Suggestion Make Herocraft Great Again

[Egorh]

Off the bat this will be a long post, I'm going to try covering everything. Its going to be a mix of ranting and suggestions


Attributes
The current implementation of attributes is really not that good. As a Tier 1 class all your attributes are set from level 1. This means anything other than your health and mana have practically no level scaling. It also means that attributes play no role in tier 1 classes. Tier 2 classes can customize their own attributes but tier 2 has a bunch of other problems too..

Attribute customization is not 'noob' friendly. The GUI doesn't work, no noob knows what build to go, so on so forth. But without being able to customize your attributes they don't play enough of a role.

Solution A: Redesign attributes so that you can toggle between manual and automatic. Automatic would build up a set of attributes as you level while manual you will be able to choose what attributes you get.
Solution B: Rip it out. It either adds unnecessary complications or does not play any role.

Tier 2 Classes
I am really not a fan of T2 classes and their implementation. No one touches them without a boost which makes it feel like they exist purely to put more money towards Kainzo/the server.

The problems are pretty simple. You finish mastering your T1 class and then you switch to T2 and lose everything. You lose your skills and attributes and it takes even longer to gain them back for a really small bonus. "Well Egor the whole point of going T2 is to show that you are hardcore!" Good for you not being able to actively participate in all aspects of the game because you are lacking skills and attributes for making that hardcore decision.

Another small issue is the quality of some T2 skills. Some T2 classes' skill is beneficial and a great bonus (you can really notice the difference between the T1 and T2) while others are lackluster.

Solution A: Rip them out. It is another one of those things that adds another layer to the never ending stack of things to do.
Solution B: Make them take even longer to level but give everything they had at T1 level 60 to T2 level 1. Give it enough attribute points to make a build that could match the T1 (but they would be able to customize it at level 1) and give them their skills. Keep the leveling simple, 1-10 (level 10 having the bonus skill), but make it take a shit load of time to get maxed. Each level would give a good chunk of attribute points to make an impact. *I've already made a suggestion exactly like Solution B

Tier 3 Classes
What the fuck?

Back in Aegis Kainzo had made a thread displaying Soul Wielder, a class above all others but takes even more PvE to get to! This thread blew up because people hated the idea and heavily disagreed. So many people were pissed that this was even an idea posted by Kainzo. The thread ended up being taken down and left alone. Months later when the majority forgot about the initial T3 thread (Soul Wielder) Kainzo releases...TIER 3 CLASSES.

They really provide nothing but more work. Barely anyone goes them even if they are stupidly strong. The problem is that all it takes is one good PvPer to go one of these classes and wreck shit for it to be a problem. Then the balance team has work on balancing it based on that it needs to be stronger than other classes, but not too strong.

Solution: Rip them out

Parties
Make the god damn names green. I don't know why this is not a thing anymore, it made group fights a lot more enjoyable because you wouldn't waste anytime going after the wrong person (you would notice it right away).

Townships
All we need for townships is something simple, and straight forward. I would spend time trying to knit pick at our current system but I simply don't know much about it. All I know is that you can claim chunks and your town will slowly produce special materials over time. But the problem is that, that is all I know about the current townships. There are too many aspects that can easily drive someone away from starting up their own town.

Solution: Create a new simple township plugin. It starts you off with a base area, when you upgrade it expands said area. To upgrade it would cost a lot of money, diamonds, gold, iron, just regular minecraft materials on mass. To upgrade it should take a long time, it should not be easy (helps to provide end game things to do). For inter town politics keep it very simple. Set allies names to yellow, enemies to red, and have your own townies be blue.

Conquest Points
In my opinion this is one of the changes that was good for the server but it is still has problems.

The buildings. For the love of god you can steal something from anywhere else and get better buildings. These buildings keep getting reused. First it was created as the sewer mob arena in Dragongarde and now it has be reused as conquest points multiple times. Get some good unique buildings

The bonus experience is a good idea and I would like to see that kept.

I would also like to see it continue being integrated into the town system but maybe in a more simple way. You need X amount of item to upgrade, the conquest points gives said item.

1.9 Attack Speed
There are already multiple threads and posts debating this subject so I'll try to keep it short.

To make attack speed work well with our current system requires a lot of work. It requires both coding (reworking melee classes so it works well), and heavy balancing. Is it really worth all that work? The answer is no. Why stick with a system (in its current implementation) and have all this work piled up instead of setting the attacks per second to 10 and have it over with

Economy
Our custom currency, souls, is not needed. There were no major issues with the gold system. As long as you make mobs, and farming drop golden nuggets, it all works out quite well.

Make a huge money dump upgrading towns, this ain't Easycraft. Make server shops a big thing for both selling and buying. The server should be selling practically everything to keep money/items flowing. The server should also be buying everything for a certain price.

Having the server buying things from the players is good because it will allow people to actually PvE by setting up massive farms (like a cactus farm) so they can sell to the server. Allowing them to collect an item, sell it, and use that money (for upgrading their town perhaps).

I'd personally like to see the removal of both chestshops, and whatever market thing is mainly used. Having pure player trading promotes interaction, caution, and more.

Custom Items
I would personally like to see the removal of custom items. Although they are not one of the massive problems of Herocraft they are still something that adds to the unnecessary list.

They are not really providing anything 'good'. They provide people with an advantage that has nothing to do with skill and is something that Balance Team can't really account for.

Staff Teams
Admin/Mod
I do not really see a good solution to getting more admins/mods but there is a dire need for people with the power to do things. You can't choose someone from the existing veterans because most are biased and you can't really take any new players because they don't really know the system/community.

Proctor/Rules Team
There really needs to be new updated rules and the proper amount of people. I see people getting muted for no good reason or people not getting muted (there needs to be a fine line). I do believe shit talking should not be muteable.

I would also like to see the stealing and leaving/betraying your town results in a ban is brought back. Not many developed groups are willing to invite new people because they risk everything being stolen. Makes it hard for any new player to get into a well known town.

Balance Team
The one team I feel like does their best to do their job. It is just that some major changes make balancing extremely difficult. At the moment said change is attack speed and maybe a little from a different healing system

Dungeons/Adventure Map/Dungeon Heroes/Mythic Mobs
This honestly bugs me so much because there is no seperation from the Herocraft survival server and what has been the goal of Kainzo for years. Survival server has just become the live test for things Kainzo wants for Dungeon Heroes and it hasn't been working.

Dungeons, these massive buildings around the map filled with mythic mobs that give subpar experience and rewards. What is this giving the server? We reuse and recycle conquest points for maps but each dungeon has its own unique building. Why is something that has proven to 'make a difference' not getting focus compared to dungeons which only get used because they are there.

Mythic mobs, annoying mobs that take longer to kill. That is really all they are at the moment. I remember when they were first being implemented and how it came with crashes, bugs and way too much config work to make it worth it. They are finally in but they just don't make a difference.

Leveling/Experience Rates
What happened this map that fucked up the experience rates in parties?

It used to be that experience would be evenly split in the party but now it factors in people's level and tier. I presume this system is suppose to be rewarding those who are doing more work to kill the mobs because higher level obviously equates to more work/damage put in. This system is so flawed because a low level with one AOE can do more than a high level with none. Even if you base it on damage dealt to mobs, what about healers?

Solution: Just put it back to the old, even split experience.

Protection
Towns are fully regioned and are unbreakable (I don't even know if we have a current town raiding system). Do you really need anymore protection?

Deathchests are a massive helping hand to anyone but I just don't think they provide healthy gameplay. You die so lets give you a chance to get your items back (no matter where you are). You got your deathchest back but you died again, lets just drop another deathchest. There really is no punishment of losing your items when you die because of deathchests. No one is scared to die because they know that they will probably get all their stuff back.

LWCs are the ultimate protection. But is that really needed when towns are fully regioned? I personally am no longer a fan of LWCs. I'd like to see the only protection that no one can access be an enderchest (only giving you 27 protected slots).

Scrap residences and just have expensive spawn plots.

Macros
As much as requiring macros to truly enjoy the majority of PvP sucks it is currently still needed and is not something that is easy to fix.

Take a look at melee classes, it is extremely inconvenient to switch to another hotbar slot, while swinging, to right click an item bind. It just doesn't work well.

Healers need to bind all of their skills and some of them twice. Even with the new targeting system you need to have certain binds with the '-to' things to do your job properly

Casters/Pure kiting classes are the ones who can be played without macros because the only thing you are limited to is your skill count and what you bind (which is not the hard thing to fix).

We shouldn't be trying to bring some classes down (limit what they can do so those without macros can be somewhat on par) while others won't be touched (melee classes) because the problem is how heroes handles skill usage.

Arenas/Elo
Arenas were great because it helped create PvP when there was none to be found in the world. It helped people improve quickly. Instead of having to run from a graveyard, regear, heal up, wait on mana, so on so forth, you would be able to fight again and again. This allowed you to improve much more than world PvP would ever allow. I know that there has been an 'Arena Server' where you had to go to a different server to use them but it was just inconvenient. Being able to /duel someone on the live server was great. Without that you had to be like, "Do you wanna fight?! Come to the arena server! huehuehue."

Arenas and dueling allows for an elo system that makes it somewhat hard to 'camp' people for elo. The ratings would only be from duels and arenas, not real world PvP.

Class Reconstruction
KAINZO KEEP YOUR SLIMY HANDS OFF OF IT. You really should be letting the balance team/community do this. You have admitted that you are no good at class balancing. Class balancing and creation go hand in hand. KEEP THEM HANDS OFF KAINBRO
Kain edit - I never said I was bad at balancing, I said its not a one man job.


Kain Edit - class name changes aren't in stone, these were just funny/fun for me to rename, but were not perm choices.
Kainzo
Although Kainzo has been able to keep Herocraft up and running for over 5 years he has really only been able to do that well on the back end side of things. 'Server issues' have gotten much better over time but the content has not.

I feel like for every one good development decision made comes with three bad/meh ones.
Conquest points...PvE half of map, broken town plugin, 2nd broken town plugin.

The decisions that have really benefited the server are quite the small amount. You can probably argue that a lot of my opinions come from just a PvP standpoint but I don't really think so. A lot of what I have talked about will make it better for newer players. By removing things it makes it simpler for someone who has never played Herocraft before. By making towns simpler and the only protection it will make people race for upgrades (PvE). I can go at this from a lot of different angles but you get my point.

2500 unique weekly logins with a 60% retention rate. Retention meaning they log in the next day...This statistic got thrown at us while arguing with Kainzo to help him win the argument. Where are those 1000+ players that are supposed to be retained? The PvPers take this blame because we kill and camp every single one of them. This issue could have been reduced by doing something as simple as adding a cost to Herogates (so noobs can't run through them right off the bat).

The main reason noobs end up leaving is because there is too much shit too learn. Sure not everyone wants to install macro mod but installing macro mod is leagues easier than learning all about Herocraft.

Overall as a server owner I think Kainzo has done a good job running the server on the backend but a horrible job in development. I feel like to get Herocraft going again there needs to be a different person in charge of development. There needs to be a difference between Dungeon Heroes and survival.

The End

When is Dungeon Heroes/Adventure map coming? It has been in development since Dragongarde and coming soon since Zeal.

This took a lot of effort to type up and sadly it is probably not going to make a difference

@Kainzo @TimForReal @WitchOnaRampage @xexorian @Dielan9999 @Haxnn @victim130 @peeeeeeeeeew @Leo2596 @Avoir @911FashionPolice @Pugglez_ @Dreamcycler @Irishman81 @Anhwylder @Dwarfers @Zelphril @Moderators @Kenneth_Chow @Balance Team @everyoneelsetoo

 

[Egorh]

@joshtsai I suppose you hold a minor staff position

 

[Dreamcycler]

Agree with most of this, except i like custom items, and t2 classes, legendaries are shit and implemented rather poorly. Guess we have a lot to talk about on sunday.

 

[Dreamcycler]

Agree with most of this, except i like custom items, and t2 classes, legendaries are shit and implemented rather poorly. Guess we have a lot to talk about on sunday.

Also rip gold currency. Soul system isn't terrible but i feel gold just worked better.

 

[bluejack404]

I just got back after a very long absence, so these are my impressions as a new/old player who focuses more on building and mining than PvP. I don't want to say what's right and what's wrong; I'll just be focusing on my impressions based on my gameplay so far.

As a Tier 1 class all your attributes are set from level 1. This means anything other than your health and mana have practically no level scaling. It also means that attributes play no role in tier 1 classes. Tier 2 classes can customize their own attributes but tier 2 has a bunch of other problems too..

Attribute customization is not 'noob' friendly. The GUI doesn't work, no noob knows what build to go, so on so forth. But without being able to customize your attributes they don't play enough of a role.

I had no idea that attributes existed until you just now explained to me what that window that the /skills command opens up. So I'm gonna say you're probably on point about all of this. If attributes play no role in tier 1 classes, though, is it really all that bad that noobs don't know what they are?

My solution: I intend to copy/paste whatever build one of my PvPer friends tells me to choose for the class that I selected.

You finish mastering your T1 class and then you switch to T2 and lose everything. You lose your skills and attributes and it takes even longer to gain them back for a really small bonus. "Well Egor the whole point of going T2 is to show that you are hardcore!" Good for you not being able to actively participate in all aspects of the game because you are lacking skills and attributes for making that hardcore decision.

I didn't know this! I wouldn't like to lose all my skills and such after it took so long to build up. Unless...the map lasts long enough and I get bored and the tier 2 skills are better in the end. That's a lot of ands, but it's the only way I'd move up to tier 2, knowing this.

My solution: Enjoy tier 1. Switch to tier 2 only if asked to by my township or if I feel like it after having nothing to do for a little while.

Solution B: Make them take even longer to level but give everything they had at T1 level 60 to T2 level 1. Give it enough attribute points to make a build that could match the T1 (but they would be able to customize it at level 1) and give them their skills. Keep the leveling simple, 1-10 (level 10 having the bonus skill), but make it take a shit load of time to get maxed. Each level would give a good chunk of attribute points to make an impact.

That sounds awesome. But you admit later that noobs are often attacked by more advanced player. Wouldn't this worsen this particular problem while making tier 2 that much more attractive?

Solution: Create a new simple township plugin.

Start from scratch? No! The township plugin is awesome, and it's come so far. I'd hate to see it regress to its early days. Townships are so much fun, and I love that it's hard and takes so much cooperation. It really feels like this mod is a mini-game on its own--one that's particularly attractive to builders like myself--and that's great in my view. I'm excited to see this mod grow, rather than simplify.

For inter town politics keep it very simple. Set allies names to yellow, enemies to red, and have your own townies be blue.

I like this a lot.

I'd personally like to see the removal of both chestshops, and whatever market thing is mainly used. Having pure player trading promotes interaction, caution, and more.

I'm shy. I like interaction, but minimal interaction is always better. And as a person who exercises advanced caution when visiting shops, I assure you that caution is not something this game needs more of.

They are not really providing anything 'good'. They provide people with an advantage that has nothing to do with skill and is something that Balance Team can't really account for.

I'm really enjoying the custom items.

I do not really see a good solution to getting more admins/mods but there is a dire need for people with the power to do things. You can't choose someone from the existing veterans because most are biased and you can't really take any new players because they don't really know the system/community.

As a former mod, I can definitely say that there's a learning curve involved in learning how to properly mod. I'm a naturally anxious person, and I often found myself asking someone else for help. A training manual should help with learning the system. A code of ethics and effective consequences for abuse of that code can help with the bias.

At least the latter is already in place. Honestly, though, I found a lot of the claims of bias to be a little (and I don't mean to be dismissive) unfounded. I'm sure that everyone is biased to some extent, but on the whole, the people that are selected to be mods and admins are making the best decisions they can with the information that they have.

Deathchests are a massive helping hand to anyone but I just don't think they provide healthy gameplay. You die so lets give you a chance to get your items back (no matter where you are). You got your deathchest back but you died again, lets just drop another deathchest. There really is no punishment of losing your items when you die because of deathchests. No one is scared to die because they know that they will probably get all their stuff back.

Smaller deathchests maybe? Or only the stuff in your backpack is stuff that you get to keep? I honestly understand where you're coming from, but I hate losing lapis to a random attack. I'm sure a middle ground is possible here that respects PvP and also attends to the needs of builders (who mostly wind up annoyed that they got sniped while moving items from site to site).

LWCs are the ultimate protection. But is that really needed when towns are fully regioned? I personally am no longer a fan of LWCs. I'd like to see the only protection that no one can access be an enderchest (only giving you 27 protected slots).

LWCs cost money already to keep people from having too many. But 27 protected slots is definitely not enough. Assume that I'm a builder, and I'm putting together something small...like a mage tower. I'm making my tower of stone brick, 20 blocks in diameter. That's going to cost me 56 blocks of stone brick for just one level. But this is a tower. I need more than just one level of blocks. I need....30. That's 1,680 blocks--or 26 and a quarter stacks of stone brick. I just filled up the one LWCed chest you offered me, and that's assuming I didn't want a wooden floor, a lapis roof, and stained glass windows. Or any decorations or lighting.

We need those LWCs. We need them badly. Make us pay for them, but let us have them.

 

[Egorh]

Thought I should mention that I made it to be discussed in the meeting on sunday because I don't know if I'll make it

 

[RegularHumanMode]

Attributes:
Yeah, I agree. I've played for however long and I straight up have no clue how it works (although I could probably figure it out with a trip to the wiki/a recc from a vet). I think it would do a lot to streamline classes if attributed were removed/ at max level an option was given to customize for more unique gameplay.

T2:
Never gone, so I don't really know. Should take a large grind though since it is totally optional. A good T1 can take down a decent T2. Should start T2 at about the proficiency of a lv40-50 T1 so they're not totally taken out of combat until they level, and end at what would be like a lv65-70 T1 (if that level existed).

T3:
Never gone, so I don't really know. I do see the issues of balance though. Good PvPers are the only ones who would go for T3 and they already slay.

Parties:
I thought this was already being added back.

Townships:
I actual like the townships. It wasn't complicated at all, and added some extra stuff to the Towny plugin. Materials encourage town trading. Stuff is already super expensive for towns.

Conquest:
I know @Jrr_ was working on some different ones. As for the mechanics of it all, I haven't actively done anything with them since I've been breaking since shortly after they were added.

1.9 combat:
I don't care any more. Do whatever you feel like.

Economy:
I actually totally disagree with you on this. The server has been trying to get as many money dumps in to keep as much out of circulation as possible. If we add admin shops buying from players the economy would go to total shit. The mode of currency I don't especially care about, but I think that giving different levels of souls is good just because it gives you that bit of excitement when you mine up a higher tier of soul.

Custom Items:
I feel like there should be a reward for the grind other than just levels. Custom items add a little extra something to the mix, but I do see the issues with balance.

Staff:
Adeem/Mod, yeah
Proctor/Guide, yeah
Balance, you guys have said it yourself that you're all biased for your favorite classes. I get that it's a lot of work though in something so direct to the HC experience.

Dungeons Heroes:
Eh, being on the Adventure Team and looking at the stuff we have/are planning I wouldn't call Survival a test at all. Some of the stuff might be similar, but they're mostly different.

Getting to the point in the post where I'm getting tired and remembering I am waking up at 4:00 to go surfing...

Leveling:
Yeah

Protection:
I've never used LWC's and no one steals my stuff. People should just get better at protecting. Plus yeah, raiding.

Macros:
Something that's just difficult to get around. No great solution.

Arenas/ELO:
Sounds cool. Arena ELO could be a fun thing to work for.

Classes:
Yeah, there should be less skills. GW2 each class has 5 skills and I enjoy the PvP in that game. Makes stuff less complicated for newbies. And I think a lot of those names were fillers, not final names.

Kainzo:
I mean, I think he's done a decent job. Some stuff has missed the mark, yes, but other things have been good. More steps have been going on to get the community more involved with decision making.

 

[Dielan9999]

Wow wall of text much? I'll respond to what I can. Since like @bluejack404 I too am a long time player that went on a looooong hiatus I'd like to preface this with some background that I've never sought out PVP, but I do wish for it to exist. I enjoy building but i'm not like those rediculous builders on planet minecraft and I will never be THAT good. What makes building well on Herocraft thrilling for me is that I am under threat of danger. Building anything pretty in Herocraft always came at a risk and made the payoff all the sweeter, but if PVP and building were separated neither would be fun.

On to your post then.

Attributes
The current implementation of attributes is really not that good. As a Tier 1 class all your attributes are set from level 1. This means anything other than your health and mana have practically no level scaling. It also means that attributes play no role in tier 1 classes. Tier 2 classes can customize their own attributes but tier 2 has a bunch of other problems too..

Attribute customization is not 'noob' friendly. The GUI doesn't work, no noob knows what build to go, so on so forth. But without being able to customize your attributes they don't play enough of a role.

Solution A: Redesign attributes so that you can toggle between manual and automatic. Automatic would build up a set of attributes as you level while manual you will be able to choose what attributes you get.
Solution B: Rip it out. It either adds unnecessary complications or does not play any role.

I have a better idea - perhaps attirbutes should be supplemented by presets that the less pvp inclined can just use without having to tinker with their points and leave the pvp enthusiasts to do that. In fact you could probably have an option implemented to distribute them automatically for those who don't care as much.

Tier 2 Classes
I am really not a fan of T2 classes and their implementation. No one touches them without a boost which makes it feel like they exist purely to put more money towards Kainzo/the server.

The problems are pretty simple. You finish mastering your T1 class and then you switch to T2 and lose everything. You lose your skills and attributes and it takes even longer to gain them back for a really small bonus. "Well Egor the whole point of going T2 is to show that you are hardcore!" Good for you not being able to actively participate in all aspects of the game because you are lacking skills and attributes for making that hardcore decision.

Another small issue is the quality of some T2 skills. Some T2 classes' skill is beneficial and a great bonus (you can really notice the difference between the T1 and T2) while others are lackluster.

Solution A: Rip them out. It is another one of those things that adds another layer to the never ending stack of things to do.
Solution B: Make them take even longer to level but give everything they had at T1 level 60 to T2 level 1. Give it enough attribute points to make a build that could match the T1 (but they would be able to customize it at level 1) and give them their skills. Keep the leveling simple, 1-10 (level 10 having the bonus skill), but make it take a shit load of time to get maxed. Each level would give a good chunk of attribute points to make an impact. *I've already made a suggestion exactly like Solution B

Tier 3 Classes
What the fuck?

Back in Aegis Kainzo had made a thread displaying Soul Wielder, a class above all others but takes even more PvE to get to! This thread blew up because people hated the idea and heavily disagreed. So many people were pissed that this was even an idea posted by Kainzo. The thread ended up being taken down and left alone. Months later when the majority forgot about the initial T3 thread (Soul Wielder) Kainzo releases...TIER 3 CLASSES.

They really provide nothing but more work. Barely anyone goes them even if they are stupidly strong. The problem is that all it takes is one good PvPer to go one of these classes and wreck shit for it to be a problem. Then the balance team has work on balancing it based on that it needs to be stronger than other classes, but not too strong.

Solution: Rip them out

I like the idea of T2 classes, but T3 has always confused me. Given our current problem of PVP addicts just camping all the new players until they quit on purpose giving them a super weapon like T3 classes will be the death of the server. They should just be removed from the game I agree with you there.

Parties
Make the god damn names green. I don't know why this is not a thing anymore, it made group fights a lot more enjoyable because you wouldn't waste anytime going after the wrong person (you would notice it right away).

Yes.

Townships
All we need for townships is something simple, and straight forward. I would spend time trying to knit pick at our current system but I simply don't know much about it. All I know is that you can claim chunks and your town will slowly produce special materials over time. But the problem is that, that is all I know about the current townships. There are too many aspects that can easily drive someone away from starting up their own town.

Solution: Create a new simple township plugin. It starts you off with a base area, when you upgrade it expands said area. To upgrade it would cost a lot of money, diamonds, gold, iron, just regular minecraft materials on mass. To upgrade it should take a long time, it should not be easy (helps to provide end game things to do). For inter town politics keep it very simple. Set allies names to yellow, enemies to red, and have your own townies be blue.

I disagree with you here. I think the township plugin is the best it has ever been. It's automated and relatively easy. By enabling chunk-based claiming for your region you can enable newer players who don't have the income to support the townships of days past to actually make their own towns and not go bankrupt. Older communities like mine can go make huge towns and everybody benefits. It's only 100c daily for upkeep on a one-chunk sized township and with the voting system and how easy money is to get on this map it's reasonably obtained by a crew of any size or level of experience with Herocraft and I'd like that to stay the way it is.

I will say though that this new system encourages super towns and discourages kingdoms/alliances. There isn't much reason to do so. In maps previous we aspired to become kingdoms for the massive regions in-between our towns that we would get as reward. That incentive is now gone and we're better off making super towns, but i'm not sure if that's worse because I kinda like not having to micromanage struggling towns to keep a kingdom going.

Conquest Points
In my opinion this is one of the changes that was good for the server but it is still has problems.

The buildings. For the love of god you can steal something from anywhere else and get better buildings. These buildings keep getting reused. First it was created as the sewer mob arena in Dragongarde and now it has be reused as conquest points multiple times. Get some good unique buildings

The bonus experience is a good idea and I would like to see that kept.

I would also like to see it continue being integrated into the town system but maybe in a more simple way. You need X amount of item to upgrade, the conquest points gives said item.

I don't care so much for their current appearance but I think there should be more of them. Perhaps more that don't give an exp boost but an item drop boost? If they did that i'd prefer these keeps be further away from the herogates. In fact the existing keeps should be further away from the herogates too while we're at it.

Economy
Our custom currency, souls, is not needed. There were no major issues with the gold system. As long as you make mobs, and farming drop golden nuggets, it all works out quite well.

Make a huge money dump upgrading towns, this ain't Easycraft. Make server shops a big thing for both selling and buying. The server should be selling practically everything to keep money/items flowing. The server should also be buying everything for a certain price.

Having the server buying things from the players is good because it will allow people to actually PvE by setting up massive farms (like a cactus farm) so they can sell to the server. Allowing them to collect an item, sell it, and use that money (for upgrading their town perhaps).

I'd personally like to see the removal of both chestshops, and whatever market thing is mainly used. Having pure player trading promotes interaction, caution, and more.

With the way ore regenerates I'm not sure if going back to the gold standard would work. As for chest shops i think the problem is controlling where people gather. You see shops at herogates because they are frequently travelled but there isn't many other places to consistently expect players except for the dungeons. I think there needs to be more map-based points of interest or objectives and that would change how chestshops are used.

Custom Items
I would personally like to see the removal of custom items. Although they are not one of the massive problems of Herocraft they are still something that adds to the unnecessary list.

They are not really providing anything 'good'. They provide people with an advantage that has nothing to do with skill and is something that Balance Team can't really account for.

I disagree. It makes going to dungeons feel rewarding because you can get things you can't get anywhere else.

Staff Teams
Admin/Mod
I do not really see a good solution to getting more admins/mods but there is a dire need for people with the power to do things. You can't choose someone from the existing veterans because most are biased and you can't really take any new players because they don't really know the system/community.

Proctor/Rules Team
There really needs to be new updated rules and the proper amount of people. I see people getting muted for no good reason or people not getting muted (there needs to be a fine line). I do believe shit talking should not be muteable.

I would also like to see the stealing and leaving/betraying your town results in a ban is brought back. Not many developed groups are willing to invite new people because they risk everything being stolen. Makes it hard for any new player to get into a well known town.

Balance Team
The one team I feel like does their best to do their job. It is just that some major changes make balancing extremely difficult. At the moment said change is attack speed and maybe a little from a different healing system

Not many developed groups are willing to invite new people because they risk everything being stolen. Makes it hard for any new player to get into a well known town.

Preach it!!

The only reason I'm comfortable with recruiting in the slightest is because of the collective number of LWCs owned by my township. A thief really couldn't hurt me at this point. What about new towns started by newbies though? What is going to help them?

As for the staff teams. What purpose do proctors serve these days? I think they should merge with the Herald team and just be thread bumpers on the official minecraft forums. I also think there should be more moderators and they should mute people wayyyy the fuck more often for the kind of shit we hear in chat channels today. Public chats are in a sorry state right now.

Dungeons/Adventure Map/Dungeon Heroes/Mythic Mobs
This honestly bugs me so much because there is no seperation from the Herocraft survival server and what has been the goal of Kainzo for years. Survival server has just become the live test for things Kainzo wants for Dungeon Heroes and it hasn't been working.

Dungeons, these massive buildings around the map filled with mythic mobs that give subpar experience and rewards. What is this giving the server? We reuse and recycle conquest points for maps but each dungeon has its own unique building. Why is something that has proven to 'make a difference' not getting focus compared to dungeons which only get used because they are there.

Mythic mobs, annoying mobs that take longer to kill. That is really all they are at the moment. I remember when they were first being implemented and how it came with crashes, bugs and way too much config work to make it worth it. They are finally in but they just don't make a difference.

I very much enjoy the dungeons and mythic mobs. Everything about the PVE experience is 100% better than it was on Haven map when I went on hiatus, and all the maps before that one that had basic mobs. This fits HC so much better.

I do think we need more rare mobs though. Many people take the red herogate to the nether flats to level up because pig zombies and mythic mob wraiths spawn there in abundance and I think there should be worthwhile rare mobs like the wraiths in other biomes.

If anything we should have another map that's filled with even more dungeons that you can't make townships on. Perhaps give runesmith something to do about getting shortcuts into that map from it's spawn.

Leveling/Experience Rates
What happened this map that fucked up the experience rates in parties?

It used to be that experience would be evenly split in the party but now it factors in people's level and tier. I presume this system is suppose to be rewarding those who are doing more work to kill the mobs because higher level obviously equates to more work/damage put in. This system is so flawed because a low level with one AOE can do more than a high level with none. Even if you base it on damage dealt to mobs, what about healers?

Solution: Just put it back to the old, even split experience.

Yeah, even splits please. I very much enjoy staying at lvl 60 T2 and carrying newer players to a high level so they stand a chance in pvp lol How else are they going to survive?

Protection
Towns are fully regioned and are unbreakable (I don't even know if we have a current town raiding system). Do you really need anymore protection?

Deathchests are a massive helping hand to anyone but I just don't think they provide healthy gameplay. You die so lets give you a chance to get your items back (no matter where you are). You got your deathchest back but you died again, lets just drop another deathchest. There really is no punishment of losing your items when you die because of deathchests. No one is scared to die because they know that they will probably get all their stuff back.

LWCs are the ultimate protection. But is that really needed when towns are fully regioned? I personally am no longer a fan of LWCs. I'd like to see the only protection that no one can access be an enderchest (only giving you 27 protected slots).

Scrap residences and just have expensive spawn plots.

I disagree with this. Especially now that open griefing is legal. It would ruin any remaining incentive to build structures on the server. This is not a pvp server, this is an RPG server that has many spheres of gameplay. Removing protections just caters to the PVP crowd cuz they can't handle getting mad about not being able to kill someone sitting inside a res or township. Personally I think anybody should be able to craft and place enderchests too because they are a natural form of protection that newer players who can't afford LWC could utilize. Can you imagine how many new players quit Herocraft after hauling in their first mining trip of resources to their home and got ganked? I don't blame a single one of them for quitting. Even if they joined a town or not.

Macros
As much as requiring macros to truly enjoy the majority of PvP sucks it is currently still needed and is not something that is easy to fix.

Take a look at melee classes, it is extremely inconvenient to switch to another hotbar slot, while swinging, to right click an item bind. It just doesn't work well.

Healers need to bind all of their skills and some of them twice. Even with the new targeting system you need to have certain binds with the '-to' things to do your job properly

Casters/Pure kiting classes are the ones who can be played without macros because the only thing you are limited to is your skill count and what you bind (which is not the hard thing to fix).

We shouldn't be trying to bring some classes down (limit what they can do so those without macros can be somewhat on par) while others won't be touched (melee classes) because the problem is how heroes handles skill usage.

Macro mod is included in technic i don't see why this is such a big deal. Aside from the new healing macro system sucking - i get that.

Arenas/Elo
Arenas were great because it helped create PvP when there was none to be found in the world. It helped people improve quickly. Instead of having to run from a graveyard, regear, heal up, wait on mana, so on so forth, you would be able to fight again and again. This allowed you to improve much more than world PvP would ever allow. I know that there has been an 'Arena Server' where you had to go to a different server to use them but it was just inconvenient. Being able to /duel someone on the live server was great. Without that you had to be like, "Do you wanna fight?! Come to the arena server! huehuehue."

Arenas and dueling allows for an elo system that makes it somewhat hard to 'camp' people for elo. The ratings would only be from duels and arenas, not real world PvP.

Yes please. I remember sitting in my town, bored, setting up fights in /ch LFG and warping in and out of the pvp arena with no risk of losing my items. Those were good times, it made people like me who have nothing to gain and alot to lose in world pvp a chance to fight for fun. This is an RPG and you can't assume your pvp opponent you're ganking is having fun. It's a totally different setting for pvp that would bring some light back to the pvp-side of our community.

Class Reconstruction
KAINZO KEEP YOUR SLIMY HANDS OFF OF IT. You really should be letting the balance team/community do this. You have admitted that you are no good at class balancing. Class balancing and creation go hand in hand. KEEP THEM HANDS OFF KAINBRO

http://i.imgur.com/ykFGXQj.png this picture that you linked me...no. You called it class restructuring. I suppose you could argue that it is but all you are doing is taking away some skills, merging others, and then renaming the class. What? I agree that Herocraft needs some new classes and work on existing classes but this spread sheet is not what you want.

I agree that all classes should be reworked to have 6-7 skills but this is not the way to go about it.

I'd like to take some time to point out that the name changes are horrible and pointless. You are trying to brand a class as something else when it is basically the same thing (some of them I don't mind as name changes in general but most I'm not a fan of). Its like some T2 names that got cut from the roster

• Shovel Knight? Shovel Knight?!
• Holy Defender...
• Bloodromaner? More like BLOODROMANO
• Spirit Watcher?

I'd prefer we keep all the existing classes too.

Kainzo
Although Kainzo has been able to keep Herocraft up and running for over 5 years he has really only been able to do that well on the back end side of things. 'Server issues' have gotten much better over time but the content has not.

I feel like for every one good development decision made comes with three bad/meh ones.
Conquest points...PvE half of map, broken town plugin, 2nd broken town plugin.

The decisions that have really benefited the server are quite the small amount. You can probably argue that a lot of my opinions come from just a PvP standpoint but I don't really think so. A lot of what I have talked about will make it better for newer players. By removing things it makes it simpler for someone who has never played Herocraft before. By making towns simpler and the only protection it will make people race for upgrades (PvE). I can go at this from a lot of different angles but you get my point.

2500 unique weekly logins with a 60% retention rate. Retention meaning they log in the next day...This statistic got thrown at us while arguing with Kainzo to help him win the argument. Where are those 1000+ players that are supposed to be retained? The PvPers take this blame because we kill and camp every single one of them. This issue could have been reduced by doing something as simple as adding a cost to Herogates (so noobs can't run through them right off the bat).

The main reason noobs end up leaving is because there is too much shit too learn. Sure not everyone wants to install macro mod but installing macro mod is leagues easier than learning all about Herocraft.

Overall as a server owner I think Kainzo has done a good job running the server on the backend but a horrible job in development. I feel like to get Herocraft going again there needs to be a different person in charge of development. There needs to be a difference between Dungeon Heroes and survival.

But dungeons and mythic mobs are my favorite new part of HC. They should not be seperate. If you think he needs more coding staff sure maybe, but idk.[/QUOTE]

 

[bluejack404]

Kainzo:
I mean, I think he's done a decent job. Some stuff has missed the mark, yes, but other things have been good. More steps have been going on to get the community more involved with decision making.

I ignored that part of the OP because I didn't know what to say to it, but I'm quoting you because I think this was succinctly put.

 

[Dewyn]

Not sure why I was tagged, but here goes.

Attributes

Spoiler

I miss the way attributes worked when I first started, which was having to allocate them from level 1. That was what made me feel like I was actually experiencing progress and change and growth, not these mythic mob dungeons. Never once have I ever felt I was growing any stronger in dungeons; I wouldn't bothering leveling at all if it weren't for skills since all my attributes are already there. Attributes gave me an incentive for each level and the skill scaling really made a difference for me. That is where the "feeling of growth" was on old HC. Seeing the numbers in /skills increase (before the GUI stuff; I just /hero skills [class] now because that's so much nicer - /skills doesn't give you any information about the skill at all, which needs to change for it to be useful, as well as maybe organizing the skills by level and then class [combat/prof]) was great.

While I'm at it, can we get rid of "allocation points" and replace them with a solid 1-1 system? Right now you get 8 points a level but the stats consume unspecified higher quantities of points as they get higher up (it gets noticeable around 15 of a stat). Instead of that, let's just distribute a single or double stat point (it would be spaced out so some levels would get two) to match the 100 total.

Yes, this might lead to people putting 100 points in intellect or something and getting ridiculously overpowered skills, but a stat cap might be in order then (30-35 would be adequate - cap it or make it stop scaling, like Dark Souls doesn't scale up dex builds past 40 dex).

T2/T3 Classes

Spoiler

I have never liked T2 classes because they offer nothing but a slightly higher stat pool for a ridiculously higher amount of work. The "special T2 skill" is generally not worth grinding for. T3 feels like a money sink because it's either you grind every single class to 60 to make sure you get it or drop real money to find out what needs to be mastered. Don't get me wrong, every server needs an income to stay afloat (whenever I saw a certain someone hadn't paid for the hosting for that month it put me on edge; this was last time I worked consistently on a server), but this was not the way to implement it. (I think the boost tip jar might have been the single greatest innovation in terms of income because I've seen more boosts this map than ever before. And I'm okay with that.)

Spoiler

I rarely if ever see anyone using them; one person had Grandmaster last map and while their party did wreck us it was probably because it was a 2v4. Right now the class doesn't even look worth grinding for.

Leveling, Exp, Dungeons, MythicMobs

Spoiler

The best experience I had on HC was when I first joined, during Aegis, and I had to master LostSoul to pick a class.

Spoiler

That really felt like something to work for. Aegis, I felt driven to level classes to see results. On Valorium I mastered necro, wiz, and druid and proceeded to stop caring (though I also mastered DK, Runeblade, Paladin, Disciple, Pyromancer, Dragoon/Dragonknight, and Ranger in no particular order). (I hate to cut in to gush but Druid was an amazing 1v1 back then, haven't played it lately though). The leveling was no longer rewarding. It was bearable, however, and even fun in parties because Valorium's dungeons worked oddly well. Standard mobs have always felt best on Survival, with occasional random "boss" mobs.

Valorium dungeons were actually challenging, requiring thought and a good group to stay alive because they were actually dangerous (at least the good ones were - the ice tower/hell pit was amazing). The leveling rate was also tolerable, I even got within three levels of mastering Defiler before I got bored.

These new dungeons belong on DH, not HC. Keep them separate. My best suggestion for DH dungeons is to make them instances. Dungeoning on, say, RIFT is fun because you get a balanced party and there is a quest line to work through within the dungeon, which is challenging without becoming tedious. Doing raids on RIFT is fun no matter what class you are; as a tank class you draw aggro for the DPS classes; as DPS you get to uh...do damage, and as a healer it's incredibly satisfying to see everyone being healed constantly A raid is essentially a large scale dungeon, with a quest line to work through in each area of the dungeon (which is very large).

Do that on DH. Make dungeons feel worth it. Keep open world mobs. Dungeons on RIFT are still a more viable leveling method because the mobs give more exp and better drops but they are not stupidly tedious like the mythicmobs we have, which give poor exp and no drops after left clicking them for several minutes. Making it feel worthwhile is going to be a combination of a reason to keep moving through the dungeon (not wandering but moving from point A to point B to point C and so on, and designing dungeons for a more linear quest experience) and balancing mobs to require a tank to stop them wrecking your party (MythicMobs has a threat system but I'd prefer custom Heroes mobs with a more sophisticated group threat AI and a threat modifier for tanks. Also MythicMobs is just stupid and the skills are annoying and I hate it and it needs to go away forever. I'd be happier with mobs that used Heroes skills, I wouldn't care if I got fireballed by a zombie because it would always be better than "Bacon Inquisitor: used Throw!" and immediately after "Bacon Inquisitor: used Teleport!" with a two second cooldown).

What people need to understand about Conquest is that it was what Herocraft once was and what it could have been - this statement was made in our initial Skype meetings and in our Slack at the beginning.

It is entirely possible to mix PvP and PvE on Survival without merging HC and DH. The way Conquest was designed placed heavy emphasis on world PvP as well as viable open world mob leveling with mob arenas as an option, as well as instanced dungeons which would provide exp, money, PvE only gear (no benefits in PvP thanks to NBT tags), and most importantly township materials (we commissioned a dev to write a townships but he was just flat out bad). To top it all we had rifts to provide both open world PvE and hotspots for PvP. I tried hard to integrate PvE/RPG elements with a PvP focused world and I think it would have worked had we had proper management.

The amount of support we got was fantastic, and while I'm not trying to turn HC into CQ, I'm not going to pretend we didn't have something going that people wanted to see and experience. I constantly got messages asking how development was going and when we were going to release.

Moving forward by moving back might be the best idea for Survival until better things can be implemented. I would love it if Valorium came back. The map was beautiful. The dungeons were as described above. With the new tip jar there might be more boosts. In the beginning you couldn't go five feet without PvP and it was great. Just make the entire map PvP this time. Would give people a reason to group up and play together.

I'm really too tired and confused to write more so I'll leave it at this. Also, the class rebranding...it's silly. The new class names don't appeal to me at all. Like it or not, the server needs a breath of new life. Maps die stupidly fast now. We can run from it, or we can face it (I was gonna be cliche and say "like heroes" but I did not). Valorium lasted months; this map (what is it called?) lasted less than two.

EDIT: I don't know why but for some reason the post keeps inserting like 10 spoiler tags one after another, bear with me. It keeps auto adding them back in after removal, just click both spoilers and it forms a cohesive paragraph.

EDIT 2: I will code the hell out of this shit if you are willing to try it. Rifts already exists and is currently being rewritten for a premium version (trying to build my portfolio by releasing this one free and the rewrite premium because I need money to visit my girlfriend ._.). With an actual incentive to do it, I could take a crack at instance dungeons. New classes would be child's play.

EDIT 3: WHY IS THIS POST DOUBLE SPACED

EDIT 4: I have tried my best to summon up and channel my old frustrations into something constructive. I expect some sort of countermand.

 

[Jrr_]

I've made 2 conquest points but they havent been pasted in

 

[radicater11]

I agree with a lot of what you said, but as I'm pressed for time, I'll focus on one thing. The proctors are pretty screwed in the current system. Our handbook tells us to do one thing, but then we are told to do another by basically the whole upper staff. Most of the proctors are just too scared to do anything for fear of losing their title, and to be completely honest, half the time it's hard to discern what is acceptable in chat, as the chat rules are so vague. Some of the upper staff agree with giving proctors more free reign, but Kain doesn't see us as true staff, and believes we should be even more heavily moderated than the players. This is why you don't see proctors muting very often, as it's just easier to let the more credible moderators and admins do it instead.

 

[Egorh]

I forgot about the old dungeons. Overall they were so much better as it has been pointed out above. It was very difficult to solo them and you actually needed a group of people to get experience properly.

I wouldn't mind seeing old dungeons make a return instead of keeping these new ones

 

[Donal]

I forgot about the old dungeons. Overall they were so much better as it has been pointed out above. It was very difficult to solo them and you actually needed a group of people to get experience properly.

I wouldn't mind seeing old dungeons make a return instead of keeping these new ones

Mhm.

 

[Leo2596]

EDIT 2: I will code the hell out of this shit if you are willing to try it. Rifts already exists and is currently being rewritten for a premium version (trying to build my portfolio by releasing this one free and the rewrite premium because I need money to visit my girlfriend ._.). With an actual incentive to do it, I could take a crack at instance dungeons. New classes would be child's play.

No

 

[Eldrex]

I highly agree with a lot of content in this post. There are some things I feel I need to pick at though, but overall I would be very happy to see most of this implemented...

• I believe that dungeons should stay in the game, but Mythic Mobs should ONLY SPAWN AT DUNGEONS....Currently me, and many other players' main source of income and exp is from killing Elites and Pig Zombies at the Southwest Herogate. Making it so mythic mobs only spawn at Dungeons would be a game changer. It would require people to have to actually utilize dungeons. This would create more Player Vs. Player opportunities and would add more risk to leveling. It would also make mining and farming more of a valid option for gaining currency, since the Elites at SW will no longer be there, requiring you to risk your life at a dungeon

• I can see why you would want Residences and LWC's to be removed, due to the fact they would make townships for viable since they offer complete protection, but in some cases I disagree. If you do not want to join a town due to being unable to pay tax, or you simply just don't want to be in one, both residences and LWC's are good for these independent players. Residences allow you to protect your structures, but they also have some interesting flags. Residences have flags that allow you to immediately leave combat upon going inside one. They also protect chests at the moment. I believe that the Player Vs. Player flag for residences should be fixed so that if you are ALREADY in combat, you will stay in combat, just like spawn or the Herogate area. Players should also be able to open your chests, requiring you to be more careful and place blocks over your chests, but I do believe this is being added already.

• I do agree that Death Chests / Cenotaphs do create an unhealthy environment for Player Vs. Player. They allow you to simply run to a Herogate and not have to worry about death... But, in chat I often see new players getting upset and worried about losing their items, and saying "oh screw this, I'm going to quit" or something along the lines of that (until someone tells them about cenotaphs that is). An alternative to completely removing them is making it so that through levels 1-20 you will drop a death chest. This would allow for new players, or people who have recently started a class to have a chance to get their items back upon death. Levels 21 or higher would not drop a death chest though, adding some risk and hopefully destroying the unhealthy Player Vs. Player environment that Herocraft currently has (no more running back to the Herogate).

• Having to download the Herocraft Modpack is a critical problem that often deters new players, but as said in earlier posts, there is really no good way to avoid this without completely reworking how skills are bound. If a new way of binding skills was created, it would have to work so that you do not need to switch weapons / slots at all, but I am not really sure how that would be done... I've used to plugin Skill API in the past, which allows you to have skills cast based on click combos, but unless classes were reworked to have less skills as mentioned earlier, there would be too many combinations to make it reasonable in combat or PvE.

• As for the ELO and Arena system I think this is a fantastic idea! The only thing I worry about is friends or townies grinding ELO off of each other. Either a rule, like for farming medals, or some other sort of safe system would have to be added. Perhaps if you kill someone too many times within a certain amount of time (in the arenas) you go into a cool-down and cannot attack or be attacked by them for a certain amount of time?

This is all I have to say for these matters. I agree with everything else. Also going to tag @Kainzo just in case any of my ideas here may be of use. Thanks for reading ​

 

[Kainzo]

Steer clear about sensitive information I provide to key members of the community. Chewing it up as systems set in stone before completion is a sign of a novice. (and sharing it in a mocking way is insulting)

These will be addressed at the meeting. We're a roleplaying game server. We have RPG systems all through this, we always have since before MC had pvp. Our primary focus has been on the "hardcore" side of things though.

We won't be back pedaling major installments because you just feel they are bad for your one system (pvp). However, I believe in tuning is key to many of these systems instead of complete removal.

Toxicity is also being removed in abundance, so choose words wisely and think before throwing massive insults out.

 

[Egorh]

Steer clear about sensitive information I provide to key members of the community. Chewing it up as systems set in stone before completion is a sign of a novice. (and sharing it in a mocking way is insulting)

These will be addressed at the meeting. We're a roleplaying game server. We have RPG systems all through this, we always have since before MC had pvp. Our primary focus has been on the "hardcore" side of things though.

We won't be back pedaling major installments because you just feel they are bad for your one system (pvp). However, I believe in tuning is key to many of these systems instead of complete removal.

Toxicity is also being removed in abundance, so choose words wisely and think before throwing massive insults out.

Just to your one edit on my post I clearly remember you saying before that you are not good at doing 'class things'.

 

[Kainzo]

Just to your one edit on my post I clearly remember you saying before that you are not good at doing 'class things'.

I wont be taking the general lack of respect you are dishing, change the tone.

The Dungeon Heroes project is a side project in my spare time that I grouped up with multiple other developers to produce (I am 1 of 5 founders for this project). It and Herocraft are not directly related and we wont be siphoning players in either direction.

Townships: you talk about what you don't know anything about. We already colorize name chat, its already a pretty simplistic system with upgrades. This system was made based on the community's want for a township system. We aren't removing it or creating another. This is the final mark.

Your snarky, meager attempts at insulting my last 5 years of work won't go lightly.

 

[iAlchemist]

I wont be taking the general lack of respect you are dishing, change the tone.

The Dungeon Heroes project is a side project in my spare time that I grouped up with multiple other developers to produce (I am 1 of 5 founders for this project). It and Herocraft are not directly related and we wont be siphoning players in either direction.

Townships: you talk about what you don't know anything about. We already colorize name chat, its already a pretty simplistic system with upgrades. This system was made based on the community's want for a township system. We aren't removing it or creating another. This is the final mark.

Your snarky, meager attempts at insulting my last 5 years of work won't go lightly.

Although I think Egorh's tone is a tad on the disrespectful side, he has a point.

Coming from an individual who has butted heads frequently with the opinions of @Egorh, I find how much I agree with the post refreshing. Many of the new additions to the server have just been missing how it felt to play when it was all new. And although that feeling can't be rediscovered...many of the new features just made it harder and harder for me to enjoy playing.