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

Hard difficulty increases mob damage, with the exact differences varying per mob. Full details can be found on the wiki.

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

Regular spiders have a chance of spawning with a potion effect on hard difficulty. Full details can be found on the wiki.

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

Zombies have a chance of spawning reinforcements, when attacked on hard difficulty. Full details can be found on the wiki.

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

Mobs are more likely to spawn with armour on hard difficulty. Zombies are also more likely to spawn with weapons. Full details can be found on the wiki.

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

Skeletons and Zombies are more likely to be able to pick up dropped items on hard difficulty. Full details can be found on the wiki.

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

Cave Spiders, The Wither and bees inflict status effects which last longer on hard difficulty. Full details can be found on the wiki.

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

Damage caused by an empty food meter is capable of killing players on hard difficulty. Full details can be found on the wiki.

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

Raids are longer on hard difficulty, with an increased number of waves. Full details can be found on the wiki.

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, even a charged creeper explosion, 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. Placing torches and building a wall around your in-progress build are also simple ways of avoiding mobs spawning near you entirely. The night can also be sped up and skipped by players sleeping, allowing the most dangerous part of the Minecraft day to be ignored if desired by those online at the time.

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.

As mentioned above, we will not be making any changes to Zombie reinforcements at this time. Zombies have already lost one of their unique hard mode mechanics, door breaking, and their other mechanic of picking up items is shared with the Skeleton. As a result we are reluctant to remove their one remaining unique mechanic, especially with such a tiny margin in the results. This can always be revisited at a later date.

The final change we will be making is an attempt to reduce the perceived "grind" required for players to reach where they were before dying. We have already significantly increased the lifetime of dropped items, which allows easier recovery, and we would like to make another quality of life change to XP drops. Currently when a player dies, the game drops 7 XP per player XP level up to a maximum of 100 points. This results in dying at level 30 only dropping 100 XP, or just over 7 levels, which is quite an extreme punishment.

We will be changing this behaviour to drop 50% of the total XP a player had, which for a level 30 player would equate to just over 22 levels. Some work will still be necessary to reach level 30 again, but hopefully with less of a feeling that the game has taken all of your XP away. The exact percentage can be tweaked in future, if necessary. The arena XP drop rate will remain unchanged.

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.
• Players will drop 50% of their XP on death.

Mob Settings

Increased Mob Cap

The hostile mob cap has been doubled compared to 1.15 survival (from 12 to 24). The passive mob cap was increased from 9 to 12.

Additional natural spawns

• The following mobs now have a small chance of spawning naturally:
  • Zombie horses: 0.05% chance of spawning instead of a regular horse
  • Elder guardians: 0.01% chance of spawning instead of a regular guardian
  • Killer bunny: 0.0000001% chance of spawning instead of a regular rabbit
  • Toast: 0.01% chance of spawning instead of a regular rabbit.

Chicken hostility

Chickens will retaliate if attacked

Phantoms ignore torches

Phantoms will no longer attack insomniac players, if they are holding a torch

Lowered guardian farm rewards

Farmed guardians drop half the normal XP and a single item, to balance the relative ease in gaining the XP, and to help prevent massive overabundance of the items they drop

No mid-air spawner spawns

Spawners no longer spawn mobs in mid-air, making them consistent with all other forms of spawning, and discouraging low-effort farms that simply remove the ground below a spawner.

No overworld withers

Withers can no longer spawn in the overworld, to reduce the damage of escaped withers, and to discourage trapping withers for name-tagging areas or for low-effort farming, which has implications for server performance.

Comments

Changes we will be making

 

Server Settings

Mending changes

Mending now always repairs the most damaged equipped item, rather than randomly selecting one.

Editable Signs

Signs can now be edited by right clicking them with another sign.

Sign colours

Signs can now use colour codes, just like in chat.

Dropped items lasting longer

Most dropped items now last 24 hours instead of 5 minutes, with a selection of "junk" items lasting 15 minutes before despawning.

Nether border removal

The nether no longer has a world border, and can be explored infinitely.

Comments

Changes we will be making

Villager Settings

Overall Enjoyment

Elements

Non-renewable items in trades

Diamonds in trades

Higher trade prices

Desired Changes

Comments

Changes we will be making

Plugins

Train Carts

Big Doors

Armor Stand Editor

Vanilla Tweaks

Mob Heads

Wandering Trades

Better End

 

Better End Returning

Bugs and Reporting

Bugs encountered

Bugs reported

Aware of how to report

 

Aware of Kanboard