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How should End Portals Work? (I'm eventually going to redesign them)
So... 1.21's still not an end update. Meaning I'm probably going to be making a mod on my own to add more variety/reasons for going to the end. I've got plenty of ideas for mobs, biomes, new and interesting resources, etc; one thing I'm kinda stuck on from a design perspective is how to make end portals work/improve end portals. (Or if they need improvement in the first place.) Just to be clear, when I say 'eventually,' I mean probably some time in the next year, after I finish redesigning every naturally generated structure in the game.
My main issue is that making end portals location-specific and non-craftable even further limits the reasons for traveling to the End: In addition to there being almost nothing there worth finding, you have to specifically travel to a portal every time you want to enter the End, always have to start from the central isle, and have to return to your spawnpoint every time you want to come back, (as opposed to Nether portals, which can be constructed literally anywhere.) Where the Nether is extremely useful as a travel hub, It's prohibitively difficult to get anywhere besides the central isle in the End. The process isn't just difficult, (which can be interesting), but mostly just annoying.
So my initial thoughts:
Anyone have good insights on how to design this? I'm open to feedback, especially since this is a pretty significant change.
My main issue is that making end portals location-specific and non-craftable even further limits the reasons for traveling to the End: In addition to there being almost nothing there worth finding, you have to specifically travel to a portal every time you want to enter the End, always have to start from the central isle, and have to return to your spawnpoint every time you want to come back, (as opposed to Nether portals, which can be constructed literally anywhere.) Where the Nether is extremely useful as a travel hub, It's prohibitively difficult to get anywhere besides the central isle in the End. The process isn't just difficult, (which can be interesting), but mostly just annoying.
So my initial thoughts:
- Make End Portals craftable and movable, but only once you've obtained materials from the End. (The regular end portal and end well could still be unbreakable, but there could also be a distinct craftable version players could make using Endstone or something, and place anywhere.)
- End Portals no longer lead to the central isle by default, but rather lead to their corresponding End-dimension location, multiplied by eight. (Where the Netherworld condenses distances by a factor of eight blocks, the End multiplies them, meaning you have to travel 8 blocks in the end for every block in the overworld.) These would also need to be offset from the center so that portals would never drop players in the central island or void.
- The central isle is thus exclusively accessed using Elytra. (Or by building a really big bridge), since portals, (including the naturally generated ones), now lead to the outer isles. The idea here is to reverse the normal progression: you have to explore and find wings first, and only then can fight the dragon. (Instead of the other way around.)
- Whether or not to exclusively allow 3*3 player-made portals, or to allow multiple different shapes, (such as Nether portals), which would be more difficult, but probably better.
- How to distinguish player-made portals from the natural ones, (both in terms of code and just visually).
- Whether or not player-made portals should still require eyes of ender to activate. (Or what they should cost to construct.)
- Also just the weird physics of a horizontal portal. (If the player enters from above, do they fall to their doom on the other end? If they enter from below, do they immediately fall back into the portal on the other end?
- ...And whether reversing the progression of central isle/outer isles works, and whether it's intuitive to new players. (Realizing that you can reach the central island with Elytra requires you also know how to use fireworks, that there's a central isle, and that you know your coordinates.) One thought I had was to create a special compass item that always points to the origin, found in End Cities or something.
Anyone have good insights on how to design this? I'm open to feedback, especially since this is a pretty significant change.
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Caveat: I do not 'speak' java, any comments on coding are based on general programming issues across several other languages
Abbreviations:
ONP overworld new portal
ENP end new portal
O-E overworld to end via new portal type
E-O end to overworld via new portal type
RE: Horizontal portals:
Current end portals avoid the issues by having the departure and corresponding arrive pads non-congruent.
The system uses four locations overworld exit --> end arrival then move then end exit --> overworld arrival
(as opposed to two with nether portal).
Retaining this aspect both fixes the issues you raise and differentiates end from nether portal behavior.
This would also mean the player would need to construct at least two portals (one in each dimension and near enough to link) in order to avoid the standard E-portal routes...
RE ONP dropping player into void.
One solution is to have the ONP generante an E-side landing pad (similar to how nether gates work)
Should you wish to exclude the central island and the void around it, having an newly constructed O-side portal begin its search outside this area should work.
Find the ONP portal block farthest from 0,0
Multiply these coordinates by 8 [only if using 8E = 1O rather than 1E=1O distance ratio]
Find the vector defined by 0,0 and this block.
Project this out to a point on a circle of 1024 radius in the end
Start the search here…
Constructing an ENP would then drop the player onto the highest solid block at the correstponding O-side coordinates.
(Makiing the O-side arrival able to occur in liquid as well as air would add a bit of both challenge and differentiation from nether portals.)
An alternative is to treat the chance of being dropped into the void when moving O --> E as a feature, and NOT allow for landing pad creation.
This option would require that the player at least scout the E-side to remain safe.
RE distance ratio:
You mention using an 8E = 1O ratio: I would be inclined to leave the ratio at 1:1 to avoid players using an "Overworld Hub" as a shortcut between points in the end.
RE: Portal appearance and recipe:
Limiting the new portals to a standard 3x3 might be easier to code [alternatives could be implemented in a later update, if you feel that is merited].
I like the idea of retaining ender pearls as some part of the recipe/activation as this ties these new portals conceptually to the original end portals.
This relationship might be further indicated by allowing the player to craft frames for the new portals which would then need ender pearls to activate as do the vanilla ones.
Unless one were to require non-renewable resources to craft the portal frames [an option I dislike because of a basic dislike for non-renewable resources (unless ubiqitous)] late game players (at least the technical ones) will be able to construct portal frames without much in the way of limits.
(Something like eight purpur – slabs/blocks/pillars or some combination – surrounding a beacon might be expensive enough, however, to make player portal construction at least thoughtful.)
Visually, I'm thinking the purple would substitue for the endstone color and the endstone color for the green in the standard portal frame model. [Although this is largely a trivial choice.]
Making placed portal frames unretrievable (similar to cakes) would be a further limit on players — as well as conceptually tying new to old portals.
(Alternatively, the new frames should be very hard to break, possibly requiring something quite difficult to manipulate – like a wither's black skull projectile – and not drop as an item when broken.)
If this seems too restrictive, the frames might become unretrievable only after activation of the gate with which they are associated.
[My first idea was to make them fixed if activated, but this allows the player too much access to an (nearly) unbreakable block.]
RE: Central Island last:
Given that you will be making these changes available as a mod, I don't think there will be many 'new' players that encounter them; as such, I don't see reason to be concerned about a lack of realization of the central island's special features.
Implementing this would require changing what the stronghold portals do — the simplest idea that occurs being to simply treat them as landing pad generating versions of the new portals…
While this idea places the dragon fight at the end of the end [so to speak], it also robs the initial dragon fight of some of its most iconic features (unkown terrain, limited supplies, no line of retreat) and seems likely to make the initial dragon too easy an opponent. [The first dragon would be effectively the same as subsequently spawned dragons….]
Lots of good ideas! Some brief thoughts/ideas and responses, you've given me a lot to think about!
- Redirecting Portals ~ Redirecting portals to a 1000m radius circle around the central isle is a good idea... though I'm not totally sure if it's necessary. Strongholds, (including my modded ones), will already be at least a thousand meters out from spawn, so I don't need to worry about the naturally generated portals. That still leaves the possibility of someone going into the End through a natural portal, gathering the materials for a custom portal, then going back to the overworld origin point and making a portal to the dragon... I could make the resources/ability to make a crafted portal require you first defeat the dragon, but that also seems needlessly convoluted... so yes, I'll probably redirect portals to a radius around the void. It's more difficult math wise, but shouldn't be too much of a hassle. (He said, hopefully.)
- Portal Crafting ~ The basic idea is that they'll require end stone, and an ore unique to the end- but the idea of using Ender Eyes to power custom portals is really interesting. Maybe you can move custom portals around with relative ease, (they could have similar hardness to obsidian, to at least encourage being thoughtful with them), but they'd need eyes to activate, which wouldn't be returned if broken. (Making them more expensive, and also giving a good use to eyes of ender even after the stronghold has been found.)
- End Distance Relativity ~ The *8 factor is more just because It seemed like a cool way to mirror the Nether, I haven't totally considered the gameplay mechanics of it. (Or if it's in any way useful or interesting to have a dimension where it actually takes longer to travel places.) Definitely open to more feedback on this.
- Portal Physics ~ Still not sure about this. It's one of the weirdly concrete problems, in that if the player enters a portal from above and comes out the bottom they need a landing pad, and if they enter from below and come out the top of a portal, they immediately fall back inside. One idea I had was to give slow-falling/levitation depending on which side they come out of, or just always drop them out the bottom, but either way feels a little forced. If I also require the teleportation to take a minute, or maybe slow the player's vertical movement when they're touching a portal block, then there's less concern about instantly swapping between dimensions.
- Distinguishing Portals ~ Purely in terms of code, I'm probably just going to replace the vanilla end portals with my own naturally generated portals, just so it's easier to do math on them. The one thing that bothers me though is that I'm not sure how I'd get the cool vanilla end-portal effect. I'm willing to just do something similar to the Nether portal, (I guess), but if anyone knows how to get the weird depth effect, I'd appreciate it!
- Portal Linking/Different Portal Shapes ~ Good thoughts- I think it'll probably have to be similar to nether portals, where if there's already an End Portal nearby the area where a new portal would be generated, it links to that portal instead. (Not totally sure how I'm going to get this working, might just have to brute force it.) Different portal shapes are tricky mostly just in terms of determining which block to put the player at, but I still kind of want them just because they feel like they'd be a cool feature. That being said, I'm still open to just exclusively doing 3*3s.
- Progression Changes ~ Yeah, I admit most new players aren't using game-changing mods, it's more just vanilla+ mindset where it feels weird to make use of features that aren't easier to figure out without outside help. I'll probably still go with the compass thing, maybe use some subtle method of teaching players to use fireworks, (or honestly, just an achievement), just on the off chance.
- ...And don't anyone worry about the dragon fight being too easy with elytra. Any gamer ought to be worried when they get powerful new equipment before a boss, because it means it's almost certainly going to be required to beat it... long story short, I'm making the dragonfight a lot harder, and a lot more focused on elytra and flight.
