1.14 Update Info and Concerns
The 1.14 update has added in many new blocks and items as well as overhauled village mechanics. Furthermore there are more powerful texture and block model mechanics and tags which will allow me to introduce better custom items and possibly blocks onto the server along with custom models for entities. However there are also some concerns I have with this update. This news post will mainly be addressing the concerns I have with the 1.14 update. In the future I may make a post about the new technical features in 1.14 and how I plan on using them to further enhance the server. I would also like everyone to know that even with the concerns I have, I do want to update Astria to 1.14, it may just be very delayed.
Firstly as usual many existing plugins do not work on 1.14 and need to be updated. Some are easy to find as they have errors however some may not be found until tested in game. When I get closer to releasing the 1.14 update for Astria I will open up the test server so players can help test for plugin and game play comparability.
Emerald Reserves:
When I started astria, I was unsure if I wanted a economy plugin for it. So I made emeralds a reserve currency. This allowed players to convert there money to and from emeralds at the server shop. If I ever had to remove the economy plugin, players could convert there money into emeralds. This would allow the coin currency to keep some of its value as emeralds could be traded with villagers. However as Astria aged and new mechanics were added, emeralds became a great way to store money to help reduce the loss of money from being killed by another player. Emeralds were also a way to make a long term investment with a small pay out. This is because I try to keep the emerald prices equal to any inflation/deflation that has occurred (really none at this time) so they keep the same value. I would also occasionally increase there value by a very small amount allowing emeralds to gain value over a long period of time.
The new issue is, buying and selling goods for emeralds with villages will be easier and cheaper then before. This also means players can build emerald farms with villagers to mass produce emeralds. This means coins could be mass produced and crash the economy of Astria.
I plan to alleviate this problem by creating a new reserve item. This will still be emerald based, but it will be a custom emerald item. This custom emerald will not be tradeable with villagers. However if the economy plugin ever has to be removed, they new Reserve Emeralds would be unlocked for villager trading. Players who already have a stock pile of emeralds will not have to worry about them becoming worthless. Before this update I will have a system in place so players can convert there existing emeralds back into coins and then buy the new Reserve Emeralds. This conversion will happen over a course of a few weeks, to allow players time to convert. However any player that does not convert there old emeralds over to the new Reserve Emeralds will be at a loss after the 1.14 update. I have no ETA on when this will begin.
I could also replace the Reserve Item with a totally different item, however the item must have value in Vanilla game play, and must not be farmable. It cannot be a item that is strong or used to make strong items such as diamond as this could lead to easy diamond armor,tools, and weapons for new players taking the challenge of obtaining them. (could also lead to the server shop competing with players for diamond sales).
Farms:
There are two types of farms I have large concerns with in 1.14, Iron and Totem of Undying Farms. While Iron Farms exist in previous versions of Minecraft, in 1.14 they are very powerful and can produce tens of thousands of iron in just a few hours or less. Totem of Undying Farms could make Totems very common on the server which would make rare custom items such as Life Armor a common item. I also have some powerful custom items designed that use Totems in there crafting recipes.
Currently my options for the farms are far and few. The best thing to do would be to ban there creation and use, however I feel this would be as detrimental to players and the server as allowing them would be. However I do feel that both farms need to be nerfed. However some farms such as the Iron farm are massively scalable and any nerf’s I do would be undone by making larger and more efficient farms. So a general nerf such as making them produce 50% less iron would be infective. This could then lead to players with the largest farms making the most iron harming those with smaller farms. I could also use the Villagers for the iron farms to keep track of spawns and reduce iron golem spawns based on each individual farms. I am currently looking into a few different methods to nerf Iron and Totem Farms. Any feedback on ideas on how to nerf them in a balanced way would be appreciated.
Villager Trading
With 1.14, villager trading has been entirely reworked. However there are exploits that can be used to greatly decrease the price of goods sold by villagers. This in turn can lead to mass production of items that could crash the economy of the server, or just greatly decrease the sell/buy price of that item when sold by players.
I feel villager trading should be allowed and its something I do not want to disable. I am currently looking into a way to increase the prices of buying goods from villagers as well as patch or prevent some of the exploits that can occur. I am also looking into decreasing the amount of goods they sell between restocking. Items sold to them may also grant less emeralds, however I may not change the sell prices.
Bamboo & Kelp
In 1.13 Kelp was added into Minecraft, and with 1.14 Bamboo was added. I feel Bamboo and Kelp farms will not be too detrimental to economy. However I do feel that very large Bamboo and Kelp farms could be detrimental to the server as they could lag the server. However I currently will not be implementing anything to reduce or hinder the farms. I hope that players will make farms that will be friendly to the server and produce as little lag as possible. However I am looking into a way to help reduce any lag created by them so player can have large Bamboo and Kelp Farms.
Glitched Overpowered Armor and Crossbows
There is a chance for mob drop armors and crossbows to double enchant w/ the same enchantments or conflicting enchantments.
Infinite villager trading preventing stock from running out
May be able to prevent this by checking if player and villager are in the same world upon trade. If not cancel trade and close inventory.
This can be stacked w/ the hero of the village effect and glitch.
Hero of the village glitch
Each Level 5 grants a 55% price reduction. However theirs a way to glitch this to be very high.
Cross Bows
I would like to say that the concerns I have with cross bows are minor.
The Multi Shot enchantment is somewhat broken in my opinion. When a arrow is shot from a bow and hits an entity it should be consumed. However with multi shot, 1 arrow is turned into 3, as long as the middle arrow does not hit any entity it can still be picked up. This becomes a worse problem when Tipped arrows are used, as the player can shoot 3 tipped arrows, hit 2 entities with it and still get the tipped arrow back.
Rockets shot from Crossbows have a strange aggro and aggressor pattern. This causes pigmen to not become angry if attacked/killed by Rockets. This could lead to easy gold farming without setting up a gold farm.
Piercing arrows can shoot though multiple mobs and does not decrease in damage as it passes though mobs. I feel as this makes a piercing bow over powered. This of course assumes the player is able to get a nice line/bunching of mobs to hit.
Quick Charge may be too powerful, but I need to do some testing.
Flying Minecart’s & Boat Minecart’s
Using a fishing rod players can fly with a minecart and other entities (with varying degrees of success). However this is a super minor concern since it requiers a player to burn though a tone of fishing rods.
Players can also push minecart’s into a boat and ride it. This allows for super fast travel on rails that can be controlled with the arrow keys. This requires no powered rails to do. This will be nerfed/removed from Astria. (However as stated a very long time ago, I am still looking to buff Furnace Mine carts)
Those are the main concerns I have about the 1.14 update. As I progress in figuring out how to solve them and start preparations for the update I may come across more concerns. If you the player have any concerns about 1.14, or about the plans in this news post feel free to comment on the news post (if reading on the forms) or sending me in game mail using “/mail send daniel_return <message>”. I will do my best to keep players up to date on the progress of the 1.14 update as well as any new concerns or changes to existing concerns that come up.
Next Combat Update
This is not apart of 1.14, however I would like to take time to go over a few concerns about the next combat update that is planed. Currently (as far as i’m aware) this is planned for 1.15. This new Combat System is in very early stages of development, as witnessed by the non-standard snapshot they released. The concerns I have with it are based off of the limited information about it. This new combat has the potential to totally change from this snapshot which means many of the concerns I have about it may also change.
The 1.9 combat update saw a new combat system introduced. However this seemed to be aimed mostly at PvP as nothing was done to rebalanced monsters to keep there difficulty around the same level. The only thing that was done was the addition of sweeping edge in 1.11.1. I feel that they may ignore PvE balancing issues once more with this next combat update.
I strive for Astria to be a more difficult Survival Server. I have done this by enhancing PvE and PvP. For PvE I have added in custom monsters as well as hindered animal breeding and plant growth. If monsters are not rebalanced to fit the new fighting mechanics I may rebalanced all vanilla monsters. Furthermore I will, regardless of vanilla monsters, be rebalancing all custom monsters. This new combat is faster, and now has reach. While I like the idea of reach (I could add in spears) this speed and reach could shred many of the monsters on the server making them dreadfully easy.
Furthermore with the faster attack speed and reach the custom bleeding mechanic could be proced far faster then with the current system. I may need to remake the entire bleeding mechanic so it can be balanced for this new combat.
Bows and Crossbow’s will also become weaker (if not updated in some way) as they will still have the same damage and charge up time. While melee weapons will be able to attack faster. They have also stated that armor will be redone so its more balanced.
Those are the main concerns about the next Combat Update. I thought I would include them with the 1.14 concerns news post. I will try to keep everyone up to date about my concerns for the next Combat Update as more information is released about it. If you have any concerns about it feel free to send me I game mail “/mail send daniel_return <message>”
EDIT: 8-19-2019
Added more concerns