I would love to have the ability to do something with the useless "rare" drops. Something like the ability to remove an enchant from an item, like power 1 from a bow dropped by skeletons, and placing it on a book through the anvil.
Maybe melting down armor, weapons, or tools through the furnace to get a reduced amount of ingots. I hate having to throw away those useless gold swords from zombie pigmen and gold armor from zombies and skeletons.
Actually, PvP aside, Power I bows function pretty much just as well as Power II-V since they all take two hits on common mobs (spiders being an exception with V).
I have to admit that I find it a little annoying that I have literally no use for almost all of the rare drops that come from killing a hostile mob. If there was a way to melt down unwanted armours, tools, and weapons, that would be great, and maybe moving the enchantments from items to books at an experience cost in the anvil interface.
I support the concept of melting items back down to their respective ingots, (based on how damaged the item is). Even if it was implemented just for gold. However, I'm on a nether brick fence when it comes to the idea "un-enchanting". While it could be useful, I believe there would be less need for it if we just got the new Enchanting mechanics and could "see" possible enchantments before we spent our exp on them. At that point, moving certain enchantments to a book and then back onto another item could potentially cost more exp than just outright enchanting the item.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of introducing the feature where you can see ahead of time what enchantment you're about to apply to the tool/weapon/armour/etc. but I think there should be a feature to strip enchantments from rare drop items like you can in Skyrim. By using the anvil interface, you place the enchanted item in with an empty book, and perform a reverse enchantment so you can retain the enchantment in book form for later use, and then smelt the item down into its base ingots.
I would suggest if we could have an enchantment stripping feature, maybe cap the experience cost at about 2 maybe 3 levels, regardless of the type or level of the enchantment on an item. That way you don't spend all of your experience on removing something like Aqua Affinity, or Power I.
An interesting comparison! I like the idea, but I still feel the same.
If the ability to 'un-enchant' was implemented on the current setup, I feel that the amount of exp levels needed to do so should increase based on the level of enchantment on the item. The exp needed to enchant an item from a book is always less. With a fixed cost, one could get away with obtaining a level 30 enchant on any item for a fraction of the exp. The low cost of material, (3 paper and 1 leather), and time, (a 2-step process adding only a few extra seconds), seems like a steal for 2-3 exp. Especially if you have an efficient mob farm full of skellies and zombles loaded to the teeth.
On the new enchanting setup, however, a standard cost of 2-or-3 levels to 'un-enchant' would make more sense. Sure, the same level 30 enchant could be obtained, (with a chance of others, too), for only 3 exp and 3 pieces of Lapis. But the option to transfer Feather Falling III from a pair of worn out Iron Boots onto a book, and then onto a new pair of Diamond Boots would be worth the time and additional exp spent! Plus it's not a feature one would be tempted to use all the time. "Protection I? Bane of Arthropods II?? Meh. Toss 'em in lava."
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of introducing the feature where you can see ahead of time what enchantment you're about to apply to the tool/weapon/armour/etc. but I think there should be a feature to strip enchantments from rare drop items like you can in Skyrim. By using the anvil interface, you place the enchanted item in with an empty book, and perform a reverse enchantment so you can retain the enchantment in book form for later use, and then smelt the item down into its base ingots.
I would suggest if we could have an enchantment stripping feature, maybe cap the experience cost at about 2 maybe 3 levels, regardless of the type or level of the enchantment on an item. That way you don't spend all of your experience on removing something like Aqua Affinity, or Power I.
I'm at a loss to see how this would be useful. If I want to smelt the item down and not just store it (presumeably because it's a lousy item with a weak enchantment), why would I want to store the enchantment with a book for later use? Wouldn't I just be better off to keep building up my XP and enchant a new item at a higher level? For example, the odds of getting Power I on a new bow with just 1 level of XP is about 96% anyways. The probability of getting Aqua Infinity on a gold helmet with Level 1 XP is 9.9% (but this is actually higher than at Level 30, which is only 9.3%). People tend to overspend on their enchantments because they erroneously believe that enchanting at a higher level improves their odds of getting what they want. Sometimes, enchanting at a lower level improves your odds... particularly if you're not looking to get a Level III or IV enchant.
I'd support this idea but I think being able to unenchant them and break them down for ingots is too much. Make it so that you can do one or the other per item but not both. Really all you'd need to do is make unenchanting consume the item just like breaking it down into ingots would.
I can see your point, but the fact that some useful enchantments may appear on particularly weak items is the main reason I believe this could be a good idea. I have a double chest full exclusively of various gold and leather armour pieces with enchantments I would like, such as Aqua Affinity, Respiration, Blast Protection, Thorns, and a few others. I have an entirely separate double chest full of stone and gold tools with enchantments that would be better applied to more durable tools such as iron and diamond.
I can see my idea isn't a popular one, so I'm willing to offer an alternative solution as a compromise. Instead of being able to strip the enchantment from the armour/tool/weapon/etc., why not be able to remove a portion of the enchantments experience cost. Place the item into an anvil with an empty bottle and it gives you a bottle o'enchanting for you to level yourself up without killing or mining anything. It would be like washing leather armour in a cauldron to remove the dye: you don't get the enchantment back, but a portion of it in the form of a bottle o'enchanting.
This way you could remove an enchantment - useful or otherwise - and get something out of a rare drop that you might otherwise throw into lava, as well as being able to smelt the item down to retrieve a portion of its components. For example, an iron pickaxe returns 2 ingots, gold chestplates return something like 4 - 5 gold ingots.There would be a cost to getting something from rare drops, and it would make them considerably more useful - from my opinion at least - to players.
I'd support this idea but I think being able to unenchant them and break them down for ingots is too much. Make it so that you can do one or the other per item but not both. Really all you'd need to do is make unenchanting consume the item just like breaking it down into ingots would.
OK, I'm liking the direction this is going in now a lot better than the original idea. I think it should only give a very nominal bit of XP and perhaps only a couple of gold nuggets where the item is gold (rather than ingots), but (of course) not cost the player any XP to do (not sure how that would work in with the current anvil interface though). Bows could give back only 1 string and maybe a stick. Why I'm saying this is, again, the rare drops themselves are just a shear gift over and above the normal drops and XP. I don't think they should get too lucrative or else all some people would do is farm the mobs for everything. Don't want to take the "mine" out of Minecraft.
I'd tend to agree that smaller returns would be better balance-wise. 1-2 gold nuggets or 1 iron ingot per breakdown wouldn't be too game breaking IMHO. Ideally breaking down an iron item would yield 1-2 iron nuggets if such a thing could be added. I just want to do something with all those gold swords and armor I get.
Well we could just say that any item broken down into its component parts such as iron and gold ingots returns only 33% of the required items to build it, and at least returns one ingot. That way we still get something for shovels and hoes, but reduced amounts from leggings, and chestpieces.
So hoes and shovels would return 1 because they have to return at least 1. Pickaxes and axes also return 1 because that's a third of the total cost for building it. Chestpieces would return 3 because I'd prefer the system to round up rather than down.
I still think 33% is too much. Consider that one of your foundational reasons for proposing this is that you have chests full of these "useless items" which means that giving back too much in "component ores" will significantly impact the availability of these ores - i.e. make them A LOT easier to accumulate... which, in turn, devalues anything else that can be made with these ores (e.g. iron tools; beacons; golden apples)... and, in turn, this makes the overall game significantly easier... perhaps too easy. If the payback is going to be that high... I think the drop rate of these "rare" drops should be significantly lowered as well.
Maybe melting down armor, weapons, or tools through the furnace to get a reduced amount of ingots. I hate having to throw away those useless gold swords from zombie pigmen and gold armor from zombies and skeletons.
I've found plenty of uses for both the swords and armour of all types that are dropped. Nothing really needs to be changed about them in my eyes.
Stay fluffy~
you just arnt thinking of how to use them Properly.
Stay fluffy~
I support the concept of melting items back down to their respective ingots, (based on how damaged the item is). Even if it was implemented just for gold. However, I'm on a nether brick fence when it comes to the idea "un-enchanting". While it could be useful, I believe there would be less need for it if we just got the new Enchanting mechanics and could "see" possible enchantments before we spent our exp on them. At that point, moving certain enchantments to a book and then back onto another item could potentially cost more exp than just outright enchanting the item.
An interesting comparison! I like the idea, but I still feel the same.
If the ability to 'un-enchant' was implemented on the current setup, I feel that the amount of exp levels needed to do so should increase based on the level of enchantment on the item. The exp needed to enchant an item from a book is always less. With a fixed cost, one could get away with obtaining a level 30 enchant on any item for a fraction of the exp. The low cost of material, (3 paper and 1 leather), and time, (a 2-step process adding only a few extra seconds), seems like a steal for 2-3 exp. Especially if you have an efficient mob farm full of skellies and zombles loaded to the teeth.
On the new enchanting setup, however, a standard cost of 2-or-3 levels to 'un-enchant' would make more sense. Sure, the same level 30 enchant could be obtained, (with a chance of others, too), for only 3 exp and 3 pieces of Lapis. But the option to transfer Feather Falling III from a pair of worn out Iron Boots onto a book, and then onto a new pair of Diamond Boots would be worth the time and additional exp spent! Plus it's not a feature one would be tempted to use all the time. "Protection I? Bane of Arthropods II?? Meh. Toss 'em in lava."
I'm at a loss to see how this would be useful. If I want to smelt the item down and not just store it (presumeably because it's a lousy item with a weak enchantment), why would I want to store the enchantment with a book for later use? Wouldn't I just be better off to keep building up my XP and enchant a new item at a higher level? For example, the odds of getting Power I on a new bow with just 1 level of XP is about 96% anyways. The probability of getting Aqua Infinity on a gold helmet with Level 1 XP is 9.9% (but this is actually higher than at Level 30, which is only 9.3%). People tend to overspend on their enchantments because they erroneously believe that enchanting at a higher level improves their odds of getting what they want. Sometimes, enchanting at a lower level improves your odds... particularly if you're not looking to get a Level III or IV enchant.
OK, I'm liking the direction this is going in now a lot better than the original idea. I think it should only give a very nominal bit of XP and perhaps only a couple of gold nuggets where the item is gold (rather than ingots), but (of course) not cost the player any XP to do (not sure how that would work in with the current anvil interface though). Bows could give back only 1 string and maybe a stick. Why I'm saying this is, again, the rare drops themselves are just a shear gift over and above the normal drops and XP. I don't think they should get too lucrative or else all some people would do is farm the mobs for everything. Don't want to take the "mine" out of Minecraft.
I still think 33% is too much. Consider that one of your foundational reasons for proposing this is that you have chests full of these "useless items" which means that giving back too much in "component ores" will significantly impact the availability of these ores - i.e. make them A LOT easier to accumulate... which, in turn, devalues anything else that can be made with these ores (e.g. iron tools; beacons; golden apples)... and, in turn, this makes the overall game significantly easier... perhaps too easy.