Okay I thought about it a little bit and there are several ways the system can be improved. Enchanting uses a standard leveling up system for non standard currency based enchantments. It's like going to you're job but for every dollar you earn you have to work twice as long as the last, it just doesn't make sense. In a standard game you level up, your stats increase or you get points to put toward stats that you get to keep. As your character increases in strength it becomes harder to increase. This makes perfect sense for that kind of system. In Minecraft you can cast a level 5 enchantment at any time but it will be increasingly expensive the longer you wait to do it, the more work it takes at no added benefit.
The effort it takes to level up increases exponentially but the rewards for doing so do not. Either the level system has to have a standard amount of XP for levels, you use XP and not levels to enchant or you have to be guaranteed better enchantments or pick your own at higher levels, or a system that allows us to keep levels and uses a separate currency for the enchantments and levels allow you to unlock the better enchantments.
I would much rather keep the effort I put into leveling up. If you get to level 50 you should be able to enchant as many level 50 items as you want, assuming you have enough "currency" whatever that currency may be but I would settle for the other suggested fixes but every one of them would require an over haul. Enchanting is not useful to vanilla players in it's current state, if you want to use it you are required to make an XP farm. There is no way to earn enough xp to through normal gameplay.
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Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
I would much rather keep the effort I put into leveling up. If you get to level 50 you should be able to enchant as many level 50 items as you want, assuming you have enough "currency" whatever that currency may be but I would settle for the other suggested fixes but every one of them would require an over haul. Enchanting is not useful to vanilla players in it's current state, if you want to use it you are required to make an XP farm. There is no way to earn enough xp to through normal gameplay.
One way to do this is that enchanting always requires a fixed amount of XP (not levels). So for example, let's say enchanting an item required 50 XP. You'd need to be L5 to do so, and at that level it would eat almost all your XP, dropping you back to L2. If you were level 50, you could enchant three items before you even dropped down to 49.
Levels could still matter in terms of improving what enchantments you got. True, this would mean that you could stay at a high level, producing a lot of enchanted items, but I think that would actually be good. Maintaining a high level means that death becomes really dangerous, especially in PvP servers where people would be tempted to hunt you down for your XP.
And it fits more with the way the rest of Minecraft works. If you have a small quarry, you can only make iron tools, if that. Once you have a near-bedrock mine with farms to supply your needs, you can produce diamond stuff pretty regularly, and iron/redstone by the chest-full. You don't lose that after making a single tool - in fact, you don't lose it at all unless somebody destroys your entire base.
I recently started using a mod that improves enchanting. I got enough levels, and it was beautiful when I opened the GUI and I could SELECT and apply the enchants I wanted for the price they cost. But one thing that needs to be changed is the freaking amount you need to kill for level 50. I mean, JESUS. I have to go AFK for like 2 hours at 2 spawners to get about 20 levels. So, my solution is to take off the exponential growth of XP levels and make the required amount of XP for a level about equal to how much it takes now to get 8 levels. An as OP suggested, make some more unique and useful enchants.
I love the randomness of the enchantments, but I like to add more variety to it, like an additional item you can use to add to the enchantment.
For example, you get an extra optional slot next to the "to enchant" slot that gives the target enchantment an extra aspect.
And you add like a blaze rod so you get a random enchantment plus a fire aspect.
Or a slimeball so things "stick" to your pickaxe to prevent them from falling.
Or a diamond to add ........ <----- insert magic ability
Or maybe a spider eye to add a poison aspect to items.
I think enchanting should involve alchemic ingredients, which could increase probabilities for certain enchantments :
For example, using blaze rods while enchanting could increase the chance for getting fire enchantments, using lots of them increases chance by a lot.
I've spent over a month, implementing a mod to improve the enchanting system.
It has far more balance, strategy and functionality than vanilla enchanting (and I daresay any other enchanting mod out there).
You can cycle through the level options in much fewer clicks.
Allows you to add/upgrade enchantments to already enchanted items.
So you can always work towards the enchantments you want without being sabotaged by random chance.
Allows you to undo crappy enchantments Most of your xp is refunded, (with the probability of that enchantment reduced, until you close the table again).
Much fairer enchantment costs (based on level caps and min-enchantability)
Ignores max enchantability
More Flexible placement of bookshelves
Crappy enchantments like Knockback and protection are less likely to occur than the other more useful enchantments (de-enchanting decreases their probability/)
Unbreaking can be received on Any enchantable tool. So swords and bows with fire/sharpness,
The effort it takes to level up increases exponentially but the rewards for doing so do not. Either the level system has to have a standard amount of XP for levels, you use XP and not levels to enchant or you have to be guaranteed better enchantments or pick your own at higher levels, or a system that allows us to keep levels and uses a separate currency for the enchantments and levels allow you to unlock the better enchantments.
I would much rather keep the effort I put into leveling up. If you get to level 50 you should be able to enchant as many level 50 items as you want, assuming you have enough "currency" whatever that currency may be but I would settle for the other suggested fixes but every one of them would require an over haul. Enchanting is not useful to vanilla players in it's current state, if you want to use it you are required to make an XP farm. There is no way to earn enough xp to through normal gameplay.
Playing Minecraft since [Friday, March 19, 2010, 9:20:21 PM] (First indev world save)
Mod idea!
Levels could still matter in terms of improving what enchantments you got. True, this would mean that you could stay at a high level, producing a lot of enchanted items, but I think that would actually be good. Maintaining a high level means that death becomes really dangerous, especially in PvP servers where people would be tempted to hunt you down for your XP.
And it fits more with the way the rest of Minecraft works. If you have a small quarry, you can only make iron tools, if that. Once you have a near-bedrock mine with farms to supply your needs, you can produce diamond stuff pretty regularly, and iron/redstone by the chest-full. You don't lose that after making a single tool - in fact, you don't lose it at all unless somebody destroys your entire base.
Don't ya think?
Spending 50 levels and ending up with efficiency 3 is annoying.
For example, using blaze rods while enchanting could increase the chance for getting fire enchantments, using lots of them increases chance by a lot.
READ ME FOR MORE INFO ON WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT
It has far more balance, strategy and functionality than vanilla enchanting (and I daresay any other enchanting mod out there).
Full details here:
SUPERIOR ENCHANTMENT SYSTEM.
SHORT SUMMARY:
There's a mod for that too:
http://www.minecraft.../topic/1110105-
http://www.cognitiveforge.com/