I can see a lot of people being "passionate" ( lmao ) about this topic. Here is my PERSONAL experience thus far:
I start off and find a hidey hole to spend the first few nights in. I dig in this hole at night (because I have no bed to sleep in yet) and I find coal and iron throughout. As soon as I mine 2-3 coal veins, plus smelt the iron I found I am level 30+. By the time I find diamond I'm well over level 50+. I make my enchanting table, and I enchant a few things to level 30 and get "Sharpness I", then I use my remaining 11 levels to enchantment my last Iron Sword and I get: "Fire Aspect II", "Looting III", "Smite V".
That was not a fluke, this happens nearly every time I play. The enchanting in MY OPINION should be random, but it should also have plus modifiers and bonuses that randomly increase with the amount of XP you spend. I don't mind having a wildcard thrown into the randomizer that will totally burn you here and there. But far too often have I spent 30 levels to get nothing, and spent 7 to get three bonuses that completely own. There should be a gradual increase in rewards for spending more, you can even keep the *wildcard that will randomly give you crap at lvl 30, but a nice gradual increase in rewards for enchanting at high levels would be nice. At the rate I see it now, it's 100% random, with very little thought put into it.
Just like the emerald currency, 8 emeralds for a stone hoe lol, are they joking? Currency should have just been like iConomy, I don't understand the point in making a currency out of an ore. The emerald cannot be used to craft at all, you cannot make armor, weapons, nor tools out of it. With that being said, why make the currency an ore? iConomy has a great system for currency. Anyway, that was more of an off topic rant.
I start off and find a hidey hole to spend the first few nights in. I dig in this hole at night (because I have no bed to sleep in yet) and I find coal and iron throughout. As soon as I mine 2-3 coal veins, plus smelt the iron I found I am level 30+. By the time I find diamond I'm well over level 50+. I make my enchanting table, and I enchant a few things to level 30 and get "Sharpness I", then I use my remaining 11 levels to enchantment my last Iron Sword and I get: "Fire Aspect II", "Looting III", "Smite V".
As many players you make it look very easy... Again, getting the leather for the books is not that easy, takes some time and not only to gather and breed cows, u need to farm enough wheat if you want to make it fast. You could find armors early or later on the game since every world is different and you might be unlucky, even for coal, sometimes you need to spend some more time mining to find it, not to mention iron and diamonds and of course obsidian. And over all, at the time you make the table you have to keep your levels, that means no dying... you make it look something so simple when is not so simple...
As many players you make it look very easy... Again, getting the leather for the books is not that easy, takes some time and not only to gather and breed cows, u need to farm enough wheat if you want to make it fast. You could find armors early or later on the game since every world is different and you might be unlucky, even for coal, sometimes you need to spend some more time mining to find it, not to mention iron and diamonds and of course obsidian. And over all, at the time you make the table you have to keep your levels, that means no dying... you make it look something so simple when is not so simple...
I completely understand what you are saying and you make some valid points. I guess for "new" people that don't really know where to start the high levels would be more challenging for them. Sure it make take a in-game week to get your wheat and cow farms going, but once you have them going, the amount of leather you can yield is completely ridiculous. All I do is create a lava pool and then dump water on it to get the obsidian if I'm too lazy to go down to the depths to get it. Or just dump water on the natural lava in a cave. I'm just saying I personal have 3 full suits of armor enchanted right now plus all of my tools and weapons are enchanted. This used to be a good thing that was rewarding, now it's like "well might as well enchant that shovel as to not waste XP Levels". I don't really need to have 4 shovels enchanted at level 30 plus have 53 extra XP right now that I can do nothing with unless I create a tool specifically to be enchanted (that I don't need). So at best you are saying you have to farm and get obsidian, so add on an extra in-game week and you'll be rolling in more XP than you can even use by the time you make your table. That's just how I see it.
No, I'm saying that efficient mining at the appropriate y-coordinate will net you practically ALL of the diamonds in a given chunk.(save for some possibly under lava lakes) Enchanting downright NEVER gives me what I want; Diamonds are guaranteed to be there eventually.
Diamond vein placement is random. Enchantments are also random. If you keep on digging long enough you will find diamonds. If you keep on enchanting enough times the enchant you want will be there. If the random enchants "NEVER" gave specific enchants, how would we know that they existed in order to know that they are not being granted?
I would suggest reading up on statistic a bit, and possibly even taking a few classes on the subject. I might also suggest finishing secondary school because your general inability to articulate simple logical processes makes me think that you have not.
I completely understand what you are saying and you make some valid points. I guess for "new" people that don't really know where to start the high levels would be more challenging for them. Sure it make take a in-game week to get your wheat and cow farms going, but once you have them going, the amount of leather you can yield is completely ridiculous. All I do is create a lava pool and then dump water on it to get the obsidian if I'm too lazy to go down to the depths to get it. Or just dump water on the natural lava in a cave. I'm just saying I personal have 3 full suits of armor enchanted right now plus all of my tools and weapons are enchanted. This used to be a good thing that was rewarding, now it's like "well might as well enchant that shovel as to not waste XP Levels". I don't really need to have 4 shovels enchanted at level 30 plus have 53 extra XP right now that I can do nothing with unless I create a tool specifically to be enchanted (that I don't need). So at best you are saying you have to farm and get obsidian, so add on an extra in-game week and you'll be rolling in more XP than you can even use by the time you make your table. That's just how I see it.
Let me see if you can see further in my point.... Theres a chain of actions you should follow before doing naything, you put it as it instantly happens which is not true. For example, before getting lava (if you are not lucky and get a surface lava pool) you must go to down in the cave (which you need to do if you want a diamond pick first), but before that you have to be prepared, you need armor, weapons, tools and food, and for that you probably need a place to take cover and store stuff. All that stuff doesnt appears sudenly, it takes time to be done, even if you do it fast, takes time and youll probably are going to be able to craft an enchanting table BEFORE you can have the right bookshelves setup because if you focus your effort on getting obsidian you wont be doing other stuff... if you focus on many things at the same time its going to take more time probably.
Diamond vein placement is random. Enchantments are also random. If you keep on digging long enough you will find diamonds. If you keep on enchanting enough times the enchant you want will be there. If the random enchants "NEVER" gave specific enchants, how would we know that they existed in order to know that they are not being granted?
I would suggest reading up on statistic a bit, and possibly even taking a few classes on the subject. I might also suggest finishing secondary school because your general inability to articulate simple logical processes makes me think that you have not.
Tossing that insult to my education aside, I've already established time and time again that I despise luck-based gameplay. I'm not the type to formulate an opinion on something I don't understand; I know how randomness works, and if you knew how randomness worked you would know that no matter what your sample size, there is in fact a possibility that a certain outcome never appears. I have rotten luck, and it detracts from my enchanting capabilities, and thereby my experience with the entire feature. Mining is very engaging, staying on your toes in your dark corridors, just in case you hit a lava floe or a creeper starts to wander in after you. Enchanting is just "place, click, crap, wait until max level again... place, click, crap, wait until max level again... rinse and repeat." I don't feel rewarded or even like I earned anything even when I do get something remotely decent. It's a good looking block, but to me all it's good for is its classification in the new creative menu: Decoration.
Tossing that insult to my education aside, I've already established time and time again that I despise luck-based gameplay. I'm not the type to formulate an opinion on something I don't understand; I know how randomness works, and if you knew how randomness worked you would know that no matter what your sample size, there is in fact a possibility that a certain outcome never appears. I have rotten luck, and it detracts from my enchanting capabilities, and thereby my experience with the entire feature. Mining is very engaging, staying on your toes in your dark corridors, just in case you hit a lava floe or a creeper starts to wander in after you. Enchanting is just "place, click, crap, wait until max level again... place, click, crap, wait until max level again... rinse and repeat." I don't feel rewarded or even like I earned anything even when I do get something remotely decent. It's a good looking block, but to me all it's good for is its classification in the new creative menu: Decoration.
But you have to level up between "crap" and "crap" its not like magicly you get lvl 30 over and over, you have to do it... Maybe its faster but its still time you spend doing it, if you do it doing something your like, well thats better but you have to do it anyways. Perseverance should be rewarded...
Let me see if you can see further in my point.... Theres a chain of actions you should follow before doing naything, you put it as it instantly happens which is not true. For example, before getting lava (if you are not lucky and get a surface lava pool) you must go to down in the cave (which you need to do if you want a diamond pick first), but before that you have to be prepared, you need armor, weapons, tools and food, and for that you probably need a place to take cover and store stuff. All that stuff doesnt appears sudenly, it takes time to be done, even if you do it fast, takes time and youll probably are going to be able to craft an enchanting table BEFORE you can have the right bookshelves setup because if you focus your effort on getting obsidian you wont be doing other stuff... if you focus on many things at the same time its going to take more time probably.
To me, Minecraft is a very open game. I never play two games the same way. I do not think there is a right or wrong way of doing things. I know people that make up their own adventures, I know others that like to pretend to be Rangers and snipe creatures at night. The possibilities are endless. I stated before that I start in a hole/cave to begin with. I know by doing this I can get all the resources I need upfront and overnight as I do not look for sheep or waste Iron on shears to begin with. This is the only step I always do, from there I wing it. If I don't see much Iron, I will simply go without armor, on hardcore it's fairly easy to navigate a decent size cave with no armor as long as you have some food. With animals respawning, I just mass murder them for food if I need to eat. I can make my wheat and animal farms underground if needed and every time I return to my base to sleep/eat/restock I can harvest and slaughter. This process does not take as long as your making it out to be. I mean the options are limitless, but, for the average player, playing to get to the nether and ultimately the end, they are not going to be dragging around about it. They will have a 64+ wheat farm and multiple pens of cow farms. Diamond is easy to get if you are on it's layer, and just look around a little. The first thing I make with my Iron is a bucket, specifically for creating endless pools, and dealing with lava. Honestly, I don't know how you are playing, but once someone gets the hang of the game and they are not just playing to build cool buildings and structures, getting what you need comes easy after you get a bucket (3 Pieces of Iron), seeds, a cow. My original point was, after a week in-game, you should be level 30+ and that's just by cooking meat and finding coal. Unless you spend the first week wandering around with no goals, your going to rapidly level up. At the end of the day, I would never tell you how to play, or imply that I know how you play, all I am saying is that if your style is to mine for resources before you start building replicas of the star ship enterprise, your going to be level 30+ in no time. Without resources, you cannot make torches, and if you want to burn trees for charcoal, that's cool, you will still level up beyond belief by using your furnace. No matter how you slice it, your going to level up quickly over and over and over until your like me and have 4 Iron Shovels all with level 30 Enchantments on them because you ran out of things to enchant.
But you have to level up between "crap" and "crap" its not like magicly you get lvl 30 over and over, you have to do it... Maybe its faster but its still time you spend doing it, if you do it doing something your like, well thats better but you have to do it anyways. Perseverance should be rewarded...
Okay, build a structure (house, etc) on the plains. Look to your left-right-etc you will more than likely see a mountain range, go to it, you will see coal all over it. The veins run so deep, that if you hit 2 in a row you will come out with 20 levels. How is that not simple? I do this over and over, map after map, it's the same thing. I have been testing this out making sure it wasn't just one map. It's the same exact thing. I can dig down 20 blocks, hit coal and come out at least level 20. Pointless if you ask me.
Okay, build a structure (house, etc) on a the plains. Look to your left-right-etc you will more than likely see a mountain range, go to it, you will see coal all over it. The veins run so deep, that if you hit 2 in a row you will come out with 20 levels. How is that not simple? I do this over and over, map after map, it's the same thing. I have been testing this out making sure it wasn't just one map. It's the same exact thing. I can dig down 20 blocks, hit coal and come out at least level 20. Pointless if you ask me.
Okey, you have your 20 lvls... now wheres your book case setup and your ench table? I tell you, youll probably get more than 30 levels before you get the bookcases. Remember you dont have to die to keep your levels with you also, they are not there forever and theres a chance you get something useful out of the 30 levels, for example swords: bane of arthropods helps you kill spiders faster when most of the mobs are not spiders... Smithe might be more helpfull but over all id prever sharpness .
Okey, you have your 20 lvls... now wheres your book case setup and your ench table? I tell you, youll probably get more than 30 levels before you get the bookcases.
This change allows you to get less crap in less time...
You're right, for me, before I even get a enchantment table I am at least level 50+. Even with that being said, I have done all this by the end of my first in-game week. Once that's done, I can enchant picks, weapons, armor. Nothing can even hurt me anymore. I guess this would be "fun" or annoying if I were playing on a PvP server, but in a SSP or SMP game, it's just mass overkill if you ask me. My original comment was about how the enchantment system's randomizer just plain sucks. I don't know how I got so off topic debating how the xp is distributed throughout the game lol. My solution is to ignore the system all together, just like the emerald trading system. I will just wait until the right people start complaining about all of this and it gets adjusted to be more balanced. The top guys running servers will eventually start to complain that within 4 hours of gameplay everyone is running around with enchanted armor and weapons, and they will end up adjusting the system for the next update. Until that happens, I'll just ignore it all for now.
Like i pointed out there is no crap from enchanting everything is usefull. Also enchanting is not supposed to be a reward. Its an extra buff to whatever item you enchant get an unwanted enchant then drop it in your chest and someday you might see when that "crap enchantment" might have saved your life or made it easier. I dont use armor and anything bigger then stone swords, but i cannot go anywhere without my enchanted pickaxes.
Oops i use aqua affinity helm and respiration. Oceans are empty of clay in my world
Yeah, Bane of Arthropods is so useful; I can kill a spider in one hit... or not.
Unbreaking is so useful; my tools last much longer... or not.
Feather Fall is so useful; I can negate most fall damage... but self-made water floes and ender pearls haven't gone anywhere.
Blast protection is so useful; Creepers don't kill me in one hit anymore... just like wearing any armor at all anyways.
Aqua Affinity and Respiration are so useful... oh wait, doors/sugarcane/boats haven't gone anywhere, either.
It's bad enough that I'm stuck with what I get on any given item, but almost everything the enchantments themselves do is either wildly inconsistent or already had methods of achieving.
The way I get around my horrible luck is to just mass enchant whenever i have enough xp. I still get tons of crap, but eventually they get used. I may have 20 enchanted picks (iron) at any one time in my chest, but as soon as i get that fortune pick, im ready to go get more stuff. And while waiting on that fortune (or silk touch) pick, i just use the ones i have regardless of what enchant is on them.
As for swords and armor, really sharpness and protection are the only useful ones.
What I think jeb should add is 2 things.
1) the ability to remove enchants (25% back or something)
2) all enchanting gives just one, but you can re-enchant to add others. and if the random enchant that gets added can't go on then your enchanting fails.
here's why i think these should be added.
This allows players to control what they have on any one pick. It's also not op, it could still take 500 lvls to get that ultimate sword. But if all you want is a pick with silk touch (ignoring all other enchants) you could try, disenchant, rinse and repeat until you get it. Its not op to have a single pick with a single enchant on it that you want, it's op to have a single pick with multiple enchants that you want and only costing you 30 lvls.
Except, there will always be diamonds at y = 13, there may very well never be silk touch.
Diamonds and enchantments both run on a random number generator.
I believe there is a 1/10 chance of getting silk touch on a single enchantment(level 45+.)
There is about a 1/6 chance of finding diamonds if you dig a single 1x2 hallway at level 13 in a chunk. (you can see 3 blocks out of the 16 blocks in a chunk)
There is plenty of evidence here to tell you that a bad enchantment is better than no enchantment at all. You seem to be arguing small points and pointing out small flaws just to cling on to your original point.
Back to the original post,
I think it would be cool to spend XP on skills, but if you die it gets reset. Adds some ... incentive to survive, rather than "oh if i die nothing happens but i go back to my bed".
Tossing that insult to my education aside, I've already established time and time again that I despise luck-based gameplay. I'm not the type to formulate an opinion on something I don't understand; I know how randomness works, and if you knew how randomness worked you would know that no matter what your sample size, there is in fact a possibility that a certain outcome never appears. I have rotten luck, and it detracts from my enchanting capabilities, and thereby my experience with the entire feature. Mining is very engaging, staying on your toes in your dark corridors, just in case you hit a lava floe or a creeper starts to wander in after you. Enchanting is just "place, click, crap, wait until max level again... place, click, crap, wait until max level again... rinse and repeat." I don't feel rewarded or even like I earned anything even when I do get something remotely decent. It's a good looking block, but to me all it's good for is its classification in the new creative menu: Decoration.
If you understood randomness, you would know that your "luck" is no better nor worse than anyone else's.
Let me put mining into your own perspective for you:
"Dig tunnel for an hour. No diamond. Crap. Dig another tunnel for an hour. No diamond. Crap. Rinse and repeat"
Also, I'm pretty sure ANY enchantment is a reward, no matter how small, as there are no enchants that diminish your ability to use the item, or even any that have no effect. Also, if you spend higher levels of XP you get a higher probability of getting a higher level enchant.
Frankly I've been sick of mining lately because I'll dig enough stone, coal, redstone, and iron to use up 3 iron picks before I find a diamond vein. As of recent updates I've stopped using diamond tools for general work because it is simply too hard to find any. I don't like how random ore placement is. I think all of layer 12 should be nothing but solid diamonds so that I know that when I dig that deep I'll be rewarded with what I want because if not I'm going to post on the forums saying how it is impossible to get the ores I want.
See what I did there?
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Yeah, Bane of Arthropods is so useful; I can kill a spider in one hit... or not.
Unbreaking is so useful; my tools last much longer... or not.
Feather Fall is so useful; I can negate most fall damage... but self-made water floes and ender pearls haven't gone anywhere.
Blast protection is so useful; Creepers don't kill me in one hit anymore... just like wearing any armor at all anyways.
Aqua Affinity and Respiration are so useful... oh wait, doors/sugarcane/boats haven't gone anywhere, either.
It's bad enough that I'm stuck with what I get on any given item, but almost everything the enchantments themselves do is either wildly inconsistent or already had methods of achieving.
You know? I've got a brilliant idea. Since enchantments are so completely useless, but nobody but you seems to think so, why don't YOU just not enchant things. Obviously the fact that you keep enchanting things identifies that you see some manner of benefit in enchanting. You are just so spoiled that you want more from your enchants.
You know what would make SMP servers so much fun? An enchantment that gives you diamonds from stone! Or what about a sword that DOES give you a 1-hit kill every time? Or armor that protects you from 100% of damage? Wouldn't that make SMP so much fun?
Before you start protesting that you don't like a feature, consider that most everyone else enjoys said feature. I'll bet you complained about the Ender and probably said that it should be removed. You probably also said that potions should be removed because you didn't like them.
Well, I happen to not like creepers. I think creepers should be removed. What say you to that?
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Also, I'm pretty sure ANY enchantment is a reward, no matter how small, as there are no enchants that diminish your ability to use the item, or even any that have no effect.
Except there are: Sharpness/Smite/Bane of Arthropods (any level)
Quote from name = "The Wiki" »
After sustaining damage from any source, a mob will turn red in color for a short period of time. During this period, any other incoming damage will not be counted against the mob's total health. For instance, if you attack a mob with a Bow repeatedly hitting the mouse button, the bow's rate of fire will exceed the mob's allowable rate of incoming damage, and several of the shots will not damage the mob even if they land. Arrows that don't deal damage to a mob are reflected off of it onto the ground, and possibly, from a close range, back at the player (resulting in damage). However, if a mob or player is recovering from damage and then receives higher damage, it gets counted. Players are also subject to damage immunity.
Exploiting the damage immunity system allows you to maximize damage by attacking twice per jump: once while ascending, and once while descending. This works because even though critical hits are random, they are always at least a half heart more damage. If any enchantment also increases the damage, it also does so by a random amount, but it can possibly exceed the damage from the second (descending) hit with the first (ascending) hit, causing this fighting style to be sabotaged.
Also there's the obvious "Knockback makes the sword worse for fighting skeletons"
Before you start protesting that you don't like a feature, consider that most everyone else enjoys said feature. I'll bet you complained about the Ender and probably said that it should be removed. You probably also said that potions should be removed because you didn't like them.
I've seen plenty of complaints about the randomness of enchantments.
The End is fine, if a bit boring. I'd like the obsidian spikes to contain multi-level post-game dungeons, but it serves its purpose as a boss dimension.
Potions are brilliant; complex enough to be hard to approach with no guide, but easy enough to manipulate to get exactly what you want. Enchanting has no such qualities. It's not just that I don't like it; it is fundamentally flawed and is in stark contrast with every other system in the game.
Except there are: Sharpness/Smite/Bane of Arthropods (any level)
Exploiting the damage immunity system allows you to maximize damage by attacking twice per jump: once while ascending, and once while descending. This works because even though critical hits are random, they are always at least a half heart more damage. If any enchantment also increases the damage, it also does so by a random amount, but it can possibly exceed the damage from the second (descending) hit with the first (ascending) hit, causing this fighting style to be sabotaged.
Also there's the obvious "Knockback makes the sword worse for fighting skeletons"
I've seen plenty of complaints about the randomness of enchantments.
The End is fine, if a bit boring. I'd like the obsidian spikes to contain multi-level post-game dungeons, but it serves its purpose as a boss dimension.
Potions are brilliant; complex enough to be hard to approach with no guide, but easy enough to manipulate to get exactly what you want. Enchanting has no such qualities. It's not just that I don't like it; it is fundamentally flawed and is in stark contrast with every other system in the game.
Alrighty then, smart alek. Since you are obviously better at game design than people who are paid to do so and have done so to create one of the most successful games in history, exactly how would you design the enchanting system? Remember, you must fulfill the following requirements:
Enchanting must be difficult or unpredictable enough to prevent everyone from obtaining over-powered enchantments.
Enchanting must be easy and predictable enough to let everyone get whatever enchantments they want.
Enchanting effects must be unpredictable and/or weak enough to prevent players from becoming indestructible.
Enchanting effects must be predictable and/or strong enough to make players feel rewarded for spending their XP.
Enchanting effects must be consistent in both the power and the nature of their effects to prevent people from getting "crap" enchantments.
Enchanting effects must be varied in both the power and nature of their effects in order to provide reason to enchant more than one item.
If you can provide an idea for an enchanting system that meets all these criteria (gathered from your past arguments and combined with general logic), I will formally concede. Otherwise, I would say that Mojang's solution is the best possible and that you shouldn't be so fast to discredit those who do what you cannot.
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I start off and find a hidey hole to spend the first few nights in. I dig in this hole at night (because I have no bed to sleep in yet) and I find coal and iron throughout. As soon as I mine 2-3 coal veins, plus smelt the iron I found I am level 30+. By the time I find diamond I'm well over level 50+. I make my enchanting table, and I enchant a few things to level 30 and get "Sharpness I", then I use my remaining 11 levels to enchantment my last Iron Sword and I get: "Fire Aspect II", "Looting III", "Smite V".
That was not a fluke, this happens nearly every time I play. The enchanting in MY OPINION should be random, but it should also have plus modifiers and bonuses that randomly increase with the amount of XP you spend. I don't mind having a wildcard thrown into the randomizer that will totally burn you here and there. But far too often have I spent 30 levels to get nothing, and spent 7 to get three bonuses that completely own. There should be a gradual increase in rewards for spending more, you can even keep the *wildcard that will randomly give you crap at lvl 30, but a nice gradual increase in rewards for enchanting at high levels would be nice. At the rate I see it now, it's 100% random, with very little thought put into it.
Just like the emerald currency, 8 emeralds for a stone hoe lol, are they joking? Currency should have just been like iConomy, I don't understand the point in making a currency out of an ore. The emerald cannot be used to craft at all, you cannot make armor, weapons, nor tools out of it. With that being said, why make the currency an ore? iConomy has a great system for currency. Anyway, that was more of an off topic rant.
As many players you make it look very easy... Again, getting the leather for the books is not that easy, takes some time and not only to gather and breed cows, u need to farm enough wheat if you want to make it fast. You could find armors early or later on the game since every world is different and you might be unlucky, even for coal, sometimes you need to spend some more time mining to find it, not to mention iron and diamonds and of course obsidian. And over all, at the time you make the table you have to keep your levels, that means no dying... you make it look something so simple when is not so simple...
I completely understand what you are saying and you make some valid points. I guess for "new" people that don't really know where to start the high levels would be more challenging for them. Sure it make take a in-game week to get your wheat and cow farms going, but once you have them going, the amount of leather you can yield is completely ridiculous. All I do is create a lava pool and then dump water on it to get the obsidian if I'm too lazy to go down to the depths to get it. Or just dump water on the natural lava in a cave. I'm just saying I personal have 3 full suits of armor enchanted right now plus all of my tools and weapons are enchanted. This used to be a good thing that was rewarding, now it's like "well might as well enchant that shovel as to not waste XP Levels". I don't really need to have 4 shovels enchanted at level 30 plus have 53 extra XP right now that I can do nothing with unless I create a tool specifically to be enchanted (that I don't need). So at best you are saying you have to farm and get obsidian, so add on an extra in-game week and you'll be rolling in more XP than you can even use by the time you make your table. That's just how I see it.
Diamond vein placement is random. Enchantments are also random. If you keep on digging long enough you will find diamonds. If you keep on enchanting enough times the enchant you want will be there. If the random enchants "NEVER" gave specific enchants, how would we know that they existed in order to know that they are not being granted?
I would suggest reading up on statistic a bit, and possibly even taking a few classes on the subject. I might also suggest finishing secondary school because your general inability to articulate simple logical processes makes me think that you have not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_sample
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_randomness
Let me see if you can see further in my point.... Theres a chain of actions you should follow before doing naything, you put it as it instantly happens which is not true. For example, before getting lava (if you are not lucky and get a surface lava pool) you must go to down in the cave (which you need to do if you want a diamond pick first), but before that you have to be prepared, you need armor, weapons, tools and food, and for that you probably need a place to take cover and store stuff. All that stuff doesnt appears sudenly, it takes time to be done, even if you do it fast, takes time and youll probably are going to be able to craft an enchanting table BEFORE you can have the right bookshelves setup because if you focus your effort on getting obsidian you wont be doing other stuff... if you focus on many things at the same time its going to take more time probably.
Tossing that insult to my education aside, I've already established time and time again that I despise luck-based gameplay. I'm not the type to formulate an opinion on something I don't understand; I know how randomness works, and if you knew how randomness worked you would know that no matter what your sample size, there is in fact a possibility that a certain outcome never appears. I have rotten luck, and it detracts from my enchanting capabilities, and thereby my experience with the entire feature. Mining is very engaging, staying on your toes in your dark corridors, just in case you hit a lava floe or a creeper starts to wander in after you. Enchanting is just "place, click, crap, wait until max level again... place, click, crap, wait until max level again... rinse and repeat." I don't feel rewarded or even like I earned anything even when I do get something remotely decent. It's a good looking block, but to me all it's good for is its classification in the new creative menu: Decoration.
But you have to level up between "crap" and "crap" its not like magicly you get lvl 30 over and over, you have to do it... Maybe its faster but its still time you spend doing it, if you do it doing something your like, well thats better but you have to do it anyways. Perseverance should be rewarded...
To me, Minecraft is a very open game. I never play two games the same way. I do not think there is a right or wrong way of doing things. I know people that make up their own adventures, I know others that like to pretend to be Rangers and snipe creatures at night. The possibilities are endless. I stated before that I start in a hole/cave to begin with. I know by doing this I can get all the resources I need upfront and overnight as I do not look for sheep or waste Iron on shears to begin with. This is the only step I always do, from there I wing it. If I don't see much Iron, I will simply go without armor, on hardcore it's fairly easy to navigate a decent size cave with no armor as long as you have some food. With animals respawning, I just mass murder them for food if I need to eat. I can make my wheat and animal farms underground if needed and every time I return to my base to sleep/eat/restock I can harvest and slaughter. This process does not take as long as your making it out to be. I mean the options are limitless, but, for the average player, playing to get to the nether and ultimately the end, they are not going to be dragging around about it. They will have a 64+ wheat farm and multiple pens of cow farms. Diamond is easy to get if you are on it's layer, and just look around a little. The first thing I make with my Iron is a bucket, specifically for creating endless pools, and dealing with lava. Honestly, I don't know how you are playing, but once someone gets the hang of the game and they are not just playing to build cool buildings and structures, getting what you need comes easy after you get a bucket (3 Pieces of Iron), seeds, a cow. My original point was, after a week in-game, you should be level 30+ and that's just by cooking meat and finding coal. Unless you spend the first week wandering around with no goals, your going to rapidly level up. At the end of the day, I would never tell you how to play, or imply that I know how you play, all I am saying is that if your style is to mine for resources before you start building replicas of the star ship enterprise, your going to be level 30+ in no time. Without resources, you cannot make torches, and if you want to burn trees for charcoal, that's cool, you will still level up beyond belief by using your furnace. No matter how you slice it, your going to level up quickly over and over and over until your like me and have 4 Iron Shovels all with level 30 Enchantments on them because you ran out of things to enchant.
I agree, so why do I consistently get crap?
Okay, build a structure (house, etc) on the plains. Look to your left-right-etc you will more than likely see a mountain range, go to it, you will see coal all over it. The veins run so deep, that if you hit 2 in a row you will come out with 20 levels. How is that not simple? I do this over and over, map after map, it's the same thing. I have been testing this out making sure it wasn't just one map. It's the same exact thing. I can dig down 20 blocks, hit coal and come out at least level 20. Pointless if you ask me.
Okey, you have your 20 lvls... now wheres your book case setup and your ench table? I tell you, youll probably get more than 30 levels before you get the bookcases. Remember you dont have to die to keep your levels with you also, they are not there forever and theres a chance you get something useful out of the 30 levels, for example swords: bane of arthropods helps you kill spiders faster when most of the mobs are not spiders... Smithe might be more helpfull but over all id prever sharpness .
This change allows you to get less crap in less time...
You're right, for me, before I even get a enchantment table I am at least level 50+. Even with that being said, I have done all this by the end of my first in-game week. Once that's done, I can enchant picks, weapons, armor. Nothing can even hurt me anymore. I guess this would be "fun" or annoying if I were playing on a PvP server, but in a SSP or SMP game, it's just mass overkill if you ask me. My original comment was about how the enchantment system's randomizer just plain sucks. I don't know how I got so off topic debating how the xp is distributed throughout the game lol. My solution is to ignore the system all together, just like the emerald trading system. I will just wait until the right people start complaining about all of this and it gets adjusted to be more balanced. The top guys running servers will eventually start to complain that within 4 hours of gameplay everyone is running around with enchanted armor and weapons, and they will end up adjusting the system for the next update. Until that happens, I'll just ignore it all for now.
In theory, bear in mind my rotten luck.
Yeah, Bane of Arthropods is so useful; I can kill a spider in one hit... or not.
Unbreaking is so useful; my tools last much longer... or not.
Feather Fall is so useful; I can negate most fall damage... but self-made water floes and ender pearls haven't gone anywhere.
Blast protection is so useful; Creepers don't kill me in one hit anymore... just like wearing any armor at all anyways.
Aqua Affinity and Respiration are so useful... oh wait, doors/sugarcane/boats haven't gone anywhere, either.
It's bad enough that I'm stuck with what I get on any given item, but almost everything the enchantments themselves do is either wildly inconsistent or already had methods of achieving.
As for swords and armor, really sharpness and protection are the only useful ones.
What I think jeb should add is 2 things.
1) the ability to remove enchants (25% back or something)
2) all enchanting gives just one, but you can re-enchant to add others. and if the random enchant that gets added can't go on then your enchanting fails.
here's why i think these should be added.
This allows players to control what they have on any one pick. It's also not op, it could still take 500 lvls to get that ultimate sword. But if all you want is a pick with silk touch (ignoring all other enchants) you could try, disenchant, rinse and repeat until you get it. Its not op to have a single pick with a single enchant on it that you want, it's op to have a single pick with multiple enchants that you want and only costing you 30 lvls.
Diamonds and enchantments both run on a random number generator.
I believe there is a 1/10 chance of getting silk touch on a single enchantment(level 45+.)
There is about a 1/6 chance of finding diamonds if you dig a single 1x2 hallway at level 13 in a chunk. (you can see 3 blocks out of the 16 blocks in a chunk)
There is plenty of evidence here to tell you that a bad enchantment is better than no enchantment at all. You seem to be arguing small points and pointing out small flaws just to cling on to your original point.
Back to the original post,
I think it would be cool to spend XP on skills, but if you die it gets reset. Adds some ... incentive to survive, rather than "oh if i die nothing happens but i go back to my bed".
If you understood randomness, you would know that your "luck" is no better nor worse than anyone else's.
Let me put mining into your own perspective for you:
"Dig tunnel for an hour. No diamond. Crap. Dig another tunnel for an hour. No diamond. Crap. Rinse and repeat"
Also, I'm pretty sure ANY enchantment is a reward, no matter how small, as there are no enchants that diminish your ability to use the item, or even any that have no effect. Also, if you spend higher levels of XP you get a higher probability of getting a higher level enchant.
Frankly I've been sick of mining lately because I'll dig enough stone, coal, redstone, and iron to use up 3 iron picks before I find a diamond vein. As of recent updates I've stopped using diamond tools for general work because it is simply too hard to find any. I don't like how random ore placement is. I think all of layer 12 should be nothing but solid diamonds so that I know that when I dig that deep I'll be rewarded with what I want because if not I'm going to post on the forums saying how it is impossible to get the ores I want.
See what I did there?
You know? I've got a brilliant idea. Since enchantments are so completely useless, but nobody but you seems to think so, why don't YOU just not enchant things. Obviously the fact that you keep enchanting things identifies that you see some manner of benefit in enchanting. You are just so spoiled that you want more from your enchants.
You know what would make SMP servers so much fun? An enchantment that gives you diamonds from stone! Or what about a sword that DOES give you a 1-hit kill every time? Or armor that protects you from 100% of damage? Wouldn't that make SMP so much fun?
Before you start protesting that you don't like a feature, consider that most everyone else enjoys said feature. I'll bet you complained about the Ender and probably said that it should be removed. You probably also said that potions should be removed because you didn't like them.
Well, I happen to not like creepers. I think creepers should be removed. What say you to that?
Except there are: Sharpness/Smite/Bane of Arthropods (any level)
Exploiting the damage immunity system allows you to maximize damage by attacking twice per jump: once while ascending, and once while descending. This works because even though critical hits are random, they are always at least a half heart more damage. If any enchantment also increases the damage, it also does so by a random amount, but it can possibly exceed the damage from the second (descending) hit with the first (ascending) hit, causing this fighting style to be sabotaged.
Also there's the obvious "Knockback makes the sword worse for fighting skeletons"
I've seen plenty of complaints about the randomness of enchantments.
The End is fine, if a bit boring. I'd like the obsidian spikes to contain multi-level post-game dungeons, but it serves its purpose as a boss dimension.
Potions are brilliant; complex enough to be hard to approach with no guide, but easy enough to manipulate to get exactly what you want. Enchanting has no such qualities. It's not just that I don't like it; it is fundamentally flawed and is in stark contrast with every other system in the game.
Alrighty then, smart alek. Since you are obviously better at game design than people who are paid to do so and have done so to create one of the most successful games in history, exactly how would you design the enchanting system? Remember, you must fulfill the following requirements: