So I was playing a new single player world and I had finally gotten to the point where I could get my first level 30 enchant on my first diamond pick! I put in the pick, put in the lapis to select level 30, and boom, a efficiency 4, unbreaking 3, silk touch pick (Pretty freaking god tier if you ask me). anyways, I look down at my exp bar and see that I've only been charged 3 levels. "Interesting bug" I thought to myself as a proceeded to google to see if I had to reinstall or just restart my client to remove this pestilence.
To my dismay, I realized that this was AN INTENDED CHANGE?
Before I go into why I don't like this change, I'm ALL for finally giving lapis a use, and I feel like it's a great one. And I can deal with the fact that you can see one of the enchantments. Personally I like the factor of randomness that enchanting gives, so I just don't read the enchantment that it tells you you're going to get. Problem solved.
Please, don't label me as an update hater who whines when his favorite game is changed in the slightest. But don't tell me I'm not the only one that thinks this is ridiculous? The whole point of level 30 enchants is that they're super hard to get and the sense of accomplishment you get when you finally enchant that pick or sword is awesome, but if all I have to do is get 3 levels before I can acquire ANOTHER level 30 enchant, that takes all of the effort out of it. I'm going to have fully enchanted everything after just a night of killing mobs in the over world without a mob grinder.
To all who are going to point out that they made the exp gain "slower", it is not NEARLY enough to counteract the fact that level 30 enchants only cost 3 levels. This change ALMOST completely defeats the purpose of a mob grinder, because if for some strange reason you die (and I say strange because you shouldn't be dying with your freaking level 30 enchanted diamond armor), you'll be able to get to level 30 again instantly.
And thus, one of my favorite builds (exp farm) Is almost completely null and void.
Please give me your thoughts, I'm really curious to see if anyone else is as disappointed as I am with this aspect of the update.
And, If someone has a 1.8 mod link they want to give me that just changes back to the old enchanting system, I would much appreciate it.
Well, they offset the changes by making you unable to repair stuff forever and severely nerfing the use of books or combining to get maxed-out items (e.g. combining two Efficiency IV books/pickaxes to get Efficiency V, or making a pickaxe with Efficiency V and Unbreaking III; any work on the anvil will increase the cost); I basically enchant just one set of gear and never use the enchanting table ever again, simply repairing items on the fly as needed using XP from normal gameplay (I find getting XP to be absurdly easy and have never understood why people build mob grinders; an average play session gets me around 5,000 XP - enough to repair my pickaxe (33 levels, 1,032 XP) five times over, while It needs to be repaired far less often; I even found it easy to repair an Efficiency V, Fortune III, Unbreaking III pickaxe for a staggering 37 levels for only one diamond at a time - I stopped using Fortune because there is no point when you mine as much as I do, plus the inventory space bloat, even with an Ender chest and storing resources as blocks). Even the one time I do enchant I just mine Nether quartz, enchanting everything i want in a few hours with no setup time required; the nonrenewability is offset by the need to do it only once.
I consider the repairing changes to be a much bigger inconvenience since I want to cave for hours at a time without having to go back to spend some levels to enchant. Of course, you don't HAVE to play on 1.8; you can easily edit your profile and play an older version; in fact, I still play on 1.6.4, and otherwise I'd mod the game to use the old anvil repair system. I'd even do it now if there was a stable version of MCP (used to write mods) out (they have a "prerelease version" but it is very buggy; Optifine's creator took a week or two to fix it up).
That said, you do have a point about enchanting to be too easy, and the fact it takes more XP to reach level 30 the first time (requiring 1,395 XP) is offset by the much lower cost to reach 30 the second time (only 306 XP required) - just two enchantments without dying will nearly offset the XP required in older versions (825 XP to reach 30) - after just three you come out well ahead! Also, while you have to enchant to change what you get on an item you can just enchant a junk item or something else and you know for sure what one of the enchantments will be so you can more easily avoid unwanted enchantments (for example, if you want Protection IV on your armor and it says Blast Protection when you put a chestplate in you can just try enchanting leggings, boots, or helmets, or perhaps a sword to see if you get Sharpness, etc; you can also try blocking bookshelves to change the enchanting levels (you can still get Protection IV, Sharpness IV, etc without applying all 30 levels), select a different tier (1-3), and so on).
I feel like the way to fix anvils wasn't to nerf them and cancel out their nerfing by making some other aspect easy mode. When you nerf something, you nerf that one thing because it wasn't working the way you intended it to, and that's that. I guess were coming from 2 schools of thought where you were more into the anvil creation of the "greatest pick" and I was more you just use what you get.
In any case I dont even feel accomplished when I'm enchanting any more, just because I know if I don't get the EXACT enchantments I want I can just play for 5 minutes and try again.
I especially don't agree with the way they made enchanting op when, in the same update, they included the villagers with the enchanted books, which is basically promoting the thing that they just nerfed (anvils)
I saw some time back that the developers are not big fans of exp farms, iron farms, and the like. Not because they think they are exploits, but because it give the impression that building one is necessary to the enjoyment of the game.
With that in mind I think the changes to enchanting were to make the process easier and make an exp grinder less necessary.
I can't defend the changes to repairing the items. I could put up with items not lasting for ever and needing to remake things. But the fact that I'm spending a lot of time at the exp grinder, buying pickaxes from villagers, and get few repairs out of an item. Just don't like it. In fact it has renforced my reliance on grinders because instead of keeping one pickaxe of DOOM. Now I'm going to make half a dozen, wear them all down, then repair them all at once. Used to wear iron armor, now I'll switch to what ever the hell comes out of my grinder, never patch it up and just let it break. Take all the extra books I get, make one set of kick ass diamond armor and only use that when absolutely necessary.
Mojang is pretty good at realizing when they have made a bo bo, so lets see how it goes in a year...When they update again..
IMO, If that's the way they're thinking (not liking farms and grinders), they're kind of missing the reason a lot of people play...
I know for myself and a lot of other people, making large farms is the only way to keep the game interesting. Granted, there is the occasional wither and the enderdragon that you can fight, but you can only do those so many times (dragon once obviously) before you get bored and want something else. I know one of my favorite live streamers Giant_Waffle has been building a couple of farms that are just too large for me to comprehend, namely a guardian farm and an iron golem farm. And hes stated many a time to viewers that are asking why so big, that its one of the only ways to keep the game interesting for himself. I can attest to that because I was streaming for around 3 months, and eventually just got sick of minecraft and stopped. You can only play this game for so long before you either quit or need bigger and bigger goals and I feel like massive farms are one of the only options for very long term goals.
TL: DR: Short term you don't need to make farms/grinders to have fun, but long/very long term that's one of the only things you can do to get enjoyment. at least in my opinion. I know that's not how all people think but that's my thought process.
The new enchanting changes made me realize how much easier minecraft is now than when I started playing. (1.2.5)
In 1.2.5 well enchanted items were valuable and you couldn't waste them, in a fortune 3 diamond pick the enchanment was more valuable than the diamonds, and well enchanted armor was pretty much only used in PVP.
First the enchanting was made much cheaper (if I remember right it used to need 10 times more xp for max level enchant than in the 1.7 system) This wasn't too OP, gear with good enchants was still valuable. They also made books require leather to craft Instead of just paper but the amount you need for full level enchantments isn't very high.
Then anvils were added, allowing you to repair enchanted things infinitely and combine them to get just the enchant you want. This allowed player to use the best possible gear all the time.
The anvils are one of the most OP things ever added to minecraft.
Then enchanted books were added, with the right villagers you could easily obtain rare encanments. Good gear was now something that could be mass produced. Sometimes the good trade would be replaced with a bad one.
Now the xp required is reduced even more, and players can see enchantments before enchanting. You can no longer repair infinitely, but the first few repairs are much cheaper. the lapis cost only matters on custom maps. The villager never loose their enchanted book trades. (This is balanced a bit by the anvil changes.
If Minecraft continues updating and how easy will enchanting eventually be?
The enchanting become easier but did mobs become harder?
Mobs spawning with gear makes the game a bit harder but mobs dropping that gear made the game easier.
Skeletons spam shooting actually makes the game a bit harder if you don't have a bow, but the sprint button makes fighting them easier.
Zombie changes are mostly just annoying because zombies are so weak.
The creeper buff made the game a bit harder.
Witches spawning everywhere also adds difficulty.
Wither skeletons make the game harder but only in nether fortresses, but nether fortresses got loot chests.
Withers are easy to kill if you spawn them underground.
But 1.8 made mobs much weaker by ruining their AI's.
Spiders no longer see you trough walls, so the climbing is pretty useless.
The delay added to skeletons means that they are easy to kill even with a sword.
Endermen are broken.
I love the enchanting changes, the nerfed farms before I ever got to make a grand one, repairing was nerfed too so hey, I think it's great. In the old days, you do a level 30 or older days 50 and boom there goes all your levels and you sometimes get something good and sometimes get Unbreaking III, poof all that work mostly down the drain!
Unbreaking is pretty much the most valuable and overpowered enchantment though, even before the 1.8 anvil changes - you get FOUR times as many uses out of your tools - a more significant effect than using Fortune (which I don't even bother with anymore) to mine your diamonds (and if you only use iron it works on those too and anything else with durability); Fortune III only increases drops by 120% (2.2 diamonds per ore) while Unbreaking III makes it equivalent to 4 (combined of course you get 8.8 times; equivalent to making diamonds spawn 9 veins per chunk - more common than redstone currently is - and not using either enchantment; Unbreaking has less of an effect on armor but I spend at least half my diamonds on my pickaxe, out of 5 items, plus repairing armor allows you to use less materials than needed to make new armor as each diamond is always 25% durability back whether it is a chestplate or shovel). Plus it acts like an XP multiplier as well; repair costs do increase (prior to 1.8) but you spend less XP in the long run even when you are forced to repair using single diamonds instead of new tools.
I should also note that 1.7 made Unbreaking obtainable on weapons and armor without the need for enchanted books, almost as if they anticipated its value in 1.8, and Unbreaking III is twice as likely on books (10% vs 5% in 1.6.4; as I'm still playing in 1.6.4 Unbreaking III is responsible for most of the XP I spend enchanting since I need 5 books for armor (x3), sword, and bow).
Mobs spawning with gear makes the game a bit harder but mobs dropping that gear made the game easier.
They also drop more XP; 1-3 XP per piece of equipment, so for example, skeletons actually drop 6-8 XP, not 5, and a fully armored baby zombie (dropping 12 XP by itself) can drop as much as 27 XP; I recently calculated that I got an average of 6.3 XP per mob, including slimes (i.e. averaging more XP from other mobs), in a recent play session. This extra XP easily offsets the need for extra hits; for example, my sword costs 0.4 XP per use, so the average of 2 XP per piece of equipment far outweighs the need for extra hits.
In 1.2.5 well enchanted items were valuable and you couldn't waste them, in a fortune 3 diamond pick the enchanment was more valuable than the diamonds, and well enchanted armor was pretty much only used in PVP.
No it isnt, back in those days it was simply mandatory to make an enderman farm in order to have a supply of tools\armour and be able to repair them. Enchanted items meant a long grind to get what you want. When you needed stuff you spend an hour grinding xp and thats it.
Nowadays you are rewarded for normal play by being able to get good\decent gear without neccesarily making a XP farm. All the little trickle sources of earlygame xp that was worthless when you need to gain 30 levels now has meaning as you only need 3 levels to enchant again. The repair mechanics are excellent again allowing you to play without taking a trip to my xp farm. Also gives an actual incentive to avoid dying.
No it isnt, back in those days it was simply mandatory to make an enderman farm in order to have a supply of tools\armour and be able to repair them. Enchanted items meant a long grind to get what you want. When you needed stuff you spend an hour grinding xp and thats it.
Nowadays you are rewarded for normal play by being able to get good\decent gear without neccesarily making a XP farm. All the little trickle sources of earlygame xp that was worthless when you need to gain 30 levels now has meaning as you only need 3 levels to enchant again. The repair mechanics are excellent again allowing you to play without taking a trip to my xp farm. Also gives an actual incentive to avoid dying.
TLDR ive been enjoying it quite a bit
Even before 1.8 it was NOT mandatory to have an XP farm - which I've never, ever seen any reason to make because I get 5,000 or more XP every time I play:
The ores I mined gave me about 3,268 XP and the mobs I killed gave me about 2,387 XP (based on the average I calculated before) - a total of about 5,655 XP. Of note, I had 63 levels - yes, sixty-three levels - before I repaired my pickaxe for only 33 levels - which meant I had 6,567 XP (plus whatever I had in the XP bar) when I actually only needed 1,032 XP; I was even able to repair two pieces of armor using the XP left over.
(oh, I forgot - 7 mob spawners gave me another 200 or so XP for a total of about 5,855 XP)
Basically, even if XP costs were higher by a factor of 5 I'd still find it too easy to get XP to repair my gear; indeed, if I ever play in 1.8 or later I'll mod anvil repairing to use the old system but not bother adjusting the level costs to account for the higher XP costs per level, which would be no problem at all for me, nor should it be a problem for anyone else because the profit margin is just so huge (for example, my sword costs 35 levels, 1,205 XP to repair by 50% at a time - but that 50% gives me at least 7,800 XP from the mobs killed - far outweighing even the 2,045 XP cost to reach level 35 in 1.8).
In fact, even using the most expensive pickaxe possible, with Efficiency V, Fortune III, Unbreaking III, costing about 0.9 XP per block mined, five times more expensive than the Efficiency V, Unbreaking III pickaxe I currently use, I still found it not to be a problem repairing it - I only dropped Fortune because 2,000+ coal ore is a lot of pieces of coal (in particular)... basically I used backpack/larger Ender chest mods to get enough inventory space to allow reasonably long caving sessions without having to return (that said, in 1.8 the cost would increase to 1.5 XP per block mined, which would be a problem; then again, such a pickaxe was never meant to be used for general purpose mining, nor would anybody really need Efficiency and Unbreaking on a Fortune pickaxe).
Also, on the "incentive to avoid dying" part, the math shows that is hardly a problem:
First enchantment:
Pre-1.8 enchanting cost: 825 XP
1.8 enchanting cost: 1,395 XP
Second enchantment:
Pre-1.8 enchanting cost: 825 XP (total: 1,650 XP)
1.8 enchanting cost: 306 XP (total: 1,701 XP)
Third enchantment:
Pre-1.8 enchanting cost: 825 XP (total: 2,475 XP)
1.8 enchanting cost: 306 XP (total: 2,007 XP)
So, as you can see you only need to enchant two times to nearly break even on the total amount of XP required - and after just three times you come out well ahead in 1.8. In fact, you can do a fourth enchantment in 1.8 and still spend less XP overall than making three enchantments before!
And dying is hardly a problem anyway as many people can tell you (see threads complaining about the difficulty, or lack of, and numerous suggestions to make it harder).
No it isnt, back in those days it was simply mandatory to make an enderman farm in order to have a supply of tools\armour and be able to repair them. Enchanted items meant a long grind to get what you want. When you needed stuff you spend an hour grinding xp and thats it.
Nowadays you are rewarded for normal play by being able to get good\decent gear without neccesarily making a XP farm. All the little trickle sources of earlygame xp that was worthless when you need to gain 30 levels now has meaning as you only need 3 levels to enchant again. The repair mechanics are excellent again allowing you to play without taking a trip to my xp farm. Also gives an actual incentive to avoid dying.
TLDR ive been enjoying it quite a bit
Even if you had an endermen farm you couldn't use the best armor all the time because only a few% of items got the best enchantments and only way to change the enchantments the item had was to remove them by combining them with other item and enchant the again. it cost a lot of diamonds to get an fortune 3, unbreaking 3, effiency 5 diamond pickaxe or protection 4 chestplate.
You could also use perfect paper\blacksmith villagers to get infinite diamonds in those earlier patches. I had a large supply of dia armour without spending a single diamond in this way. I see we may as well be playing different games so ill move along and leave you to it.
You could also use perfect paper\blacksmith villagers to get infinite diamonds in those earlier patches.
You quoted what I said about Minecraft 1.2.5, villager trading was added in 1.3.
I also never said anything about hard enchanting being better than cheap enchanting, I just said that good gear is now much easier to get than in 1.2.5.
So I was playing a new single player world and I had finally gotten to the point where I could get my first level 30 enchant on my first diamond pick! I put in the pick, put in the lapis to select level 30, and boom, a efficiency 4, unbreaking 3, silk touch pick (Pretty freaking god tier if you ask me). anyways, I look down at my exp bar and see that I've only been charged 3 levels. "Interesting bug" I thought to myself as a proceeded to google to see if I had to reinstall or just restart my client to remove this pestilence.
To my dismay, I realized that this was AN INTENDED CHANGE?
Before I go into why I don't like this change, I'm ALL for finally giving lapis a use, and I feel like it's a great one. And I can deal with the fact that you can see one of the enchantments. Personally I like the factor of randomness that enchanting gives, so I just don't read the enchantment that it tells you you're going to get. Problem solved.
Please, don't label me as an update hater who whines when his favorite game is changed in the slightest. But don't tell me I'm not the only one that thinks this is ridiculous? The whole point of level 30 enchants is that they're super hard to get and the sense of accomplishment you get when you finally enchant that pick or sword is awesome, but if all I have to do is get 3 levels before I can acquire ANOTHER level 30 enchant, that takes all of the effort out of it. I'm going to have fully enchanted everything after just a night of killing mobs in the over world without a mob grinder.
To all who are going to point out that they made the exp gain "slower", it is not NEARLY enough to counteract the fact that level 30 enchants only cost 3 levels. This change ALMOST completely defeats the purpose of a mob grinder, because if for some strange reason you die (and I say strange because you shouldn't be dying with your freaking level 30 enchanted diamond armor), you'll be able to get to level 30 again instantly.
And thus, one of my favorite builds (exp farm) Is almost completely null and void.
Please give me your thoughts, I'm really curious to see if anyone else is as disappointed as I am with this aspect of the update.
And, If someone has a 1.8 mod link they want to give me that just changes back to the old enchanting system, I would much appreciate it.
Peace and Love and Flowers n' Stuff.
-HoBoJo1234
Yes, I agree with you completely. Although for most this would seem a welcome change I find Minecraft as already too easy and then they happen to come along and make it even easier, which is why I'm playing on 1.7.10, problem solved! (No new ugly blocks, annoying and apparently lagging ocean monuments / other annoyances.
Totally agree! As soon as 1.8 came out I started a new survival world, I had just found diamonds, made a crafting table, and then I was just able to enchant my tools! I just stared at the screen in disbielef. I've had the game since Alpha and when echanting came out, boy, oh, boy was it hard to echant something! It took 50 levels to get a good enchantment.
The one good thing about this change that I see is that when I get really bored and decide to play Minecraft, I'm actually going to be able to enchant things before I get bored of Minecraft again. (The one time I used max-level enchantments before this change was back in 1.2.5 when I was really engaged in a mod and managed to get 50 levels; of course, when i finally enchanted my sword for the first time, I got nothing but Knockback II and was infuriated as it's easily my least favorite enchantment, even compared to Bane of Arthopods.)
I would say that this change breaks balance... but it doesn't. Balance is already broken long before you get your hands on enchantments, iron equipment wrecks the game just fine. If Minecraft were balanced in R1.7, this would break balance, but it wasn't balanced before. You can't really break something that's already broken almost beyond use and expect it to function noticeably worse.
Three levels is nothing. I can enchant something, mine quartz for a few minutes, then walk back home and enchant something again. The lapis requirement sounds nice in theory but in actuality by the time you can enchant you're going to have 50+ lapis and the requirement will be meaningless.
The anvil mechanics don't really balance anything, because you can just replace a heavily-enchanted tool easily. Instead of repairing my god-pick and treasuring it, i'll repair my god-pick once when it's almost broken with a brand-new diamond pick, then trash it afterwards and make a new god-pick. The only difference is that the game will now punish me for naming something instead of rewarding me, which I don't really like. I guess my second hotbar slot will be occupied by a Diamond Pickaxe instead of my trusty Dwarven Interrogation Device. Ah, well.
What annoys me is that the system could be so much better than what it is now. It took me all of a few minutes to devise a much better system (in my opinion) than the current one back when I first saw it. I'll post it again, although I doubt anyone will comment on it:
The cost to actually enchant something is doubled; hopefully, those 6 levels combined with the increased EXP required to gain a level will mean something. This includes the lapis requirement; a Rank 3 enchantment costs 6 levels and 6 lapis.
You'll no longer see a single enchantment when enchanting something; don't worry, a mechanic exists to replace it.
You'll now be able to "scry" enchantments for each rank, by paying the current enchanting cost, allowing you to see one enchantment in a specific rank. Meaning, you can pay 3 levels and 3 lapis to reveal one enchantment in the Rank 3 row. Additionally, if you run out of enchantments to scry in a particular rank, there won't be a "...?" at the end of the list of enchantments in that rank; if you reveal a sword enchantment on a sword that has only Knockback II, the window will simply read "Knockback II"... but if it has Knockback II and Smite IV, it'll read "Knockback II...?" like it does now.
You can also "shuffle" through enchantments, providing you with a new selection of enchantments for each rank; much less annoying than enchanting a low-quality shovel with a level one enchantment. This is entirely free, but all enchantments in the new selection will be hidden; if you scried something and then you shuffle the enchantments, you'll have basically wasted a few levels and lapis (but it's better than wasting a tool and even more levels and lapis, right?). Obviously, if you actually enchant something the new selection of enchantments will be hidden too, so you'll need to scry things again.
Also, 1.8's anvil mechanics should be reverted because there's really no point in having them.
This system seems to me like it's a lot more refined than the system introduced in 1.8; you can gamble on an enchantment and save lapis and levels if you get lucky (or waste a tool and lapis/levels if you don't), and if you want to play it safe you can spend a little more to ensure that you get a decent deal. Also you don't have to finnick around with enchanting crap tools with crap enchantments just to get a new selection of tools, something that always irritated the pickles out of my jars.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Did something happen to you in your childhood to give you this unreasonable fear of rutabaga?
Please, don't label me as an update hater who whines when his favorite game is changed in the slightest. But don't tell me I'm not the only one that thinks this is ridiculous? The whole point of level 30 enchants is that they're super hard to get and the sense of accomplishment you get when you finally enchant that pick or sword is awesome, but if all I have to do is get 3 levels before I can acquire ANOTHER level 30 enchant, that takes all of the effort out of it. I'm going to have fully enchanted everything after just a night of killing mobs in the over world without a mob grinder.
To all who are going to point out that they made the exp gain "slower", it is not NEARLY enough to counteract the fact that level 30 enchants only cost 3 levels. This change ALMOST completely defeats the purpose of a mob grinder, because if for some strange reason you die (and I say strange because you shouldn't be dying with your freaking level 30 enchanted diamond armor), you'll be able to get to level 30 again instantly.
And thus, one of my favorite builds (exp farm) Is almost completely null and void.
Please give me your thoughts, I'm really curious to see if anyone else is as disappointed as I am with this aspect of the update.
And, If someone has a 1.8 mod link they want to give me that just changes back to the old enchanting system, I would much appreciate it.
Peace and Love and Flowers n' Stuff.
-HoBoJo1234
I consider the repairing changes to be a much bigger inconvenience since I want to cave for hours at a time without having to go back to spend some levels to enchant. Of course, you don't HAVE to play on 1.8; you can easily edit your profile and play an older version; in fact, I still play on 1.6.4, and otherwise I'd mod the game to use the old anvil repair system. I'd even do it now if there was a stable version of MCP (used to write mods) out (they have a "prerelease version" but it is very buggy; Optifine's creator took a week or two to fix it up).
That said, you do have a point about enchanting to be too easy, and the fact it takes more XP to reach level 30 the first time (requiring 1,395 XP) is offset by the much lower cost to reach 30 the second time (only 306 XP required) - just two enchantments without dying will nearly offset the XP required in older versions (825 XP to reach 30) - after just three you come out well ahead! Also, while you have to enchant to change what you get on an item you can just enchant a junk item or something else and you know for sure what one of the enchantments will be so you can more easily avoid unwanted enchantments (for example, if you want Protection IV on your armor and it says Blast Protection when you put a chestplate in you can just try enchanting leggings, boots, or helmets, or perhaps a sword to see if you get Sharpness, etc; you can also try blocking bookshelves to change the enchanting levels (you can still get Protection IV, Sharpness IV, etc without applying all 30 levels), select a different tier (1-3), and so on).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
In any case I dont even feel accomplished when I'm enchanting any more, just because I know if I don't get the EXACT enchantments I want I can just play for 5 minutes and try again.
I especially don't agree with the way they made enchanting op when, in the same update, they included the villagers with the enchanted books, which is basically promoting the thing that they just nerfed (anvils)
CLICK FOR BEST SUPPORT WEBSITE EVER!
Make sure to click the reply or quote button on my post if you are replying to me, otherwise it is unlikely that I will see your post.
With that in mind I think the changes to enchanting were to make the process easier and make an exp grinder less necessary.
I can't defend the changes to repairing the items. I could put up with items not lasting for ever and needing to remake things. But the fact that I'm spending a lot of time at the exp grinder, buying pickaxes from villagers, and get few repairs out of an item. Just don't like it. In fact it has renforced my reliance on grinders because instead of keeping one pickaxe of DOOM. Now I'm going to make half a dozen, wear them all down, then repair them all at once. Used to wear iron armor, now I'll switch to what ever the hell comes out of my grinder, never patch it up and just let it break. Take all the extra books I get, make one set of kick ass diamond armor and only use that when absolutely necessary.
Mojang is pretty good at realizing when they have made a bo bo, so lets see how it goes in a year...When they update again..
I know for myself and a lot of other people, making large farms is the only way to keep the game interesting. Granted, there is the occasional wither and the enderdragon that you can fight, but you can only do those so many times (dragon once obviously) before you get bored and want something else. I know one of my favorite live streamers Giant_Waffle has been building a couple of farms that are just too large for me to comprehend, namely a guardian farm and an iron golem farm. And hes stated many a time to viewers that are asking why so big, that its one of the only ways to keep the game interesting for himself. I can attest to that because I was streaming for around 3 months, and eventually just got sick of minecraft and stopped. You can only play this game for so long before you either quit or need bigger and bigger goals and I feel like massive farms are one of the only options for very long term goals.
TL: DR: Short term you don't need to make farms/grinders to have fun, but long/very long term that's one of the only things you can do to get enjoyment. at least in my opinion. I know that's not how all people think but that's my thought process.
In 1.2.5 well enchanted items were valuable and you couldn't waste them, in a fortune 3 diamond pick the enchanment was more valuable than the diamonds, and well enchanted armor was pretty much only used in PVP.
First the enchanting was made much cheaper (if I remember right it used to need 10 times more xp for max level enchant than in the 1.7 system) This wasn't too OP, gear with good enchants was still valuable. They also made books require leather to craft Instead of just paper but the amount you need for full level enchantments isn't very high.
Then anvils were added, allowing you to repair enchanted things infinitely and combine them to get just the enchant you want. This allowed player to use the best possible gear all the time.
The anvils are one of the most OP things ever added to minecraft.
Then enchanted books were added, with the right villagers you could easily obtain rare encanments. Good gear was now something that could be mass produced. Sometimes the good trade would be replaced with a bad one.
Now the xp required is reduced even more, and players can see enchantments before enchanting. You can no longer repair infinitely, but the first few repairs are much cheaper. the lapis cost only matters on custom maps. The villager never loose their enchanted book trades. (This is balanced a bit by the anvil changes.
If Minecraft continues updating and how easy will enchanting eventually be?
The enchanting become easier but did mobs become harder?
Mobs spawning with gear makes the game a bit harder but mobs dropping that gear made the game easier.
Skeletons spam shooting actually makes the game a bit harder if you don't have a bow, but the sprint button makes fighting them easier.
Zombie changes are mostly just annoying because zombies are so weak.
The creeper buff made the game a bit harder.
Witches spawning everywhere also adds difficulty.
Wither skeletons make the game harder but only in nether fortresses, but nether fortresses got loot chests.
Withers are easy to kill if you spawn them underground.
But 1.8 made mobs much weaker by ruining their AI's.
Spiders no longer see you trough walls, so the climbing is pretty useless.
The delay added to skeletons means that they are easy to kill even with a sword.
Endermen are broken.
Unbreaking is pretty much the most valuable and overpowered enchantment though, even before the 1.8 anvil changes - you get FOUR times as many uses out of your tools - a more significant effect than using Fortune (which I don't even bother with anymore) to mine your diamonds (and if you only use iron it works on those too and anything else with durability); Fortune III only increases drops by 120% (2.2 diamonds per ore) while Unbreaking III makes it equivalent to 4 (combined of course you get 8.8 times; equivalent to making diamonds spawn 9 veins per chunk - more common than redstone currently is - and not using either enchantment; Unbreaking has less of an effect on armor but I spend at least half my diamonds on my pickaxe, out of 5 items, plus repairing armor allows you to use less materials than needed to make new armor as each diamond is always 25% durability back whether it is a chestplate or shovel). Plus it acts like an XP multiplier as well; repair costs do increase (prior to 1.8) but you spend less XP in the long run even when you are forced to repair using single diamonds instead of new tools.
I should also note that 1.7 made Unbreaking obtainable on weapons and armor without the need for enchanted books, almost as if they anticipated its value in 1.8, and Unbreaking III is twice as likely on books (10% vs 5% in 1.6.4; as I'm still playing in 1.6.4 Unbreaking III is responsible for most of the XP I spend enchanting since I need 5 books for armor (x3), sword, and bow).
They also drop more XP; 1-3 XP per piece of equipment, so for example, skeletons actually drop 6-8 XP, not 5, and a fully armored baby zombie (dropping 12 XP by itself) can drop as much as 27 XP; I recently calculated that I got an average of 6.3 XP per mob, including slimes (i.e. averaging more XP from other mobs), in a recent play session. This extra XP easily offsets the need for extra hits; for example, my sword costs 0.4 XP per use, so the average of 2 XP per piece of equipment far outweighs the need for extra hits.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
No it isnt, back in those days it was simply mandatory to make an enderman farm in order to have a supply of tools\armour and be able to repair them. Enchanted items meant a long grind to get what you want. When you needed stuff you spend an hour grinding xp and thats it.
Nowadays you are rewarded for normal play by being able to get good\decent gear without neccesarily making a XP farm. All the little trickle sources of earlygame xp that was worthless when you need to gain 30 levels now has meaning as you only need 3 levels to enchant again. The repair mechanics are excellent again allowing you to play without taking a trip to my xp farm. Also gives an actual incentive to avoid dying.
TLDR ive been enjoying it quite a bit
Even before 1.8 it was NOT mandatory to have an XP farm - which I've never, ever seen any reason to make because I get 5,000 or more XP every time I play:
The ores I mined gave me about 3,268 XP and the mobs I killed gave me about 2,387 XP (based on the average I calculated before) - a total of about 5,655 XP. Of note, I had 63 levels - yes, sixty-three levels - before I repaired my pickaxe for only 33 levels - which meant I had 6,567 XP (plus whatever I had in the XP bar) when I actually only needed 1,032 XP; I was even able to repair two pieces of armor using the XP left over.
(oh, I forgot - 7 mob spawners gave me another 200 or so XP for a total of about 5,855 XP)
Basically, even if XP costs were higher by a factor of 5 I'd still find it too easy to get XP to repair my gear; indeed, if I ever play in 1.8 or later I'll mod anvil repairing to use the old system but not bother adjusting the level costs to account for the higher XP costs per level, which would be no problem at all for me, nor should it be a problem for anyone else because the profit margin is just so huge (for example, my sword costs 35 levels, 1,205 XP to repair by 50% at a time - but that 50% gives me at least 7,800 XP from the mobs killed - far outweighing even the 2,045 XP cost to reach level 35 in 1.8).
In fact, even using the most expensive pickaxe possible, with Efficiency V, Fortune III, Unbreaking III, costing about 0.9 XP per block mined, five times more expensive than the Efficiency V, Unbreaking III pickaxe I currently use, I still found it not to be a problem repairing it - I only dropped Fortune because 2,000+ coal ore is a lot of pieces of coal (in particular)... basically I used backpack/larger Ender chest mods to get enough inventory space to allow reasonably long caving sessions without having to return (that said, in 1.8 the cost would increase to 1.5 XP per block mined, which would be a problem; then again, such a pickaxe was never meant to be used for general purpose mining, nor would anybody really need Efficiency and Unbreaking on a Fortune pickaxe).
Also, on the "incentive to avoid dying" part, the math shows that is hardly a problem:
First enchantment:
Pre-1.8 enchanting cost: 825 XP
1.8 enchanting cost: 1,395 XP
Second enchantment:
Pre-1.8 enchanting cost: 825 XP (total: 1,650 XP)
1.8 enchanting cost: 306 XP (total: 1,701 XP)
Third enchantment:
Pre-1.8 enchanting cost: 825 XP (total: 2,475 XP)
1.8 enchanting cost: 306 XP (total: 2,007 XP)
So, as you can see you only need to enchant two times to nearly break even on the total amount of XP required - and after just three times you come out well ahead in 1.8. In fact, you can do a fourth enchantment in 1.8 and still spend less XP overall than making three enchantments before!
And dying is hardly a problem anyway as many people can tell you (see threads complaining about the difficulty, or lack of, and numerous suggestions to make it harder).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Even if you had an endermen farm you couldn't use the best armor all the time because only a few% of items got the best enchantments and only way to change the enchantments the item had was to remove them by combining them with other item and enchant the again. it cost a lot of diamonds to get an fortune 3, unbreaking 3, effiency 5 diamond pickaxe or protection 4 chestplate.
You quoted what I said about Minecraft 1.2.5, villager trading was added in 1.3.
I also never said anything about hard enchanting being better than cheap enchanting, I just said that good gear is now much easier to get than in 1.2.5.
Yes, I agree with you completely. Although for most this would seem a welcome change I find Minecraft as already too easy and then they happen to come along and make it even easier, which is why I'm playing on 1.7.10, problem solved! (No new ugly blocks, annoying and apparently lagging ocean monuments / other annoyances.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe3wQb1troJYcksx2dteO_Q
-unicornbob123
Miner's nightmare preset
Miner's nightmare preset (original terrain)
Killing the Ender Dragon, no damage (no armor/potions/enchantments/pumpkin)
I would say that this change breaks balance... but it doesn't. Balance is already broken long before you get your hands on enchantments, iron equipment wrecks the game just fine. If Minecraft were balanced in R1.7, this would break balance, but it wasn't balanced before. You can't really break something that's already broken almost beyond use and expect it to function noticeably worse.
Three levels is nothing. I can enchant something, mine quartz for a few minutes, then walk back home and enchant something again. The lapis requirement sounds nice in theory but in actuality by the time you can enchant you're going to have 50+ lapis and the requirement will be meaningless.
The anvil mechanics don't really balance anything, because you can just replace a heavily-enchanted tool easily. Instead of repairing my god-pick and treasuring it, i'll repair my god-pick once when it's almost broken with a brand-new diamond pick, then trash it afterwards and make a new god-pick. The only difference is that the game will now punish me for naming something instead of rewarding me, which I don't really like. I guess my second hotbar slot will be occupied by a Diamond Pickaxe instead of my trusty Dwarven Interrogation Device. Ah, well.
What annoys me is that the system could be so much better than what it is now. It took me all of a few minutes to devise a much better system (in my opinion) than the current one back when I first saw it. I'll post it again, although I doubt anyone will comment on it:
The cost to actually enchant something is doubled; hopefully, those 6 levels combined with the increased EXP required to gain a level will mean something. This includes the lapis requirement; a Rank 3 enchantment costs 6 levels and 6 lapis.
You'll no longer see a single enchantment when enchanting something; don't worry, a mechanic exists to replace it.
You'll now be able to "scry" enchantments for each rank, by paying the current enchanting cost, allowing you to see one enchantment in a specific rank. Meaning, you can pay 3 levels and 3 lapis to reveal one enchantment in the Rank 3 row. Additionally, if you run out of enchantments to scry in a particular rank, there won't be a "...?" at the end of the list of enchantments in that rank; if you reveal a sword enchantment on a sword that has only Knockback II, the window will simply read "Knockback II"... but if it has Knockback II and Smite IV, it'll read "Knockback II...?" like it does now.
You can also "shuffle" through enchantments, providing you with a new selection of enchantments for each rank; much less annoying than enchanting a low-quality shovel with a level one enchantment. This is entirely free, but all enchantments in the new selection will be hidden; if you scried something and then you shuffle the enchantments, you'll have basically wasted a few levels and lapis (but it's better than wasting a tool and even more levels and lapis, right?). Obviously, if you actually enchant something the new selection of enchantments will be hidden too, so you'll need to scry things again.
Also, 1.8's anvil mechanics should be reverted because there's really no point in having them.
This system seems to me like it's a lot more refined than the system introduced in 1.8; you can gamble on an enchantment and save lapis and levels if you get lucky (or waste a tool and lapis/levels if you don't), and if you want to play it safe you can spend a little more to ensure that you get a decent deal. Also you don't have to finnick around with enchanting crap tools with crap enchantments just to get a new selection of tools, something that always irritated the pickles out of my jars.