All Networks CubeCraft’s Progression System Needs an Overhaul

[Eli]

Progression is an aspect fundamental to any game, it's the process of advancing toward a goal, designed to keep the player engaged and committed to advancing in the game. Usually progression is accompanied by rewards and unlocking new content.​

​

CubeCraft's current progression system has not been updated in a while, this is disallowing the server from getting new frequent players, and retaining old ones.

​

Context

Now, it's important to understand that typically progression as understood in Game Design, refers to the process of reaching an ultimate goal within a video game. In the case of CubeCraft, there is no ultimate goal (also known as winning condition) beyond playing and winning individual matches of games, getting achievements, and finishing challenges. There's no ultimate goal simply because you can just continue to win more and more games infinitely, and you'll never reach an end.

So now you might ask yourself, if there's no ultimate goal, how can there be progression? Well, games that work this way have already figured it out, you can keep your players motivated if you continuously impose a series of tasks/goals that they need to complete to "advance". Usually what this advancement means is reaching a higher level, perhaps a higher ranking, and in unison with this advancement, the player is rewarded with countless cosmetics and loot. Loot in particular, turns the player's appearance into a part of the game, and players love to be able to express themselves with how they look online!

So we need a leveling system that in parallel feeds the player with cosmetic loot? Sounds like CubeCraft already has all of that! What an unnecessary thread!

No, because you may have systems in place, but you need mechanisms so that your progression system is exciting enough for players to want to log into your game with consistency and work their way toward certain rewards. The way the current progression system in CubeCraft's two servers works is very insufficient in this regard, something that to me should be a much bigger priority for the network, has not seen any significant changes in years. (Oh and you don’t get loot in Bedrock, everything is locked away behind a paywall!)

As of now, the current progression system in CubeCraft works this way:​

Spoiler: Java Progression System

Playing Incentives

• Daily Challenges: Complete a series of tasks to complete an Easy, Medium, and Hard level daily Challenge. The tasks range from 3-5, and include things like winning in specific game modes, getting X amount of kills, breaking X amount of Lucky Blocks, etc.​
• Achievements: Complete a specific task, sometimes they can be obtained in a single game, sometimes you have to play dozens to thousands of games to gain these achievements. They are sorted into three categories:​
  • General Achievements: Specific tasks like killing someone using a pickaxe in SkyWars.​
  • Progressive Achievements: Cumulative tasks that require you to get an x amount of overall kills or wins, usually in the hundreds or thousands.​
  • Kit Achievements: Win a game of said gamemode using a specific kit.​
• Server Voting: Vote for CubeCraft in specific Minecraft server listings and earn EXP and personal experience modifiers. Maintain your daily voting streak to access exclusive loot rewards!​
• Leaderboards: Be among the 200 players with the most wins in a specific gamemode, your name and player head is displayed in a Leaderboard menu.​

Currencies

• There are two currencies that serve as an "indicator" of your progression in the server:​
  • EXP: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges and getting achievements.​
  • Points: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges, getting achievements, and saying GG.​
• As you gain EXP your in-game level increases, which can be seen on the top of your hotbar, when players hover over your name in chat, and in your side bar in the main lobby.​
• Points can be exchanged for kits in specific gamemodes, and for abilities in SkyWars.​

Loot

• Loot is everything that is found in the cosmetic menu in the main lobby, there are many types of loot, like special hats, trails, shield designs, cages, and more.​
  • Cubelets: Obtained by completing certain achievements, daily challenges, and sometimes by chance, they are a sort of “loot box” that once opened give you a random single reward. Cubelets can be found in three different rarities, rarer cubelets have higher chances of giving you rarer loot:​
    • Cubelets​
    • Super Cubelets​
    • Uber Cubelets​

​

If you receive an item you already had, you receive an amount of “Loot Points” proportional to the object’s rarity, Loot Points can then be converted into more Cubelets.​

• Votelets: Obtained by voting for CubeCraft in specific Minecraft server listings.​

Spoiler: ”Bedrock Progression System

Playing Incentives

• Leaderboards: Be among the 50 players with the most wins in a specific gamemode, your name and player head is displayed in a Leaderboard menu.​

Currencies

• EXP: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges and getting achievements.​
• VIP EXP: Can only be obtained by buying items from the CubeCraft store. Each VIP level has a series of rewards ranging from loot, to access to exclusive game modes.​

Loot

• Loot is everything that is found in the cosmetic menu in the main lobby, there are many types of loot, like cages, egg/chest/generator/flag/etc skins, kill/win effects, shoes, username prefixes, etc. As far as I know, only a few limited username prefixes are available for free, every other piece of loot must be purchased.​

​

​

Data & Analysis

The reason why I wanted to break down each network’s Progression System, was to serve as a comparative exercise, and to classify each in the three important concepts that I want to suggest improvements for in this thread: playing incentives, currencies & loot.

First, here is a graphical comparison of the progression system features between CubeCraft Java & Bedrock:
​

There are a few important takeaways from this comparison:​

• CubeCraft Bedrock has no “active” playing incentives, only leaderboards which are passive in the sense that they require a lot of grinding to get to, whereas “active” incentives like achievements and challenges keep things new and interesting.​
• CubeCraft Java does not have an elaborate loyalty system like Bedrock does with VIP Experience and lacks purchasable Loot. (other than the loot that comes with Ranks)​
• CubeCraft Bedrock lacks free loot.​

Other important takeaways that are not evident in this comparison:​

• CubeCraft Bedrock only recognizes the top 50 players per gamemode whilst CubeCraft Java recognizes the top 200.​
• Server Voting is difficult and nearly impossible to implement in Bedrock because redirecting users to third party websites in Bedrock is complicated, and even more so for console and mobile players.​

Overall, it seems like there are features that both versions of CubeCraft could beneficially borrow from each other. But perhaps, porting them over could be a good opportunity to overhaul them.
​

Proposals

Here is a series of changes I would make to certain Progression System Features and how I believe they should be implemented in each network:
​

Spoiler: ”Achievements”

• BEDROCK:​
  • Add achievements to CubeCraft Bedrock.​
• BEDROCK & JAVA:​
  • Add more progressive achievements to shorten the gaps between “Win 1,000 Games of X” and “Win 10,000 Games of X” very few players ever actually reach 10,000 wins, maybe add a 2,000 & 5,000 achievement.​
  • Turn all Skyblock main quests into achievements.​
  • Give personal level multipliers for hard achievements.​
  • Give a network-level multiplier for 10,000 wins achievements or their kill/egg breaking/etc equivalent.​

Spoiler: ”Daily Challenges”

• BEDROCK: ​
  • Add daily challenges to CubeCraft Bedrock.​
  • Add gamemode specific daily challenges accessible via an NPC in said gamemode’s lobby, featuring a series of daily, and weekly challenges. (As done by Hypixel)​
  • Incorporate a storytelling aspect to daily challenges, perhaps change the word “challenges” to “quests” and introduce a Quest Master character that can be found in all lobbies through which you can access daily quests, weekly quests, gamemode specific quests and or a “random quest” that has lower rewards. (As done by The Hive)​

Spoiler: ”The Hive’s Questmaster”

• BEDROCK & JAVA:​
  ​
  • Add a new daily challenge difficulty called “Impossible” with 5-7 more complicated tasks.​
  • Include more kit-specific challenges outside of Battle Arena/FFA, like “get 3 kills using the Wolf kit in Solo SkyWars”.​
  • Add more extensive “weekly” challenges like “win 10 games of BlockWars CTF”. (As done by Hypixel)​
  • Implement a challenge streak reward path like server voting in Java, that unlocks rewards like the username prefix “Questmaster”, and personal and server wide experience multipliers.​
  • Include Parkour in daily challenges like “complete 3 easy parkour levels”​
• JAVA: ​
  • Include daily voting in daily challenges:​
    • Easy: “Vote for CubeCraft in at least 1 Server List”​
    • Normal: “Vote for CubeCraft in at least 3 Server Lists”​
    • Hard: “Vote for CubeCraft in all server lists”​

Spoiler: ”Leaderboards”

• BEDROCK:​
  • Increase the amount of players per leaderboard to 200.​
  • Add a series of podiums for the top 5 players of each gamemode in their respective lobbies. (This was MASSIVELY popular in Java)​

Spoiler: ”Leaderboard Podiums”

Something like this but beautified with custom models:

Credit to @Herrero for the screenshot

• BEDROCK & JAVA:
  
  • Show your position in the leaderboard even if you’re not in the top 200. (Motivation for those seeking to reach a leaderboard)
  • Implement global leaderboards & podiums in the main lobby for the top 5 players in each of these criteria:
    • Highest EXP level.
    • Most achievements completed.
    • Most daily challenges completed.
  • Give leaderboard-specific loot for reaching the #200, #50, #5, and #1 spots.

Spoiler: ”EXP”

• BEDROCK & JAVA: ​
  • Implement gamemode-specific EXP levels, essentially, all EXP that you gain in for example, SkyWars, goes to your global level, but also toward your SkyWars level. This level would be displayed next to your username when you’re in a SkyWars lobby.​

This feature is especially necessary for Java granted that levels are not an accurate representation of skill/time played anymore since many players gained dozens of levels using server-wide experience multipliers. Multipliers would NOT count toward gamemode-specific EXP levels.​

Spoiler: ”Free & Purchasable Loot”

The Loot situation seems to be very intentional and important in CubeCraft Bedrock. The fact that there’s zero free loot probably means that it’s an important monetization method for the server, and I cannot reasonably ask anyone to change their monetization strategy if it’s working. I would instead encourage the possibility of porting purchasable loot back into Java, since Bundles used to be a thing there, using custom 3D models would be pretty cool and something that is not common to see in the Java server market. But I really cannot propose any of these ideas with much certainty, for I am mostly unaware of how these monetization strategies play out.​

That’s all for now! Do let me know what you think about these ideas, this thread had a pretty big scope so I apologize if I overlooked any important details, I tried my best to keep all of CubeCraft’s current systems in mind. Moreover, I am not so fixated on the very specific things that I proposed, and more so in the idea of understanding that progression and engagement are hugely important, and there’s a lot of places for improvement for CubeCraft, and there's a lot of already existing mechanics that can be ported over!

 

[ImLeave]

I totally agree. Theres no end, or reward besides GEXP or something. As a bedrock player, when I play games like Eggwars, I get bored because there is nothing to be happy for if you win. Absolutely true in many ways. One suggestion is making daily login rewards, As stated by Hoshi in an earlier thread. Thank you for bringing this up.

 

[Vorealys]

This is a very interesting thread, although we should reflect on what has happened on the server, especially in Java, since it is the only modality that I play and for quite some time.
Sometimes I feel and get nostalgic thinking that they want to get rid of the java edition

It is true that the loyalty system is obsolete, but I also have the idea that they try not to make so many changes due to the limitations of the server and affect its performance, we have witnessed how they made reductions in the size of the lobbies, the reduction of some maps, etc., so I want to think that making an efficient update in this sense is somewhat complicated. Are we stuck in a cycle? We can't make an interesting update to attract people because we have limited resources and we have limited resources because we can't attract people hehe.

I can also think of many ideas about how we could improve tourism on our server, new game modes, have cosmetics, like the hats (which are super cute) I'm sure if there were more cosmetics then the gaming experience would be more attractive and more players would enter. to the server.

Even temporarily granting cosmetics, holding contests in the game modes and offering the winner a day with rank according to their position (3, 2, 1) -> (iron, diamond, obsidian), I don't even feel that this could compromise the resources to maintain the server, for 1 day that 3 users have a rank, it does not mean anything in terms of losses but it does mean a lot in the loyalty system, obviously implement rules so that it is not always the same players who obtain the ranks, but whatever I insist, I think that many of the ideas that occur to us have already been proposed at some point for the server maintainers, but perhaps due to some physical issue, they have not been implemented.

In conclusion, I like that it generates the initiative to update something that is very important, more players means a pretty good chain of consequences for everyone.

 

[ImLeave]

This is a very interesting thread, although we should reflect on what has happened on the server, especially in Java, since it is the only modality that I play and for quite some time.
Sometimes I feel and get nostalgic thinking that they want to get rid of the java edition

It is true that the loyalty system is obsolete, but I also have the idea that they try not to make so many changes due to the limitations of the server and affect its performance, we have witnessed how they made reductions in the size of the lobbies, the reduction of some maps, etc., so I want to think that making an efficient update in this sense is somewhat complicated. Are we stuck in a cycle? We can't make an interesting update to attract people because we have limited resources and we have limited resources because we can't attract people hehe.

I can also think of many ideas about how we could improve tourism on our server, new game modes, have cosmetics, like the hats (which are super cute) I'm sure if there were more cosmetics then the gaming experience would be more attractive and more players would enter. to the server.

Even temporarily granting cosmetics, holding contests in the game modes and offering the winner a day with rank according to their position (3, 2, 1) -> (iron, diamond, obsidian), I don't even feel that this could compromise the resources to maintain the server, for 1 day that 3 users have a rank, it does not mean anything in terms of losses but it does mean a lot in the loyalty system, obviously implement rules so that it is not always the same players who obtain the ranks, but whatever I insist, I think that many of the ideas that occur to us have already been proposed at some point for the server maintainers, but perhaps due to some physical issue, they have not been implemented.

In conclusion, I like that it generates the initiative to update something that is very important, more players means a pretty good chain of consequences for everyone.

This could work in some ways, but because there are so many games going on, wouldn't it be hard to track all of the ranks in and out and how would it work specifically? I think it is a great idea, but the execution will likely be much different if they do do something like this.

Other questions,

How many wins will it take for a rank?

How will the staff track the ranks?

Will you lose the rank once you lose a game?

The contests thing is a good idea, but maybe, even better, a permanent rank?

 

[Mr Jii Gamer]

Progression is an aspect fundamental to any game, it's the process of advancing toward a goal, designed to keep the player engaged and committed to advancing in the game. Usually progression is accompanied by rewards and unlocking new content.​

​

CubeCraft's current progression system has not been updated in a while, this is disallowing the server from getting new frequent players, and retaining old ones.

​

Context

Now, it's important to understand that typically progression as understood in Game Design, refers to the process of reaching an ultimate goal within a video game. In the case of CubeCraft, there is no ultimate goal (also known as winning condition) beyond playing and winning individual matches of games, getting achievements, and finishing challenges. There's no ultimate goal simply because you can just continue to win more and more games infinitely, and you'll never reach an end.

So now you might ask yourself, if there's no ultimate goal, how can there be progression? Well, games that work this way have already figured it out, you can keep your players motivated if you continuously impose a series of tasks/goals that they need to complete to "advance". Usually what this advancement means is reaching a higher level, perhaps a higher ranking, and in unison with this advancement, the player is rewarded with countless cosmetics and loot. Loot in particular, turns the player's appearance into a part of the game, and players love to be able to express themselves with how they look online!

So we need a leveling system that in parallel feeds the player with cosmetic loot? Sounds like CubeCraft already has all of that! What an unnecessary thread!

No, because you may have systems in place, but you need mechanisms so that your progression system is exciting enough for players to want to log into your game with consistency and work their way toward certain rewards. The way the current progression system in CubeCraft's two servers works is very insufficient in this regard, something that to me should be a much bigger priority for the network, has not seen any significant changes in years. (Oh and you don’t get loot in Bedrock, everything is locked away behind a paywall!)

As of now, the current progression system in CubeCraft works this way:​

Spoiler: Java Progression System

Playing Incentives

• Daily Challenges: Complete a series of tasks to complete an Easy, Medium, and Hard level daily Challenge. The tasks range from 3-5, and include things like winning in specific game modes, getting X amount of kills, breaking X amount of Lucky Blocks, etc.​
• Achievements: Complete a specific task, sometimes they can be obtained in a single game, sometimes you have to play dozens to thousands of games to gain these achievements. They are sorted into three categories:​
  • General Achievements: Specific tasks like killing someone using a pickaxe in SkyWars.​
  • Progressive Achievements: Cumulative tasks that require you to get an x amount of overall kills or wins, usually in the hundreds or thousands.​
  • Kit Achievements: Win a game of said gamemode using a specific kit.​
• Server Voting: Vote for CubeCraft in specific Minecraft server listings and earn EXP and personal experience modifiers. Maintain your daily voting streak to access exclusive loot rewards!​
• Leaderboards: Be among the 200 players with the most wins in a specific gamemode, your name and player head is displayed in a Leaderboard menu.​

Currencies

• There are two currencies that serve as an "indicator" of your progression in the server:​
  • EXP: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges and getting achievements.​
  • Points: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges, getting achievements, and saying GG.​
• As you gain EXP your in-game level increases, which can be seen on the top of your hotbar, when players hover over your name in chat, and in your side bar in the main lobby.​
• Points can be exchanged for kits in specific gamemodes, and for abilities in SkyWars.​

Loot

• Loot is everything that is found in the cosmetic menu in the main lobby, there are many types of loot, like special hats, trails, shield designs, cages, and more.​
  • Cubelets: Obtained by completing certain achievements, daily challenges, and sometimes by chance, they are a sort of “loot box” that once opened give you a random single reward. Cubelets can be found in three different rarities, rarer cubelets have higher chances of giving you rarer loot:​
    • Cubelets​
    • Super Cubelets​
    • Uber Cubelets​

​

If you receive an item you already had, you receive an amount of “Loot Points” proportional to the object’s rarity, Loot Points can then be converted into more Cubelets.​

• Votelets: Obtained by voting for CubeCraft in specific Minecraft server listings.​

Spoiler: ”Bedrock Progression System

Playing Incentives

• Leaderboards: Be among the 50 players with the most wins in a specific gamemode, your name and player head is displayed in a Leaderboard menu.​

Currencies

• EXP: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges and getting achievements.​
• VIP EXP: Can only be obtained by buying items from the CubeCraft store. Each VIP level has a series of rewards ranging from loot, to access to exclusive game modes.​

Loot

• Loot is everything that is found in the cosmetic menu in the main lobby, there are many types of loot, like cages, egg/chest/generator/flag/etc skins, kill/win effects, shoes, username prefixes, etc. As far as I know, only a few limited username prefixes are available for free, every other piece of loot must be purchased.​

​

​

Data & Analysis

The reason why I wanted to break down each network’s Progression System, was to serve as a comparative exercise, and to classify each in the three important concepts that I want to suggest improvements for in this thread: playing incentives, currencies & loot.

First, here is a graphical comparison of the progression system features between CubeCraft Java & Bedrock:
​

There are a few important takeaways from this comparison:​

• CubeCraft Bedrock has no “active” playing incentives, only leaderboards which are passive in the sense that they require a lot of grinding to get to, whereas “active” incentives like achievements and challenges keep things new and interesting.​
• CubeCraft Java does not have an elaborate loyalty system like Bedrock does with VIP Experience and lacks purchasable Loot. (other than the loot that comes with Ranks)​
• CubeCraft Bedrock lacks free loot.​

Other important takeaways that are not evident in this comparison:​

• CubeCraft Bedrock only recognizes the top 50 players per gamemode whilst CubeCraft Java recognizes the top 200.​
• Server Voting is difficult and nearly impossible to implement in Bedrock because redirecting users to third party websites in Bedrock is complicated, and even more so for console and mobile players.​

Overall, it seems like there are features that both versions of CubeCraft could beneficially borrow from each other. But perhaps, porting them over could be a good opportunity to overhaul them.
​

Proposals

Here is a series of changes I would make to certain Progression System Features and how I believe they should be implemented in each network:
​

Spoiler: ”Achievements”

• BEDROCK:​
  • Add achievements to CubeCraft Bedrock.​
• BEDROCK & JAVA:​
  • Add more progressive achievements to shorten the gaps between “Win 1,000 Games of X” and “Win 10,000 Games of X” very few players ever actually reach 10,000 wins, maybe add a 2,000 & 5,000 achievement.​
  • Turn all Skyblock main quests into achievements.​
  • Give personal level multipliers for hard achievements.​
  • Give a network-level multiplier for 10,000 wins achievements or their kill/egg breaking/etc equivalent.​

Spoiler: ”Daily Challenges”

• BEDROCK: ​
  • Add daily challenges to CubeCraft Bedrock.​
  • Add gamemode specific daily challenges accessible via an NPC in said gamemode’s lobby, featuring a series of daily, and weekly challenges. (As done by Hypixel)​
  • Incorporate a storytelling aspect to daily challenges, perhaps change the word “challenges” to “quests” and introduce a Quest Master character that can be found in all lobbies through which you can access daily quests, weekly quests, gamemode specific quests and or a “random quest” that has lower rewards. (As done by The Hive)​

Spoiler: ”The Hive’s Questmaster”

• BEDROCK & JAVA:​
  ​
  • Add a new daily challenge difficulty called “Impossible” with 5-7 more complicated tasks.​
  • Include more kit-specific challenges outside of Battle Arena/FFA, like “get 3 kills using the Wolf kit in Solo SkyWars”.​
  • Add more extensive “weekly” challenges like “win 10 games of BlockWars CTF”. (As done by Hypixel)​
  • Implement a challenge streak reward path like server voting in Java, that unlocks rewards like the username prefix “Questmaster”, and personal and server wide experience multipliers.​
  • Include Parkour in daily challenges like “complete 3 easy parkour levels”​
• JAVA: ​
  • Include daily voting in daily challenges:​
    • Easy: “Vote for CubeCraft in at least 1 Server List”​
    • Normal: “Vote for CubeCraft in at least 3 Server Lists”​
    • Hard: “Vote for CubeCraft in all server lists”​

Spoiler: ”Leaderboards”

• BEDROCK:​
  • Increase the amount of players per leaderboard to 200.​
  • Add a series of podiums for the top 5 players of each gamemode in their respective lobbies. (This was MASSIVELY popular in Java)​

Spoiler: ”Leaderboard Podiums”

Something like this but beautified with custom models:

Credit to @Herrero for the screenshot

• BEDROCK & JAVA:
  
  • Show your position in the leaderboard even if you’re not in the top 200. (Motivation for those seeking to reach a leaderboard)
  • Implement global leaderboards & podiums in the main lobby for the top 5 players in each of these criteria:
    • Highest EXP level.
    • Most achievements completed.
    • Most daily challenges completed.
  • Give leaderboard-specific loot for reaching the #200, #50, #5, and #1 spots.

Spoiler: ”EXP”

• BEDROCK & JAVA: ​
  • Implement gamemode-specific EXP levels, essentially, all EXP that you gain in for example, SkyWars, goes to your global level, but also toward your SkyWars level. This level would be displayed next to your username when you’re in a SkyWars lobby.​

This feature is especially necessary for Java granted that levels are not an accurate representation of skill/time played anymore since many players gained dozens of levels using server-wide experience multipliers. Multipliers would NOT count toward gamemode-specific EXP levels.​

Spoiler: ”Free & Purchasable Loot”

The Loot situation seems to be very intentional and important in CubeCraft Bedrock. The fact that there’s zero free loot probably means that it’s an important monetization method for the server, and I cannot reasonably ask anyone to change their monetization strategy if it’s working. I would instead encourage the possibility of porting purchasable loot back into Java, since Bundles used to be a thing there, using custom 3D models would be pretty cool and something that is not common to see in the Java server market. But I really cannot propose any of these ideas with much certainty, for I am mostly unaware of how these monetization strategies play out.​

That’s all for now! Do let me know what you think about these ideas, this thread had a pretty big scope so I apologize if I overlooked any important details, I tried my best to keep all of CubeCraft’s current systems in mind. Moreover, I am not so fixated on the very specific things that I proposed, and more so in the idea of understanding that progression and engagement are hugely important, and there’s a lot of places for improvement for CubeCraft, and there's a lot of already existing mechanics that can be ported over!

Wow this must take from you a lot of time
But there agreat suggestion here especially with that one of the leadboard and others so i agree

 

[Vorealys]

This could work in some ways, but because there are so many games going on, wouldn't it be hard to track all of the ranks in and out and how would it work specifically? I think it is a great idea, but the execution will likely be much different if they do do something like this.

Other questions,

How many wins will it take for a rank?

How will the staff track the ranks?

Will you lose the rank once you lose a game?

The contests thing is a good idea, but maybe, even better, a permanent rank?

It's exciting to see that someone has been interested in my crazy ideas haha :')

It is definitely a very drastic proposal, I totally agree that implementing this type of changes requires a lot of work and perhaps some use of more resources for the server, but I have also thought about some ideas of how it could be implemented without compromising at least this last part. (The job seems to be non-negotiable :/ )

I feel that we are stuck in a somewhat static system, I agree that there are certain dynamics, but even to me they seem somewhat excessive and out of reach, before, in addition to the table of the main top players, we had a seasonal one, I don't know why that was retired, but it seemed like an excellent area of opportunity to develop and implement the proposals that I mentioned above, since it showed the main players of the season there, even if you were new to the server it was easy to enter this classification, very different from the historical, that at least in eggwars, you require a minimum of 7000 wins to appear in it

Well let's get started...
We have "eggwars, lucky and skywars" within each type of game there are 2 divisions, 1 to play "normal" and another "to classify in a seasonal ranking" each division has 6 different maps (this way we avoid there being so many and at the same time In the end, only a few are filled, in addition to encouraging the maps to be filled more easily) each month (season) the maps will be rotated, the classification division receives new maps and the ones it had the previous month go to the "normal" division"

Well, now that we have this, we have to develop a route that implements all the games to be able to qualify, that is, you not only have to play eggwars or skywars or lucky to win, you have to go through all of them to generate the points that take you to victory

You get the points, just as Eli mentions, with certain activities that Cubecraft will assign to you on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Now these activities (daily, weekly or monthly) when completed will give you short-term rewards, for example, they will activate the skills that already exist in the game modes for a period of hours, nice cosmetics to use in the lobby, most of These rewards should be for time, so we encourage playing again to acquire others, this would avoid the current boring system of accessories, sometimes they have some that not even other players use or you have so many that you don't even get to try them all
Give special kits and that (obviously) do not generate a disadvantage for others, all this with the idea that you play to receive rewards in the short, medium and perhaps long term, did you complete a task? have this kit with a diamond pickaxe in 1 of every 4 random games in eggwars for the next 2 hours

What is the final objective? At the end of the month (season) The first 3 places will receive a rank the following month, only for that month according to their classification, and they cannot qualify again in the tournament for 2 seasons, to allow others to get there

Now, returning to the questions
How many wins will it take for a rank?
-It is not particularly a matter of wins, but of activities that cubecraft will assign to you, for example, one can be "Win 6 games in eggwars" but another can be "Break all the enemies' eggs" and this would not necessarily imply that You must win the game, otherwise you must complete the task

How will the staff track the ranks?
-There is no special treatment for ranks in this context, at the end of the season you are given a rank based on your ranking for the following season (month) just like paid ones work, only in this case you earned it for free and only There would be at least 3, so it would not imply an economic loss to sustain the server

Will you lose the rank once you lose a game?
-You would lose them at the end of the season after you earned them, so the 3 places are available for new players, even here there is an opportunity to generate purchases, at the end of the validity of your earned rank, you can offer the player a discount for the renewal next month, so perhaps it is very likely that people will be more interested in buying a rank

The contests thing is a good idea, but maybe, even better, a permanent rank?
-Obtaining a permanent rank does not seem like a very good idea to me, especially since the essential thing is that the server can sustain itself and eventually implement more games and more complex tasks, but if you want to see it that way, maybe a rank for a longer term while retaining The idea of giving you a discount when it is about to expire so you can renew would be something more realistic

PD: Sorry, I know it's a lot of text, but I really got excited writing it. ^^'

 

[Dualninja]

I really love the idea of leaderboard podiums, especially since we got makeshift ones for Present Rush back in December.

I also think that Cubecraft should take some inspiration from MCC Island's loot system. It has countless incentives and systems; with a very in-depth economy and beautiful 3D loot. I think it's the best loot and cosmetic system in a Minecraft server and Cubecraft should definitely try and model their system after it.

I made a somewhat similar suggestion back in November, I'll link it Here.

 

[CubeT0ch]

This is why I only play skyblock on the server frequently because it's the only game mode that has a goal and a reason to come back to playing it in my opinion until your complete the game like me ofc. ):<

 

[Desiderata]

atp i dont even know why cubecraft bedrock doesnt have a proper incentive system

honestly a shame given how fun their games are, it doesn't feel fulfilling to continue playing after a while even how much fun it could be tbh

like it has progression sure but what for

 

[99th_DutchNubnub]

Hey,

First of all, an amazing threat. Second, Why wouldn't they combine this with clans or guilds. I've seen posts from admins somewhere about guilds whose capabilities they like. So if they might want to use guilds, why wouldn't they combine that with things you've said?
I'd love to hear what you think about this.

Nubnub

 

[Eli]

Hey,

First of all, an amazing threat. Second, Why wouldn't they combine this with clans or guilds. I've seen posts from admins somewhere about guilds whose capabilities they like. So if they might want to use guilds, why wouldn't they combine that with things you've said?
I'd love to hear what you think about this.

Nubnub

Oh absolutely! Guilds and clans was another thing I would've wanted to mention but honestly the thread was getting pretty long, I've been a supporter of adding guilds to CubeCraft ever since it was first suggested HERE, they're a very useful mechanic to incentivize player activity and cooperation, guilds would be amazing!!

 

[Basketman]

Hi @Eli , once again I would like to mention that these threads are nice to see here from you, so thank for that.

Okay more into the topic itself, it’s indeed weird to realise that bedrock hasn’t had such an update yet regarding quests, loot and general progression.

This might indeed be something that CubeCraft could combine with the clans and guilds idea that has been going on in their minds for years.
Making it one big update that is not new game mode related.

I remember the first time I joined bedrock when I was staff that I instantly went to search for the daily challenges, but wasn’t able to find it which is the biggest thing I missed of all.

It’s such a big of motivation to complete your daily quests each day, they might even add a leaderboard for highest quests completed streak.

So people really have the motivation to go online daily and complete these challenges.

For the free loot I do understand that CubeCraft won’t add to much free stuff since this might make it so people buy less of their featured content. But some free loot to reward players is certainly welcome.


Oh and please indeed add lobby leaderboards back (on bedrock then). I remember my first days here on CubeCraft always going into each game mode just to check the top 5 heads of the players. This is also a bigger reward for those reaching such a high place after all their time and effort. And this will make the hunt and fight for the first 5 places even more fun.


So yes please make this happen.

 

[dvodany]

Haya! First of all: I must admit CubeCraft is somewhat behind the game/level progression system. Secondly: Amazing thread! And with such a support, I think this has even a chance to get looked at and considered by our mighty admins.


Now some personal thoughts:

On Bedrock, it'd be indeed a nice feature to have achievements, challanges, login streaks and even a little bit of some free loot for achieving higher levels or completing achievents.

There already are rewards in form of free loot after finishing some lobby parkours - adding a few more loot hopefully won't hurt CC's bussiness.
New free loot'd be pretty difficult to obtain, it could be a reward for completing difficult and complicated achievements and/or reaching high levels. If the concept of this loot would be well thought out, VIP/paid loot won't drop its value.

When it comes to leaderboards, it may be nice to display the top 100 players as it would still remain pretty hard to get on the lb. I really like the idea of displaying player's position on the bottom of the lb even if they are not within the top 100, but I'm not sure if this'd be technically possible to make happen. At least on Bedrock.
I totally agree with the concepts of global leaderboards and podiums.

However, I'd leave the problematic of clans and guilts for another suggestion thread. Both of these suggestions are really comprehensive, and mixing them together into one massive update is just too much.

I see this as a complete game progression system overhaul, and so it would definitely be a long-term project. But if this is what Cube needs, I'm certain its worth of patience.
It's pitty that we can no longer forward the suggestions internally. In my opinion, this one's worth it!

 

[Dualninja]

Haya! First of all: I must admit CubeCraft is somewhat behind the game/level progression system. Secondly: Amazing thread! And with such a support, I think this has even a chance to get looked at and considered by our mighty admins.


Now some personal thoughts:

On Bedrock, it'd be indeed a nice feature to have achievements, challanges, login streaks and even a little bit of some free loot for achieving higher levels or completing achievents.

There already are rewards in form of free loot after finishing some lobby parkours - adding a few more loot hopefully won't hurt CC's bussiness.
New free loot'd be pretty difficult to obtain, it could be a reward for completing difficult and complicated achievements and/or reaching high levels. If the concept of this loot would be well thought out, VIP/paid loot won't drop its value.

When it comes to leaderboards, it may be nice to display the top 100 players as it would still remain pretty hard to get on the lb. I really like the idea of displaying player's position on the bottom of the lb even if they are not within the top 100, but I'm not sure if this'd be technically possible to make happen. At least on Bedrock.
I totally agree with the concepts of global leaderboards and podiums.

However, I'd leave the problematic of clans and guilts for another suggestion thread. Both of these suggestions are really comprehensive, and mixing them together into one massive update is just too much.

I see this as a complete game progression system overhaul, and so it would definitely be a long-term project. But if this is what Cube needs, I'm certain its worth of patience.
It's pitty that we can no longer forward the suggestions internally. In my opinion, this one's worth it!

This suggestion is so large that it definitely couldn’t be done in one update; I think it would be better to do it in waves. For example, wave 1 could be all the leaderboard changes; whereas wave 2 could be adding achievements and the levelling system. After that the system would be pretty good, but it could go further. Wave 3 could then add more free loot and the addition of points, then finally wave 4 could be guilds/clans.

This is the only way this update could happen in my opinion, with all of these updates being spread across 6-12 months. But I honestly think it would be worth it, Cubecraft is way behind it’s competitors when it comes to loot. This would be especially needed seeing as The Hive is currently catching up to Cubecraft in player counts, and loot is one of their biggest attractions. So revamping loot is just a smart business move.

 

[qKhalidd]

agreed and cubecraft should take your thread as an improvement for their network overall

 

[n00batg4me]

This seems like it has a lot of potential. I would like to see where my leaderboard position is even when I’m not top 100.

 

[AnolTongi]

Achievements, where do I even begin..
I honestly LOVE achievements personally and would love to see them on Bedrock. I understand the developer resources are quite limited and probably won't be used to make this but if it were to be made, I would be more than content. Same with the daily challenges, overall seems like just good ways to make players play more, however as I said, lack of developer resources is an issue unfortunately.

Dual's suggestion makes sense, spreading these updates, rolling them out slowly in the course of 6-12 months is a fine idea but like you people, I have no idea how much time the developers can dedicate as I'm not a staff related to the internal server/content side, we're just a community/moderation staff member basically, so I'm not sure if this would be possible or not, however if it is, it really would be sweet and fun.

• Add a series of podiums for the top 5 players of each gamemode in their respective lobbies. (This was MASSIVELY popular in Java)

Yes. This might create some issues moderation wise however if it can be implemented, would be a silly addition which can add a nice way of motivation honestly.

But I overall agree, there needs to be some extra ways to make a reason for people to grind the games, except leaderboards, yk

 

[ninjaaleen]

Progression is an aspect fundamental to any game, it's the process of advancing toward a goal, designed to keep the player engaged and committed to advancing in the game. Usually progression is accompanied by rewards and unlocking new content.​

​

CubeCraft's current progression system has not been updated in a while, this is disallowing the server from getting new frequent players, and retaining old ones.

​

Context

Now, it's important to understand that typically progression as understood in Game Design, refers to the process of reaching an ultimate goal within a video game. In the case of CubeCraft, there is no ultimate goal (also known as winning condition) beyond playing and winning individual matches of games, getting achievements, and finishing challenges. There's no ultimate goal simply because you can just continue to win more and more games infinitely, and you'll never reach an end.

So now you might ask yourself, if there's no ultimate goal, how can there be progression? Well, games that work this way have already figured it out, you can keep your players motivated if you continuously impose a series of tasks/goals that they need to complete to "advance". Usually what this advancement means is reaching a higher level, perhaps a higher ranking, and in unison with this advancement, the player is rewarded with countless cosmetics and loot. Loot in particular, turns the player's appearance into a part of the game, and players love to be able to express themselves with how they look online!

So we need a leveling system that in parallel feeds the player with cosmetic loot? Sounds like CubeCraft already has all of that! What an unnecessary thread!

No, because you may have systems in place, but you need mechanisms so that your progression system is exciting enough for players to want to log into your game with consistency and work their way toward certain rewards. The way the current progression system in CubeCraft's two servers works is very insufficient in this regard, something that to me should be a much bigger priority for the network, has not seen any significant changes in years. (Oh and you don’t get loot in Bedrock, everything is locked away behind a paywall!)

As of now, the current progression system in CubeCraft works this way:​

Spoiler: Java Progression System

Playing Incentives

• Daily Challenges: Complete a series of tasks to complete an Easy, Medium, and Hard level daily Challenge. The tasks range from 3-5, and include things like winning in specific game modes, getting X amount of kills, breaking X amount of Lucky Blocks, etc.​
• Achievements: Complete a specific task, sometimes they can be obtained in a single game, sometimes you have to play dozens to thousands of games to gain these achievements. They are sorted into three categories:​
  • General Achievements: Specific tasks like killing someone using a pickaxe in SkyWars.​
  • Progressive Achievements: Cumulative tasks that require you to get an x amount of overall kills or wins, usually in the hundreds or thousands.​
  • Kit Achievements: Win a game of said gamemode using a specific kit.​
• Server Voting: Vote for CubeCraft in specific Minecraft server listings and earn EXP and personal experience modifiers. Maintain your daily voting streak to access exclusive loot rewards!​
• Leaderboards: Be among the 200 players with the most wins in a specific gamemode, your name and player head is displayed in a Leaderboard menu.​

Currencies

• There are two currencies that serve as an "indicator" of your progression in the server:​
  • EXP: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges and getting achievements.​
  • Points: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges, getting achievements, and saying GG.​
• As you gain EXP your in-game level increases, which can be seen on the top of your hotbar, when players hover over your name in chat, and in your side bar in the main lobby.​
• Points can be exchanged for kits in specific gamemodes, and for abilities in SkyWars.​

Loot

• Loot is everything that is found in the cosmetic menu in the main lobby, there are many types of loot, like special hats, trails, shield designs, cages, and more.​
  • Cubelets: Obtained by completing certain achievements, daily challenges, and sometimes by chance, they are a sort of “loot box” that once opened give you a random single reward. Cubelets can be found in three different rarities, rarer cubelets have higher chances of giving you rarer loot:​
    • Cubelets​
    • Super Cubelets​
    • Uber Cubelets​

​

If you receive an item you already had, you receive an amount of “Loot Points” proportional to the object’s rarity, Loot Points can then be converted into more Cubelets.​

• Votelets: Obtained by voting for CubeCraft in specific Minecraft server listings.​

Spoiler: ”Bedrock Progression System

Playing Incentives

• Leaderboards: Be among the 50 players with the most wins in a specific gamemode, your name and player head is displayed in a Leaderboard menu.​

Currencies

• EXP: obtained by playing games, winning games, doing challenges and getting achievements.​
• VIP EXP: Can only be obtained by buying items from the CubeCraft store. Each VIP level has a series of rewards ranging from loot, to access to exclusive game modes.​

Loot

• Loot is everything that is found in the cosmetic menu in the main lobby, there are many types of loot, like cages, egg/chest/generator/flag/etc skins, kill/win effects, shoes, username prefixes, etc. As far as I know, only a few limited username prefixes are available for free, every other piece of loot must be purchased.​

​

​

Data & Analysis

The reason why I wanted to break down each network’s Progression System, was to serve as a comparative exercise, and to classify each in the three important concepts that I want to suggest improvements for in this thread: playing incentives, currencies & loot.

First, here is a graphical comparison of the progression system features between CubeCraft Java & Bedrock:
​

There are a few important takeaways from this comparison:​

• CubeCraft Bedrock has no “active” playing incentives, only leaderboards which are passive in the sense that they require a lot of grinding to get to, whereas “active” incentives like achievements and challenges keep things new and interesting.​
• CubeCraft Java does not have an elaborate loyalty system like Bedrock does with VIP Experience and lacks purchasable Loot. (other than the loot that comes with Ranks)​
• CubeCraft Bedrock lacks free loot.​

Other important takeaways that are not evident in this comparison:​

• CubeCraft Bedrock only recognizes the top 50 players per gamemode whilst CubeCraft Java recognizes the top 200.​
• Server Voting is difficult and nearly impossible to implement in Bedrock because redirecting users to third party websites in Bedrock is complicated, and even more so for console and mobile players.​

Overall, it seems like there are features that both versions of CubeCraft could beneficially borrow from each other. But perhaps, porting them over could be a good opportunity to overhaul them.
​

Proposals

Here is a series of changes I would make to certain Progression System Features and how I believe they should be implemented in each network:
​

Spoiler: ”Achievements”

• BEDROCK:​
  • Add achievements to CubeCraft Bedrock.​
• BEDROCK & JAVA:​
  • Add more progressive achievements to shorten the gaps between “Win 1,000 Games of X” and “Win 10,000 Games of X” very few players ever actually reach 10,000 wins, maybe add a 2,000 & 5,000 achievement.​
  • Turn all Skyblock main quests into achievements.​
  • Give personal level multipliers for hard achievements.​
  • Give a network-level multiplier for 10,000 wins achievements or their kill/egg breaking/etc equivalent.​

Spoiler: ”Daily Challenges”

• BEDROCK: ​
  • Add daily challenges to CubeCraft Bedrock.​
  • Add gamemode specific daily challenges accessible via an NPC in said gamemode’s lobby, featuring a series of daily, and weekly challenges. (As done by Hypixel)​
  • Incorporate a storytelling aspect to daily challenges, perhaps change the word “challenges” to “quests” and introduce a Quest Master character that can be found in all lobbies through which you can access daily quests, weekly quests, gamemode specific quests and or a “random quest” that has lower rewards. (As done by The Hive)​

Spoiler: ”The Hive’s Questmaster”

• BEDROCK & JAVA:​
  ​
  • Add a new daily challenge difficulty called “Impossible” with 5-7 more complicated tasks.​
  • Include more kit-specific challenges outside of Battle Arena/FFA, like “get 3 kills using the Wolf kit in Solo SkyWars”.​
  • Add more extensive “weekly” challenges like “win 10 games of BlockWars CTF”. (As done by Hypixel)​
  • Implement a challenge streak reward path like server voting in Java, that unlocks rewards like the username prefix “Questmaster”, and personal and server wide experience multipliers.​
  • Include Parkour in daily challenges like “complete 3 easy parkour levels”​
• JAVA: ​
  • Include daily voting in daily challenges:​
    • Easy: “Vote for CubeCraft in at least 1 Server List”​
    • Normal: “Vote for CubeCraft in at least 3 Server Lists”​
    • Hard: “Vote for CubeCraft in all server lists”​

Spoiler: ”Leaderboards”

• BEDROCK:​
  • Increase the amount of players per leaderboard to 200.​
  • Add a series of podiums for the top 5 players of each gamemode in their respective lobbies. (This was MASSIVELY popular in Java)​

Spoiler: ”Leaderboard Podiums”

Something like this but beautified with custom models:

Credit to @Herrero for the screenshot

• BEDROCK & JAVA:
  
  • Show your position in the leaderboard even if you’re not in the top 200. (Motivation for those seeking to reach a leaderboard)
  • Implement global leaderboards & podiums in the main lobby for the top 5 players in each of these criteria:
    • Highest EXP level.
    • Most achievements completed.
    • Most daily challenges completed.
  • Give leaderboard-specific loot for reaching the #200, #50, #5, and #1 spots.

Spoiler: ”EXP”

• BEDROCK & JAVA: ​
  • Implement gamemode-specific EXP levels, essentially, all EXP that you gain in for example, SkyWars, goes to your global level, but also toward your SkyWars level. This level would be displayed next to your username when you’re in a SkyWars lobby.​

This feature is especially necessary for Java granted that levels are not an accurate representation of skill/time played anymore since many players gained dozens of levels using server-wide experience multipliers. Multipliers would NOT count toward gamemode-specific EXP levels.​

Spoiler: ”Free & Purchasable Loot”

The Loot situation seems to be very intentional and important in CubeCraft Bedrock. The fact that there’s zero free loot probably means that it’s an important monetization method for the server, and I cannot reasonably ask anyone to change their monetization strategy if it’s working. I would instead encourage the possibility of porting purchasable loot back into Java, since Bundles used to be a thing there, using custom 3D models would be pretty cool and something that is not common to see in the Java server market. But I really cannot propose any of these ideas with much certainty, for I am mostly unaware of how these monetization strategies play out.​

That’s all for now! Do let me know what you think about these ideas, this thread had a pretty big scope so I apologize if I overlooked any important details, I tried my best to keep all of CubeCraft’s current systems in mind. Moreover, I am not so fixated on the very specific things that I proposed, and more so in the idea of understanding that progression and engagement are hugely important, and there’s a lot of places for improvement for CubeCraft, and there's a lot of already existing mechanics that can be ported over!

i want these dailt quests in bedrock so cool to have them i wish soon we get them

Achievements, where do I even begin..
I honestly LOVE achievements personally and would love to see them on Bedrock. I understand the developer resources are quite limited and probably won't be used to make this but if it were to be made, I would be more than content. Same with the daily challenges, overall seems like just good ways to make players play more, however as I said, lack of developer resources is an issue unfortunately.

Dual's suggestion makes sense, spreading these updates, rolling them out slowly in the course of 6-12 months is a fine idea but like you people, I have no idea how much time the developers can dedicate as I'm not a staff related to the internal server/content side, we're just a community/moderation staff member basically, so I'm not sure if this would be possible or not, however if it is, it really would be sweet and fun.


Yes. This might create some issues moderation wise however if it can be implemented, would be a silly addition which can add a nice way of motivation honestly.

But I overall agree, there needs to be some extra ways to make a reason for people to grind the games, except leaderboards, yk

I want them itll be so cool

 

[99th_DutchNubnub]

Oh absolutely! Guilds and clans was another thing I would've wanted to mention but honestly the thread was getting pretty long, I've been a supporter of adding guilds to CubeCraft ever since it was first suggested HERE, they're a very useful mechanic to incentivize player activity and cooperation, guilds would be amazing!!

Lovely, maybe I will be creating one of those long good explained threads about clans and guilds,

Nubnub

 

[cryptofrogz]

@Camezonda did recently acknowledge this before your post was made, how long will it take for cube to take action? We will never know
I totally agree though