Let me start by saying that if a dev team makes combat games based on damage output and leveling they have already failed. Skill gaps in games have become more and more compressed over the years. Users should never hit the ceiling on what they can improve because as soon as they hit it the only way to go beyond is exploiting. Games with any combat at all pvp or pve should be easy to play but hard to master. Easy to play doesn't mean make it simpler it means narrowing down the options and making the ones that they have dynamic. I've played minecraft since before official release easily over 20,000+ hours on pvp servers alone and they are all awful. Users should have full control over their body and weapon. All hitboxes should be as close to being non-estimated as it can be meaning it should never just be a plain box. Users should be forced to improve in the game (beyond their normal habits/playstyles) they're playing not just needlessly sinking hours into leveling. Users should always be asking "how else can I use this" not "how far until I get the next thing". Every single thing in a combat system needs something to be sacrificed in order to use it and players should feel like a 1 man army surviving instead of thriving. Today most games are blockbusters with no story behind it in terms of combat and people wonder why playing it again is boring. You're welcome you finally got the answer you were looking for. It's not the nemegaming dev team that's flawed it's the game itself and the only thing they can do is patch it up.
If you want to try to at least salvage it here is what I recommend.
1. Force every player and the server to run in sync at 20 ticks per second always.
2. Never add any buffs to players unless it is earned by killstreaks and not bought.
3. Make all armor have weight values so the heavily geared player need to negate their debuffs by continuous combat and killstreaks.
4. Make it so bows have a reload delay that is continuous and can't be interrupted or shot while reloading much like a crossbow.
5. Add location-based damage such as headshots and backstabs to so skilled players don't feel like they're always playing cookie clicker.
6. Force players to spawn/tp randomly into the world.there should never be a choke point or moshpit of any kind.
7. The current map layout and the terrain is perfect don't you dare change it.
8. Don't add little hiding holes, structures that are over 3-4 blocks high, cancerous gank holes, anything that only has one path to get to it, and any other abnormalities that look good but in actuality degrade combat.
9. Going forward listen to the feedback of players that want less or request things to be removed. Players should never feel like they're losing to gear they should rather be inspired by the skillset of their opponent.
That's all I wanted to say for now. Thank you for your time.
If you want to try to at least salvage it here is what I recommend.
1. Force every player and the server to run in sync at 20 ticks per second always.
2. Never add any buffs to players unless it is earned by killstreaks and not bought.
3. Make all armor have weight values so the heavily geared player need to negate their debuffs by continuous combat and killstreaks.
4. Make it so bows have a reload delay that is continuous and can't be interrupted or shot while reloading much like a crossbow.
5. Add location-based damage such as headshots and backstabs to so skilled players don't feel like they're always playing cookie clicker.
6. Force players to spawn/tp randomly into the world.there should never be a choke point or moshpit of any kind.
7. The current map layout and the terrain is perfect don't you dare change it.
8. Don't add little hiding holes, structures that are over 3-4 blocks high, cancerous gank holes, anything that only has one path to get to it, and any other abnormalities that look good but in actuality degrade combat.
9. Going forward listen to the feedback of players that want less or request things to be removed. Players should never feel like they're losing to gear they should rather be inspired by the skillset of their opponent.
That's all I wanted to say for now. Thank you for your time.