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The Super Ultra Mega Thread of What You Want + Herocraft RPG

Kainzo

The Disposable Hero
Staff member
Founder
Adventure Team
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Location
The 7th Circle of Heaven
@Admins, @Heralds, @Moderators @Coders
For those of you who don't know me, I've been pounding the Herocraft name close to my chest for over 6 years. I love this server, I love the community (even you toxic trolls who never btfo).

I think we've come to a conclusion that no amount of money will work on advertising with our current setup. We have spent $3000 for two weeks of slots and received over 7500 unique new players. Of those, less than 10% have stayed more than a day or two. While this isn't an entire waste, it spread our influence and bolstered our 80,000 accounts to eblast and inform of new events and servers.
I am also involved with a group of people who are repeatedly in the top 10 servers in terms of population (Hypixel, Arkham, etc) they have been weighing in on Herocraft and giving much needed advice to make it #1 or reach the top 10 in terms of play-ability, here's a short list of improvements that must be made for our community to continue flourishing.
  1. Simplify Everything.
  2. Rebrand the server (re-release under a new name)
  3. Be slightly more "p2w" with store and clean up the useless shit
  4. Don't listen to your community on everything and have a backbone that cannot be compromised.
  5. Have a better gameplay option with handholding and IN YOUR FACE objectives
  6. LEADER BOARD EVERYTHING (in-game and out)
  7. Retention, players chewing through all your content in less than one week.
  8. Dump a portion of your earnings to advertising (YOUTUBE/SERVER LISTS)

Herocraft hasn't been just a hobby for me, for 3 years it served as my primary income while I made the transition of life into different areas, different partners and homes. It has given me a creative outlet that helped me cope with things going on around me. It was has been here in the Minecraft community for a very long time.

Here's a list of my own things below in what I think would thrive and flourish for a server and the community similar to Herocraft.
  • Simplified skills/classes
  • Good upgrade systems
  • SLOW LEVELING BUT INCREASE FUN. (Zeal.etc)
  • An in-depth Economy (5th path is Construction/Crafting)
  • Dungeons, Quests, Items
  • Introduce "Townships" as "Guilds" and later allow them to claim land and fight over it.
  • High End PVP arenas
  • High End PVP games
  • Leaderboards on Levels, Items, PVP, PVE, Minigames, Towns
  • Remove Survival gameplay as PRIMARY
  • Replace with "Dominions" as a personal area you can build/show your friends.
  • Add Survival/Townships as "alternative"
Based on the very good feedback from the network of server owners, I believe we need your input into what a "good" server has to offer and what you particularly want to see.
Please leave constructive feedback. I give you my time freely, this is my hobby, this is your fun, don't shit on it or bash it without reason or you wont be valued.
 
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Lordofon

Soulsand
Joined
Dec 29, 2015
i love herocraft, please hurry with the coding process!!!!! time is money!!!!!
 
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LordZelkova

Ashen One...
Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Jul 3, 2011
Other people have said things far better than I ever can.
 
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Danda

Dungeon Master Extremist
Staff member
Administrator
Guide
Wiki Team
Max Legacy Supporter
Joined
Jan 21, 2011
  1. A way to get back to the tutorial (this is a thing many noobs ask)
  2. Create uses for the items you're handing out or remove them e.g.
    1. Medals of Vengeance
    2. Symbol of Acquisition
  3. Dungeons
  4. Quests
  5. Have /hero reset clear the cooldown for class changing. New players frequently pick a class accidently then have to wait to switch again.
  6. Rentable Spawn Plots
There is probably more but this is what I can just throw out off the top of my head
 

Jrr_

Architect
Balance Team
Adventure Team
Legacy Supporter 3
Joined
Oct 27, 2012
Location
Straya
So we already spoke one and one but I'll put my ideas here as well.

First of all, a big change is needed, like no more small little tweaks to our "Survival RPG", we should move away entirely from that and into something more streamlined and progression like similar to Wynncraft / Dungeon Realms but obviously different in our own way.

This is like a big revamp idea which would be really different to Herocraft as is...
  • A huge custom map full of builds that serve as dungeons (levelling / quests), dungeons (unique weapons), mines (ore regen), capture points for guilds to fight over territory. https://map.wynncraft.com/#/-20/64/-1449/min/0/0 Like this in some way
    • Some classes would serve as ports, porting around the map.
    • People also have mounts to travel.
  • No towns, guilds, not sure how storage of items works, maybe a huge backpack that doesn't drop? idk
  • Possible second world for building etc
  • Ranking system for guilds, ranked based of territories/land you own, fought over by pvp, this would serve the world pvp.
  • Ranking system for players, work their way up the leaderboard through pvp (arenas), quests, character building.
    • The ranking system would have leaderboards, showcased in game and on the forums.

I think its clear now thats Herocraft itself doesn't work, its level a class(es), build a town and pvp. The erge to play Herocraft is very much self driven / motivated, if you can't motivate yourself to login its pretty hard to play or find a reason to play.
 
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Pampita

Legacy Supporter 3
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Location
Raiding your town.
New Players:
Based on the current events, and the full advertising the server has been going throught lately i can tell i learned this, It's not about the quantity, but the quality of the players that join, if you go to the Spawn Dungeon and just look at it for 2/3 hours you will see that 60% of the new players in there hack, and those who don't get killed by the mobs/bored of farming and leave. New players don't really understand how the server works, that's mainly for two reasons, the complex system the server works with and the unsatisfaction you get from it, if they had better content when they come in they would try harder to understand how the overall game works, when a new player is lost on how the server works he is usually referred to view the wiki which is boring itself and unrewarding.
More and active Staff has to be deployed for this to be helped, maybe even a better anti-cheat plugin would work, it doesn't have to ban them if they cheat, but maybe send a notification to all staff members if something is wrong for them to check it out.


Overall herocraft experience
Most of new players on herocraft are lost on what to do, they don't know what the server true goal is, all they do is join, level up their class to level 5ish and start looking for a town, after they don't find one/get told to apply on the forums they either start spamming or leave the server in dissapointment. Even those who join a town and stay get eventually bored by the lack of activity/new content on it.
This maybe could be helped by adding archievment systems with item/title awards, this could be bassed on in-game Quizzes/everyday stuff, such as reaching certain amount of gold or certain gameplay time, maybe all-time xp earned. I believe this will give players some kind of thing to look forward to, more late-game features should be added to encourage players to level aswell.

Global chats:
Global chats such as tour or offtopic are usually trash, a lot of spam, excessive swearing is always going on, this just discourages new people from staying, they lose their hope on the community. More people should have the power to mute and less warnings should be issued, this could also be helped by transferring Muting appeals to "PE's" so people don't just ragequit after knowing they have to make a forums account to be able to speak again (Mute-lifting should be less extrict on new players).
The other fact is that a lot of spam goes on due to new-players being lost into the server and not getting an accurate answer at all. When a player sees three different ones asking the same questions over and over without getting any answers they get pretty dissapointed


Classes:

Most of of classes are well made, they are overall balanced, with great RPG specs added into them, with each of them having unique skills but that's for old-schooled veterans, but for newbies their skills don't feel rewarding at all most of them find them dull, i think it would be a good idea to rearrange skills and/or give new skills, in my experience, in most of the games the favorite skills/classes are those related to mobility and overall gameplay, i mean, if a new players goes Dragoon, i am sure he will be amazed at how jump works, giving him a distance gape that differs from other players, Shamans are amazed by the flashy skills, but if someone goes Paladin, they will just get initial skills such as bash, strike, which only deal damage and don't show any kind of animation at all, making them feel useless and boring for new players. I think more classes should get skill like blink and such in earlier levels, to encourage new players to play them, since they will find them more interesting, fun and a more fluent overall gameplay

Towns:
Nowdays the only players who are mostly looking to join towns/making news are newbies, since veteran players already have their group made/have a place they belong to. As a previous town owner i find having a town not rewarding at all, the only people who apply are new players, most of them they go around, steal from other houses, make holes into the town and quit the server, or go into deep innactivity. Making recruiting really tiresome and feel worthless.
I think this could be fixed with tweaking the current town plugin, being able to make subregions the same way Residences work but inside towns, making the Mayor/SIC the ones responsible for creating them/handing them, this would make town stealing dissapear, and arranging in-town public areas easier.
 
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Awex3

Wood
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Before I collect my thoughts and post about my short time on this server, I have a burning question: If the server goes through a massive change or rework, will our progress (coins, class, towns, etc) be kept? My friend and I have grinded quite a bit on this server already so this concerns me.

Thanks! :)
 

SoHighFive

Soulsand
Joined
Jan 2, 2014
Let me start this post off by saying that I really love Herocraft! I have not played on any other servers for an extended period of time because I just feel like this place is special. It is not, however, quite where I would like for it to be. Below is a list of things that I think are integral to the Herocraft experience and some suggestions for my vision for this game's future.

COMPLEX CLASSES
I think they're balanced wonderfully right now, although I do miss particle effects a lot. Fireblast was so much fun to scare people with! As has been mentioned elsewhere in the thread, particles like that really give the oomph that players want to feel when they're using abilities. It makes the game feel a little more different from vanilla MC.

I understand the urge to simplify classes, but this is the wrong way to go. I hate games where I feel like I have to play the same thing that everybody else does. I want to feel unique in the world. I want my abilities to have their own realm of influence. HC classes are in a great state, and I would like to see them stay there with one big addition that has also been mentioned- Intro Classes

SOLUTION: I think that Lost Soul was a great way to start. It takes away the initial decision that can overwhelm a new player and gives them time to learn the world/systems a bit before they have to make a decision that is really important. I personally would prefer to see Lost Soul replaced with "Warrior, Rogue, Caster, and Support classes". That is a decision that most people can jump right to. The caster path would give fireball and could unlock a unique ability from each sub class. Once they get to level 20 Caster, they can choose Wizard/Endermage/Beguiler etc.


TOWNSHIPS
To me townships is the thing that makes Herocraft HEROCRAFT! I've made some great friends from joining up with towns, and I would really hate to see this go away. I believe that townships are what keep players coming back over and over. The problem that I have with townships now is that every noob is trying to make one. Townships should never be something that is easily accessible. They should cost 1000-2000 coins just to start up.

I believe that having fewer and larger towns is the healthiest way to push this game since this creates lots more interaction with players. It promotes new players skills by giving them mentors instead of them just spending all of their time underground, and it removes a lot of pressure from them. The most fun that I ever had was with the AD kingdom that was massive. The server was nearly split in two, and there was always PvP to be had.

However, some players do not want to join towns, and there needs to be an alternative to protecting your stuff that is reasonably accessible. Personal regions and LWCs are the key to this.


PERSONAL REGIONS
There has to be a balance between making these accessible and letting every noob who joins the server build one. My thought is that if a player gets their Crafter class to level 20 then they have made it past the "join and leave" noob phase and are probably going to stick around. You want them to have a PIECE of Herocraft.

Give a free 7x7 personal region to each player upon reaching Crafter level 20. They may have been killed dozens of times and have nothing to show for their leveling itemwise, but they can at least build a place to call home. I suggest 7x7 because to me that is the minimum size you need to make a decent looking structure.

MONEY MAKER- Just like backpacks allow players to pay to upgrade the available size of their PR. You can even get unlocks for the next step up from crates. Supporters get access to a 2nd PR, which grows as their supporter tier grows.

LWC
To me the absolute worst change with this map is not getting your money back from a locked chest. It gives supporters/veteran players HUGE advantage, and it also completely screws the noobs. I remember saving enough souls for my first LWC chest when I joined, and I was so damn happy/proud! I had my little hut (not a PR) and a chest that I could keep my stuff in, and it was safe.

Then I built another base in a different area, and I moved my chest there. I never would have made that move or had that fun if I couldn't move my chest. I would have been to hesitant to give up that 250coins. What if I want to join a town and move my stuff there? Again I would feel like I just wasted all of my time/money.

NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE- THE PVP and PVE ARGUMENT

The number one thing that I think has culled the potential population for Herocraft is that new players get put through the ringer, and it is worse now than ever. Noobies have always been killed lots. They should be protected early, but I understand the complaint that it prevents PvP. This has to be done WITH the addition of high end PvP content.

In this game you MUST have your combat class specific weapon to be effective. If this is going to be the case then give everybody a bound weapon that they ALWAYS have. Make every character have a weapon that is bound for their class (and isn't tradable) and allow them to perform quests or progress by upgrading that weapon.

If you don't want to do that, then let us use generic crafted tools/swords somehow. It feels REALLY weird to have to use a specific weapon like that, and it is way too hard for noobs to get a 2nd weapon if they lost the 1st. Over and over I see new players quit because they can't get a 2nd weapon. I've even gone to spawn and given them gold/redstone and WALKED them to the exchange NPCs only to have them say, "This is stupid" and log off. This has happened multiple times, and I don't feel like it needs to.

Armor should also NOT be dropped on death. The strongest players don't need more pieces of armor (a lot of it unenchanted). That's not good loot. As it is I think that most players are scared to wear their enchanted armor out because they are afraid to lose it. I know I won't until I feel like I'm leveled enough for PvP. This has also killed the economy for Enchanting, because who wants to spend much money on something that they will likely lose if they walk out of spawn?

The armor problem is even worse for new players. Leather is not easy or cheap to come by, and noobs know that even if they get the armor they will likely lose it. Basically noobs are forced to join townships to survive. This is an automatic turn off for lone wolf players who could actually be really stable players.


ECONOMY
First of all, please SCRAP the globalmarket system. I miss the days of hawking stuff on trade chat and running from shop to shop to see who has the best deal on leather. The trade chat interactions built trust between players and encouraged people to meet up. Trade booths were great, and they added a feel good element to the game. It is way more satisfying to make a player to player trade vs clicking a sign.

People play Herocraft for the social interactions- NOT the interactions with computers and bots.

Right now you spawn in this tiny little circular ring, and the town is small. Starter towns used to wow people when they logged in, but I don't think there's anything that amazing in Pantheon compared to any previous map I have played. Part of this was the chest shops and the shops inside of buildings. It was cool to see how people decorated their shops, and who doesn't like to bargain hunt?

You have an incredible outlet for making the economy strong- Professions. Give farmers unique foods with slight buffs or that restore mana as well as health. Runesmiths have a great niche. Make blacksmiths the only guys who can make anything above leather armor, and now that there are chest shops again people can buy the armor they need from KNOWN blacksmiths.

Professions no longer provide identity except for a very select few players.

One thing that I really don't like about combat class specific weapons is that we don't get really rare weapon drops. I remember hearing people talk about a Fortune VII Named Pick that Rizza had. LEGENDARY weapons that were sought after. I remember people paying 1000+ souls for extremely rare drops like that. These are the memorable items and trade chat discussions that are fun!

The soul shard/fragment thing has never been intuitive, but I like it. I often see new players ask where they can sell diamonds and emeralds and such., and lots of players have suggested going back to the gold standard. I'm behind this idea and think that you should set a low floor price at the exchange for rare ores and other materials. Let the player-run chest shops create the actual price that things sell at.


GRIEFING
When I first joined Herocraft I remember running out into the wilds and seeing dozens of structures outside of spawn! Not all of them were beautiful, and most of them weren't regioned. There were areas around herogates and stuff that were like little communities. Now there is no protection. The people who would normally have been deterred from destroying a structure now don't care.

The only way as a new player that you feel like it is worth it to build a nice place is if you somehow get enough money for a PR or join a town. Towns don't really offer a TON of creative freedom, and most new players can't afford a PR.

I lived in a non regioned house for a long time with my increasing number of REFUNDABLE LWC chests until I could afford a PR, and then I refunded all of my chests to region my PR. I joined a town a while after that, and I had no problem moving my things there. I kept my small PR house just outside spawn because people still walked out of spawn those days.


TRANSPORTATION

Wizards selling GTPs were the good ol' days. It was usually expensive to get back to spawn, so a lot of times people actually ran. I remember railroads set up underground from towns to spawn, and they stayed there because there was no griefing. There were PLAYER BUILT ROADS from spawn to lots of big destinations.

You just don't see any of those things like you used to because most players (myself included) go to their town and spawn. There are no dungeons to run to. For plentiful redstone you can go to spawn and RIGHT back to your base, and you can rinse and repeat every 15 minutes.

Keep warp, and make it cost your combat class level in coins. Low level players can still use it to get to spawn in a pinch. Higher level players with more experience will have to pay for a GTP to spawn, find a port from a buddy, run to spawn, or fork out lots of coins to do it.

I don't like /townspawn, but if you keep it raise the CD time to 1 hour so that it is still convenient but not a crutch.

DUNGEONS
The only reason I've heard given for not launching with dungeons is that players felt it prevented world PvP. Besides creating an alternative to boring vanilla mob farming, dungeons created 3 types of player to player encounters for me on a regular basis.

If I found somebody in a dungeon we would either talk quickly and group up, or we would get hostile. One player would get run out of the dungeon, or one player would get killed. I made friends and enemies this way.

Dungeons gave something for people to claim as their own. There were dungeons that I really wanted to go to, but I wouldn't dare because they were too close to an enemy town. I had a noobie dungeon with a small PR house next to it that I pretty much felt was MY dungeon. I leveled there tons, and I knew it in and out. I often had 3-4 LWC chests that I rented out to noobs so that they could level there and learn the game safely.

If there is high level PvP content and arenas and such, then I think that there is no reason for the game to lack dungeons.


I'm going to snag a 2nd spot in this thread where I can compile what I just said here. I have not even read over what I said above, so I hope that it's coherent and not too much of a ramble.

*Oh my gosh did I just write a freaking book about Herocraft?




 
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Jrr_

Architect
Balance Team
Adventure Team
Legacy Supporter 3
Joined
Oct 27, 2012
Location
Straya
Before I collect my thoughts and post about my short time on this server, I have a burning question: If the server goes through a massive change or rework, will our progress (coins, class, towns, etc) be kept? My friend and I have grinded quite a bit on this server already so this concerns me.

Thanks! :)
Nothing is going away in the near future, its safe.
 
Joined
Feb 14, 2015
Location
USA EST
Suggestions are cool. The only things I'm really against is simplifying the classes (I feel that the complexity of the skills and pvp make HC unique, and it's one of the main things I love the server for) and not making Survival/Townships the main thing anymore. I love the whole build your own world and towns/cities aspect of HC a lot, and would hate to see that go for a more faction-y feel, or a full RPG-can't-shape-anything thing like Wynncraft.
Might want to make the tutorial a lot more hand-holding up to, say, level 15, though. That'd probably make a big difference.


Kind of unrelated, but if the server ever gets to the point where there's hundreds of people online, how would chats be handled? Messages would be sent so fast it'd be hard to keep up. While private chats and leaving chats are a thing, I'm really liking an idea with public chats (o, t, tour, h, re, etc.) being local by a 1,000 block radius or so. This would be pretty cool to have to go to a trading district or a city to sell stuff. I dunno, just an idea.
 

waterwet1

Glowing Redstone
Joined
Jan 31, 2017
I made a thread about this! To summarise, I think we should get Dungeons and Quests implemented to help with early leveling and late-game party work besides raiding.
Hell, if you need a quest-line writer, I'd be more than happy to help out.
 

sevazh

Iron
Joined
Sep 29, 2014
This is the best rpg server there is in my opinion, but yes I think it can definitely be improved! I have some suggestions here, the ones highlighted in red are the ones that I personally would love to see the most, but that's just my personal taste. I agree with most of your ideas mentioned, but here is my own take on things:) I feel like these will make the server more "full" of content and allow players to never get bored of playing:
  • Maybe create an option to customize your class? Like create a system where as you level up you get options to get more and more skills. Maybe separate these skills into power categories and add requirements for each category? This will allow for much greater class customization and players will really be able to create a class that fits THEM. Maybe also let players create a "role play name" ( like a nickname for themselves) that would allow them to get into character more?
  • Please don't simplify skills/classes too much. I love the complexity of many of them. That's what makes it so fun! What I have noticed though is that after reaching a certain level, leveling up just becomes boring. It consists of constant mob farming and voting, which gets very repetitive quickly. I end up doing 99% PvE in order to level up, and PvP is a minimum because of this. Just find a way to make leveling less grindy, cause that's what it is now. Killing mobs with 1000s of health to get 3% progression to the next level (especially as a support class) is a pain. Makes progression too slow and boring.
  • Definitely add quests, new dungeons (non pvp because lower level players, or players who play without a party, can be taken down by a group of people) , mobs, and create a spawn shop in which you can buy items and gear.
  • Make it free to teleport to spawn. It can be very annoying for new players to have to walk thousands of blocks to spawn if they don't have enough red stone to teleport.
  • Add server wide daily events that would serve to encourage PvP.
  • Bring back custom weapon/armor making, instead of the 1 standard class weapon that we have now.
  • Maybe make it so that if you die you get to keep the item you were last holding (and maybe armor too)? This would encourage more PvP
  • Level up from PvP (get exp based on the person's level)
  • (This goes back to leveling) Maybe make skills more accessible? Like add ways to get certain skills ahead of the required level, through QUESTS, or doing certain tasks/achievements.
  • This is extremely random and weird and it's probably only me who thinks this, but I love playing without armor just because it doesn't block my skin. When I play I usually have my rpg skin on to kinda get more into character. Maybe add some option where armor could be transparent? (ik this is very minor and weird but still worth mentioning). Same goes with weapons:p
 

Xargun

Legacy Supporter 9
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Location
Ohio, USA
Couple quick ideas... One @Pampita you can set sub-regions within towns and have been able for a while. Its nice to keep new players out of places they shouldn't be - or as you said - digging holes in walls.

Maybe instead of set classes like we have now, we go to more of an open class... Every level (or so many levels) you get skill points to buy whatever skills you want.. Say you want Fireball... And Leap... And maybe Disarm. Instead of know exactly what any one person has (he's a wizard so get close and he's dead) you won't know what skills he has. Let the player make more decisions that affect them.

Have two servers - one would be PVE with some dungeons and questing -- new players are automatically placed here and cannot leave until they reach a certain level. Everyone can build a house - enforcing the old griefing rules or give everyone free residences on this world.

The second server would be full pvp and have more quests and dungeons. You must be level X to go to this world and make it hardcore.. No deathchests - you die your shit falls on the ground for anyone to grab.

By having two servers linked you provide stuff for everyone.. People who like to build and PVE have a world to themselves and people who like the excite of pvp at anytime have their own world as well. Make the quests and dungeons different so if you tire of pve stuff then head over to the pvp world for a while.

And mini games. I hate to say it, but my son sits besides me while I play HC and all he does is play Bed Wars, Money Wars, Egg wars and stuff like that for hours. If HC had them, I'm sure he would play more HC.

The economy is a totally different issue. Honestly I prefer the coin and gold standard back from Bastion than the new soul standard. I have lots of economy ideas, but not sure they would work for HC.

Xargun
 

LordZelkova

Ashen One...
Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Jul 3, 2011
Just thought of some stuff I did wanna say, it's not organized at all.

Please for the love of god, make going to spawn less free.

Port is so short and cheap. Introduce a Profession with Port, GTP, and other porting based stuff (Give Runesmith GTP, Port, and Runestones and have them be the teleporter class) and bring back two way charged Herogates.

It's only gotten easier and easier to get to spawn over the years, and I think this has hurt both map activity and economies. Going to spawn was a risk, and many times World PvP would break out and groups would flock to these areas to try and snag the rewards, many times players wouldn't have death chests since you needed an actual chest to spawn one.

The Economy is its own mess. We need to tie souls to something like Gold again, and it be the MAIN economic tie. Right now gold is 1c and souls are far, far easier to grind out. Money is worthless and if you really need souls, you can buy crate keys with real money and sell those (This is also the closest we get to buying money, please don't ever let people actually buy money).

Please do not make things P2W, the closest we really have is Backpacks and LWC's, and even then, with money being so worthless, LWC's is only a benefit due to increased number of allowed locks. I really don't want to see us selling unbreakable God Weapons with sharpness 255 and +2000 health. That's not the way to do this. I've always supported HC because you never made me feel like a customer like other servers have. I came here to enjoy the game, and the experience you offered, not to be bombarded with ads to buy your crap. I stuck around because things always felt like a community instead of a customer base. You're not as large as the other servers, but how personal do those owners get? I'm not in the know, but I feel like it'd far less than you do. You actually interact with people on here, even if it's just random remarks in O chat.

Dying has no cost. Skills don't need reagents, death chests are infinite, and all you gotta do to gear back up is right click a sign. Make dying have consequence again. Require having a chest on you to spawn a death chest, limit how frequently you can spawn them, something to make dying risky.

Have two servers - one would be PVE with some dungeons and questing -- new players are automatically placed here and cannot leave until they reach a certain level. Everyone can build a house - enforcing the old griefing rules or give everyone free residences on this world.

The second server would be full pvp and have more quests and dungeons. You must be level X to go to this world and make it hardcore.. No deathchests - you die your shit falls on the ground for anyone to grab.

By having two servers linked you provide stuff for everyone.. People who like to build and PVE have a world to themselves and people who like the excite of pvp at anytime have their own world as well. Make the quests and dungeons different so if you tire of pve stuff then head over to the pvp world for a while.
[/USER]
We tried having 2 servers and it honestly made everything worse. Player counts were at the lowest ever
 
Joined
Feb 14, 2015
Location
USA EST
  • (This goes back to leveling) Maybe make skills more accessible? Like add ways to get certain skills ahead of the required level, through QUESTS, or doing certain tasks/achievements.

I'd absolutely love for quests to give skills as rewards, whether they are related to your combat class or not. A giant fetch quest across the entire map to get rare fish in order to get even a weak Gills skill? Worth, IMO. Add please.
Also, just cause~
  • This is extremely random and weird and it's probably only me who thinks this, but I love playing without armor just because it doesn't block my skin. When I play I usually have my rpg skin on to kinda get more into character. Maybe add some option where armor could be transparent? (ik this is very minor and weird but still worth mentioning). Same goes with weapons:p
I honestly think the same, and like to see my skin instead of armor, but in PVP it's almost necessary to see other players equipment. I'd suggest a minimalist resource pack that changes the armor to something lightweight. (Re-add a modified Conquest, please? <3)

Again, while I'm here~
I'm really not a fan of splitting the server into PVE and PVP. Some players enjoy both, and even if you prefer one, it's always nice to walk around and see the other side of the game going on. Building, and having someone suddenly come to raid my town is pretty awesome, IMO. Heading out to the edge of the map for some reason and seeing the great builds players made is always inspiring, etc. One of the things that makes Herocraft unique is that it merges these two genres, and I really want to keep it that way.
In addition, last time the server split into Survival and Factions, I don't believe it went very well. I didn't hang around long after Factions was implemented, but the fact that it's not here now means something.
 

Royfaren

Legacy Supporter 6
Joined
Feb 21, 2012
I wrote this up really quick, so it might seem a little fragmented.
Simplified skills/classes
This is a big tradeoff. The complexity of Herocraft PvP classes is one of the major reasons older players continue to play Herocraft. The combinations, counters and everything else that goes into this makes this the unique and most interesting aspect of the server. While I agree simplifying would help keep newer players, it would have to be done carefully so that more experience players still find it interesting to play.

SLOW LEVELING BUT INCREASE FUN. (Zeal.etc)
Slow leveling means a lot of grinding. If you can make grinding fun, heck, go for it. If you can't make grinding fun, don't do this. (I'm just rephrasing the bullet text here)

An in-depth Economy (5th path is Construction/Crafting)
Not sure what this entails. Can't say much here

Dungeons, Quests, Items
Absolutely. But have them ready at launch, so new players can get a good start.

Introduce "Townships" as "Guilds" and later allow them to claim land and fight over it.
This is a cool concept. I like it -- but this particular setup would disadvantage PvErs over PvPers. Unless guilds can have a PvP off region but major rewards can be reaped from claimable land?? PvPers like to raid, but raiding the same towns over and over gets tiring. Then they turn to towns that prefer not to PvP, and get bored because said players camp inside their town (like me). The big thing about PvP off towns is that you can't raid them. If you had PvP off areas, you would need some sort of system where raiders could still reap rewards. It's a difficult balance to maintain. I think that structural defense and PvP skill needs some sort of equal balance.

High End PVP arenas
YES

High End PVP games
YES

Leaderboards on Levels, Items, PVP, PVE, Minigames, Towns
This is big. I know lots of people hate mCMMO but it definitely fosters a lot of competition -- and thus, more playing. Making a leaderboard similar to this with no limits on your "level" but also without any huge bonuses will cause people to play more competitively in both PvP and PvE. Perhaps you could have class-based leaderboards for the PvP side (e.g. mob kils/pvp kills while being a ranger add to your ranger leaderboard.) Understandably this would be a very large undertaking.

Remove Survival gameplay as PRIMARY
Replace with "Dominions" as a personal area you can build/show your friends.
Add Survival/Townships as "alternative"

These three kinda go together. I agree a major change is needed because our server style doesn't appear to the newer, younger playerbase of Minecraft. I'm no expert on how this would work or how to do this, so I can't really weigh in on this. I think that the alternative gameplay option should not be there. We either should have a survival setup -- maybe with unclaimable resource maps... Or a dominion map only. The "alternative" will only split a playerbase.
 

Irishman81

Senior Staff
Guide
Architect
Balance Team
Legacy Supporter 7
Joined
Apr 1, 2013
One sort of odd fix I thought of would be making armor not have the custom unbreaking anymore. Not sure when it was added, but I'm almost positive armor takes far less damage than it should. Removing this would require a greater need for player interaction, something that's been severely lacking, by either having a smith repair it, or buying new armor from someone. This could also help address the large stockpile of ores/diamonds/emeralds that people are leaving in chests unused.

I also think we should re-add requiring a sign for a death chest to drop. Greater circulation of items is needed - too often people who die to pvp or even pve can just run back, get their stuff, and just walk away. If we added signs as a requirement, people would be less likely to graveyard rush, would boost the economy as it would increase the need for people to buy weapons/armor, and like I said above actually give resources a little more value.

I know @Templar_James made a couple good suggestions, so just tagging him here in case he feels like reposting.
 

Weikauno

Coder
Joined
Dec 26, 2012
Here's some ideas from my experiences on HC:

1. I think lostsoul should make a return, and be given a few more skills maybe. IMO it's a great introduction to heroes, and it certainly gave me at least a sense of progression and satisfaction from leveling. It made me play with the different style of skills that heroes offers, so that I really had to think about what class I was going to choose. Or we could reintroduce the base classes, healer, rogue, caster, warrior. As a side note/idea, I think lostsoul should be on par with class specs, with class specs being a step or two higher in each class' specialty. That way, new players will have the firepower to fight back against high levels, and choosing a class will be actually mean something aside from, "I think this sounds cool, I'll do that". I think throwing people into choosing a class at the very start just makes players get frustrated and leave.

2. The economy is practically the most important thing on this server, and it's just in a terrible place. The only two things I buy directly from players these days are redstone and efficiency picks. Merchant is practically non-existent. Nobody has reason to sell things anymore. The spawn market roads need to come back, and reagents need to be more common. When players have to rely on items to be completely effective, they have a good reason to spend money. We need things to sell that are necessity, so there is actually a real supply and demand in the economy.

I am convinced that returning to an economy system based on gold, as @LordZelkova suggested, would greatly improve the economy. When souls became the currency for HC, I feel like mining got a lot more anxious(?) and frustrating. The thing with something like gold being currency, you know exactly what you're gonna get; with the souls system, everything and anything could give cold, hard cash, but it isn't guaranteed. Another thing that this does, I think, is devalue resources, because players are mining everything just to get cash. Resources are cleaned out for the sole purpose of soul-grinding, and then there's nothing left when you actually need it for something, or players just already have what they need all the time, because there was too much incentive to collect the resources. Splitting up task rewards makes tasks more meaningful and keeps players focused on what they set out to do.

3. The complex systems within the game, notably townships, need in-game books/manuals. Having all commands in a neat little book makes everything much less overwhelming.

4. This one might be stretching it, but here's my idea: Player built structures can be petitioned to be specially regioned for free, with all other players able to break, but not place blocks, and the region regenerates in maybe, a day or so, and valuable blocks are able to be stolen. The only requirement would be that the build be done, and look decent. This would give builders an incentive to stay on and complete their builds. It wouldn't interfere with townships, because all blocks would be breakable, thus items could be stolen. Regions would have to be renewed every week or so by the owner by doing a randomized quest, or defeating a certain amount of mobs, or mining a certain amount of blocks(which I guess could be considered quests) etc. to ensure the player is still putting time into the server and deserves the protection of their build.

That's all I got for now.
 

Dsawemd

Wiki Team
Legacy Supporter 8
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Introducing content like dungeons ASAP will help map longevity. A map shouldn't launch without some minimum level of content being already available for the players to enjoy.
 

HelsEch

ICE ICE ICE!
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
Hello everyone. Despite being extremely out of place on the current Herocraft, I figure a relic like me can put in my two cents and at least spur the conversation on a bit more.

Starting with the suggestions Kainzo has received from experts:

1. Simplifying is good, but keep tabs on what's simple and what's just boring.
2. If you're going to re-brand, make sure your game is ready to release. This means no game-breaking bugs, no major design flaws, and no incomplete elements. Herocraft certainly isn't ready for a re-branding, since it can't retain players at all.
3. From a business perspective I don't hate p2w, though I hate it as a player. For Herocraft, it could really help the game stay afloat, but be prepared to lose people who were really dedicated to your game, because p2w demoralizes poor players who will make the majority of your game's content compared to the few paying players who need the poor players to have fun.
4. You usually have this one down, but I feel Herocraft's decline may have affected a handful of decisions you've made, so that they were driven by player interests instead of your own philosophy.
5. The Hardcore game you always aimed for was never going to be the best selling option. Hand-holding your players and making the direction of the game obvious can help your player-base get into your game, but I don't believe it will promote long term retention. DotA 2 supports millions of players online at a time and yet a lot of "how to be a good player" and "what to do to win" isn't stated explicitly and without the level-restricted ranked and full character availability allows people who "get it" to get going as fast as possible and lets people who "don't get it" to make mistakes and get better. I think rather than relying on spelling everything out, the pace of the content and how organic the game feels should be thing to focus on.
6. Leader boards support competition. Competition is one of the big reasons people play games. Nothing wrong here.
7. If this were so easy, you wouldn't need the rest of the post.
8. A living game like Herocraft needs to be run like a company. Capital that goes in needs to circulate to all of the vitals like blood. It's ultimately up to you to determine how to best spend that money, balancing what can go into the game and what you need to survive. It's tough, but it's all on you.


Herocraft is now little more than a hobby to me. Four years ago I was a social force, known by the most influential players on the server and involved in a few of its historic events. Just two years ago I made a push toward role play that veritably sparked a small renaissance in Herocraft role-playing. I used to cherish this server in a way that I cherished the most influential mmorpg's in my life, but now I feel more cynical and less interested in the game.

Now I'll cover Kainzo's list of ideas for Herocraft.

- This is already an assured happening, nothing to talk about here.
- Working on itemization is a good idea, though maybe not as high of a priority at the moment
- Slow leveling should be paired with a system where it doesn't hurt too much to be the same level for a while. We're closer to that now than we were a map ago, so I won't say no, but the content for leveling needs to be worked on more before this gets pushed.
- Economy is hurting bad right now. This definitely needs urgent care.
- I've said what I immediately need to say about content and items in prior points.
- This change could prove interesting, but again there are changes that should be made to support this first.
- Yes
- Yes
- Sounds alright
- What?
- Ummm
- I see what's happening here. It doesn't make me comfortable, but it's not the end of the world. Do it right and it could be an improvement particularly for your current kinds of non-veteran users, but if you don't do it right, well, I don't know if I'd log back in. Townships were a huge part of old herocraft's charm. In fact, they were almost the entire charm. To see them put on the back burner would feel less like herocraft than if Heroes were to be completely removed. Dominions is basically just player housing, which means that there will be a lot more work on staff's end building places people can not only build their vanity buildings, but also live in instead of having a player made town. Honestly considering the idea of player housing and a shift from player made towns to people living in an admin made town makes me wonder what're you going to do about crime and honestly why towns have been nerfed repeatedly since Sanctum if you're just going to change to... this. The more I think about it the less happy I am.

I'm sorry if my feedback wan't great. I'm pretty certain that few contemporary players will agree with me, so feel free to dismiss me, but if you don't I'm more than willing to discuss things further in a civil manner.

Thanks for reading
 
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