BopI
Notable Member
- Sep 15, 2019
- 9,638
- 39,282
before I begin let me make some things very very clear
READ THE WHOLE THING (including the other threads) IF YOU PLAN TO MAKE A COUNTERARGUMENT.
and
I am not making this to ruin the popularity of this server, create a fight, or hate on people. Rather, I am trying to make a suggestion. If I come off as insulting in this thread (or threads, if this gets too long and I have to split it up), that’s on me.
Wow, I’ve gone from suggesting things for people’s builds in the Map Submissions section to full out criticizing the whole server. Interesting to see how things have gone so differently than expected. Now, you expect me to start ranting about how Brokenlens is trash, or how the staff are extremely incompetent. Partially correct, in my opinion. However, before I start trying to convince Mr. Dickinson that a few small changes could cause the server to skyrocket in popularity, let’s go over the things that make this server very cool.
The friends system, which was implemented at a time when other servers did not have an easy way for players to make bonds together in-game. Mr. Dickinson’s idea of the friends system seemed to be one of the factors that resulted in the increase of popularity between 2017-2018. The leaderboard system was also implemented at a time when other servers didn’t have that as well, leading to some people staying on the server (but also lead to the creation of “sweats” who worked non-stop to win as many games as possible). The community back then was also much better, there was noteblock music in the lobby (I think), the builders are amazing at what they do, and for the most part, the staff are very helpful. And the fact that Mr. Dickinson (with the help of edw I hope I’m not excluding anyone) created and maintained this server on his own is quite the feat, though that seems to have led to some problems which I’ll explain later.
Now, onto the many flaws and other things Brokenlens seems to have brought upon itself. Because there seem to be a lot, I’m going to be separating this into 4 main parts, the problems with the pvp system, the community, Mr. Dickinson’s lack of support, and uniqueness becoming a weakness. I will try my best to provide solutions for these issues, however, I am no expert in coding so some of the more technical problems I don’t really have solutions for.
1: The pvp system. First off, I’m dedicating an entire section to different platforms like Java and Bedrock existing on the same server, so I’m only going to briefly mention it here. Now, the way players fight on the server is very questionable. Mobwars pvp doesn’t seem to depend on who’s better at pvp, rather, it’s who can camp more with the most amount of food. Unlike other servers which use natural health regeneration or one-time regeneration items like gapples or beehive’s spell of life, brokenlens has food to regenerate on, similar to the older days of Minecraft where food increased your health. It’s very interesting and seems like a great idea, however, Mr. Dickinson decided to add something called, “insta-eat”, which basically removes the eating food animation from the game. This allows people to regenerate health extremely quickly, which may be unfair to other players who have less food. Mr. Dickinson has taken this into consideration and has raised the price of certain food items in the shop, however, this has not stopped sweats from abusing the food system to win games in a matter of minutes. SkyWars pvp also seems to work similarly. Whoever can gather the most food from chests and coal ores is more likely to win the game than someone who’s just plain good at brokenlens pvp. I haven’t even mentioned the numerous glitches that happen when fights occur, the strangely increased damage of bows (which could have been added to counter food spammer, I don’t have the full details), axes and swords dealing less/more damage depending on what platform you’re playing on.
2: The toxicity on the forums. There's not much to this section but there have been many fights, often leading to thread locks. The topics range from criticism of Brokenlens to the LGBTQ Community. There have been a certain number of people who have started fights, including me. Mr. Dickinson is often accused of being lazy, and the staff often retort that “he has a life”, which is completely granted. Then the Brokenlens Discord was closed due to people being toxic, however, completely muting people on the Discord server isn’t exactly the best solution as when the general channel was opened back up for a second, the whole community decided to bombard the staff team with insults, and the channel was subsequently deleted. There have been a lot of differing opinions on the staff of Brokenlens as well. Much of the player base dislikes the staff team, mostly for false bans and mutes. Staff have also blatantly lied at points, and Brokenlens has had its fair share of staff who have gotten demoted due to reasons which I shouldn’t mention (however the posts that contain these still exist as of now if you do some digging). They also seem to not take criticism very well, however, I somewhat disagree with these accusatory statements. With most other servers, the anticheat is very good at its job, and there are few hackers, however, with Brokenlens, not only are there easy ways to bypass a ban via using alt accounts that don’t need Xbox Live, but the anticheat on Brokenlens usually only kicks people, and rarely bans people. To sum it up, it isn’t very good at its job. Thus, the staff have a lot more hackers, bypassers, and rule-breakers to deal with, meaning they can’t focus on a ban appeal or player report as much as they could if the anticheat worked better or if there were less rule-breakers. Unlike the staff on other servers who can analyze a ban appeal a lot more, the staff on Brokenlens have to make quick decisions, which has led to more people complaining about false bans and mutes.
3: The anticheat has also brought me to my next point: Mr. Dickinson’s lack of support. Now, I’m not saying the owner has to work on the server 24/7, I’ll get to the solution to that later, but it can most definitely be agreed on that Brokenlens has a lot of stuff, well, broken about it. I’ve already gone on about the insanely broken pvp system, ranging from knockback not registering properly, but also the healing system favoring people who are insanely obese, certain editions of Minecraft having advantages over others, and many more. There are many bugs that don’t have anything to do with pvp as well. I am aware the crafting table glitch is not fixed at all (It got fixed at some point but then got unfixed? I did learn that Mr. Dickinson definitely fixed it, and even tested it out, but then one of my private sources explained to me later that it still worked? And I tested that too.) Many people have complained about lag and other connectivity issues. Whether that’s their wifi being dumb or if it’s a genuine bug is not obvious to me. However, a few examples of random bugs, connection issues, and others I have experienced include:
Now I do get that coding is very hard and all, but there’s a solution that I’ll get to later that covers all that.
4: Uniqueness being a problem. It has been stated that Brokenlens is unique, with the food system, cross platform, crews, report buttons, and a variety of different maps. Many of these aren’t helpful, but more harmful. The food system, like I’ve explained before, is broken, with it not being fun or making gameplay at all interesting. Cross-platform has led to a lot of arguments over weapon damage and the skill level of certain players that usually ends in no solutions being solved. The sheer amount of maps is certainly interesting, but most have problems, such as the skywars map with the bridges leading to mid having bricks that instantly break, some maps being blatantly stolen (and this was by a builder, mind you), and other map problems to add to the list.
That’s it for me going over the many flaws of Brokenlens. I would prefer if counterarguments were posted in Part II since it’s more relavant
READ THE WHOLE THING (including the other threads) IF YOU PLAN TO MAKE A COUNTERARGUMENT.
and
I am not making this to ruin the popularity of this server, create a fight, or hate on people. Rather, I am trying to make a suggestion. If I come off as insulting in this thread (or threads, if this gets too long and I have to split it up), that’s on me.
Wow, I’ve gone from suggesting things for people’s builds in the Map Submissions section to full out criticizing the whole server. Interesting to see how things have gone so differently than expected. Now, you expect me to start ranting about how Brokenlens is trash, or how the staff are extremely incompetent. Partially correct, in my opinion. However, before I start trying to convince Mr. Dickinson that a few small changes could cause the server to skyrocket in popularity, let’s go over the things that make this server very cool.
The friends system, which was implemented at a time when other servers did not have an easy way for players to make bonds together in-game. Mr. Dickinson’s idea of the friends system seemed to be one of the factors that resulted in the increase of popularity between 2017-2018. The leaderboard system was also implemented at a time when other servers didn’t have that as well, leading to some people staying on the server (but also lead to the creation of “sweats” who worked non-stop to win as many games as possible). The community back then was also much better, there was noteblock music in the lobby (I think), the builders are amazing at what they do, and for the most part, the staff are very helpful. And the fact that Mr. Dickinson (with the help of edw I hope I’m not excluding anyone) created and maintained this server on his own is quite the feat, though that seems to have led to some problems which I’ll explain later.
Now, onto the many flaws and other things Brokenlens seems to have brought upon itself. Because there seem to be a lot, I’m going to be separating this into 4 main parts, the problems with the pvp system, the community, Mr. Dickinson’s lack of support, and uniqueness becoming a weakness. I will try my best to provide solutions for these issues, however, I am no expert in coding so some of the more technical problems I don’t really have solutions for.
1: The pvp system. First off, I’m dedicating an entire section to different platforms like Java and Bedrock existing on the same server, so I’m only going to briefly mention it here. Now, the way players fight on the server is very questionable. Mobwars pvp doesn’t seem to depend on who’s better at pvp, rather, it’s who can camp more with the most amount of food. Unlike other servers which use natural health regeneration or one-time regeneration items like gapples or beehive’s spell of life, brokenlens has food to regenerate on, similar to the older days of Minecraft where food increased your health. It’s very interesting and seems like a great idea, however, Mr. Dickinson decided to add something called, “insta-eat”, which basically removes the eating food animation from the game. This allows people to regenerate health extremely quickly, which may be unfair to other players who have less food. Mr. Dickinson has taken this into consideration and has raised the price of certain food items in the shop, however, this has not stopped sweats from abusing the food system to win games in a matter of minutes. SkyWars pvp also seems to work similarly. Whoever can gather the most food from chests and coal ores is more likely to win the game than someone who’s just plain good at brokenlens pvp. I haven’t even mentioned the numerous glitches that happen when fights occur, the strangely increased damage of bows (which could have been added to counter food spammer, I don’t have the full details), axes and swords dealing less/more damage depending on what platform you’re playing on.
2: The toxicity on the forums. There's not much to this section but there have been many fights, often leading to thread locks. The topics range from criticism of Brokenlens to the LGBTQ Community. There have been a certain number of people who have started fights, including me. Mr. Dickinson is often accused of being lazy, and the staff often retort that “he has a life”, which is completely granted. Then the Brokenlens Discord was closed due to people being toxic, however, completely muting people on the Discord server isn’t exactly the best solution as when the general channel was opened back up for a second, the whole community decided to bombard the staff team with insults, and the channel was subsequently deleted. There have been a lot of differing opinions on the staff of Brokenlens as well. Much of the player base dislikes the staff team, mostly for false bans and mutes. Staff have also blatantly lied at points, and Brokenlens has had its fair share of staff who have gotten demoted due to reasons which I shouldn’t mention (however the posts that contain these still exist as of now if you do some digging). They also seem to not take criticism very well, however, I somewhat disagree with these accusatory statements. With most other servers, the anticheat is very good at its job, and there are few hackers, however, with Brokenlens, not only are there easy ways to bypass a ban via using alt accounts that don’t need Xbox Live, but the anticheat on Brokenlens usually only kicks people, and rarely bans people. To sum it up, it isn’t very good at its job. Thus, the staff have a lot more hackers, bypassers, and rule-breakers to deal with, meaning they can’t focus on a ban appeal or player report as much as they could if the anticheat worked better or if there were less rule-breakers. Unlike the staff on other servers who can analyze a ban appeal a lot more, the staff on Brokenlens have to make quick decisions, which has led to more people complaining about false bans and mutes.
3: The anticheat has also brought me to my next point: Mr. Dickinson’s lack of support. Now, I’m not saying the owner has to work on the server 24/7, I’ll get to the solution to that later, but it can most definitely be agreed on that Brokenlens has a lot of stuff, well, broken about it. I’ve already gone on about the insanely broken pvp system, ranging from knockback not registering properly, but also the healing system favoring people who are insanely obese, certain editions of Minecraft having advantages over others, and many more. There are many bugs that don’t have anything to do with pvp as well. I am aware the crafting table glitch is not fixed at all (It got fixed at some point but then got unfixed? I did learn that Mr. Dickinson definitely fixed it, and even tested it out, but then one of my private sources explained to me later that it still worked? And I tested that too.) Many people have complained about lag and other connectivity issues. Whether that’s their wifi being dumb or if it’s a genuine bug is not obvious to me. However, a few examples of random bugs, connection issues, and others I have experienced include:
- Entering the hub with no entities appearing at all with the chunks not loading (meaning the blocks were invisible but you could still walk on them)
- Chunks of the hub being completely missing (and no, the blocks weren’t invisible, you could actually fall into the void)
- The KrazyKarts lobby also appearing with no entities and having chunks refuse to load (I assumed it was just the sheer amount of end portals in the big circle but the lobby still refuses to load after those were changed to water)
- The error message “You can’t place blocks there!” appear while speedbridging
- Projectiles going in completely different directions than where you aimed them at.
- Block glitching in Mobwars, nothing else to say
- Joining a different lobby than the one shown when entering the server
- Spectators appearing out of nowhere
- Difficulty getting into the server, for example, getting stuck on “Locating Server” screen or the “Unable to join world” screen popping up
Now I do get that coding is very hard and all, but there’s a solution that I’ll get to later that covers all that.
4: Uniqueness being a problem. It has been stated that Brokenlens is unique, with the food system, cross platform, crews, report buttons, and a variety of different maps. Many of these aren’t helpful, but more harmful. The food system, like I’ve explained before, is broken, with it not being fun or making gameplay at all interesting. Cross-platform has led to a lot of arguments over weapon damage and the skill level of certain players that usually ends in no solutions being solved. The sheer amount of maps is certainly interesting, but most have problems, such as the skywars map with the bridges leading to mid having bricks that instantly break, some maps being blatantly stolen (and this was by a builder, mind you), and other map problems to add to the list.
That’s it for me going over the many flaws of Brokenlens. I would prefer if counterarguments were posted in Part II since it’s more relavant
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