So here's an actually really useful idea for just about everyone, what if we used the existing 5 minute limit before items vanish, and add the remaining durability of the tool in seconds to the time before said vanishing?
It could work like this:
You have 5 minutes to return to your death point, if you were carrying an undamaged wood sword it would last 5 minutes + 60 sec. Now you have 360 seconds to return to it. Or alternatively you could have dropped an undamaged diamond sword, 5 minutes + 1562 = 1862 seconds.
This makes it so that tools of higher value will stay longer, who cares if you lost wooden tools? Let's save the higher quality ones!
This would apply to all tools according to their current remaining durability.
It could work like this:
You have 5 minutes to return to your death point, if you were carrying an undamaged wood sword it would last 5 minutes + 60 sec. Now you have 360 seconds to return to it. Or alternatively you could have dropped an undamaged diamond sword, 5 minutes + 1562 = 1862 seconds.
This makes it so that tools of higher value will stay longer, who cares if you lost wooden tools? Let's save the higher quality ones!
This would apply to all tools according to their current remaining durability.
Best part? It's probably very easy to implement.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/286780-adv-church-of-lehparsi-released/
It would actually take very little time to do that, why hasn't anyone done it as part of a modpack, yet?
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/286780-adv-church-of-lehparsi-released/