Implemented End Crystal Reworks

[Unallowed]

To anyone who participated in or watched the livestream of the latest Balak fight, I think you knew a post like this would be coming. The meta is shifting quickly to using end crystals during battles and though it was fun to play around during the fight it's clear that the end crystal's balance and role in Conquest needs to be looked at.

At it's source, an end crystal does as much damage as a charged creeped, 72.5 hearts. This is enough to instantly kill any unobstructed player in full protection 4 diamond armor within a 4 block radius around the crystal. Despite this, if you're a single block below the end crystal (feet on the same level as the obsidian) you take a maximum of 2.5 hearts through protection 4. This is due to a combination of how Minecraft calculates explosion "exposure" and what the game considered to be the origin of the explosion. To boil it down, rays are drawn to points on a grid covering the player's hitbox from the explosion's origin, which is the center bottom of the end crystal's hitbox. This results in very few exposure rays being able to hit the player.

There are a few ways that we think end crystals can be reworked without removing their role in Conquest:

• Shift the end crystal's explosion origin up to the center of the crystal's hitbox. This would result in more consistent damage and remove the ability of players to survive an end crystal despite being half inside its hitbox.
• Nerf end crystal damage entirely. It makes sense that end crystals are able to deal massive amounts of damage, but not even the TNT from the TNT module can 1-shot players. End crystals should more closely follow the power and damage falloff of the TNT module.
• Implement a global cooldown on end crystal placement within battlezones. If a player misses their shot by either being too early or too late, they should not be able to immediately place another crystal. Rapid-fire portable charged creepers throws any sense of balance out the window

 

[Sparky___]

The most natural solution to me seems to nerf the amount of damage an end crystal does by an absolute minimum of 10-15% AT LEAST. I don't necessarily think they should be nerfed to the point of being the same as a TnT module, but please god this is annoying. The few people I've talked with about this seemed to come to a similar consensus that nerfing the damage was a natural solution. I've said this numerous times that it's frankly absurd that there is a mechanic that one-shots players (in full prot lul wtf?). While they do the same damage as a charged creeper they are very different.

 

[Xlan]

make it so they can be placed on any block, not just obsidian ok thx

 

[jibblypop]

 

[NerdieBirdieYT]

As someone who can’t PvP I think end crystals are pretty and they should explode in a flurry of chickens yes thank you

 

[Steve5729]

Not sure if this is actually a thing but disable end crystals being placed on Lingering Death

 

[Magpieman]

We have not had enough time to test various iterations of end crystals, so we won't be implementing any balance changes to it for this conquest month. With 1.14 just around the corner the ability to add blast protection to prot 4 armour, may be enough to balance end crystal damage. (I am aware there is a protection cap on armour) As a result we are hesitant to nerf it immediately. We will keep a close eye on it this month and test various possible nerfs like those discussed.

However we will be preventing them being placed on the bedrock from lingering death. We view this as a bug so it's a more straightforward change.

 

[Unallowed]

As many people have expressed, conquest has evolved from actually conquest to minesweeper. Players are forced into the necessity to use pearls to get between two protection planes in which EC's are unusable. So until the update of 1.14 roles around a need to EC is urgent. One of the main points I would make is the fact that people must forfeit an inventory slot in order to live from an EC. However, this is basically pointless as most people know. People have expressed that they will do double placements of ECs to allow the death of a person who wields a totem. Everyone in today's fight has seen what the extreme version of ECs look like and will agree something needs to change. So, the best options or fixes that should be pushed out would be these: (In my opinion)

- One idea would to be to flat out disable EC placement until the 1.14 update roles around. (Since there is no vanilla way as of now to really counter ECs except to fight fire with fire.
- Second idea would be to attempt to lower the blast radius of an EC, so that it no longer one shots in the direct vicinity)
- Third idea would be to lower the damage from an EC so that it can no longer one shot a player.

 

[Xlan]

after using end crystals in a couple fights now and fighting against them more as well. I can confirm these big bois need to go bye bye in at least some way V E R Y soon. We cant wait until everyone quits again because this mechanic is big suck like in the past.

 

[OtakuBookWorm]

Yes I agree 10/10

 

[Unallowed]

after using end crystals in a couple fights now and fighting against them more as well. I can confirm these big bois need to go bye bye in at least some way V E R Y soon. We cant wait until everyone quits again because this mechanic is big suck like in the past.

Honestly, Ec's are most similar to combustion in a conquest aspect, but combustion intentionally does not one shot a player and Combustion allows you to even see when the explosion is expected to happen so you can at least know when you will take the damage. ECs are the big boi version of combustion and completely one shots with no chance of survival even if potting at the time of the explosion.

So in my opinion they don't deserve a place in conquest because of the sheer damage that it can do and the range at which it can do said damage

 

[SmiGuy]

plz fix now ty

 

[ArcherSquid]

everything seems fine to me @SmiGuy

 

[Cryptite]

Since the original intent and use of EC's was as a literal bomb, that's the approach we're currently looking into. You should be able to use it as-is, but the feeling is you shouldn't be able to tank the explosion just by being one block down. We are also looking at the base damage it deals.

 

[NerdieBirdieYT]

Since the original intent and use of EC's was as a literal bomb...

How about it’s explosion radius is 5k blocks and it also releases toxic particles into the air causing the area to be unplayable

 

[DeceitfulPear]

How about it’s explosion radius is 5k blocks and it also releases toxic particles into the air causing the area to be unplayable

Sounds like the lava floor core attack with how laggy the magma blocks' lighting updates are in 1.13

 

[Xlan]

People very much dislike the ability to so quickly and easily one shot people/the ability to one shot people at all. I don’t think the suicide bomber route is a good idea.

 

[Magpieman]

End Crystal Changes
No more one-shotting, and no more hiding underneath 'em.

• After heavy discussion among admins and various players on all sides of current conflict(s), we have decided to nerf End Crystal explosions. It seems to be generally accepted that it's Just Not Fun that there's a 1-shot bomb in the game whereby the user can entirely avoid death. As a result, there are two primary changes, and one fix!
  
  
• End Crystals no longer one-shot players in god armor. At most they should deal up to around 7 hearts of full damage if you're at point blank range.
• In addition, standing one block below the crystal no longer shields you from extra damage. EC explosions are now radius based (about 4 blocks) and anyone within that distance will take damage based on proximity to the crystal.
• On the plus side, due to reworking their explosion, players who get kills with them should get credit for the kill now!