Hello, just wanted to start off with a general statement: everything here is completely opinion based and is only intended to help the server grow, no hate here. So, without further ado, here we go.
Anticheat
The anticheat is, well, an anticheat. There's not really anything special at all to it. I feel as though we were completely mislead by how good the anticheat was promised to be. I'll give credit where credit is due - it bans 6 blockers, sorta, and bans regen hackers. I feel like it was really only developed with common, free, frankly garbage hacked clients with only extremely blatant features in mind. Any paid client, or even some free clients with lower settings seem to bypass pretty easily. Take a look at our beloved Aleksi, who has literally found a way to fly hack, lowtick, 6 block, bhop, etc, FREELY. The first day kit released, he found bypasses in 5 mins, which is honestly just sad. Again, a huge improvement over what we had previously, but falls completely short of what we were promised. There are definitely gsets that toggle very blatantly, and still somehow wont get caught, which again, is ridiculous.
Moderators:
As a small subsection, I feel as though moderation has fallen off completely. It's like everything is dependent on the anticheat, and mods are kinda just there for chat offenses; not actually watching players. I'm not sure what goes on behind the scenes, but no matter how many reports I make, and I mean I've written college level essays including a clip of me screensharing players and mods just say "thanks," and then do nothing about it. I have seen mods ban players, but the most common response is "not enough evidence." We need screensharing to come back, like what sil and ana used to do, but as managers they don't do it anymore. It's really a shame how competitive it gets, yet the player wont get banned for 4 blocking because the hits are unclear.
General Lag/Ping
While the ping part may not apply as much as lag does, it feels like everyone I fight no matter what there actual ping is, is 200+ The server lag was terrible last season and while does feel a bit better, is nothing close playable in gset. For example, block hitting will literally break your game, you will just stop dealing damage all together, and are forced to just run for 30+ seconds. This problem has persisted since the beginning of the season yet has not been fixed; blocking is one of the most if not the most important aspects to 1.8 pvp. Moving on, the general movement and hit registration is just not great at all. You cannot bow boost on ice or in water without being lagged back, even though it was said to be fixed. Pearls are literally a coinflip; sometimes they work great, other times you'll get stuck in a block and suffocate and you can't do anything. There are spots on the map where pearls are so broken they just wont land, and will snatch your pearl away from you, being prompt in chat "you can't pearl into this location," meanwhile the kid you are chasing just did. Bow boosting is much better than it was at the start of the season, but it would have been better untouched. Last season bow boosting felt super floaty, and I really liked how it felt, aside the fact that it would slightly shoot you to the right. I feel like bow boosting had other kit servers in mind, and was tried to be replicated, but a lot of the time arrows just bounce off of you. There's literally no chance of chasing a 20 ping player if your 100 ping. The main take away; hit registration and block hitting glitch.
Economy
As a new player, the server really is unappealing unless your willing to grind. The economy revolves around diamond players farming new iron players for money. Not to mention the new eco system, so you get even less money per kill now. Fishing is mediocre at best, and it's easy to get bored quickly. This section is short, but basically, bring back the old eco system and buff fishing, so newer players have an alternative to getting destroyed over and over by the same diamond kit. Oh, and also ant boosting plugin. I can see why it might be annoying, but does anyone really boost? It's very inefficient and is easy to work around with patience.
Map
The fact that the old map was copy pasted and slightly edited was just lazy, and looks horrible. It really looks like a kid that just learned to used world edit copy pasted the map and then created some mountains and barriers. While I love the whole "no void" factor, it is absolutely horrible to have to chase some kid that just pearls into a jungle tree and bows you off. It's insanely easy to get out of ganks now and pretty hard to chase if you've spent 10 mins walking around finding pearl spots. IMO, remove pearls, make the map more flat, and get rid of jungle. The trees scattered around the map are great, but a little tall. Not saying PVP on a superflat world, but some spots of the map are just WAAAY too steep and really are pointless.
This was my little rant, no hate but I really do just want to see the server grow and these are my thoughts of the new season. I would love to see some changes and will occasionally edit this post.
Anticheat
The anticheat is, well, an anticheat. There's not really anything special at all to it. I feel as though we were completely mislead by how good the anticheat was promised to be. I'll give credit where credit is due - it bans 6 blockers, sorta, and bans regen hackers. I feel like it was really only developed with common, free, frankly garbage hacked clients with only extremely blatant features in mind. Any paid client, or even some free clients with lower settings seem to bypass pretty easily. Take a look at our beloved Aleksi, who has literally found a way to fly hack, lowtick, 6 block, bhop, etc, FREELY. The first day kit released, he found bypasses in 5 mins, which is honestly just sad. Again, a huge improvement over what we had previously, but falls completely short of what we were promised. There are definitely gsets that toggle very blatantly, and still somehow wont get caught, which again, is ridiculous.
Moderators:
As a small subsection, I feel as though moderation has fallen off completely. It's like everything is dependent on the anticheat, and mods are kinda just there for chat offenses; not actually watching players. I'm not sure what goes on behind the scenes, but no matter how many reports I make, and I mean I've written college level essays including a clip of me screensharing players and mods just say "thanks," and then do nothing about it. I have seen mods ban players, but the most common response is "not enough evidence." We need screensharing to come back, like what sil and ana used to do, but as managers they don't do it anymore. It's really a shame how competitive it gets, yet the player wont get banned for 4 blocking because the hits are unclear.
General Lag/Ping
While the ping part may not apply as much as lag does, it feels like everyone I fight no matter what there actual ping is, is 200+ The server lag was terrible last season and while does feel a bit better, is nothing close playable in gset. For example, block hitting will literally break your game, you will just stop dealing damage all together, and are forced to just run for 30+ seconds. This problem has persisted since the beginning of the season yet has not been fixed; blocking is one of the most if not the most important aspects to 1.8 pvp. Moving on, the general movement and hit registration is just not great at all. You cannot bow boost on ice or in water without being lagged back, even though it was said to be fixed. Pearls are literally a coinflip; sometimes they work great, other times you'll get stuck in a block and suffocate and you can't do anything. There are spots on the map where pearls are so broken they just wont land, and will snatch your pearl away from you, being prompt in chat "you can't pearl into this location," meanwhile the kid you are chasing just did. Bow boosting is much better than it was at the start of the season, but it would have been better untouched. Last season bow boosting felt super floaty, and I really liked how it felt, aside the fact that it would slightly shoot you to the right. I feel like bow boosting had other kit servers in mind, and was tried to be replicated, but a lot of the time arrows just bounce off of you. There's literally no chance of chasing a 20 ping player if your 100 ping. The main take away; hit registration and block hitting glitch.
Economy
As a new player, the server really is unappealing unless your willing to grind. The economy revolves around diamond players farming new iron players for money. Not to mention the new eco system, so you get even less money per kill now. Fishing is mediocre at best, and it's easy to get bored quickly. This section is short, but basically, bring back the old eco system and buff fishing, so newer players have an alternative to getting destroyed over and over by the same diamond kit. Oh, and also ant boosting plugin. I can see why it might be annoying, but does anyone really boost? It's very inefficient and is easy to work around with patience.
Map
The fact that the old map was copy pasted and slightly edited was just lazy, and looks horrible. It really looks like a kid that just learned to used world edit copy pasted the map and then created some mountains and barriers. While I love the whole "no void" factor, it is absolutely horrible to have to chase some kid that just pearls into a jungle tree and bows you off. It's insanely easy to get out of ganks now and pretty hard to chase if you've spent 10 mins walking around finding pearl spots. IMO, remove pearls, make the map more flat, and get rid of jungle. The trees scattered around the map are great, but a little tall. Not saying PVP on a superflat world, but some spots of the map are just WAAAY too steep and really are pointless.
This was my little rant, no hate but I really do just want to see the server grow and these are my thoughts of the new season. I would love to see some changes and will occasionally edit this post.