Poll

Which items should be banned from zone battles?

Potions
3 (9.4%)
Armor enchants affecting protection stats
4 (12.5%)
Weapon enchants affecting attack stats
4 (12.5%)
Diamond swords
4 (12.5%)
If yes to option 4, additionally ban iron swords
1 (3.1%)
Diamond armor
4 (12.5%)
If yes to option 6, additionally ban all other armor
0 (0%)
Tool enchants affecting block destruction speed
2 (6.3%)
Ender pearls
5 (15.6%)
Lava
1 (3.1%)
TNT
1 (3.1%)
Vote yes here if you want items/xp to drop on death
1 (3.1%)
Nothing should be banned
2 (6.3%)

Total Members Voted: 8

Author Topic: Battleground Information  (Read 8220 times)

Bla

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Re: Battleground Information
« Reply #100 on: 2014 06 29, 19:56:28 »
if you take the effort to build a unassailable base then you should be allowed to. no one else seems to be doing it. battles don't seem to be much slanted towards defenders or attackers.
I agree that in our previous battles, they haven't been slanted too much in our battles for Blotz' zones and the obsidian forts I've built. We've seen many people get to the flag, burn it down, etc. But in the battle with Yqt and TMC, some improvements to the design made the base too strong in my opinion:

1) I dug out the terrain in a checkered pattern with lots of holes, which made the ground much harder to move across. This might be op and I'm open to considering banning it, although I like the idea of making the terrain hard to navigate. But if it means people would have to use skybridges to win, I'd prefer to ban this defense system.
2) The defender spawn was at the same height as the upper segments of the flag, and we had a skybridge directly to it. Additionally, our flag base had no lower segment and no ladder to the top, but had its bottom filled with lava. This meant TMC and Yqt pretty much had to use pillars to get up there (and they got shot down every time they tried), or use the ladders leading up to our spawn to get to the flag.

I think 1 would be a bit hard to make rules against. 2 on the other hand, could be solved by the rules I proposed above. Basically that would revert the fort here to one on the same level as the others we've had challenging fights for, but with the terrain obstacles still making it harder.

of course, adding more restrictions lowers entry cost, but i think there's a line to draw here. if a player can't improve their chances by spending effort on a better base, should players be restricted from honing their skills?
No, players should of course be allowed to use their skills as much as they can. Spending effort on a better base, I'm not sure - you can make a floating obsidian fortress at y = 220 with 20 layers and a flag inside, with a bed right next to the flag, and wait to see the attackers trying to get through... We really need rules to say how you can spend effort without making bases that there would be no reason to even try attacking.

moreover, restricting creative bases on the battleground narrows the field of people who are interested because of the construction aspect.
I think rule 1 and 2 takes away only a tiny portion of creative solutions for bases in the BG, so I don't think they should affect that. The older of my obsidian bases would still work, for example. Having spawn on the ground can also require new creative solutions, like how the defenders can make a base that ensures they can get to the flag easily, without letting the enemies get there too easily.

if the lava and water actually increase lag by a significant fraction, maybe something can be done. but they also allow somewhat of a "gradient" -- if you can't afford an obsidian base, a coating of lava is almost as good, and water is pretty effective too.

banning water isn't as bad -- lava doesn't flow nearly as much and is way harder to collect, so i think it is balanced.
It's not hard to gather a lot of lava due to its abundance in the nether, but I'm not sure if it's really overpowered for battles. It might be, I mean, you can also construct a cliff that makes a single source block flow down to a lot of blocks, and I don't think it'd be that hard to cover all the zone in lava, it'd probably take shorter than mining all the obsidian I've used in the bases and the ~4 hours I guess it took to construct them.
We had a pretty cool fight for one of Blotz' water bases and I actually liked moving forward and pouring lava to stop the water, and we managed to win the battle, so I suppose water isn't that op. But once you have to go up a high drop with water or lava, it starts to get hard.
I'll leave water and lava allowed for now.

if it actually turns out that after a few battles involving both fronts attacking, that obsidian bases are utterly impenetrable, maybe lift restrictions instead -- maybes team can use enchanted diamond pickaxes to mine,  or 10 enderpearls permitted per person per battle etc.
I think enderpearls is a bad idea to introduce, enchanted diamond picks sound like a better solution, and Blotz' plugin also looks like a pretty cool addition (even though it's also nice to have the flagpole made out of obsidian to ensure it stays intact). I think 1 and 2 would be a better way to roll the battle balance back to the old obsidian base designs, though.



So far, a sketch of the rule changes I'll probably make are:

1: Skybridges that are longer than 5 meters are banned.
2: Attacking and defending bases now play both roles, so either side may change the other's flag, and both sides can gain or lose their zone. Battle stops after 20 minutes, or once either side has changed the flag on the other zone. The Start zone is an exception, as it cannot be conquered.
3: The spawn of defenders must be at least 20 meters from the flagpole, and additionally, not higher than the ground level of the flagpole (bed may be placed at same height as bottom block of flagpole).
4: At least one column of blocks directly adjacent to the entire flagpole, must not contain obsidian or liquids.
« Last Edit: 2014 06 29, 20:09:57 by Bla »