1. Crafting is a solitary experience. There's no room for teamwork, even in SMP.
2. Villagers do nothing.
Here's an idea to fix both problems in one fell swoop.
Add "masterwork" versions of all tools and armor in the game. A masterwork tool operates about 20% quicker than its non-masterwork counterpart (a masterwork sword deals an extra half-heart of damage) but has the same durability as the non-masterwork counterpart. Masterwork armor provides the same amount of protection, but can absorb about 20% more damage before breaking.
Turning an item into a masterwork item is simple. Simply combine an undamaged tool/armor in a crafting table with one extra piece of the material used to make it. For example, a regular iron pick crafted together with another iron ingot would become a masterwork iron pick. A leather helmet with an extra piece of leather would become a masterwork leather helmet. Etc.
Masterwork items ould have similar coloring to their non-masterwork counterparts, but would have extra ornamentation to show that its more advanced. For example, a masterwork sword might have a basket hilt instead of a crossguard.
There's a catch though. No player can craft a masterwork item by themselves. An item of this quality can only be created through teamwork. You have two options:
Option 1: Co-Op Crafting With Another Player
When a player lefts click on a crafting table (just once, no need to break it) the table would emit sparks for a few seconds to symbolize their use of the tools imprinted into the craftng table's texture. While the table is emitting sparks a different player than the one who created the sparks can use it to create masterwork tools.
So you could ask your friend to help you make a few masterwork items, and they would click on the crafting table every few seconds to keep it sparking while you put the tools together.
Option 2: Hiring an NPC Assistant
Playing in single player? Or are you an utter loner on your SMP server? No worries. Real players aren't necessary. NPC Villagers are happy to help, at a cost.
Usually villagers are not helpful. But that changes if you give them a bit of treasure. Right clicking on a villager with a gold nugget, gold bar, or diamond consumes the treasure and temporarily sets the villager to helpful mode. While helpful the villager causes any nearby crafting table to spark, allowing players to craft masterwork tools on them.
After a brief period of time the villager becomes unhelpful again. A nugget might only buy a few seconds of help, a gold bar a few minutes, a diamond gets you an entire day. And don't think about killing them to get back the gold. Once given its gone, the villager drops nothing on death.
While helpful NPC villagers can be ordered to follow you around, or to wait in place, like wolves, but once they become unhelpful again they'll resume their wandering.
Want a paid assistant in your base far from the NPC village? That's no problem. Simply guide a helpful NPC villager back to your home. They won't despawn, but you'll still need to pay them to get assistance. NPC Villagers living outside of village biomes also need to eat, and to make them helpful you'll have to give them food as well as treasure.
I think this provides a fun co-op crafting element to the game, and gives NPC villagers a use. And of course this doesn't have to be the only purpose of villagers. They can do other things too.
I also think that cooperative crafting is a fun idea, and could be expanded beyond just making better versions of things that already exist.
Perhaps there could be new items that only can be built cooperatively. I don't want to suggest what those could be though, since that would be a suggestion within a suggestion. But if this were added it would be cool to give a lot of importance to cooperative crafting, to give players an incentive to work together or hire villagers.
1. Crafting is a solitary experience. There's no room for teamwork, even in SMP.
2. Villagers do nothing.
Here's an idea to fix both problems in one fell swoop.
Add "masterwork" versions of all tools and armor in the game. A masterwork tool operates about 20% quicker than its non-masterwork counterpart (a masterwork sword deals an extra half-heart of damage) but has the same durability as the non-masterwork counterpart. Masterwork armor provides the same amount of protection, but can absorb about 20% more damage before breaking.
Turning an item into a masterwork item is simple. Simply combine an undamaged tool/armor in a crafting table with one extra piece of the material used to make it. For example, a regular iron pick crafted together with another iron ingot would become a masterwork iron pick. A leather helmet with an extra piece of leather would become a masterwork leather helmet. Etc.
Masterwork items ould have similar coloring to their non-masterwork counterparts, but would have extra ornamentation to show that its more advanced. For example, a masterwork sword might have a basket hilt instead of a crossguard.
There's a catch though. No player can craft a masterwork item by themselves. An item of this quality can only be created through teamwork. You have two options:
Option 1: Co-Op Crafting With Another Player
When a player lefts click on a crafting table (just once, no need to break it) the table would emit sparks for a few seconds to symbolize their use of the tools imprinted into the craftng table's texture. While the table is emitting sparks a different player than the one who created the sparks can use it to create masterwork tools.
So you could ask your friend to help you make a few masterwork items, and they would click on the crafting table every few seconds to keep it sparking while you put the tools together.
Option 2: Hiring an NPC Assistant
Playing in single player? Or are you an utter loner on your SMP server? No worries. Real players aren't necessary. NPC Villagers are happy to help, at a cost.
Usually villagers are not helpful. But that changes if you give them a bit of treasure. Right clicking on a villager with a gold nugget, gold bar, or diamond consumes the treasure and temporarily sets the villager to helpful mode. While helpful the villager causes any nearby crafting table to spark, allowing players to craft masterwork tools on them.
After a brief period of time the villager becomes unhelpful again. A nugget might only buy a few seconds of help, a gold bar a few minutes, a diamond gets you an entire day. And don't think about killing them to get back the gold. Once given its gone, the villager drops nothing on death.
While helpful NPC villagers can be ordered to follow you around, or to wait in place, like wolves, but once they become unhelpful again they'll resume their wandering.
Want a paid assistant in your base far from the NPC village? That's no problem. Simply guide a helpful NPC villager back to your home. They won't despawn, but you'll still need to pay them to get assistance. NPC Villagers living outside of village biomes also need to eat, and to make them helpful you'll have to give them food as well as treasure.
I think this provides a fun co-op crafting element to the game, and gives NPC villagers a use. And of course this doesn't have to be the only purpose of villagers. They can do other things too.
Perhaps there could be new items that only can be built cooperatively. I don't want to suggest what those could be though, since that would be a suggestion within a suggestion. But if this were added it would be cool to give a lot of importance to cooperative crafting, to give players an incentive to work together or hire villagers.