Not being able to sneak onto other people’s islands is understandable; that’s one of my more familiar strategies from EggWars that I wish I could use in BedWars.
However, EggWars and BedWars are supposed to play differently from each other, and the Enemy Approaching message is a major distinguishing feature between them.
Overall, I think that the message should stay, but only in early-game with an optional power-up that allows it to exist for the rest of the round
The Message Should be Prioritized Early-Game
The Enemy Approaching message should ideally be the most important early on in a round, because your team doesn’t have many defenses yet. Later on in the round is when your team will have access to more defenses, and the message just adds to all of those defenses
For reference:
I feel like the message ideally works the best at the beginning of the game, when players are most likely to be using the most basic blocks on their bed, like wool, and are less likely to have harder blocks placed. Especially with the use of TNT or a blastball (fire charge), the bed can easily be made vulnerable, so the message makes sense early game.
(These quotes are from a post I made on this related thread)
Playing Styles
Because of the various defenses BedWars has, it seems to be a game that‘s generally aimed towards casual players.
One of the reasons the Enemy Approaching message exists seems to be to prevent rushing, and rushing happens most often in early-game.
This makes sense considering rushers are more common in EggWars, and the gameplay of BedWars and EggWars should be kept separate.
As somewhat of a casual player myself, sneaking onto an island in EggWars was a common way for me to destroy an egg. I’m personally not great at jumping in and fighting multiple people.
With the message still existing in later-game BedWars, at that point it’s starting to prevent players like myself from using a strategy we’re very familiar with. As a game that’s partially meant to attract casual players, it seems to somewhat hinder our efforts at the same time because of the message.
BedWars may be a defense-oriented game, but it also needs to have at least some kind of offense too. Otherwise nobody will destroy each other’s beds, and that should be somewhat encouraged.
For reference:
I’d say that this message (especially when it’s early game) is one of the key things that separates BedWars from EggWars. From the looks of it, BedWars is somewhat centered around defense, certainly more than EggWars. Beds early on in the game should be protected from rushers, and I think a warning of an approaching enemy is just enough to give the team a better chance of defending their bed. As many might know, rushers are a common player type in EggWars, and I personally think that the gameplay of EggWars and BedWars should be kept separate as much as possible.
A Power-up Idea
While a purchasable power-up that enables the message sounds reasonable, I think it could work better if it keeps the message instead. I find that the effectiveness of the message early on in the game is part of what makes BedWars BedWars.
With this, the message would exist by default at the beginning, and it’ll stop existing at some point in the round unless you buy the power-up.
This encourages players to buy defenses (the message being considered a defense), something that the game already seems to be centered around.
At the same time, it allows for players to be more creative in how they play the game, especially for the playerbase that the game seems to be intended for.
The price of this power-up is to be determined, but a somewhat expensive price could work well so that it’s harder to get and every team doesn’t end up having it. Possibly 25 to 30 diamonds?
For reference:
An idea is that maybe it could be made so that the message stops showing up after a certain point in the game;
The farther (later) you are in the game, the more likely that harder blocks will be used around beds, and the more likely that there will be better defenses on the island as well. This makes it harder for the beds to be destroyed by other players, which (destroying beds) should ideally become more and more of a common goal the longer the game lasts (especially considering the upcoming Deathmatch phase), at least in my opinion
At this point in the game, the “Enemy Approaching" could be seen as an unnecessary layer of defense, almost too much defense. With all of the protection a bed can already have, I feel like players should be able to be sneaky when destroying a team’s bed
