I've been playing the update recently and finally feel like I've played enough to compile my thoughts here. I'm dog at pvp so don't even notice kb changes and don't really care about the server changes so this is specifically related to eggwars
Initial Thoughts:
The first thing I thought (and still think) is that too much was changed. This is not an update, it is a complete overhaul of everything that fundamentally makes eggwars what it is. The costs of everything is different, the items themselves are different, and even the gen speed is different. It's obviously still eggwars at its core but to me it feels more like an eggwars type gamemode than eggwars itself (For example I went onto lifeboat and they had this exact gamemode but with beds instead of eggs and maybe switched the tokens up I don't think I would recognize it as eggwars). That being said, I do like some aspects of the new gamemode.
Pros:
The games themselves are still pretty fun. I've played a decent amount and it's still fun to play, despite the fact that it's a different game
The new ems are amazing. Dropping them from final kills and egg breaks is exactly what is needed to push rushing, and for once they're useful. The shop discounts feel absolutely broken and to be honest they might be, but I still love it. This is the first time rushing actually has benefits in game and I'm all for it.
The new hardcore is also pretty fun, love the way health regen is changed up. I had more fun playing hardcode than I did OP, although I'm honestly not sure what made it fun, so there's a chance I only liked it because the players didn't know what they were doing and had nothing, rather than the actual gamemode being fun.
Cons:
Enchants, although maybe a promising idea, are all but completely useless. Most of the enchants do nothing (lookin at you swift sneak) and the rest of them are outshined by shop discounts. Efficiency and Loyalty and maybe the only ones that have uses, but the lack of protection and sharpness just makes the entire system feel lackluster.
OP is probably the biggest complaint from everyone in the community. I think this is from a difference in the way OP is perceived in the players and what OP is actually supposed to be. I'm not a staff and have no say in what the development team thinks, but the way the players see OP is a quick game, focusing less on how broken the items are, and more how cheap everything is. The new OP gives you overpowered items for sure, but everything else isn't much cheaper. This gives the new OP a different vibe as it feels like the game switched to just the armor and weapons being overpowered rather than the overpowered aspect being the fact that everything is cheap so everyone always has everything, which makes the game much quicker.
The games are so so so much slower. In the old gamemode it took me 12 seconds to get everything I wanted (1 iron pick, wood sword, stack of blocks, 12 steak, and basic armor). In the new gamemode it took me 61 seconds to get the same equivalents (wood pick, wood sword, stack of blocks, 4 steak, and iron armor). Both of these were taken with me dropping straight from the cage onto a level 2 gen. They have added a lot of extra gens so it's possible to get eventually get up to the same speeds that they were at but it justs adds way longer onto the beginning of the game which I don't think anyone was looking for.
Feedback:
My Ideal situation would reverting to the old gamemodes and prices, but with the new emeralds. I think this would the be best option for an eggwars update because all the other changes go way further than just an update. This would change the only part of eggwars that felt useless, and with some changes to enchanting I think the gamemode could've been changed in a way that would actual be pretty well received by the community, and the shop discounts alone would likely change the game more than any other update related to emeralds, so in terms of looking to keep it fresh, that would do it.
If a revert is off the table I honestly don't know if there's anyway to get the old eggwars back. The game itself is already pretty fun as it is, and I can give suggestions to make it better, but it won't be the same as eggwars and it'll suck that that's gone (I know they could bring it back next season but honestly if they completely change the game now and then completely change it again in a year that might be worse than just refining this one to make it good)
Ems:
Final Thoughts:
I still believe old eggwars with the new emeralds, and maybe some new blocks and items would be the best outcome of this update, but seeing as that is unlikely, I hope some of the suggestions are able to help. Would love to hear any other thoughts that people have relating to the update, especially when it comes to how to fix OP. I also think I made a lot of assumptions about the intention of staff when it comes to certain changes so if any staff read this and see I'm interpreting a change wrong, please let me know. Post was much longer than I thought it would end up being but thanks for reading!
Initial Thoughts:
The first thing I thought (and still think) is that too much was changed. This is not an update, it is a complete overhaul of everything that fundamentally makes eggwars what it is. The costs of everything is different, the items themselves are different, and even the gen speed is different. It's obviously still eggwars at its core but to me it feels more like an eggwars type gamemode than eggwars itself (For example I went onto lifeboat and they had this exact gamemode but with beds instead of eggs and maybe switched the tokens up I don't think I would recognize it as eggwars). That being said, I do like some aspects of the new gamemode.
Pros:
The games themselves are still pretty fun. I've played a decent amount and it's still fun to play, despite the fact that it's a different game
The new ems are amazing. Dropping them from final kills and egg breaks is exactly what is needed to push rushing, and for once they're useful. The shop discounts feel absolutely broken and to be honest they might be, but I still love it. This is the first time rushing actually has benefits in game and I'm all for it.
The new hardcore is also pretty fun, love the way health regen is changed up. I had more fun playing hardcode than I did OP, although I'm honestly not sure what made it fun, so there's a chance I only liked it because the players didn't know what they were doing and had nothing, rather than the actual gamemode being fun.
Cons:
Enchants, although maybe a promising idea, are all but completely useless. Most of the enchants do nothing (lookin at you swift sneak) and the rest of them are outshined by shop discounts. Efficiency and Loyalty and maybe the only ones that have uses, but the lack of protection and sharpness just makes the entire system feel lackluster.
OP is probably the biggest complaint from everyone in the community. I think this is from a difference in the way OP is perceived in the players and what OP is actually supposed to be. I'm not a staff and have no say in what the development team thinks, but the way the players see OP is a quick game, focusing less on how broken the items are, and more how cheap everything is. The new OP gives you overpowered items for sure, but everything else isn't much cheaper. This gives the new OP a different vibe as it feels like the game switched to just the armor and weapons being overpowered rather than the overpowered aspect being the fact that everything is cheap so everyone always has everything, which makes the game much quicker.
The games are so so so much slower. In the old gamemode it took me 12 seconds to get everything I wanted (1 iron pick, wood sword, stack of blocks, 12 steak, and basic armor). In the new gamemode it took me 61 seconds to get the same equivalents (wood pick, wood sword, stack of blocks, 4 steak, and iron armor). Both of these were taken with me dropping straight from the cage onto a level 2 gen. They have added a lot of extra gens so it's possible to get eventually get up to the same speeds that they were at but it justs adds way longer onto the beginning of the game which I don't think anyone was looking for.
Feedback:
My Ideal situation would reverting to the old gamemodes and prices, but with the new emeralds. I think this would the be best option for an eggwars update because all the other changes go way further than just an update. This would change the only part of eggwars that felt useless, and with some changes to enchanting I think the gamemode could've been changed in a way that would actual be pretty well received by the community, and the shop discounts alone would likely change the game more than any other update related to emeralds, so in terms of looking to keep it fresh, that would do it.
If a revert is off the table I honestly don't know if there's anyway to get the old eggwars back. The game itself is already pretty fun as it is, and I can give suggestions to make it better, but it won't be the same as eggwars and it'll suck that that's gone (I know they could bring it back next season but honestly if they completely change the game now and then completely change it again in a year that might be worse than just refining this one to make it good)
Ems:
- Maybe keep an eye out for a price nerf on the shop discounts, especially in team gamemodes. I love that breaking an egg gives you a 10% discount so I would keep that the same, but I could see it possibly being too cheap. I wouldn't change it yet because I think it needs more play to know if its good but that's a possible problem, especially in teams games.
- Enchants definitely need to be buffed, and JustWaved had a great idea in his forums post about this. I would check his out for more detail, but it mentions custom enchants, for example being able to buy an enchant that gives you speed 1. That could be a great take on it and would make it almost equal to shop discounts.
- Overall love the ems, wouldn't change too much about them.
- BUFF GEN SPEED
- PLEASE BUFF GEN SPEED
- PLEASE
- It feels like the intention on a lot of the maps was to sit at your base and upgrade the generators, as there are more gens at bases on many of the maps. This gives every game a slower start. For example, in a teams of 2 map if you teammate is sitting on the gen and you join them to sit and wait to get enough to upgrade another gen, you have to wait a full minute.
- Last year there was a poll held on whether or not to keep the gen speeds doubled or to put them at their intended speed, and if you held it again I'm pretty sure we'd have the same result. Faster gen speeds mean spending less time at your base doing nothing, and more time playing the game.
- Another way to fix slow speeds could be to have more gens start at higher levels. For example the duos map Library starts with a single level 1 generator. If the second or third gen started at level 1 would be significantly better.
- Prices to start gens have been boosted and while I like that change for diamond gens as it makes it marginally harder to start camping, it feels weird for iron gens, so me personally I'd like that changed but I can understand keeping it.
- I haven't paid too much attention to the gold or diamond generators, so I can't and won't say anything about those.
- I honestly don't know how to fix OP. I haven't thought about to enough to give feedback that I feel would be very effective, but something needs to be changed about it so I'm going to braindump, and take everything I say with a grain of salt.
- OP needs to be faster. That was what made it special pre-1.19, but now it feels more like normal mode, and I think that's due to the fact that it's the same pace as normal. It only takes a few more hits to kill people, and the costs are about the same, so nothing is significantly different.
- In pre-1.19 OP it took 43 iron for me to get the basic gear I wanted, but in normal it took ~80(don't remember the exact number). Current OP sits at around the same number, with 84 iron to get basic gear. The prices in normal are exactly the same, the only difference is iron armor instead of leather and stone sword instead of wood.
- To fix this I think OP prices need to cut down, similar to level they were at in the past.
- I'm assuming there was some reason for making prices the same as in normal, and the reason I'm thinking is that they want to change the point of OP from fast games, towards longer games with better gear. If that is the case, then the gear in OP needs to be buffed majorly, as currently is does not feel that different.
- Also stealing another idea from Waved, that being Speed Eggwars. Speed Eggwars would be a gamemode that brings the fast paced gameplay of old OP back to the new version without changing the current OP. This would take a lot more development and serious thought into the best way to implement it, but I think it has potential if OP is going a different direction than just fast games.
- This gamemode might also just be improved with a generator buff, but I still think some changes will be needed in order to differentiate it from normal.
Final Thoughts:
I still believe old eggwars with the new emeralds, and maybe some new blocks and items would be the best outcome of this update, but seeing as that is unlikely, I hope some of the suggestions are able to help. Would love to hear any other thoughts that people have relating to the update, especially when it comes to how to fix OP. I also think I made a lot of assumptions about the intention of staff when it comes to certain changes so if any staff read this and see I'm interpreting a change wrong, please let me know. Post was much longer than I thought it would end up being but thanks for reading!
