Suggestions to improve SG including kit balancing

I've been playing a lot of SG here lately, and while it is fun, I can't help but notice that it has flaws that really need to be fixed; I've made an effort to help do that. Now, I realize that I'm new and have low stats, and while I think that stats are a horrible way to show skill, I suppose there's something I could show those who do believe in that...
Those are my stats on the 2nd largest and 3rd most popular server in the world. Hopefully it's enough...

Alright, now that we've taken care of that, let's get to my actual suggestions, shall we?

God Apples​

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's lost countless fights, purely because the opponent was completely unbeatable by anything that isn't Strength II; that's certainly happened to me a lot and it's just as frustrating every time.
I suggest that the spawn chance for god apples is halved; that makes them half as rare and you won't see people dragging out deathmatches for 5 minutes as often.
However, there's another problem; sponsoring. If a fairly rich player dies, that player can sponsor his team with several god apples in the deathmatch, ensuring a win; to stop this I'd like god apples to be removed from the sponsor shop. After all, they're an extremely powerful item, and nobody should be able to gain several of them just because their (dead) friend wanted them to win.

DM Border Shrinking
Another, larger issue with deathmatches is that people can hide, dragging them out and often ending the game without a winner; to stop this I'd like the deathmatch border to shrink; about 1 block ever 6 seconds sounds enough. Of course, there'd be a fair limit, so that you could still have the main area to fight in.

DM Forced Win
Even if a shrinking border is added, some deathmatches WILL still last 5 minutes, simply stopping the game without a winner; I believe that, if the timer ends, the living player with the most kills should get the win.
If two or more players have equal kills, it'll depend on the damage they did in Deathmatch.
If two or more players are equal in even that, the game will simply pick a winner at random. You could have both players win, but that'd allow teams to win together; that's not meant to be in a free for all Survival Games.
An alternative option would be to, every 1 minute, have a functioning compass spawn in the middle. This would both initiate combat as players fought over the compass, and allow people to track down those pesky hiders camping in corners.

DM Lava pits replaced with Void
It's not very common, but there are the occasional people camping with fire resistance potions in the lava pits of the bottom Deathmatch floor at the middle arena.
To stop this, I'd like to remove the lava as well as any blocks below it, simply making it a fall to the void. This would both prevent lava campers, and allow weakly geared players to kill more powerful players with enough skill and strategy.

Remove XP bottles
I've seen an enchantment table, but no lapis whatsoever; is enchanting even possible in this game? This suggestion is pretty self explanatory, as far as I can tell you can't enchant in this game, so you might as well remove bottles o' enchanting from chests, seeing as they only really filly up inventory space right now.

Remove lighters
Lighters are currently disabled meaning they're useless and only clutter inventories, and honestly, I don't feel like they'd suit the game even if they were to be enabled. Yes, they'd be useful for some strategic play, but they'd be easily countered by speed potions and would only really be useful for sneak attacks in an OP PvP game like this as the damage would be minor; you might as well use poison seeing as the damage, movement reduction and lasting time are all greater.

Map lock
If a map is chosen twice in a row, it'll be locked for the next 3 games on that server, unable to be voted on. This would promote variety and stop the same map from being chosen over and over again. We all know exactly which map I'm talking about...

Sponsoring/Betting
At the moment, sponsoring gives you now reward, so it's rare for people to do it other than to friends.
If sponsors were to be rewarded with a betting system, it'd encourage more people to do it to strangers, both helping people in games and possibly creating a more positive community.
Right now, you simply spend coins to give living players items, without a reward for yourself.
With this system, sponsors would get rewards if their players play well, giving more coins when you sponsor early in the game; that last part is so that people can't sponsor the sure winner at the very last moment and get massive rewards without any risks.​

• If you sponsor somebody with at least 50 coins, you will automatically gain the same coin reward as them whenever they make a kill.
• You can only sponsor one player, and you may sponsor that person with at most 200 coins.
• You may not sponsor when there are 6 players left or less, and you will not get any rewards for sponsoring if the game started out with 15 players or less.
• For every player left when you sponsor, you will earn back 10% of the sponsorship cost if they win. This means that a win would earn you 70% if you play it safe, and at most 230% if you do it as early as possible.
• If you quit before your sponsored player dies or wins, you keep any previous kill rewards. However, you have to stay in the game for rewards to earn future rewards.
• For every killstreak your sponsored player earns (3, 6, 9, 12 kills etc), you gain 20 coins. Does not count streaks reached before the sponsoring happened.

Bounty
Ever felt like getting revenge on someone who killed you, but know you can't? If we could put a coin bounty on players, I think we can all agree watching them die would be quite amusing. The system is simple; when you die, you can choose to use some (you decide how many) your coins to set a bounty on your killer. This will alert everybody in the game and if the bounty is at least 100, then once a minute, their coordinates will be announced. If you set a bounty of at least 250 coins, then all tracking devices would be set to that player. If the bounty is at least 500 coins, the player will gain slowness II for 15 seconds. While having a bounty on yourself, killing others gives you twice as many coins as usual. If you win, you also receive the bounty as a reward. If you kill somebody with a bounty, you gain the reward for yourself, and the person who set the bounty gets 50% of their coins back.

Forced tier-upgrades for kits
This is probably the least necessary suggestion here, but I'd like kits to be more tier-based, meaning you can't skip through levels 1 and/or 2 and go straight to the max level. This'd mean players would feel a higher sense of progress, and stop people from only purchasing the most powerful kits without even having to try out the weaker levels.

Random kit option
To add more variety to the game, a player who has maxed at least 2 kits and unlocked at least 5 kits (besides Default) should be able to pick a random option, giving him a random kit and 30%(?) more coins for every kill and win.

Kit Balancing
The most needed one here, we all know and agree that the kits aren't exactly balanced. Ignoring the premium kits (I have never seen a premium player in SG so I don't know if they are still a thing, only know them from the wiki so I ignored them here), I've made my own revamped versions of the current kits along with 4 new ones. For a visual comparison you can download and open this custom map, which shows all the old and new kits arranged in chests.

Spoiler: Kit Ranking & Arguments

To help balancing, I've graded the current kits from A to E depending on their strength. Of course, I've also argued a bit on why I gave each kit that specific grade, and how it should be changed. There's no reason to do this for Default, as all I did was give it a weak weapon; this way it stays weak but still works like it should, giving a small base to newer players, and a chance to fight back if they can't find anything in chests.

THIS IS WORK IN PROGRESS, I WILL MAKE A POST ONCE IT IS COMPLETE.

Spoiler: Warrior

Grade: A
Warrior is, as of now, the obvious choice if you simply want to use a strong kit. Combining the a single potion with your sword, you can easily win fights as long as you are not poisoned, and even if you ARE poisoned, you can get regen & health potions/golden apples from chests extremely easily, which is enough. If you're poisoned and your attacker goes in for the kill immediately, well, you can still kill just as easily as you would have without the poison. Levels 1-2 of this kit give you 2-4 minutes of 2.3x damage; level 3 gives you an insane 2 minutes of 3.6x, which can 2-shot people in full diamond armor, and instakill anyone else seeing as you also get an iron sword. For my change, I've given it a bit of armor, but heavily reduced the strength effect; you can no longer run around and get several kills with a single potion, and it's easier for people to run away from you until your strength runs out; this is already done by many but it wastes a lot of time on both sides.

Spoiler: Scout

Grade: C
Sure, Scout on its own is a strong kit and the potions are good for combat, chasing & running, but when you consider the fact that you can get better potions from chests, it's really not that strong. Though I nerfed the level 3 sword, I gave it a pretty good armor base and increased level 3's potion timer, while nerfing the rest.

Spoiler: Fireman

Grade: E
Fireman is only every useful in one situation, and that's when you fall into lava. It doesn't have any other uses at all, and right now it can easily be replaced by a god apple.
While I kept the potion (buffed at level 3), I pretty much revamped it, giving some armor and a temporary fire aspect sword. I was going to give it a lighter, but I don't feel like those would suit this game; this is easier to use but lasts shorter.

Spoiler: Mage

Grade: C
It may come as a surprise to some, but really, Mage is a powerful kit; the potions may only be usable once, but at level 3, they can deal up to 12 damage each; together they can instantly kill anyone not using god apples, regardless of their armor. I'd rate it B, but because the potions take skill to aim with and can't be used effectively by anyone like Warrior or Witch, I've rated it C. For the change, I've changed the level 3 potions to be 3x Harming I potions instead of 2x Harming II; this does at most 18 damage, but hitting well with 3 potions takes more skill and has a higher risk of hurting you. As with almost every class I've also changed the weapons, and to compensate, I gave it minor armor.

Spoiler: Witch

Grade: B

Spoiler: Fisherman

Grade: E

Spoiler: Heavy

Grade: D

Spoiler: Hunter

Grade: D

Spoiler: Druid

Grade: E
While Druid may look good on paper, in reality, it's terrible. At level 1-2, the potions only remove 1/4 of a heart, and at max level, it's 1/2 which is still useless. I've heavily increased the effects of the weakness, and to keep the theme of a debuff-based kit, I nerfed the swords. To make up for that, I also added minor armor.

Spoiler: Kits

Existing kits

Default
1: Cookie, leather tunic, wooden axe

Warrior
1: wooden sword, leather pants
2: stone sword, leather pants, potion of Strength (0:20)
3: iron sword, leather pants, 2x potion of Strength (0:20)

Scout
1: wood sword, leather boots, splash potion of Speed (1:00)
2: stone sword, iron boots, splash potion of Speed (1:30)
3: stone sword, diamond boots, splash potion of Speed II (1:30)

Fireman
1: splash potion of Fire Resistance (2:15), golden sword (Fire Aspect I, 10 durability), golden helmet
2: splash potion of Fire Resistance (2:15), golden sword (Fire Aspect I, 10 durability), golden helmet, stone sword
3: splash potion of Fire Resistance (6:00), golden sword (Fire Aspect II, 10 durability), golden leggings, stone sword

Mage
1: stone axe, leather pants, splash potion of Harming
2: stone axe, golden leggings, 2x splash potion of Harming
3: iron axe, golden leggings, 3x splash potion of Harming

Witch
1: wooden sword, splash potion of Wither (00:15)
2: stone sword, 2x splash potion of Wither (00:15)
3: iron sword, 2x splash potion of Wither II (00:10)

Fisherman
1: splash potion of Water Breathing (2:15), chain helmet, fishing rod, 3 cooked fish
2: 2x splash potion of Water Breathing (2:15), chain leggings, fishing rod, 3 cooked fish, 3 cooked salmon
3: splash potion of Water Breathing (6:00), chain leggings, chain helmet, fishing rod, 3 cooked fish, 3 cooked salmon, 3 pufferfish

Heavy
1: leather tunic, splash potion of Slowness & Resistance (0:20)
2: golden chestplate, 2x splash potion of Slowness & Resistance (0:20)
3: iron chestplate, 2x splash potion of Slowness II & Resistance II (0:20)

Hunter
1: bow, leather cap, 12 arrows
2: bow, iron helmet, 24 arrows
3: bow (Infinity I), diamond helmet, 1 arrow

Druid
1: wood sword, 2x splash potion of Weakness III (0:20)
2: stone sword, 2x splash potion of Weakness IV (0:20)
3: stone sword, 2x splash potion of Weakness IV and slowness I (0:20), iron helmet
Every level of weakness negates 1/4 of a heart. Weakness IV is 1 heart, halving damage taken from a non-critting wooden sword.

New Kits

Berserker
1: stone axe, leather cap, leather pants
2: iron axe, leather tunic, leather boots
3: diamond axe, leather tunic, leather pants, potion of speed III (0:10)

Baker
1: golden apple, wooden axe, 8 bread
2: 2 golden apples, leather tunic, wooden axe, 16 bread
3: enchanted golden apple, leather tunic, wooden axe, 32 bread

Ninja
1: stone sword, splash potion of Invisibility (0:10)
2: iron sword, splash potion of Invisibility (0:15)
3: diamond sword, 2x splash potion of Invisibility (0:15)

Medic
1: leather pants, wooden axe, splash potion of Healing
2: leather pants, wooden sword, 2x splash potion of Healing
3: golden, wooden sword, 2x splash potion of Healing II

Thank you if you took the time to read it all, and even if you didn't, thanks for at least checking the thread out. Hopefully, when they're not too busy with other things, we can get the devs to start working on fixing Survival Games. ​

 

Added a sponsoring update & a bounty feature to make the gamemode more unique.