The main problem with this imo is not the need to go exploring and interacting with minecraft, it's that you need at most twelve eyes of ender to light the portal. If you're going to make getting the materials for the eyes more difficult, then we either need the crafting recipe to make more of them, remove the chance for them to break when thrown, or both.
Also, I don't play minecraft for progression and doing more progression gatekeeping could probably really ruin it for me. However I argue that's a more personal problem.
