Shotbow

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Hello Survivors!

We're back with yet another update thread to shed some light onto our next big content update for MineZ. While we may not be running a holiday event this month, we still have a lot to cover, so let's get right to it!

Gifts from Pluvia

You all know of those dried up lakes in the north; whether it be for finding a Giant to slay or starting a battle, everyone knows of these gravel lands. Today, we are proud to announce a big change coming to this area of the map.



First and foremost, the above picture doesn't do it justice. This is just a small glimpse of the new canyons. But for those of you so accustomed to fighting in these canyons, don't worry! We've taken many steps to preserve the layout and general feel of the region - the only thing you may need to watch out for is a couple more pieces of scenery, and a few other notable locations that may change the meta slightly.

Builder IvanDoomy worked very hard on this project, so be sure to give him some love!

Gentle (not really) Giants

You may have seen this teased already, but if not, Giants are getting a rework this update! For quite some time now players have voiced concerns that Giants aren't really all that exciting to fight with random stomps, unbalanced damage, and just an uninteresting fight altogether. Below are the changes coming to Giants:

Tension

In a previous update we added boss health bars to Giants in an effort to further improve clarity when fighting them. That update also laid the groundwork for the next major feature to Giants: Tension.

Tension is a mechanic which dictates just how angry your neighborhood Giant is at the moment. A Giant has three stages of tension: Calm, Angry, and Furious. The angrier the Giant is, the faster and more dangerous it becomes.

• Calm: Slow, not very threatening, has a chance to spawn Zombies when hit.
• Angry: Medium Speed. Has a chance to stomp when hit, also has a chance to spawn Zombies when hit.
• Furious: Fast Speed. Has a random chance to stomp towards a player without being hit first, also can spawn Pigmen when hit.

Adjusted Stomp Damage

Stomp damage has always felt a little off when in the heat of the battle. Now damage will curve downwards the farther you are from the Giant when it stomps.

If you are too close to the Giant when it stomps you may lose around 4 hearts. Stay far enough away and you may avoid damage altogether; practice makes perfect!

Brand New Tips!

For as long as I can personally remember, the MineZ Tips have been unhelpful, disorganized, confusing, or even threatening to players.

To be more helpful to everyone the tip system has been completely rewritten and is designed in a way for us to quickly modify and update tips should the need arise.

These tips are placed into categories that follow a new color scheme and formatting structure. Additionally, they also all provide easy to understand hover and clickable text that links to the Wiki, Discord, Forums, etc.

We hope these new tips are not as much invasive as they are helpful to players, both old and new.

More PvP Changes

We've committed to deliver a quality PvP environment to players for quite some time now. We've had a few hiccups along the way, but that's all a part of the process.

In this update, we are shipping two key changes that should help bring some of the old "feel" that PvP had in older versions of Minecraft, like 1.7.

Splash Potion Velocity

Splash Potions used to behave a certain way when thrown in 1.7, and that was changed some time ago. Players can no longer throw a splash, and run into it while it is in the air. This was a useful mechanic, as it allowed those with the knowledge and skill, to more accurately get the most out of a splash healing potion.

Thanks to some incredible work by ShadowLAX we have brought back the older feel of Splash Potions, allowing players to more accurately get the most out of their healing potions.

Damage Increase

We've heard your feedback about Iron Armor feeling just a little too tanky, and we have made some adjustments to damage to help remedy this problem:

• Iron Sword: Damage increased from 4.3 to 4.5.
• Diamond Sword: Damage increased from 4.7 to 4.8.

These may sound small at first, but we're going to be following this after it releases, and see what other fine tuning we can do to help the PVP scene of MineZ.

Dungeon Loot Changes

Another topic we've heard a lot of chatter about - Dungeon Loot. It is true that balancing loot across the dungeons of MineZ is a very tricky process. With the combination of old and new dungeons, each with their own style and mechanics, it's not the most straightforward process.

With that being said, we took some time over the last few weeks to look at how we rank dungeons, and there was a key qualification that was missing in the tiering - how far north (or how hard to access) it is. With this update we've integrated this factor into our ranking system; read up on the specifics in the MineZ Changelog.

Crafting Antidote and Potions

Your supplies are now more useful to your travels than before! Three new crafting recipes should make rummaging around towns more helpful than before, should you need the supplies they create:

• Antidote can now be crafted with 1 Water Bottle and 1 Antibiotic.
• Instant Health I can now be crafted with 1 Water Bottle and 1 Healing Ointment.
• Instant Health II can now be crafted with 1 Water Bottle and 2 Healing Ointment.

A Ransacked Settlement

Lazerville, an old settlement in the west, has seemingly been destroyed...

Nobody knows what caused it. Some rumors are floating about that something had shown up and completely ravaged the town. There's currently no sign of the culprit. But some fear that whoever, or whatever it was, may return to the scene of the crime... Possibly soon.

Priority Map

We mentioned this a while ago, and we are now ready to share our Priority Map publicly!

First and foremost, this is a Priority Map, not a Roadmap. The difference being, we are not setting dates on when (or if) these features will land into MineZ. However, you will get to gauge where our focus currently stands in development and build changes.

Please keep in mind that this is subject to change at any time, but as things stand right now, this will be our list of priorities for MineZ in the near future.


With changes coming to Mojang accounts, we understand the need for a player bank very soon. We are shifting our focus to put this on the top of our priorities to be sure to deliver it to players before it's too late.

In addition, the Clan System has been underway for quite some time, and is looking great. We'll be able to share more on it soon.

Hanging Lights and Baking Cookies

It should come as no surprise that we have a lot we are planning for Christmas this year. It is of course, Halo's favorite time of the year! Building off more then five years of Christmas events, we will have a lot to live up to.

We hope to make this year the most enjoyable Christmas on MineZ with new features, new builds and new events. While we're not quite ready to let you in on our Christmas plans, rest assured we are working on this!

Closing

Off the hype and festivities from Halloween we are continuing to add and build MineZ to be greater than ever before.

We've done more clarity and quality of life updates this month, but the canyon rebuild is definitely the highlight of the
show - stay tuned for next month, where we kick off our Christmas festivities for MineZ!

Until next time,
Thanks for flying Shotbow!

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We've rolled out a new social system to all servers, it is available to use now! Some of you might have already started playing with it when you saw me mention it in our previous devblog about our adventures in converting Shotbow to Kubernetes.

The friends system includes features such as online/offline mode, game change notifications, blocking people, setting your own status, direct messaging from anywhere on Shotbow, offline messaging, conversation history, the ability to invite a friend to join your server, and for your friend to request to join. But to use these features, you need friends.

Adding Friends

Adding friends is done with /friends add {name}. This will create a one-way friendship and prompt your target to accept your request to establish a mutual friendship.

Managing Friends

Once you have a friend or two, you can access most features of friends via a UI by typing /friends. From here you can direct message, invite friends, join a friend's server, or even terminate a friendship.

Commands

For you power users out there, here's the command list with a brief blurb about each to get you started:

/friends add {name} - Adds a friend
/friends remove {name} - Removes a friend
/friends block {name} - Blocks a player, terminates the friendship if one exists
/friends unblock {name} - Unblocks a player, which will allow you to become friends
/friends invite {name} - Invites a friend to your server
/friends join {name} - Requests to join a friend's server
/friends list - Prints a chat menu in case you dislike item interfaces
/friends inbox - Checks your inbox for any new messages
/friends messages - Pulls up conversation history of your most recent private messages
/friends set {option} - Sets options

Options

All options can be set with the /friends set {arguments} command.

• online {true/false} - Sets your online status. If false you will not get updates about your friends, and neither will they from you. They will still see you if you join the same server.
• pings {true/false} - Enables/disables “X is playing Y” status pings.
• status {message} - Sets a status that will appear in your friends' menu or list. Here's an example.

What would a social system be without a party? Parties allow you to group up on the same server easier, chat across games and servers, have your own private Discord voice channel, and will soon have additional integrations with specific games.

To create a party, simply type:

/party create

This will start a new party and present you with an interface to add players to it. Click their heads to invite them, or there are a few other options:

/party invite {name} allows you to lay out the red carpet, issuing a handcrafted invitation to the player you wish to have join you. If you are not the party leader, this will present the party leader with a request to invite the player specified.

/party open will generate a join code you can share with other players. Players who have this join code can pile into your party. Share this in a Discord chat or other means so they can copy and paste and you're on your way to gathering your crew.

/party join is used to request an invitation to a party you want to join.

What can my party do?

/party close closes the party to invite-only, only applies after running /party open.

/party chat toggles party chat, so you can keep in touch across the network.

/party goto {name} allows you to go to the server that member of your party is on.

/party bring allows you to invite your party to join your server.

/party leave leaves your party.

/party discord create Creates a private discord voice channel for you and your party!

/party discord remove Deletes your party's discord channel.

In When in Rogue, your party comes with you to dungeons and persists between runs. In the upcoming game Miner Problems, your party gets its own lobby with its own custom rules. Other in game integrations will be coming soon!