Hello amazing creative community and those visiting!
With the creative update on the horizon we would love to hear some ideas and feedback both for creative in general but also for the build competitions creative staff have been hosting these past many months.
For creative itself we would like feedback on things you both like/dislike as well as any ideas you may have that would be nice to have on creative.
For build competitions I would love to know what you think of them and if you have any ideas for themes/types/anything you can think of that you would like to see!
Please keep your replies respectful and as informative as possible, just saying “I don’t like plots” is not helpful.
I cannot promise the ideas you post will be implemented.
If you see an idea you like, it would be a good idea to “agree” with it in reaction. : )
I have a few suggestions that were cultivated among myself & other players that we think may help with the overall activity of the server. I'll provide a brief list + a spoiler; the spoiler will have a more in-depth look at the suggestions & justifications as to why I believe it should be considered.
First I should start off by saying I do love the grading system using letter grades, I think it's a fun way to visualize a build rank and it's not obscenely distracting, I don't think the grades themselves should change, I just think some things around it should. All the suggestions I provide are commenting on things I don't like and potential ways of improving them.
Suggestions:
1. I'd like to keep the current plot system, sizes & separate worlds may vary
2. Revamped grading system, using dedicated community judges as opposed to just staff (staff can also be judges) to quicken the grading process
3. Mana improvements, more specifically, more ways to make mana and/or receiving mana ranking up build grades
4. Plot merge limit set equal to the maximum number of regularly allotted plots (so it changes with each grade/rank)
5. Prestiges, whether that be build checklists or a prestige point per A+ plot built after your first one to boost higher rank retainment
6. Use a separate world for formal build competitions
1. This is a minor one all things considered. In Kitpvp and Olympus, the plots are all in separate worlds with their own world border, you can't just fly to your next-door neighbor and say hello. Kitpvp in particular is a plot system I don't like, because I don't want to see the world border when I want to take a screenshot. I think the plot system works as is, but the new Olympus style of plots doesn't seem to be too bad (unless it also has the world border at the edge of it and I just missed it). It would also make plot merging more complicated, especially in regards to having co-owned plots.
2. I think the implementation of creative specific judges could be very beneficial in terms of player retention and community engagement. Perhaps instead of judges just taking over the grading system, you could do something like parkour's Community Judges who help staff decide whether to accept a map or not. I do think that having higher ranked judges will help not only for feedback purposes, but also general assistance, questions, and will quicken the grading process (it took my then A plot 5-6 months to be graded, only for it to stay at A, but the changes were simple enough I could have fixed it in 2 weeks and resubmitted for A+, so waiting the 5-6 months felt like a total waste). I think community judges would be very helpful, and would also reduce number of staff who need to look at each plot (for A or A+ grades, I'd still want as many staff/judges to look at the plot as possible)
3. There has to be better ways of making mana. As it stands, the only two chances you get to get mana is during build competitions since that's the only time there's enough people for scramblers, and you can get some mana if you win, and the daily cow, which I've gotten more cubits than mana at this point. I think one way to rectify this issue is to give players mana when they rank up their grade. Ideally, you would get more mana for each grade you rank up, like the mana you'd get from A to A+ would be more than from C+ to B-, and if you skip grades, you'd get the sum of the mana from each rank up. This would give more players an incentive to rank up, and allow players who were graded C or C+ to still be able to afford world edit without having to get mana from other players or staff.
4. I think having a merge limit equal to your regularly allotted plots would just make for more fun builds, as someone could take on a gigantic project and build a huge map. For an example of a merge limit, An A+ player with no donator rank can have up to 35 plots in the regular creative world, so their merge limit in that world would be 35. If they buy an extra plot with mana, that would not increase the number of plots they can merge to 36, it would still be 35. If you merge with more than 1 person, the merge limit of that plot would be equal to the lowest merge limit among the plot owners (so if someone could merge 35 plots and another could merge 5, the merge limit of their combined plot would be 5). I'm not sure how much lag extremely large plots would cause, but in my experience with creative servers I've merged up to 50 plots with no issues.
5. Prestiges would just be another way to keep higher ranked players engaged. As it stands, of the 12 A+ players on this current creative, I am the only one who is consistently online (akaPines and Jordn shows up every now and then, but not frequently). Even then, rarely do I build for anything other than the build competitions. I don't exactly know what the prestiges would look like, but it would be a way to keep players engaged and building on the server, so they don't just make like 1 A+ plot, say they've done it all (because they kinda have) and leave. High ranked players are integral to server engagement, as they are the best resources for building help and feedback, so I think this is a way to keep them involved for longer periods of time.
6. This is more of just a formality thing, but I do think it would look more professional to just have a world dedicated to the build comps. It'll be effectively the same as what we have currently, but that you won't have players just running around claiming plots around the build comps, it'll just look more professional in my opinion. The small build comps are fine to stay as the size they are, just throw it in that world and we can still copy and move our builds back over to our plots in the other worlds at the end. But I think it'd be cool to have the longer build comps all sorta lined up, so you can just run back through them and see all the old competitions as time goes on. It's just a thought and this is probably the least important of my suggestions, but I think it'd be cool regardless.
If you read all that I thank you, it was a lot to write lmao
Hope any of that helps to provide insight!
I have a lot I want to say here, but first things first, if all that changes is that things get to on a later version, and the pile of bugs are gone because of this update, I would personally be very happy with just that, with that said.
1. I actually think having a separate world for comps would be beneficial, as stated by state, it would make it so you never have to delete comps, but also, would make it so adding more players to the comp would be easy, as there would likely always be a plot to extend to.
2. I think there should be more kinds of comps, like Telephone, maybe Build swap (I feel this could be handled by having pairs working together when swapping builds, so you can still have more players), and of course guess the build. (there are likely more build comps that could be referenced, but I can't think of them all)
3. a built in tutorial system for things like W/E and Armor stands would be nice (maybe separate tutorials that you can access through commands) this one would help alot, and the commands should be listed in a popup that appears randomly, and when you first join.
4. some way to access other players art, though, I think it should not be free, and it should be an option players opt into, and can set a price for their art in mana that can be changed (no one would pay $1000000 for a banana taped to a wall after all)
5. buyable custom items for armor stands, as there are times I look at custom items on other severs and wish I could use them with armor stand magic, I am just not sure how you would stop people from getting copies of them, maybe a unlock system where you have to have it unlocked to have it in your inventory. as of their prices, I think the should be fairly expensive since it should be an unlockable thing, maybe even have some unlocked with rank and grade, and maybe some in crates
this is all I can think up for now, but I will add more if I can think of any big game changers
I agree with a lot of the items mentioned above, but would like to add the ideas below as well.
Plot Grades- Above it was mentioned about adding players into the grading system similar to Parkour. I have not played over there so I am not sure the requirements behind being able to say yes or no to a new map. There might be members of the community who don't want all the responsible of being staff (completing bans or does not follow chat well), but are experienced and are willing to help with just grading. Creating a "grading team" of these people might be helpful to reduce the workload and time it takes to grade submissions. Most plots are graded D and D+(68%), but this team could be used as a first line where anything for those grades could be completed and then move the remaining to staff for grading. Similar to the first review of tickets.
Long Build Comps- Would love to see partner or a team build. Pick your own partners, but would be cool to see what people come up with together and might even help players level up their skills.
Weekly Build Comp- Would love to see a spot created where the top 3 builds from the week before could be placed. So you would keep all the builds for the week where they are and then when the plots are cleared for the new week the winners from the week before would be moved to the “trophy plots”. Lets them live a little longer, but I also learn a lot from looking at other people's builds.
Player Poll- Add in a player poll option that can be used if other staff members are busy and unable to help judge. Think this would work great for the weekly build comps.
Chat feelings- Please add chat feelings.
Crates- Let creative have a create option of maybe just the titles, messages, chat color, pins and maybe a mana option? This would let players have an option to collect these items and also open the door for creative to generate income for Mana.
Cubit Store- Add the cubit shop so it easier to upgrade and buy ranks. I have know players who want a rank, but then chose to not get one when they have to go online instead. This would help players and income from creative.
Coinflip- Bring coinflip to Creative please!!! Would be fun to coinflip mana, but would be nice to do cubits as well.
Artmap- Please fix artmap so they can be moved without destroying the builds. Also maybe I am just too new, but when I completed an art map I lost it very quickly as I moved the map without thinking. Would love to see like a PV where you could store all your artmaps so you never lose them.
Basic Tutorial- Create a basic tutorial similar to survival that tells you what to do on your screen. I see how do I get a plot come through the chat several times a day and think it would be helpful. Maybe a tutorial like claim a plot, place 10 blocks, visit a location with that has basic commands or has inspiration like /warp trees.
Mana- I agree with the others on more ways to earn mana, but also would like to see more uses for mana as once you have WE there is just plots for the most part.
Post automatically merged:
Also they are able to do leaderboards in survival and would be cool if that could be setup for the build comps as well so you dont have to manually complete the signs.
So agree with all the comments above. I know for me its cool to come but also as a new player I cant see being able to compete so why do it. maybe some duo builds with high and low ranks. or like player 1 does first 30mins and the second person does the second half thing.
1 other thing I see alot of comments of in game and understand somewhat why it is this way is redstone. I get it can lag but also lots of us would like to be able to test ideas before using them in other game modes. If there is individual worlds like Olympus can we someone how get a way to use some redstone please.
I've also heard people saying they want build battles back, which I think would be a fun addition and give players another thing to do that isn't the weekly build competitions and they can do it when they have time, in case they're busy for the weekly build comps
very late response but i think that if you only have the ability to gain mana from grade rank ups it doesnt necessarily help once u run out of mana which keeps it on a p2w basis. Thats what made voting more reasonable for everyone. If you need mana on any other server you can just grind for it til you get how much u want but creative isnt a server u can just grind for. I think with this next update world edit and brush tools should be free to all. Even if its behind a payed sum to prevent new players from joining and causing mayhem, they will find ways around it. On parkour even if you're not good at parkour you can still grind easy maps until you get enough mana but on creative if you want tools and cant get a high grade or improve its difficult to get mana. I agree that we should get a mana reward for ranks up but if there is no sustainable way to earn mana then the tools themselves should be free to all
a built in tutorial system for things like W/E and Armor stands would be nice (maybe separate tutorials that you can access through commands) this one would help alot, and the commands should be listed in a popup that appears randomly, and when you first join.
having some popup that goes away with a tutorial won't do much. world edit is kinda in my eyes something you just kinda learn yourself or through others. Its not some quick thing u can teach. The creative community has some incredible builders and i know Samara made a warp with a world edit tutorial build. I think making things like that can show more useful than some silly popup that goes away
Basic Tutorial- Create a basic tutorial similar to survival that tells you what to do on your screen. I see how do I get a plot come through the chat several times a day and think it would be helpful. Maybe a tutorial like claim a plot, place 10 blocks, visit a location with that has basic commands or has inspiration like /warp trees.
this idea COULD be good but in all the time ive spend on creative, some players just aren't very bright. If you spawn them immediately into a tutorial upon joining then you'll get the players who are pissed off and start cussing out in chat about the tutorial either during or after (calling it stupid, pointless, dumb, waste of time, etc)
If you spawn them with a bunch of resources in front of them, alot of the times they will miss them, whether its an npc or a chat pop up. The spawn has a clear hologram that says how to claim a plot and get started and you still get the spam of "How do i claim a plot" everytime.
Hi Athena.
Thank you for making this post to get ideas . I am sure the creative community who play regularly will have some grand ideas. And hopefully those who do not play on creative often add some ideas that could potentially be incorporated..
if you only have the ability to gain mana from grade rank ups it doesnt necessarily help once u run out of mana which keeps it on a p2w basis. Thats what made voting more reasonable for everyone. If you need mana on any other server you can just grind for it
Hey thanks for your response!
As I said in my detailed explanation of making mana (point 3), I said that this was just one thing that they could do to help; I'm all for adding different options of making mana as well, but I do think that getting rewarded for ranking up is something that should be encouraged. The issue with Creative is there isn't really a good comparison you can make to the mana-making of Parkour. Yes, on Parkour players can do easy maps to get mana, but that's just inherent, you complete something and you get a reward. Creative has no equivalent to "easy maps" or "droppers." The closest Creative equivalent would be completing plots and getting it graded. Manacube doesn't have a voting option anymore, so that seems to be out of the question. If you have any suggestions to help with that, please feel free to put them here!
A suggestion that I thought of while reading your reply popped in my head when I remembered someone who mentioned the idea of plot-specific grades (was it you @HappyHippoEaters ?), and I find that interesting. You could have it where your grade in chat and tab is the highest grade you've received on a plot, but the plots themselves will have an individual grade in /plot info. To avoid an even longer post to an already extremely long reply, I'll put the rest of this suggestion in a spoiler:
So for example, if you're grade A in chat and you build another plot and want to see what it's graded, you submit it, and if it gets B+ you won't be demoted to B+ or averaged to A-, you'll stay as A as that was the highest plot grade you've had, but in /plot info that plot will show it's a B+. I think with this, it could solve some mana issues as well, as if you get graded B+ when you're A, you could get the mana that's associated with a B+ rank. This means that it's not just a one-time way of getting mana, you can get more mana by building more plots.
Some caveats would have to be addressed though:
1. If you submit a plot for the first time that gets graded B you'll get the mana associated with ranking up from no rank to B, then you fix things and submit it again and it gets graded a B+, this time you'll only get the mana that'd be associated with ranking up from B to B+.
2. I don't know how you would make the plot grade show in /plot info, I'm not sure if plotsquared has that option or of that is something that can be coded into it by the developers.
3. The judges would have to check each players grade before they grade a plot so that if a rankup for chat/tab is necessary, they can do so. I don't know how the grading system works right now, so I decided I'd say it anyway.
4. If there is no way to automate the mana reward for the plot grades, that could be really annoying for staff members to have to constantly pay the mana or run a command to give them their mana as well as giving them their grade. It's still doable, but if there's a way to automate it that would make things much easier for the creative staff.
5. Your maximum amount of plots and merge still only depend on your grade/rank in chat and tab. If you're B and build another plot that's B, you won't recieve any more free plots or have an increased merge limit.
6. If the plot gets cleared by /plot clear or /plot delete, the plot grade should be cleared too. You'll still keep the mana you received when it was graded, but the grade will go away. If it's your highest grade, you'll still keep the grade in tab and chat.
7. If a graded plot is merged, the lowest grade will be shown in /plot info. If there is no grade on one of the plots, the grade is removed from the entire merged plot.
8. The only benefit from plot grades that don't affect your actual grade in chat would be mana.
I think with this next update world edit and brush tools should be free to all. Even if its behind a payed sum to prevent new players from joining and causing mayhem, they will find ways around it... I agree that we should get a mana reward for ranks up but if there is no sustainable way to earn mana then the tools themselves should be free to all
I think having free world edit would be great, and have other features like armor stands and furniture, if that's something they're looking into, locked behind mana or ranks (you don't need armor stands to make an A+ plot, as I've done it myself, so that isn't p2w at all). One thing about that though, is some world edit commands I believe would need to be given at specific build ranks, such as //br blob and //loft.
//loft can effectively take away the skill needed to make good, complex terrain (unlike height) or clothing on an organic, it's extremely powerful and makes the game easy (I used loft for my A+ terrain and finished the terrain in under an hour). On our current version, loft is only given to A- or A and above, I can't remember which.
Blob is a command that can be great for terrain, but it is also a very intensive command, much more so than other commands and brushes (I've crashed another server on accident with a blob radius of 20 with 2 clicks, for example). I think that very advanced commands like that should be reserved for higher level builders, but the basics like copy, paste, stack, move, and basic brushes like sphere, height and flatten etc. should be free.
having some popup that goes away with a tutorial won't do much. world edit is kinda in my eyes something you just kinda learn yourself or through others. Its not some quick thing u can teach. The creative community has some incredible builders and i know Samara made a warp with a world edit tutorial build. I think making things like that can show more useful than some silly popup that goes away
To address your feedback to the others, a basic tutorial would be very helpful for new players. What I'd suggest, is how they have those info bits in chat about being able to marry other players, how to submit plots, etc. They should have one that gives you a warp to a simple world edit tutorial area, where it shows the basics of simple commands like //set, replace, copy and paste to name a few.
this idea COULD be good but in all the time ive spend on creative, some players just aren't very bright. If you spawn them immediately into a tutorial upon joining then you'll get the players who are pissed off and start cussing out in chat about the tutorial either during or after (calling it stupid, pointless, dumb, waste of time, etc)
If you spawn them with a bunch of resources in front of them, alot of the times they will miss them, whether its an npc or a chat pop up. The spawn has a clear hologram that says how to claim a plot and get started and you still get the spam of "How do i claim a plot" everytime.
You'll get those players who don't pay attention to tutorials/introductory information everywhere, but I do think a tutorial at the start of your experience could be nice, as you could direct new players to that to get them started and get them a plot. Though, this one doesn't seem too important to me, I don't mind just telling players to do /plot auto, though if they have both a message in chat and on screen when they join to do /plot auto to start building, I think that might help even if only a little bit.
it would be a good idea aside from the fact players could quite literally just make a bunch of bad D plots just to rack up tons of mana. Once they run out of plots to use they delete them and resubmit a bunch of bad plots.
I think that very advanced commands like that should be reserved for higher level builders, but the basics like copy, paste, stack, move, and basic brushes like sphere, height and flatten etc. should be free.
it would be a good idea aside from the fact players could quite literally just make a bunch of bad D plots just to rack up tons of mana. Once they run out of plots to use they delete them and resubmit a bunch of bad plots.
I was thinking about this as well, but isn't making a bunch of D plots pretty much the same as doing a bunch of easy maps on parkour though? To limit how much you can make and how quickly, you could have a cooldown on the /submit command, like you can only submit once every 3-4 days or a week or so, that way you can't just submit over and over in a short period of time.
That and/or the mana reward from plot grades be different for the mana reward and actual rankups, so you'd get less from a D to D+ rankup than you would from a D to D+ plot grade if you're already above a D+ rank.
