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MineZ MineZ: Summer PTR

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by MineZ Team, Jul 14, 2022.

MineZ - MineZ: Summer PTR
  1. MineZ Team Administrator

    XP:
    1,627xp
    [IMG]

    Hello Survivors!

    Over the years MineZ has received a lot of gameplay modernizations in addition to PvE content such as dungeons, basic questlines, and storylines. This PTR will expand on these innovations, bringing Quests and Optional PVP to MineZ. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get started with the broadest PVE change to-date:

    RELEASE DATE & TIME
    July 15, 2:00 PM CST

    Introducing… Quests!

    For as long as MineZ has been around one of the most glaringly absent features was the ability to complete quests and track your progress through stories around Valar. That all changes now - introduced in this PTR is a brand new Quest System. However, to not spoil the experience we’re providing a set of test quests that exist to test functionality and ensure that MineZ performs suitably when many players are online and questing.

    With this being said a lot of these quests may feel mundane. This is intentional for the PTR, as we are designing brand new rich storylines and refreshing old ones to bring this brand new system to life with a full release, and we need YOU to help us test it! Don’t worry, we will reward you… After all, Shotbow XP rewards for these test quests are permanent…

    Your Quest Journal

    The MineZ Quest Journal is a brand new item that you spawn with, and it is the quintessential item for tracking and managing your quests. Right clicking it will bring you into a menu with all of the categories for quests, though for the PTR, you will only find quests in the PTR category.

    Note: The quests menu can also be accessed with /quests.

    [IMG]

    [IMG]


    Unlocking Quests

    Quests are locked by default (barring a few introductory ones that you will spawn with), so you will need to unlock them! Quests can be unlocked a number of ways, including entering a specific location, reading from a Lore Block, completing other quests, and more. For this PTR, the majority of quests will be unlocked as you log in, and you will be able to begin questing immediately.

    Quests are a big deal for MineZ moving forward, and we plan to bolster this system heavily through content updates. So as long as this PTR is successful, you can expect to see quests in the near future!


    Loot Overhaul & Rebalance Test

    We will be introducing some changes in the loot system to make the looting experience feel better and combat recent problems in the economy. Read the full list of changes here!
    Optional PvP Test

    MineZ started as a pure zombie survival game inspired by DayZ. Players were exposed to a harsh and unforgiving environment from the beginning, there were constant deaths by zombies and players in the early stages of the game.

    Last year, we published a MineZ player survey to receive feedback from players with different play-styles and experience levels, from those playing for the first time to those who have played for years. There were numerous insightful comments about topics that were not commonly discussed or brought up in our Community Feedback Server. Survey results suggest that banditing and unwanted PvP interactions directly affect the player population, preventing inexperienced players from enjoying content. It also suggests that actively developed content from builders and developers alike may not be as effective as intended due to the high barrier of entry caused by unwanted PvP interactions.

    We’ve been receiving many suggestions to add a public PvE server to combat this problem, but we believe that we have come up with a more elegant solution that covers as many loopholes and satisfies as many players with different play styles as possible - Optional PvP.

    This idea introduces the concept of Modes. Players can switch their mode between PvE and PvP once per hour (1 minute for PTR), or at any time while in Meridian.
    1. PvE mode is intended for new players and those who mainly interact with PvE content. Players in this mode are unable to fight other players in PvE areas, allowing easier access to PvE content.
    2. PvP mode is intended for players who enjoy fighting others. PvP is enabled in PvE areas between all players in this mode. Choosing this mode gives advantages over PvE mode in regards to PvE threats, as players in this mode choose to face the risk of fighting other players instead of PvE.
    With the addition of these modes, the map can be split into two types of zones:
    • PvE zones (PvP is opt-in, two players in PvP mode can fight)
    • PvP zones (PvP is always enabled, regardless of mode)
      • There are currently 3 designated PvP zones on the map: Gravel Canyons, Autumn Forest near Crowmure and Sanctuary of Peace, and Bazel.
      • Locations in PvP zones on a public server spawn more and better loot than comparable locations in PvE zones.
    [IMG]
    (PvP zone map updated on 7/17/2022)



    A brief summary of the changes for Optional PvP:
    • Removed the PvE line
      • Players in PvP mode can fight each other anywhere on the map, including in coastal spawn-towns!
    • Added toggleable PvE and PvP modes
      • PvE mode is enabled by default for all players
      • You can switch your mode every 1 hour (shorter for PTR)
        • There is no cooldown to switch modes while in Meridian
        • /tpvp’ or ‘/toggle pvp switches modes
        • You can also switch modes in the ‘/toggle’ menu
      • Mode switching has 30 seconds of warmup time and notifies nearby players
      • You cannot switch modes while PvP-tagged
      • Obtaining a PvP-tag automatically switches your mode to PvP
      • Players in PvP mode take less damage from zombies and slower damage from bleeding and infection. This PvP mode advantage only works on a Public server, and doesn't work on PvE, Private, and Instance servers.
      • PvP tag duration reduced: 10m ⇒ 5m Reverted back to 10 minutes
      • PvE server remains fully PvE for premium players.
    What to Expect
    • More incentives and reasons to PvP
      • Higher tier loot and game objectives (such as Giants) in PvP zones encourage groups to compete with each other and create optional and healthy competition
      • Validating the idea of controlling regions for groups - you’re encouraged to control towns with high tier loot objectives. Groups can farm these locations in the dangerous parts of the map while others are encouraged to contest them. ‘Hasa on Lock’ now gives the real gameplay advantage.
    • PvP is centralized, natural PvP interactions increase
      • As learning PvP is no longer mandatory to play the game, non-pvpers are given options to enjoy different aspects of gameplay without having to learn niche skills immediately
      • Players who progress through the learning curve will naturally find their way to PvP zones in an effort to integrate with existing players
      • Mandatory PvP being restricted to certain areas leads to those spaces receiving higher traffic, directly affecting the chance to find others to fight
    • Players are given the option to choose their favorite playstyle
    • Player interactions and the multiplayer aspect of MineZ are encouraged
      • Playing with others is fun and something that encourages players to stay in the game. However, MineZ’s ‘trust no one’ nature creates an atmosphere where players intentionally avoid interacting with others and prefer playing alone, isolating themselves from the rest of the community.
      • The more chances players are given to experience what MineZ offers, the higher the chance they join our community and contribute to everyone’s play experience
      • MineZ’s ‘kill-on-sight’ atmosphere acts as a ‘Great Wall of MineZ’ that prevents players from experiencing the game’s content and features - exposure to getting killed at any time while learning how to play hinders the chance for our community to grow
    Other Changes

    Ongoing changes after PTR release will be added at the bottom of this section.
    • Added Armor Mobility
      • Players wearing lighter armor types have a longer speed duration from sugar
        • Leather, Chain: +2 seconds per piece
        • Pristine Chain: +1 second per piece
    "Low-tier armor has been given a small advantage over iron armor in terms of mobility. The amount of advantage that this armor mobility provides is much smaller than the protection a full iron set provides.
    The goal is to reduce the minimum gear requirement for PvP and make players feel comfortable going to PvP without having to spend more time farming endgame gears. Iron armor is still much better than chain due to the protection gap, but it is no longer strictly better than chain armor as there’s now some sort of small advantage when wearing low-tier armor.”

    • Added anti-grenade spam
      • Players damaged by grenades take 33% less damage from subsequent grenades for 3 seconds.
        • This effect’s cooldown resets with each grenade hit, but the damage reduction does not stack
    • Grenade maximum damage: 2.5 ⇒ 3 Reverted to live damage (2.5 hearts)
    • Increased bow knockback
    • Improved grapple hook detection
    • Splash I healing value: 3 ⇒ 2
    • Splash II healing value: 4 ⇒ 3 3.5
    • Improved splash potion healing accuracy
      • Looking straight down and throwing a splash potion now heals a full healing value (On Vanilla you get 0.5 less hearts)
    • Drink II healing value: 4.5 ⇒ 4
    • Reworked knockback
      • Implemented the new knockback based on 1.7/1.8 knockback equation
      • The new knockback could potentially help stop players from taking too much knockback when they’re hit from the side and missing their splash potions.
    “These changes were made in order to achieve the goal we set in our recent gameplay thoughts thread. ‘Our intent is to begin adjusting things so outnumbering is less oppressive, rat-gearing becomes a reasonable option/endgame gear is not required for PvP, and potion inventories are a healthier mix of drinks and splashes’ This addresses the issue by toning down potion healing values and increasing grenade damage while introducing a system that mitigates grenade spam - all while not buffing the base sword damage”


    • Giants in PvE zones or on a PvE server spawn PvE-focused items
      • 50% durability Diamond Axe
      • Full durability Smite III Iron Sword
      • Full durability Infinity Bow
    • Giants in PvP zones on public servers spawn a guaranteed Diamond Sword in addition to other loot
    • Scorched Giant now drops the following items (guaranteed)
      • two 390 durability diamond swords
      • 50 durability power II infinity bow
      • Full durability grapple
      • two gunpowders
      • two speed potions
      • two fire resistance potions
      • one golden carrot
    • Increased scorched giant respawn time
    • Giants now have a correct respawn cooldown after a server reboot
    • Nearby chests no longer despawn on player login (except button room chests)
      • Players who login receive a 1 minute cooldown to open or break chests in general
    • Horizontal Grapple cooldown is now consistent (20s) Reverted to live grapple mechanics.
    • Grapple durability consumption is now consistent (8 durability)
    • Food Hunger changes:
      • Baked potato: 6 ⇒ 5
    • Food Saturation changes:
      • Cookie: 1 ⇒ 1.5
      • Bread: 4 ⇒ 6
      • Baked Potato: 5 ⇒ 6
      • Cooked Cod: 8 ⇒ 6
    • Players now spawn with full leather armor at 33% durability (previously a leather chestplate with 50% durability)
    • Added back zombie kill counter from pre-Origins
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    • Adjusted Zombies:
      • Increased knockback taken
      • Added hit sound
      • Zombies in the main world now receive knockback on hit every 0.25s, only take damage every 0.5s
      • Reduced overall zombie health (3 hits kills a Zombie in the north with a Diamond Sword, previously was 4)
    "Current Zombie mechanics and mob difficulty rely too much on click speed. We’ve changed the mobs to add more diversity in Zombie fighting and make it less dependent on click speed while keeping the fun of combo-ing a Zombie.”

    • Premium Perks
      • Added /hat command - wear any item as a hat!
      • Added item showcase in chat. Premium players can display the item they’re holding in hand by including “[item]” in chat
    [IMG]

    • Party member attacking players in the same party no longer applies a PvP tag or automatically changes to PvP mode.


    In order to join PTR, use the server selector compass in the MineZ lobby and select ‘MineZ PTR’ (Kit PvP is disabled).

    Please remember that new features and changes on PTR are not final and are subject to change at any time before the release, and you will find missing or incomplete features and bugs on PTR. Come join us in our Community Feedback Server to discuss all of the changes and report any bugs you encounter while playing PTR.

    What You’ll Get

    To incentivize playtesting the new features on PTR, we have added a small reward that’s obtainable in-game. Opening a loot chest has a chance to permanently unlock Firework Spark snowball trails!
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    Closing

    There are a lot of big changes coming to MineZ that will undoubtedly change the formula. We recognize this, and is one of the reasons why we’re holding this PTR in the first place. We have taken great strides in trying to capture the best sides of both PVP and PVE gameplay while refining the formula to fit the new demographic for Minecraft and gaming alike. We hope you approach these changes with an open mind and help us to refine it into a model we can all enjoy.

    We thank you for your continued support and look forward to seeing you on PTR!

    - The MineZ Team

  2. Oraceon Obsidian

    XP:
    18,535xp
    MineZ was never about healthy competition. It was about ambushes, unfair, unbalanced fights, just like a zombie apocalypse survival situation would normally be. I shouldn't have to enter a zone to worry about people attacking me. I shouldn't have to toggle pvp on or off. It should always be on, no matter where I am at. I should always use a possible encounter with other players as a reason as to whether or not go to a high-tier, high traffic location, or to go somewhere else. MineZ isn't a zombie survival game anymore. Its literally an RPG-like dungeon crawler with zombies. Might as well get rid of the zombies at this point, as people always joked about in 2014.

    Edit: Also, we already had a designated PvP zone. Its called Al Hasa.
  3. InstantLightning Jr. Developer, Web Mod Lead

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    384,964xp
    It seems to me that you have the option to still experience the game that way, but other people may want to experience the game a bit differently.
  4. FPSHater Obsidian

    XP:
    174,528xp
    People can complain about the PvP and PvE changes all they want, but when the argument for why they should keep things as they are and were in the past are simply just nostalgic reasons it doesn't hold up. Really take a look at the poor player count that MineZ has, and if you actually want the game to grow, legitimately any change is welcome at this point.

    No one wants to play the same game for more than a decade. Good work staff on changing up the formula, and hopefully if there are issues with these new systems they can be tweaked in a timely fashion.
  5. FPSHater Obsidian

    XP:
    174,528xp
    No, I don't think this update will bring more players. Only with insane amounts of money put into advertising would it suddenly get players back, but that is something I can personally never see Shotbow doing. And I agree, these PvP and PvE changes put the game on baby mode, it's so far away from what it was originally intended it's laughable.

    What I do believe the PvP changes have a chance at doing though, is allowing the game to have better retention with the few new players MineZ does get. For example, let's say a brand new player is trying MineZ out, and now instead of dying and losing everything in 20~ minutes, he makes it north and dies to a Pigman in 80~ minutes.

    The new player has more exposure to what MineZ has to offer, and now that he had more time to experience what MineZ offers maybe he continues playing. Or maybe not, I don't know - this is speculation on a decade old game mode that has fundamentally never changed or innovated this much.
  6. Oraceon Obsidian

    XP:
    18,535xp
    People have been using the argument for years: Well *maybe* if we add a PvE line, then *maybe* it will increase player-retention. Or how about *maybe* If we add a PvE town and making choosing your own spawn easier, it'll increase ReTeNtIoN. **mAYBe** this *maybe* that. All these magical maybe words being thrown around.

    And last but not least, now we have resorted to: Maybe if we make the game more playable for people who have never played a videogame in their life by making PvP toggleable, then maybe it will increase player retention.

    Nothing that has ever been done to the game in the last several years has increased player retention. The population of MineZ might not be at its absolute lowest its ever been right now, but its pretty close to it, and there's literally nothing here for the dedicated players to experience because we have experienced it all. Its the dedicated players who keep the game what it is, not the new players. Ever wondered why the game shoots up in popularity when a big influencer advertises it? Its because people want to try it out, get bored of it, and move on because the game is boring. Why? The game is boring because the playerbase is being handicapped and told what they're allowed to do where.

    "Want to PvP in Portsmouth and be a southen bandit? Well, sorry, you're not allowed to do that because PlAyEr ReTeNTiOn." Player retention methods that have been proven and tried to not freaking work.

    Have I ever told you the definition - of insanity?
    Archich_ and ShayminPlays like this.
  7. daedalus_10 Regular Member

    XP:
    30,994xp
    Your argument is flawed, though. People aren't complaining about the shift towards solely PvE for nostalgia reasons. They are stating the fact that MineZ was a gamemode designed around player cooperation and player conflict. Fighting zombies and looting towns isn't the goal of the game, it's the means by which people gear up to reach the real end goal: completing dungeons or finding people to kill.

    All content in MineZ is made intrinsically better by the threat of dangerous players. There are well over 50 locations in MineZ now, and part of the fun in travelling (a pretty dull task on its own) is charting a course that will maximise loot for the minimum amount of danger. You are weighing your risk/rewards, factoring in that you might encounter a bandit and lose your loot. It's a risk.

    Locking off PvP to specific zones on the map completely eliminates risk. You've basically ensured that all danger will be confined to one spot on the map, and that everything outside of it will be essentially filler for gearing up for dungeons or for the aforementioned zones. Fighting zombies is not fun. It is a necessary threat for keeping you on your toes, on top of players.

    The direction that you folks are taking the game is moving away from an apocalyptic survival-horror towards a dungeon crawler RPG-esque gamemode. I respect that, and the dungeons you've made recently are undoubtably fun, but you have to understand that by doing this you invalidate what made MineZ fun in the first place: player-to-player interaction. The fun of the game was that the presence of players always kept you on your toes. This change handicaps every future interaction with players, and will undoubtably lead to a more boring and monotonous experience for the average player.
  8. Oraceon Obsidian

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    18,535xp
    Couldn't have said it better, myself.
    ShayminPlays likes this.
  9. Loading_File Obsidian

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    272,356xp
    My f*ckin eyes, what did I just read? Optional pvp in 95% of the map, and better loot in PVP only areas? Are you insane? Shotbow actively firing cannon balls through the bow of the ship.
    Oraceon likes this.

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