Cube Skywars in 2023 is broken.
I've played this game for 2 years now. I have almost 100 hours in Skywars playtime from the 1.12 era. I used to get 1k-4k every round consistently. The game was surprisingly balanced if you knew how to pvp. Improvement was possible. The game is no longer balanced, but frustratingly luck based and unstrategic.
1.19 is an exciting time. I lobbied for the switch a year ago so I'm glad to see it finally happen. At the same time, the new beta has a lot of balance issues. These need to be resolved, or the game will die.
-Combat in Skywars follows a cycle: gear up, 1v1, heal, repeat.
-If any link in this chain is broken, you are left at a disadvantage.
-eg. if you didn't gear up, you would lose every fight. If you didn't fight, the last person in the match has significantly better armor. If you don't heal, then you are at a disadvantage before your next fight.
-All three parts of this chain have problems (which the map design amplifies)
1) regeneration speed
-Healing is unreasonable slow in 1.19 Skywars
-After every fight, you are always at less than full health
-You need to heal to recover or else you enter your next fight with a severe disadvantage
-the food given in typical Skywars loot does NOT regenerate your health in the average time before the next fight starts
-For example: in a round on crystal I get 4 fish and 2 bread along with iron armor and an iron sword. I enter mid and successfully combo another player into the void. In the process, I took 6 hearts of damage. I begin to eat a fish (my best food at the moment) and finish, starting to regain health. However, I've only regained 3 hearts by the time another player is running and about to get a crit on me. (remember, the islands are only a couple dozen blocks apart) Now I'm entering this fight disadvantaged, leading to a greater than 50% loss rate on the second fight in a Skywars match. This is commonly referred to as '3rd partying' which I made a separate post about in 'game discussions'
-if the average regeneration speed were even a little bit faster, healing and getting to full would be sufficient to win the 2nd fight in a round.
-A couple of suggestions are to increase the quality of all food: no more apples, no more bread. The worst food should be fish, with steak being average, and golden apples being more common. Suspicious stew with saturation could be a cool addition, as these can now be consumed even with full health. There are a lot of other ways to reduce the time needed to fully regenerate health too.
2) loot/gear collection/pre-fight advantage
-I've talked about the health advantage. Another link in the cycle of combat is gearing up.
-The gear in Skywars is far too randomized
-As an example: its possible for one player to get two chainmail and two iron armor in the initial chest, while another gets two iron and two diamond. More than a couple times I've gotten both diamond chest plate and diamond leggings in the starting island chest.
-In this example round, the diamond armor player and the chainmail player face in combat. Is this a fair fight? Not even close. One player is able to take ~3 times the damage as the other player. Even if both are in the same skill bracket, the fight is essentially pre-determined by luck factors.
-In addition to initial luck being far too influential, middle island chests can be unfair too
-not every middle chest contains a piece of diamond armor, and you can only check a couple before a fight has initiated. In the situation, there wasn't a piece in the 2 chests you checked, and there *was* a piece in the 2 chests another player checked, you are again at a disadvantage. A disadvantage you could not have controlled, and was essentially pre-set by the game's loot tables.
-Further, the focus of the game gets detracted from being battles (as in skywars) to being loot collection. If most fights are determined by the gear of the opponent, why should I even try to fight them? I'm strongly incentivized just to run from any fight until I have a netherite sword and full diamond armor. This makes the game boring in addition to unbalanced.
-The end result of a system predetermining outcomes and disincentivizing combat is pure frustration. I can't count the amount of rounds I've just screamed at the monitor because I had no chance to beat some full netherite player. On the flip side, its not satisfying a all to win rounds just because u got luckily initial loot and spent the whole round chasing players in chainmail. Where is the accomplishment? Where is the skill? Gone.
-Solution? Rework loot in Skywars. Do whatever it takes to balance the luck factor. A little luck in games keeps things interesting, but the level it's at needs reform.
3) map design
-Certain maps lend themselves to a basically free for all scenario. Some easy examples are tnt or nether.
-These maps have smaller spaces to fight on the edges and a massive area in the middle.
-This type of map design incentivizes 3rd partying and running away
-This type of map design makes loot collection even more luck based: whatever you get on the start island + whoever you kill + if you manage to snag a couple items from the center island (which is risky and usually will end up dying to a 3d party or having to run)
-As an example: on TNT, the round starts. Say I get full iron and a diamond sword. I rush to the island next to mine and manage to get the kill on the person still gearing up next to me. They had a diamond helmet, so now I have that. Next, I go to mid where 3 people are still fighting. One of these players has a diamond chest plate and leggings. They kill 1 and run away, leaving the 3rd guy to heal in mid. I rush on this guy and get the kill.
-where am I? I have 2 kills and am in mid where all the loot is. In an ideal game, I should have the upper hand. (but not guaranteed the win) Instead, the person with diamond armor is fully healed while I am not. He has better armor. He rushes back on me and gets what is essentially a free kill.
-this issue could be resolved with a different map structure that enabled loot collection without risking yourself in an unfair fight.
Conclusion: I trust Cubecraft can make the changes necessary to balance the game. After all, it's only a beta right now not the finished product. Hopefully, this is helpful to see someone who knows the game well try to reason through the areas that make it frustrating. I was looking back on my old clips and montages from a year ago and it made me nostalgic to see the game in a condition that was pretty fair and definitely fun at least. Anyways, thanks for reading my rant =P
I've played this game for 2 years now. I have almost 100 hours in Skywars playtime from the 1.12 era. I used to get 1k-4k every round consistently. The game was surprisingly balanced if you knew how to pvp. Improvement was possible. The game is no longer balanced, but frustratingly luck based and unstrategic.
1.19 is an exciting time. I lobbied for the switch a year ago so I'm glad to see it finally happen. At the same time, the new beta has a lot of balance issues. These need to be resolved, or the game will die.
-Combat in Skywars follows a cycle: gear up, 1v1, heal, repeat.
-If any link in this chain is broken, you are left at a disadvantage.
-eg. if you didn't gear up, you would lose every fight. If you didn't fight, the last person in the match has significantly better armor. If you don't heal, then you are at a disadvantage before your next fight.
-All three parts of this chain have problems (which the map design amplifies)
1) regeneration speed
-Healing is unreasonable slow in 1.19 Skywars
-After every fight, you are always at less than full health
-You need to heal to recover or else you enter your next fight with a severe disadvantage
-the food given in typical Skywars loot does NOT regenerate your health in the average time before the next fight starts
-For example: in a round on crystal I get 4 fish and 2 bread along with iron armor and an iron sword. I enter mid and successfully combo another player into the void. In the process, I took 6 hearts of damage. I begin to eat a fish (my best food at the moment) and finish, starting to regain health. However, I've only regained 3 hearts by the time another player is running and about to get a crit on me. (remember, the islands are only a couple dozen blocks apart) Now I'm entering this fight disadvantaged, leading to a greater than 50% loss rate on the second fight in a Skywars match. This is commonly referred to as '3rd partying' which I made a separate post about in 'game discussions'
-if the average regeneration speed were even a little bit faster, healing and getting to full would be sufficient to win the 2nd fight in a round.
-A couple of suggestions are to increase the quality of all food: no more apples, no more bread. The worst food should be fish, with steak being average, and golden apples being more common. Suspicious stew with saturation could be a cool addition, as these can now be consumed even with full health. There are a lot of other ways to reduce the time needed to fully regenerate health too.
2) loot/gear collection/pre-fight advantage
-I've talked about the health advantage. Another link in the cycle of combat is gearing up.
-The gear in Skywars is far too randomized
-As an example: its possible for one player to get two chainmail and two iron armor in the initial chest, while another gets two iron and two diamond. More than a couple times I've gotten both diamond chest plate and diamond leggings in the starting island chest.
-In this example round, the diamond armor player and the chainmail player face in combat. Is this a fair fight? Not even close. One player is able to take ~3 times the damage as the other player. Even if both are in the same skill bracket, the fight is essentially pre-determined by luck factors.
-In addition to initial luck being far too influential, middle island chests can be unfair too
-not every middle chest contains a piece of diamond armor, and you can only check a couple before a fight has initiated. In the situation, there wasn't a piece in the 2 chests you checked, and there *was* a piece in the 2 chests another player checked, you are again at a disadvantage. A disadvantage you could not have controlled, and was essentially pre-set by the game's loot tables.
-Further, the focus of the game gets detracted from being battles (as in skywars) to being loot collection. If most fights are determined by the gear of the opponent, why should I even try to fight them? I'm strongly incentivized just to run from any fight until I have a netherite sword and full diamond armor. This makes the game boring in addition to unbalanced.
-The end result of a system predetermining outcomes and disincentivizing combat is pure frustration. I can't count the amount of rounds I've just screamed at the monitor because I had no chance to beat some full netherite player. On the flip side, its not satisfying a all to win rounds just because u got luckily initial loot and spent the whole round chasing players in chainmail. Where is the accomplishment? Where is the skill? Gone.
-Solution? Rework loot in Skywars. Do whatever it takes to balance the luck factor. A little luck in games keeps things interesting, but the level it's at needs reform.
3) map design
-Certain maps lend themselves to a basically free for all scenario. Some easy examples are tnt or nether.
-These maps have smaller spaces to fight on the edges and a massive area in the middle.
-This type of map design incentivizes 3rd partying and running away
-This type of map design makes loot collection even more luck based: whatever you get on the start island + whoever you kill + if you manage to snag a couple items from the center island (which is risky and usually will end up dying to a 3d party or having to run)
-As an example: on TNT, the round starts. Say I get full iron and a diamond sword. I rush to the island next to mine and manage to get the kill on the person still gearing up next to me. They had a diamond helmet, so now I have that. Next, I go to mid where 3 people are still fighting. One of these players has a diamond chest plate and leggings. They kill 1 and run away, leaving the 3rd guy to heal in mid. I rush on this guy and get the kill.
-where am I? I have 2 kills and am in mid where all the loot is. In an ideal game, I should have the upper hand. (but not guaranteed the win) Instead, the person with diamond armor is fully healed while I am not. He has better armor. He rushes back on me and gets what is essentially a free kill.
-this issue could be resolved with a different map structure that enabled loot collection without risking yourself in an unfair fight.
Conclusion: I trust Cubecraft can make the changes necessary to balance the game. After all, it's only a beta right now not the finished product. Hopefully, this is helpful to see someone who knows the game well try to reason through the areas that make it frustrating. I was looking back on my old clips and montages from a year ago and it made me nostalgic to see the game in a condition that was pretty fair and definitely fun at least. Anyways, thanks for reading my rant =P
