Grinding xp is the single most boring task in the entire game. It is nothing more than sitting at a mob farm killing nearly dead mobs until your experience bar hits the requisite number. This is, to me, the quintessential headdesk.
I can completely agree with this.
I don't have a problem with xp in general and even enchanting, but the gaining of xp really is trivial and boring.
I will concede that farming XP is more boring and pointless as having to mine several stacks of redstone or lapis or what-have-you.
But I never farm XP. I usually get enough by smelting, mining, killing, etc. I.e. by just playing.
Again, I concede that I am probably not the average player.
So I got to thinking a bit ([Tongue-in-cheek]Oh, being bigoted and ranting about how the whole world should rotate around me did cross my mind. It is only proper after all.[Tongue-in-cheek]), and it hurt for the first few minutes.
But then I had this little light-bulb thing appear. Promptly smashing it to pieces yielded an idea.
High material cost results is monotone gameplay. High XP cost results in monotone gameplay. So what can we make the player do that is not monotone?
So why not make it enchantments
cheaper in XP cost, but make the crafting of the "enchantment unlocker blocks"
only possible under very special circumstances?
Essentially, taking your E++/E# (<- heh, get it?) table out for a walk to teach it new things.
For example, to unlock Sharpness you have a simple gold-sword statue. Initially, it unlocks only Sharpness II if placed nearby. (All level I enchants unlocked by default).
For Sharpness III and IV, you need to take an E# table up above y>150, have a clear view of the sky, and it has to be midnight. You then stick the sword-statue in the crafting table, and enchant it with some XP (not a lot), and it will now unlock Sharpness III and IV if placed near the table, even if you take both back home (I.e. you don't have to stay in the sky, you just perform the upgrade enchantment there).
For the Sharpness V, you'd have to take that enchanted statue and do the same, but below y<30, with a clear view of a
full moon. After adding a diamond blade to the statue. Or whatnot.
The special circumstances need not be overly complex. Whatever is easy enough to code. Just need to be diverse enough to require the player to make some effort to get. (It is a one-time requirement per booster after all, so it doesn't need to be overly
easy.)
I would be happy with a system like that.
The key being, one time effort with less monotone per use.