GETTING STARTED GUIDE
What is Herocraft?
Herocraft is a hard-mode RPG adventure server with strong role play opportunities, focused around leveling up to participate in PvP and the serverwide economy. Gameplay is intended to be a more challenging, but ultimately more rewarding experience than other servers offer. Whether you are banding together to plunder
dungeons or building a town ready for war, Herocraft lets you explore a world full of danger and treasure alike.
Your First Day:
Upon entering the server for the first time, you’ll start in a tower at the Capital, the hub of the Herocraft world. You’ll be given a brief introduction to some useful commands that we’ll go into depth later on. Once you leave the tower, you can choose to explore the Capital, the central island of Herocraft, or pick any direction and head into the wilds.
The Capital (as well as select locations in the world) is protected from PvP. When you leave the Capital, you enter the Wilds, where PvP is enabled and anyone can break or build blocks. Griefing and theft are permitted in the Wilds, so make sure to secure your most prized possessions in the ender chests inside the starting tower for now. The only way to prevent other players from digging through your build looking for your chests is to join a town. Read more about the rules at hc.to/rules.
Herocraft uses a world map called a Dynamic Map. This not only shows the entirety of the world, but updates as players build atop the surface, so watch where you build your base; everyone can see it. If you want to be seen on the Dynamic Map, use the “/dynmap show” command, or the “/dynmap hide” if you want to be hidden (you are shown by default).
Should you have the misfortune to die, you will either respawn at spawn or one of the nearby outposts. Your iems aren’t lost yet! When you die they are placed in a single chest that is locked for a period of time before dropping your items. You should receive coordinates in chat telling you where you died, giving you a chance to retrieve your items before they are gone. If you are using the official Curseforge or GD Launcher Herocraft pack, you will have access to an approved map mod that will mark your death with a death waypoint.
At both the Capital and respawn outposts, you will find an NPC selling redstone. Redstone is used for the Recall ability, which lets you teleport to a location marked with the Mark ability or to return to spawn. Each use costs ten redstone and has a cooldown. Gameplay is intended to focus on traveling by foot or horseback rather than teleporting everywhere, but some classes and
Professions have workarounds if you’re in a rush.
If you need assistance from staff, use the “/pe create [Message]” command. This creates a ticket that alerts staff to a problem. If you find bugs, glitches, exploits, cheating, or even if you just fell in a hole and can’t /kill your way out of it, post a message in the Herocraft Discord at hc.to/discord.
Things to do before you leave the Capital:
Classes and Professions:
Once you have the basic Minecraft tools and supplies, you might have noticed that while mining or fighting mobs that you have been gaining experience. This experience helps you level up your class (combat abilities) and your profession (like a job) depending on what you are doing in-game. Killing mobs and players give combat experience, while non-combat activities (mining, building, farming, etc.) give profession experience. At the start, your combat class is “
Lost Soul”, and your profession is “
Crafter”. There are ways in the world to gain combat experience outside of combat, primarily through the Tradepack system (see “Making Money” below).
- Getting annoyed at the chat spam every time you break a block? Type “/hero verbose exp” to toggle that function on and off.
- Want a list of all the hero plugin commands? Type “/hero help”
In the introductory tower you may have noticed signs describing “/hero classes” and “/hero professions” which let you choose a class or profession respectively. It’s alright if you’re not sure which one you want to play with, classes and professions can be changed at any time for a fee of in-game currency.
- You may immediately pick a combat class, but you must level Crafter to 20 before you can select a new profession.
- Selecting any new profession or any new class after your first costs 100 Valorens (currency, see Making Money below). Switching to a class or profession you have already unlocked costs 500 Valorens.
- Type “/class” for a visual interface to select your class.
- Type “/profession” for a visual interface to select a profession.
- Type “/help” for a visual interface for multiple topics, including classes and professions.
Combat Classes are broadly divided into four groups: Spellcaster, Tank, Support, and Healer. Some classes may be less useful if you’re playing alone, but are a necessity to have when playing in a group. Feel free to experiment with what you like and try out new things!
Using Skills:
To use both class and profession skills, use “/skills” to view all your available skills (both class and profession skills are shown here. Skills you have not yet unlocked through leveling are collared red and black, skills you can use will have another icon. Mouse over the skill to read what it does.
There are three ways to use a skill: typing the the command, binding the command to an item, or setting up a hotbar shortcut.:
- Typing the command:
- Type “/skill” in the chat window, followed by the skill name. For example, to cast the skill “AssemblePickaxe”, type “/skill assemblepickaxe” in the chat window.
- Binding the command to an item:
- While holding any item in your mainhand, type “/bind” followed by the skill name. You may then cast the skill by right clicking while holding that item.
- For example, typing “/bind airburst” while holding a stick will allow you to cat the Airburst spekk when you rightclick with a stick.
- Using the Hero Skillbar
- Drag and place a skill from the skill list into your hot bar. When you switch to it on your hotbar, you use it immediately. This allows you to have a more traditional MMO-style skill system. You can remove the skill from your hotbar by “dropping” the skill like any other item.
- For example, if you drag the Warp skill icon from the /skills window to your first inventory slot, you will attempt to cast the Warp skill every time you select the first inventory slot by pressing one or using the scroll wheel on your mouse.
Skills have cooldowns and a brief cooldown between using them to prevent spamming. Some skills have casting times, slowing you for a moment as they are cast. Others require material components, taking the items out of your inventory when you use them. Depending on your class your skills either use Mana or Stamina, which regenerate over time. During combat your Mana or Stamina may deplete, preventing you from using your skills and possibly getting you killed, so keep an eye on it.
As you level up you will unlock new skills in your list. You can learn more about individual classes
here.
Professions are a way to both make money and provide exclusive services not available to other players. Several facets of the game are gated behind certain professions to encourage an interplayer economy. These include things like enchantments, potions, and repairing items. Professions, like classes, have skills that can be unlocked as you level up, granting new bonuses and abilities that can help you expand the services you provide to yourself and other players. You can learn more about individual professions by clicking
here.
- Notice the window on the right side of your screen? This gives you lots of good real-time information about yourself, such as:
- Combat class and profession level,
- Current hitpoints (heart icon)
- Current Mana (circle icon)
- Current Stamina (starburst icon)
- Stamina (for classes that us it) is also displayed by your “hunger bars”. Vanilla hunger mechanics have been removed. Instead, eating food gives you regen when out of combat.
Weapons and Armor:
Herocraft uses a custom weapons and armor system. Each class is balanced to have its own impact on the game and how it compliments other party members, using different weapons and armor. You can use “/hero tools” to see which weapons you can use in combat and their damage values and “/hero armor” to see which armors you can wear.
If you use a weapon type in combat your class is not proficient in (not listed in /hero tools), you will do 30% of its damage.
Durability has also been overhauled. Items will last significantly longer than in vanilla. They also are not destroyed when durability reaches zero; instead will be “broken” and needed to be repaired by a
Blacksmith before you can use it again.
Making Money:
The currency of this world is Valors with one Valor being made of one hundred coins. You may be gifted Valors every time you level up your class or profession and can gain a small amount of coins when you slay a mob. At the Capital’s Exchange, you can trade one gold ingot for three Valors, a small but reliable reward. To check your balance, use the “/money” command.
The most effective way to make money is by crafting and delivering tradepacks out of different items. Tradepacks must be made in specific locations and must be delivered on foot to one of multiple stations to receive the rewards, and only one can be carried at a time. Crafting one relies on certain resources, like bone meal, sugar, or wooden planks and gives variable rewards depending on which type they are. More can be found out about specific tradepacks, their crafting locations, and where to turn them in can be found
here.
While carrying a tradepack, you are slowed and are susceptible to ambush, meaning anyone can kill you and steal your tradepack and submit it for themselves. If that happens, you will get a consolation reward while they get a portion of the tradepacks initial value. So remember, if you don’t feel like running a tradepack, lay in wait for someone who does and take it!
Aside from that, there are many opportunities to trade with other players. Valors can be exchanged for goods and services, but feel free to negotiate the price or barter with a few items of your own. There are no set prices in Herocraft, so whatever you want to sell your stuff for that’s the price they have to pay.
Chat:
Herocraft chat has multiple channels that can be used to seek items, new friends, or casual discussion. The primary chat is Out of Character, accessed with “/ch o”. Other chats, like Help, Recruitment, Trade, and Tour are used for highlighting different conversations. A
List of Commands used to access different channels will be included at the end of this segment.
You can message players directly with the “/msg [Player Name]” command, letting you message them privately. Remember to be courteous and polite and that server admins can see all chat messages. Herocraft allows adult language, but remember to keep it decent.
Channels:
- Out of Character: “/ch o” used for casual discussion.
- Trade: “/ch t” used for seeking buyers or sellers.
- Recruitment: “/ch re” used for seeking new party or town members
- Help: “/ch h” used for asking for help from other players or moderators
- Local: “/ch local” only nearby players can see your text
- Messaging: “/msg [Player Name]” sends a private message to the chosen player
- Show Item: “/showitem” or “%item%” shows item being held in chat
Parties:
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to murder and rob everyone you meet. Sometimes it’s better to find other players to help you with killing everyone and robbing the server blind. When you want to work with someone, you can use the “/party invite [Player Name]” command to invite them to your party. Parties have their own private chat accessed with “/p” command. The founder’s name will show up in red with a single star next to their name, marking them as the leader.
Parties have several benefits over solo play. First, you both share exp gained from combat and professions, giving each member a percentage of the base exp but overall granting more total exp than alone. Secondly, party members aren’t damaged by your attacks and skills. If you change your mind about that not murdering them thing, use “/party kick [Player Name]” to remove them from the party. Lastly, any beneficial skills such as boosts or healing only impacts party members, so no worries about other players getting healed by your spells.
Parties are the intended way to play the game. If you want to play solo, make sure to choose a class and profession that supports that. Always make sure to communicate with your party members to find out which classes you are working with to see what your group’s strengths and weaknesses are. Be polite and courteous to each other and it may be the start of an excellent friendship, or even the beginnings of a new town!
Townships:
Townships are an advanced form of player interaction. They have multiple benefits, such as block protections, shared resources, and a pool of reliable players to draw from for both partying up and covering each other’s professional gaps.
To make a township, you need a starting investment of 250 Valors and an unclaimed chunk. When you make a township, you claim that chunk, meaning no one can break the blocks in it. Beware! Other players can still open doors, access chests and store or take items from them, so do not leave chests out in the open. Chests can be protected using the LWC plugin (type /lwc for commands), which allows you to spend 250 valors to lock one chest. A LWC can be made private, openable to certain people, or open to anyone with the password.
To expand a town, it needs three things: Valors, materials, and town members. Each new chunk claimed by a town costs 50 Valors, up to a certain limit defined by the size of the town. New towns are classified as Hamlets, with each size being larger and larger until it becomes its own Capital. Hamlets require only one player, but higher levels require more and more players that are a part of the town.
A town needs to pay a tax for each real-time day it exists and if it does not have money in its bank when it needs to pay, it and all claimed chunks will be dissolved. Players can deposit money into the bank and depending on their role, withdraw from it too. Each player can be granted a specific role in the town with permissions and tax rates. Other roles allow for building and breaking or put them as simple Helper roles, usually for someone being hired to build something. Towns have their own private chat accessed with the “/tc” command.
- The township system is a very involved yet rewarding one. Further details can be found here.
Supporting the Server:
Like all Minecraft servers, Herocraft needs money to stay online. There are multiple ways to support us, like purchasing permanent supporter ranks that come with benefits and being on the reserve access list for the server. Additionally you can purchase monthly subscriptions that give the same benefits as certain supporter ranks as well as exclusive perks. You can find more information about the store at hc.to/store.
While Herocraft does offer benefits for sale, it is important to make clear that Herocraft is free to play and always will be. These benefits do not make it “pay to win” or make it so these players are significantly more powerful than free to play players. To succeed at this game requires skill, dedication, and working with each other.
Common Commands:
- /help
- /classes
- /professions
- /spawn
- /hero class skills
- /skills
- /hero tools
- /hero armor