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SURVIVAL GAMES Some game balancing and ideas

Kajmera

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Hi all. This is gonna be a bit of a longer post that I hope will spark some conversation.

So when I saw MCSG was back I was pretty hyped, and immediately went back to it, this was 5 days ago as of writing this post.
I used to play way back in 2013- and 14, so before people really got super good.

The game has been a great experience so far for me, and really there are just a few things I find annoying and anti-fun.
I have two main issues that will be addressed in this post: Spawn chests and chain rodding.

Spawn chests:
The spawn chests matter a lot, right at the start of the game this is the best loot you'll get, and so determines the entire play-pattern for the rest of the game. The only issue with this is that going to spawn only to open a chest, see a stone sword, see it disappear, and then instantly die is the least amount of fun imaginable. What makes this worse is that it happens pretty consistently. Games are few and far between where none of the 8 chests have a stone sword, and it's not uncommon to see 3 of them spawn. That makes it a big risk to go to spawn, and that's fair, it probably should be; but it's not a fun risk to take. I know that sounds like the start of a rant and complaint post, but here's my suggestion: introducing the Tier 3 Chest.
Tier 3 chests should be the spawn chests and the spawn chests alone, they will hold everything the tier 2 chests normally hold, except no stone sword and no gold armor pieces. Instead, spawn rates of chain- and iron armor as well as gapples and dimonds are turned up. This might seem weird because at first it appears to remove risk from going spawn, and to an extent that's true - the risk of dying is taken out. My counterpoint is that the risk of death wasn't needed to begin with: if the game is meant to be fun we don't wanna kill a lot of players instantly unless they mess up really badly, and in my opinion it is not a mistake to go mid and die because someone else highrolled their loot. Instead of the highroll being a sword with which to kill the other players, let the highroll be better armor and more diamonds on average. For people not going spawn they lost out on better gear, but I'd personally rather take the risk of fighting with less armor than fighting fists against a stone sword half a minute in-game.

Chain rodding:
Like I said I played this game way back, before people got really good at the rod. Coming back now I question why the rod hasn't been nerfed in all these years. If we think about what the rod lets you do, and evaluate the power of that ability it's completely insane. Rodding someone as the fight starts guarentees first hit - that to me makes sense and shouldn't be touched, you outplay by hitting the rod first and following the combo. If that was all the rod did it would be strong already, an extra hit is a lot in of damage this game. On the defensive side the rod is completely nuts, however. The knockback on the rod makes chasing people down impossible, and that's an awful thing for the game. Being able to take a bad trade and then tripple rod your way out of it and run until your health is full and then trying again should not be a thing in this game; that means there is no punishment for bad play. What's worse is there is no way to fight a guy with a rod if you don't have one. We want mechanics that can express skill but also have counterplay. The bow is a good example - you hit the arrow, that's an outplay, he dodges the next one, that's counterplay. The rod, on the other hand, has absolutely no counterplay, there is no answer to the tripple-rod full reset. Arrows can be drained, flint-and-steel charges can be drained even food can be drained in a long fight; this never happens with the rod, it has essensially infinite durability.
In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the ability to knock back your opponent at the start of a fight by rodding them, the problem occurs when you can reset fights indiscriminately. This brings me to my suggestion: Give the rod a cooldown. This keeps the aggressive strength of a guarenteed first hit, but removes the toxic defensive playstyle. If the rod had a cooldown of say 6 seconds, it still feels impactful at the start of a fight, but fleeing from someone becomes - while not impossible - harder. This means you get punished harder for taking bad trades, you get punished for missing the first rod hit and you get rewarded for dodging it - all these things are great for the game, and make the rod a skill-expressive tool rather than an oppressive powerhouse that cannot be played against.


Regardless of these changes happening or not, I've been having fun with mcsg's return, and these are merely suggestions for improving the game's balance and removing toxic and anti-fun play. If you have different opinions I'd love to hear why you want to keep the game the way it is, or even other suggestions that accomplish the same goals. Once more I want to say this isn't a complaint post.


\\kajmera
 

billyguy1

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Maybe I'm just bad but it seems like the rod is a good chasing tool. I've had my jump timing up a hill messed up when i'm running away from someone, and then i die as a result of it.
there is no way to fight a guy with a rod if you don't have one.


\\kajmera
I don't like this logic. This is like saying there's no way to fight a guy with a sword if you don't have one. We can't just give items cooldowns to make it fair for people who don't have one. This game can be rng, that's just the Ultimate Fishing Rod Of Doom way she goes
 

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