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Author Topic: SkyBlock server block values  (Read 6198 times)

MasterRahl

SkyBlock server block values
« on: June 27, 2017, 11:22:20 AM »
As some of you may have noticed, some of the newer blocks in the game may not seemed to match up with how we have traditionally had the block values set up.  I am partially to blame with the intermittent absences due to many real life issues.  The reason for this is because block values in the configuration file hadn't been updated for any block after 1.8.  This means all the things introduced in 1.9 and after were using a backup set of values and diminishing returns values in the config file that were pretty generic.  The good news is that I have finally had some time to go back through the block values and get all this information updated.  New blocks now have values set by us instead of the default values in the config file.  I took the time to also go back through the older blocks and tweak some of those values.  Some have seen increases individual values while others saw some decreases in the individual values.  In most cases (not all), ones that had an increase in single block value had an increase in the limit before the block either hits hard cap or diminishing returns start applying.  The end result of a tweak like this might mean an island with only a few of these blocks down might lose some initial points but will allow for a higher total value in the end towards your island level as you place larger quantities.  From the tweaks I have made, people will probably notice their island levels fluctuate some but the mass majority probably won't notice a big change in level unless they had a lot of the newer blocks on their island as these will now have actual values associated with them along with more appropriate limits.


I would like to also kind of go over some of how these values work so that it can maybe help players understand what is happening.  I won't be using actual values from our server's unique value configuration, but will use generic values and examples to help you better understand the mechanics of how the plugin uses these values.

There is a default block value that can be set, we have updated this to not give any value to new blocks until we have had a chance to update the config file.  And don't worry, I have pretty much completed the information needed for updating to 1.12 whenever that happens so we can make that update as soon as the plugins are all ready to make the transition.  This value is the value that is applied to any block id not listed in the config file.

There is also a default value that can be set before diminishing returns starts applying.  This was changed to reflect the amount that we currently are using at the highest point before the blocks started to lose value instead of keeping it with the default that is automatically generated in a new config file.  This should only impact the new blocks as all the other blocks of value had already had listed hard caps or limits for diminishing returns.

One value that is still standard is the number of block "points" needed to equal 1 level and that information isn't exactly a server secret.  1000 block value points is equal to 1 level.  So, if you have a block worth 50 points, you would need to place 20 of them to gain 1 level.

Now I will try to cover what I mean by hard cap or diminishing returns.  As we set up values, we can either give the block a hard limit where values drop to 0 immediately after placing a certain number of blocks or a soft limit where the value of blocks starts to decrease with additional usage past that limit (diminishing returns).


For simplicity, I am going to use cobblestone and grass for my two examples because each one has a unique block id and doesn't have sub ids (like stone or dirt).

Grass block id is 2
Cobblestone block id is 4


In the config file, you set the value for the block id and either assign it a hard limit or soft limit (we have avoided using both limits for a single block id).  If you don't give it either a hard limit or soft limit, it automatically gets the soft limit set as the default value in the config file.

Block ID        Value
2                   50
4                   50

Block ID      Hard Limit
2                    200

Block ID      Diminishing Returns Limit
4                     200


The above is very basic but should help demonstrate how the plugin works.

With the above example, each grass block is worth 50 points.  If you put down 200 of them, you will gain a total of 10,000 points or 10 levels.  If you place 1 more grass block after that 200th block, it will be worth 0 points.  This is because it has a hard limit in the example. This means the blocks will have full value for every one placed until that limit has been reached and then they drop to 0.

Now, in the above example, cobblestone would have the same values for 1 block up to 200 blocks.  The difference comes in when you place block 201.  At this point, the extra block past the limit gains a value, just not its full value.  So block 201 may only be worth 33 points so you may end up with a total of 10033 points with 201 blocks placed.  I don't know the exact equation used by the code to determine the rate of diminishing for block values or how far it allows that to extend out (at least not with any precision).  What I can tell you is that blocks with diminishing returns continue to have some value for a long time (compared to the number of blocks where the soft limit is set at) before reaching returns that are very close to 0.


Added information in reference to special level related skyblock challenges.  I know many players wondered whether or not it was possible to reach these higher amounts.  When creating these, the idea was to take the total potential value for hard caps and add it to the values of blocks up to their soft limits to ensure that it would be more than possible to reach these goals.  Now, when setting these up, they were meant to be a challenge and take time to achieve to give players some long term goals to work towards.  Since we can't accurately predict exact values for blocks with soft caps, we did not try to take the additional potential block values from diminishing returns into account.

It is this very reason why the staff have always said to use a variety of blocks and materials to build with on your islands.  While some blocks do have very high values in comparison to others, it was due to how hard these types of blocks were supposed to be to gather in larger quantities which meant more work to gain them and get their full benefit.  The values were also designed so no single block or couple of blocks could be gathered in mass to reach the really high end level challenges.  The thought was to encourage creativity in island designs and block usage, as well as ways to deal with players needing to use blocks that they may not like as much.

However, over time we did find that a couple things that were originally meant to work one way with the values did not work the way they had originally been designed to for values.  Things like the different types of planks and wood logs were meant to have individual caps/limits.  But for some reason it treated these all as 1 item type and gave 1 single value.  Hopefully the new config file will fix this issue and give full credit to those who tried to follow the idea of using different block types.  However, there are times when we want all the sub ids to be treated as 1 ID in our values so it isn't always a mistake on the part of the plugin or config file but could be intentional.

I have went ahead and posted this because the change should be coming soon to the block values, but I am not sure exactly when the update will occur.  Please feel free to post any questions you may have.  I will try my best to answer the ones I can but I will not reveal actual block values or limits that we have in use.
« Last Edit: June 28, 2017, 07:07:36 AM by MasterRahl »

MasterRahl

Re: SkyBlock server block values
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2017, 08:56:57 AM »
For those who managed to get on the first day after the island block value update, we discovered an issue where the plugin was not obeying the default diminishing returns limit (soft cap).  This caused the blocks set to use that value instead of hard coding it to have full block value regardless of how many had been placed leading to HUGE jumps in island levels for players who had used any of these blocks (that list was not small).  One quick example was the different types of wooden planks.  It took me a little bit to figure out why the island levels didn't match up to the kind of increases I had expected, but finally figured out what happened and manually went through the file to add all the extra config data to fix it.

Sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused.  Everyone should still notice that their island levels increased from where they were before the block value update happened, but it should now be less dramatic.

-MasterRahl
aka
Nightwolf3218

 

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