Balancing KitPvP

Okay, I feel like I have to make this thread. This might get a bit technical, so if you don't feel like reading the entire thing, I summarized my main point in bold. I hope this makes staff at least think about balancing the kits, and makes the experience better than it was before.

So, kitpvp is defined as a free-for-all, large-scale arena in which people run around killing each other. Each of them has a "kit" of items to give them an advantage against the others. My examples here are going to be the generic ones, Knight, Archer, and Brute. Here's what they would normally have:

Knight: Iron sword, iron armor
Archer: gold/leather armor, bow and some arrows, wooden/gold sword
Brute: Diamond armor and stone/wood axe

The problem is, the archer can bowspam, and thus a skilled player, especially a if they're proficient with bow, can't lose as archer unless they're fighting other archers, or get triple-teamed. Here's the key to balanced kits:
Every Kit, no matter what it's called, MUST have a decent Melee weapon, a Bow, and more or less the same armor.
Now, complete balancing is NOT possible. Whether 2 kits or 10, there will always be that one kit that's either uselessly weak, or overwhelmingly strong. Players abuse, and break perfectly good arenas/kits to make the experience worse for themselves. The solution, which I've seen really well done on multiple uhc servers, is to either make random kits, or rock-paper-scissors kits.

Rock-Paper-Scissors, just in case you might not understand the concept, is a game where two people pick an item (rock, paper, or scissors) and try to pick the item their opponent loses to. What makes it fun is that each item beats one item (scissors cuts the paper) but loses to another (scissors is smashed by rock) therefore, no matter what you pick, there's always someone who can beat you. Here are examples of MUCH more balanced kits, keeping in mind the main point (in bold) and the Rock-Paper-Scissors theory.

Knight: Iron armor (Proj. Protection 1), iron sword (sharp 1), a bow (16 arrows) and 1 potion of health 2
(this kit is good against archer, but weak against brute)
Archer: Iron armor (Protection 1), iron sword, a bow (power 1 maybe), and 1 potion of regen 2 for 22 seconds
(this kit might need nerfing on the bow, just extra arrows, testing required. it's good against brute, weak against the knight)
Brute: Iron armor (protection 1), stone sword (sharp 1), a bow (16 arrows) and 1 potion of resistance 2 (22sec?)
(this kit is a beast against knight, although dealing less damage, but still gets shredded by arrows, might need one diamond armor piece, more testing needed)

If more kits are needed, I'd suggest some sort of cleric kit who gets golden apples and has the gear of a Knight, maybe a few less arrows to balance it out.

All in all, staff will need to test the kits and plugins, and have avid pvpers test the balancing before a full-serverwide release. (oh, quick thing I forgot: this balancing was designed as 1.8 balancing, in 1.9 update just add shields and nerf archer a lot)

I hope high staff reads this and considers these ideas (especially @LordInateur and @KlutchDecals)
and puts someone capable of creating a fun, balanced kitpvp experience for everyone to enjoy

oh yeah also the anticheat could use some work

 

Eventually high staff said it will be back, made a thread so when it comes back it won't suck hopefully

 

I’ve never heard of the rock paper scissors theory in kitpvp, but it sounds pretty good.

 

Yes let me push PVP to the top of the list. Who cares about player count or blacklists.

Anyway, Yes it will be back. I would like to see you work closely with the team that works on this to make it awesome, but youre going to have to be as open minded as we will have to be.

 

If you take a Rock Paper Scissors method, could something be added to distinguish between the two?


(I know of a kitpvp that works amazing and is crazy fun in 1.8, but we don’t currently have the player count to have it work perfectly)

 

Understandable. I made the thread while kit was down since I assumed it would be reworked, I hope it comes back eventually of course, but like I said on smkorpi's application, you have to prioritize and I 100% understand that.

Would be an honor. I think I've patched up my relationships with the staff team and I think these sorts of developments (experienced players and staff working together) might greatly benefit the server.

Explain? If you meant like extra kits, the same concept works with 4, 5, 7, heck, even 97 (although 97 well-balanced and unique kits is very... ambitious if you ask me)

 

I meant distinguish between the kits, so like maybe a red dyed helmet could mean rock, blue helmet for scissors, etc...

Just so it’s easy to pick who you might want to fight

 

i really enjoy special abilities in pvp. kinda boring otherwise especially if we're using the 1.8 mechanics. sword and shield combat is a liiiiiiiitttle bit more fun.

if we have to use 1.8 combat i want cool abilities like a super leap ability or umm a fishing rod that actually pulls people to you or a grappling hook idk

 

hmmmm
I don't know, that might make hypertargeting even more common, but it could be neat, definitely something to test.

I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, sure, special abilities are pretty great, and it's fun to zap your friend with a lightning sword, or use some sort of grappling hook, but often these ruin the actual fighting, so it's more "spam your abilities" than "left click fast" and that's just not as fun (also, making diverse yet balanced abilities is VERY hard)
I guess I was thinking of the potions more as abilities. Some kind of "ability book" or whatever with each class could be cool (you click with it and it gives you strength and resistance for 20 seconds for example) but that's even more work for the techs and potions already fulfill that purpose.

 

Hypertargetting isn’t a problem if you aren’t going to be upset if you lose a kill streak. I think being able to tell what kit people are using would make it quite more interesting since you will know that this person has an advantage on you

 

Oh for sure, and besides, the whole point is to make it skillbased so hopefully kit-indicators (like red/blue/green hats) would make it more fair even if the kits were less balanced (who knows, maybe there could be occasional player-organized team fights with strategic kit-picking?)

I feel like I should mention one other way to do KitPvP (although this is almost anti-kitpvp) : ""earning"" items for the game (within your class) combined with the rock-paper-scissors aspect. For example: Every time you get a kill you get a "credit" of some kind, and with 100 of these credits you can open a "Loot box" that gives you buffed items, like a sword with .5 extra damage, or maybe an armor piece that gives you two extra hearts. (With a lot of credits you typically can just select your choice item in this style of play) These modifications are what make UPWars (custom game on a friend's server) so incredible. This also adds more replay value and you can grind for hours just to get that one cool item to give you an advantage (usually there's a limit of custom items to get, for example knight can have 2 extra items, one primary (sword/armor) one secondary (bow/ability/potion effects/random cool stuff))

That's more complex and more work, but seeing as the obscenely overcomplicated books plugin was added to skyblock, maybe it's viable. All in all I think things like this, that make meep's kitpvp different from your standard "pick archer and fight" kitpvp server, will draw in new players and interest old ones

 

with meep's kitpvp there is no way to save, say there is a supplydrop thingy implemented into kitpvp, you can gear up on special items, or have your kit be upgraded with every kill (5, 10,)
say you have an archer kit with a reg bow
when you hit 5 kill streak it gets power 1
15 power 2
and etc

 

This sounds good on paper, but I assure you it does NOT work.
problem is that if someone is drastically better than everyone else (or teaming or hacking)
they get so overpowered they physically can't be beaten.
I have a recorded video I sent to staff on another server where 2 guys are teaming, cleaning, and reaching 6+ blocks
(fun fact: that server's anticheat is better than meeps, since it's uhc it actually has similar features such as anti-xray and all that)
They had a 30+ kill streak each, and there were two of them. They both had protection 4, sharpness 3, power 3, and 2 or so stacks of arrows. 8 other people couldn't beat them.
trust me, that would make it less balanced. I've spent lots of time trying to explain balancing, trying to make it better, and there is NO WAY that would work in a fair and fun way.

 

Like Famous said, that system would make people really overpowered. New people would come to kitpvp and other people would be so much more stocked that it'd be a pain for them to rank up as well. Though, I like the supply drop idea.

Adding on to your idea, what if there was a special item crate? Just like you said, players could potentially earn credits for kills and later use them to open boxes. However, just like other crates on the server, players would earn keys with the credits to open it, and they could randomly win some temporary item. So, basically same idea, but same pluggin?

It's important for kit to be balanced yet rewarding for daily players so that they don't get bored.

 

yes that's a good idea (although the greatest items [most rare, not necessarily most powerful] would have to be obtained in a difficult way. These systems combined (both buffing daily players and letting frequent players get rewards, but still letting new people have a chance) would be I think like the ultimate mix between (sorry for mentioning these) the two common modes of BedWars and SkyWars. Skywars (at least ranked) is 50% kits, 50% the items you get (also skill is involved but this is a balancing thread. Obviously if the balancing is good the skilled players win but are still beatable) but in BedWars, you start with everything unlocked except cosmetics. I think some sort of blend between the two (such as the Ranked Skywars update on that one server we all play on but won't mention out of respect for fuzzlr) where the kits start unlocked, but small cosmetics and minibuffs can be obtained through frequent play (and kills ) would make it a truly great mode. Looking forward to working with staff on this one and seeing what kind of ideas they have.
@KlutchDecals quick question: will the map be kept the same or change?

 

Idk you tell me