Herocraft: The Great Discussion

[Kainzo]

Glad a discussion is starting. All this feedback I feel will only lead to more perspectives and positive changes.

Main things I'm seeing and main questions I think should be talked about:

The Grind-

• How can it be made less repetitive without taking away from other aspects of the game?
• How can it be made fun & exciting to people leveling?
• How can we have it better connect with the economy ?
• How can we make leveling more rewarding without making it too easy?

Also keep in mind @Kainzo is planning something with MythicmMbs

You bring up some understandable points. In my opinion I feel our tutorial is dated. It was an idea I brought up to the architects a while ago but never had the time to complete. I'll be looking into it soon.

We're scrapping distance based mobs. We're adopting a new system for "mob levels" - so the mob name will have the level on the end (or beginning I dont know) ... Higher level mobs will equal more exp, BETTER loot and harder.

All mobs will have "mob skills" these skills will allow for teleporting to the player, using crazy abilities like thunderbolts, etc. Most minions (non-named bosses) will just have 1-2 skills.

 

[Jrr_]

We're scrapping distance based mobs. We're adopting a new system for "mob levels" - so the mob name will have the level on the end (or beginning I dont know) ... Higher level mobs will equal more exp, BETTER loot and harder.

All mobs will have "mob skills" these skills will allow for teleporting to the player, using crazy abilities like thunderbolts, etc. Most minions (non-named bosses) will just have 1-2 skills.

oooooooo, when is this coming in?

 

[Xhazed]

Making maps smaller would make it soo much funner cause u get to find people faster and i think it would even be better if the map was entirely custom made like how rpg would be

 

[Kydone]

And how you wanna get some materials after a week?

 

[Jrr_]

And how you wanna get some materials after a week?

look and read my post.

 

[Kydone]

look and read my post.

Okay that would be an option, but anyways I am really no fan of a PvE map... There is too much saving potential, same as the farmmap. I think then, there should be a farmmap, but in the farmworld should chests be disabled. That would force the players to put their stuff in the normal world and other players can raid then something. Of course you can still hide your chests anywhere else in the normal world. Imo that is one of the best plan... and as I said its a survival server, so you should also lose your items by death and you should not be able to hide them

 

[Jrr_]

Okay that would be an option, but anyways I am really no fan of a PvE map... There is too much saving potential, same as the farmmap. I think then, there should be a farmmap, but in the farmworld should chests be disabled. That would force the players to put their stuff in the normal world and other players can raid then something. Of course you can still hide your chests anywhere else in the normal world. Imo that is one of the best plan... and as I said its a survival server, so you should also lose your items by death and you should not be able to hide them

If we scrapped Pve, half the server would be gone. As much as I would love just a pvp world, it would drive many away.

 

[Kydone]

If we scrapped Pve, half the server would be gone. As much as I would love just a pvp world, it would drive many away.

Hmm can you say me what their reason is? I really dont understand, how that can make any fun...

 

[Kainzo]

Just like some people dont like PVE, some dont like PVP.

 

[Xerot]

I've stuck around for a pretty long time (3 1/2 years is pretty damn long, if I didn't goof and abuse lifts, I'd have the status to prove it) and have watched HC change and evolve, and I've found myself noticing a few things in particular in differences when there was a time when people would have to wait to get to log in, and between now.

The grind. Oh, the grind. God, if I didn't love ranger, I would've never hit 65 on a ton of characters. It's one thing to grind your way up to get to play with the big boys, it's another to start fresh on a different spec and do it all over again. Some classes grind better than others.

Personally, if you want to make grinding quicker and more appealing, enhanced party experience. If the exp split weren't so drastic, I would always group up with others and go help others level. The only occasion I ever found myself grouping up with others for the sake of grinding was either with mob arenas when they existed (Which admittedly, were a very good means of having a PvE experience within a PvP server. It was fun, challenging, and fast paced, and hell, you got levels out of it at the cost of a diamond. Win win right there), or DoD when they were done once every 2 weeks or so. It engaged the entire server in a hectic all-out battle and made things interesting, like you were actually in the middle of a straight-up warzone. The biggest things that work right now that make the grind easier and more tolerable is the group experiences, and any kind of dramatic event that aids in leveling.

I'm going to go on a quick spiel on what I feel may help retain newer players that I remember hooked me as a newer player. I feel that over the years, the server has become less and less interactive. When I say interactive, I mean there's just not much interaction save for business going on in the server now. Think back 2 years, the maps weren't terribly large, so it wasn't hard to run into another town or other players while wandering in the wild. Back in Dragongarde, if you weren't interested in a fight, you strayed from the main roads, since there was a lot going on. Massive shops and homes were built up right outside of them. You take a look at the main roads now, and it looks absolutely pitiful compared to what kind of bustling activity it used to see.

The reason? The veteran players. Most of the popular players built close to home and stayed close, only straying farther out into the map if necessary. When the exp change came, where mobs were tougher farther out but granted more experience, the areas near spawn are an absolute ghost town, and they've been this way for 2 maps now. This will go with the grind, where I don't think many will want to agree with me, but I feel experience gains need to be higher, but a flat rate. All towns so far are built at least 1K blocks out from spawn, which if you think about herogates, that's 1.5K blocks away. We've all made a point of straying from the spawn to level faster. The current experience gain would be reasonable for RPG (However that's planned), but in a PvP or PvE environment, the map shouldn't feel so vast as to feel isolated from everything. The other point involving veteran players is that we've grown smarter over time. 2 years ago, I could've tunneled into a town because nobody was that horrendously concerned about whether or not somebody could get in to that area. Now? Absolute paranoia. Everything is underground for the sake of safety for items, the most impressive town I've seen above ground was nothing more than a large castle on the outside. Otherwise you've got glass bubbles and security that's tighter than the virgin mary. It promotes this concept of being a recluse is best, especially to the newest players. You want to survive? You have to hide underground like a mole.

And who can blame them? We're the guys that taught them that after learning multiple times ourselves.

Balance. Oh, balance. You exist only in the relative definition of the user. Herocraft is a numbers game. Say you play a Paladin or Dragoon or Wizard. You get 5 points. When you go up against another target, whoever has more points generally winds up the winner. So say you pick something like cleric, which is worth 1 point on its own. You team up with a dragoon and suddenly the two of you together are worth maybe 10 points. Add on more party members and different classes and you get a pretty big number. Anyone with a little less than your big number, they get utterly destroyed. So why the hell am I talking about numbers when I should be talking about balance? The answer is how those numbers match up. A paladin paired up with a high damage output class IE Ninja or Ranger is suddenly worth 15 points due to a single skill that allows the damage dealer to absolutely destroy a target in seconds. When you get situations like that, things get unbalanced. When you have a ranger against a wizard, the ranger, by reason, should win. However, pair that wizard with a berserker or bard, the ranger will almost always lose, and can not run.

There is a clear boundary between what makes a class over powered, and what does not, and I've found so far that any kind of binds, or stuns, with a heavy amount of damage output with general melee attacks, tend to be what's overpowered. Paladin doesn't do much damage, but between lay hands and divine stun, suddenly that 50 damage per sword strike turns into a 300 damage divine stun, and that's if they're alone. If they have a friend, shit, just kiss your stuff goodbye. I feel stuns last far too long currently, and can completely and utterly turn the tide of a battle. If stuns broke after a certain amount of damage, we wouldn't see nearly as many people complaining about paladins being broken (Or complaining about being as broken as they used to be, I don't know.) and the number game wouldn't be so aggravating to fight against.

Economy, scrap the necessity for being a specific class to craft armor and weapons and tools. Seriously, nobody wants to wait or depend on someone else because they mined their treacherous life away so they could make a set of armor, which is a necessity in HC. Farmer's great if you plan on hiding inside of a region with a safety bubble on the outside so they can't interrupt you farming several ten thousand more sugar canes. Runesmith and enchanter is awesome, but I would like to see enchanting have a little more utility on the side. Engineer and miner are great where they are, alchemy is still kind of a gray area for me. I see people seldom use potions anymore. Souls should drop more readily from killing mobs, it makes more sense to just go underground and break a few diamond picks for a thousand some odd souls from whatever ores you find. Seriously, I only kill mobs at this point for string, gun powder, and that's it. It makes no sense to burn my weapon durability on mobs at max level when I could kill another player and have better odds of finding something useful. Codexes are cool, those should stay.

Objectives... These would be really cool if they were introduced in a PvE manner, IE an undead horde is about to strike the east road! Or something along those lines. People would have a reason to band together and meet new people by doing this, while, hey, here's the grind thing again, making the grind more pleasing.

Staff, I don't have any qualms currently, but I feel like mutes need to be more strict. And lemme elaborate on that point. If someone is just getting straight up harassed in O chat or something like that, and it's obvious? Don't wait for the player to ./ignore them, just dump a mute on them. Toxic chat is easily one of the biggest things I think that makes newer players stray away quickly. I only ever see mutes when someone is being a dumbass and being toxic towards a staff member, or just genuinely being stupid. (That being said, if we did follow what I spoke about, half the server would probably be muted, but I digress...)

tl;dr - Nerf stuns, PvE related objectives will likely be much more popular for players, lemme make my own damn armor already, and you old farts need to loosen up, even with the TNT addition.

 

[JazzDesignation]

The Grind-

• How can it be made less repetitive without taking away from other aspects of the game?
• How can it be made fun & exciting to people leveling?
• How can we have it better connect with the economy ?
• How can we make leveling more rewarding without making it too easy?

These would all pretty much be fixed with quest integration.

 

[Eldrylars]

Community, Community, Community, Community, Community and... Community.

Pretty much anything that support the players in building and maintaining a community.​

• Change the upgrade rates for townships to attainable goals so players will actually try to build larger cities
  • Creates community goals. Currently the goals are not attainable in a reasonable fashion.
• Fix chat channels!
  
  • Not being able to talk with people from both PVE and PVP separates the community and is a MAJOR loss!
• Anything that gives community tools to the players to build and manage the community. Friends list, Offline messages, anything could help build and maintain the community.

PVE and Leveling

• Put in a class mastery system where upon hitting level 65, you become a Master <ClassName>. You would become a "Master Ranger Level 1" with all the same stats and abilities of a level 65 Ranger. You would still have an experience curve the as you gain mastery levels, but when you level up you only gain 1HP, 1MP, 1 Attribute Point.This would last from Mastery 1-100 . At level 100 you would gain a "Grand Master" prestige title and would be +100 HP, MP and Attribute points over a normal master.
  
  • One part of leveling that is hard is once your friends are leveled there is no reason for them to be there, thus making it boring and much more difficult and this would be one thing to give a little something back to those who want to help friends and new players level.
  • Some people would rather farm mobs then mine but once you master there is so little gain that they are almost forced to mine.
  • Once the RPG opens up with quests and bosses and ... most mastered players are going to get bored real quick getting 0xp
  • Mastery levels could survive through a server reset, but are only activate once the player re-masters the class. This would show how much of class veteran each player is as they slowly gain mastery levels over the years of play.
• Increase the income rate for mobs and try to find a way to make the fights for entertaining.
  • It's not profitable killing mobs over mining and it should be relatively close. Mobs tend to only spawn in the day(above ground) so there is some control. Obviously every mob should not drop souls, but if I mob for 5 hours I should get similar money to mining for 5 hours.
  • Continue working on making mobs more fun and challenging to kill. Not +10000 HP kind of challenging, but working out a way to give mobs better AI/Skills/...
  • Create mini-bosses that guarantee some rewards. "Zombie Lords" that summon minions and use skills. Endermen that will destroy the environment to kill you(now that regeneration is working.) Anything that could spruce up the PVE.
  • Increase the normal drop rates a bit. I have leveled 3 classes to mastery(almost on the third) and have not used almost any reagents during that leveling and I have less then 3 stacks of each reagent. I could burn those in a few PVP sessions.

All other aspects listed above are also important, but the player community being able to be connect and the current PVE are the most important in my eyes.

Oh yeah, make sure that each class does at least 10 damage with fists.. New players and toying around old players should be able to punch something for more then 4 damage with their fist

 

[Kainzo]

Community, Community, Community, Community, Community and... Community.

Pretty much anything that support the players in building and maintaining a community.​

• Change the upgrade rates for townships to attainable goals so players will actually try to build larger cities
  • Creates community goals. Currently the goals are not attainable in a reasonable fashion.
• Fix chat channels!
  • Not being able to talk with people from both PVE and PVP separates the community and is a MAJOR loss!
• Anything that gives community tools to the players to build and manage the community. Friends list, Offline messages, anything could help build and maintain the community.

PVE and Leveling

• Put in a class mastery system where upon hitting level 65, you become a Master <ClassName>. You would become a "Master Ranger Level 1" with all the same stats and abilities of a level 65 Ranger. You would still have an experience curve the as you gain mastery levels, but when you level up you only gain 1HP, 1MP, 1 Attribute Point.This would last from Mastery 1-100 . At level 100 you would gain a "Grand Master" prestige title and would be +100 HP, MP and Attribute points over a normal master.
  • One part of leveling that is hard is once your friends are leveled there is no reason for them to be there, thus making it boring and much more difficult and this would be one thing to give a little something back to those who want to help friends and new players level.
  • Some people would rather farm mobs then mine but once you master there is so little gain that they are almost forced to mine.
  • Once the RPG opens up with quests and bosses and ... most mastered players are going to get bored real quick getting 0xp
  • Mastery levels could survive through a server reset, but are only activate once the player re-masters the class. This would show how much of class veteran each player is as they slowly gain mastery levels over the years of play.
• Increase the income rate for mobs and try to find a way to make the fights for entertaining.
  • It's not profitable killing mobs over mining and it should be relatively close. Mobs tend to only spawn in the day(above ground) so there is some control. Obviously every mob should not drop souls, but if I mob for 5 hours I should get similar money to mining for 5 hours.
  • Continue working on making mobs more fun and challenging to kill. Not +10000 HP kind of challenging, but working out a way to give mobs better AI/Skills/...
  • Create mini-bosses that guarantee some rewards. "Zombie Lords" that summon minions and use skills. Endermen that will destroy the environment to kill you(now that regeneration is working.) Anything that could spruce up the PVE.
  • Increase the normal drop rates a bit. I have leveled 3 classes to mastery(almost on the third) and have not used almost any reagents during that leveling and I have less then 3 stacks of each reagent. I could burn those in a few PVP sessions.

All other aspects listed above are also important, but the player community being able to be connect and the current PVE are the most important in my eyes.

Oh yeah, make sure that each class does at least 10 damage with fists.. New players and toying around old players should be able to punch something for more then 4 damage with their fist

Thanks for the post,
I'll correct a few things and ask for more explanation if you have it.

Chat Channels < this is being worked on and you can talk to everyone in public-chats, are you referring to created chats to be made server-wide?

Adventure - when this is released, level curve is changing and the max-to-master is changing, so no one will be anywhere close to mastered when its released. It'll be pretty seamless and a giant notice will be given.

@Eldrylars you seem like you want to help with bosses... its almost ready for public consumption as most lag and bugs are worked out - but we need configurations for the bosses before we can release it on PVP/PVE and ultimately RPG.

 

[Eldrylars]

Thanks for the post,
I'll correct a few things and ask for more explanation if you have it.

Chat Channels < this is being worked on and you can talk to everyone in public-chats, are you referring to created chats to be made server-wide?

Adventure - when this is released, level curve is changing and the max-to-master is changing, so no one will be anywhere close to mastered when its released. It'll be pretty seamless and a giant notice will be given.

@Eldrylars you seem like you want to help with bosses... its almost ready for public consumption as most lag and bugs are worked out - but we need configurations for the bosses before we can release it on PVP/PVE and ultimately RPG.

Thanks for the reply,

As for chat channels I am referring to created channels. Township/Private channels are part of the lifeblood as having those other people to talk to is part of the life blood of the server. I know this is being worked on because the plugin did not support it, but I still rank this as #1. People use it to see who is online, and to have fun to a huge extent. I am sure you would not want to see all the conversations in Offtopic that would be happening for townships to talk cross server

Glad to hear the leveling curve is changing, and as long as it does not make it harder to get to 95% and still gives lots of room to slowly grow if you want then I see that as being a great thing.

I would be glad to take a look over the configs and see if it's something I can help with. My time has been very limited as of late, but configs are something I am betting I could find the time to work on. If you would point me in the direction I need to go to participate and I will head over.

 

[Kainzo]

Thanks for the reply,

As for chat channels I am referring to created channels. Township/Private channels are part of the lifeblood as having those other people to talk to is part of the life blood of the server. I know this is being worked on because the plugin did not support it, but I still rank this as #1. People use it to see who is online, and to have fun to a huge extent. I am sure you would not want to see all the conversations in Offtopic that would be happening for townships to talk cross server

Glad to hear the leveling curve is changing, and as long as it does not make it harder to get to 95% and still gives lots of room to slowly grow if you want then I see that as being a great thing.

I would be glad to take a look over the configs and see if it's something I can help with. My time has been very limited as of late, but configs are something I am betting I could find the time to work on. If you would point me in the direction I need to go to participate and I will head over.

MythicMobs is publicly available and the default configs is a great place to start. We also have a scripting team for the Adventure Map that has access to Herocraft only configs.

 

[Xhazed]

Sooo @Kainzo when the new leveling curve comes everyone goes right back to zero or whats gonna happen?

 

[Kainzo]

Sooo @Kainzo when the new leveling curve comes everyone goes right back to zero or whats gonna happen?

No one loses EXP. It'll change the amount to level, so more than likely max levels would be level 10's. There's still a lot of work to be done on the systems before we even consider it, but its a pretty easy change to do.

 

[Xhazed]

No one loses EXP. It'll change the amount to level, so more than likely max levels would be level 10's. There's still a lot of work to be done on the systems before we even consider it, but its a pretty easy change to do.

Wait so levels are going to be increased that much.... Are skills going to be kept at the same levels, will you gain a skill every level, whats the new thannggg?

 

[Kainzo]

Wait so levels are going to be increased that much.... Are skills going to be kept at the same levels, will you gain a skill every level, whats the new thannggg?

I cannot release any more info on this. It's too far down the line.

 

[UltimateOptics]

Wall of text* (You were warned)

First off let me just say what this thread is NOT about:

· Doomsaying

· Blaming

· Demonizing

· And/or persecuting

Please note:

Now I was going to make this thread in the staff forums when I thought to myself “that would completely destroy the point of this”. This is a thread created for the purpose of making a discussion about the server’s present and future, and those who post comments that are spiteful, toxic, or offtopic will receive forum warnings and post removal. The community we have is a nice one. Herocraft is the #1 in terms of activity on MCF in terms of page views (which is well over 1 million) under all survival servers. If that doesn’t mean anything to you then I’d also like to mention that Herocraft is also an old community that has survived mainly by constantly attracting people, and providing content that they enjoy. Whether it be completely new or improved.


I bring this up not because I believe the community and server are in danger but rather, there are steps that we can take to improve them now. Some things will obviously always affect Herocraft’s player base that cannot be stopped or avoided. These are not the things we’ll be talking about.


It’s no surprise to anyone when I say that Herocraft’s recent server population has seen better days. I will start off by saying nothing we do will increase the amount of players overnight. There isn’t a magic silver bullet and there isn’t a single entity to blame. Like I said before this is partially due to forces Herocraft has no control over likeschool/work, interest in other games/like of interest in minecraft, and many more.


There are many in the community who are strongly concerned with the goals, offerings, and objectives in Herocraft (AKA the reason for playing). Many would tell you PvP is the main offer while others would tell you playing with friends. The fact of the matter is PvP has always been one of the stronger concepts of Herocraft which isn’t necessarily negative to say. The reason some in the community are concerned is because they feel the goals and objectives associated with their favorite offering are lacking.


This is largely due to the fact that PvP is slightly limited by both game mechanics and the server’s economy.

I do believe it would be reasonable to get to the biggest elephant in the room and that would be the grinding:

The Grind

Outside of Herocraft and Minecraft together when you tell people about a game (mostly RPGs) and mention any kind of grinding they will almost instantly get a sick look on their face and think of the one of the biggest killer of games, Repetition. You can cheer them up by making the grind one or more of the following:

· Rewarding

· Challenging (Not too much) and Enjoyable

· Varied and Entertaining

What can really do a game in is if little is done to silence the monotony. This repetition is present currently in Herocraft and I believe that it can be changed say that the grind feels less like grinding. For grinding to be better it needs to work well with game mechanics and in Minecraft’s/Herocraft’s, server side economy. The grinding of exp has pretty much always been linked to the economy of the server since mobs have and currently drop currency. This makes tackling potential issues with either difficult without changing or affecting the other.


Main Points

· Players must not only feel rewarded but actually rewarding when grinding

· Steps need to be taken to silence the monotony of grinding

· Grinding and the economy must be fine tuned to promote all aspects of play full as opposed to little bits of some.

· Or just flat out easier (connects to monotony)


The Economy & Professions:

Secondary crafter specs are meant to give the player a boost in the economy. What happens when professions no longer make any meaningful difference other than game mechanics? To be blunt they become unnecessary to the players. When players abandon the economy it will mainly become something only ever used when rare/unobtainable items are on the line. When it comes to professions the course of action becomes relatively simple. Make them more relative to the economy and game, or give their permissions and aspects to the other professions and remove the class altogether.


The types of Professions (currently)

· Cool game mechanics but little interaction with the economy

o Engineer, miner, Runesmith, Enchanter, Alchemist​

· Economy interaction but no interesting game mechanics

o Merchant, Smith​

· Neither

o Farmer​

Main Points

· Professions must become more prevalent

· Server sponsored items should not require monotonous grinding to achieve

· Professions need to be cleaned up in terms of usefulness and possible even new one added with new concepts surrounding them

Staff Members

As a member of staff I feel the need to explain to the community what exactly we are and what we do. In the hopes that those who still don’t understand staff I will make a list.

Staff are:

· Volunteers who expect nothing in return ( High staff like [USERGROUP=12]@Moderators[/USERGROUP] , [USERGROUP=15]@Coders[/USERGROUP] , [USERGROUP=9]@Admins[/USERGROUP] know what I mean)

· Promoted on trust and represent the server when they do their job correctly

· Are here to help people and provide and maintain the proper environment

· Are NOT robots. We have lives

· Can be overwhelmed

When I see people yelling at staff members I honestly want to tear one of their arms off and bitch slap them with it.


Classes/Heroes

Now a big thing for a lot of people on the server is a word that comes up a lot. Balance. However, this doesn’t only mean PvP. People need to understand that balance also applies to game mechanics and PvE. With Heroes being arguable one of the main features of Herocraft great detail is put on them. With 17 classes and more to come, balance can get complicated. I find it reasonable to assume so. Though I feel that some things have been overlooked when it comes to balance.

I’ll be a little frank. Some classes atm are clearly better than others. It’s a fact and it’s universally understood by some in the community. The frustration occurs when players think that staff either do not care or are unwilling to act. I will say that not all staff members are equally connected to class balancing, but some know it very well and push for changes. Even @Kainzo has started something he thinks will help solve the issues currently facing balance. Currently they look promising even though they have attracted some negative attention. Clearing the way for balance is leading for more input from the balance team, more results, and even new classes being planned.


Things needed & things being done

· Overall class balance

· Making sure there aren’t overplayed classes because of strength

· Keeping it fresh by occasionally release new classes

· Having the community have a say in how classes should be balanced (numbers and not concept)



Objectives & mechanics

Game mechanics and objectives are ultimately what give a game life. Having players define this is dangerous. Meaning, if you have players decide there are no worthwhile objective then interest in the game will decline rapidly. There has been work in this field by adding conquest points around the PvP and the newly added TnT, also on TnT. There are, however, questions we now have to ask:

· Are they properly integrated?

· What can be done to improve them?

· Should PvE get objectives?

· Should different kinds of objectives be added?

When I ask people in-game these questions I generally get mixed answers. I will list some of the other answers that I agree with bellow.

· TnT blasts need to last much longer if people will ever hope to raid full townships

· Objectives need to give rewards that the economy can actually support

· Rewards must have real value

· More and different objectives are needed

· They should be simple and easy to follow



This is where I stop. I would like staff and the community to not only comment on these issues but to discuss those they think should be that I didn’t include. Remember keep it civil.

@Kainzo | [USERGROUP=41]@Wiki Team[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=12]@Moderators[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=9]@Admins[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=17]@Proctors[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=34]@Architects[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=47]@Rules Council[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=39]@Heralds[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=38]@Balance Team[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=35]@Guides[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=15]@Coders[/USERGROUP] | [USERGROUP=45]@Event Team[/USERGROUP] | @others

Well said