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to get straight to the point, my idea is to give the brewing stand a new use: Refining

To refine using a brewing stand is the same as brewing a potion. you give it fuel (blaze powder) a catalyst (nether wart/glowstone/redstone/ect) and a base (water bottle/awkward potion/tier 1 potion) only instead of using a bottle you use a separate ingredient. to give an example (and just so we're clear, none of these I particularly want to add or make sense (unless specified) they're just proof of concept)

-1 coal + 1-3 bone meal = 1-3 gunpowder

-1 obsidian + 3 blaze powder = 1 blaze rod (so multiple bases can be required for only 1 or two items)

-1 ghast tear + 1-3 sand = 1-3 soulsand

- 1 TNT + 3 coal blocks = 1 diamond (once again, proof of concept)

but the main reason I suggest this is as a method to make Steel, a new tier of material between iron and diamond. it would be made with 1 coal and 1-3 iron (not to expensive, but you need to go to the nether to gain access to it

the simplest one to cover is the tools, they would have 2x the durability of iron tools (an iron pick has 250 durability, and a diamond one has 1561)

next we have the sword, it would deal the same amount of damage as iron, but once again 2xthe durability. the reason I went with this is because with the way that weapon damage scales, I would have either had to everything below diamond or buff diamond to add a niche for iron to fit in

now armor is where it gets interesting, as I said iron armor is getting nerfed. it would now have 12 armor points on a full set (same as uncraftable chain) and steel armor would have the current armor value of iron armor, however, it would have armor toughness, like diamond, in fact, it would have more armor toughness than diamond (3-4 opposed to diamonds 2) this makes it better against burst damage (IE creepers) while diamond gives more protection overall and for a longer period of time.

so, that's basically my idea. give your opinion please.

The idea of steel is interesting, but I think having it made with the brewing stand is sort of odd. Then again, people did used to think they could use alchemy to make gold, so . . . I don't know. What if you could build a blast furnace (not craft, build)? I think that might make more sense for making iron and coal into steel.

Quote from Wolftopia»

The idea of steel is interesting, but I think having it made with the brewing stand is sort of odd. Then again, people did used to think they could use alchemy to make gold, so . . . I don't know. What if you could build a blast furnace (not craft, build)? I think that might make more sense for making iron and coal into steel.

While the blast furnace is a good concept, I didn't want to overcomplicate the system with multiblocks. So if mojang adds a multi-block building guide, I'd consider the change. Not to mention that's what most mods that add steel do

Quote from Badprenup»

The idea itself seems neat at least as a concept. But it seems weird to use a Nether item to make a new tier between Iron and Diamond when most players are going to probably get Diamond gear before going into the Nether.

Maybe, but if you play your cards right the nether's not that hostile, so it's basically either spend a few hours mining for diamonds, or traverse the nether for a bit

As mentioned by others, this won't stop me (or most players) from going straight to diamond, and higher armor toughness or not, diamond armor has double the base protection of iron (iron = 60% damage reduction and 40% damage taken; diamond = 80% damage reduction and 20%, or only half the damage, taken). Assuming steel has 4 armor toughness it would lose one armor point for every 6 points of damage taken (the formula is 2 + (total toughness on all pieces) / 4), compared to 4 in diamond and 2 in other armor. A point-blank creeper explosion deals 49 damage on Normal difficulty (note - it is almost impossible to actually receive this much damage since you have to be in the exact same spot as the creeper), which would reduce diamond to 7.75 armor points and steel to 6.83 armor points - which is still worse and in either case enchantments are necessary to survive (full Protection IV reduces damage by 64%, which is enough by itself; on diamond the total reduction is 75.156% and steel 73.8%).

And, of course, diamonds can be obtained right from the start and are not as hard to get as everybody thinks - thanks to the hunger nerfs in 1.11 (walking doesn't even drain hunger!) you can easily get full diamond gear without looking for food first, and by branch-mining you don't need to worry about mobs (this is partly why I branch-mine to get my first resources, as well as it being far more effective than caving; you can find dozens of diamonds (even without Fortune) per hour as opposed to the measly 3-4 I average from caving):

A maximum efficiency is reached at a spacing of around 6 blocks (that is, 6 solid blocks left in-between the tunnels). At this spacing, efficiency is about 0.017, corresponding to 1.7% of blocks removed being a diamond. [about one ore every 59 blocks mined, 4 per iron pickaxe]

https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorials/Mining#Horizontal_Mining_.28or_Resource_Mining.2FStratifying.29

Durability, as well as rarity, is also irrelevant when you have Mending, which is not too hard to get thanks to villager trading and fishing farms; all items are repaired at the same rate and making steel get e.g. 4 durability per XP instead of 2 would do little given that a single mob drops enough XP to restore a total of 10 durability to all items (or rather, 10 uses when they have Unbreaking; armor has less of a benefit but I use tools far more often than I take damage so they are the limiting factor; in a recent world I gained about 5,300 XP per play session spent caving, mining about 4,375 blocks, which would require about 3,280 XP to keep my pickaxe (and everything else) repaired with the maximum of 6 Mending items held/worn at once).

In other words, you are just adding another tier like leather, chain, or gold, which are mainly only worn for vanity or used as decoration (I pick up helmets dropped by mobs since I don't normally wear one but would not if I did).

Quote from AMPPL50»

Not necessarily, as only a bucket and Flint and Steel are really needed.
Of course, it still feels somewhat redundant to have Steel tools. What if steel had unique tools that had unique effects instead of the normal ones, such as a hammer that removes blocks in a 3x3 square?

that could work, the idea is mostly to make it so that you don't get the second best gear in the game after an hour or so of playing, i'll add a poll to see how people feel about it though

Quote from TheMasterCaver»

As mentioned by others, this won't stop me (or most players) from going straight to diamond, and higher armor toughness or not, diamond armor has double the base protection of iron (iron = 60% damage reduction and 40% damage taken; diamond = 80% damage reduction and 20%, or only half the damage, taken). Assuming steel has 4 armor toughness it would lose one armor point for every 6 points of damage taken (the formula is 2 + (total toughness on all pieces) / 4), compared to 4 in diamond and 2 in other armor. A point-blank creeper explosion deals 49 damage on Normal difficulty (note - it is almost impossible to actually receive this much damage since you have to be in the exact same spot as the creeper), which would reduce diamond to 7.75 armor points and steel to 6.83 armor points - which is still worse and in either case enchantments are necessary to survive (full Protection IV reduces damage by 64%, which is enough by itself; on diamond the total reduction is 75.156% and steel 73.8%).

And, of course, diamonds can be obtained right from the start and are not as hard to get as everybody thinks - thanks to the hunger nerfs in 1.11 (walking doesn't even drain hunger!) you can easily get full diamond gear without looking for food first, and by branch-mining you don't need to worry about mobs (this is partly why I branch-mine to get my first resources, as well as it being far more effective than caving; you can find dozens of diamonds (even without Fortune) per hour as opposed to the measly 3-4 I average from caving):


Durability, as well as rarity, is also irrelevant when you have Mending, which is not too hard to get thanks to villager trading and fishing farms; all items are repaired at the same rate and making steel get e.g. 4 durability per XP instead of 2 would do little given that a single mob drops enough XP to restore a total of 10 durability to all items (or rather, 10 uses when they have Unbreaking; armor has less of a benefit but I use tools far more often than I take damage so they are the limiting factor; in a recent world I gained about 5,300 XP per play session spent caving, mining about 4,375 blocks, which would require about 3,280 XP to keep my pickaxe (and everything else) repaired with the maximum of 6 Mending items held/worn at once).

In other words, you are just adding another tier like leather, chain, or gold, which are mainly only worn for vanity or used as decoration (I pick up helmets dropped by mobs since I don't normally wear one but would not if I did).

have you considered speed running? you seem to know exactally what your talking about

also, i'm a bit confused, iron has 15 aromor ponts total while diamond has 20, yet diamond has double the damage reduction? how does that make any sense?

so otherwise, may I receive some feedback from the expert?

Quote from Genius_idiot»

have you considered speed running? you seem to know exactally what your talking about

also, i'm a bit confused, iron has 15 aromor ponts total while diamond has 20, yet diamond has double the damage reduction? how does that make any sense?

so otherwise, may I receive some feedback from the expert?

You have to look at the damage that bypasses armor to compare them; diamond reduces damage by up to 80%, which means that you receive 20% of the damage, and iron reduces damage by 60%, which means that you receive 40% of the damage - 40% is twice as high as 20% so diamond is twice as effective, and why it is often considered to be overpowered (a naive approach would think that diamond is only 1/3 more effective, or 80% / 60%).

This is also why enchantments make armor even more powerful when it is already close to 100% damage reduction; with the maximum additional damage reduction of 80% from enchantments (80% of 20% as only damage that bypasses armor is reduced) you can achieve up to 96% damage reduction - or just 4% of damage getting through - that lets you survive up to 250 hearts of damage! Likewise, max-enchanted iron armor reduces damage by up to 92% but is still only half as effective (not 92 / 96 = 95.8%) since you get at least 8% of the damage.

Quote from TheMasterCaver»

You have to look at the damage that bypasses armor to compare them; diamond reduces damage by up to 80%, which means that you receive 20% of the damage, and iron reduces damage by 60%, which means that you receive 40% of the damage - 40% is twice as high as 20% so diamond is twice as effective, and why it is often considered to be overpowered (a naive approach would think that diamond is only 1/3 more effective, or 80% / 60%).

This is also why enchantments make armor even more powerful when it is already close to 100% damage reduction; with the maximum additional damage reduction of 80% from enchantments (80% of 20% as only damage that bypasses armor is reduced) you can achieve up to 96% damage reduction - or just 4% of damage getting through - that lets you survive up to 250 hearts of damage! Likewise, max-enchanted iron armor reduces damage by up to 92% but is still only half as effective (not 92 / 96 = 95.8%) since you get at least 8% of the damage.

so what i'm hearing is that the armor system in general probably could use a re-work?