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Better Copper Implementation

With the amount of decorative blocks possible, copper is terribly unbalanced.

The copper ore frequency felt good but but having to mine so much of it did not. The amount of resources required to build copper blocks is outrageously enormous in comparison to the other decorative blocks eg stone or wood stairs where the resources are abundant and the option of the stone cutter is there to create them. Combine this with the long waiting time of copper to oxidize and it makes this block the most tedious decorative block to utilize. The worst part is that the copper decorative blocks look amazing to the point that it's enticing to go mining for but once the tedium sets in, I wanted to quit playing because of the disappointment from the severe lack of progress made (Even before making it to the End). 

In it's current state, copper is a post-endgame resource grind with elements of the excessive waiting game pretty much only seen on P2W phone games which does not gel well with any gameplay aspect in Minecraft.

While it definitely needs rebalancing, my personal opinion would be:

  • Lower the ingot requirements for a block of copper to 4 ingots to maintain the rarity but reasonable to craft with
  • Lower the oxidation process time, or
  • Give an option to speed up the oxidation eg placing the copper in water

 

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    Registered User commented
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    Another way they could make copper a more useful building block is by creating copper plate. Instead of taking copper blocks to the crafting table, surround any wooden block with copper nuggets or combine one wooden block with a copper ingot on the smithing table to copper plate the block. They can use all the same textures, just change the mechanic.

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    Registered User commented
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    Minecart rails of every kind could be crafted with copper ingots instead of Iron Ingots.

    Another commenter had the idea of combining wood materials, like planks and stairs, with a copper ingot in a smithing table to get the copper variant. This would also add another feature to the smithing table, giving it another use in the process.

    A minecart could also be made out of copper, but be worse than the iron minecart and oxidize over time. The minecart would move slower the more oxidized it is, but it can be waxed back to fresh! The copper minecart would only be able to contain a player, so no copper chest minecart or copper hopper minecart.