I'm happy 1.4 is coming out tomorrow, yes. But honestly, it does not feel finished yet. There's no real bugs, but many features added don't feel complete. I'll bullet point them.
The beacon block interface is still hard to understand.
The beacon blockss range is way to short for how much it costs. It is 81 blocks at max range. Should be at-least 200-400.
Why does the beacon block cost thousands of ores just to get a small boost of power? It costs 1476 Iron currently. (Iron is the easiest to get) Should be at-least cut in half.
Using different materials has no difference right now. Same with what you feed it to activate it. They should give better and better boosts depending on what materiel you build it with it.
Witch Huts are pretty pointless. What is the point of killing the Witch if you get a hut with nothing valuable in it?
Why do Witches only spawn around huts? They can be easily avoided and are not a challenge because of so.
The only type of head you can get in the game is Wither Skulls. No way to get the other types of heads.
Frankly, mobs wearing armor or having weapons does not make the game harder.
Anvils are cool, but the XP system on them is still pretty broken and slightly overpowered.
1. Hard to understand if you're mentally retarded, sure.
2. This is to balance out a constant effect. It can't cover friggin everything
3. Oh boo-hoo. You iron is ing everywhere. it's not hard to obtain.
4. Weren't just ing about the cost and how it costs too much? You're meant to use iron. If you use anything else you're retarded.
5. They're just kinda there. They do lack point, but so does everything else technically, if you want to look at it like that.
6. Huts look cool. Not much point I guess.
7.Agreed. Gimme in heads.
8. Not meant to make the game harder. Just a fun bonus.
9. Not sure why you think it's over powered. Seems fine to me.
I agree with the OP: the stuff in this particular update seems unfinished.
It's called the "pretty scary" update, but most of the "scary" stuff may as well not be there, and some of the non-scary stuff is outright broken.
The Witch is pointless since it never spawns; I mean, really, you'd think after the crap with slimes, Blazes, and particularly Magma Cubes and Silverfish, the devs would have realized that we REALLY dont need yet another hyper-rare mob. They're SO rare that they seriously almost dont even count as existing within the game. And as someone above pointed out, they're no challenge whatsoever. They NEED to be able to get the drop on you, or they cannot even fight.
Then there's the Wither. Pure gear-check fight. There's no strategy here. The thing sits on your head and just spams exploding bullets. That's IT. Even the Enderdragon is more interesting than this. But there's no point in FIGHTING the thing either, because it only leads to......
.....the Beacon. The single most overpriced and useless item in the game BY FAR. 1500 ingots/emeralds/diamonds. ***1500***. For just ONE of these ridiculous things. And you get 40 blocks of range in each direction from the main block itself, and that's IT. For a very weak effect that can be gotten in, oh, about 20 seconds, by simply making potions or enchanting something. It's powers are the sort that would be useful for exploration and combat, except.... oh yeah, YOU CANT USE THE BEACON FOR THAT. Because it HAS NO RANGE. The IDEA of the thing sounded awesome. Set it up, and give a nice buff to a large area; you could use it for caves or abandoned mines that you wanted to explore. ......but nope, wont work for that. It has no range. Just down a potion and grab an enchanted whatsit instead, because they're gonna do the same things except 3290527305723057297 times easier and better.
And of course, the mob armor thing. This seemed cool at first, but, like so many other aspects of this update, it may as well not be there now, as it changes NOTHING.
Dont get me wrong, this is a good update as a whole..... the "pretty" side of it came out very well, and things like the new crops and potions and pig-riding make it worth it.
But some of it...... either broken, or bloody pointless.
Though I AM at least glad for the fact that previously non-existant mobs like slimes and cubes ARE ACTUALLY AROUND NOW. What a concept!
And the anvil is pretty darn good.
Just.... ugh. The new mobs and that worthless beacon, sigh. They really do feel like they just werent thought out. Oh well. Cant win 'em all, I guess.
Yes but they wanted to get 1.4 released before Hallows Eve (Halloween, Yay I know what Hallows Eve is!) But seriously, I call It Halloween, dont know why I used it's original name. Pff, Hallows Eve.
1. Hard to understand if you're mentally retarded, sure.
2. This is to balance out a constant effect. It can't cover friggin everything
3. Oh boo-hoo. You iron is ing everywhere. it's not hard to obtain.
4. Weren't just ing about the cost and how it costs too much? You're meant to use iron. If you use anything else you're retarded.
Have you actually USED the damn thing? Something tells me NO.
Yeah. Iron is everywhere. Does that mean that it's a GOOD idea to use 1500 of it for an effect that is, frankly, pathetic? POTIONS are stronger than this thing. They take 20 seconds to make, if that, and require easily gotten items. One of each item in the brewing recipe, and you get THREE potions. And they work ANYWHERE. Same with enchants; some damn powerful effects on here, and they work ANYWHERE, and arent insane in terms of cost.
But the Beacon has NO FREAKING RANGE, and costs 1500 ingots. Oh, but that's not enough, is it? That's right.... THATS NOT THE ENTIRE COST. No. You ALSO have to fight the Wither. Which means grinding for skeleton heads. Which can take HOURS. Oh, and getting all of that iron takes hours too, and that's assuming that you are NEVER using iron for anything else (because if you are, this makes it take EVEN LONGER). Oh, and that iron? Guess what, it's not the only material requirement. You need tools to get at it, coal to smelt it, torches to see what you're doing..... getting a picture here?
The Beacon's effects NEED range in order to be useful. The ONLY one that makes even SOME sense is regeneration, but.... guess what? That's ONLY helpful if you get into an emergency situation in the super-immediate area around the thing (which is likely at your base), and..... if THAT happens, guess what, time to re-design your base. If you get into a situation ANYWHERE ELSE..... even within view distance of the thing..... that hyper-ultra-mega expensive item aint gonna save you. But guess what would save you? Healing potion. Or a golden apple. EASY to get items.
And no, the range doesnt "balance out a constant effect". I can get "constant" effects by using enchants, and they can be SO strong that they basically make me immortal. And I can carry just a few potions around, and get a couple hours worth of, say, big speed enhancement. So no, the beacon's range does NOT balance anything out at all. It's just a very badly thought-out idea that wasnt worked on, like the block itself.
Not even ONE person so far has been able to come up with a single, viable, practical, SANE use for this block that isnt doable in better ways with other, monstrously cheaper items. This block has ONE, and only one, good thing about it, and that's the light beam. And that's IT.
Not to mention that, as he stands, the Wither is pretty much a terrible boss in every aspect. He's a gear check, can easily be killed with anvils, and drops lackluster loot.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Did something happen to you in your childhood to give you this unreasonable fear of rutabaga?
For rubies, I was thinking about using it for resistance potions
For sponge, why not add it to the ocean floor and make drop sponge bits that can be used for water breathing potions
That's two potions right there.
Well well. Looks like they finally added the painting.
Have you actually USED the damn thing? Something tells me NO.
Yeah. Iron is everywhere. Does that mean that it's a GOOD idea to use 1500 of it for an effect that is, frankly, pathetic? POTIONS are stronger than this thing. They take 20 seconds to make, if that, and require easily gotten items. One of each item in the brewing recipe, and you get THREE potions. And they work ANYWHERE. Same with enchants; some damn powerful effects on here, and they work ANYWHERE, and arent insane in terms of cost.
But the Beacon has NO FREAKING RANGE, and costs 1500 ingots. Oh, but that's not enough, is it? That's right.... THATS NOT THE ENTIRE COST. No. You ALSO have to fight the Wither. Which means grinding for skeleton heads. Which can take HOURS. Oh, and getting all of that iron takes hours too, and that's assuming that you are NEVER using iron for anything else (because if you are, this makes it take EVEN LONGER). Oh, and that iron? Guess what, it's not the only material requirement. You need tools to get at it, coal to smelt it, torches to see what you're doing..... getting a picture here?
The Beacon's effects NEED range in order to be useful. The ONLY one that makes even SOME sense is regeneration, but.... guess what? That's ONLY helpful if you get into an emergency situation in the super-immediate area around the thing (which is likely at your base), and..... if THAT happens, guess what, time to re-design your base. If you get into a situation ANYWHERE ELSE..... even within view distance of the thing..... that hyper-ultra-mega expensive item aint gonna save you. But guess what would save you? Healing potion. Or a golden apple. EASY to get items.
And no, the range doesnt "balance out a constant effect". I can get "constant" effects by using enchants, and they can be SO strong that they basically make me immortal. And I can carry just a few potions around, and get a couple hours worth of, say, big speed enhancement. So no, the beacon's range does NOT balance anything out at all. It's just a very badly thought-out idea that wasnt worked on, like the block itself.
Not even ONE person so far has been able to come up with a single, viable, practical, SANE use for this block that isnt doable in better ways with other, monstrously cheaper items. This block has ONE, and only one, good thing about it, and that's the light beam. And that's IT.
Guess what, ever hear of changing damn features with coding?! Don't know how the code, then thats just PeRfEcT, at least Im learning.Anyways, the beacon is worth the cost, you like making potions till you run out of the resources to make them? Fine well I have INFINITE TIME ON MY DAMN EFFECTS CAUSE OF BEACON, seriously though, you can just recode the range so it's more than 81. I don't complain about updates. You guys think it takes 5 seconds to code a DAMN THING, well it takes a hell of a lot longer. To modify an arrow so it explodes? Well That will only take a damn second. Have patience. Damn, I think I overdid it.
The fact that everyone forgot about the Minecraft API scares me the most. It was shoved back to 1.4 when 1.3 was being released, and of course no progress is being made because Mojang is too lazy to make one...
Lazy? Do you know how hard mod API is?
1.4 does fell unfinished. Add not being able to get skeleton, creeper, and zombie heads in survival to your list. I don't think you can get the wither painting either.
For rubies, I was thinking about using it for resistance potions
For sponge, why not add it to the ocean floor and make drop sponge bits that can be used for water breathing potions
That's two potions right there.
Well well. Looks like they finally added the painting.
Guess what, news on the street that Rubies were replaced by emeralds. Want them in? Then use the easiest non-coding minecraft modding program around. Took me 5 seconds to make ruby Ore that spawns randomly. BAM. took about 10 mins to make: tools, weapons, ruby block, ore, and ruby altogether. (There is a bug that makes it that if you have armor and generate class files it leaves a bunch out, fixed in upcoming update) heres a link to MCreator(the Modding program) http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1468550-132-modmaker-mcreator-make-programs-without-programing-knowedge/ Also you need Java Development Kit (JDK) to use this (not regular java which is Java Runtime Enviroment) Hope I made my pointHa, it's funny that tomorrow that 1.4.2 comes out and my schools PTO are holding a funraiser and if we pay $5 we get to watch "The Hunger Games!" Funny.
I DO have 1 complaint though. The Wither is a kind of boss right? I expected an epic death. Then I kill him. He turns red and falls over and disappears. Pathetic. Should be more epic. Guys, ever make a wither fight the enderdragon? I have, the enderdragon keepsevading the withers attacks
I find this annoying. There is way to much good stuff that is unused.
Rubies
Wolf Howls
Sponge (kinda)
Purple Skeleton Arrows
The hood parts of the villager texture
The different snow layers
The fact that you can't even place the actual different versions of certain blocks (ex: snow layer and mushroom). Even if you try giving them to yourself with the give command.
All of those missing potions
This new particle
The Wither painting
There is coding for an iron trap door but no iron trapdoor
Only Wither skeleton heads can be dropped
And more
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. YES.
And what's this about iron trap doors? Are they really just sitting with their thumbs in their noses, not making another block that uses the same render type as the trap door? All they'd have to do is retexture the trapdoor and they'd be good on the block. I'm thinking they're not going to release it until somewhere near 1.5 because iron doors are usually opened with redstone related contraptions, and that's the redstone/code overhaul update, but they could atleast make the class and texture for the thing and put it in an sd card to be used when the time is right or somethin'. :C
Guess what, news on the street that Rubies were replaced by emeralds. Want them in? Then use the easiest non-coding minecraft modding program around. Took me 5 seconds to make ruby Ore that spawns randomly. BAM. took about 10 mins to make: tools, weapons, ruby block, ore, and ruby altogether. (There is a bug that makes it that if you have armor and generate class files it leaves a bunch out, fixed in upcoming update) heres a link to MCreator(the Modding program) http://www.minecraft...aming-knowedge/ Also you need Java Development Kit (JDK) to use this (not regular java which is Java Runtime Enviroment) Hope I made my point
Ha, it's funny that tomorrow that 1.4.2 comes out and my schools PTO are holding a funraiser and if we pay $5 we get to watch "The Hunger Games!" Funny.
I think we all know we can mod minecraft (and I was able to do it with MCP and not some modding help program). We are trying to give feedback because we might have legit complaints about how, in this case, things could be re-added.
I sum up what you say as 'there's a mod for that', just in different respects.
The fact that everyone forgot about the Minecraft API scares me the most. It was shoved back to 1.4 when 1.3 was being released, and of course no progress is being made because Mojang is too lazy to make one...
Just because DInnerbone and Jeb aren't working on the API doesn't mean the rest of the hired bukkit team aren't.
You can actually get heads by dropping an anvil on a mob.
Really? I never knew that, nor has anyone mentioned it before to me. I hope you're right. Also, for those who claim that they are perfectly content with Witches being 'rare', it's a bug. From what I've heard, the game takes long to realize the possible spawning space for a Witch in or near a hut, so they are MUCH rarer than they were intended to be. That may be false, but I hope it really is just a bug that can be easily fixed.
The beacon block interface is still hard to understand.
Minecraft's entire UI is kind of crap. Even for a game it's pretty bad. The only reason we "understand" crafting tables, furnaces, etc. Is through experience, not because it is somehow more intuitive. Same story with the beacon over time.
At least the beacon is consistent with the other UIs in that it sucks just as badly. In some respects the "retro crap" feel is what Minecraft is trying to emulate anyway.
The beacon blocks range is way to short for how much it costs. It is 81 blocks at max range. Should be at-least 200-400.
I do think the range could use a bit of an increase, but then again you can also get practically limitless beacon blocks anyway. I think a big issue is that the wither skulls are just so damned hard to get. Something about wandering around a nether fortress killing skeletons randomly in the hopes that the psuedo-random number god will smile upon you does not yell "fun" to me.
Hell killing the wither is less of a pain in the butt.
Why does the beacon block cost thousands of ores just to get a small boost of power? It costs 1476 Iron currently. (Iron is the easiest to get) Should be at-least cut in half.
The beacon block is an end-game item, which is probably why it is so expensive. At the same time though there are people who are adamant that the beacon is Overpowered the way it is, too.
Using different materials has no difference right now. Same with what you feed it to activate it. They should give better and better boosts depending on what materiel you build it with it.
Have to agree. I would argue that the teirs could go Lapis->Iron->Gold->Diamond->Emerald, or something. Actually, the different materials could simply change the range- Lapis could be what it is now, and each one doubles the effective range from there. Maybe the material used to charge effects the set of abilities you can choose from too. Definitely room for all sorts of neat additions here.
Frankly, mobs wearing armor or having weapons does not make the game harder.
That depends. Main issue is that you usually 1v1 the mobs; you don't get hordes of them. 7 skeletons in gold armour with enchanted bows are going to be a lot harder to deal with than 7 normal skeletons. Which raises the other issue that even on hard the mobs with equipment are still rather rare. Arguably, I would say that on hard all Mobs (well, skellies and zombies at least) should be guaranteed to have at least one piece of equipment, which could very well make the game more difficult. Heck, the stuff they spawn with could even change depending on what nearby players have equipped; so if you have fully enchanted diamond armor, maybe skeletons are more likely to have good enchantments, strong enchanted armor, and maybe even various permanent potion effects. I can see this sort of addition making the game scary again; Now when you see a skellie it's more "bah" run up and kill it in two hits at most with good equipment. But with this sort of change, you turn a corner and see a Skeleton in enchanted gold and diamond equipment, and he shoots you and you catch fire, that actually has an element of fear to it.
Anvils are cool, but the XP system on them is still pretty broken and slightly overpowered.
I dunno, this seems to be where things get subjective. You say Anvils are OP, others thing they are underpowered; others say beacons are already Overpowered, you say they are Underpowered.
Actually an idea that could work is to make anvils work something like enchanting tables; maybe have various metals surrounding it, like bookcases for enchanting tables, which reduce the costs of renaming, repairs, and combinations.
What it boils down to is that some people think that if a feature makes the game easier, it's overpowered. In this case, some feel anvils make the game easier because you can repair enchanted tools. The problem with this approach is that it doesn't really make the game "harder" since the only hardness it eliminates is the appeal to the random number generator that is enchanting. Personally I like the way it's balanced right now (the anvil). It removes the randomness of trying to get the same enchantment again, costs raw materials, and at the same time removes the ability to get another enchantment. Being able to combine things is nice too. (it's nice to have something to do with the Power I bows that you get from skeletons)
I guess I would argue that the game is not unfinished, but it's unpolished.
If one doesn't grind for wither skulls and just plays the game until three are acquired normally then its almost guaranteed that person will have enough excess materials to build a beacon as well.
The cost is not prohibitive at all, and an iron bottom layer is rather easy with a mixture for the rest.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Don't play vanilla? You don't know **** about minecraft.
I personally don't think the Wither is overpowered. I think it's fine now honestly. You can't farm them because they can break through any block. And they are a hard mob to beat. And they do drop a rare item. Shame the rare item could use work.
1. Hard to understand if you're mentally retarded, sure.
2. This is to balance out a constant effect. It can't cover friggin everything
3. Oh boo-hoo. You iron is ing everywhere. it's not hard to obtain.
4. Weren't just ing about the cost and how it costs too much? You're meant to use iron. If you use anything else you're retarded.
5. They're just kinda there. They do lack point, but so does everything else technically, if you want to look at it like that.
6. Huts look cool. Not much point I guess.
7.Agreed. Gimme in heads.
8. Not meant to make the game harder. Just a fun bonus.
9. Not sure why you think it's over powered. Seems fine to me.
It's called the "pretty scary" update, but most of the "scary" stuff may as well not be there, and some of the non-scary stuff is outright broken.
The Witch is pointless since it never spawns; I mean, really, you'd think after the crap with slimes, Blazes, and particularly Magma Cubes and Silverfish, the devs would have realized that we REALLY dont need yet another hyper-rare mob. They're SO rare that they seriously almost dont even count as existing within the game. And as someone above pointed out, they're no challenge whatsoever. They NEED to be able to get the drop on you, or they cannot even fight.
Then there's the Wither. Pure gear-check fight. There's no strategy here. The thing sits on your head and just spams exploding bullets. That's IT. Even the Enderdragon is more interesting than this. But there's no point in FIGHTING the thing either, because it only leads to......
.....the Beacon. The single most overpriced and useless item in the game BY FAR. 1500 ingots/emeralds/diamonds. ***1500***. For just ONE of these ridiculous things. And you get 40 blocks of range in each direction from the main block itself, and that's IT. For a very weak effect that can be gotten in, oh, about 20 seconds, by simply making potions or enchanting something. It's powers are the sort that would be useful for exploration and combat, except.... oh yeah, YOU CANT USE THE BEACON FOR THAT. Because it HAS NO RANGE. The IDEA of the thing sounded awesome. Set it up, and give a nice buff to a large area; you could use it for caves or abandoned mines that you wanted to explore. ......but nope, wont work for that. It has no range. Just down a potion and grab an enchanted whatsit instead, because they're gonna do the same things except 3290527305723057297 times easier and better.
And of course, the mob armor thing. This seemed cool at first, but, like so many other aspects of this update, it may as well not be there now, as it changes NOTHING.
Dont get me wrong, this is a good update as a whole..... the "pretty" side of it came out very well, and things like the new crops and potions and pig-riding make it worth it.
But some of it...... either broken, or bloody pointless.
Though I AM at least glad for the fact that previously non-existant mobs like slimes and cubes ARE ACTUALLY AROUND NOW. What a concept!
And the anvil is pretty darn good.
Just.... ugh. The new mobs and that worthless beacon, sigh. They really do feel like they just werent thought out. Oh well. Cant win 'em all, I guess.
don't click this link...
Have you actually USED the damn thing? Something tells me NO.
Yeah. Iron is everywhere. Does that mean that it's a GOOD idea to use 1500 of it for an effect that is, frankly, pathetic? POTIONS are stronger than this thing. They take 20 seconds to make, if that, and require easily gotten items. One of each item in the brewing recipe, and you get THREE potions. And they work ANYWHERE. Same with enchants; some damn powerful effects on here, and they work ANYWHERE, and arent insane in terms of cost.
But the Beacon has NO FREAKING RANGE, and costs 1500 ingots. Oh, but that's not enough, is it? That's right.... THATS NOT THE ENTIRE COST. No. You ALSO have to fight the Wither. Which means grinding for skeleton heads. Which can take HOURS. Oh, and getting all of that iron takes hours too, and that's assuming that you are NEVER using iron for anything else (because if you are, this makes it take EVEN LONGER). Oh, and that iron? Guess what, it's not the only material requirement. You need tools to get at it, coal to smelt it, torches to see what you're doing..... getting a picture here?
The Beacon's effects NEED range in order to be useful. The ONLY one that makes even SOME sense is regeneration, but.... guess what? That's ONLY helpful if you get into an emergency situation in the super-immediate area around the thing (which is likely at your base), and..... if THAT happens, guess what, time to re-design your base. If you get into a situation ANYWHERE ELSE..... even within view distance of the thing..... that hyper-ultra-mega expensive item aint gonna save you. But guess what would save you? Healing potion. Or a golden apple. EASY to get items.
And no, the range doesnt "balance out a constant effect". I can get "constant" effects by using enchants, and they can be SO strong that they basically make me immortal. And I can carry just a few potions around, and get a couple hours worth of, say, big speed enhancement. So no, the beacon's range does NOT balance anything out at all. It's just a very badly thought-out idea that wasnt worked on, like the block itself.
Not even ONE person so far has been able to come up with a single, viable, practical, SANE use for this block that isnt doable in better ways with other, monstrously cheaper items. This block has ONE, and only one, good thing about it, and that's the light beam. And that's IT.
You can wear them too! Im a Notch guy now!
don't click this link...
For sponge, why not add it to the ocean floor and make drop sponge bits that can be used for water breathing potions
That's two potions right there.
Well well. Looks like they finally added the painting.
Praise be to Spode.
don't click this link...
Lazy? Do you know how hard mod API is?
1.4 does fell unfinished. Add not being able to get skeleton, creeper, and zombie heads in survival to your list. I don't think you can get the wither painting either.
don't click this link...
don't click this link...
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. YES.
And what's this about iron trap doors? Are they really just sitting with their thumbs in their noses, not making another block that uses the same render type as the trap door? All they'd have to do is retexture the trapdoor and they'd be good on the block. I'm thinking they're not going to release it until somewhere near 1.5 because iron doors are usually opened with redstone related contraptions, and that's the redstone/code overhaul update, but they could atleast make the class and texture for the thing and put it in an sd card to be used when the time is right or somethin'. :C
I sum up what you say as 'there's a mod for that', just in different respects.
Just because DInnerbone and Jeb aren't working on the API doesn't mean the rest of the hired bukkit team aren't.
http://dev.minecraft.net/blog/ That proves that they're working on it
Really? I never knew that, nor has anyone mentioned it before to me. I hope you're right. Also, for those who claim that they are perfectly content with Witches being 'rare', it's a bug. From what I've heard, the game takes long to realize the possible spawning space for a Witch in or near a hut, so they are MUCH rarer than they were intended to be. That may be false, but I hope it really is just a bug that can be easily fixed.
Minecraft's entire UI is kind of crap. Even for a game it's pretty bad. The only reason we "understand" crafting tables, furnaces, etc. Is through experience, not because it is somehow more intuitive. Same story with the beacon over time.
At least the beacon is consistent with the other UIs in that it sucks just as badly. In some respects the "retro crap" feel is what Minecraft is trying to emulate anyway.
I do think the range could use a bit of an increase, but then again you can also get practically limitless beacon blocks anyway. I think a big issue is that the wither skulls are just so damned hard to get. Something about wandering around a nether fortress killing skeletons randomly in the hopes that the psuedo-random number god will smile upon you does not yell "fun" to me.
Hell killing the wither is less of a pain in the butt.
The beacon block is an end-game item, which is probably why it is so expensive. At the same time though there are people who are adamant that the beacon is Overpowered the way it is, too.
Have to agree. I would argue that the teirs could go Lapis->Iron->Gold->Diamond->Emerald, or something. Actually, the different materials could simply change the range- Lapis could be what it is now, and each one doubles the effective range from there. Maybe the material used to charge effects the set of abilities you can choose from too. Definitely room for all sorts of neat additions here.
That depends. Main issue is that you usually 1v1 the mobs; you don't get hordes of them. 7 skeletons in gold armour with enchanted bows are going to be a lot harder to deal with than 7 normal skeletons. Which raises the other issue that even on hard the mobs with equipment are still rather rare. Arguably, I would say that on hard all Mobs (well, skellies and zombies at least) should be guaranteed to have at least one piece of equipment, which could very well make the game more difficult. Heck, the stuff they spawn with could even change depending on what nearby players have equipped; so if you have fully enchanted diamond armor, maybe skeletons are more likely to have good enchantments, strong enchanted armor, and maybe even various permanent potion effects. I can see this sort of addition making the game scary again; Now when you see a skellie it's more "bah" run up and kill it in two hits at most with good equipment. But with this sort of change, you turn a corner and see a Skeleton in enchanted gold and diamond equipment, and he shoots you and you catch fire, that actually has an element of fear to it.
I dunno, this seems to be where things get subjective. You say Anvils are OP, others thing they are underpowered; others say beacons are already Overpowered, you say they are Underpowered.
Actually an idea that could work is to make anvils work something like enchanting tables; maybe have various metals surrounding it, like bookcases for enchanting tables, which reduce the costs of renaming, repairs, and combinations.
What it boils down to is that some people think that if a feature makes the game easier, it's overpowered. In this case, some feel anvils make the game easier because you can repair enchanted tools. The problem with this approach is that it doesn't really make the game "harder" since the only hardness it eliminates is the appeal to the random number generator that is enchanting. Personally I like the way it's balanced right now (the anvil). It removes the randomness of trying to get the same enchantment again, costs raw materials, and at the same time removes the ability to get another enchantment. Being able to combine things is nice too. (it's nice to have something to do with the Power I bows that you get from skeletons)
I guess I would argue that the game is not unfinished, but it's unpolished.
The cost is not prohibitive at all, and an iron bottom layer is rather easy with a mixture for the rest.