I do not see this being added to vanilla given the historical weight wedding MS/Mj to the current armor type progression, but the discussion may be of interest in informing a general rework of the armor type system/progression. [More likely as another mod aimed at this than an official product.]
Unless one is very lucky with the immediate spawn environment and has either
leather: cows (nearby and easily capturable) [Llamas require hay bales to breed, horses golden carrots/apples, and rabbits carrrots.]
or
chain: a village with both an armorer and a farmer (both with 'good' trades)
by the time one can get these armors iron, at least, is almost certain to be obtainable.
[The to-be-introduced bamboo armor will likely suffer a similar fate due to the unlikely chance of finding a jungle near spawn.]
Providing an armor less strong than iron and easy enough to obtain that one could reasonably expect to find/craft it before 24 ingots for a full iron suit becomes affordable would seem to be the only way to "make bad-quality armour more part of early gameplay"…
There have been a bewildering range of materials used to craft armor IRL.
Of these; cane, bone, wood, wool/cloth and rope (in the form of grass/wheat) are common in MC
Cane is probably too close to the upcoming bamboo, although it would be more widely available.
Bone suffers from requiring the killing of some number of skeletons (none too easy for the unarmored, stone sword equipped player). [Bone can also be obtained by fishing, but the time requirement would also tend to put bone armor out of reach early game… and the anti-AFK fishing crowd is vociferous enough as is. ]
Wool/cloth was the MC original version of leather [from indev to alpha]. Aside from any political considerations to rolling this back, it would merely shift the issue from cows to sheep. [Sourcing via spider string to wool having the same limitation as bone.]
Wood armor is comparatively rare IRL and is likely to seem jarring to many players. (Wood also already has a plentitude of in-game uses.)
That leaves grass/wheat rope. [Since obtaining grass as an item requires shears, wheat needs to be used to keep the armor available before iron.]
Because wheat is generally avalable early game (often being the first crop planted), crafting rope [which might be expanded to other uses] from six wheat and armor from rope per the usual recipes would result in a (comparatively) cheap and readily available alternative.
In terms of protective value, rope armor ought to have the same values as current leather; leather could then be promoted to the values currently assigned to gold, making it slightly more viable.
While I do not see gold and chain armor being dropped from the game, neither (as currently implemented) do I see any way to make them something generally used. [Other than an occasional piece obtained as a early game drop, I don't recall ever having cause to use either.]
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
This would hardly count as threadjacking if you had left in the old thread. Anyway, now that I've began playing more 1.13/14, I'm noticing that chain and leather armour are actually easier to get by thanks to changes in villager trading and because leather armour is a very common treasure in underwater structures. I don't think wheat is a very good option for a new armour type though; I'm a slow player and even I can get 24 iron in a day if I try; growing 24 wheat takes at least 3 days of playing time. It needs to be literally available night one or it's not helpful.
Wool seems like a much better idea to me, to be honest. Shears allow you to get several wool per sheep and the plentitude of new plants means matching all wool to one dye for the purposes of crafting a mono-colour wool armour is easy. 2 iron plus a group of four sheep and 6 to 7 flowers sounds a lot more reasonable to me for one day than growing 24 wheat, and since most sheep have white wool, you can cut the flowers out of the equation usually.
Sugar cane also seems like a much better idea, because it is common (when it is found) and its two purposes (for crafting, anyway) are very specific to later-game things like enchanting, brewing, mapmaking, expensive-food-making, etc. Bamboo armour would be stronger than sugar-ane armour anyway.
Since no place is guaranteed to have both cane and sheep but are likely to have one of the two, I feel these would cover most worlds except very arid or frigid spawn biomes. For that, maybe snow armour (joking)?
Also, bamboo is technically wood. So if wood armour sounds weird, we ARE getting weird wood armour. (lol)
[Skeletons] none too easy for the unarmored, stone sword equipped player
Skeletons are more often encountered as individuals or at worst pairs. There can be up to 4, but in my experience those aren't common enough to be a problem with respect to just ignoring those groups and moving on to the next 1-2 skeletons. Yes, you will end up taking a beating but you shouldn't be in danger of dying when equipped with just a stone sword; animals spawn numerously enough that you can easily heal back all the damage just by taking a moment to eat (preferably cooked meat).
Wooden swords, though, these are basically just placeholders for an as-yet-unrealized leveling system that allows us to practice on dummies or in non-lethal fashion (ie, temporary damage) to get better. They're pretty dang useless for real combat.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
5/29/2013
Posts:
449
Member Details
This idea sounds like a useless addition that would only further clutter the game with unused armors. This might make sense for a very specific play style that favors endless adventuring while spending no time mining but I personally I have never played a game of minecraft where I didn't start mining on the first night (to pass time while avoiding the mobs) and have full iron gear by the time I return to the surface. If upon loading a world you collect food and wood and then retreat to the relative safety of mining when night falls you would either need to have no clue what you're doing or be exceptionally unlucky to not come up with 26 iron for armor and a sword by day 2. I think the real issue is that the 2nd best base armor in the game IS an early game item which makes the armor below it impractical and pretty much any armor added to the system that isn't better or harder to get than iron will undoubtedly suffer the same fate. The only way I see of to make leather, gold, chain or any other inferior armor a practical item for any stage of the game would be to nerf iron armor so it becomes more comparable to the lesser armors. Doing this would allow for the introduction of armors between iron and diamond like steel which could be done easily and logically by doing something like forcing the player to combine iron ingots with charcoal in an anvil to create steel ingots (iron + carbon = steel, simple). Without nerfing iron I do not foresee myself ever crafting or using rope, cloth, wood or stone armor- ever.
Wooden swords, though, these are basically just placeholders for an as-yet-unrealized leveling system that allows us to practice on dummies or in non-lethal fashion (ie, temporary damage) to get better. They're pretty dang useless for real combat.
lol- What!? What in the world would lead you to believe that one of the first weapons added to the game 9 years ago was done so as a placeholder for a leveling system? The wooden sword was in the game for 2 years before experience was added to the game and in the following 7 years I have seen no indication that minecraft would be moving towards a leveling system like some sort of RPG. Wooden swords do 4x the damage of a bare fist, which is the same base damage as gold with 3x the durability, so calling the only weapon you can make immediately upon starting the game and finding a tree useless is hardly true, it's exactly as useful as it has to be for a player who hasn't crafted a pick yet.
We just need to make leather and chain-mail armour cheaper IMO. As for wooden swords, they're actually still pretty effective for a wood-tier weapon, but I have to admit that in the early stages I prefer a wooden axe as it doubles as weapon and wood-cutter.
…personally I have never played a game of minecraft where I didn't start mining on the first night (to pass time while avoiding the mobs) and have full iron gear by the time I return to the surface.
"Never" might be a bit strong (I've had instances of bad luck where I ran out of tourches before finding 24 iron), but I'd say this was typical of my experience as well.
I think the real issue is that the 2nd best base armor in the game IS an early game item…
Succinctly stated…
I agree this is likely the crux of the matter (unless there is some addition [like encumbrance – which I don't support] that offers a countervailing disadvantage to the greater protection of upper-tier armors).
…which makes the armor below it impractical and pretty much any armor added to the system that isn't better or harder to get than iron will undoubtedly suffer the same fate.The only way I see of to make leather, gold, chain or any other inferior armor a practical item for any stage of the game would be to nerf iron armor so it becomes more comparable to the lesser armors.
One could also make iron armor harder to obtain (eg. most simply by crafting it out of blocks rather than ingots) thus creating enough 'space' beneath iron armor that inferior armors saw use in other than unusual circumstances.
One could also create greater 'space' between iron and diamond armor by inflating the value of diamond armor.
Doing this would allow for the introduction of armors between iron and diamond like steel which could be done easily and logically by doing something like forcing the player to combine iron ingots with charcoal in an anvil to create steel ingots (iron + carbon = steel, simple).
Presuming the 'space' for a third commonly used armor type was created between iron and diamond, steel would be a logical choice. (Among other things, it would not, as you point out, require adding any additional ingredient materials to the game.)
The difference between iron and diamond would need to be 'large' [I'm not sure nerfing iron to the current values of gold would suffice.] or one would simply shift the issue to players going straight from iron to diamond while skipping the steel intermediate.
(Taking coal/charcoal as near enough free to ignore, I think it likely that a player might often find 24 diamonds before finding 51 iron [51 being a full set of iron, a full set of steel, and one pick].)
The advantage (such as it is) of 'solving' the posed 'problem' [making bad-quality armour more part of early gameplay] with a very easily obtained sub-iron armor is that one would avoid any potential pushback from those unhappy with altering the existing armors.
§ § § § §
@allyourbasesaregone
Wool/cloth armor is quite common IRL and you make some good points re it MC inclusion, however this would require MS/Mj to rollback a previous change which I see as unlikely…
Having cane/bamboo or both is another (or even additional) option, but would again run into the issue that one is likely to have sufficient iron before one could typically find/grow enough of these resources. [It will be interesting to see if the upcoming bamboo armor is able to solve this issue…]
This is also why making chain/leather cheaper would be of limited use; it's not that leather is expensive, but that finding or breeding (or some combination) 24 cows is likely to take longer than mining 24 iron.
[Not directly related to this topic, but introducing a number of visually distinct armors all of which could be enchanted to the same protective value might be a way of addressing the 'everyone wears diamonds and looks the same' issue.]
§ § § § §
@DuhDerp
Perhaps I should have been more explicit, but my argument against bone armor was not that they are prohibitively hard to kill (at least, as you point out, singly) but that finding 24 [assumes bone armor simply substitutes bones for ingots] skeletons runs up against the same likely_to_get_24_iron_first issue.
§ § § § §
@Felderman25
I skipped kelp as I couldn't see using it for rope or armor IRL.
Within the MC universe (and depending on how expensive rope 'should' be to maintain game balance), kelp makes a considerable degree of sense as a feedstock for early game gear.
Kelp would prrobably be faster to acquire than wheat and might mitigate the time requirement issue that has been raised.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
What if leather = 4 rabbit hide? 6 leather is expectable from killing 5-8 cows. Similarly, let chainmail = 1/3 iron ingot or 3 iron nuggets. Then you only need one full iron ore or a buried treasure chest to get chain armour and almost anyone can get it on night one. Making iron armour use blocks while other other iron stuff uses ingots mostly seems like overkill.
About the guy above with steel armor, that would be amazing. But I have a better solution, chainmail armor is crafted with chainmail. To craft chainmail you need 8 iron in a ladder formation. Then we swap chainmail armors's stats with iron armor's stats. Now this would make sense since chainmail armor actual blocks kinetic energy, where as with solid iron it will just go straight through to the player.
Well, I can't-really track all the stuff (sorry! tried!!) above, between speculation and-ideas, so here're mine, to add(-only, I guess).
Speculation: "bamboo armor" - while sounding Vaguely familiar( 'ish?) - I couldn't find this being-supported as up-coming, in the Wiki on 1.14. Sorry!
Others' ideas: Yes, I Like the - good - idea of being-able to use Rabbit Hide for Armor-Crafting; honestly, Who'd-bother using Rabbits, Once they have Cows, for any - Even LEATHER - Armor, afterwards, actually?! "From-Rabbits" Leather Armor would be No-more unique and No-better (partially since not-different), from Leather from (again, mainly) Cows, and it's Not-like we can "break Armor /Tools Down," Back-into (even roughly, by Wear /Durability) component Iron /Gold Ingots, or (New) Nuggets.
Wood, too, which would-allow for Wooden Shields (which would be weaker /have less Wear /Durability). Ever since we Got - regular - Shields, they've basically been-Necessary, to Combat /Fighting.
And I've previously-thought "Rope Armor" would be a good-idea, for the same-enough reasons (also Spiders are the weakest Hostile Mob, overall, but In Real Life, spider silk is relatively-strong, heck, there's even at least one [kind of spider] that produces "spider milk," now @.@ !). If nothing-else, one can imagine a kind of "cobweb (and there are Cobwebs, in MC) effect," where it could Slow-the rate of damage-incurred (or a "Cobweb Shield"..? heh), which would be Useful With Healing (Food-Eating, if there were enough time, as to resist damage-absorption fast-enough).
My ideas: aside from "Rabbit Hide Armor," "Wooden Shields," "Cobweb Shields," would be things like Further-using ChainMail Armor in-Combination with Iron Armor; As was done In Real Life. As Far As I Know, "chainmail was 'like "Kevlar"'," for arrows, thereby Perhaps there'd be a different-layer for-comfort wherever of chain to absorb arrows (from Skeletons or New, 1.14 Pillagers [who seem to have some-kind of combination-armor, in appearance, themselves between leather, iron, and /or whatever]).
There could be - type of - Armor-specific Enchantments. After All, we Already have tiers-of weapons /tools with their own respective (or non- , see: Wood; again) Enchantments (sure, we already have non-specific ones which do exactly this, but we could have slightly-more Enchantments which would-affect previously less-used and /or non-existent, Armor /armor types, respectively).
Anyhow, whether layering-materials (I think we'd agree that more-pliable stuff like String, Rabbit Hide, Chainmail, all but the Bamboo [which is a wood-like grass] and Wood, Might fit-with other-Armor; However I do-doubt we'd ever have Space for more-Displayed in Inv'y. stuff: it's cool to see the Avatar, "swimming" out of it, though, while-Swimming), adding them, and /or substituting them, don't forget how already-weak, Leather Armor is. It's basically just enough for "light-Hunting" (and /or Using the Light: another idea I'd had in here was a "sun-shining Shield," in which Gold would be used; to multiply the-speed of effect of Sunlight, Burning Undead, when they - say - got-within range of the Player facing-them, with such [though that would borderline with a Glass thing, "magnifying glass effect," and I know at this point it's all quite ridiculous]), so I'd guess we're more talking decoration (which's what Dyed, Leather Armor - other Armors Aren't Dyeable - is For).
About the guy above with steel armor, that would be amazing. But I have a better solution, chainmail armor is crafted with chainmail. To craft chainmail you need 8 iron in a ladder formation. Then we swap chainmail armors's stats with iron armor's stats. Now this would make sense since chainmail armor actual blocks kinetic energy, where as with solid iron it will just go straight through to the player.
As in prevents knockback and concussions from metal on skin?
As in prevents knockback and concussions from metal on skin?
Ok, so you know what a newton's cradle is right? Well, what they prove is, kinetic energy (Momentum) transfers through solid objects. So if you have armor made out of solid material and something hits you the momentum from the blow will transfer through the armor, and hit you. Now the iron armor most likely has irregularities that blunt the damage, plus it prevents cutting damage. This is why it still deals less damage than with no armor. Chainmail armor is not solid so the kinetic energy will disperse and do less damage. Diamonds cannot be melted or anything so the way players most likely create diamond gear the way we do in real life, grinding them down then reattaching them. This causes many irregularities plus its stronger than other materials which is why it's still the best armor.
Ok, so you know what a newton's cradle is right? Well, what they prove is, kinetic energy (Momentum) transfers through solid objects. So if you have armor made out of solid material and something hits you the momentum from the blow will transfer through the armor, and hit you. Now the iron armor most likely has irregularities that blunt the damage, plus it prevents cutting damage. This is why it still deals less damage than with no armor. Chainmail armor is not solid so the kinetic energy will disperse and do less damage. Diamonds cannot be melted or anything so the way players most likely create diamond gear the way we do in real life, grinding them down then reattaching them. This causes many irregularities plus its stronger than other materials which is why it's still the best armor.
Ah makes sense, okay. Although your post would insinuate we should smelt diamonds in order to make armour for them.
This started as a reply to allyourbasesaregone's Doing SOMETHING to make bad-quality armour more part of early gamelpay but has been split off to avoid threadjacking.
I do not see this being added to vanilla given the historical weight wedding MS/Mj to the current armor type progression, but the discussion may be of interest in informing a general rework of the armor type system/progression. [More likely as another mod aimed at this than an official product.]
Unless one is very lucky with the immediate spawn environment and has either
by the time one can get these armors iron, at least, is almost certain to be obtainable.
[The to-be-introduced bamboo armor will likely suffer a similar fate due to the unlikely chance of finding a jungle near spawn.]
Providing an armor less strong than iron and easy enough to obtain that one could reasonably expect to find/craft it before 24 ingots for a full iron suit becomes affordable would seem to be the only way to "make bad-quality armour more part of early gameplay"…
There have been a bewildering range of materials used to craft armor IRL.
Of these; cane, bone, wood, wool/cloth and rope (in the form of grass/wheat) are common in MC
Cane is probably too close to the upcoming bamboo, although it would be more widely available.
Bone suffers from requiring the killing of some number of skeletons (none too easy for the unarmored, stone sword equipped player). [Bone can also be obtained by fishing, but the time requirement would also tend to put bone armor out of reach early game… and the anti-AFK fishing crowd is vociferous enough as is. ]
Wool/cloth was the MC original version of leather [from indev to alpha]. Aside from any political considerations to rolling this back, it would merely shift the issue from cows to sheep. [Sourcing via spider string to wool having the same limitation as bone.]
Wood armor is comparatively rare IRL and is likely to seem jarring to many players. (Wood also already has a plentitude of in-game uses.)
That leaves grass/wheat rope. [Since obtaining grass as an item requires shears, wheat needs to be used to keep the armor available before iron.]
Because wheat is generally avalable early game (often being the first crop planted), crafting rope [which might be expanded to other uses] from six wheat and armor from rope per the usual recipes would result in a (comparatively) cheap and readily available alternative.
In terms of protective value, rope armor ought to have the same values as current leather; leather could then be promoted to the values currently assigned to gold, making it slightly more viable.
While I do not see gold and chain armor being dropped from the game, neither (as currently implemented) do I see any way to make them something generally used. [Other than an occasional piece obtained as a early game drop, I don't recall ever having cause to use either.]
This would hardly count as threadjacking if you had left in the old thread. Anyway, now that I've began playing more 1.13/14, I'm noticing that chain and leather armour are actually easier to get by thanks to changes in villager trading and because leather armour is a very common treasure in underwater structures. I don't think wheat is a very good option for a new armour type though; I'm a slow player and even I can get 24 iron in a day if I try; growing 24 wheat takes at least 3 days of playing time. It needs to be literally available night one or it's not helpful.
Wool seems like a much better idea to me, to be honest. Shears allow you to get several wool per sheep and the plentitude of new plants means matching all wool to one dye for the purposes of crafting a mono-colour wool armour is easy. 2 iron plus a group of four sheep and 6 to 7 flowers sounds a lot more reasonable to me for one day than growing 24 wheat, and since most sheep have white wool, you can cut the flowers out of the equation usually.
Sugar cane also seems like a much better idea, because it is common (when it is found) and its two purposes (for crafting, anyway) are very specific to later-game things like enchanting, brewing, mapmaking, expensive-food-making, etc. Bamboo armour would be stronger than sugar-ane armour anyway.
Since no place is guaranteed to have both cane and sheep but are likely to have one of the two, I feel these would cover most worlds except very arid or frigid spawn biomes. For that, maybe snow armour (joking)?
Also, bamboo is technically wood. So if wood armour sounds weird, we ARE getting weird wood armour. (lol)
I think kelp/dried kelp would be a good Item for crafting rope.
Skeletons are more often encountered as individuals or at worst pairs. There can be up to 4, but in my experience those aren't common enough to be a problem with respect to just ignoring those groups and moving on to the next 1-2 skeletons. Yes, you will end up taking a beating but you shouldn't be in danger of dying when equipped with just a stone sword; animals spawn numerously enough that you can easily heal back all the damage just by taking a moment to eat (preferably cooked meat).
Wooden swords, though, these are basically just placeholders for an as-yet-unrealized leveling system that allows us to practice on dummies or in non-lethal fashion (ie, temporary damage) to get better. They're pretty dang useless for real combat.
This idea sounds like a useless addition that would only further clutter the game with unused armors. This might make sense for a very specific play style that favors endless adventuring while spending no time mining but I personally I have never played a game of minecraft where I didn't start mining on the first night (to pass time while avoiding the mobs) and have full iron gear by the time I return to the surface. If upon loading a world you collect food and wood and then retreat to the relative safety of mining when night falls you would either need to have no clue what you're doing or be exceptionally unlucky to not come up with 26 iron for armor and a sword by day 2. I think the real issue is that the 2nd best base armor in the game IS an early game item which makes the armor below it impractical and pretty much any armor added to the system that isn't better or harder to get than iron will undoubtedly suffer the same fate. The only way I see of to make leather, gold, chain or any other inferior armor a practical item for any stage of the game would be to nerf iron armor so it becomes more comparable to the lesser armors. Doing this would allow for the introduction of armors between iron and diamond like steel which could be done easily and logically by doing something like forcing the player to combine iron ingots with charcoal in an anvil to create steel ingots (iron + carbon = steel, simple). Without nerfing iron I do not foresee myself ever crafting or using rope, cloth, wood or stone armor- ever.
lol- What!? What in the world would lead you to believe that one of the first weapons added to the game 9 years ago was done so as a placeholder for a leveling system? The wooden sword was in the game for 2 years before experience was added to the game and in the following 7 years I have seen no indication that minecraft would be moving towards a leveling system like some sort of RPG. Wooden swords do 4x the damage of a bare fist, which is the same base damage as gold with 3x the durability, so calling the only weapon you can make immediately upon starting the game and finding a tree useless is hardly true, it's exactly as useful as it has to be for a player who hasn't crafted a pick yet.
We just need to make leather and chain-mail armour cheaper IMO. As for wooden swords, they're actually still pretty effective for a wood-tier weapon, but I have to admit that in the early stages I prefer a wooden axe as it doubles as weapon and wood-cutter.
quote=InfiniteCorners
…personally I have never played a game of minecraft where I didn't start mining on the first night (to pass time while avoiding the mobs) and have full iron gear by the time I return to the surface.
"Never" might be a bit strong (I've had instances of bad luck where I ran out of tourches before finding 24 iron), but I'd say this was typical of my experience as well.
I think the real issue is that the 2nd best base armor in the game IS an early game item…
Succinctly stated…
I agree this is likely the crux of the matter (unless there is some addition [like encumbrance – which I don't support] that offers a countervailing disadvantage to the greater protection of upper-tier armors).
…which makes the armor below it impractical and pretty much any armor added to the system that isn't better or harder to get than iron will undoubtedly suffer the same fate.The only way I see of to make leather, gold, chain or any other inferior armor a practical item for any stage of the game would be to nerf iron armor so it becomes more comparable to the lesser armors.
One could also make iron armor harder to obtain (eg. most simply by crafting it out of blocks rather than ingots) thus creating enough 'space' beneath iron armor that inferior armors saw use in other than unusual circumstances.
One could also create greater 'space' between iron and diamond armor by inflating the value of diamond armor.
Doing this would allow for the introduction of armors between iron and diamond like steel which could be done easily and logically by doing something like forcing the player to combine iron ingots with charcoal in an anvil to create steel ingots (iron + carbon = steel, simple).
Presuming the 'space' for a third commonly used armor type was created between iron and diamond, steel would be a logical choice. (Among other things, it would not, as you point out, require adding any additional ingredient materials to the game.)
The difference between iron and diamond would need to be 'large' [I'm not sure nerfing iron to the current values of gold would suffice.] or one would simply shift the issue to players going straight from iron to diamond while skipping the steel intermediate.
(Taking coal/charcoal as near enough free to ignore, I think it likely that a player might often find 24 diamonds before finding 51 iron [51 being a full set of iron, a full set of steel, and one pick].)
The advantage (such as it is) of 'solving' the posed 'problem' [making bad-quality armour more part of early gameplay] with a very easily obtained sub-iron armor is that one would avoid any potential pushback from those unhappy with altering the existing armors.
@allyourbasesaregone
Wool/cloth armor is quite common IRL and you make some good points re it MC inclusion, however this would require MS/Mj to rollback a previous change which I see as unlikely…
Having cane/bamboo or both is another (or even additional) option, but would again run into the issue that one is likely to have sufficient iron before one could typically find/grow enough of these resources. [It will be interesting to see if the upcoming bamboo armor is able to solve this issue…]
This is also why making chain/leather cheaper would be of limited use; it's not that leather is expensive, but that finding or breeding (or some combination) 24 cows is likely to take longer than mining 24 iron.
[Not directly related to this topic, but introducing a number of visually distinct armors all of which could be enchanted to the same protective value might be a way of addressing the 'everyone wears diamonds and looks the same' issue.]
@DuhDerp
Perhaps I should have been more explicit, but my argument against bone armor was not that they are prohibitively hard to kill (at least, as you point out, singly) but that finding 24 [assumes bone armor simply substitutes bones for ingots] skeletons runs up against the same likely_to_get_24_iron_first issue.
@Felderman25
I skipped kelp as I couldn't see using it for rope or armor IRL.
Within the MC universe (and depending on how expensive rope 'should' be to maintain game balance), kelp makes a considerable degree of sense as a feedstock for early game gear.
Kelp would prrobably be faster to acquire than wheat and might mitigate the time requirement issue that has been raised.
What if leather = 4 rabbit hide? 6 leather is expectable from killing 5-8 cows. Similarly, let chainmail = 1/3 iron ingot or 3 iron nuggets. Then you only need one full iron ore or a buried treasure chest to get chain armour and almost anyone can get it on night one. Making iron armour use blocks while other other iron stuff uses ingots mostly seems like overkill.
About the guy above with steel armor, that would be amazing. But I have a better solution, chainmail armor is crafted with chainmail. To craft chainmail you need 8 iron in a ladder formation. Then we swap chainmail armors's stats with iron armor's stats. Now this would make sense since chainmail armor actual blocks kinetic energy, where as with solid iron it will just go straight through to the player.
Well, I can't-really track all the stuff (sorry! tried!!) above, between speculation and-ideas, so here're mine, to add(-only, I guess).
Speculation: "bamboo armor" - while sounding Vaguely familiar( 'ish?) - I couldn't find this being-supported as up-coming, in the Wiki on 1.14. Sorry!
Others' ideas: Yes, I Like the - good - idea of being-able to use Rabbit Hide for Armor-Crafting; honestly, Who'd-bother using Rabbits, Once they have Cows, for any - Even LEATHER - Armor, afterwards, actually?! "From-Rabbits" Leather Armor would be No-more unique and No-better (partially since not-different), from Leather from (again, mainly) Cows, and it's Not-like we can "break Armor /Tools Down," Back-into (even roughly, by Wear /Durability) component Iron /Gold Ingots, or (New) Nuggets.
Wood, too, which would-allow for Wooden Shields (which would be weaker /have less Wear /Durability). Ever since we Got - regular - Shields, they've basically been-Necessary, to Combat /Fighting.
And I've previously-thought "Rope Armor" would be a good-idea, for the same-enough reasons (also Spiders are the weakest Hostile Mob, overall, but In Real Life, spider silk is relatively-strong, heck, there's even at least one [kind of spider] that produces "spider milk," now @.@ !). If nothing-else, one can imagine a kind of "cobweb (and there are Cobwebs, in MC) effect," where it could Slow-the rate of damage-incurred (or a "Cobweb Shield"..? heh), which would be Useful With Healing (Food-Eating, if there were enough time, as to resist damage-absorption fast-enough).
My ideas: aside from "Rabbit Hide Armor," "Wooden Shields," "Cobweb Shields," would be things like Further-using ChainMail Armor in-Combination with Iron Armor; As was done In Real Life. As Far As I Know, "chainmail was 'like "Kevlar"'," for arrows, thereby Perhaps there'd be a different-layer for-comfort wherever of chain to absorb arrows (from Skeletons or New, 1.14 Pillagers [who seem to have some-kind of combination-armor, in appearance, themselves between leather, iron, and /or whatever]).
There could be - type of - Armor-specific Enchantments. After All, we Already have tiers-of weapons /tools with their own respective (or non- , see: Wood; again) Enchantments (sure, we already have non-specific ones which do exactly this, but we could have slightly-more Enchantments which would-affect previously less-used and /or non-existent, Armor /armor types, respectively).
Anyhow, whether layering-materials (I think we'd agree that more-pliable stuff like String, Rabbit Hide, Chainmail, all but the Bamboo [which is a wood-like grass] and Wood, Might fit-with other-Armor; However I do-doubt we'd ever have Space for more-Displayed in Inv'y. stuff: it's cool to see the Avatar, "swimming" out of it, though, while-Swimming), adding them, and /or substituting them, don't forget how already-weak, Leather Armor is. It's basically just enough for "light-Hunting" (and /or Using the Light: another idea I'd had in here was a "sun-shining Shield," in which Gold would be used; to multiply the-speed of effect of Sunlight, Burning Undead, when they - say - got-within range of the Player facing-them, with such [though that would borderline with a Glass thing, "magnifying glass effect," and I know at this point it's all quite ridiculous]), so I'd guess we're more talking decoration (which's what Dyed, Leather Armor - other Armors Aren't Dyeable - is For).
As in prevents knockback and concussions from metal on skin?
Ok, so you know what a newton's cradle is right? Well, what they prove is, kinetic energy (Momentum) transfers through solid objects. So if you have armor made out of solid material and something hits you the momentum from the blow will transfer through the armor, and hit you. Now the iron armor most likely has irregularities that blunt the damage, plus it prevents cutting damage. This is why it still deals less damage than with no armor. Chainmail armor is not solid so the kinetic energy will disperse and do less damage. Diamonds cannot be melted or anything so the way players most likely create diamond gear the way we do in real life, grinding them down then reattaching them. This causes many irregularities plus its stronger than other materials which is why it's still the best armor.
Ah makes sense, okay. Although your post would insinuate we should smelt diamonds in order to make armour for them.
I was thinking of like grinding them down at a crafting table with the tools on the side.