Modernize Raid

First off, this does not mean "turn raid into factions".

Ever since we updated to 1.8, the player count has been decreasing and relatively low ever since, and only peaking on weekends usually. Things never really have had a substantial or game changing... change, and I think it's time to shift our way of thinking so that Raid can attract new players, while also holding its core values and aspects at place. To quote Hypixel:

"Our directing line with this update is to modernize the game so that a new generation of players on the server can enjoy it, while keeping it fresh for veteran players with new content."

This is 100% the direction I think we should take - it doesn't mean scrapping things entirely, or just blind siding the community with a brand new gamemode titled "raid" that will kill off the entire veterans that have stayed loyal thus far. To put it simply, Raid is just too old fashioned currently, and doesn't really have a spot in how multiplayer minecraft has evolved.

I think appropriate changes must be made to address the current features below, those of which I believe is holding Raid back from growth and retention:

- Too much grinding, too hard to grind
- Easy to lose things, takes long / feels bad to lose all of your hard work
- Nothing really special, mostly just vanilla features
- High gap between old and new players
- Very repetitive
- Some features hard to learn (tracking, participating in economy, etc)

Now, I know a lot of these things are what some people, including myself, enjoy about raid, but unfortunately a lot of the current MC community leans towards fast paced, less-grindy gamemodes. I think a compromise can be made between the two sides, so that we can "modernize the game so that a new generation of players on the server can enjoy it, while keeping it fresh for veteran players".

Non-specific outline of potential solutions:

- Make getting raided less impactful, but still rewarding (tricky)
- Have a very modern and thorough tutorial that physically makes players complete actions / learn them
- Leveling system / another "skills shop" or something along the lines of it to encourage grinding, but in a more fun way
- Customized things (basic tools to help grinding, etc), make us look cool (even custom map / biomes)
- Focus on what makes us unique (emphasize gold system, updates to tracking)
- MORE EVENTS

I am not giving specific details on what I think would be a good approach for a reason, I don't want people to hate on exact ideas or opinions on this, but more so discuss this idea / new approach. Raid really hasn't had any new or cool updates tbh, and I definitely think a map reset should allow for the gamemode to be stretched to new levels and to excite players for something new other than a fresh start.

There are plenty of good ideas out there that would spice things up a bit, but I really do think we need to break down the traditional barriers even further - not to give up on the old gamemode we love, but transform it into something that is suitable for player growth and long-term excitement.

 

Agreed. With the current state of raid, it is rather useless to advertise what we have, or rather, not as effective. We need to appeal to the majority, not the few that enjoy hardcore traditional servers.

 

Tracking has been a large part of why I've stayed here this long, as it's been a skill you could practice and learn. This would remove that and make things a lot more tilting imo, as it essentially doesn't take any skill at all. I think the current system just needs a few tweaks, and more importantly, easier to set up.

 

I agree with all those things, and I too absolutely love how raid is currently. However, I don't like the current player base. With raid being such a player dependent server, we really need to reel more players in, and I don't think this can be done if we keep the same traditional mindset. Another thing I've noticed is that the quality of the player base has declined over time - a lot of players now hardly use a lot of the server's plugins and such, so essentially it is just a vanilla multiplayer server for them. We need to have efforts to bring in new players, and to teach them how to actually play the server imo. And again, I too love all of those things you mentioned and I believe they heavily define raid - we shouldn't take away from those aspects, but instead lessen the impact on losing things (or make it easier to recover) so that people won't quit as easily.

Like what if we had new players automatically assigned to a "noob" team, where their team ff was on permanently, and their team warps were like starter bases / farms / replenishing mines for them to get things started off for them and to meet new people. I think our player retention would be a lot higher if we somewhat forced players to be on a team at the start and make friends that way.

 

Well, for the 1.7 part, a lot of its development would be starting from scratch. If I remember correctly all of the network features of brawl would not work, and it would basically have to be run as a separate entity. Having said this, it really would be a much larger project than you think. Also, I don't think it would attract any new players as much as you may think if we were 1.7 - it is too late for all that imo.

They are trying to improve things, but it can be rather difficult when considering brawls limited resources.

I also personally think that mindsets should be shifted towards what this thread is talking about in order to have our best shot at trying to bring in new players. This concept should be applied across brawl entirely imo - a network revamp could help things potentially. A more modern and fun hub, more exciting for matting of stuff, etc, and most importantly, bring our current game modes up to speed to where current mc is at, not make new ones or anything.

 

Tbh, I kind of agree with some of the points he said there. Soup PvP is for sure decreasing in popularity. Do I think that its the singular reason why raid is unpopular? No, but it can be seen as an unattractive / out of date feature. Having said this, I don't think we should change to pot PvP at all, but instead make up for this rather old fashioned (but still enjoyed by some people) feature by other exciting and fresh things - finding a balance between what we have and modern mc. Like you said, we shouldn't just scrap the game mode.

Some points I agree with are that we should increase safety for players bases, and decrease the grind. I think this would heavily help people keep playing, but we have to be careful not to make raiding impossible or take away too much from tracking. Honestly, I would love if we had a unique claim system that wasn't entirely uunraidable, but still provided some protection. You could only have one chunk claim, purchase it for a ton of gold, but somehow make it not entirely op like factions. It would be tricky and hard to balance but I can't really think of any other safety net for players that wouldn't disable raiding entirely.