The Bug
When you stare at endermen, instead of stopping, staring, and then attacking you only when you look away, they immediately charge at you. I have seen this in the 1.8 snapshots and all versions after it.
Expected behavior
When looking at an enderman it would wait until I looked away to attack.
How to reproduce
In 1.8 and up, spawn a enderman and stare at it to anger it
The enderman will charge at you instead of engaging in the original "staring contest" behavior
Linked issues
relates to 2
Attachments
Comments 21
Yes, I noticed that bug as well. It has been around for a long time.. ever since I started Minecraft, back in late 1.4. Maybe even before then.
Is this still an issue in the current Minecraft Snapshot 15w45b or later? If so, please update the affected versions in order to best aid Mojang ensuring bugs are still valid in the latest releases/pre-releases.
This is still in the recent snapshots and appears to be less known. This bug has been around since Endermen were given updated AI in 1.8.
The correct behavior is that Endermen should stand still when the player places their crosshair on them, but this was broken when they were given the updated AI.
This is not completely fixed. When you stand close to them, they start shaking and then teleport away, thereby breaking eye contact.
Ok so, after some testing I've come to realize this big is only partially fixed, but not in the way Fabian described it. I'm not sure if their discovery is WAI or not, as them teleporting away as your draw near makes sense, but what I found is basically the opposite: Endermen still won't act properly if you're too far away.
At 10 blocks, behavior is as expected:
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At 20 blocks, things start getting a bit buggy:
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And at a very far distance, they'll immediately run at you unless they happen to fall into your cursor
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It seems the issue is that, from afar, their detection is wonky and the only thing that triggers is the hostility, not the "staring contest." If they get into your cursor again they'll stop, but unless you remain staring straight ahead its unlikely that they will.
As such, I'd say this bug is unfortunately only partially fixed. It still effects the mob's behavior after a certain distance.
@unknown Well that does make sense. If you stare at it, it won't charge at you, but if you walk to close it will teleport away to sneak up on you and attack because if you get close to it then it is in your reach and it would only be natural for it to teleport away as self-defense.
From my tests, before 1.5 enderman slowly "twitched" towards players (since actual method of freezing them was buggy). When they reached certain distance threshold, they teleported away. New behavior still has this "teleport away".
Adding upper limit for staring and unexpected un-freezes after some time are intended (even if somehow arbitrary).
Also the stare is now triggered by looking at its lower chest instead of its eyes like before.