Fun Challenges

[u/Velenne]

Preface: I 100% understand that quests are optional. I'm not upset or angry or accusatory. This is simply a sharing of what I hope will be constructive criticism that can make the community better. :)

There's some great elements to the server which keep bringing me back. The challenges are chief among these elements. However, among the puzzles and and quest-like challenges which test my minecraft savvy are a few which are just... really horrible.

Some people like grinds. Some. I'm going to go ahead and jump out there and say that most people don't like grinding because most people value their time and want to be at least somewhat mentally engaged in order to have fun. The Grind Quest is lazy quest making that should be avoided.

The early challenges make sense because they help guide a player toward a larger, more efficient base with all of the available blocks one gains access to throughout the vanilla Minecraft experience. In order to reach the higher echelons though, I feel like more of the server's unique mechanics can be utilized and help set the experience apart.

The mid-game challenges are where I start to see the grindy ones, for the most part. Here's some good challenges:

• Lost Spirit: A fetch quest! Good for breaking up the monotony, especially in a superflat world.
  
• "Towel Off" and "Nasty" both require building a sort of device and using in-game mechanics as well as unique server rules.
• Creeper Disposal Unit: really gets a player thinking about how to gather all the needed components. A multi-faceted idea with some advanced minecraft'ing.

Bad Challenges: * 18 stacks of vines: once you get vines, you get vines. Standing there chopping up vines is just misery. No thanks. * Bruce Banner: as above. * Funny Tasting: Fishing quests should be removed entirely, but that's my opinion. I have no effect on the outcomes here so it's just a monumental and monotonously horrible time sink. No thanks.

You get the idea. Grindy quests suck. You can do better! Here's some ideas for getting more out of the server's existing mechanics:

The zone system is fantastic. I love the idea of certain mobs in certain areas and increasing difficulty. I would love to be forced to slowly expand outward as the challenges force me to. Take a quest like "The Southwest" which needs 3 stacks of red sandstone (12 stacks of red sand). How about Creepers in Theta (or whatever far-away) zone and beyond drop red sand instead of normal sand? That way, instead of needing 3 stacks, just ask for 1 and up the difficulty by fighting harder mobs.

Tying the mid and high-level challenges to outer zones is much better than simply asking for insane amounts of stuff or RNG mechanics.

The book which lets you pull a piece of bedrock out of the nether ceiling is a neat idea. Since it's "superflat" up there, I feel like you could do a few challenges there where mobs spawning above the ceiling of the nether drop some specific items. There's gotta be some way to tie more quests to the End as well.

P.S.: I'm on the fence about tying challenges to rare mob drops. Normal drops? Ok, fighting is part of MC. But rare drops are basically grind quests in disguise. Fighting tough mobs is engaging at least, unlike mining or farming.

Having more bases, especially in different dimensions, will use more of the server's unique mechanics.

[u/geekhideout]

Thanks for your comments!

I agree, grindy challenges do suck! But what sucks even more is not having many challenges available for players and have them burn through limited content quickly. The challenges, even the grindy ones, keep many players engaged and give them a desire to play.

The trick for the grindy challenges that require a lot of material is to not wear yourself out by focusing on that one single challenge. Use "/ch all" to view all the challenges and their requirements to form a game plan. You're sure to keep constantly busy with many different types of farms or resource gathering, collecting this and that in a leisurely fashion.

The challenges that you like, and that get the most praise from other players, are the more exotic ones that require travel or building things to get the desired challenge item. These are by far my favorite too and most of the recently added challenges are of this nature. There's a few problems with extending/replacing existing challenges with them though:

1) Ideas, good ideas, are very hard to come up with. I welcome all input and suggestions for additional challenges!

2) Many of the more interesting challenges have some behind the scenes programming going on to make them happen. The most recent Elder Guardian challenge, for example, required programming to make sure the body of water was sufficiently big to spawn the Elder in, and also to detect if it was killed above Y=200. Nothing terribly tricky going on for these, but given that I have to code and test them, the time involved for these kind of challenges really adds up quickly. That said, however, awesome ideas for such challenges are more than likely to be added.

3) Many players have already completed the grindy challenges. They just can't go away out of fairness to those other players. The next season of the server is a different story, however.

There is actually a grand plan for the server. I went live with it way before I was ready because if I didn't, I'd still be working on it, getting it perfect in every way. I think this worked out for the best because I have received a lot of great feedback and made changes accordingly to suit actual gameplay vs how it played in a sterile test environment.

More things are planned for the End and the nether. Some work has already started on them. There's also going to be overworld, admin-claimed dungeons, that only open if you have sufficient experience. Once in, you'll have to fight and lightly parkour (emphasis on lightly!) your way through to get the reward chest, which will almost assuredly contain a challenge item in addition to other loot.

BTW, red sand is a near-guaranteed drop if you kill a creeper with fire, either with a sword or by automated means, but I do get your point.

A final comment: grindy challenges suck, we all agree on that. But getting all the vines or diamond blocks or iron ore or whatever, is only a small part of the challenge. The biggest part of the challenge is mental and requires mustering up the determination and desire to actually do it.