Block Party: Map Balancing (Part 1)

Introduction
Hello dear reader! My name is zachary5149 and I have been playing Block Party for… well let’s just say it’s been a long time! I couldn’t be happier that Block Party is finally out and I cannot wait to see it develop as time goes on! I have so much I want to discuss and I would like to start by offering a video for people to watch instead of reading my thread!

YouTube Video Link: A Comprehensive Review of Bedrock Block Party - YouTube
(You can also search “A Comprehensive Review of Bedrock Block Party” by zachary5149)

Suggestion #2: Map Balancing
I talk about this A LOT more in the video but after analyzing the maps, the best spots and the minimum amount of time required for each map to be completely doable (on all 47 or so maps), there are too many that are doable only with 1.5 seconds or more (2.0, etc).
The actual suggestion is to rebalance a lot of the maps so that there are more maps viable at 0.5-1s. As it stands rn, there is only FOUR MAPS I found that are 0.5s viable (lowest in BP history, by far)

2.0s: 2/47 (4.26%)
1.5s: 17/47 (36.17%)
1.0s: 24/47 (51.06%)
0.5s: 4/47 (8.51%)

(these #s are not set in stone, but I am confident in how accurate they are)

I am voting just based on the amount of research you must have done for this post. Also don’t forget to vote for your own post, and maybe at some point combine parts one and two of this post. :smile:

Block Party is a game of reaction time and using your powerups, such as the leap or speed/jump boost, correctly. Does it really need huge map balancing? In my opinion no. If all maps were doable within 0.5-1.0 seconds, it wouldn’t even require skill anymore.

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I elaborated on this a lot more in my video but to make a long story short, in my opinion, powerups are not and should never be how you should aim on winning all your games in Block Party. In the original Block Party, powerups were nowhere near as suffocating as they are in this version. And that turns people who are good at reacting and surviving later in games away. Along with that, a large number of maps currently in the pool have a lot of colors missing with 0.5s of reaction time, meaning there is a good chance you’ll die even if you’re at the best spot. Not to mention that 40% of all the maps can only be done at 1.5s or less. FURTHERMORE! You can disguise the best spots making them harder to find (another huge undeniable skill that separates good Block Party players from great ones)

Ultimately it just comes down to a difference of opinion. The many tryhards I have spoken to from other Versions of BP (including old Hive) are not happy with what they are seeing as non-powerup-related skill is so depreciated.

I do appreciate what Hive did by reviving one of their own gamemodes, but this is not the same Block Party. So unless there are tournaments that specifically ban powerups, I won’t be playing this BP all that often sadly.

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You cannot really compare Java Block Party to Bedrock Block Party tho. Bedrock covers touch, controller and keyboard and mouse players whilst Java only has kbm players. Mobile players can’t even sprint and move properly, so making the game like java would make it almost impossible for them to play. Powerups are there to help, whilst some are more helpful than others, there is no need to fully remove them. 3 out of 4 powerups are fairly balanced, and the color teleporter would just need some adjustments for it to be balanced as well. :wink:

Furthermore, it isn’t the goal of Block Party to always survive all 25 rounds, the game wants you to fall, once you cannot react in time anymore. Why should they make it possible to always be able to get to the chosen color within 0.5 seconds? And even if it is slightly luck based, if you fall you can simply join another game and play again, that is also what every block party is about in the end phase.

I see where you are coming from, but making it nearly like Java isn’t something Hive can do with their Bedrock version. If you prefer Java Block Party, I’m sure there still are servers that offer it. :smile:

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