I think its still too dull. You should implement some abilities and skills.
And not OP ones, but those who are making you really... different.
Solution
In singleplayer you and hostile/big-health mobs have some skills. You spawn with 1 Lv1 skill, and the most powerful hostile mobs have up to 3 skills of any level..
Equiping skills:
Press I(inventory hotkey) and it will open UI with 2 tabs - one for inventory, another for skills.
In inventory it is as it is, with armor and image of you in left and carriage in right.
Skills inventory is similiar but different. Instead of your own image there is Skill Wheel with 8 skill slots.
There another space is occupied by skill carriage. You may equip these skills or put them into chests, hoppers just as single item. Their items look like this:
[?]
that "question ending mark" will be glowing like if it was enchanted. Skills don't stack.
Mobs can also pick up and use skills. And this make even a sheep can attack. Every peaceful mob's base damage is 1 heart so ability damage may scale with that 1 heart as current damage of that mob which was peaceful(now self-defending once gained skill).
Snow golem's current damage will be 1,5 heart - that's with what abilities it has gained scale.
Thereby you may create mage villager by dropping some ranged skills to him, priest villager by dropping healing skill on him, warriors and more.
Be first to pick up abilities!
Skills can be: 1. Passive - they are only adding some permanent benefits. For example:
Muscle Protectors will make you do 30% less damage but have 40% more health. That means 14 hearts and some lower health.
Level 1 Passive Abilities.
Axe Skilled could make you chop with axe 1-2 seconds faster.
Hot Blood will make you do a little more damage(like 1-2 hearts) and mine/chop but not attack, slower.
Cold Blood will make you do slightly less damage but mine 2-4 seconds faster.
Light Systems are making you jump 0.5-1 block higher.
Quality makes your enchantments better.
Regulation makes you to regenerate additional health(0,5 heart in 2 seconds) and do 0.5 more damage.
Quick Learner makes things cost less XP, (or you earn more XP, but I prefer the one in brackets)
Luck makes better drops from mobs and little more XP(for example 1 more wool),
Swordsmanship makes you hit enemy with 0.5 heart more damage
Blazing Colours causes anything you mine or chop to be instantly smelted. Plus if you hit someone it is burning for 1,5 seconds.
Martial Arts makes you hit more when unarmed, and chance to completely block attack.
Adrenaline will save you from death, but after such an instant salvation it will turn off, letting damage over time/ another attack to finish you off. Adrenaline will not protect you from lava, drowning, suffocating, acid, or falling damage.
Lung Capacity makes you drown slower.
Auto Sprint makes you run slightly faster, and sprint 60% faster
Thrill of Salvation makes you heal additional amounts of health,
Stomach Capacity makes you have more hungerbars(12 instead of 10) and regenerate from 11th hungerbar,.
Thick Skin makes you receive 1 heart less damage.
2. Active - they can be used in combat using hotkeys.
Level I Active abilities(examples)
Brace for Impact makes you take 95% damage form next attack. Cooldown 19 seconds.
Recover makes you instantly heal 2 hearts and will put regeneration II for 4 seconds.
Destroy makes you attack with normal damage but lower enemy's life. Cooldown 7 seconds.
Impact makes you normally damage enemy and throw it in air(4 blocks). Careful when using it, he may jump on high place and shoot you, (1 second cooldown)
Envenom causes target to get poison I for 4 seconds. Cooldown 8 seconds
Detoxication instantly dispels negative effects. Cooldown 3 seconds
Radial Attack makes you sweep attack anyone for 1.5x damage. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Smash makes you concentrate attack and hit for 2x the damage. Cooldown 35 seconds.
Air Bolt makes you to range attack for 3 hearts. Cooldown 15 seconds.
Dispense makes you to fire "arrow" which can't be picked up and will not anyhow affect your inventory. Cooldown 17 seconds.
Stomatch Attack makes you to attack for 25% your current damage and drain 2,5 hungerbars. Cooldown 5 second.
Torpedo launches a ranged arrow attack with 25% damage which drain 3 Oxygen from target if it is underwater. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Triple punch makes you punch 3 times enemy instantly, damaging for 3x Unarmed damage. Cooldown 4 seconds
Swing makes you damage for 120% current melee damage and to get 3 more block knockback than normal attack. Cooldown 6 seconds.
Blaze Bolt damages for 2,5 hearts and causes it to burn for 5 seconds ranged damage. Cooldown 24 seconds.
Teleheal fires "negative arrow" which heals anyone player is targeting at by 2 hearts, also puts regeneration I on them for 6 seconds.
Drag fires some sort of wire to wall or entity (entities dont take damage) and it will climb that wire to the wall.
The higher level is ability, the stronger effect it has.
What skills passive mobs drop(and use)?
Passive mobs such as Cows or Pigs might probably use passive skills related to defence(like thick skin)
Chickens will use mining and chopping related abilities
Sheeps will use active healing and regeneration abilities.
Not mentioned here hostile mobs drop random but depending on their power.
Golems drop defensive and offensive acitve abilities.
Slimes and Magma cubes will drop jump-boost passive abilities.
Creepers and Ghasts will drop area attack-like and knockback abilities
Villagers drop mining/jumping abilities.
Horses drop jumping and knockback abilities.
spiders drop rope-climbing and slimbing abilities.
Cave spiders drop climbing, rope-climbing and damage-over-time abilities.
Snow Golems drop defensive and ranged attack, also heal abilities.
I aim to please ... and occasionally mentally scar. "Because it's your right as an American to butcher the English language."
This is my baby, please support her and get her into vanilla:
Maybe for a mod.
Vanilla Minecraft just doesn't seem to need skills....
Well, it doesnt make sense for villager to run doomed away from zombie. They will have a little resistance against them, instead of just running and suffering. Plus it makes a little a "mages" whose try to air bolt zombie from range zombies don't reach.
Also if you hit a cow it makes sense to try to stab you with these horns isn't it?
Plus, as skills are going to have animations, it will make sword combat not just like a spam of hits but custom, for example a wide sweep in PVP, self-dispenser form or something that.
Well I doubt chicken should use combat skills but use jump skills, especially passive.
Skills as items... Yes, its a bit irrealistic but gaining skill from slain enemy seems just better than hours of mining to practice it.
Also zombies could use skills too, not just like walk and punch you. But also sweep attack and such,
I forgot one thing, ceratin skills such as sweep attack require weapon.
Anyway, it solves problems such as bad sword combat, villagers doomed by 1 zombie, and adds a little more not OP challenge in survival or hardcore.
There is already a plugin for smp servers called McMMO that adds skills. As for single player there isn't mcmmo but I'm sure there are a lot of skill mods out there. I don't really see Mojang being able to integrate a skill system into vanilla Minecraft...
Is this a good idea? Ehh. Is it a good idea for Minecraft specifically? Not really, no.
This system of yours sounds like it would pointlessly overcomplicate the game. Maybe it's me, but things like skills are something that don't seamlessly fit in vanilla Minecraft. I know we've gotten some new "out there" things in the game, but I just can't see any appeal in having these skills slipped in.
And not OP ones, but those who are making you really... different.
Solution
In singleplayer you and hostile/big-health mobs have some skills. You spawn with 1 Lv1 skill, and the most powerful hostile mobs have up to 3 skills of any level..
Equiping skills:
Press I(inventory hotkey) and it will open UI with 2 tabs - one for inventory, another for skills.
In inventory it is as it is, with armor and image of you in left and carriage in right.
Skills inventory is similiar but different. Instead of your own image there is Skill Wheel with 8 skill slots.
There another space is occupied by skill carriage. You may equip these skills or put them into chests, hoppers just as single item. Their items look like this:
[?]
that "question ending mark" will be glowing like if it was enchanted.
Skills don't stack.
Mobs can also pick up and use skills. And this make even a sheep can attack. Every peaceful mob's base damage is 1 heart so ability damage may scale with that 1 heart as current damage of that mob which was peaceful(now self-defending once gained skill).
Snow golem's current damage will be 1,5 heart - that's with what abilities it has gained scale.
Thereby you may create mage villager by dropping some ranged skills to him, priest villager by dropping healing skill on him, warriors and more.
Be first to pick up abilities!
Skills can be:
1. Passive - they are only adding some permanent benefits. For example:
Muscle Protectors will make you do 30% less damage but have 40% more health. That means 14 hearts and some lower health.
Level 1 Passive Abilities.
Hot Blood will make you do a little more damage(like 1-2 hearts) and mine/chop but not attack, slower.
Cold Blood will make you do slightly less damage but mine 2-4 seconds faster.
Light Systems are making you jump 0.5-1 block higher.
Quality makes your enchantments better.
Regulation makes you to regenerate additional health(0,5 heart in 2 seconds) and do 0.5 more damage.
Quick Learner makes things cost less XP, (or you earn more XP, but I prefer the one in brackets)
Luck makes better drops from mobs and little more XP(for example 1 more wool),
Swordsmanship makes you hit enemy with 0.5 heart more damage
Blazing Colours causes anything you mine or chop to be instantly smelted. Plus if you hit someone it is burning for 1,5 seconds.
Martial Arts makes you hit more when unarmed, and chance to completely block attack.
Adrenaline will save you from death, but after such an instant salvation it will turn off, letting damage over time/ another attack to finish you off. Adrenaline will not protect you from lava, drowning, suffocating, acid, or falling damage.
Lung Capacity makes you drown slower.
Auto Sprint makes you run slightly faster, and sprint 60% faster
Thrill of Salvation makes you heal additional amounts of health,
Stomach Capacity makes you have more hungerbars(12 instead of 10) and regenerate from 11th hungerbar,.
Thick Skin makes you receive 1 heart less damage.
Level I Active abilities(examples)
Brace for Impact makes you take 95% damage form next attack. Cooldown 19 seconds.
Recover makes you instantly heal 2 hearts and will put regeneration II for 4 seconds.
Destroy makes you attack with normal damage but lower enemy's life. Cooldown 7 seconds.
Impact makes you normally damage enemy and throw it in air(4 blocks). Careful when using it, he may jump on high place and shoot you, (1 second cooldown)
Envenom causes target to get poison I for 4 seconds. Cooldown 8 seconds
Detoxication instantly dispels negative effects. Cooldown 3 seconds
Radial Attack makes you sweep attack anyone for 1.5x damage. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Smash makes you concentrate attack and hit for 2x the damage. Cooldown 35 seconds.
Air Bolt makes you to range attack for 3 hearts. Cooldown 15 seconds.
Dispense makes you to fire "arrow" which can't be picked up and will not anyhow affect your inventory. Cooldown 17 seconds.
Stomatch Attack makes you to attack for 25% your current damage and drain 2,5 hungerbars. Cooldown 5 second.
Torpedo launches a ranged arrow attack with 25% damage which drain 3 Oxygen from target if it is underwater. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Triple punch makes you punch 3 times enemy instantly, damaging for 3x Unarmed damage. Cooldown 4 seconds
Swing makes you damage for 120% current melee damage and to get 3 more block knockback than normal attack. Cooldown 6 seconds.
Blaze Bolt damages for 2,5 hearts and causes it to burn for 5 seconds ranged damage. Cooldown 24 seconds.
Teleheal fires "negative arrow" which heals anyone player is targeting at by 2 hearts, also puts regeneration I on them for 6 seconds.
Drag fires some sort of wire to wall or entity (entities dont take damage) and it will climb that wire to the wall.
The higher level is ability, the stronger effect it has.
What skills passive mobs drop(and use)?
Passive mobs such as Cows or Pigs might probably use passive skills related to defence(like thick skin)
Chickens will use mining and chopping related abilities
Sheeps will use active healing and regeneration abilities.
Not mentioned here hostile mobs drop random but depending on their power.
Golems drop defensive and offensive acitve abilities.
Slimes and Magma cubes will drop jump-boost passive abilities.
Creepers and Ghasts will drop area attack-like and knockback abilities
Villagers drop mining/jumping abilities.
Horses drop jumping and knockback abilities.
spiders drop rope-climbing and slimbing abilities.
Cave spiders drop climbing, rope-climbing and damage-over-time abilities.
Snow Golems drop defensive and ranged attack, also heal abilities.
"Because it's your right as an American to butcher the English language."
This is my baby, please support her and get her into vanilla:
Vanilla Minecraft just doesn't seem to need skills....
Stay fluffy~
Well, it doesnt make sense for villager to run doomed away from zombie. They will have a little resistance against them, instead of just running and suffering. Plus it makes a little a "mages" whose try to air bolt zombie from range zombies don't reach.
Also if you hit a cow it makes sense to try to stab you with these horns isn't it?
Plus, as skills are going to have animations, it will make sword combat not just like a spam of hits but custom, for example a wide sweep in PVP, self-dispenser form or something that.
Well I doubt chicken should use combat skills but use jump skills, especially passive.
Skills as items... Yes, its a bit irrealistic but gaining skill from slain enemy seems just better than hours of mining to practice it.
Also zombies could use skills too, not just like walk and punch you. But also sweep attack and such,
I forgot one thing, ceratin skills such as sweep attack require weapon.
Anyway, it solves problems such as bad sword combat, villagers doomed by 1 zombie, and adds a little more not OP challenge in survival or hardcore.
This system of yours sounds like it would pointlessly overcomplicate the game. Maybe it's me, but things like skills are something that don't seamlessly fit in vanilla Minecraft. I know we've gotten some new "out there" things in the game, but I just can't see any appeal in having these skills slipped in.