Minecraft’s Enchanting Table Deserves Some Love, Mojang! (Here are Some Ideas)

Minecraft is chock full of all kinds of blocks. However, one of the most important blocks is the enchanting table. Sadly, the table isn’t shown enough love, as its mechanics are fairly outdated and definitely need a rework. Nonetheless, I feel it is a block that deserves attention and can be made into something a whole lot more. So keep reading as I sit down and tell you what I and many other community members think about the enchanting table and the improvements it needs!

Minecraft’s Enchanting Table: The Bad

In order to understand why the enchanting table needs a rework, I need to first tell you some of its main problems. Do note that these issues focus on the enchanting table block itself and not the whole enchanting system in the game.

1. Enchanting Is Too Random, Tedious and Time-Consuming

I’ll begin with my biggest pet peeve for the enchanting table. The simple fact is that it’s way too random. From the first enchantment that is applied to all the subsequent ones, everything about the table works on what I think is an RNG system.

This naturally makes the enchanting table tedious and frustrating, as nothing is certain. You might be grinding for levels and lapis only to get terrible enchantments that you’ll scrap immediately.

The entire enchanting table is luck-based. So, if you’re fortunate, you’ll get almost perfect enchantments immediately. However, if you’re not, you’ll waste a long time simply rerolling the table to get at least decent enchantments.

This is especially annoying in the early game when you don’t have an XP farm or a source of basic materials. Every wasted enchanting session makes you want never to use the enchanting table again.

As you can see, I’m not the only Minecraft player who thinks this way. Many others have shared their opinions online, calling the enchanting table “flawed” and in dire need of a rework. While I understand and even appreciate factoring in luck for enhancements, I also feel there needs to be a certain level of certainty to it all!

2. Rerolling Isn’t Obvious and Costs a Ton of Levels

I’ve mentioned rerolling in the previous section, but what does that mean? Rerolling is basically you enchanting a random item or book with the lowest level enchantment available, so you only spend one lapis and one level. This will reroll the enchanting table and offer three new enchantment slots, out of which the first enchantment is the only thing players can go by.

“Rerolling” is, therefore, very important as it saves levels, resources, and sanity. However, how obvious is this to new players? Well, not that much. While you can figure out this mechanic on your own, this chaos only adds to the absurd nature of the enchanting table. Sadly, this also means many players will end up wasting a lot of levels, which are not easy to come by in the early game.

3. No Clear Link Between Enchanting Table and Bookshelves

Veteran Minecraft players already know that the enchanting table needs 15 bookshelves. Placing them around the enchanting table fuels it and allows for better enchantments. However, just like rerolling, new players are not aware of this at all!

Bookshelves in Minecraft have no clear indication of importance, which obviously leads to many using the default low-level enchantments. This block’s need for bookshelves to provide better “knowledge” is great and adds to the game’s lore. However, I find the entire execution pretty bad and needs change.

4. The Table Pales in Comparison to Enchanted Books

As you might be seeing yourself, the enchanting table is simply not as worth it as items like enchanted books. These books can be easily obtained from villagers and have a very specific enchantment. Grinding villagers out in the first place will take a lot of time, but once the trading hall is up and running, you don’t ever need to look at the enchanting table again.

The only downside would be the “too expensive” cap inside the anvil. The enchanting table should be the main source of enchantments, though. It has the incredible benefit of providing three amazing enchantments on your item for the cost of just three levels and three lapis lazuli.

The enchanting table is a fantastic concept, and Minecraft won’t be what it is without it. However, as it stands now, the enchanting table doesn’t provide as many advantages as trading with villagers and combining enchantments in an anvil does.

Thankfully, community members have been hard at work. One Reddit user has summed up all the enchanting mechanic issues in general, taking into account both the table and villagers. They created sections for the problems and their proposals. If you’re as frustrated with the entire thing, then I suggest you check the thread below.

But How Do You Improve the Enchanting Table?

Now that we have discussed the table’s issues, let’s try to break down how the enchanting table in Minecraft can be fixed.

1. We Need a Reroll Button

My first suggestion is that the enchanting table gets a very obvious reroll button in its UI that will provide a new set of enchantment-filled slots with just a single click. This would mostly take care of the two first issues I mentioned above. This would help save a ton of time during the enchanting process. And it would obviously not cause incredible amounts of frustration that it does now.

I know it seems rather overpowered, so maybe it wouldn’t be free. Every reroll would cost something like lapis lazuli. However, the button itself cannot fix the enchanting table’s randomness, leading me to my next point.

2. Display All Possible Enchantments for a Slot

I believe the guessing game about whether you’ll get something more than unbreaking III or not should be gone. Every slot should display precisely what enchantments it would add to the item. I believe this would completely fix the randomness issue the enchanting table has.

Conversely, I’d also like to add that I think RNG is a great mechanic in video games, as it adds a lot of fun and replayability. However, like everything else in life, too much of anything is bad. That’s exactly what the enchanting table is going through. So, while the randomness won’t go away, it’ll be just enough.

The number of enchantments would be randomized, but at least you can see them in advance instead of making an expensive gamble. There could also be additional aspects behind it, such as planning and strategizing.

3. The Table Can Fuel Items to Favor Certain Enchantments

While researching, I’ve also come across suggestions geared towards limiting the enchanting table’s offers even further by providing a sacrifice. For example, a slot in the UI could accept a certain precious item, like a gold ingot or a diamond.

This improvement would simply make the enchanting table more likely to show certain enchantments in Minecraft. This Reddit post goes in-depth on how certain items would affect enchanting, and you should definitely check it out.

Furthermore, another community member has shared their thoughts on the subject through this interesting and eye-opening Reddit post. Their suggestion is related to brand new items called runes you would get from the trial chambers in 1.21.

4. Additional Feature Like Removing One Enchantment

Since the enchanting table is such an important part of Minecraft, it should definitely be buffed with a brand-new mechanic. I suggest it may be able to remove a single enchantment off a tool only once for the cost of a rare item like an Echo Shard (this is just an example).

So, if you enchant a sword and get an unbreaking, sweeping edge and smite but also have a book with sharpness and fire aspect, then it would be fantastic if you could remove the smite enchantment to apply sharpness to the sword. This seems rather OP, and that’s why it would be possible to do it only once per item. Moreover, it would most likely be useful only in certain situations.

This addition would also give the enchanting table an exclusive use, making it truly valuable to have around. It may even remove curses, but the process would be more expensive.

5. The Enchanting Table Should Be More Beginner-Friendly

Many things in Minecraft could be made more beginner-friendly, but the enchanting table specifically needs it. In practice, this could mean a bar inside the table’s UI with a bookshelf symbol above it, indicating that it requires this block. Upon placing bookshelves around, the bar would start filling up.

Many people have issues with the enchanting table not showing max enchantments even though bookshelves are around it. The updated version of the UI hinted at this. A more beginner-friendly enchanting table could solve this problem.

As you can tell by now, I had a lot to say about the Enchanting Table. Despite my rant about its problems, I do believe the Enchanting Table is an amazing block that deserves a lot of love. There are even more disadvantages, but I focused on the main ones. I believe my suggestions are clean and will fit into vanilla Minecraft very well.

But what is your opinion? Do you think the enchanting table needs some more love? What would your ideas be for it? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!