Since it is a "Back to the Basics patch," I assume you want to try to appeal to the older players who liked Herocraft when it was more simple. If the current townships 3.0 stays, most older players will definitely get turned off away from it. In my opinion, Townships 3.0 were/was designed by people who wanted to take away the fun of raiding, that is - actually fighting people in group fights and not being restricted to things like no-pvp zones and turrets. Just the fact that there were more people back then when it was at Townships 2.0 and had no attributes, and much simpler than the amount of people now when it has attributes/Townships 3.0 proves that.
Now, I do not completely dislike the Townships 3.0. I like the overall idea of it, but features such as no-pvp zones and turrets just makes me prefer Townships 2.0. Yes, I can see how Townships 3.0 can make raiding more "fun," and more challenging than just the old "whoever has the most people/better team comp/overall better skilled players wins." However, the current setup of Townships 3.0 isn't making raiding any fun or challenging, it is just making it annoying.
Just the fact that your town being able to successfully defend itself, its members, or its chests should be be the work of the players' strategic planning of how they would build their town and its defense. Not from the plugin's no-pvp zones or region protection for some buildings that disables raiders from opening chests. And that is definitely the satisfying and challenging part for defending your town, being able to somewhat defend it.
Another satisfying and challenging part of being on the offensive/raiding side is attempting to get inside the town and being able to kill the players inside, or even looting unprotected chests. If a town left its doors and chests unlocked/unprotected, then it is their fault. Townships 3.0 plugin should not be able to protect players and their chests completely, that's why a developed town uses planning and there are also LWCs. Also I assume no one really cares about draining power/destroying a town so it could be looted. Yes, people like loot, but in the long term, people of a town who got its power drained so their chests are open for looting would most likely quit. Less people = less pvp.
I don't mind Townships 3.0 staying, but there needs to be things that should be changed, and here is what I suggest:
-Rework it so we are not restricted to blocks that we are required to use to make a building. The restriction of having to follow the blocks required takes away the fun of building and most likely there will be no awesome looking towns such as Drakenvale in the past.
-Remove turrets or nerf them so that a town's defense does not have to rely on them. There are things that can be made by players and Engineers called player traps.
-Remove no-pvp zones and chest region protection. There are things called LWCs.
