Anvils? Better or Worse? I'm not sure

[finite8]

Okay, I have VERY mixed feelings about this.

Dinnerbone made the following tweet: https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/2 ... 3996366848 saying "This is what I originally added the Anvil for. Finally had a chance to sit down and add it!". And below is a screenshot of said feature:

Spoiler

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So, by the looks of it the anvil somehow can also transfer the enchantments from an item into a book for combining later.

While this is an "okay" method of Enchantment preservation, it doesn't really solve the underlying issue of the poor enchanting system as it stands now. I mean, obviously there is a desire to not have such a random system in the enchantments, but this is just not a good way of doing by taking the random enchants, and then dump them into a book. Afterwards, you are then left with a library of enchantment books you can THEN use to choose your enchantments. This feels counter intuitive. Why not:
- Just enchant the book directly?
- Fix the random enchant process by having an additional "Catalyst" when you enchant to weight the enchants towards particular properties.

This just smells of a desperate workaround upon an already broken system. Sometimes, you just need to bite the bullet and go "Yeah, we fucked up. We made a bad decision before. Therefore, we are going to do the hard thing and fix it. Yes players, you may need to change and adapt a bit to accommodate for it, but I know you will enjoy it more. No, please don't send me death threats, it's only a game peeps. Get over it."

[FlowerChild]

This just smells of a desperate workaround upon an already broken system. Sometimes, you just need to bite the bullet and go "Yeah, we fucked up. We made a bad decision before. Therefore, we are going to do the hard thing and fix it. Yes players, you may need to change and adapt a bit to accommodate for it, but I know you will enjoy it more. No, please don't send me death threats, it's only a game peeps. Get over it."

Yup, exactly. And in this case, it isn't even a build-breaker, so there's really no excuse not to just fix the original system.

[Sarudak]

I don't think Mojang will ever do anything to take away player power with Jeb at the helm. Unless maybe it involves removing those pesky exploits that allow automation. :P

[DaveYanakov]

I see a lot of potential with this fix if they strip the enchantment function out of the enchanting table and turn it into a research station instead. Scribe the runes into a book, use the anvil as a rune forge or something to pound those runes into your equipment. There still no reason a giant lump of iron alone has that power but it does make one hell of a lot more sense that way.

[Locke]

I must admit, when I first heard of this I assumed the enchanting books where like the BTW Arcane Scrolls. This is just... wow worse than anything I could imagine. So many other, better ways of doing this. I agree, this is an attempt to save the anvil.

[Gears]

This feature could hold some potential if done right. I like the fact that it's telling you what enchantment you're putting into it, but on the anvil is just... It doesn't make sense.

When I first heard about the anvil, I thought it was gonna be used for repairing items alone(ie: drop some ingots in with your damaged pick, restores uses. Enchanted tools require more ingots as it's "magic") However, the fact that they're using the anvil for this is just sad. If anything, it should go into the enchanting table, as this was its original purpose. It doesn't look like they'll be craftable, so maybe there won't be mass producing(That's an interesting concept, but why explore when you can get enchantments from encouraging pigs to fuck and cooking their parents?)

Here's what my ideal view of the enchanting system would be:
1.) You find these books
2.) You get experience from killing mobs
3.) You use the enchantment table to use these books for enchanting tools. The book will use up a certain amount of XP levels.
4.) When the tools are near breaking, you put materials into repairing them on the anvil. More enchantments means more materials are required. Since it's a hunk of metal and nothing more, the anvil doesn't require XP to mend the tools

Instead of what we currently have:
1.) Get tons of XP doing nothing.
2.) Make a dozen pickaxes.
3.) Enchant said pickaxes.
4.) Merge all pickaxes together to make "Teh uber l33t pickzor of doom"

However, to get the ideal view they'd have to remove XP gain from everything except killing mobs. Seeing as they're not gonna do that, we're stuck with another half assed feature made to please the masses.

[The Lord of Brick]

-snip-

Have you ever considered that some people might actually like the features that Mojang is adding?

Ill grant, XP from fishing is just plain WTF, but still, I quite enjoy some the things they've added as of late though I still think beacons can be way too O.P. For far too little resouces. I do like your idea about the XP system though :D

[Gears]

Have you ever considered that some people might actually like the features that Mojang is adding?

Ill grant, XP from fishing is just plain WTF, but still, I quite enjoy some the things they've added as of late though I still think beacons can be way too O.P. For far too little resouces. I do like your idea about the XP system though :D

Yes I have. The people have every right to like the features, but that doesn't mean the features have to be good. There are people that think the new ways of obtaining XP are great ideas, and they have every right to think so. However, that doesn't change the fact that it's just a bad idea that devalues enchantments.

As for the beacons, it requires you to go through a bunch of shit just to get a damn thing that gives you 5 second boosts when you're near it. Once you're out of range, you have very little time to use those boosts constructively.

[FlowerChild]

Have you ever considered that some people might actually like the features that Mojang is adding?

Ill grant, XP from fishing is just plain WTF, but still, I quite enjoy some the things they've added as of late though I still think beacons can be way too O.P. For far too little resouces. I do like your idea about the XP system though :D

I think you may be on the wrong message board.

[Rugaard]

in my opinion they went the wrong way with exp from everything, it would make more sense with different categories. such as to add an enchant for a certain tool such as the pick, you mine stuff and cant use exp fishing, killing mobs

[dawnraider]

in my opinion they went the wrong way with exp from everything, it would make more sense with different categories. such as to add an enchant for a certain tool such as the pick, you mine stuff and cant use exp fishing, killing mobs

The issue with this is that it just makes the game more like an RPG, which is taking it farther and farther from its original design.

[Rugaard]

in my opinion they went the wrong way with exp from everything, it would make more sense with different categories. such as to add an enchant for a certain tool such as the pick, you mine stuff and cant use exp fishing, killing mobs

The issue with this is that it just makes the game more like an RPG, which is taking it farther and farther from its original design.

I though that was notches intent
didnt he say he wanted a rogue like rpg game or did I misread it somewhere?

[dawnraider]

Yes, but AFAIK notch did not intend MC to be that game. Note how no RPG elements came into the game until after he started to transfer work to Jeb.

[duartemad]

They are better, but they are still a bad design choice.

[finite8]

The team over at Extra Credits ALWAYS hit the nail on the head when it comes to game design. Worth a watch (In fact, all of Extra Credits is a great watch, this is just the most relevant to this topic):

So you Wanna be a Developer (Part 1): http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/so ... per-part-1
So you Wanna be a Developer (Part 2): http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/so ... per-part-2
Combining Generas: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/combining-genres
Less Relevant, but interesting - Role of the Player: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/th ... the-player

[Benanov]

Vanilla diverged from its original path a while ago. A lot of the "homogenous gruel" is an attempt to cater to different kinds of players. Some hate combat, but they still want XP for nice mining tools, etc...so the idea was to give them XP for doing the parts of the game they want to play. That's what creative is for - it allows you to build but not worry about survival. That makes it fun and accessible for younger players...but it kind of ruins the game per se.

With BTW, FC has decreed, IMHO, "to experience the full game, you have to play the full game. Period." There's a lot of "one way to get X" in BTW.

[DigitalAristotle217]

The team over at Extra Credits ALWAYS hit the nail on the head when it comes to game design. Worth a watch (In fact, all of Extra Credits is a great watch, this is just the most relevant to this topic)

I was just about to go look up those links as I was reading this thread too.
"Players don't know what they want." Not sure if you linked the episode I'm referring to here.