I personally believe that the people who run mccentral have done a great job at updating prison with items and updates that positively benefits the prison community. I believe that the cellmates, wyvern spawners, backpacks, and private mines added in the last 4-5 seasons have all been great additions, albeit some of them need balancing. However, as a lot of these items are added, there have been some very negative changes as well. Balancing 1. Cellmates are too overpowered. It's two and a half months into the season and 4 people have already reached Z9. A 25% discount doesn't seem too much, but the ease in which a player can reach that point is ridiculous. Within 3 weeks, one of which I was on vacation, I've nearly maxed my cellmate. 2. Cellmate rewards are laughable. Other than the rank discounts and the backpack you receive for maxing your cellmate, all other rewards are god-awful and don't properly reward a player that doesn't have the time or effort to reach the max level of a cellmate in a short time. I will mention possible changes to the cellmate later. 3. Wyvern spawners are overpowered. My wyvern spawner isn't even maxed and I'll get well over half an inventory of tokens from its drops overnight alone. Tokens typically inflate throughout the season as to reward mining even late into the season. While 5k a token at the beginning of a season helps get out to an early start, the typical 50-100k late into a season gives a huge burst whenever one is found during mining. Due to the huge influx of tokens caused by wyvern spawners, with the season nearing the 3 month point, tokens are falling to an all time low of 15k-20k apiece in a point where they would normally value around 50k. This leads to problem 1. Problems 1. The prison season is very top-heavy. It always has been, with players bursting with excitement at the start of the season and then slowly fading away as the season goes on. During the start of the season, every player has to mine a vast amount of blocks in order to gain an early advantage with ranks, access to pmines, spawners, and other beneficial features of the game. A few weeks into the season, the richest players begin to develop spawner grinders and gain passive income, which discourages active play. While mining is still the quickest and best way to gain wealth, grinders quickly become equal or greater to mining within the season. Players begin to stop playing actively as there is no need once they have gained enough spawners. Eventually, enough players stop actively playing that the server dies out well before the beginning of a new season. With the addition of pmines, upgradeable picks, and backpacks, it's incredibly easy to get the money to start spawner farms. Due to the ease of getting money, the ease of getting passive income, and the increased ease of ranking up with cellmates, the server does not promote active playtime enough to maintain a high concurrent player base. 2a. There are too many reasons for players to quit. Scamming is one of these reasons. There are plenty of obstructions in place to prevent scamming, such as the message that the pmine warp is unsafe to visit. However, many players, both old and new, often fall for teleport scams. One way to prevent this is to add a timer to the teleport feature. Whenever someone accepts a teleport, there should be a message that lets you know to not move for 3 seconds until you are teleported. This would help players cancel unwanted teleportations and wouldn't inconvenience the general public of the server very much either. The majority of minecraft multiplayer servers have this timer and it greatly helps preventing scamming. 2b. Coinflip tax is the stupidest thing in the world. I've asked a multitude of staff members throughout the seasons since it's been added and I've been told it's to "prevent people from cf'ing their alts to get on cf leaderboards." I can assure you that no one cares whatsoever. Although it would be nice to get on a leaderboard, I'm sure 99% of the player base of the server would sacrifice their ability to get on the cf leaderboard for taxless coinflips. I quit for multiple seasons simply because i got tired of losing money while winning more cfs than losing simply because of this tax. Solutions I have my own ideas for solutions, but I'd love to hear yours. Reply below with what you think would solve the problems on Prison.
I don't have solutions to add, but I like everything you brought up. Nice thorough thread, I hope these problems are addressed next season.
