of steaks when I'm flying around.

The lesson of the story is that an undamaged elytra will last longer than undamaged diamond armor.

Okay... But you have to admit, while your reasons for not wearing armor serve a functional purpose, it's "janky". LOL, You are exploiting what is obviously a bug to extend flight. Besides, how the heck does that work anyway? I've tried shooting arrows straight up in the air and when they come down on my head they do no damage. How are you able to hit yourself?

• Glowstone Miner
• Location: Eastern Coast, good luck
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Mojang added fireworks propelling you mid-flight, so I'd say infinite flight is okay.

And in that case, infinite flight at the cost of 8 protection bars seems okay. Especially since you can put Protection 4 on all of your armor and probably be just fine.

Don't quote me on that. I always take a Diamond Chestplate with me just to be sure.

Watch out for the crabocalypse. Some say the day will never come. But it will.

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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)

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• Tree Puncher
• Join Date: 5/20/2012
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Hmmm. I was reading about 1.11.1 and I really like the idea of rocket assist. Gun powder and paper are cheap. Very cool. I hope it doesn't increase the speed too much though. I already see 2~8sec behind messages when an elytra is used to explore new areas.

• Glowstone Miner
• Join Date: 1/10/2015
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Mojang added fireworks propelling you mid-flight, so I'd say infinite flight is okay.

Elytra were born with flight capabilities (basically the exact same functionality as shooting yourself with a bow or propelling yourself with a rocket.) Mojang didn't like that, so they took away the elytra's ability to regain altitude.

Player's figure out a way to exploit the knockback effect to regain flight capabilities Mojang nerfed away. Mojang didn't like this...so they added a way to do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons using moreorless exactly the same mechanism? At this point, might as well just simply re-add the stuff originally taken away.

• Zombie Killer
• Join Date: 8/10/2012
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Would have been nice to have a way to gain altitude built right in instead of having to take up a second item along with it. But, whatever.

Personally, I used Elytra for about an hour before I decided that this was pathetic: I got all the way to the End, defeated a dragon, got out to an End Island, and spend many hours building bridges from island to island in search of End Cities. Eventually found one, but it didn't have an end ship. A few more hours, and I finally found another End City with an End Ship, and found that there was just a single Elytra. And then had practically used it all up in an hour or two. I did some high level terrain generation flying around in Creative mode (I do this somewhat regularly to make sure areas that my players may be exploring are fully rendered to reduce server load), and I discovered that, having rendered enough of the End to keep players busy exploring for weeks, there was only a single other End City that had an End Ship. So effectively, my server had a two Elytra, and only one of which was still available.

I felt that was just a huge rip-off, so to speak, that so much time had to be invested in the game just to get something that teased you with a little bit of flight before breaking. And on top of that, the next player to go looking for one would probably take a month or so to find it, and the rest probably wouldn't find one, ever. (Who wants to spend months building really long bridges across the void in the End? Not many) So my solution was to go back to that first End Ship, and put in a command block that gives whoever activates it an Elytra that is unbreakable. I also gave it feather fall 4 and protection 4, just to be nice to some of the very death-inclined players on my server. I also decorated the room a bit and called it the "Shrine of the Dragon." And put a few books here and there around the overworld talking about how if one wants to learn the mysteries of flight, one should seek out the Shrine of the Dragon, along with some cryptic hints about where to find that.

So now if they can get that far (and it *is* still a challenge. It'll probably still take them an hour or two to find that End City, and I left most of the Shulkers, and the End City itself is still a challenge to get through. ), they get something that will let them glide that they don't have to worry about.

Now gliding is fun, and honestly, I don't think my heavily upgraded version of an Elytra is OP. Now it feels about the way I think it should have been from the start. Having some way to boost flight would be nice, especially as it would then serve as a way to make crossing between islands, well, not a tedious road making experience. Personally, I would have gone with something along the lines of "once per flight you can hit "jump" to give yourself a moderate boost to speed, which can be used to gain altitude or whatever as you see fit. It wouldn't allow infinite flight, but it would give players the opportunity to extend their flight a little. Or maybe have it be an enchantment. Have boost 1-5, with each one allowing a corresponding number of times that one can activate the boosting ability before touching ground again.

• Lapis Lazuli Collector
• Join Date: 12/15/2010
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Quote from Behelit123»

Okay... But you have to admit, while your reasons for not wearing armor serve a functional purpose, it's "janky". LOL, You are exploiting what is obviously a bug to extend flight. Besides, how the heck does that work anyway? I've tried shooting arrows straight up in the air and when they come down on my head they do no damage. How are you able to hit yourself?

Nah, it's not janky at all. You have to take off your chest piece to wear a giant set of wings, makes perfect sense to me and it's balanced just fine. It's not a bug either, it's an unanticipated effect due to the speed you travel while using elytra. By traveling at the same speed as the arrow you shoot, it's quite easy to hit yourself. I think you actually travel slightly faster than the arrow and end up shooting yourself in the back for the punch bow to work, it does require a little timing on how long you keep the bow drawn. You just need a good, high, starting spot to jump from then once you're in flight you can just maintain that with the bow. Once I shoot myself a couple times I usually have enough altitude to just cruise over the entire world at around Y-250. You must be missing yourself when shooting straight up. The easiest way to see the mechanic is to shoot an arrow into a block above you, break the block while standing under the arrow, it will fall on you and cause damage. This mechanic can also be commonly seen when a skeleton "shoots itself" after you block it's arrow with a shield at close range. They would have to completely redesign how arrows deal damage to fix it.

Quote from DuhDerp »At this point, might as well just simply re-add the stuff originally taken away.

It's a matter of resources. Mojang doesn't mind players having "infinite flight"(relatively), they just don't feel it was balanced. First you could just regain altitude with no investment. Then you needed your punch bow. Now you'll have to choose between mending or infinity on your punch bow or you can spam fireworks as an alternative. Going back to a zero investment way to gain altitude is not something they're going to do. It's not the mechanic itself that Mojang doesn't like, it's the amount of resource investment.

Quote from Swingerzetta »This forum has made me decide that I now want kids, so that when they get old enough, I can forbid them from coming here. it's a terrible place.

• Tree Puncher
• Join Date: 5/20/2012
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I don't think the arrow is missing me actually, I'll straight up be in 3rd person view and see the arrow come straight down on my head, hit me, then bounce off and get transferred to the ground. No damage. But I just realized why it's probably not working, I have my server set in PVE mode.