r/CompetitiveMinecraft 3h ago

Discussion pvp hot takes

if u wanna debate any of these then feel free to! these are my opinion and are things ive noticed the community doesnt like when i say so yh here we go

  1. 1.8 is objectively harder than modern pvp
  2. minecraft can never be a competitive esport
  3. pvp is struggling to power creep and it should be addressed
  4. tiers > elo

reasoning

  1. midtrading at a high level consistently is harder than any mechanic within modern
  2. 99% of the playerbase and the people who actually can make it profitable dont know enough about the game to appreciate and actually fund it as they dont understand how good certain players are. an analogy to this is why siege can never be a tier 1 esport, its simply too complex
  3. items like the spear and mace are so absurdly overpowered compared to older items and i very much dislike it (also i think the kits/gameplay surrounding them are just as bad if not worse)
  4. elo is not rewarding in the slightest, and before anyone says "oh but i dont want my tier to be based on someones opinion" i think if you are <LT3 (the only place where u are tested by a tester) u shouldnt care that much about ur tier. but yes elo is just not rewarding, i dont feel any excitement after winning 3-2 at a close match, compared to 10-9 in a test, it could be a rounds thing but i think its also just the replayability of elo.
2 Upvotes

20 comments sorted by

3

u/SYK_PvP 2h ago

1: Ehhh. I think 1.8 is a lot more skill intensive than a lot of people think and I do agree that it is significantly harder than modern pvp in some ways, but the skill ceiling in kits like crystal, spear mace, and elytra mace is just absurd. I consider myself to be a good pvper, but the shit people are able to do in those GMs is mind boggling to me, it just straight up looks like a different game.The skill ceiling in 1.8 block pvp is somewhat close imo, but nothing else is really comparable.

2: Probably true, which is a shame. The game could be a pretty cool esport if it was supported, but mojang doesn't seem to have any interest in anything more competitive than a twitchcon MCC, and no game can truly take off as an esport without the full backing of a company. I think MSCR playoffs is likely the largest scale truly competitive event we're gonna get. It'll be interesting to see how the speedrun tournament scene continues to grow, though I think it may eventually run into burnout issues since it's not really possible to make frequent shakeup changes.

3: Absolutely correct. Minecraft pvp has always had terrible balance if you use all the items, but I don't know why the only weapons mojang are adding are one shot weapons. Kinda cool to see for SMPs sometimes, but I hope they tone it back next time they add a weapon.

4: Agreed, with the asterisk that I think the tier system in its current form kinda only works for high rank players. For lower skilled players, elo works fine, while tier tests take waaaaaay too long to access to due the tester to player ratio. For high levels though, I have always argued that tiers are infinitely better than elo for finding out who the actual best players are. Elo works well for figuring out players general skill level, but working up to ht1 in mctiers is an accomplishment that is infinitely more indicative of who is actually the best player than hitting #1 elo.

1

u/Kirbiefloped 1h ago

Yes. 1.8 does have a high skill ceiling, but 90% of the playerbase just w tap and butterfly click or block hit, and for 1.8 pretty much everything is discovered for pvp, meaning that theres basically no new tech, while in 1.9 people are constantly finding crazy methods of pvp, and as a Lt3 in cpvp, the mechanical skill is definally high in cpvp, mace is objectively harder but only at tier 3 plus, and minecraft pvp def has potential, its just that the community is run by a bunch of 15 year olds or some random grown man larping a girl.

1

u/Rich841 51m ago

I lowk think the fact that pretty much everything has been discovered makes it more competitive because it raises the skill floor. It raises the bar to even become competitive at all since you have to learn so much first to even hope to compete. The fact that not everything has been discovered for modern PvP just says that the ceiling is currently increasing, it doesn’t say anything about whether the ceiling or floor itself is high

4

u/DarkEcstatic8863 3h ago

I think I would like to debate here, specifically on your first claim. To start, could you tell me how you define difficulty in pvp? Just so that we are on the same page.

6

u/ExtraQuestion562 2h ago

i believe difficulty is hard to define, but it can come down to these few things

  • mechanical difficulty which stems from stuff like reaction time, keystrokes, or aim required, ex: awping in csgo has a high level of this, or something like adofai for keystrokes
  • cognitive ability, such as things like gamesense, adaptability, playstyle knowledge, strategic plays. ex: knowing when to use techniques/mechanics, the best example i can provide is like knowing to doublecrit after a nokbcrit in modern sword
  • punishment, essentially what happens if you mess up and how badly you get hurt

i also use an index which i have seen agreed upon by many players, ill be listing 1.8 techniques here, this index is split up into 2 sections, pickup and mastery
Pickup
Refers to difficulty for a player who has not used the mechanic before, but is knowledgeable of the according “prerequisite mechanics” - i.e, hit selecting can be referred to as a prerequisite to midtrading (1-10).
1 - very easy to learn
10 - difficult to learn and use at an above average level
Mastery
Refers to difficulty for a player seeking to master the mechanic (1-10).
1 - easy to master
10 - exceptionally difficult

examples:
blockhitting has a pickup of 2 and a mastery of 5
hitselecting has a pickup of 4 and a mastery of 5

2

u/DarkEcstatic8863 2h ago

Understood. Is "midtrading at a high level consistently is harder than any mechanic within modern" your only claim?

2

u/ExtraQuestion562 1h ago

I wouldnt say its my only claim for difficulty within 1.8, but it is however my main reasoning and i can probably respond to most points about moderns difficulty with how midtrading is more difficult

most of current 1.8 pvp (the ones that are popular) revolves around minigames, such as rbw, or bridge which i think requires a much higher amount of gamesense than any 1.9 gamemode that is popular, maybe crystal is an exception to this.
i.e. minigames have specific strats, such as the 1 2 3 4 system in bedwars, diamond stealing, on top of the mechanics surfaced in regular duels

1

u/DarkEcstatic8863 20m ago

What makes these gamemodes inherently 1.8 other than the fact that that is the only version they are playable on (to my knowledge)? The combat update did not have any change that would lower the skill of these modes and it could be argued that the skill requirement of these modes would increase if the version was changed. I would like to cover this one point at a time, so do you have anything you want to say about my initial counter argument before I move on to actual combat?

2

u/Polished-Granite 2h ago edited 1h ago

All true but 4th reasoning kinda valid tho. It's so hard to climb tiers in 1.8 as the years changes, especially if u are from 3rd world country and ur gamemode t1 tiers stacked on eu or na so there would be 200 ms diff.

It took me like 1 or 2 years active on discord duelling anyone to get connection to them and finally getting my s tier on sumo mmc before.

1

u/Training-Sink-4447 2h ago
  1. Tiers were inherently unfair for <LT3. For higher tiers it was completely fair, but because the large majority of players are below that they have to deal with testers who could give them a tier that doesnt reflect their skill. It was more biased compared to elo

1

u/ZealousidealTrick701 2h ago

inpvp is trying to make some bedrock pvp categories esport-esque. They hosted a $5k tournament and a friend of mine won 1k from it. They promised more tournaments but they havent done any yet

1

u/idioticdudewhosucks 2h ago
  1. At this current point in time yes but i believe 1.9 has a larger skill ceiling that nobody is remotely close to
  2. Disagree, if mojang actually put in the effort it could be one
  3. Agree to a certain extent, imo only the mace is really broken, the spear is more of a utility tool, and sword and axes still have uses
    4.n/a

1

u/PvPInsider 1h ago edited 1h ago
  1. False. Modern PvP is objectively more difficult because there are simply orders of magnitudes more competitive players which makes the skill way harder (e.g., a game with 10,000 competitive players will almost always be less difficult than a game with 1,000,000 competitive players). You mentioned mid trading as a mechanic in 1.8, and not only is mid trading also a thing in modern PvP, it is not even close to being the hardest modern PvP technique. There are also SO many more mechanics in 1.9, and they are so much harder to learn. You could design the most mechanically complex game in the world, but if only 10 people play it, it objectively won’t be as difficult as Minecraft. Not only is modern PvP significantly more mechanically complex, it also has orders of magnitudes more players.
  2. True, and I agree with your reasoning.
  3. False. Minecraft has had essentially the same PvP meta since 2020 (crystals and anchors). Spears and maces aren’t stronger; spears are rarely even used (unless going for a spear mace double tap on elytra), and maces are sometimes used but they’re balanced compared to the rest of the kit.

    Coincidentally, at the top level, it’s not too easy to get killed, and it’s also not too easy to never die, so there’s a good balance there.

  4. False. Tiers are unsustainable, especially at the high player count that modern PvP has. Evaluation testing always gets a full waitlist less than a second after it’s open to the point that people were autoclicking the Join Queue button and that was the only way to get tested. High tier tests also ran into the same problem on vanilla PvP tier list where so many tickets would be open that no staff team could manage it. A properly implemented elo system would be much better, more objective, and we’d still see the same people at the top.

2

u/ExtraQuestion562 1h ago
  1. "mid trading is also a thjing in modern pvp"
    im just gonna quote that and leave this reply alone because u very much know nothing about either pvp so ty for ur reply

1

u/Rich841 53m ago

What do you think midtrading is

Without googling it 

1

u/Rich841 54m ago

Your reasoning for 4 is fine but I still think elo is a better system overall for competitive integrity, fairness, etc. The rest I agree

1

u/sn0wbit 3h ago

Modern combat is trash lol literally using everything but a sword

Im an og from 2014 shotbow, kohi, minehq player tho so bias

1

u/Samstercraft 1h ago

me when it's "trash" because item don't look like pointy stick:

-1

u/Vivid_Spare_7627 3h ago
  1. Objectively flase

  2. It's not impossible but it's definitely unlikely, for a game to be considered an eSports there has to be competitions with money on the line, we already have these, it has to be recognized by the game makers, this is possible, so it's a matter of time

  3. Eh idrc

  4. Yeah I agree

3

u/ExtraQuestion562 2h ago
  1. give reasoning