This post probably won't be of concern to most of you. However, in case I forgot to notify anyone who is on my team and/or finds this to be important, I decided to post this on Forums.
Note: After writing it, I noticed how long the post is. Sorry!
This post has two parts: My goodbye, and then my feedback for the server's future.
Goodbyes:
This server and its community has been, as always, a pleasure to be involved with. I have had many exciting moments (like when Hayech spawned a spaceship above me when I first joined), and many learning experiences (like the sad time when I first learned of 'resets'). However, I have decided, of my own accord, that I will not be active on InvadedLands nearly as much. I will most likely visit every few weeks or so to keep up with the 90 days claim deletion, but for all intents and purposes, I am quitting.
I want to emphasize that this is not due to anything bad that happened on the server - This is solely my personal preference.
Thank you to all of the people who helped me when I first joined (particularly BabyDragon2409 and SmokePVP). It really means a lot to me!
I will now be focusing on the second part of this post: the feedback.
Feedback/Suggestions:
Throughout my time on the server, I have noticed just how much care and attention the staff puts into the server each and every day. However, there are many areas of improvement, and although some of them have been addressed, many can be further improved. Some may disagree with these, and I'm alright with that; this is just my own personal opinion on the server.
General:
- Network Rules: Although these are organized well, it is very tedious to read through all of them, many of them are somewhat vague and up for interpretation, and they do not list specific punishments that can occur by breaking them. This means that there is a lot of moderator discretion when someone is being punished, which can lead to confusion and/or frustration on both the staff's and player's ends. Staff should make the rules more concise and add formal punishments.
- Staff: Before I begin, I would not hesitate to say that the current InvadedLands staff are amazing. However, and this is particularly noticeable when one or two members go on vacation, it is very clear that the server is understaffed. I would suggest opening up the staff applications and accepting more of them- it is better to have lower quality staff that do their job decently, than no staff at all. Maybe even have one staff position that can be voted on by InvadedLands members - this would be an interesting addition that would connect InvadedLands' community more.
- In Game Purchases (mostly Survival): I completely understand that the server must have a way to make lots of money, or else it would shut down. However, I believe that the crate prizes (and costs, though that isn't relevant to this post) have gotten out of control. The fact that the Dragon Egg, a prized item in most Survival servers, and has become just an uncommon trinket due to Monthly Crates, is insane. Each monthly crate is the exact same prizes/odds with a different name slapped on it. Meanwhile, Vote Crates and Invaded Crates continue to become more and more obsolete, with some people straight-up not opening them due to how useless they have become. I believe that the solution is to make Invaded Crates have a chance at winning a Monthly Crate, and a Vote Crate can win an Invaded Crate. To fix the overpowered Monthly Crates, the solution is simpler: have some variety in each of them. Instead of dumping all possible prizes in each of them, maybe one month have the Dragon Egg be a prize, and the next month, it could be a Dragon Head. This way, in game items are worth more, and the economy does not get senselessly inflated within the first week. Unfortunately, it is unlikely any staff will actually read this, let alone change anything because of this. However, if they do, I have many other suggestions about making the Invaded economy more interesting.
- Custom Ranks: This is less of a suggestion, and more of a thank-you. I am very glad that there is finally a rank where you can't outright buy it; you have to actually win it from a crate. This somewhat decreases the pay-to-win structure of the server. I just really hope staff doesn't add these ranks into the Invaded store as well!
KitPVP/KitPVP Modern:
- Lack of Players: KitPVP Modern has about 20 players when it is at its peak. Normally, it has 0-6. At this point, there is no real reason to put any time or attention into it (although there does not seem to be much already). It is mainly used as a backup for when Survival is down. For simplicity's sake, just recombine it with KitPVP, and transfer any pre-existing KitPVP Modern ranks over to KitPVP. However, if this doesn't sound good, at least have some staff visit sometimes. Perhaps having Skeppy troll a few players in KitPVP Modern could increase its popularity.
- Difficulty to Get Good Gear: For new players first joining the server, it is often discouraging to be killed in the first five minutes by someone with gear so good that they are impossible to kill. Normally, this is the point at which a dedicated player will begin to grind to get better-however, on these servers in particular, this is nearly impossible. I suggest making it easier for players to get good gear (prot II-III) so they don't get immediately discouraged and quit when first joining.
Survival:
- Scams: This is the one thing that the staff are notoriously known for handling terribly. I have seen countless horror stories of players being scammed out of billions of in-game money due to various scams, particularly Sign Shop Scams (although those have been mostly patched in the most recent update). However, this section is not about the patches-it is about the staff's reaction when someone is scammed. It is ridiculous how lazily the staff react when someone loses their hard-earned money. You can have concrete evidence of the person scamming you the exact amount of money, yet staff refuse to refund it. This is what I believe is the most outrageous aspect of the entire server, and should be addressed immediately.
- Skeppy Serverwide Trolls: Again, I understand that having Skeppy troll on InvadedLands is necessary to make money. However, it is frustrating when he will grief the entire server (like with /clear) and then 'roll' the server back an hour or so. Not only does this make players lose progress-oftentimes, the 'rollback' system glitches, causing the player to lose their inventories or even their claims. If the server is reliant on Skeppy trolling it, there must be a system to ensure that the entire server does not suffer as a result, or many may quit.
- Get Rid of Baltop: Possibly my most controversial suggestion, but one that would make the server much more interesting. Now, people won't know how rich they are compared to the rest of the server. This allows them to focus more on gameplay and less on get-rich-quick schemes. I believe that this would make the server less grind-y and more relaxing.
I have one last suggestion which I believe could bring InvadedLands to unheard-of levels of popularity:
Skeppy should livestream on his server.
I believe that this would encourage hundreds, if not thousands, of people to join and play with their beloved youtuber. It would also get him donations and would generally make the server seem much more connected and healthy. I personally think that this if staff were to take anything from this entire Goodbye thread, it is this last suggestion.
Thank you for your support
!
If you have any questions, just ask on my InvadedLands forums profile! I will probably be active on here for a little while.
Note: After writing it, I noticed how long the post is. Sorry!
This post has two parts: My goodbye, and then my feedback for the server's future.
Goodbyes:
This server and its community has been, as always, a pleasure to be involved with. I have had many exciting moments (like when Hayech spawned a spaceship above me when I first joined), and many learning experiences (like the sad time when I first learned of 'resets'). However, I have decided, of my own accord, that I will not be active on InvadedLands nearly as much. I will most likely visit every few weeks or so to keep up with the 90 days claim deletion, but for all intents and purposes, I am quitting.
I want to emphasize that this is not due to anything bad that happened on the server - This is solely my personal preference.
Thank you to all of the people who helped me when I first joined (particularly BabyDragon2409 and SmokePVP). It really means a lot to me!
I will now be focusing on the second part of this post: the feedback.
Feedback/Suggestions:
Throughout my time on the server, I have noticed just how much care and attention the staff puts into the server each and every day. However, there are many areas of improvement, and although some of them have been addressed, many can be further improved. Some may disagree with these, and I'm alright with that; this is just my own personal opinion on the server.
General:
- Network Rules: Although these are organized well, it is very tedious to read through all of them, many of them are somewhat vague and up for interpretation, and they do not list specific punishments that can occur by breaking them. This means that there is a lot of moderator discretion when someone is being punished, which can lead to confusion and/or frustration on both the staff's and player's ends. Staff should make the rules more concise and add formal punishments.
- Staff: Before I begin, I would not hesitate to say that the current InvadedLands staff are amazing. However, and this is particularly noticeable when one or two members go on vacation, it is very clear that the server is understaffed. I would suggest opening up the staff applications and accepting more of them- it is better to have lower quality staff that do their job decently, than no staff at all. Maybe even have one staff position that can be voted on by InvadedLands members - this would be an interesting addition that would connect InvadedLands' community more.
- In Game Purchases (mostly Survival): I completely understand that the server must have a way to make lots of money, or else it would shut down. However, I believe that the crate prizes (and costs, though that isn't relevant to this post) have gotten out of control. The fact that the Dragon Egg, a prized item in most Survival servers, and has become just an uncommon trinket due to Monthly Crates, is insane. Each monthly crate is the exact same prizes/odds with a different name slapped on it. Meanwhile, Vote Crates and Invaded Crates continue to become more and more obsolete, with some people straight-up not opening them due to how useless they have become. I believe that the solution is to make Invaded Crates have a chance at winning a Monthly Crate, and a Vote Crate can win an Invaded Crate. To fix the overpowered Monthly Crates, the solution is simpler: have some variety in each of them. Instead of dumping all possible prizes in each of them, maybe one month have the Dragon Egg be a prize, and the next month, it could be a Dragon Head. This way, in game items are worth more, and the economy does not get senselessly inflated within the first week. Unfortunately, it is unlikely any staff will actually read this, let alone change anything because of this. However, if they do, I have many other suggestions about making the Invaded economy more interesting.
- Custom Ranks: This is less of a suggestion, and more of a thank-you. I am very glad that there is finally a rank where you can't outright buy it; you have to actually win it from a crate. This somewhat decreases the pay-to-win structure of the server. I just really hope staff doesn't add these ranks into the Invaded store as well!
KitPVP/KitPVP Modern:
- Lack of Players: KitPVP Modern has about 20 players when it is at its peak. Normally, it has 0-6. At this point, there is no real reason to put any time or attention into it (although there does not seem to be much already). It is mainly used as a backup for when Survival is down. For simplicity's sake, just recombine it with KitPVP, and transfer any pre-existing KitPVP Modern ranks over to KitPVP. However, if this doesn't sound good, at least have some staff visit sometimes. Perhaps having Skeppy troll a few players in KitPVP Modern could increase its popularity.
- Difficulty to Get Good Gear: For new players first joining the server, it is often discouraging to be killed in the first five minutes by someone with gear so good that they are impossible to kill. Normally, this is the point at which a dedicated player will begin to grind to get better-however, on these servers in particular, this is nearly impossible. I suggest making it easier for players to get good gear (prot II-III) so they don't get immediately discouraged and quit when first joining.
Survival:
- Scams: This is the one thing that the staff are notoriously known for handling terribly. I have seen countless horror stories of players being scammed out of billions of in-game money due to various scams, particularly Sign Shop Scams (although those have been mostly patched in the most recent update). However, this section is not about the patches-it is about the staff's reaction when someone is scammed. It is ridiculous how lazily the staff react when someone loses their hard-earned money. You can have concrete evidence of the person scamming you the exact amount of money, yet staff refuse to refund it. This is what I believe is the most outrageous aspect of the entire server, and should be addressed immediately.
- Skeppy Serverwide Trolls: Again, I understand that having Skeppy troll on InvadedLands is necessary to make money. However, it is frustrating when he will grief the entire server (like with /clear) and then 'roll' the server back an hour or so. Not only does this make players lose progress-oftentimes, the 'rollback' system glitches, causing the player to lose their inventories or even their claims. If the server is reliant on Skeppy trolling it, there must be a system to ensure that the entire server does not suffer as a result, or many may quit.
- Get Rid of Baltop: Possibly my most controversial suggestion, but one that would make the server much more interesting. Now, people won't know how rich they are compared to the rest of the server. This allows them to focus more on gameplay and less on get-rich-quick schemes. I believe that this would make the server less grind-y and more relaxing.
I have one last suggestion which I believe could bring InvadedLands to unheard-of levels of popularity:
Skeppy should livestream on his server.
I believe that this would encourage hundreds, if not thousands, of people to join and play with their beloved youtuber. It would also get him donations and would generally make the server seem much more connected and healthy. I personally think that this if staff were to take anything from this entire Goodbye thread, it is this last suggestion.
Thank you for your support
!If you have any questions, just ask on my InvadedLands forums profile! I will probably be active on here for a little while.