Java Lucky islands trapped chests are broken.

[0capa]

Trapped chests are killing machines that will oneshot anything close to it regardless of armor, it is the equivalent of using a bed in the nether, the damage should at least be somewhat reduced as you can cause A LOT of damage with this. Here is a video showcasing the power it can have when it is used properly..

My best guess to nerf this is to make the trapped chest deal as much damage as a creeper explosion, making it still viable but less broken in the right hands.

 

[Hoshi]

In the end, it is called Lucky Islands though. Not many people know of the mechanic, and it all depends on luck whether or not you manage to obtain trapped chests. A lot of drops can be broken in the right hands.

 

[Roxrock]

In the past I haven’t considered trapped chest as that big of an issue in the grand scheme of the game, and there definitely other aspects of the game I would criticize first which I feel are more important. I don’t see them very often but it’s annoying when I do and I’m not sure how bad it is on Java. However, this is actually something I’ve seen be suggested a few times, (here and here) the only other thing with lucky islands that gets asked for a lot is duos, so it shows that many players share a frustration over this mechanic.
In don’t think changing the damage would do much to effectively balance them, it’s never hard to obtain them in bulk through crafting and they can be spammed very easily. The main issue I see is that the opponent has no way to prevent you from exploding it since you can explode it the instant you place it down. I propose that this would best be fixed if the trapped chest was given a very short delay before it explodes, giving players a split second to react and try to run away or place blocks.

In the end, it is called Lucky Islands though. Not many people know of the mechanic, and it all depends on luck whether or not you manage to obtain trapped chests. A lot of drops can be broken in the right hands.

This is a point I have to disagree with. Yes, what makes lucky islands enjoyable and what makes it stand out from other games is this element of luck. However, the reason this is so appealing to players is not because it makes the game less balanced, it is because of the way that it makes every game unique and every player’s items unique which prevents the game from becoming stale. This is enhanced by the fact the game contains a wider variety of game mechanics in comparison to other game modes, many of which aren’t in the base game, which further contributes to the unique experience each game of lucky islands provides.
The portion of people who play lucky islands due to the way that luck makes it unbalanced is much smaller. This is the group of people which the overpowered mode voting option attempt to appeal, as it makes many drops more broken increasing the impact that luck has on the game. However, I feel that the other modes would be better if they were more balanced than they are right now.

 

[Velocidad]

In the end, it is called Lucky Islands though. Not many people know of the mechanic, and it all depends on luck whether or not you manage to obtain trapped chests. A lot of drops can be broken in the right hands.

It's very easy to get iron in Lucky Islands and crafting them is cheap too since you only need wood apart from iron, meaning you don't depend on luck that much. The best thing would be that people wouldn't be able to craft them and could just pick them up if they got them as a drop (At least in Blessed which is the only mode where it's not even one of the possible drops). The main problem is that most of the people who use it are literally kamikazes who commit suicide but kill the other player which ruins the gaming experience quite a bit.

 

[0capa]

In the end, it is called Lucky Islands though. Not many people know of the mechanic, and it all depends on luck whether or not you manage to obtain trapped chests. A lot of drops can be broken in the right hands.

You can craft it, easily, if you make around 4 you will cause bloodshed

 

[Hoshi]

This is a point I have to disagree with. Yes, what makes lucky islands enjoyable and what makes it stand out from other games is this element of luck. However, the reason this is so appealing to players is not because it makes the game less balanced, it is because of the way that it makes every game unique and every player’s items unique which prevents the game from becoming stale. This is enhanced by the fact the game contains a wider variety of game mechanics in comparison to other game modes, many of which aren’t in the base game, which further contributes to the unique experience each game of lucky islands provides.
The portion of people who play lucky islands due to the way that luck makes it unbalanced is much smaller. This is the group of people which the overpowered mode voting option attempt to appeal, as it makes many drops more broken increasing the impact that luck has on the game. However, I feel that the other modes would be better if they were more balanced than they are right now.

This provides not a single counterargument to what I said though, at least not from what I understand.

Like I said, a lot of items can be used to be absolutely ridiculously powerful in the right hands. Crossbows can be spammed to basically insta-kill someone; spamming lightning wands, especially in Overpowered; Multiple mob wands to distract and harm the enemy easily; shields. Heck, I even had someone spam like ten slime wands on me to create a deadly ping pong game the enemy walks into. Ultimately, it all comes down to 1) luck, to obtain the items, and 2) skill, to know when to use which items at the right time.

It's very easy to get iron in Lucky Islands and crafting them is cheap too since you only need wood apart from iron, meaning you don't depend on luck that much. The best thing would be that people wouldn't be able to craft them and could just pick them up if they got them as a drop (At least in Blessed which is the only mode where it's not even one of the possible drops)

You can craft it, easily

I do agree that they are very easy to craft and that the playability of the game could benefit from them not being craftable. However, I think nerfing them is overkill, especially if they are made uncraftable.

The main problem is that most of the people who use it are literally kamikazes who commit suicide but kill the other player which ruins the gaming experience quite a bit.

Ultimately, it is a strategy the same way that bowspamming is. While it may be incredibly annoying to deal with - and may ruin your gaming experience when it happens -, that doesn’t mean it should be removed. Additionally, I only very rarely come across players that genuinely use trapped chests in their gameplay. It really isn’t that common and most players don’t even know it’s possible.

I’ve accidentally killed myself with trapped chests countless times. It requires knowledge of how to correctly place it and make it explode from the right angle, as well as the skill to be able to execute the whole plan quickly. Yeah, they’re powerful, but also require a bit of effort to use correctly.

 

[Velocidad]

The main issue I see is that the opponent has no way to prevent you from exploding it since you can explode it the instant you place it down.

The only ways to counter the trap chests that I can think of right now would be totems, notch apples, rainbow apples and leather boots with blast protection and none of the drops are very common to appear...

I do agree that they are very easy to craft and that the playability of the game could benefit from them not being craftable. However, I think nerfing them is overkill, especially if they are made uncraftable.

what?????

Ultimately, it is a strategy the same way that bowspamming is. While it may be incredibly annoying to deal with - and may ruin your gaming experience when it happens -, that doesn’t mean it should be removed.

The main objective when you get into a game of li is supposed to be to win, being a kamikaze (now being a kamikaze is a strategy? wow) I think it goes a bit against it and the only thing you do as you say is ruin the gaming experience of others, and the proposal was never to delete them simply so that people can't craft them and can simply use them if they get it from a drop. And apart from being annoying is that all the mechanics or strategies have a counter but this one as I mentioned before is very difficult to counter.

I only very rarely come across players that genuinely use trapped chests in their gameplay. It really isn’t that common and most players don’t even know it’s possible.

It doesn't matter that supposedly from your point of view it is not so common.There are already a couple of threads on the forum from people complaining about this issue, I'm one of them, so it may not be as uncommon as you think.And if it can be fixed quickly and easily, I don't see any problem.

I’ve accidentally killed myself with trapped chests countless times. It requires knowledge of how to correctly place it and make it explode from the right angle, as well as the skill to be able to execute the whole plan quickly. Yeah, they’re powerful, but also require a bit of effort to use correctly.

I know, that's why I say that most of them are kamikazes.Even if you know how to use it , it is very easy to fail and commit suicide along with the enemy, thus ruining the gaming experience as I have said before. And as such, trap chests do not exist in blessed mode, it is not one of the possible drops, I think it is logical that people cannot craft something (Especially if something can explode almost instantly without giving a chance to react and that was not intended to be in the game in the beginning.) that is not even in the possible drops.

 

[Hoshi]

and the proposal was never to delete them simply so that people can't craft them and can simply use them if they get it from a drop.

Where in the original post is it mentioned that they wanted them to be uncraftable?

The suggestion was to nerf their damage. I think removing the recipe is a perfect solution so that players can keep using trapped chests in their strategies while also making sure they aren’t abused.

now being a kamikaze is a strategy? wow

I mean that using certain items, like the trapped chest, to your advantage is a strategy. Not simply kamikaze-ing. I get that it may be annoying too, but it may be hard to tell if they actually do it on purpose. Like I said, I myself have died plenty of times trying to use trapped chest explosions properly. That doesn’t mean I kill myself along with the enemy on purpose. It’s a learning process, and even then misrakes can happen.

If it’s really such a bother and impacts your gaming experience that much, you might as well suggest making those actions reportable for trolling. It’s really not that deep, and you need to understand that in the end it is just a game. Getting all worked up over some random player accidentally or not accidentally killing themselves in an explosion that was intended to kill you, the enemy, is pointless. xd

And as such, trap chests do not exist in blessed mode, it is not one of the possible drops, I think it is logical that people cannot craft something (Especially if something can explode almost instantly without giving a chance to react and that was not intended to be in the game in the beginning.) that is not even in the possible drops.

The trapped chests exist to confuse players and troll them as they try to obtain loot. Picking it up and using the “bad” drop to your advantage is an intended side effect, the same way Crazy mode’s events summon deadly mobs but have benefits when you kill them (spawning lucky block drops for instance).

Blessed mode doesn’t feature this because it eliminates all “bad” drops from the game, which includes all the negative ones that have a positive side effect for the user (if used correctly). This includes the trapped chest.

That aside, and I repeat, I do think that to make sure trapped chests aren’t completely abused/overused in a single game, they could be made uncraftable. This would eliminate the issue you seem to have with trapped chests being available in Blessed mode and make sure that everyone’s experience becomes a bit fairer.

what?????

???

 

[Roxrock]

This provides not a single counterargument to what I said though, at least not from what I understand.

Like I said, a lot of items can be used to be absolutely ridiculously powerful in the right hands. Crossbows can be spammed to basically insta-kill someone; spamming lightning wands, especially in Overpowered; Multiple mob wands to distract and harm the enemy easily; shields. Heck, I even had someone spam like ten slime wands on me to create a deadly ping pong game the enemy walks into. Ultimately, it all comes down to 1) luck, to obtain the items, and 2) skill, to know when to use which items at the right time.

Let me clearly explain how what I was attempting to argue attempts to counter your original argument: “In the end, it is called Lucky Islands though. Not many people know of the mechanic, and it all depends on luck whether or not you manage to obtain trapped chests. A lot of drops can be broken in the right hands.”
These are the main arguments I noticed:

• It isn’t a problem because obtaining trapped chests is based on luck - (I assume this is why you emphasize the luck element of the game)
• This mechanic isn’t well known - (This wasn’t an argument I was attempting to counter and I don’t really have any way of evaluating how many people know of this mechanic besides my subjective personal experience playing the game)
• Several other items in the game have potential to be overpowered - (The counter argument I made applies to the balance of the game as a whole and I focused on the trapped chest because it’s the topic of this thread.)

My response criticizes your first argument. I established that the primary purpose of luck is to reduce the repetition within the game, not to reduce the amount of control a player has on his winning opportunity or the skill it takes in order to avoid loosing. I was forced to make certain assumptions about the reasoning behind your argument, you did not clearly explain how the fact that trapped chests generally obtained through luck somehow makes up for the fact that they are unbalanced.

As mentioned, my argument suggests that the game as a whole should be reasonably balanced outside of overpowered mode so that skill remains the primary determining factor in the fate of who wins and looses games. Certain drops being extremely overpowered that you aren’t able to do anything about means that the fate of the game is more impacted by the luck of the game, since the quality of items each player gets has a larger amount of variation. In the case of the trapped chest, it’s almost impossible to make sure that your opponent can’t kill you with it especially if you don’t get the few items which can allow you to deal with it.

To make my point even more clear, let me point out the irony in this quote: “Ultimately, it all comes down to 1) luck, to obtain the items, and 2) skill, to know when to use which items at the right time.”
My argument highlights that what you said here should be reflected in lucky islands, that luck should effect which items players obtain (again, keeping the game from getting stale), but skill, not luck, the ability of players to take advantage of the items they are given, this should be the what determines who wins and who looses. But if some drops are relatively overpowered compared to others, this skill is nullified by luck. A better player looses because his opponent happened to get a trapped chest and there was nothing that could be done to prevent the opponent from using it.

Now let me analyze your 3rd argument and the way you expanded upon it in your response. Having an excess of potentially exploitable items in the game is a bad idea because it could establish mutually assured destruction between players, a situation where the rewards for winning a battle and getting the opponent loot is not worth the risk of loosing, which makes the most effective strategy to be never engaging in any conflict to minimize until there is only one player remaining. What is even worse is that players who don’t know how to use these items to their advantage loose initiative to go for these items, which makes incentives these players to camp. There aren’t many items in lucky islands that can’t be refuted with skill though. The examples you listed either favor the defender, being counterable by a skilled opponent, or require several of the same drop in order to be effective. These strategies can be undermined by ensuring that no opponent is able to get such a high amount of loot. This requires you to play aggressively by rushing for the loot at middle immediately and ensuring that no player besides yourself is able to get a lot of melee kills. This minimizes the amount of loot each player is able to obtain and it makes it highly unlikely that the opponent can get a cheap kill off you by spamming with crossbows or mobs. I digress.
In contrast, trapped chests are overpowered on their own and are able to be obtained without lucky blocks anyway so there isn’t a strategy that prevents trapped chests users from being able to use them in an overpowered way. The giga sword and 15 seconds of flight also share this problem and I think that these drops could also need balancing or reworking. Yes, trapped chests are by no means the only overpowered thing in this game, far from it, but such overpowered aspects of the game cause similar problems to this and I have argued against them in the past as well. As I mentioned, overpowered mode should be the place where items being broken is okay.

 

[Hoshi]

In contrast, trapped chests are overpowered on their own and are able to be obtained without lucky blocks anyway so there isn’t a strategy that prevents trapped chests users from being able to use them in an overpowered way.

I hate to reply to such a detailed post with a short message, but we did establish just now that I think the best solution - that fixes all of these problems - may be to simply disallow crafting the trapped chests. This way, their overpowered usage is limited to drops only.

The giga sword and 15 seconds of flight also share this problem and I think that these drops could also need balancing or reworking.

I know that this isn’t really the topic of the thread, but I would still like to share my opinion on this.

While yes, these two drops are very overpowered, the giga sword can completely be nullified by a shield, and flight - unless it is used to knock some random people off - doesn’t usually last long enough to genuinely have a humongous impact. The fact that they’re so dangerous for other players is the reason why these drops are announced in chat: so players have a headsup of what may happen and can run away, hide, or come up with a counter strategy. You could say the same thing about the apples being overpowered, because they have a chance to make the player in question invulnerable for a period of time, sometimes a few seconds, sometimes up to 40+ seconds with the void being the only counter.

What is even worse is that players who don’t know how to use these items to their advantage loose initiative to go for these items

Most of the items in the game do not have a decent explanation of what they do. Anyone who is new to the game will have issues with figuring out what everything does in the first place, so I don’t see how the chests are any different from this.