After the recent controversies around the picking of core as the featured game, maybe instead of shunning core and sending it to the underworld to never be seen again, we could make it slightly less awful.
So what's wrong with core?
1. It's boring. There's no excitement to a number very slowly moving down. It's like the worst clicker game ever made. There's no way of speeding up the process and relies on sitting in a box.
2, It's slow. Games of core last consistently longer than they should. Even in the case of one team destroying the other, it will still easily go into overtime. The 5 second timer feels like a lifetime between doing core damage.
3. It's not exciting. There is no thrill in seeing exactly who is winning, there being no clutches at the end.
4. It's not satisfying. At the end of the game, instead of thinking to yourself how that it was intense, dramatic game, you wish you got those minutes of your life back after either kill farming or being kill farmed.
5. It's unbalanced. The kits in Blockwars are designed for CTF and not core and that's clear as day.
6. There are no incentives. Why stay in game and lose when you could just go and join a new one?
7. It's repetitive. There are only a handful of unique situations in a core game and it's basically overtime and not.
So that's some problems with core. Can all of them be fixed? No. But we can try!
Let's speed things up, shall we?
If there's anything to learn from those previously mentioned clicker games is that if you can speed things up with some ingenuity, there's a world of satisfaction to get from that, so why don't we apply that to core mode?
Suggestion 1: Speed up core breaking based on teamwork
As of now, there is no reason to have more than one person breaking the core at a time, you can't make it any faster while the rest of the team just sits there and fights. Instead of this, why don't we reward teamwork on breaking the core?
Having core break time decrease based on amount of player breaking it has three advantages:
1. Adds much needed strategy to the game by thinking about the risk and reward of working on fighting the enemies to keep them at bay Vs helping on breaking the core to build your advantage while you are ahead.
2. Speeds up extremely unbalanced games. Games that turn quickly into 8v1s can be ended quickly so kill farming is reduced.
3. Removes player idleness in unbalanced games. There will now always be something to do to help your team.
Now, obviously this break time won't be linear as that would be a bit crazy but if the core broke say 25% quicker per extra person breaking it, then it adds the satisfaction of speeding up the process while not being too extreme.
Suggestion 2: Give everyone rewards
Currently, the person who gets the core break is the only person to get rewards for breaking the core which leads to fighting over get core damage via people blocking each others views to get the damage. The 25 core damage achievement is coveted and really frustrating as it makes people block teammates out to get it. So with new teamwork to break the core, why shouldn't everyone get a reward? So everyone who helps break the core will reap the rewards for it to. It finally encourages teamwork and doesn't make that achievement so dreadfully painful.
Adding some more excitement
So now our core number goes down slightly more quickly and everyone gets something to do. But what we need is some more unique situations in core mode to spice up the game some more. So I introduce to you, events! I'm not talking about the dreadful events from SG that are just a hinderance, we want something that changes the way that all important number goes down. These events will be shown on the boss bar and will happen at maximum 2-3 times a game. These will have a 30 second warning so players get a chance to prepare. these can be voteable with obsidian rank so cube can make more money!
Event 1: Glass core
Sounds simple, a glass core instead of a wool one for a short time. 2 damage instead of 1. But there's a catch! Glass shatters so after a core is broken once, glass will be left on the floor and it will slowly damage enemy teammates around the core and will last until the end of the event.
Event 2: Core drills
3 Core drills ( shears ) will spawn at the powerup spots which very quickly destroy the core, but they can only be used thrice. If are killed by an enemy, they take your shears and one durability will be lost. There's extra strategy as players will rush to middle for these drills and leave their cores for sneak attacks. Players can also purposely damage these drills so when enemies take them off them, they wont get anything. Players with drills can be identified by a black helmet. Normally the helmet slot is reversed for taking the flag but it's core mode.
If you can think of any more events, comment them below!!
Let's talk kits!
In Blockwars core, kits are unbalanced massively. Kits have been designed for CTF and not core, so we need some core specific changes to kits to make them fairer. Admittedly, I'm not cure exactly on the best changes but there is a clear problem.
Ninja is far too dominant in core mode, much more than in CTF for a few reasons. Firstly, it excels most in semi cramped conditions. The advantages for kits like runner in CTF is that they can move around and in core that's useless due to PvP often taking place mostly in the core room. This is where ninjas iron sword shreds. Ninja also has the advantage in not only PvP but in breaking cores.
Defending against ninjas going invisible to break the core is extremely frustrating because not only can you not see where they are and have to frantically hit in random directions, they also have the first hit advantage.
How to fix this? I think the best and most elegant way of doing it is by making ninjas semi transparent when damaging the core. This effect is used in parkour and could work really well. They aren't completely obvious but aren't a pain in the core at the same time.
On a final note
Only with these changes, I'd like to see a slight reduction in how extreme overtime is. Instead of dividing core health by 4, divide by 3 instead as many games have players waiting until overtime to rush and not doing much for the rest of the game. Overtime feels too short and extreme now so a slight change will be nice.
I'd still very much like a reason for players to not instantly leave games when they are losing because it just makes games stale which I posted about a very long time ago.
https://www.cubecraft.net/threads/blockwars-reward-for-losing.208798/
It would also be nice to get an achievement for sticking around, maybe something like this:
--------------------------------------
Resilient:
Keep on fighting even when the odds are against you (8v1)
--------------------------------------
I'm not an expert in core mode and have barely played it at all so there so I don't know everything and some extra ideas would be great!
So what's wrong with core?
1. It's boring. There's no excitement to a number very slowly moving down. It's like the worst clicker game ever made. There's no way of speeding up the process and relies on sitting in a box.
2, It's slow. Games of core last consistently longer than they should. Even in the case of one team destroying the other, it will still easily go into overtime. The 5 second timer feels like a lifetime between doing core damage.
3. It's not exciting. There is no thrill in seeing exactly who is winning, there being no clutches at the end.
4. It's not satisfying. At the end of the game, instead of thinking to yourself how that it was intense, dramatic game, you wish you got those minutes of your life back after either kill farming or being kill farmed.
5. It's unbalanced. The kits in Blockwars are designed for CTF and not core and that's clear as day.
6. There are no incentives. Why stay in game and lose when you could just go and join a new one?
7. It's repetitive. There are only a handful of unique situations in a core game and it's basically overtime and not.
So that's some problems with core. Can all of them be fixed? No. But we can try!
Let's speed things up, shall we?
If there's anything to learn from those previously mentioned clicker games is that if you can speed things up with some ingenuity, there's a world of satisfaction to get from that, so why don't we apply that to core mode?
Suggestion 1: Speed up core breaking based on teamwork
As of now, there is no reason to have more than one person breaking the core at a time, you can't make it any faster while the rest of the team just sits there and fights. Instead of this, why don't we reward teamwork on breaking the core?
Having core break time decrease based on amount of player breaking it has three advantages:
1. Adds much needed strategy to the game by thinking about the risk and reward of working on fighting the enemies to keep them at bay Vs helping on breaking the core to build your advantage while you are ahead.
2. Speeds up extremely unbalanced games. Games that turn quickly into 8v1s can be ended quickly so kill farming is reduced.
3. Removes player idleness in unbalanced games. There will now always be something to do to help your team.
Now, obviously this break time won't be linear as that would be a bit crazy but if the core broke say 25% quicker per extra person breaking it, then it adds the satisfaction of speeding up the process while not being too extreme.
Suggestion 2: Give everyone rewards
Currently, the person who gets the core break is the only person to get rewards for breaking the core which leads to fighting over get core damage via people blocking each others views to get the damage. The 25 core damage achievement is coveted and really frustrating as it makes people block teammates out to get it. So with new teamwork to break the core, why shouldn't everyone get a reward? So everyone who helps break the core will reap the rewards for it to. It finally encourages teamwork and doesn't make that achievement so dreadfully painful.
Adding some more excitement
So now our core number goes down slightly more quickly and everyone gets something to do. But what we need is some more unique situations in core mode to spice up the game some more. So I introduce to you, events! I'm not talking about the dreadful events from SG that are just a hinderance, we want something that changes the way that all important number goes down. These events will be shown on the boss bar and will happen at maximum 2-3 times a game. These will have a 30 second warning so players get a chance to prepare. these can be voteable with obsidian rank so cube can make more money!
Event 1: Glass core
Sounds simple, a glass core instead of a wool one for a short time. 2 damage instead of 1. But there's a catch! Glass shatters so after a core is broken once, glass will be left on the floor and it will slowly damage enemy teammates around the core and will last until the end of the event.
Event 2: Core drills
3 Core drills ( shears ) will spawn at the powerup spots which very quickly destroy the core, but they can only be used thrice. If are killed by an enemy, they take your shears and one durability will be lost. There's extra strategy as players will rush to middle for these drills and leave their cores for sneak attacks. Players can also purposely damage these drills so when enemies take them off them, they wont get anything. Players with drills can be identified by a black helmet. Normally the helmet slot is reversed for taking the flag but it's core mode.
If you can think of any more events, comment them below!!
Let's talk kits!
In Blockwars core, kits are unbalanced massively. Kits have been designed for CTF and not core, so we need some core specific changes to kits to make them fairer. Admittedly, I'm not cure exactly on the best changes but there is a clear problem.
Ninja is far too dominant in core mode, much more than in CTF for a few reasons. Firstly, it excels most in semi cramped conditions. The advantages for kits like runner in CTF is that they can move around and in core that's useless due to PvP often taking place mostly in the core room. This is where ninjas iron sword shreds. Ninja also has the advantage in not only PvP but in breaking cores.
Defending against ninjas going invisible to break the core is extremely frustrating because not only can you not see where they are and have to frantically hit in random directions, they also have the first hit advantage.
How to fix this? I think the best and most elegant way of doing it is by making ninjas semi transparent when damaging the core. This effect is used in parkour and could work really well. They aren't completely obvious but aren't a pain in the core at the same time.
On a final note
Only with these changes, I'd like to see a slight reduction in how extreme overtime is. Instead of dividing core health by 4, divide by 3 instead as many games have players waiting until overtime to rush and not doing much for the rest of the game. Overtime feels too short and extreme now so a slight change will be nice.
I'd still very much like a reason for players to not instantly leave games when they are losing because it just makes games stale which I posted about a very long time ago.
https://www.cubecraft.net/threads/blockwars-reward-for-losing.208798/
It would also be nice to get an achievement for sticking around, maybe something like this:
--------------------------------------
Resilient:
Keep on fighting even when the odds are against you (8v1)
--------------------------------------
I'm not an expert in core mode and have barely played it at all so there so I don't know everything and some extra ideas would be great!
