Another day, another complaint about a gamemode that barely anyone plays and one that I can't stop playing for no reason.
Today I would like to cover the overpowered and rushed gamemodes as well as the ingame task and reward system. I have also decided to stop trying to "rank" the problems in order of severity, because I just can't be bothered to keep track of it.
Last time I covered the map design and the (currently removed) deathmatch gamemode.
Without further ado:
Overpowered Mode
In blockwars mega there are 3 gamemodes that players with the blockwars rank can vote for:
-Normal
-Overpowered
-Rush
Overpowered is as straight forward as it gets, everyone gets prot IV armor, swords with sharpness and pickaxes with efficiency IV, as well as a lot of other smaller things and changes (such as stronger loot from care packages, more on that in the task and reward part).
With overpowered mode, in general, I like the concept and I get the concept, but I dislike its execution in blockwars mega.
As you know from part one, there is a massive problem in the game where the team that controls the diamonds is basically guaranteed to win the game with the opposite team needing to put in a lot more work to achieve any results.
Well, on overpowered mode that Diamond armor becomes Prot IV diamond armor, making the problem even worse.
For context: even with stronger weapons, prot IV diamond is basically invincible unless you have half a team trying to kill one person or unless you can get your hands on a literal super weapon from a care package
It also makes it much harder to stop flag carriers on CTF, because on top of flag carrier-favorable map design on 3/5 maps you now also have those flag carriers wearing armor that makes them almost completely untouchable.
There are also plenty of other things that make them nearly unstoppable, but that's content for the future
What makes this problem worse is the lack of (craftable) upgrades to the weapons you spawn in.
You see, in overpowered mode, players spawn with a sharp V stone sword (11 damage), which is perfectly valid as a spawn weapon for a gamemode like this. The problem is that all other melee weapons available in the game, except ones you can RANDOMLY obtain through care packages (if you're lucky), are weaker than the one you spawn with.
You can craft Iron and diamond swords, but they'll only have sharp II on them, making them worse than the sharp V stone sword.
AND I even tested the damage to see if that's true. I did it because that same test revealed that on eggwars weapons don't deal the damage they suggest.
For blockwars they do deal the damage the stats suggest, meaning that the third best melee weapon in the game is a stone sword everyone spawns with, and one that takes 17 hits to take down a player in full diamond (that is IF REGEN IS IGNORED, with regen and if that player were to have golden apples or potions on him, then we get to numbers that can't even be possibly estimated).
The only 2 stronger melee weapons than the stone sword are a 12 Damage Iron Sword with KB II and Sharp V and a 14 Damage Sharp V trident, both of which can only be obtained by luck through care packages as rewards for doing tasks. The only, somewhat redeeming part of this, is the fact that on OP mode you get 2 care packages as a reward for tasks instead of just one, which does increase the amount of those weapons in the map.
But it doesn't fix the problem in anyway, not for as long as those weapons can only be obtained randomly AND don't stay with players after death.
Tu sum up overpowered takes every balance problem this game has and multiplies it by 10
Rush Mode
Rush mode is a gamemode with a simple premise: you get gear faster.
All pickaxes in this gamemode have efficiency 2, and the first 5 (iron or diamond) blocks you mine drop equipment instead of blocks, meaning that you don't have to craft the first set of gear you get, at least in theory.
In practice, that Idea only works sometimes.
You see, in blockwars, when you mine a block, it doesn't drop towards your direction, at least not if its a iron or diamond block. They instead drop in a set direction. Now this is more of a general blockwars problem, but I think mentioning it here makes sense as rush mode relies on it the most, as each player only get 5 of those "gear blocks", any block mined afterwards is a normal block, meaning you need to craft your gear.
And it is a problem because, well, imagine having your gear taken by a random teammate, all because the block decided to drop your armor in the wrong direction. What is also does is that makes any attempts at "stealing" diamonds from the opponents, if they control them, pointless, because even if you can discretely make your way under a source of diamonds and mine them, they'll still go upwards because that's usually their preset direction.
Another problem with rushed mode is the fact that it makes it much harder to contest the middle in the early game, because now instead of trying to fight off the opponents before they craft their gear the whole point is to get to the diamonds faster than them. Now on CTF, where the game starts with a 30 second grace period, that decision can be somewhat justified because in those 30 seconds you can comfortably make your way to the wall in the middle that separates both teams and try getting to the diamonds first.
On bridges you do not have that, meaning that whoever gets to diamonds first will most likely control them for the rest of the game. This, once again, makes the balance problem caused by the need to control those things much worse. On normal mode, you can at least try to contest it later on AND the control of the diamonds does not necessarily depend on who can get there first, but rather who can get the most players on them as early as possible, because that's the only way a team can assure that the players who are on the diamonds can comfortably mine them and craft gear.
Well, in rush its almost always about speed because of the fact the first blocks a player mines drop gear.
Now I get the whole speed thing is the point of rush mode, and this is the one time I have to say that its simply the premise that is problematic here. For overpowered mode, I think it can work if executed better. For Rush mode? The only way to make that work is to completely change its premise or change the map design.
For example, I think for a gamemode named "rush", I think rather than making it about gear, you could make it about plenty of other things.
[Side note: I don't necessarily support all of those ideas, I am just brainstorming here, I actually hate some of the things I came up with here]
It could be movement, with every player getting a permanent speed II effect.
Going further in that direction, you could go as far as to adding certain items or powerups, for example introduce leap feather powerups for rushed mode, maybe even add the ability to gain an ender pearl from a powerup or a task reward. While at it, maybe slowness arrows and potions as a counter for the speed effect, as well as a complete lack of natural slowness effects for flag carriers on CTF (that's mostly the case already, not sure if its because speed was made so strong, long lasting and common, or because of some bug).
It could be about which behaviors are encouraged, as in: rushing more agressively is more rewarding, for example with additional rewards for kills (maybe even specifically reserved for kills outside your teams "third" of the map or kills specifically within the opponents base).
perhaps it could be temporary effects once a player gets a kill or once a player achieves a kill streak OR perhaps effects that stack with the amount of kills or with flag captures or pit captures that only disappear once a player dies. (The task system seems to already try some sort of similar mechanism though, it does it very badly though)
perhaps you could rework the reward and task system for this gamemode to specifically only have tasks relying on agressive playing and rewards that fit that.
Plenty of different ways to make rush mode a "rush" mode without making it about armor. Armor is simply the worst way to do it because most of this games balancing problems are tied directly to it and the way you get it.
Rush mode isn't as problmatic as OP mode in that regard, its still not good though.
Now onto the main point of this post.
In blockwars, each player starts the game with 3 tasks, each of those tasks, when completed, gives the player a random reward. Out of those 3 tasks, one is guaranteed to give you a care package (basically a privately accessible loot drop).
The 2 other rewards being completely random from the following pool of rewards (note, this is based on observation, I've played the mode for some time, but just in case I missed any of the rewards, feel free to add to the list):
-Golden Apples
-Iron Armor
-Set of healing and regen potions
-set of throwable potions with negative effects (including harming)
-set of tipped arrows
-leap feathers
-a "tank" upgrade, doubling your health AND increasing the size of your hitboxes and player model
Lets start by discussing the problems with the rewards.
Firstly, with the exception of the care package, they're all nearly useless.
Golden apples make very little difference because they are pretty weak in blockwars, plus you have places where they spawn, allowing you to easily collect a lot of them. In fact: you have tasks requiring to do just that.
Iron armor is way too easily accessible and too weak compared to diamond to be a useful reward.
Healing and regen potions are not a bad Idea themselves, its how they are present in the game that poses a problem.
With regen, you only get a short lasting regen I potion, which is very little.
With healing, not only do you get a healing I potion instead of healing II, but you also get it in the form of a drinkable bottle rather than a throwable one, which makes it highly impractical in literally every PVP scenario, the only time you are ever gonna be using it is if you are very low on health while also in a safe space where noone can hurt you.
The set of throwable potions is actually fairly decent as a reward, just wished the effects on them were more severe and that there were more of them.
Same applies to tipped arrows, its an alright reward, but it needs to be more and more impactful.
Leap feathers are probably the best reward (aside of care packages) you can get in the game, and the only one I'd view as an actually useful one.
And now onto the most problematic reward: The tank upgrade. While the double health is nice, it is immediately reduced to nothing as your larger hitbox makes you an easy target for just about anyone capable of pulling off a basic combo, which is very easy against a larger hitbox.
Because you see: while the devs made the logical decision, that a giant would reasonably have more health, they completely forgot to think about every aspect that comes with being a big guy.
For example: you take the exact same KB you would without the tank kit, meaning that anyone with a knockback sword, punch bow, or the ability to land more than one hit at a time can easily take you down.
Another example: despite being a fairly large dude, you can still only hit players from as far as anyone else. Which, despite the health advantage, actually puts at a massive disadvantage in most pvp situations as you keep the normal reach, but you are an extra block tall and you are a bit wider than normally.
The Idea of the reward itself is good, its just that its execution makes it more of an inconvenience than it is a reward. And unlike the other rewards, you can't just ignore it or remove from your inventory, once you finish the task giving you the tank upgrade, you instantly turn into a tank with the only way of reversing it being death.
Overall, a portion of those rewards is okay, others are useless garbage. The only reward worth actively seeking out, and the only one worth doing tasks for is the care package with the hope of grabbing a stronger weapon. Which is a shame, considering the potential of this system.
I am going to go more into how I think the rewards could be improved later, as I basically plan to first cover all of the problems I found with the system, then suggest an alternative system that tries its best to fix those problems.
Now onto the tasks themselves, now they are split in three difficulty cathegories:
-Easy
-Medium
-Hard
Now the difficulty of the tasks does not seem to affect the rewards you get from them, it does decide what kind of task it will be, though.
For easy tasks, you normally have to mine low amounts of blocks or hit a low amount of bow shots or get a low amount of kills or collect a low amount of golden apples or collect one powerup or take the opponents pit one time (if its bridges) or craft an item.
For medium tasks, you have to do the same things, but in slightly higher amounts, and there are no crafting tasks
For hard tasks, you have to do the same things, but in even higher amounts OR, if its CTF, you have to either return your own flag or capture the opponents.
The tasks are pretty straightforward, but of course they still cause problems, it wouldn't be blockwars if something wasn't being problematic.
For one thing, some of the tasks are more luck based than others. I am specifically talking about the return flag task and any powerup related tasks that require you to get more than one.
Powerups do have preset spawn places, but when and if they spawn is completely random, which, when you are tasked with getting 5 powerups, leads to situations you can't realistically complete the task without literal "dream luck".
As for the flag return task, its simple, if your team defends well, or if the opponent is unable to grab your flag, you may never get the chance to even try and return it.
Then there is also the "collect 20 golden apples" task, which also can be viewed as luck based since the golden apple spawns at their spawn location are random. The speed at which they spawn is random, the place where they specifically spawn is randomly chosen within a certain area, and the amount which spawn each time is also random. And on top of that you will most likely be "competing" with your teammates for those same apples.
Another thing wrong with the tasks is how most of the hard tasks or medium tasks aren't really "hard or medium tasks", they're just easy tasks with bigger numbers. Though okay, I can see how it can work with diamond blocks, especially now, given how the middle and the diamond sources are heavily contested. But with Iron blocks there is no need to have more than one task related to it, other than getting players to waste time mining them.
The only tasks where I agree that the number makes a difference in terms of difficulty are the kill based tasks, bow shot based tasks and any tasks based around the primary objectives of their respective games (such as taking pits, capturing flags, etc.)
Basically, what I am saying is: some of the tasks feel less like challenges meant to be completed to gain a reward, and more like a grind of doing the same thing.
Most of the item crafting tasks also seem like a waste of time given how one of the three gamemodes whole premise is that you don't have to craft, and on top of that the game and maps love to give away free items.
For example, on the map "Sandcastle" there are pyramids with chests which give you full iron armor for free. On top of that, in all gamemodes and on all maps, there are chests near spawn with free enchanted pickaxes inside them.
The fact that rewards are not given out based on difficulty of the task also makes them even more "unpredictable" in a way, why is it that a player who picked up 5 golden apples should get the same reward as someone who had to capture a flag?
Not to mention there being very few tasks, most of which being extremely basic. With how many things you can do and how many items you can get in this gamemode I think there could be a few more "specific" tasks, such as: hit x bow shots from x distance. Or deal x damage using x item. Or deal x damage while we are at it
As a last bit of critique before I go into attempting to redesign the whole system: why does there have to be an item for displaying tasks?
is it that hard to find a bit of space on the UI to do that? (At least for pc players)
Or how about making it a setting in the settings menu where you can choose if you want it to be set to an item which you have to open or for the tasks to be displayed on the UI, with the default being set to Item to not inconvenience mobile players.
Now onto my suggestions for redesigning the system.
So, firstly, the tasks, their difficulties, and the rewards available in that tier of rewards:
Easy tasks:
Tasks:
-Collect 4 golden apples
-Mine 5 Iron Blocks
-Kill 5 players
-Craft any given Iron Item
-Hit 2 bow shots
-Deal a total of 18 hearts of damage (36 damage points) to other players
-Hit 1 bow shot from 20 or more blocks of distance
-Go to the central portion of the map
-Kill 1 enemy near your teams or your enemies base (spawn islands, bridges only)
-Kill 1 enemy near your teams or your enemies flag (CTF only)
-Kill 1 enemy using a stone or iron sword
Rewards:
-Set of Tipped Arrows such as harming II, Poison I (Poison II for overpowered mode) and Slowness I (slowness II for overpowered and rush mode)
-Random negative potions, such as harming II, posion I (poison II for overpowered), weakness I (weakness II for overpowered), slowness I (slowness II for overpowered and rush mode), blindness (overpowered only)
-Random positive Potions, such as throwable healing II potions, drinkable regen II potions
-Random enchantment upgrade* by one level (two levels, if possible, for overpowered mode) of the following enchantments: Sharpness, Efficiency, Power, Punch, Knockback (overpowered only), Protection (overpowered only), Feather Falling (overpowered only), given to the player as a eggwars-style book so they can pick the item they want to apply that enchantment to (the enchantment they would get would be random AND they can only apply it to the item that fit the enchantment, so no sharpness upgrades for pickaxes)
-Random element of diamond armor(normal and rush)/a full set of diamond armor (overpowered only)
-a Diamond sword (normal mode only)
-1 Leap Feather (overpowered and rush only)
Explanation:
Basically, the idea here is to provide minor rewards for relatively minor tasks, as well as establish the idea that in the case of some tasks you can choose between two as one option may not be possible.
Of course those rewards are significantly boosted for overpowered mode, and mildly modified in rush mode.
*What is meant by upgrade is basically: if an Item already has Sharp II, it'd then be upgraded to sharp III. Or, if there are no enchanted items, they'd then get sharp I
ALSO NOTE THAT FOR THE ARMOR PARTS IT IS ASSUMED THAT ITS PROTECTION IV ARMOR IN OVERPOWERED MODE
Medium Tasks:
-Mine 5 Diamond blocks
-Kill 7 players
-Take the enemy Pit once (bridges only)
-Craft any given diamond item
-Hit 5 bow shots
-Deal a total of 32 hearts of damage (64 damage points) to other players
-Deal a total of 8 hearts of damage without using a sword, a trident or a ranged weapon
-Kill 2 players using a bow
-Kill 1 player using a ranged weapon from a distance of 12 or more blocks
-Hit 3 bow shots from a distance of 20 or more blocks
-Hit 1 bow shot from a distance of 30 or more blocks
-Go to your opponents third of the map and survive there for at least 10 seconds
-Go to a diamond source in the center of the map and survive and stay within 10 blocks of it for 10 seconds
-Kill 2 enemies within 25 blocks of your own flag OR within 25 blocks of the enemy flag (CTF Only)
-Kill 2 enemies inside your own or your enemies base (the spawn islands, bridges only)
-Kill 4 enemies using a stone or Iron sword
-Mine 1 Iron block in your enemies base
Rewards:
For this one I'd like to make it so that medium tasks always give a care package (2 of them for overpowered mode), so here comes a list of items that can appear in a care package:
-Full set of diamond armor (on ALL MODES, guaranteed)
-2 protection upgrade books (overpowered only, guaranteed)
-one random melee weapon of the following:
Netherite Sword (normal and rush mode only)
Trident (Normal and rush mode)/Sharp VI trident (Overpowered mode, and you are correctly reading sharpness 6 btw)
KB II Iron Sword(normal+rush)/Sharp VI KB II Iron Sword (overpowered mode)
Sharp I Diamond Sword(normal+rush)/Sharp VI Diamond sword(overpowered)
Sharp V Fire Aspect II Iron Sword (overpowered only)
-one random ranged weapon from the following:
Power II bow (normal and rushed)/Power V Punch I bow (overpowered)
Piercing I, quick charge I Crossbow (normal and rushed only)
Multishot, quick charge I crossbow (normal and rushed only)
Piercing IV, quick charge III crossbow (overpowered only)
Quick charge III, multishot crossbow (overpowered only)
Note that you'd get both a range and a melee weapon, instead of how it is right now where
-Randomly selected potions from the following (between 1 and 3 of these potions):
Throwable Healing II
Strength I (strength II for overpowered)
Throwable Harming II
Throwable Slowness I (slowness II for overpowered and rush)
Throwable speed I potion (speed II for overpowered and rush)
Haste III potion (rush and overpowered only)
-Between 2 and 9 golden apples (for overpowered its between 5 and 15)
Between 6 and 10 tipped arrows with the possibility of these effects:
Harming II
Slowness I (slowness II for overpowered and rush)
Weakness I (weakness II for overpowered)
Poison I (poison II for overpowered)
ADDITIONALLY, in case you choose (not sure why you'd do that) to discard your care packages (remove it from your inventory, in which case it'd automatically despawn, note that putting it in a chest does not count as discarding it), you'd be granted 3 random rewards from the "easy" task reward pool (with the exception of full diamond armor if its overpowered mode) as compensation.
Explanation:
The idea here is to give the player a bit more of a challenge, in some cases even a bit more of a "specific" one, and in exchange reward them with a guarantee of a care package. This way players always know what they have to do to expect a care package.
The Idea with the rewards is for the care package to essentially provide free gear to whoever gets it, including potentially highly powerful gear that might help turn a game that is in a hopeless situation into something more winnable
Hard Tasks:
-Take the enemy pit 3 times (bridges only)
-Obtain a full set of diamond armor (care package loot does not count, other task rewards only count if its not overpowered mode)
-Kill 10 players
-Hit 10 bow shots
-Mine 6 blocks within 10 blocks of your enemies flag (ctf only)
-Mine 6 blocks that are within 8 blocks of the enemy pit (bridges only)
-Mine 5 Iron blocks in your enemies base
-Capture OR return the flag
-Kill 1 player as the flag carrier OR deal 10 damage to players carrying the flag OR spend a total of 10 seconds within 12 blocks of a player carrying the flag
-Kill 5 players within 25 blocks of your own or your enemies flag (ctf only)
-Kill 5 players in your enemies base (bridges only)
-Deal a total of 55 hearts of damage (110 damage points) to other players
-Hit 5 bow shots from a distance of 20 or more blocks
-Hit 3 bow shots from a distance of 30 or more blocks
-Hit 1 bow shot from a distance of 40 or more blocks
-Kill 3 players using a ranged weapon from a distance of 15 or more blocks
-Kill 1 player using a ranged weapon from a distance of 25 or more blocks
-Go to your enemies third of the map and survive 25 seconds there
-Go to the diamond sources in the center of the map and survive within 10 blocks of them for 25 seconds
-Survive 10 seconds in the flag station (or whatever the block with the flag and the blocks surrounding it are called, ctf only)
-Deal 16 hearts of damage to other players without using ranged weapons, swords or tridents
Rewards:
-Protection upgrade by one level for the entire armor the player is wearing (overpowered only)
-Protection upgrade for a random piece of armor you are wearing (normal and rushed only)
-A random (melee or ranged) weapon from the pool of weapons used by the care package (with the pool being adjusted in accordance to which gamemode is being played)
-set of movement boost potions: speed I (speed II for rushed and overpowered), jump boost II
-enchanted golden apple (overpowered only)
-a tank upgrade token, allowing you to use the tank upgrade at whatever moment you wish.
With the tank upgrade you now gain 10 extra hearts (as you do now), a significant knockback reduction, a hitting range of 4.5 blocks (with your camera being now correctly moved to the height of your head at 3 blocks), a permanent strength 1, permanent resistance I and a permanent slowness 1 effect with potions, items and powerups that influence these effects NOT having any effect on you while the tank upgrade is active.
The tank upgrade can be removed with a tank upgrade removal token or by dying, in both cases you can not regain the tank upgrade in any way for the rest of the game.
Additionally, if you choose not to use the tank upgrade and remove it from your inventory (the item despawns instantly if you drop it or put it inside a chest, you can freely move it inside your inventory), you'll be granted a random other reward from the hard task reward pool.
-2 strength I potions (strength II for overpowered) which remain after death
-a death protection token, allowing you to keep your entire inventory after one death
-a totem of undying (overpowered only)
- between 3 and 5 leap feathers (3 for normal, 4 for rushed, 5 for overpowered)
-a netherite sword (normal and rushed modes only)
-random enchantment for your bow, chosen between punch II or flame
-a large set of harming III arrows (overpowered only) that stay after death
-a large set of slowness III arrows (rush and overpowered only) that stay after death
-lucky islands style item-stealing-rod, allowing you to snatch items which your opponent is holding (overpowered only)
Explanation:
The Idea here is to provide signficiantly more challenging tasks and in exchange provide very strong rewards. I also want, with all of those changes in general, for the rewards to have far more influence on the game, allowing for players to potentially turn around seemingly hopeless games by getting the right rewards
Other changes to the system:
Firstly, the ability to "reshuffle" tasks once per game, basically: trade in your entire set of tasks for 3 other randomly selected tasks (that can not be the same ones you already had)
Secondly, if a team happens to be losing, then on tasks that involve larger numbers, those numbers become lower.
What I mean by that is:
For example, if a team in ctf gets one of their flag captured, then, if a player on that team gets or already has the "kill player from 25 or more blocks task", that requirement would be lowered to 20 blocks.
Thirdly, the ability to unlock a 4th task. The idea is that the player would be able to unlock the ability to do a task, but it will always be rewarded as if it was a medium or hard one, depending on the gamemode and circumstances.
What do I mean by that?
Well, lets say you are playing ctf, and your team loses the flag for the second time and has not managed to capture the flag even one time.
In that situation the game would reward with the ability to do an extra easy task, but it'd be rewarded with a care package as if it was a medium one.
Here are other situations where players would obtain a 4th task:
-Your team Being 5 or less pit captures away from losing a bridges game while your enemy is leading by 5 or more points, in which case you'd get a medium task rewarded as if it was a hard one
-Losing a bridges game by at least 8 points, regardless of how close your enemy is to winning, in which case you gain an easy task rewarded with a care package AND one reward from the "hard task" pool
-Your team being 1 flag capture behind the enemy team for longer than 10 minutes.
-Your team being 4 or more pit captures behind your enemy for longer than 10 minutes.
-The game going into overtime, in which case players on both teams obtain an easy task rewarded with a care package AND a hard task reward if its overpowered or rush mode
-Finishing all 3 tasks WITHOUT having reshuffled them, in which case you obtain a hard task that is rewarded with a hard task reward AND an extra care package on overpowered mode.
Note that reshuffling would NOT change the 4th task if you have unlocked it after reshuffling.
Also note that the 4th task will always appear with its "default" completion requirements, regardless of what situation the game is in
The Idea behind that is simple: Helping losing teams gain better chances by giving them the chance to obtain extra items when the situation turns hopeless, providing a "tie-breaking" mechanism if the game enters overtime and also rewarding players who were willing to complete all 3 of their tasks and did so without feeling like any one of them were difficult enough to warrant a reshuffle
That's it for this post. Tune in next time as I plan to dedicate pt.3 (a portion of it anyway) to bugs, glitches and cubecrafts unwillingness OR inability to get them fixed.
And there is a lot of bugs and glitches in this gamemode, some only were "added" after recent updates or minecrafts release of 1.21, others have been there for years and others keep being fixed just to return some time later.
Speaking of bugs, one final thing before I actually end this post: the tank upgrade is bugged. When you jump into the pit while having the tank upgrade on you, your health is reverted back to normal BUT your size stays the same, essentially forcing anyone who gets the upgrade to kill themselves in order to be able to keep playing normally.
Today I would like to cover the overpowered and rushed gamemodes as well as the ingame task and reward system. I have also decided to stop trying to "rank" the problems in order of severity, because I just can't be bothered to keep track of it.
Last time I covered the map design and the (currently removed) deathmatch gamemode.
Without further ado:
Overpowered Mode
In blockwars mega there are 3 gamemodes that players with the blockwars rank can vote for:
-Normal
-Overpowered
-Rush
Overpowered is as straight forward as it gets, everyone gets prot IV armor, swords with sharpness and pickaxes with efficiency IV, as well as a lot of other smaller things and changes (such as stronger loot from care packages, more on that in the task and reward part).
With overpowered mode, in general, I like the concept and I get the concept, but I dislike its execution in blockwars mega.
As you know from part one, there is a massive problem in the game where the team that controls the diamonds is basically guaranteed to win the game with the opposite team needing to put in a lot more work to achieve any results.
Well, on overpowered mode that Diamond armor becomes Prot IV diamond armor, making the problem even worse.
For context: even with stronger weapons, prot IV diamond is basically invincible unless you have half a team trying to kill one person or unless you can get your hands on a literal super weapon from a care package
It also makes it much harder to stop flag carriers on CTF, because on top of flag carrier-favorable map design on 3/5 maps you now also have those flag carriers wearing armor that makes them almost completely untouchable.
There are also plenty of other things that make them nearly unstoppable, but that's content for the future
What makes this problem worse is the lack of (craftable) upgrades to the weapons you spawn in.
You see, in overpowered mode, players spawn with a sharp V stone sword (11 damage), which is perfectly valid as a spawn weapon for a gamemode like this. The problem is that all other melee weapons available in the game, except ones you can RANDOMLY obtain through care packages (if you're lucky), are weaker than the one you spawn with.
You can craft Iron and diamond swords, but they'll only have sharp II on them, making them worse than the sharp V stone sword.
AND I even tested the damage to see if that's true. I did it because that same test revealed that on eggwars weapons don't deal the damage they suggest.
For blockwars they do deal the damage the stats suggest, meaning that the third best melee weapon in the game is a stone sword everyone spawns with, and one that takes 17 hits to take down a player in full diamond (that is IF REGEN IS IGNORED, with regen and if that player were to have golden apples or potions on him, then we get to numbers that can't even be possibly estimated).
The only 2 stronger melee weapons than the stone sword are a 12 Damage Iron Sword with KB II and Sharp V and a 14 Damage Sharp V trident, both of which can only be obtained by luck through care packages as rewards for doing tasks. The only, somewhat redeeming part of this, is the fact that on OP mode you get 2 care packages as a reward for tasks instead of just one, which does increase the amount of those weapons in the map.
But it doesn't fix the problem in anyway, not for as long as those weapons can only be obtained randomly AND don't stay with players after death.
Tu sum up overpowered takes every balance problem this game has and multiplies it by 10
Rush Mode
Rush mode is a gamemode with a simple premise: you get gear faster.
All pickaxes in this gamemode have efficiency 2, and the first 5 (iron or diamond) blocks you mine drop equipment instead of blocks, meaning that you don't have to craft the first set of gear you get, at least in theory.
In practice, that Idea only works sometimes.
You see, in blockwars, when you mine a block, it doesn't drop towards your direction, at least not if its a iron or diamond block. They instead drop in a set direction. Now this is more of a general blockwars problem, but I think mentioning it here makes sense as rush mode relies on it the most, as each player only get 5 of those "gear blocks", any block mined afterwards is a normal block, meaning you need to craft your gear.
And it is a problem because, well, imagine having your gear taken by a random teammate, all because the block decided to drop your armor in the wrong direction. What is also does is that makes any attempts at "stealing" diamonds from the opponents, if they control them, pointless, because even if you can discretely make your way under a source of diamonds and mine them, they'll still go upwards because that's usually their preset direction.
Another problem with rushed mode is the fact that it makes it much harder to contest the middle in the early game, because now instead of trying to fight off the opponents before they craft their gear the whole point is to get to the diamonds faster than them. Now on CTF, where the game starts with a 30 second grace period, that decision can be somewhat justified because in those 30 seconds you can comfortably make your way to the wall in the middle that separates both teams and try getting to the diamonds first.
On bridges you do not have that, meaning that whoever gets to diamonds first will most likely control them for the rest of the game. This, once again, makes the balance problem caused by the need to control those things much worse. On normal mode, you can at least try to contest it later on AND the control of the diamonds does not necessarily depend on who can get there first, but rather who can get the most players on them as early as possible, because that's the only way a team can assure that the players who are on the diamonds can comfortably mine them and craft gear.
Well, in rush its almost always about speed because of the fact the first blocks a player mines drop gear.
Now I get the whole speed thing is the point of rush mode, and this is the one time I have to say that its simply the premise that is problematic here. For overpowered mode, I think it can work if executed better. For Rush mode? The only way to make that work is to completely change its premise or change the map design.
For example, I think for a gamemode named "rush", I think rather than making it about gear, you could make it about plenty of other things.
[Side note: I don't necessarily support all of those ideas, I am just brainstorming here, I actually hate some of the things I came up with here]
It could be movement, with every player getting a permanent speed II effect.
Going further in that direction, you could go as far as to adding certain items or powerups, for example introduce leap feather powerups for rushed mode, maybe even add the ability to gain an ender pearl from a powerup or a task reward. While at it, maybe slowness arrows and potions as a counter for the speed effect, as well as a complete lack of natural slowness effects for flag carriers on CTF (that's mostly the case already, not sure if its because speed was made so strong, long lasting and common, or because of some bug).
It could be about which behaviors are encouraged, as in: rushing more agressively is more rewarding, for example with additional rewards for kills (maybe even specifically reserved for kills outside your teams "third" of the map or kills specifically within the opponents base).
perhaps it could be temporary effects once a player gets a kill or once a player achieves a kill streak OR perhaps effects that stack with the amount of kills or with flag captures or pit captures that only disappear once a player dies. (The task system seems to already try some sort of similar mechanism though, it does it very badly though)
perhaps you could rework the reward and task system for this gamemode to specifically only have tasks relying on agressive playing and rewards that fit that.
Plenty of different ways to make rush mode a "rush" mode without making it about armor. Armor is simply the worst way to do it because most of this games balancing problems are tied directly to it and the way you get it.
Rush mode isn't as problmatic as OP mode in that regard, its still not good though.
Now onto the main point of this post.
The Tasks and reward System.
In blockwars, each player starts the game with 3 tasks, each of those tasks, when completed, gives the player a random reward. Out of those 3 tasks, one is guaranteed to give you a care package (basically a privately accessible loot drop).
The 2 other rewards being completely random from the following pool of rewards (note, this is based on observation, I've played the mode for some time, but just in case I missed any of the rewards, feel free to add to the list):
-Golden Apples
-Iron Armor
-Set of healing and regen potions
-set of throwable potions with negative effects (including harming)
-set of tipped arrows
-leap feathers
-a "tank" upgrade, doubling your health AND increasing the size of your hitboxes and player model
Lets start by discussing the problems with the rewards.
Firstly, with the exception of the care package, they're all nearly useless.
Golden apples make very little difference because they are pretty weak in blockwars, plus you have places where they spawn, allowing you to easily collect a lot of them. In fact: you have tasks requiring to do just that.
Iron armor is way too easily accessible and too weak compared to diamond to be a useful reward.
Healing and regen potions are not a bad Idea themselves, its how they are present in the game that poses a problem.
With regen, you only get a short lasting regen I potion, which is very little.
With healing, not only do you get a healing I potion instead of healing II, but you also get it in the form of a drinkable bottle rather than a throwable one, which makes it highly impractical in literally every PVP scenario, the only time you are ever gonna be using it is if you are very low on health while also in a safe space where noone can hurt you.
The set of throwable potions is actually fairly decent as a reward, just wished the effects on them were more severe and that there were more of them.
Same applies to tipped arrows, its an alright reward, but it needs to be more and more impactful.
Leap feathers are probably the best reward (aside of care packages) you can get in the game, and the only one I'd view as an actually useful one.
And now onto the most problematic reward: The tank upgrade. While the double health is nice, it is immediately reduced to nothing as your larger hitbox makes you an easy target for just about anyone capable of pulling off a basic combo, which is very easy against a larger hitbox.
Because you see: while the devs made the logical decision, that a giant would reasonably have more health, they completely forgot to think about every aspect that comes with being a big guy.
For example: you take the exact same KB you would without the tank kit, meaning that anyone with a knockback sword, punch bow, or the ability to land more than one hit at a time can easily take you down.
Another example: despite being a fairly large dude, you can still only hit players from as far as anyone else. Which, despite the health advantage, actually puts at a massive disadvantage in most pvp situations as you keep the normal reach, but you are an extra block tall and you are a bit wider than normally.
The Idea of the reward itself is good, its just that its execution makes it more of an inconvenience than it is a reward. And unlike the other rewards, you can't just ignore it or remove from your inventory, once you finish the task giving you the tank upgrade, you instantly turn into a tank with the only way of reversing it being death.
Overall, a portion of those rewards is okay, others are useless garbage. The only reward worth actively seeking out, and the only one worth doing tasks for is the care package with the hope of grabbing a stronger weapon. Which is a shame, considering the potential of this system.
I am going to go more into how I think the rewards could be improved later, as I basically plan to first cover all of the problems I found with the system, then suggest an alternative system that tries its best to fix those problems.
Now onto the tasks themselves, now they are split in three difficulty cathegories:
-Easy
-Medium
-Hard
Now the difficulty of the tasks does not seem to affect the rewards you get from them, it does decide what kind of task it will be, though.
For easy tasks, you normally have to mine low amounts of blocks or hit a low amount of bow shots or get a low amount of kills or collect a low amount of golden apples or collect one powerup or take the opponents pit one time (if its bridges) or craft an item.
For medium tasks, you have to do the same things, but in slightly higher amounts, and there are no crafting tasks
For hard tasks, you have to do the same things, but in even higher amounts OR, if its CTF, you have to either return your own flag or capture the opponents.
The tasks are pretty straightforward, but of course they still cause problems, it wouldn't be blockwars if something wasn't being problematic.
For one thing, some of the tasks are more luck based than others. I am specifically talking about the return flag task and any powerup related tasks that require you to get more than one.
Powerups do have preset spawn places, but when and if they spawn is completely random, which, when you are tasked with getting 5 powerups, leads to situations you can't realistically complete the task without literal "dream luck".
As for the flag return task, its simple, if your team defends well, or if the opponent is unable to grab your flag, you may never get the chance to even try and return it.
Then there is also the "collect 20 golden apples" task, which also can be viewed as luck based since the golden apple spawns at their spawn location are random. The speed at which they spawn is random, the place where they specifically spawn is randomly chosen within a certain area, and the amount which spawn each time is also random. And on top of that you will most likely be "competing" with your teammates for those same apples.
Another thing wrong with the tasks is how most of the hard tasks or medium tasks aren't really "hard or medium tasks", they're just easy tasks with bigger numbers. Though okay, I can see how it can work with diamond blocks, especially now, given how the middle and the diamond sources are heavily contested. But with Iron blocks there is no need to have more than one task related to it, other than getting players to waste time mining them.
The only tasks where I agree that the number makes a difference in terms of difficulty are the kill based tasks, bow shot based tasks and any tasks based around the primary objectives of their respective games (such as taking pits, capturing flags, etc.)
Basically, what I am saying is: some of the tasks feel less like challenges meant to be completed to gain a reward, and more like a grind of doing the same thing.
Most of the item crafting tasks also seem like a waste of time given how one of the three gamemodes whole premise is that you don't have to craft, and on top of that the game and maps love to give away free items.
For example, on the map "Sandcastle" there are pyramids with chests which give you full iron armor for free. On top of that, in all gamemodes and on all maps, there are chests near spawn with free enchanted pickaxes inside them.
The fact that rewards are not given out based on difficulty of the task also makes them even more "unpredictable" in a way, why is it that a player who picked up 5 golden apples should get the same reward as someone who had to capture a flag?
Not to mention there being very few tasks, most of which being extremely basic. With how many things you can do and how many items you can get in this gamemode I think there could be a few more "specific" tasks, such as: hit x bow shots from x distance. Or deal x damage using x item. Or deal x damage while we are at it
As a last bit of critique before I go into attempting to redesign the whole system: why does there have to be an item for displaying tasks?
is it that hard to find a bit of space on the UI to do that? (At least for pc players)
Or how about making it a setting in the settings menu where you can choose if you want it to be set to an item which you have to open or for the tasks to be displayed on the UI, with the default being set to Item to not inconvenience mobile players.
Now onto my suggestions for redesigning the system.
So, firstly, the tasks, their difficulties, and the rewards available in that tier of rewards:
Easy tasks:
Tasks:
-Collect 4 golden apples
-Mine 5 Iron Blocks
-Kill 5 players
-Craft any given Iron Item
-Hit 2 bow shots
-Deal a total of 18 hearts of damage (36 damage points) to other players
-Hit 1 bow shot from 20 or more blocks of distance
-Go to the central portion of the map
-Kill 1 enemy near your teams or your enemies base (spawn islands, bridges only)
-Kill 1 enemy near your teams or your enemies flag (CTF only)
-Kill 1 enemy using a stone or iron sword
Rewards:
-Set of Tipped Arrows such as harming II, Poison I (Poison II for overpowered mode) and Slowness I (slowness II for overpowered and rush mode)
-Random negative potions, such as harming II, posion I (poison II for overpowered), weakness I (weakness II for overpowered), slowness I (slowness II for overpowered and rush mode), blindness (overpowered only)
-Random positive Potions, such as throwable healing II potions, drinkable regen II potions
-Random enchantment upgrade* by one level (two levels, if possible, for overpowered mode) of the following enchantments: Sharpness, Efficiency, Power, Punch, Knockback (overpowered only), Protection (overpowered only), Feather Falling (overpowered only), given to the player as a eggwars-style book so they can pick the item they want to apply that enchantment to (the enchantment they would get would be random AND they can only apply it to the item that fit the enchantment, so no sharpness upgrades for pickaxes)
-Random element of diamond armor(normal and rush)/a full set of diamond armor (overpowered only)
-a Diamond sword (normal mode only)
-1 Leap Feather (overpowered and rush only)
Explanation:
Basically, the idea here is to provide minor rewards for relatively minor tasks, as well as establish the idea that in the case of some tasks you can choose between two as one option may not be possible.
Of course those rewards are significantly boosted for overpowered mode, and mildly modified in rush mode.
*What is meant by upgrade is basically: if an Item already has Sharp II, it'd then be upgraded to sharp III. Or, if there are no enchanted items, they'd then get sharp I
ALSO NOTE THAT FOR THE ARMOR PARTS IT IS ASSUMED THAT ITS PROTECTION IV ARMOR IN OVERPOWERED MODE
Medium Tasks:
-Mine 5 Diamond blocks
-Kill 7 players
-Take the enemy Pit once (bridges only)
-Craft any given diamond item
-Hit 5 bow shots
-Deal a total of 32 hearts of damage (64 damage points) to other players
-Deal a total of 8 hearts of damage without using a sword, a trident or a ranged weapon
-Kill 2 players using a bow
-Kill 1 player using a ranged weapon from a distance of 12 or more blocks
-Hit 3 bow shots from a distance of 20 or more blocks
-Hit 1 bow shot from a distance of 30 or more blocks
-Go to your opponents third of the map and survive there for at least 10 seconds
-Go to a diamond source in the center of the map and survive and stay within 10 blocks of it for 10 seconds
-Kill 2 enemies within 25 blocks of your own flag OR within 25 blocks of the enemy flag (CTF Only)
-Kill 2 enemies inside your own or your enemies base (the spawn islands, bridges only)
-Kill 4 enemies using a stone or Iron sword
-Mine 1 Iron block in your enemies base
Rewards:
For this one I'd like to make it so that medium tasks always give a care package (2 of them for overpowered mode), so here comes a list of items that can appear in a care package:
-Full set of diamond armor (on ALL MODES, guaranteed)
-2 protection upgrade books (overpowered only, guaranteed)
-one random melee weapon of the following:
Netherite Sword (normal and rush mode only)
Trident (Normal and rush mode)/Sharp VI trident (Overpowered mode, and you are correctly reading sharpness 6 btw)
KB II Iron Sword(normal+rush)/Sharp VI KB II Iron Sword (overpowered mode)
Sharp I Diamond Sword(normal+rush)/Sharp VI Diamond sword(overpowered)
Sharp V Fire Aspect II Iron Sword (overpowered only)
-one random ranged weapon from the following:
Power II bow (normal and rushed)/Power V Punch I bow (overpowered)
Piercing I, quick charge I Crossbow (normal and rushed only)
Multishot, quick charge I crossbow (normal and rushed only)
Piercing IV, quick charge III crossbow (overpowered only)
Quick charge III, multishot crossbow (overpowered only)
Note that you'd get both a range and a melee weapon, instead of how it is right now where
-Randomly selected potions from the following (between 1 and 3 of these potions):
Throwable Healing II
Strength I (strength II for overpowered)
Throwable Harming II
Throwable Slowness I (slowness II for overpowered and rush)
Throwable speed I potion (speed II for overpowered and rush)
Haste III potion (rush and overpowered only)
-Between 2 and 9 golden apples (for overpowered its between 5 and 15)
Between 6 and 10 tipped arrows with the possibility of these effects:
Harming II
Slowness I (slowness II for overpowered and rush)
Weakness I (weakness II for overpowered)
Poison I (poison II for overpowered)
ADDITIONALLY, in case you choose (not sure why you'd do that) to discard your care packages (remove it from your inventory, in which case it'd automatically despawn, note that putting it in a chest does not count as discarding it), you'd be granted 3 random rewards from the "easy" task reward pool (with the exception of full diamond armor if its overpowered mode) as compensation.
Explanation:
The idea here is to give the player a bit more of a challenge, in some cases even a bit more of a "specific" one, and in exchange reward them with a guarantee of a care package. This way players always know what they have to do to expect a care package.
The Idea with the rewards is for the care package to essentially provide free gear to whoever gets it, including potentially highly powerful gear that might help turn a game that is in a hopeless situation into something more winnable
Hard Tasks:
-Take the enemy pit 3 times (bridges only)
-Obtain a full set of diamond armor (care package loot does not count, other task rewards only count if its not overpowered mode)
-Kill 10 players
-Hit 10 bow shots
-Mine 6 blocks within 10 blocks of your enemies flag (ctf only)
-Mine 6 blocks that are within 8 blocks of the enemy pit (bridges only)
-Mine 5 Iron blocks in your enemies base
-Capture OR return the flag
-Kill 1 player as the flag carrier OR deal 10 damage to players carrying the flag OR spend a total of 10 seconds within 12 blocks of a player carrying the flag
-Kill 5 players within 25 blocks of your own or your enemies flag (ctf only)
-Kill 5 players in your enemies base (bridges only)
-Deal a total of 55 hearts of damage (110 damage points) to other players
-Hit 5 bow shots from a distance of 20 or more blocks
-Hit 3 bow shots from a distance of 30 or more blocks
-Hit 1 bow shot from a distance of 40 or more blocks
-Kill 3 players using a ranged weapon from a distance of 15 or more blocks
-Kill 1 player using a ranged weapon from a distance of 25 or more blocks
-Go to your enemies third of the map and survive 25 seconds there
-Go to the diamond sources in the center of the map and survive within 10 blocks of them for 25 seconds
-Survive 10 seconds in the flag station (or whatever the block with the flag and the blocks surrounding it are called, ctf only)
-Deal 16 hearts of damage to other players without using ranged weapons, swords or tridents
Rewards:
-Protection upgrade by one level for the entire armor the player is wearing (overpowered only)
-Protection upgrade for a random piece of armor you are wearing (normal and rushed only)
-A random (melee or ranged) weapon from the pool of weapons used by the care package (with the pool being adjusted in accordance to which gamemode is being played)
-set of movement boost potions: speed I (speed II for rushed and overpowered), jump boost II
-enchanted golden apple (overpowered only)
-a tank upgrade token, allowing you to use the tank upgrade at whatever moment you wish.
With the tank upgrade you now gain 10 extra hearts (as you do now), a significant knockback reduction, a hitting range of 4.5 blocks (with your camera being now correctly moved to the height of your head at 3 blocks), a permanent strength 1, permanent resistance I and a permanent slowness 1 effect with potions, items and powerups that influence these effects NOT having any effect on you while the tank upgrade is active.
The tank upgrade can be removed with a tank upgrade removal token or by dying, in both cases you can not regain the tank upgrade in any way for the rest of the game.
Additionally, if you choose not to use the tank upgrade and remove it from your inventory (the item despawns instantly if you drop it or put it inside a chest, you can freely move it inside your inventory), you'll be granted a random other reward from the hard task reward pool.
-2 strength I potions (strength II for overpowered) which remain after death
-a death protection token, allowing you to keep your entire inventory after one death
-a totem of undying (overpowered only)
- between 3 and 5 leap feathers (3 for normal, 4 for rushed, 5 for overpowered)
-a netherite sword (normal and rushed modes only)
-random enchantment for your bow, chosen between punch II or flame
-a large set of harming III arrows (overpowered only) that stay after death
-a large set of slowness III arrows (rush and overpowered only) that stay after death
-lucky islands style item-stealing-rod, allowing you to snatch items which your opponent is holding (overpowered only)
Explanation:
The Idea here is to provide signficiantly more challenging tasks and in exchange provide very strong rewards. I also want, with all of those changes in general, for the rewards to have far more influence on the game, allowing for players to potentially turn around seemingly hopeless games by getting the right rewards
Other changes to the system:
Firstly, the ability to "reshuffle" tasks once per game, basically: trade in your entire set of tasks for 3 other randomly selected tasks (that can not be the same ones you already had)
Secondly, if a team happens to be losing, then on tasks that involve larger numbers, those numbers become lower.
What I mean by that is:
For example, if a team in ctf gets one of their flag captured, then, if a player on that team gets or already has the "kill player from 25 or more blocks task", that requirement would be lowered to 20 blocks.
Thirdly, the ability to unlock a 4th task. The idea is that the player would be able to unlock the ability to do a task, but it will always be rewarded as if it was a medium or hard one, depending on the gamemode and circumstances.
What do I mean by that?
Well, lets say you are playing ctf, and your team loses the flag for the second time and has not managed to capture the flag even one time.
In that situation the game would reward with the ability to do an extra easy task, but it'd be rewarded with a care package as if it was a medium one.
Here are other situations where players would obtain a 4th task:
-Your team Being 5 or less pit captures away from losing a bridges game while your enemy is leading by 5 or more points, in which case you'd get a medium task rewarded as if it was a hard one
-Losing a bridges game by at least 8 points, regardless of how close your enemy is to winning, in which case you gain an easy task rewarded with a care package AND one reward from the "hard task" pool
-Your team being 1 flag capture behind the enemy team for longer than 10 minutes.
-Your team being 4 or more pit captures behind your enemy for longer than 10 minutes.
-The game going into overtime, in which case players on both teams obtain an easy task rewarded with a care package AND a hard task reward if its overpowered or rush mode
-Finishing all 3 tasks WITHOUT having reshuffled them, in which case you obtain a hard task that is rewarded with a hard task reward AND an extra care package on overpowered mode.
Note that reshuffling would NOT change the 4th task if you have unlocked it after reshuffling.
Also note that the 4th task will always appear with its "default" completion requirements, regardless of what situation the game is in
The Idea behind that is simple: Helping losing teams gain better chances by giving them the chance to obtain extra items when the situation turns hopeless, providing a "tie-breaking" mechanism if the game enters overtime and also rewarding players who were willing to complete all 3 of their tasks and did so without feeling like any one of them were difficult enough to warrant a reshuffle
That's it for this post. Tune in next time as I plan to dedicate pt.3 (a portion of it anyway) to bugs, glitches and cubecrafts unwillingness OR inability to get them fixed.
And there is a lot of bugs and glitches in this gamemode, some only were "added" after recent updates or minecrafts release of 1.21, others have been there for years and others keep being fixed just to return some time later.
Speaking of bugs, one final thing before I actually end this post: the tank upgrade is bugged. When you jump into the pit while having the tank upgrade on you, your health is reverted back to normal BUT your size stays the same, essentially forcing anyone who gets the upgrade to kill themselves in order to be able to keep playing normally.
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I know it won’t capture the full scope of your suggestion but can point me to where to read and motivate me to start. (For both me and others)
