I know there have been many threads similar to this, but this one has one key difference (make sure to read the last three paragraphs, its much more important than everything else here).
Main Points of My Talks at Google Presentation
So when you are playing SG, and there are only 6 players left, do you ever think about why you are running around forever looking for people? It often can take a few minutes to find people, and the effort the person with the most kills put into killing people to get loot is often useless. The kill leader might get the armor that they take to deathmatch less than five minutes into the game. Those same items can be acquired in 10 minutes from chests, supply drops, and cows. Keep in mind that deathmatch almost always happens at least 10 minutes into the game. Due to that, there is no reason to fight people until deathmatch half of the time, unless you want the XP.
To end the issue of running forever, and not being able to find other players (and to make being the kill leader more useful) I suggest that a moving world border is added, similar to [insert Battle Royale of choice here]. This could add some suspense to the game. Think about how intense UHCs are or [insert Battle Royale here] is when there is barely any space left, and players have to take cover from multiple opponents at the same time, or they could be killed. It also adds another layer of strategy. For example, when you are chasing somebody, you could cut them off and force them to stick to the border, where you can then either force them into the border, or force a fight.
I get that moving giant walls of blocks, or having a layer of particles can be really tough on low end devices. A solution to this would be just to replace all non air blocks above [insert lowest Y coordinate that can be seen by a player] to [insert[insert color] block]. For example, the border could be red concrete, so everywhere outside of the border would just be red.
Now for what would happen if you were outside of the border. I suggest that if you were outside of the border, you get the wither effect. I would say that the player should get a lesser effect, like deadly poison, but due to how fast the player could move, when compared to the border, I think wither would be a reasonable effect.
Now for the size of each ring. Personally, I think the first ring should get rid of 2/3 of the map’s useable space. It lets players space out at the start, when the player density is high, but by the time when it gets done, it leaves the player density at a decent level. You should never have to spend minutes looking for somebody, but you can certainly get away from everybody else if you don’t enjoy fights, or if you need to get more items. Then, at the second ring, roughly half of the area left should be removed. Just to clarify, when I give these fractions, I don’t mean that in a map with a diameter of 900 blocks, the first ring would have a diameter of 300, I am suggesting that the ring would get rid of 2/3 of the map’s area, which might be closer to a ring with a diameter 600. This second ring would allow for the few players that are left to find each other, and get the player count down to under 8, if I had to guess. Now for the third and final ring, the positioning of the other rings is very important to this ring.
My idea for the positioning is to just have the rings based around the center of the map. The reason this would be the best way is because when you think about it, how annoying would a fight be on SG4, when one player is inside of a building that can only be accessed through the border? Then look at the maps, most of the maps, SG4 especially, have the spawn built up like a deathmatch arena, it could allow for some great close quarters fights if you had 4+ players stuck in that area.
The diameter of the third ring shouldn’t be the same for every map. You might want the final border to be smaller on one map than another due to the location of buildings, or one map having a cliff that can only be climbed by going through the border.
Now, you might be thinking, why even bother with a third border, death match would happen by then, right? I suggest that death match is when the third border closes in. This death match would be different though. The normal map would be used in its current state for the arena. It would be just like the rest of the game, just smaller and more intense. There would be no transition into death match, just the ring closing in and everyone getting inside of it. (This was the main difference)
For the timing of the rings, I suggest that the first ring starts closing in at the end of the grace period, and gets finished three minutes into the game. This does make the outside of the map a very risky area to go to, but that could be countered by making a certain percentage of the crates tier two. For the second ring, I suggest that it starts closing in one minute after the first ring starts, just enough time for players to get what they want from the edge of the ring. I suggest that it stops shrinking a minute after it starts, because it isn’t that much smaller than the first ring after all. For the third ring, I suggest that it starts shrinking 2 minutes after the 2nd ring, and ends at the ten minute mark. The third ring won’t make the players rush to get in, just a gentle nudge towards the center of the map.
In conclusion, the addition of a moving border to SG wouldn’t only make the game more intense, but add a layer of strategy that can be seen and used by anybody. It will make the game more interesting by controlling what parts of the map you go to in certain stages of the game. It also makes the game more fast paced, while also allowing the same intense fights at the end, but allowing them to be even more intense. It’s a large change, but a highly requested one(there are a few threads similar to this), and this is what betas are for (SG is still in beta). I think that if this was added, it wouldn’t just increase the player count of SG, but of Hive as a whole. At the very least, I think a lot of players would enjoy having something like this added.
