Minecraft Wiki talk:Issues/1.2 Preview

High enchanting levels hard to obtain compared to benefit
a! The enchanting system has always, and continues to be frustratingly unfair. sometimes producing Efficiency III when a level 50 enchant is used. Considering you need to kill NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE zombies/creepers etc, to get to Level 50, users are naturally in consensus that, to quote Yahtzee Croshaw, the ratio of difficulty to find versus actual usefulness is completely arbitrary. While we respect the mystique Mojang have tried to create about enchanting, the numbers need serious review. Kizzycocoa
 * This is quite true. I just used 45 levels to get efficiency 2 unbreaking 1. I was hoping for at least fortune 1. We need some way to decide what enchants we get beforehand, rather than relying 100% on luck. Maybe decide what enchants we get, and have the ranks decided by our level, the more enchants we choose, the lower the ranks are(based on your level, of course) -Amd4700
 * i agree that there should be a way to not get like only unbreaking III on lv 50. but the numbers are ok, cause we have an fast xp farm on our server^^!
 * I have to disagree. even with farms, it takes a long time to get to 50. and many users, myself including, have no idea how to even make an XP farm, as they all abuse gravity glitches and water/sign glitches. to penalise the XP system because of those who cheat it, rather than reward those who, however the hell they manage it, go out and kill these 925 zombies, it is not acceptable. bear in mind, to legitimately get all that XP, you need to hit zombies 3 times with a diamond sword. 925x3=2775 hits. diamond swords can only hit for 1562. so basically, if you FULLY wear out a diamond sword without dying, you're still no-where near 50. you're actually just above HALFWAY. to destroy two diamond sword, and preserve your life so long, just to get Unbreaking III to commend your work. the whole system needs desperate revamping. --Kizzycocoa 12:35, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Still agree to this as usual... I always get disappointed when using level 10. 15. or 20 enchantments. XP should also be gained from mining/building/crafting, we are playing Minecraft. C ali nou - talk × contribs » 20:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * oh yes, yes, yes! as i said on the previous snapshot, XP farms are at least a workaround, EXCEPT for peaceful mode, where it is even harder to reach those numbers because domestic animals don't give much XP -- and most enchantments don't even do much for us.  i'd love it if we got some way to make XP in peaceful without having to switch to hard just to grind XP from a farm. also, grinding is just so tedious, and doesn't add anything to the game for me. Piranha 05:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Completely agreed. Another good discussion of this can be found at http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/pzrwc/lets_face_it_enchanting_sucks_grinding_is_a_hack/ --Frozenpandaman 22:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Here are some options to resolve terribly underpowered high level enchanting: 1) XP for more than killing mobs.
 * Breeding?
 * Harvesting?
 * Special Ore Gathering?

2) Increased power margin of high level enchantments. For instance, Power V is only barely enough to kill a typical mob some of the time in one shot, when it should be powerful enough to kill a mob multiple times over, for the XP that is required to achieve this enchantment. (Same with protection and sharpness type enchantments.)

High Level enchantments just don't have marginal utility of the ridiculous amount of XP required to get them: Power I kills a mob in two charged criticals, Power V kills a mob in two charged criticals (with the occasional 1-shot). Why would I enchant at level 50 instead of level 1?

3) (My Favorite!) Scale up the likelihood percentages for getting special enchantments, like Looting/Fire Aspect/Fortune. Currently, these enchants find themselves at best between 10-15% percent per enchantment beyond local minima (typically around lvl 20). This stays roughly the same (typically closer to 15-20%) at the highest levels, when they should be closer to 30-50% or higher. No, I'm not going to level 50 ten times to get Looting I, no matter how much mystique and uniqueness Mojang want to build around rare enchantments- I'll just stay frustrated, thanks. If it is significantly more likely that I'll get a rare enchantment at a high level, I will be much more likely to try to get to that high level.

4) Guarantee a certain number of enchantments at high levels. For instance- you may be guaranteed 3 or 4 enchantments per item at level 50, guaranteed 2 or 3 enchantments at level 40, guaranteed 2 enchantments at level 30. Or something to that effect.

Implementing some or all of these 4 approaches would, in my opinion, greatly assuage our frustrations and fix the currently underpowered marginal utility of enchanting at high levels.