awoodgnether

Throughout the 3.0 people have found issues with the unbalance of nether combat. This thread focuses purely on the maphide perk, not MCMMO skills or anything like that.

The maphide perk is a necessity for the nether. Without it everyone just watches the dynamic map and recalls whenever anybody gets too close for comfort. Its tedious and rules out any spontaneous PvP in the nether. On the other hand we do need the dynamic map; the nether world is simply too big for players to have any chance of bumping into each other without some sort of knowledge of where the other players are.

Those with combat turn into nether warlords and destroy every player that doesn't have (the r5 perk) maphide that enters the nether. The perk is simply too strong to have a case of 1 player having it for all the time and the other player sitting there like a duck.

What I propose is a scaling of the maphide perk, that improves in usefulness as a player progresses through its ranks. The general idea is that everyone is able to have access to the perk, be that through a separate ranking system or that levels of maphide are rewarded as generic rank perks for each caste.

All players with maphide gain access to the command but it has a time before it refreshes (the player re-appears back on the map) and also a cool-down. The length of time before it refreshes increases with maphide level, and the cool-down decreases. This refresh would probably start in the 30 second - 1 minute range (though of course it needs balancing) and the cooldown would be in the region of many hours.

Due to the short cooldown time the hunter is unlikely to be able to reach a player without initially appearing on the map at all unless he has access to a nearby nether gate meaning that those that err on the side of caution can leave if anyone on the map becomes too close. Of course, there is nothing to say that the hunter hasn't recalled themselves and that is why they disappeared from the map. Furthermore, there is nothing to say that the hunted hasn't actually maphidden as well - and they are waiting for the hunter to appear before getting the jump on them. The refresh opens up a whole new dynamic of tactics.

What this means is that all players become a threat - everyone with the maphide ability has the potential to surprise a player. Also, the length of the cooldown of the ability means nobody can become a nether god and kill everyone that enters time after time. Even a top leveled maphide player cannot spam the ability so miners will not always be in fear of the same player killing them time after time.

This creates an exciting and balanced nether scene, where players are still rewarded with perks and also a little bit of decent tactics/skill.