Heroes - your experience...

[Kainzo]

We're constantly adjusting and adding more for Heroes.

What we want:
To expand gameplay
To invite open RPG atmosphere
To grant you several different abilities at no cost!
To excite you!

What we dont want:
Make it feel like a grind
Not fun
Cluttered Gameplay

What are your feelings on the new feature of Heroes - how does this change your Herocraft experience?

 

[Alator]

Hard to say, seeing as you have to mine for a few days to get to the specialization paths for more skills. I'll get back to you next week

 

[AudieMurphy135]

Having a blast so far as a rogue! Gotta love /sneak.

@Kainzo I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but sneak tends to turn off at random, sometimes within 10 seconds of activating it. Is this to keep people from always being in sneak, or something? I heard somewhere that it was supposed to last for about 5 minutes. Rarely lasts longer than a minute for me. Never mind, I noticed your reply in the other thread.

@Alator Also, Alator was kind enough to "donate" almost 30 iron blocks to me.

 

[Kainzo]

Hard to say, seeing as you have to mine for a few days to get to the specialization paths for more skills. I'll get back to you next week

All paths have exp sources from everything - so mine or kill

 

[Kainzo]

Having a blast so far as a rogue! Gotta love /sneak.

@Kainzo I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but sneak tends to turn off at random, sometimes within 10 seconds of activating it. Is this to keep people from always being in sneak, or something? I heard somewhere that it was supposed to last for about 5 minutes. Rarely lasts longer than a minute for me. Never mind, I noticed your reply in the other thread.

@Alator Also, Alator was kind enough to "donate" almost 30 iron blocks to me.

I've increased Sneak to be 5min duration - we will adjust it more to make sure it works correctly for us.

 

[Draskuul]

@Kainzo

In terms of Heroes and the server's latest status: Great job, loving it, though of course it is still very early. I think some of the xp nerfs have been a little overly harsh, but I expect things like this to continue to be adjusted.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but just felt I had to make the following comments concerning the launch and the lead-up to the launch. (I come from a software company background so I tend to be more critical than most on these issues.) I consider these just issues to be kept in mind for the next wipe (which I'm sure is a matter of when, not if). Please don't take these personally

Pre-launch:

Mentioning any dates for the launch, and particularly ever uttering the word 'wipe', was a huge mistake. The server was all but dead for nearly a month before launch because of this. Fortunately this hasn't seemed to have had as huge of an impact as I anticipated on the server population, but I do know we have lost a number of people to other servers in the meantime.

Launch:

This was way too rushed. Watching the IRC traffic at release and the first few hours made it apparent that the entire server setup was done basically from scratch, on the fly.

I would have expected that complete server setup would have been configured prior to launch and tested. Issues like LWC and regions not being available at launch, the last-minute scramble to handle channels, the whitelist issue, map exploration/chunk initial generation, etc. All of these should have been completed ahead of time before even considering a firm date for switching maps. All you would need to do at launch was shut down the old server, bring over whitelists or data related to tiers/ranks, change the port number on the pre-live server to live, and fire it up. (I admit now I don't have first hand experience with this type of MC server setup, so I may be missing far more complex issues here, and if so my comments are basically null and void.)

 

[Dazureus]

I think that the launch, while a little aggravating, went pretty well all things considered.

I'm already enjoying the classes- We have a couple of healers camping out with us, they're a major benefit. Weynard's iron sword vs. our stone swords is making it tough to set up. It's annoying, but you can say "well, he IS a rogue, that's how that works." As a warrior, I can see us having an economic aspect- You're only as good as your suit of armor, and at least for now, iron is tough to part with.

I think that ore experience has been nerfed a bit harshly, perhaps bring coal up to 15ish, and raise gold to 8-10. There's enough to work with right off the bat that it doesn't feel like a grind, unless you want to hurry up and specialize. It takes a while, but it fits fairly well with Minecraft- it is what you want it to be.

It's easy to tell that this isn't a completed project though- Weapon/tool damage looks to be unaltered, and some of the classes don't look very interesting.

 

[Kainzo]

@Kainzo

In terms of Heroes and the server's latest status: Great job, loving it, though of course it is still very early. I think some of the xp nerfs have been a little overly harsh, but I expect things like this to continue to be adjusted.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but just felt I had to make the following comments concerning the launch and the lead-up to the launch. (I come from a software company background so I tend to be more critical than most on these issues.) I consider these just issues to be kept in mind for the next wipe (which I'm sure is a matter of when, not if). Please don't take these personally

Pre-launch:

Mentioning any dates for the launch, and particularly ever uttering the word 'wipe', was a huge mistake. The server was all but dead for nearly a month before launch because of this. Fortunately this hasn't seemed to have had as huge of an impact as I anticipated on the server population, but I do know we have lost a number of people to other servers in the meantime.

Launch:

This was way too rushed. Watching the IRC traffic at release and the first few hours made it apparent that the entire server setup was done basically from scratch, on the fly.

I would have expected that complete server setup would have been configured prior to launch and tested. Issues like LWC and regions not being available at launch, the last-minute scramble to handle channels, the whitelist issue, map exploration/chunk initial generation, etc. All of these should have been completed ahead of time before even considering a firm date for switching maps. All you would need to do at launch was shut down the old server, bring over whitelists or data related to tiers/ranks, change the port number on the pre-live server to live, and fire it up. (I admit now I don't have first hand experience with this type of MC server setup, so I may be missing far more complex issues here, and if so my comments are basically null and void.)

We've been working on this server for several weeks - in fact. However, some of these settings could not exist or change with the same configurations without dropping the old server - hours ahead of time. It was my choice - Either way - LWC and Regions arent in for good reasons - mostly because the majority of regioning power wont be available to t3+ anymore - LWC however will be.

The only mistakes that I can say were mine were in regards to the launch.sh being only 2GB (because we moved file directories and that was the test servers) - the other was Notch's bonehead mistake of adding in Max-Distance without going in depth about the complications if set to highly.

In regards to the "all you had to do" response - False. No minecraft server is this easy to port over and after being on that directory for 7+ months, I decided it best to have a FULL wipe of files - including logs/plugins etc - it was for a SMOOTHER launch. You can't just change the port and hope for the best. Granted, I could have solved SEVERAL of these issues by shutting down the server for 3-6 hours - but I gambled and lost on a few of them.

We couldnt pre-explore the map for integrity and I, and other admins, didn't have the time to do it - there aren't many 'nonplayers - staff' that could have handled it.

Thanks for the advice - I hope for a smoother release if we have another

I think that the launch, while a little aggravating, went pretty well all things considered.

I'm already enjoying the classes- We have a couple of healers camping out with us, they're a major benefit. Weynard's iron sword vs. our stone swords is making it tough to set up. It's annoying, but you can say "well, he IS a rogue, that's how that works." As a warrior, I can see us having an economic aspect- You're only as good as your suit of armor, and at least for now, iron is tough to part with.

I think that ore experience has been nerfed a bit harshly, perhaps bring coal up to 15ish, and raise gold to 8-10. There's enough to work with right off the bat that it doesn't feel like a grind, unless you want to hurry up and specialize. It takes a while, but it fits fairly well with Minecraft- it is what you want it to be.

It's easy to tell that this isn't a completed project though- Weapon/tool damage looks to be unaltered, and some of the classes don't look very interesting.

A few classes have yet to be completely configured - we're continuing to adjust them.

Tool damage adjustments just werent ready for release - we had to yank the code at the last moment.

Please note that this is a VOLUNTEER team, we don't get paid and we do this because we love coding and minecraft.

 

[Draskuul]

Thanks for the advice - I hope for a smoother release if we have another

Yep, and in the end that is the best goal to have. And as I disclaimed I haven't worked with MC servers specifically, so was making some assumptions. All in all, good job on the part of all the staff on this. While the launch was a little rough we are still up, we aren't having any major issues that I'm aware of, etc, etc. Good job!

 

[Alator]

I've though about it a bit more, and this is what I came up with. In the class system we have set up, the goal is to become a sweet Dragoon, or a valued Engineer, or a deadly Bloodmage. People aren't in it for the basic classes. Also, as far as I would think, most people aren't interested in Mastering everything (except for those few who have less of a life than a zombie). Mastering the basic class should be relatively simple, mastering the spec hard. While I am not saying OMG THIS ES TOOH HAURD NERF EXP PLOX!!1!, I think an average player's exp gain should be considered, then the limit modified to be able to Master the basic one in 2 weeks. Helps prevent people from burning out on the carrot they could never reach. Yes, this would mean dropping the exp needed drastically. Then, people will have to get the 100k or whatever the regular cap is to master the spec, making it seem more of an accomplishment. But having to mine 80-100k blocks (killing is too slow for exp gain), seems more of a way to limit the number of advanced classes to the most active than simply be a stepping stone to them. Slaying exp should be modified as well, but I think altering the basic exp needs would be a better start.

 

[Kainzo]

I've though about it a bit more, and this is what I came up with. In the class system we have set up, the goal is to become a sweet Dragoon, or a valued Engineer, or a deadly Bloodmage. People aren't in it for the basic classes. Also, as far as I would think, most people aren't interested in Mastering everything (except for those few who have less of a life than a zombie). Mastering the basic class should be relatively simple, mastering the spec hard. While I am not saying OMG THIS ES TOOH HAURD NERF EXP PLOX!!1!, I think an average player's exp gain should be considered, then the limit modified to be able to Master the basic one in 2 weeks. Helps prevent people from burning out on the carrot they could never reach. Yes, this would mean dropping the exp needed drastically. Then, people will have to get the 100k or whatever the regular cap is to master the spec, making it seem more of an accomplishment. But having to mine 80-100k blocks (killing is too slow for exp gain), seems more of a way to limit the number of advanced classes to the most active than simply be a stepping stone to them. Slaying exp should be modified as well, but I think altering the basic exp needs would be a better start.

I'm working on tweaking the gains, we will probably redo the move from Path -> specialization to be lower level but keep the max at 50 for specializations.

 

[Doreagarde]

Various exp changes - we're raising some of the ores to be more in line with the leveling process

Merry Christmas, bitches.