What I am about to present is an update that was thought with the purpose of reintroducing a once very popular gamemode in the network. A game mode that had the potential of being incredibly successful. Sadly it wasn't well taken care of, but it's never too late to solve old mistakes! With Minecraft's rising popularity, CTF is an appealing gamemode to many. These changes will guarantee CubeCraft Game's CTF minigame being superior and unique over any other existing attempts of it.
- July 31st 2016, core mode is introduced, we got a new kit, three new maps, and a new team balancer. This update was good, except for the fact that the team balancer was horrible and had to be replaced later on with a new one suggested by @Andyyy. The new kit we got, was basically useless and had to be buffed multiple times, to the point where it became kind of useful but the mobs it spawns still have horrible AI. Core is a pretty boring gamemode too, you basically have to sit 10 minutes next to the core breaking it over and over again... while the rest of your team is spawn killing enemies, which leads up to them leaving. Which end up in 8v1s. Not fun at all... (Recently @Andyyy suggested a revamp for core here)
- April 19th 2018, two new kits, new pre-lobby and lobby layout, team balancing fixes, new achievements. The two new kits were absolutely useless, luckily medic got buffed a while ago and is kind of useful now. But wait, no one uses it? Why? Because it's not good enough, it's not good enough to face kits like Warrior, Ninja or Runner. About viper, I think I haven't seen a viper in the last 200 games of BlockWars I've played.
The past BlockWars updates haven't been ideal... at all which lead to BlockWars' demise.
- October 2nd 2018, "The Big Change" BlockWars gets removed from CubeCraft as a permanent game and becomes a temporary game that would then be featured several times a month for two days.
But hey, it's never too late to fix old mistakes. It's never too late to revive an old game. What BlockWars needs is a good update, and update that will actually bring meaningful change to the game, but for good. An update that will change the way player's play the game, but not its purpose and essence.
Which is why, together with @Andyyy, we have formulated changes to every single BlockWars kit currently existing and created new ones. These changes have the purpose of bringing more variety to defense and combat strategies in-game. And we want every kit to be a main kit. An aspect of the game as basic as kits seems to be the most fundamental part of the game's dynamic, if every kit is able to perform a specific task that is actually valuable for the team itself, then people would start using said kits.
BlockWars should be a strategy game, not a contest of whoever has a bigger party with the most tryhards.
This "Op Party phenomenon" is the main reason why new players don't usually enjoy playing BlockWars. Of course people that are better at the PvP will always have an advantage, but returning BlockWars from a PvP centered game to a team strategy game allows a much bigger demographic to enjoy the game.
Kits/Classes in any gamemode should be varied right? They should be valuable and should all have similar power. In other words: different but balanced. As of now, BlockWars' kits are little different and not balanced at all.
Does this look like variety to you?
Weapons of every kit
Armour of every kit
In terms of weapons and armour, all kits are almost identical which leads up to having terrible balancing issues.
- Ninja in its current state is the most powerful kits in-game. To the point that it is Overpowered in certain situations. There's a bug that CubeCraft cannot solve in which players cannot see the breaking progress of a block if it is being broken by an invisible player. Which gives Ninja an immense advantage to steal the flag. Its weapon is also very strong and can easily kill most kits.
- Warrior and Runner are perfectly balanced with each other but every other kit just stands no chance against any of these two.
- Tank is a horrible kit, it is basically a human punchbag, and it deals almost no damage. It has no purpose at all.
- Viper is also very bad, it is underpowered extremely, its potion effect is quite weak and its weapon and armour don't allow the kit to be useful while the potion comes back.
- Medic is good, but not enough for people to consider using it, it needs a small buff.
- Archer is good at range, but also good at melee with the knockback stick, a little nerf to its armour is necessary for it to not be powerful in every situation.
- Summoner is very useful, and can hold a decisive role in teams sometimes, but it can barely defend itself. And its pet's AI is not ideal, needs a buff too.
- Bomber is a very important kit in the game, it sometimes is too effective. Needs a small nerf.
- Builder is very easily countered by bomber, needs a buff.
- Miner lacks efficiency at its job: mining. Needs a buff. A miner's #1 enemy are trap blocks, needs a way to avoid them.
- Most kits can easily be confused with each other at plain sight, for strategic value, every kit should have its own distinctive look.
Kits need to change, drastically. BlockWars has got to the point where everyone only uses the same 4 or 5 kits (Warrior, Runner, Ninja, Bomber, Archer). Every other kit is just extremely underpowered.
All kits must get a new look, so they are all easy to identify and if necessary, targeted. Which is also why these kit changes include a material/colour code, diamond boots means the kit has a speed effect, gold means the kit has curative or regenaration abilities, iron leggings means the kit has a jump boost effect.
The more gear there is to work with, the more variety can be included regarding PvP, and kit specific abilities. These power increments will make the game's pace be a little bit slower than what it used to be, giving new players more opportunities.
Basically the most common kits should get nerfed and the least common ones should be buffed, that way people not only play with the same 3 or 4 kits, which makes the game get boring eventually.
[DISCLAIMER: These changes won't make sense to you until you've seen them all]
I know I basically started this thread saying Ninja is OP, and it is. But we gave it a diamond sword instead of an iron one so it can make up for the upgrades in the rest of the kits. (It's only +1 damage anyway)
This is a buff for builder here, it should be given +2 armour (iron boots) plus a better sword which deals 5 damage instead of 4. This is because, builder is usually very weak and is forced to hold a defensive position. But, blocks are actually very useful for offense, for example by building above walls, and placing blocks behind you, making enemy players fall into the void. (I'm wondering if someone noticed the pun already...)
Bomber should only get one more extra armour point, and with the power increase in all the other kits, you can start to see it is being nerfed. Which is good, because bomber is very effective to play as, too effective in fact. Having your whole team being bomber is an incredibly overpowered strategy that makes you win in no more than a minute. And that just ruins the fun.
Archer gets an armour increase which isn't too significant either, this will guarantee that it won't be as powerful in melee combat as before. But to make up for this drastic nerf, it is given a better pickaxe, to make archer a more adventurous kit. This would disincentive camping and bowspamming. The arrow cooldown should be reduced to 5 seconds, waiting 20 seconds for every arrow is just exaggerated and usually ends up on having to kill yourself to get more.
Moving onto medic, this kit has incredible potential. And its role in a team game like CTF is fundamental when it comes to the buffs it brings to its allies. You can see it only has gold gear, to represent it is a healer. It is given 3 more armour points so it is less easy to kill in PvP, so it can continue its role as healer/assistant.
Jumper only gets one more armour point, it is a pretty good kit as it is right now. Especially in maps like doublehelix, where falling damage is a constant threat. Jumper gets a power 1 bow, to make up for its weak weapon. It only gets one arrow though, power bows are very strong.
On miner, no one ever uses it because the difference between a wooden pickaxe and a stone pickaxe isn't that drastic for it to be a valuable perk. And it is easily destroyed by warrior or runner in PvP. What it needs is to have a reason to stand out. Which is why it should be given an iron pickaxe.
Miners should see enemy trap blocks at all times to make sure you aren't the victim of them. And help their team with the diffusing shears: Hold right click on a trap block to remove the trap. This counters the blockmaster.
