Stress Test Survey Results

This is a summary of the results from the Stress Test Survey, and our responses to them. 54 of you responded and your feedback is valued. Sadly 7 players started but didn't complete the survey before the deadline, these results have not been included to ensure consistency.

While we have not followed all your preferences to the letter, we are nonetheless making some changes to the stress test server based on your feedback.

The results will be presented question by question, in the order those questions appeared in the survey. We will also include some of the more noteworthy comments received in the survey, and our responses to them. Following this we will detail what changes we intend to make, if any.

Difficulty

Difficulty has been a subject of sometimes heated debate since the stress test server opened, and was one of the reasons why the survey was created. We have previously heard strong views from parts of the community regarding the choice of hard difficulty, and felt it was necessary to get a broader selection of opinions before deciding what to do.

Overall Enjoyment

These results are rather encouraging, with a much higher number of players happy with hard mode, than unhappy with it. A large number of players are also in the middle, with no strong feelings either way. This is perhaps the opposite of what we expected after the negative feedback we received before the survey, which now appears to be from a vocal minority. 

In the end we are happy to see a surprisingly positive reception here.

Difficulty Elements

Increased Mob Damage

The results are close here but do show slightly more players dislike the increase in mob damage that hard mode brings. Not a huge difference, but it is an area we would like to make changes in regardless.

Spider potion effects

A more positive result for spider potion effects, with more positive than negative responses. In addition, a large neutral response suggests this isn't a setting we need to tweak.

Zombie Reinforcements

For zombie reinforcements, the results are almost exactly split, with a single vote pushing it into negative territory. This tiny margin. the large neutral response, and the fact another mechanic unique to hard mode zombies (door breaking) was already removed, mean we will be leaving this setting intact for now.

Increased chance of mobs spawning with armour/weapons

Pretty clear result here, with a majority of players happy with the change, and most of the rest being neutral. We will leave this setting as it is.

Increased chance of mobs picking up dropped items

Another positive outcome here, with slightly more players supporting the change to mobs picking up dropped items. The positive responses also appear to hold stronger feelings than the negative ones, with more opting for love over like vs hate over dislike. We will be leaving this setting as it is.

Increased effect durations

Effect durations are another area we intend to make changes in, after the responses here show many players are unhappy with the current state of things.

Starvation

A majority of players remained neutral regarding starvation, with slightly more of those remaining responding positively. We will therefore be leaving this unchanged.

Increased Raid Waves

Raid changes also attracted a large neutral response, with a significant majority of non-neutral players being happy with them. No raid changes are planned as a result.

Desired Changes

Perhaps the most important question is what players would like to see done with the difficulty overall, and the results here show that over 2/3 of players would like something at least based on hard difficulty. Some of those players would like some tweaks, which we are happy to provide in consideration of the results for the individual elements above. Many however are also happy with the way things are right now, more-so than any other answer for this question.

The results shown here certainly demonstrate that there is clear support for hard mode, either unchanged or with tweaks. It also demonstrates that the loudest feedback we previously received was not at all representative of the overall community's view on difficulty. I hope the above results are sufficient to show members of this group that you do not speak for the entire community, and you should not act like you do.

Comments

 

Changes we will be making

Whilst the overall opinion on difficulty appears positive, where are 2 areas that could see some improvement: mob damage and effect duration.

We consider mob damage to be an important part of the overall challenge brought by hard difficulty, so we won't be making sweeping changes to reduce it. However it has become clear that some aspects of the damage changes may need to be toned down a bit. Skeletons in particular have been named as an annoyance by many players in-game and in the survey comments, as hard difficulty increases their damage, but also increases their accuracy and firing speed. We aim to address this by removing one of these changes, while keeping the others intact.

Our current plan is to reduce the accuracy of Skeletons back to it's normal difficulty setting, whilst retaining the firing speed and damage increases hard mode brings. This will allow arrows to be dodged more effectively, whilst retaining greater punishment for failing to dodge, hopefully making Skeletons easier to deal with. Further changes can be considered if this proves insufficient, but this is where we would like to start.

We will not be making damage changes to other mobs at this time, as we feel the game already offers ways to deal with them. Shields can be used to absorb all damage in the direction you are facing, and can be equipped in the off-hand for quick use. In addition, a majority of mobs are limited to melee damage, which is easily avoided by keeping your distance.

For effect durations, we agree that some of them are rather excessive. There will inevitably be other mobs close by if you have encountered one that has poisoned you for example, and their increased damage will already provide additional challenge, without needing to increase the effect duration too. We will therefore be reducing effects durations to their normal difficulty levels. This will affect Cave Spiders, The Wither and Bees.

Witches are not affected by the above change, as the duration of the effects they inflict are the same as the durations of player-crafted potions. We will be making changes here however, as Witches are another mob that has drawn the ire of players in the survey comments. Our plan is to replace the Poison I potion that witches throw, with Poison II. Poison II inflicts roughly the same damage as Poison I (19 hearts vs 18), but it does so over a much shorter period of time (21 seconds vs 45 seconds). As a result it deals its damage faster, prompting players to run away to heal, without forcing them to wait almost a minute for the effect to subside.

These are the changes we will be starting with. We are happy to revisit this in future if further changes become necessary.

In summary

• Skeleton accuracy will be reduced to its normal difficulty level
• Effect durations will be reduced to their normal difficulty levels
• Witches will now throw Poison II potions for similar damage over less time.