I'm curious. Why is it that some people here don't like the Phantom? I can understand the annoyance towards it but, for me, it's no more annoying to deal with than creepers if not less so.
I don't dislike the idea of a new hostile mob. In fact, I welcome the idea of new hostile mobs, because I'm a Survival-focused player, and I remember downloading Dr. Zhark's Mo' Creatures mod during the Beta days just for the chance of fighting new and interesting mobs. However, the overall design of the Phantom is poorly thought-out.
First off, the spawning condition. At first it doesn't seem too bad: go three days without sleeping and they will spawn. However, the problem is that once you trigger their spawning, they are completely relentless in doing so, spawning endlessly and in progressively bigger waves until you finally cave and go to bed. As someone who's used to only sleeping on occasion to skip the night, preferring to use the night to hunt mobs while lighting up my base area for safety, this is a
huge flow breaker. It gets even worse if you're away from your base, since they force you to consider bringing a bed along with the trip, taking up valuable inventory space that could be used for treasure, as well as setting your spawn somewhere in the wilderness or resetting it should you ever break it. Hope your base isn't too far from spawn!
Second, while they may be avoidable in Single Player, in Multiplayer it's a different story. See, I have a habit of building AFK machines on my servers, from Automatic Chicken Cookers, Automatic Bamboo Farms, AFK Cave Spider Farms, etc., and once I do, I tend to idle in a safe spot to build up resources when I'm asleep or at work. Trouble is, in doing so, it prevents my guests from sleeping, which means they too will be harassed by never-ending waves of Phantoms any time the sun goes down.
"So why don't you just get a cat so that you're safe," you ask? Well that leads me to my third point, which is...
...Their sounds. This is somewhat subjective, but I hate their sounds. They're just too loud for my liking, and I'm easily annoyed by loud mobs. For instance, I once "astroturfed" the interior of a castle I built in the Alpha/Beta days with green wool because I was tired of Cows endlessly spawning and causing a lot of noise, so imagine how irritating it is for me when I'm trying to fish, and being constantly forced to hear a hissing match between my cat and the Phantoms overhead. While I do have Passive Mob Voices turned down in the volume setting, I keep Hostile Mob Voices high, since I rely on them to detect danger or to find new cave sections, so every time they spawn, I'm greeted with an obnoxiously loud hissing noise.
Fourth, fighting them is a bitch. They have an annoyingly small hitbox and fly in fairly unpredictable patterns, which means your only chance of hitting them with a ranged weapon is when they're diving straight towards you. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't compounded by every other problem in this list, including...
...Their drop. As mentioned, the Elytra's repair material was changed from Leather to Phantom Membrane, giving them a false sense of necessity. They're especially unnecessary when you can just apply Mending to an Elytra to ensure it'll be topped up on Durability. Their other use, Slow Fall Potions, are way too niche for me to ever consider crafting them. So fighting them is not only annoying,
it has no reward. However, even if you
did need their drops, you don't even need to have Phantoms enabled, since Cats can supply you with Phantom Membranes without you ever having to fight a single Phantom.
So I'll gladly
/gamerule doInsomnia false away. Phantoms just make every aspect of the game worse due to their poor design, something even the creators of the game agree upon.
