Another Anvil/Mending Fix idea

These are just my thoughts on the topic and I think I came up with a potential solution. I'm sure others have already come up with this and this has been discussed before. But I figured I should get this one out anyway. Maybe we'll finally find something that everyone can be happy with.

They should make it so that Tools can be repaired indefinitely on the Anvil by removing the Prior Work Penalty/PWP and Level Cap of 39 (because a lot of people clearly want it and for them keeping their tools is more fun)

However, the catch would be that it's costly to do so.
But, not impossible.

Instead, in addition to their source material, every time a player repairs an item, an experience cost of 4 will be required, and depending on what Enchantments the tool has and the levels of the Enchantments, this can increase. Maybe something like 2 EXP levels for every Enchantment Level. So repairing a Diamond Pickaxe with Unbreaking 3, Efficiency 4 and Silk Touch (1) will require 4+2*(3+4+1) = 20 levels, in addition to the usual 1 Diamond or 1 Unenchanted Diamond Pickaxe. And maybe if Treasure Enchantments cost 4 levels instead of 2.
This is pretty expensive, hence adding a challenge required to get the benefits of repairing your item. And these are just example numbers. I'm sure these can be tweaked the perfection when and if the idea is implemented.

This does 4 things:

1st - It gives Mid to Late games players the option to repair their items without Mending.

2nd - Makes anvils useful.

3rd - Brings back the need for Diamonds, as you would still need the source material, along with the EXP levels, to repair your tool.

4th - Gets rid of the complicacies and limitations that come with using the Anvil.

And the best part is that this is COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. If you don't even want to mine for Diamonds, just use Mending.

Also, people could argue that this makes Enchanted Books useless. But that is ALREADY a problem because of Mending being in the game, so this fix wouldn't make things any worse.
Despite that, I have a way to sort of make the situation a bit better at least.

Which brings me to my next point, Mending and Enchanted Books.

Just to be clear, I think that Mending should be kept in the game. There are LOTS of people who prefer to focus on building rather than grinding for their tools.

To balance it out though, they should make Mending harder to obtain.

In fact, ALL Enchanted books should be harder to obtain. And to do this, they should make the following changes:

1. Enchanted Books should cost more, and their costs shouldn't be randomised.

2. You can only buy one book before the trade becomes disabled, and refreshing is required.

Making these changes would make buying Enchanted Books feel more special, making each tool and each Enchantment have more weight to it. Books wouldn't be useless after the first time you put the Enchantments on your tools, as you would still need to buy them again to make additional tools with Enchantments.

Not to mention you can still lose your tools to Lava and explosions and stuff, and then you'd NEED the books to once again enchant your items.

Now what about Mending?
Mending is admittedly an OP Enchantment. To make it harder to obtain, we actually already have something that's coming in the upcoming update. That is, only swamp villagers selling Mending. (And no worries, the update also introduces ways to get to a swap without wandering endlessly, but it's still requires making a lot of progress to do so, which is good)

Combined with the other idea I introduced earlier, that is, only being able to buy One Enchanted Book before the trade goes into cooldown... I think this makes getting Mending fairly hard, and not an Easy Fix to your Durability problem.

Actually, in contrast, using the Anvil to repair your tools instead is much more viable.

This is PERFECT because,

1. It not only puts the Anvil back in a useful place, but also.

2. It makes Mending a viable option for Players who DO want it, they just have to work a bit harder now, which is acceptable because Mending is OP.

And if you don't wanna go through that, the Anvil option is pretty balanced as well.

The beauty of this is how completely optional this is, and it also makes Mending feel like a very good reward, for a Late game player, who has made a lot of investments to get it. And this is how it should be, as it is an OP Enchantment.

I thhink, with these changes, almost EVERYONE will be happy with the system and have fun with it.

And yeah, this does not address the gripes people have with the anvil breaking or whatever, but I think that's not a big issue, specially Late Game.

(Also a little fun idea,

we can make it so that Mending is a SECRET MYTHICAL ENCHANTMENT that you can't get anywhere. in fact the patch notes will say "Removed Mending"... but guess what, it's still in the game! the game doesn't tell you, but combining two Unbreaking 3 Books gives you a book with Mending, and Unbreaking in itself is a pretty broken Enchantment, so maybe we can make it a treasure Enchantment, only obtainable from Swap Villagers, and also more costly, cuz treasure, which in turn makes getting Mending harder... you get the idea... and treasure Enchantments also cost more in this idea... so, yeah)