When I saw everyone on the forum discussing enchantments, I expected a very complicated and roulette-like system. I wanted to accumulate plenty of experience before experimenting with the effects, to ensure that I didn't get any of the "bad" ones that I had heard people complaining about. I figured the "bad" ones consisted of getting a damage bonus on a pickaxe, or an efficiency bonus on a sword, that kind of thing.
After a bit of experimenting and finally looking at the wiki, it would appear that there are no "bad" enchantments. All of them are helpful in different ways, and enchantments appear to be restricted to the tool for which they are meant. Fantastic! Now I don't have to worry so much! I can just stick in my pickaxe, cross my fingers, and hope I get a high-tier bonus!
This set me to thinking: What's making people complain about the effect they're receiving from an enchantment? Since they're all good, I just don't see a reason to complain about which one you get. You might not be getting the best one ever, but to expect the very best seems a bit odd, considering the way enchantments are acquired. The reason wasn't obvious to me right away, but here's what I came up with, and what I believe I understand:
People seem to be upset by the enchantments they receive because they are investing so much time into collecting experience and they don't get the specific enchantment they wanted. They set a goal in mind, such as getting Fortune III for their diamond pickaxe, and they work toward it. Playing with such gusto is a great thing, and it's even greater to see so many players who will invest so much time to achieve an in-game perk, but from what I can tell, that's not the way enchantments are meant to work, considering the mechanics. It seems that the most fulfilling way to go about enchanting is to simply play the game as usual, and if you notice that you've collected a fair number of levels, you can go turn them in for a prize.
I'm not posting this as a complaint to those who are grinding for enchantments, but simply as a suggestion that maybe that's not the playstyle they had in mind when they were designing the mechanics of it. If you find that you don't feel fulfilled by your experience grinding, try giving it up for a while. Instead of striving for a specific enchantment, just be ready to be happy about getting a bonus at all.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'd love to hear yours.
It seems that the most fulfilling way to go about enchanting is to simply play the game as usual, and if you notice that you've collected a fair number of levels, you can go turn them in for a prize.
Unless your normal style of playing the game is "run around all night battling monsters", it's going to take a loooong time to afford any of the higher-end enchantments. For example, once I'm established enough to be getting diamonds, here's the activities I'm normally engaged in:
* Mining - a few monsters from running into caves, but not many.
* In-Town Building - no monsters.
* Expanding - some monsters, but not huge hordes.
* Exploring - plenty of monsters, but:
** I've usually explored the local vicinity by this point, so expeditions are less frequent.
** I might die on the trip anyway, losing any XP gained in the process.
** If I'm trying not to die, I won't be out brawling all night.
Really, the only way I anticipate getting significant quantities of XP is by setting up a manual grinder, and I'd rather not spend longer there than I have to.
Unless your normal style of playing the game is "run around all night battling monsters", it's going to take a loooong time to afford any of the higher-end enchantments. For example, once I'm established enough to be getting diamonds, here's the activities I'm normally engaged in:
* Mining - a few monsters from running into caves, but not many.
* In-Town Building - no monsters.
* Expanding - some monsters, but not huge hordes.
* Exploring - plenty of monsters, but:
** I've usually explored the local vicinity by this point, so expeditions are less frequent.
** I might die on the trip anyway, losing any XP gained in the process.
** If I'm trying not to die, I won't be out brawling all night.
Really, the only way I anticipate getting significant quantities of XP is by setting up a manual grinder, and I'd rather not spend longer there than I have to.
I'm the same way; I rarely ever engage in battle with monsters, but I also virtually never die. I'm still playing my first hardcore file, and the highest level I achieved before spending my experience was only 28.
Your comment does bring up one of the things I was trying to highlight: Why do people gauge enchantments based on the most valuables ones possible? Enchantments are currently a reward for combat, so it makes sense that only very combat-oriented gameplay would yield the highest rewards. It also makes sense that the very best rewards are very difficult for the average player to attain. Personally, I would rather enjoy playing the game at my own pace and accept the rewards that are offered for my level than grind until I'm bored to tears just to have the highest-level enchantment without the risk.
The problem with the enchanting as it stands is not that there are bad enchantments per se, but that it is entirely random and uncontrollable. I'll give an example.
I had wanted to see what I could get on an Iron Pick for 2 levels. I went in, and after spending a few minutes removing and putting my pick back in (took a while for a level 2 enchantment to show up) I found one and got Efficiency I.
Moderately pleased, I decided to see what I could get for a higher level. So after spending a couple nights grinding I ended up at level 12. I rushed back to my table and put another Iron Pick back in. Guess what those 12 levels were spent on?
I got Efficiency I. The EXACT SAME thing I got before, the only difference is it costed 10 more levels.
As I see it the problems are these:
A: The table doesn't limit what enchantments show up based on your level. Meaning you can see a bunch of enchantments that you can't even get yet. Not too big of a deal but it's REALLY annoying.
B: Some different level enchantments give you the same effect. Meaning even if you spend a lot, there could be the same effect for a much lower cost, leading you to feeling like you got screwed.
C: The randomness of it in general puts a lot of people off. Many people don't see a point in bothering with it if they can't get what they want. Especially when chasing the more elusive enchantments like Silk Touch or Smite.
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A: The table doesn't limit what enchantments show up based on your level. Meaning you can see a bunch of enchantments that you can't even get yet. Not too big of a deal but it's REALLY annoying.
My understanding was that this could be controlled (to some extent) by placing more or less bookcases around the enchantment table?
B: Some different level enchantments give you the same effect. Meaning even if you spend a lot, there could be the same effect for a much lower cost, leading you to feeling like you got screwed.
This is another complaint that stems from the issue of players expecting or feeling entitled to the very best enchantments. You started with a regular pickaxe, and now you have a more efficient one. It's not the very best prize, but it's still a prize.
C: The randomness of it in general puts a lot of people off. Many people don't see a point in bothering with it if they can't get what they want. Especially when chasing the more elusive enchantments like Silk Touch or Smite.
I can understand having an issue with the randomness. As a player who loves to be challenged, I can always see the appeal of something that requires skill or practice. It's hard to say which way would be better, random or not, because we haven't seen what a non-random enchantment system would look like in Minecraft. I have a hard time picturing it. At least potions take skill, right?
this actually helped me a lot too. i was actually wondering pretty much the same thing... THank youz
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If i were you, i woudnt turn around while your in a dark room. Resons- chuck norris might be there or i might be there, and trust me, im evil as all heck, id kill you instantly
I think that all enchantments are not created equal in terms of what they let you do.(more on that later) Also, the system currently is very, very random so some people will end up feeling really ripped off, especially since the only reliable way to get the enchantments is through hours of mob grinding. Getting to level 30+ non-intentionally during the normal course of the game is borderline impossible right now.
For example I once got lucky and obtained Smite II on my iron sword by spending 3 levels of experience (this is great for me), while I noted somebody else reported they got smite II on a diamond sword by spending 15 levels of experience. I've actually roughly determined an equation for the number of monsters needed to reach a certain level and level 15 is worth approx. 25 times the effort to obtain than level 3 is. The system is not really fair if someone puts in 25x the effort and gets the same thing...
I don't think the random element should be removed entirely but I think it should be constrained a bit to give more equitable results and levels should not increase in their requirements as you gain more as monsters are not themselves increasing in the exp they drop (like in most games with an experience system.)
Now that I've made my main point on to my rankings of the abilities.
Tool Enchantments
1) Silk Touch - Far and away the best enchantment of them all. (and I'm counting armour and weapons as well) Why? Because unlike other enchantments which just increase a stat or ability of the tool this one allows you to do things that are impossible in any other way in the vanilla game. (i.e. place blocks that are normally Un-placeable - ice, grass, mycellium, ores and reclaim bookshelves with no lose of wood.) I want this one so I can put grass on the floating island base I'm planning without having to build a ridiculous 'grass ladder' to reach it.
2) Fortune - Random chance of extra drops. Use this on the rarer blocks (aka diamonds) and profit. I have a fortune I pick axe now, I mined 6 diamond ores and got 7 diamonds, which is nice.
3) Unbreakable - Getting extended lifetime out of your tools especially if they are diamond is almost as good as fortune, slightly less useful but still pretty good.
4) Efficiency - This ability is 'utter pants' (I'd take Fortune I over efficiency V any day) All it does is increase your mining speed 10% per level. By the time you have enchanting you already have the very fast diamond pick/shovel/axe making this ability close to pointless. There is likely such a thing as mining too fast, meaning your character can't move/react fast enough to take advantage of the extra speed to bother saving time. Also this ability doesn't work on obsidian apparently, which is the only major use I could think for it.
Weapon (AKA sword) enchantments
These ones are tougher to rate as they all come pretty close in my book.
1) Sharpness - Increases weapon damage against all mobs, can't argue with that.
2) Fire Aspect - Will light mobs on fire, which does a fair amount of damage. Probably better than sharpness at similar levels, but only goes up to level II. Also nether mobs are immune to fire, so tough luck there. Also, it looks cool.
3) Smite - Increased damage against skeletons, zombies and zombie pigmen. (More damage increase per level than sharpness) Situational, but useful, zombies are easy to take out unless in large groups and skeletons can shoot you from range.
4) Knockback - I'm really not sure where to put this one, so I put it here. This is nice to have in certain occasions (i.e. large swarms of monsters or near cliffs) but doesn't add much killing power. Can be good, but hard to quantify. It would also not do much for you in cramped caves.
5) Bane of Arthopods - Not as good as smite. All of the mobs covered by this have less health than zombies and skeletons so the extra damage isn't as needed unless using inferior materials. (Spiders have 8 hearts, cave spiders 6 and Silverfish have 4. Silverfish are much better dealt with by the "kill it with fire" method as it will stop others from spawning.)
Looting - Gives extra loot from hostile mobs. It won't be of much use if you are in a tight spot, but it might be useful in mob farms or when hunting for ender pearls. (probably the best use I can think of actually.) This one doesn't get a rating because it seems to be more of a utility added then a 'weapon enhancement' Nice to get, but not the main purpose of a sword.
Armour Enchantments
I won't bother rating these as I haven't really tried yet for armour enchants. I'll comment on what looks promising though.
I like the sound of blast protection, could be the best as creepers are still one of the most deadly and unpredictable mobs around. Most of the other ones look fairly comparable, all providing some additional protection against some element or more efficient ability to work underwater.
Fire protection seems to be the worst, as fire doesn't cover lava and most times you can see fire coming and avoid it. Also fire resistance potion nullifies fire and lava damage making it obsolete in a way.
Does anyone know what Protection protects against, it says on the wiki that it 'converts environmental damage to armour damage' just what is covered under environmental damage? This one may be one of the better ones if that includes mob attacks.
Just my opinion...
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When no one was looking, the Endermen took forty blocks.
They took 40 blocks. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s horrible.
I've been watching this thread, and I honestly don't think that you guys are understanding the concept of enchantments being perks, and not goals.
It is impossible to feel gypped when receiving something that you didn't work for, unless it is negative, and there are no negative enchantments.
Therefore, perhaps you should take a look at your priorities, and perhaps remove getting all of the best enchantments as one of them, because it's a negative way to think, and will most likely bring disappointment.
@DarthMaulerX
The usefulness of enchantment effects really does seem to be on a case-by-case basis... You rank Silk Touch as number one, but I think it sounds like the most pointless enchantment. I have no interest in picking up ore blocks (though moving grass is enticing), and while picking up spawners would be super handy, it's been declared a bug. I'm not saying that Silk Touch is useless, I'm just saying we value it differently.
Once again, the issue seems to be that players have picked up a sense of entitlement to the very best abilities. When you strip things down objectively, every one of those enchantments is helpful, and I'd be thrilled with any one of them. Just because I can't have a superduperpickaxe, it doesn't mean I'm going to be unhappy with a "plain old" superpickaxe.
You mention that getting above level 30 is very difficult while just playing the old fashioned way, for lack of a better term. My response is: What's wrong with that? Shouldn't the very best items be difficult to obtain? I think a lot of players have gotten used to sort of expecting to die once in a while. Death used to be no more than an inconvenience (unless you die in lava with valuables on your person) but now it has serious drawbacks. Players who are used to playing on hard might want to consider bumping down to normal just for the sake of cutting down the death toll. The difficulty of the game has definitely seen some tweaks.
You said in your post that
the only reliable way to get the enchantments is through hours of mob grinding.
I'm not sure where this mentality comes from. I can go and kill a few pigs and get enough for a low-level enchantment, or I can just play the game as usual and collect experience gradually. I haven't figured out why, but for some reason people expect to be able to get the very best enchantments in one or two sittings. They'd hardly be a rare, powerful and sought-after item if they could be obtained with little effort. If you're willing to sacrifice fun for timeliness, then by all means, grind away. I, personally, am not so willing.
P.S. Environmental damage includes drowning, fall damage, and damage from fire and lava, from what I understand.
an idea about how to change this
make exp orbs worth less expierence. Every block mined drops on exporb.
problems I see are easy farming, makes mobs worthless (unless they drop a whole lot in comparison)
My understanding was that this could be controlled (to some extent) by placing more or less bookcases around the enchantment table?
True, it can be. But that either requires a rather expensive redstone piston setup or you need a chest full of planks and a crafting bench on hand any time you want to limit the levels. Adding an If function that sets the max level to the player's current level would simplify that quite a bit. But as I said, it is a minor issue and only one of annoyance.
This is another complaint that stems from the issue of players expecting or feeling entitled to the very best enchantments. You started with a regular pickaxe, and now you have a more efficient one. It's not the very best prize, but it's still a prize.
It's not a matter of feeling entitled to the best enchantments. It's a simple matter of bad design. Having the same enchantment at one level and another level that is 6 times as expensive just doesn't make sense. It adds useless complication and would be a lot easier to code if each enchantment had one set cost and multiple enchantments cost a little extra. Most of us would agree that optimization is not Mojang's strong suit. It took Jeb 5 prereleases to find the 100% CPU problem after all.
I can understand having an issue with the randomness. As a player who loves to be challenged, I can always see the appeal of something that requires skill or practice. It's hard to say which way would be better, random or not, because we haven't seen what a non-random enchantment system would look like in Minecraft. I have a hard time picturing it. At least potions take skill, right?
If you want a look at a non-random enchantment system it's rather easy to picture. Each effect has a set cost and you have to pay more if you want more than one effect on an item.
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an idea about how to change this
make exp orbs worth less expierence. Every block mined drops on exporb.
problems I see are easy farming, makes mobs worthless (unless they drop a whole lot in comparison)
I'd love to get experience from mining. I would love it. All night long.
I really do hope they add ways of getting experience that aren't just combat based. I've heard rumors of fetch quests for NPCs that yield experience. I'd love to see experience rewards in dungeon, stronghold and abandoned mineshaft chests as well.
I'd love to get experience from mining. I would love it. All night long.
I really do hope they add ways of getting experience that aren't just combat based. I've heard rumors of fetch quests for NPCs that yield experience. I'd love to see experience rewards in dungeon, stronghold and abandoned mineshaft chests as well.
Honestly I would love to see Mobs from mob spawners drop no XP, but you get a large amoung for breaking the Spawner. That way you have to make the choice between item farming and a huge XP boost.
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It's not a matter of feeling entitled to the best enchantments. It's a simple matter of bad design. Having the same enchantment at one level and another level that is 6 times as expensive just doesn't make sense. It adds useless complication and would be a lot easier to code if each enchantment had one set cost and multiple enchantments cost a little extra. Most of us would agree that optimization is not Mojang's strong suit. It took Jeb 5 prereleases to find the 100% CPU problem after all.
While I agree that it's a bit strange to have multiple levels yield the same enchantment, my understanding was that certain enchantments do only occur between certain level ranges, or after a certain minimum level. If the player wants to optimize how they spend their experience, they have the option of looking up when each enchantment becomes available, and spending their experience such that they are getting the best "deal". This is assuming that the player's odds are the same between each of the afore-mentioned ranges. If the odds of getting a better enchantmnent increase with each level provided said level is higher than the minimum requirement, then the current system is properly implemented, it's just still largely luck-based. I haven't seen evidence of whether that's the case or not, so I'm not sure what my stance is on that.
If you want a look at a non-random enchantment system it's rather easy to picture. Each effect has a set cost and you have to pay more if you want more than one effect on an item.
Oh I understand how the math would work... I guess I meant it was hard for me to picture it within the context of Minecraft. Maybe I was getting too complicated and imagining something closer to the way Morrowind does it. I think a lot of players would be a bit disappointed if enchantment was rebalanced so that it works more like an enchantment shop rather than an arcane art.
How about a middle ground: A player can either spend experience directly on enchantments, or they can spend them to increase their proficiency with enchantment. Increasing proficiency would narrow down the randomness, and possibly translate certain effects so that the player can see what they're getting. Something like that?
Honestly I would love to see Mobs from mob spawners drop no XP, but you get a large amoung for breaking the Spawner. That way you have to make the choice between item farming and a huge XP boost.
That's actually a really good idea, holy crap! It would definitely upset people who like to grind for their experience, but the idea of getting a lump of experience for destroying the spawner appeals to me a lot.
@DarthMaulerX
The usefulness of enchantment effects really does seem to be on a case-by-case basis... You rank Silk Touch as number one, but I think it sounds like the most pointless enchantment. I have no interest in picking up ore blocks (though moving grass is enticing), and while picking up spawners would be super handy, it's been declared a bug. I'm not saying that Silk Touch is useless, I'm just saying we value it differently.
That a given, I spend a good portion of my play time planning for or building things in survival. It's an ability that lets me pick up an place a bunch of blocks that I couldn't before, so I value it above all others... I may have also overvalued it a bit because of how stupidly difficult it is to obtain right now... It seemed to get the most threads about it on these forums when pre 4 came out.
Also, you can place water in the nether by placing ice and melting it.
If you're willing to sacrifice fun for timeliness, then by all means, grind away. I, personally, am not so willing.
I'm not willing, furthest I made was level 20 then I got far, far too bored to continue. I had started treating the system as a 'occasional perk' when I get a few levels of experience like Pelykys had said, because it's not worth the extra time for something that is cool but very temporary.
P.S. Environmental damage includes drowning, fall damage, and damage from fire and lava, from what I understand.
Good to know, all I have seen my chest plate do so far is save me from half a heart of suffocation damage when I got stuck in my automatic piston door.
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When no one was looking, the Endermen took forty blocks.
They took 40 blocks. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s horrible.
Yes, you might want a level 30 enchantment, but what's the use? To have the best of the best tool? I really don't see the point. I just get to level 11 or so and enchant my item. There's no need to go any higher.
Think about it like this. Do you want enough diamonds to make a full set of diamond tools/armor? Yes. Is it easy to get them without trying? Not really. You're going to have to explore tons of caves, or mine a lot (which I personally find boring). Do most people go with full diamond armor? No. It's expensive and iron armor works just fine. Same thing with enchantments. Sure, it's cool to have knockback 10 and watch your mobs go flying, but it's also cool to be invincible while wearing diamond armor.
I'm not willing, furthest I made was level 20 then I got far, far too bored to continue. I had started treating the system as a 'occasional perk' when I get a few levels of experience like Pelykys had said, because it's not worth the extra time for something that is cool but very temporary.
Honestly, I wouldn't have even made it to level 28 except that I got all of that experience before I upgraded to pre4. I immediately spent it all, and got some pretty decent loot for it, too.
Good to know, all I have seen my chest plate do so far is save me from half a heart of suffocation damage when I got stuck in my automatic piston door.
Made me lol. =p
I also want to add that Unbreakable is kind of pointless by itself, but whenever I get Unbreakable plus another perk, I'm instantly grateful to have it. It's more of a support perk, it seems.
After a bit of experimenting and finally looking at the wiki, it would appear that there are no "bad" enchantments. All of them are helpful in different ways, and enchantments appear to be restricted to the tool for which they are meant. Fantastic! Now I don't have to worry so much! I can just stick in my pickaxe, cross my fingers, and hope I get a high-tier bonus!
This set me to thinking: What's making people complain about the effect they're receiving from an enchantment? Since they're all good, I just don't see a reason to complain about which one you get. You might not be getting the best one ever, but to expect the very best seems a bit odd, considering the way enchantments are acquired. The reason wasn't obvious to me right away, but here's what I came up with, and what I believe I understand:
People seem to be upset by the enchantments they receive because they are investing so much time into collecting experience and they don't get the specific enchantment they wanted. They set a goal in mind, such as getting Fortune III for their diamond pickaxe, and they work toward it. Playing with such gusto is a great thing, and it's even greater to see so many players who will invest so much time to achieve an in-game perk, but from what I can tell, that's not the way enchantments are meant to work, considering the mechanics. It seems that the most fulfilling way to go about enchanting is to simply play the game as usual, and if you notice that you've collected a fair number of levels, you can go turn them in for a prize.
I'm not posting this as a complaint to those who are grinding for enchantments, but simply as a suggestion that maybe that's not the playstyle they had in mind when they were designing the mechanics of it. If you find that you don't feel fulfilled by your experience grinding, try giving it up for a while. Instead of striving for a specific enchantment, just be ready to be happy about getting a bonus at all.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'd love to hear yours.
Unless your normal style of playing the game is "run around all night battling monsters", it's going to take a loooong time to afford any of the higher-end enchantments. For example, once I'm established enough to be getting diamonds, here's the activities I'm normally engaged in:
* Mining - a few monsters from running into caves, but not many.
* In-Town Building - no monsters.
* Expanding - some monsters, but not huge hordes.
* Exploring - plenty of monsters, but:
** I've usually explored the local vicinity by this point, so expeditions are less frequent.
** I might die on the trip anyway, losing any XP gained in the process.
** If I'm trying not to die, I won't be out brawling all night.
Really, the only way I anticipate getting significant quantities of XP is by setting up a manual grinder, and I'd rather not spend longer there than I have to.
I'm the same way; I rarely ever engage in battle with monsters, but I also virtually never die. I'm still playing my first hardcore file, and the highest level I achieved before spending my experience was only 28.
Your comment does bring up one of the things I was trying to highlight: Why do people gauge enchantments based on the most valuables ones possible? Enchantments are currently a reward for combat, so it makes sense that only very combat-oriented gameplay would yield the highest rewards. It also makes sense that the very best rewards are very difficult for the average player to attain. Personally, I would rather enjoy playing the game at my own pace and accept the rewards that are offered for my level than grind until I'm bored to tears just to have the highest-level enchantment without the risk.
Enchantments =/= goal
I had wanted to see what I could get on an Iron Pick for 2 levels. I went in, and after spending a few minutes removing and putting my pick back in (took a while for a level 2 enchantment to show up) I found one and got Efficiency I.
Moderately pleased, I decided to see what I could get for a higher level. So after spending a couple nights grinding I ended up at level 12. I rushed back to my table and put another Iron Pick back in. Guess what those 12 levels were spent on?
I got Efficiency I. The EXACT SAME thing I got before, the only difference is it costed 10 more levels.
As I see it the problems are these:
A: The table doesn't limit what enchantments show up based on your level. Meaning you can see a bunch of enchantments that you can't even get yet. Not too big of a deal but it's REALLY annoying.
B: Some different level enchantments give you the same effect. Meaning even if you spend a lot, there could be the same effect for a much lower cost, leading you to feeling like you got screwed.
C: The randomness of it in general puts a lot of people off. Many people don't see a point in bothering with it if they can't get what they want. Especially when chasing the more elusive enchantments like Silk Touch or Smite.
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My understanding was that this could be controlled (to some extent) by placing more or less bookcases around the enchantment table?
This is another complaint that stems from the issue of players expecting or feeling entitled to the very best enchantments. You started with a regular pickaxe, and now you have a more efficient one. It's not the very best prize, but it's still a prize.
I can understand having an issue with the randomness. As a player who loves to be challenged, I can always see the appeal of something that requires skill or practice. It's hard to say which way would be better, random or not, because we haven't seen what a non-random enchantment system would look like in Minecraft. I have a hard time picturing it. At least potions take skill, right?
For example I once got lucky and obtained Smite II on my iron sword by spending 3 levels of experience (this is great for me), while I noted somebody else reported they got smite II on a diamond sword by spending 15 levels of experience. I've actually roughly determined an equation for the number of monsters needed to reach a certain level and level 15 is worth approx. 25 times the effort to obtain than level 3 is. The system is not really fair if someone puts in 25x the effort and gets the same thing...
I don't think the random element should be removed entirely but I think it should be constrained a bit to give more equitable results and levels should not increase in their requirements as you gain more as monsters are not themselves increasing in the exp they drop (like in most games with an experience system.)
Now that I've made my main point on to my rankings of the abilities.
Tool Enchantments
1) Silk Touch - Far and away the best enchantment of them all. (and I'm counting armour and weapons as well) Why? Because unlike other enchantments which just increase a stat or ability of the tool this one allows you to do things that are impossible in any other way in the vanilla game. (i.e. place blocks that are normally Un-placeable - ice, grass, mycellium, ores and reclaim bookshelves with no lose of wood.) I want this one so I can put grass on the floating island base I'm planning without having to build a ridiculous 'grass ladder' to reach it.
2) Fortune - Random chance of extra drops. Use this on the rarer blocks (aka diamonds) and profit. I have a fortune I pick axe now, I mined 6 diamond ores and got 7 diamonds, which is nice.
3) Unbreakable - Getting extended lifetime out of your tools especially if they are diamond is almost as good as fortune, slightly less useful but still pretty good.
4) Efficiency - This ability is 'utter pants' (I'd take Fortune I over efficiency V any day) All it does is increase your mining speed 10% per level. By the time you have enchanting you already have the very fast diamond pick/shovel/axe making this ability close to pointless. There is likely such a thing as mining too fast, meaning your character can't move/react fast enough to take advantage of the extra speed to bother saving time. Also this ability doesn't work on obsidian apparently, which is the only major use I could think for it.
Weapon (AKA sword) enchantments
These ones are tougher to rate as they all come pretty close in my book.
1) Sharpness - Increases weapon damage against all mobs, can't argue with that.
2) Fire Aspect - Will light mobs on fire, which does a fair amount of damage. Probably better than sharpness at similar levels, but only goes up to level II. Also nether mobs are immune to fire, so tough luck there. Also, it looks cool.
3) Smite - Increased damage against skeletons, zombies and zombie pigmen. (More damage increase per level than sharpness) Situational, but useful, zombies are easy to take out unless in large groups and skeletons can shoot you from range.
4) Knockback - I'm really not sure where to put this one, so I put it here. This is nice to have in certain occasions (i.e. large swarms of monsters or near cliffs) but doesn't add much killing power. Can be good, but hard to quantify. It would also not do much for you in cramped caves.
5) Bane of Arthopods - Not as good as smite. All of the mobs covered by this have less health than zombies and skeletons so the extra damage isn't as needed unless using inferior materials. (Spiders have 8 hearts, cave spiders 6 and Silverfish have 4. Silverfish are much better dealt with by the "kill it with fire" method as it will stop others from spawning.)
Looting - Gives extra loot from hostile mobs. It won't be of much use if you are in a tight spot, but it might be useful in mob farms or when hunting for ender pearls. (probably the best use I can think of actually.) This one doesn't get a rating because it seems to be more of a utility added then a 'weapon enhancement' Nice to get, but not the main purpose of a sword.
Armour Enchantments
I won't bother rating these as I haven't really tried yet for armour enchants. I'll comment on what looks promising though.
I like the sound of blast protection, could be the best as creepers are still one of the most deadly and unpredictable mobs around. Most of the other ones look fairly comparable, all providing some additional protection against some element or more efficient ability to work underwater.
Fire protection seems to be the worst, as fire doesn't cover lava and most times you can see fire coming and avoid it. Also fire resistance potion nullifies fire and lava damage making it obsolete in a way.
Does anyone know what Protection protects against, it says on the wiki that it 'converts environmental damage to armour damage' just what is covered under environmental damage? This one may be one of the better ones if that includes mob attacks.
Just my opinion...
They took 40 blocks. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s horrible.
It is impossible to feel gypped when receiving something that you didn't work for, unless it is negative, and there are no negative enchantments.
Therefore, perhaps you should take a look at your priorities, and perhaps remove getting all of the best enchantments as one of them, because it's a negative way to think, and will most likely bring disappointment.
The usefulness of enchantment effects really does seem to be on a case-by-case basis... You rank Silk Touch as number one, but I think it sounds like the most pointless enchantment. I have no interest in picking up ore blocks (though moving grass is enticing), and while picking up spawners would be super handy, it's been declared a bug. I'm not saying that Silk Touch is useless, I'm just saying we value it differently.
Once again, the issue seems to be that players have picked up a sense of entitlement to the very best abilities. When you strip things down objectively, every one of those enchantments is helpful, and I'd be thrilled with any one of them. Just because I can't have a superduperpickaxe, it doesn't mean I'm going to be unhappy with a "plain old" superpickaxe.
You mention that getting above level 30 is very difficult while just playing the old fashioned way, for lack of a better term. My response is: What's wrong with that? Shouldn't the very best items be difficult to obtain? I think a lot of players have gotten used to sort of expecting to die once in a while. Death used to be no more than an inconvenience (unless you die in lava with valuables on your person) but now it has serious drawbacks. Players who are used to playing on hard might want to consider bumping down to normal just for the sake of cutting down the death toll. The difficulty of the game has definitely seen some tweaks.
You said in your post that
I'm not sure where this mentality comes from. I can go and kill a few pigs and get enough for a low-level enchantment, or I can just play the game as usual and collect experience gradually. I haven't figured out why, but for some reason people expect to be able to get the very best enchantments in one or two sittings. They'd hardly be a rare, powerful and sought-after item if they could be obtained with little effort. If you're willing to sacrifice fun for timeliness, then by all means, grind away. I, personally, am not so willing.
P.S. Environmental damage includes drowning, fall damage, and damage from fire and lava, from what I understand.
make exp orbs worth less expierence. Every block mined drops on exporb.
problems I see are easy farming, makes mobs worthless (unless they drop a whole lot in comparison)
True, it can be. But that either requires a rather expensive redstone piston setup or you need a chest full of planks and a crafting bench on hand any time you want to limit the levels. Adding an If function that sets the max level to the player's current level would simplify that quite a bit. But as I said, it is a minor issue and only one of annoyance.
It's not a matter of feeling entitled to the best enchantments. It's a simple matter of bad design. Having the same enchantment at one level and another level that is 6 times as expensive just doesn't make sense. It adds useless complication and would be a lot easier to code if each enchantment had one set cost and multiple enchantments cost a little extra. Most of us would agree that optimization is not Mojang's strong suit. It took Jeb 5 prereleases to find the 100% CPU problem after all.
If you want a look at a non-random enchantment system it's rather easy to picture. Each effect has a set cost and you have to pay more if you want more than one effect on an item.
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I'd love to get experience from mining. I would love it. All night long.
I really do hope they add ways of getting experience that aren't just combat based. I've heard rumors of fetch quests for NPCs that yield experience. I'd love to see experience rewards in dungeon, stronghold and abandoned mineshaft chests as well.
Honestly I would love to see Mobs from mob spawners drop no XP, but you get a large amoung for breaking the Spawner. That way you have to make the choice between item farming and a huge XP boost.
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While I agree that it's a bit strange to have multiple levels yield the same enchantment, my understanding was that certain enchantments do only occur between certain level ranges, or after a certain minimum level. If the player wants to optimize how they spend their experience, they have the option of looking up when each enchantment becomes available, and spending their experience such that they are getting the best "deal". This is assuming that the player's odds are the same between each of the afore-mentioned ranges. If the odds of getting a better enchantmnent increase with each level provided said level is higher than the minimum requirement, then the current system is properly implemented, it's just still largely luck-based. I haven't seen evidence of whether that's the case or not, so I'm not sure what my stance is on that.
Oh I understand how the math would work... I guess I meant it was hard for me to picture it within the context of Minecraft. Maybe I was getting too complicated and imagining something closer to the way Morrowind does it. I think a lot of players would be a bit disappointed if enchantment was rebalanced so that it works more like an enchantment shop rather than an arcane art.
How about a middle ground: A player can either spend experience directly on enchantments, or they can spend them to increase their proficiency with enchantment. Increasing proficiency would narrow down the randomness, and possibly translate certain effects so that the player can see what they're getting. Something like that?
That's actually a really good idea, holy crap! It would definitely upset people who like to grind for their experience, but the idea of getting a lump of experience for destroying the spawner appeals to me a lot.
That a given, I spend a good portion of my play time planning for or building things in survival. It's an ability that lets me pick up an place a bunch of blocks that I couldn't before, so I value it above all others... I may have also overvalued it a bit because of how stupidly difficult it is to obtain right now... It seemed to get the most threads about it on these forums when pre 4 came out.
Also, you can place water in the nether by placing ice and melting it.
I'm not willing, furthest I made was level 20 then I got far, far too bored to continue. I had started treating the system as a 'occasional perk' when I get a few levels of experience like Pelykys had said, because it's not worth the extra time for something that is cool but very temporary.
Good to know, all I have seen my chest plate do so far is save me from half a heart of suffocation damage when I got stuck in my automatic piston door.
They took 40 blocks. That’s as many as four tens. And that’s horrible.
Think about it like this. Do you want enough diamonds to make a full set of diamond tools/armor? Yes. Is it easy to get them without trying? Not really. You're going to have to explore tons of caves, or mine a lot (which I personally find boring). Do most people go with full diamond armor? No. It's expensive and iron armor works just fine. Same thing with enchantments. Sure, it's cool to have knockback 10 and watch your mobs go flying, but it's also cool to be invincible while wearing diamond armor.
It doesn't make sense to me why its random and defeats the whole purpose of having skills.
I'm better off just getting 2 or 3 levels of experience and buying something from the enchantment table.
I had forgotten about that! That's what I'd use it for. I love the Nether.
Honestly, I wouldn't have even made it to level 28 except that I got all of that experience before I upgraded to pre4. I immediately spent it all, and got some pretty decent loot for it, too.
Made me lol. =p
I also want to add that Unbreakable is kind of pointless by itself, but whenever I get Unbreakable plus another perk, I'm instantly grateful to have it. It's more of a support perk, it seems.