CommieKiller3000!!!
New member
UHC continues to have a interested but minute playerbase. I am one of these few remaining UHC players. Sure, UHC isn't nearly as popular as it was in the years prior, but as I see it, this may be a great opportunity for the OG Network to captivate its lasting community. UHC servers has seen a sharp decline in player numbers which has vacated entire server hubs, such as Octane as the most recent example I've witnessed.
From my own account, I believe this sharp decline to be the result of decisions made in the attempt of reviving the gamemode--that being majorly game-changing scenarios and overly fast gameplay. Servers have made similar attempts to reinvigorate their UHC playerbases by upping the pace of their matches and introducing scenarios which alter the game beyond recognition such as "randomizer," "flower power," and "switch-er-oo." This I feel has largely contributed to my own and many other’s falling out of love with the gamemode as it greatly detracts from the fundamental gimmick of Minecraft's natural difficulty of hardcore and PVP, along side the classic small boarders and removed natural regeneration.
To say the least, the decline in UHC games which offered the vanilla UHC gameplay is incredibly disappointing. I long to see it return anywhere in whatever capacity. Only three weeks ago I began playing on the last majorly played UHC server, Hypixel. I'm sure any of you aware of Hypixel's long lasting and even most recent plethora of issues will know why I am even more disappointed by their UHC.
Now, it is my hope to see if this community of players on OG MC would be interested in my proposition's to possibly accumulate any sizeable community who have long for this classic gamemode.
My suggestion of OG MC is to introduce a entirely new gamemode which allows players to participate in vanilla-oriented UHC matches with 15-40 contesting players, lasting anywhere from 30-60 minutes.
Players would wait in a queue for a sufficient amount of players to join before the match begins. In other words, games would be held similar to a minigame queue. Once the player threshold has be met, a new match will begin, scattering players across a newly generated map stretching 400-700 blocks from (0, 0) in each cardinal direction. Once players have been distributed across the map, they will be given a short period of time where they will be immune to player's attacks, lasting roughly 15-20 minutes and thus granting players time to gather resources.
PVP enables following the grace period. The world's boarder will begin to shrink inward, forcing players to come closer together to survive. The final stage of the match would be like a classic meetup, or "showdown" as I'd prefer to name it. "Showdown" is when the boarder has shrunk down to only 50-100 blocks in diameter and all remaining players are required to confront each other in a final FFA to conclude the match.
A major flaw in this design is that this gameplay has a high potential to encourage players to spelunk or strip mine the entire duration of the game before showdown. An easy solution I've devised to resolve this is to gradually narrow the Y-level which players are confined to before receiving damage penalties, similar to the functionality of the world boarder. Once the final showdown has begun, players would be restricted to Y-levels 63 to 96. This restriction would deter players from hiding underground and in sky bases.
To vary the gameplay between matches, mild scenarios may have a chance to be active with the duration of a singular game. A few of these scenarios may be "bowless," "dusk lock," "perma-speed," and "no fire/fall damage." Throughout these suggestions you should notice these are far more vanilla-friendly than the aforementioned scenarios that most servers will offer now-a-days. As I stated before, wildly game altering scenarios kills what I and many others find fun in UHC.
Additionally, to eliminate the "grindy" feel of the first few minutes of gameplay (punching trees, discarding a wooden pickaxe, waiting for ores to smelt, etc.) it would be a wise choice to start players with a set of efficiency stone or iron tools. Since mining is such a basic factor of any UHC game, granting some moderate lenience on the amount of time it takes to mine blocks will certainly improve the pacing of the game. Apples can also be quite the grind to obtain in vanilla Minecraft, so perhaps replacing sapling drops with apples will improve this bit of the game.
Lastly, vanilla world generation is not always PVP friendly with rivers, oceans, and dense jungles. Since the 1.16 update, Mojang has reintroduced custom world generation settings which make it possible to remove these specific biomes (all be it not as user-friendly as 1.12's custom world generation settings, but equally as viable.)
I'm sure most of you would be thinking "but there are already plenty of privately hosted UHC games which offer this," and you'd be correct to mention this, but this undermines what I'm suggesting, as well as a large demographic of player's who'd wish to freely join a UHC at any given opportunity and time. Contemporary privately hosted UHC matches offered by servers such as Arctic are by all means viable methods of playing UHC, but the process of making contact with hosts and getting whitelisted can be a hassle for us UHC players who just wish to play a game and might not have sufficient windows of time to properly join private matches.
Another big question everyone should be asking in regards to a new UHC game is if the gamemode should utilize legacy or modern combat. I do not have an answer that would come close to satisfying anyone who may be interested in this gamemode, but that isn't to say I have an opinion. In my own preference I would like to see 1.8 combat as opposed to 1.9 combat, but I'm certain many would detest his choice, therefore I feel as though I have little say as to what would be best for a UHC gamemode.
Overall, I believe this would fit well into the "old school/classic" direction the OG Networks is striving for. As I understand this servers motivation, I'd feel as though frequently hosted vanilla UHC matches may peak this community's interest. The legacy gamemode would fit along the pre-existing gamemode on the network as I see it. Granted, requesting an entirely new gamemode in itself is VERY HUGE and UNLIKELY TO HAPPEN, and will require an immense quantity of backers for this to propagate--which I fully understand. I sorely miss traditional UHC games, and I can only hope others feel the same. Of course, I don't imagine much enthusiasm if any at all in response to this post.
In all honesty, there isn't much remaining from the UHC community. My hope is to hear from any of you who've also waited in the silence for someone to suggest what I am saying now. I know I sound quite desperate and overly enthusiastic in this post, and I admit it. I'd rather make an impact with a big idea than with a half-assed post with empty vigor. I mean it when I say that if this were to become a thing, the OG Network would become one of my most played servers on my server list. If I had to guess what server out of all those I know that had the mere chance of making this idea possible, it would be OG MC.
If anyone has anything to add or contest anything I said in this post, please post your comments! Anything that could be better or different to improve other's or your own interest would contribute to the fruition of this idea immensely! Thank you to any of you who have taken your own time to read this post, it means a lot to me.
From my own account, I believe this sharp decline to be the result of decisions made in the attempt of reviving the gamemode--that being majorly game-changing scenarios and overly fast gameplay. Servers have made similar attempts to reinvigorate their UHC playerbases by upping the pace of their matches and introducing scenarios which alter the game beyond recognition such as "randomizer," "flower power," and "switch-er-oo." This I feel has largely contributed to my own and many other’s falling out of love with the gamemode as it greatly detracts from the fundamental gimmick of Minecraft's natural difficulty of hardcore and PVP, along side the classic small boarders and removed natural regeneration.
To say the least, the decline in UHC games which offered the vanilla UHC gameplay is incredibly disappointing. I long to see it return anywhere in whatever capacity. Only three weeks ago I began playing on the last majorly played UHC server, Hypixel. I'm sure any of you aware of Hypixel's long lasting and even most recent plethora of issues will know why I am even more disappointed by their UHC.
Now, it is my hope to see if this community of players on OG MC would be interested in my proposition's to possibly accumulate any sizeable community who have long for this classic gamemode.
My suggestion of OG MC is to introduce a entirely new gamemode which allows players to participate in vanilla-oriented UHC matches with 15-40 contesting players, lasting anywhere from 30-60 minutes.
Players would wait in a queue for a sufficient amount of players to join before the match begins. In other words, games would be held similar to a minigame queue. Once the player threshold has be met, a new match will begin, scattering players across a newly generated map stretching 400-700 blocks from (0, 0) in each cardinal direction. Once players have been distributed across the map, they will be given a short period of time where they will be immune to player's attacks, lasting roughly 15-20 minutes and thus granting players time to gather resources.
PVP enables following the grace period. The world's boarder will begin to shrink inward, forcing players to come closer together to survive. The final stage of the match would be like a classic meetup, or "showdown" as I'd prefer to name it. "Showdown" is when the boarder has shrunk down to only 50-100 blocks in diameter and all remaining players are required to confront each other in a final FFA to conclude the match.
A major flaw in this design is that this gameplay has a high potential to encourage players to spelunk or strip mine the entire duration of the game before showdown. An easy solution I've devised to resolve this is to gradually narrow the Y-level which players are confined to before receiving damage penalties, similar to the functionality of the world boarder. Once the final showdown has begun, players would be restricted to Y-levels 63 to 96. This restriction would deter players from hiding underground and in sky bases.
To vary the gameplay between matches, mild scenarios may have a chance to be active with the duration of a singular game. A few of these scenarios may be "bowless," "dusk lock," "perma-speed," and "no fire/fall damage." Throughout these suggestions you should notice these are far more vanilla-friendly than the aforementioned scenarios that most servers will offer now-a-days. As I stated before, wildly game altering scenarios kills what I and many others find fun in UHC.
Additionally, to eliminate the "grindy" feel of the first few minutes of gameplay (punching trees, discarding a wooden pickaxe, waiting for ores to smelt, etc.) it would be a wise choice to start players with a set of efficiency stone or iron tools. Since mining is such a basic factor of any UHC game, granting some moderate lenience on the amount of time it takes to mine blocks will certainly improve the pacing of the game. Apples can also be quite the grind to obtain in vanilla Minecraft, so perhaps replacing sapling drops with apples will improve this bit of the game.
Lastly, vanilla world generation is not always PVP friendly with rivers, oceans, and dense jungles. Since the 1.16 update, Mojang has reintroduced custom world generation settings which make it possible to remove these specific biomes (all be it not as user-friendly as 1.12's custom world generation settings, but equally as viable.)
I'm sure most of you would be thinking "but there are already plenty of privately hosted UHC games which offer this," and you'd be correct to mention this, but this undermines what I'm suggesting, as well as a large demographic of player's who'd wish to freely join a UHC at any given opportunity and time. Contemporary privately hosted UHC matches offered by servers such as Arctic are by all means viable methods of playing UHC, but the process of making contact with hosts and getting whitelisted can be a hassle for us UHC players who just wish to play a game and might not have sufficient windows of time to properly join private matches.
Another big question everyone should be asking in regards to a new UHC game is if the gamemode should utilize legacy or modern combat. I do not have an answer that would come close to satisfying anyone who may be interested in this gamemode, but that isn't to say I have an opinion. In my own preference I would like to see 1.8 combat as opposed to 1.9 combat, but I'm certain many would detest his choice, therefore I feel as though I have little say as to what would be best for a UHC gamemode.
Overall, I believe this would fit well into the "old school/classic" direction the OG Networks is striving for. As I understand this servers motivation, I'd feel as though frequently hosted vanilla UHC matches may peak this community's interest. The legacy gamemode would fit along the pre-existing gamemode on the network as I see it. Granted, requesting an entirely new gamemode in itself is VERY HUGE and UNLIKELY TO HAPPEN, and will require an immense quantity of backers for this to propagate--which I fully understand. I sorely miss traditional UHC games, and I can only hope others feel the same. Of course, I don't imagine much enthusiasm if any at all in response to this post.
In all honesty, there isn't much remaining from the UHC community. My hope is to hear from any of you who've also waited in the silence for someone to suggest what I am saying now. I know I sound quite desperate and overly enthusiastic in this post, and I admit it. I'd rather make an impact with a big idea than with a half-assed post with empty vigor. I mean it when I say that if this were to become a thing, the OG Network would become one of my most played servers on my server list. If I had to guess what server out of all those I know that had the mere chance of making this idea possible, it would be OG MC.
If anyone has anything to add or contest anything I said in this post, please post your comments! Anything that could be better or different to improve other's or your own interest would contribute to the fruition of this idea immensely! Thank you to any of you who have taken your own time to read this post, it means a lot to me.
