SkyBlock Summer August 1st - 9AM PST/11AM CST/12PM EST IP: PLAY.GGMC.ME Hello everyone! We could call this release SkyBlock "mid" summer at this point, but nevertheless, its here! What's New? SkyBlock Spring was our first SB release using all of our shiny new back-end systems I've been quietly developing over the past year. We've learned a lot, refined a lot, and have taken a ton of feedback from you guys. SkyBlock Summer aims to add a slew of new features and address some of the major issues of SkyBlock's past. We plan to uphold an alternating 2-4 week update schedule to continually take SB suggestions, balance updates, and bug fixes. Without further ado, here's what you can look forward to! ► JourneyBook v2 Many of you have grown tired of the same old JourneyBook time and time again, so we've done a complete revamp to spice things up! JourneyBook v2 is so feature packed it would take a full post to cover, and I don't want to spoil the fun, so for now I'll leave you guys with some screenshot teasers A few additional notes about the JourneyBook: Each Journey will last 12 weeks (3 months), with new challenges to complete each week. If you don't finish all the challenges of a certain week, you'll still be able to finish them later! At the end of the 12 week Journey, a brand new Journey will begin, with another 12 weeks to explore. ► Top Island Monopolies SkyBlock Summer will address a huge issue that has been plaguing the balance of OP SkyBlock for a long while now: scaling SkyNotes. Scaling notes are money-granting items that grant more money (SBGGs) depending on your Island Level. They can traditionally be found in all of our voting crates. These notes were originally designed as an incentive to vote and attend Vote Parties even if you are in the later stages in the game, when flat money values aren't very attractive. However, a meta has evolved where the top islands stand to gain the most money from notes, and thus are able to buy scaling notes for much more than they are worth to the seller, and much more than anyone else is willing to buy them for. Long story short, this gives the top couple of islands on the server massive control over the entire economy, forming a monopoly and making them virtually unstoppable. It's not all bad though, scaling notes can be good in healthy doses; the problem now seems to be that there are simply too many of them. For SkyBlock Summer, we are dramatically reducing the number of scaling notes in the server, removing them entirely from some crates, having them cash out instantly in others, and preserving them in only a select few places (like in the Insanity and Mystery crate). ► Hopper Optimizations Many of you have seen how bad the TPS can get in SBSpring, and this is largely due to hoppers. Now, we've optimized hoppers just about as much as they can be, but the sheer number of them you guys need to operate your islands still creates lag after a month or so. We're looking to reduce the number of hoppers necessary per island in order to naturally combat this issue in a way that makes the game more fun rather than more restrictive. Now, the changes we're making to address hoppers might seem weird at first, but bear with me; it will all make sense when you learn about The Chunker. Hopper limit on islands have been reduced at all upgrade levels. Croppers have become much more common in the JourneyBook. There is now a Cropper blueprint. I'm new, what's a Cropper? Glad you asked. The Cropper is a special hopper that will pick up any farming items (crops) that drop in the same chunk. Very useful way to consolidate your hopper counts! ► The Chunker The Chunker is a new item, essentially the evolved form of the Cropper. It will collect ANY drops in a chunk, greatly reducing the need for lots of hoppers in your grinders. The primary way to obtain the Chunker is via the Chunker blueprint, which will require some XP, SBGGs, and a Cropper to craft! See, now Croppers aren't useless late game! I've spent a ton of time reading through all of your feedback and suggestions while coming up with these solutions. Personally, I think these changes will help make gameplay in SkyBlock Summer more exciting, creative, and strategic than ever. With notes being a much less viable way to grind cash in the early game, I'm anticipating a return to our more traditional OP SkyBlock early and late games, fully utilizing all of our new custom tools. I'm extremely excited to see what kinds of systems you guys come up with to break the game this time! Finally, here is an incomplete list of many of the other changes you can expect at launch: Insanity Crate has been significantly changed up. Added even more starter Islands. Added a more audible sound to the AFK captcha. Re-added the Spawner Hopper. Added a Spawner Hopper blueprint. Increased AuctionHouse max sell price. Seller's Wand blueprints now give 500 use wands, up from 150. Changed the graphics on many of the blueprint items (WIP). New cosmetic item: Posters. New event bundle: Skewl. Users can now claim rewards for previous JB chapters when purchasing the JourneyPass late. A new update strategy, where we will continually add new features like these for months to come I forgot, what's a Spawner Hopper again? Glad you asked. The Spawner Hopper is a hopper you can connect to one of your stacked Spawners to stack it automatically instead of having to place them! I'm super excited for everyone to hop in and see all of these updates on August 1st! Thank you, and as always, I love to hear your feedback.
Looks awesome, looking forward to it. Not going for island top any more, I'm interested in other projects that could be lucrative!
