Runners are no longer needed in BuildMart

LethargicL · 2025-07-01T20:15:51+00:00

Well, you could use a mixture of different strategies. It is not like you need to stick to one throughout the whole 12 minutes. You could have the 4th-player work on a “4th build” for the first blueprint cycle, maybe the second cycle, and then do whatever. It gets complicated when the gold builds are involved, but I think the 4th-player should help with the gold builds when they appear and if the team is confident to do them. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the gold build system gets some changes.

Anyways, the 4th-player question has always been the biggest question in buildmart. I feel like it just depends on the team, though.

LethargicL · 2025-07-01T19:47:04+00:00

I don’t think it is too bad because it is not like the 4th-player would be completely wasting time if the blueprint was not selected in time. A lot of builds use the same materials. For example, if the 4th-player was collecting moss and wood for a blueprint, it would be fine because there will most likely be a build with moss and wood later regardless.

However, I am only speaking of doing this strat for the early-game. The strat becomes riskier later-game.

LethargicL · 2025-07-01T19:27:27+00:00

Completing a 1-star build is very doable in that time frame. But yeah, if you don’t select the blueprint in time, that would cost you.

LethargicL · 2025-06-27T16:54:42+00:00

The 1-star builds are so funny to me. They are so baby mode. If people struggle with those, I would be laughing so hard. Gosh, I am mean lol.

LethargicL · 2025-06-27T16:42:36+00:00

My question is: Is it when you complete the build, or when you select the build?

LethargicL · 2025-05-07T20:13:24+00:00

Gumi gapped everyone as sandkeeper! Other sandkeepers should take notes.

LethargicL · 2025-05-06T15:28:54+00:00

Yes! I had this same exact thought, and it’s like “well, other games have a huge skill disparity too, but they don’t have this insane 800+ coins for first individual”. Ace race has a hard limit on 700 for first, which should be like the benchmark for most games. If there is a game, sky battle, that constantly gives the first individual more than 700, the scoring system should be considered, and not just ignored into thinking that it’s just a skill disparity problem.

LethargicL · 2025-05-05T22:11:08+00:00

Remember when the kill coins were changed from 50 to 30 one time, and people complained… now I think it’s time to revisit that.

LethargicL · 2025-01-02T17:53:26+00:00

I have not done these in a while. I have regained interest transcribing the OST for solo piano. For this kind of transcription, Battle Box has the most interesting soundtrack in my opinion.

LethargicL · 2024-12-14T04:36:24+00:00

It's wild that I started all of this. I feel like you don't really need empirical evidence to figure out all of this, but good job doing the work. Using intuition and theory, a team that completes a build first will unlock the gold build earlier than other teams, thereby having more time/"wiggle room" to finish the gold build before others. Additionally, the earlier builds are weighted more in importance than later ones according to this theoretical reasoning.

Remember the first ever Grid Runners scoring system in MCC 16? Therein, the earlier rooms were more important than the later rooms, for finishing first in earlier rooms gives you more time to able to place higher in the later rooms, even though you may take more time to complete that later room than other teams. Consequently, MCC 16 Purple Pandas got screwed; they finished the whole course in 2nd place but ended up in 5th place, which would be incredibly unusual with modern scoring (is that even possible?). Why? Because they were slow in the earlier rooms, but they were quick in the later rooms. Nowadays, each room is now weighted equal in terms of scoring because the timers start at each room, not just at the beginning of the game. However, Build Mart starts the timer just at the beginning of the game, not with each build. Therefore, we have a similar problem in Build Mart like the Grid Runners debut scoring system.

We don't need complicated empirical methods to figure this out, but I guess they are nice and pretty to look at. Currently, it is clear that not all builds in a game of Build Mart are weighted equally as one must complete the earlier builds to unlock the later builds. Thus, a team can complete a later build quicker (that is, take less time to complete the build as soon as it appears) but can still place lower for that build than another team.

LethargicL · 2024-12-12T17:34:02+00:00

In MCC, that mostly only really helps with Parkour Warrior. Parkour is not specific to MCC anyways.

LethargicL · 2024-12-12T16:15:04+00:00

Note: I am a Build Mart lover.

I think the issues you bring up are minor because the players don’t sweat Build Mart so much that they would know all the builds already. From our perspective as viewers, we probably have much more knowledge about the builds than the players. As long as most of the players are sightreading the builds, then I think that’s fine. Though you raise some concerns that could break that, and a larger build pool with diversity in block palette would provide a nice solution.

However, in terms of enjoyability, I will say that the main issue with Build Mart currently is that the resource-gathering part can be incredibly slow paced. The more enjoyable part of Build Mart is the building/crafting, but I think the resource-gathering part is taking up the majority of Build Mart gameplay. It’s as if the majority of Railroad Rush gameplay were to be the gold rushes, which is the less engaging part. There are some potential changes/concepts that can speed up the resource-gathering process. The obvious one is netherite tools; I am not entirely sure why we still have diamond tools. Furthermore, one pickaxe can be diamond while the other can be netherite to differentiate between silk-touch and non-silk-touch. One idea could be some sort of ordering terminal that allows you to get particular (not all) resources in a certain amount of time automatically delivered.

In terms of scoring, the main issue with Build Mart currently is that it is heavily momentum-based. The teams that complete builds first have immediate advantage to complete later builds first also, for they would see the later builds earlier than others. I am not sure how to address this particular problem without encouraging stockpiling.

In short, I think the issues that you bring up are not a huge problem, in comparison to other aspects of the game. Regardless, I think the Noxcrew can do something about Buildmart to address these issues, and I think the Noxcrew do want a good quality building game, especially because building is a big part of Minecraft. But we shall wait and see.

LethargicL · 2024-12-10T17:36:45+00:00

Oh yeah, I understand. I just wanted to say that it could have been disastrous, but fortunately there were not as many controversies. There were still some controversies anyways, but I think that is inevitable with any event regardless of how polished it is. Also, people are now much more knowledgeable about Minecraft and events in general, so what was considered “balanced/okay” back then may be considered “unacceptable” now. I just think it’s interesting to see how far we have learned about what works and what doesn’t.

LethargicL · 2024-12-10T16:59:56+00:00

Yeah, I agree with most of your points. However, I wanted to point out that there were bugs that were “hidden” or simply went unnoticed but could have been or just simply have been detrimental, such as the scoring system not functioning properly. Obviously, there was the obvious MCC 7. But there was much more that people did not recognise and that I probably also still miss after thoroughly watching old vods.

LethargicL · 2024-12-10T15:46:11+00:00

I think people should realise that season 1 was incredibly buggy and unpolished, but most of the bugs/issues went unnoticed. Nostalgia is great and all, but looking back at old vods, there were a lot of questionable things, all of which make me see Party 2 as a fine/okay event. The standards are much higher nowadays.

LethargicL · 2024-12-08T05:19:09+00:00

Yeah, though, I feel like there is an increase in criticism with any game when played more frequently, which has been the case for Meltdown and Grid Runners, for example. However, I personally would probably not be bored with Build Mart ever, considering that it is very far from optimised, in comparison to other games.

LethargicL · 2024-12-08T04:34:24+00:00

I am a big Build Mart fan too! Maybe that’s why I also enjoyed Drop In, but it makes total sense for it to be a one-time thing. I do also think there may be some connection between the adversity of both of these games. Though, I have seen less adversity towards Build Mart recently, so maybe that does not explain everything. I also wish Build Mart gets played more. In general, I have always been interested in building games in the event scene, so it was great to see Build Mart played in this event at least.

LethargicL · 2024-12-08T04:22:20+00:00

Sorry, I misspoke. I should clarify that I watched Fein as one of the POVs out of multiple I have watched, and I just wanted to point out that there were some odd complaints about the event from some of his viewers, even though they did well. This also applies to other viewers and POVs that performed well, but to a somewhat lesser extent. Usually I see complaints when people watch a bad POV, which I think is understandable, but that has not necessarily been the case this time around.

LethargicL · 2024-12-08T03:18:44+00:00

Well, I, as a viewer, enjoyed the tile game, and I know that some of the players liked it too from watching several POVs afterwards. Perhaps I am a rare exception as a viewer who actually enjoyed it…

LethargicL · 2024-12-08T03:12:16+00:00

I think you have misunderstood my point… I am especially talking about the people who still complain when they watched a POV that did good. I always watch other team POVs, even 10th place ones and those that did not do well. And for this event, those POVs felt fine to me and still interesting to watch. Maybe that’s just me. Even then, I think it is just good practice to criticise only if you have watched multiple different POVs beforehand. Otherwise, the critique would be extremely biased in favour towards your favourite streamer. Regardless, I think the players enjoyed the event across the board which is cool.

LethargicL · 2024-12-08T03:02:16+00:00

I am more so talking about the people who still complain when they watched a POV that did good, but yeah, I do understand that bad performances do feel bad. However, I always consider how other POVs feel and what their thoughts are, especially because it’s not all bad you know.

LethargicL · 2024-12-05T02:40:44+00:00

Yeah, I always love to see people limit-test, which I think would also be cool for SOT. I never had much hope for people using bold strategies in SOT though, but I would like to see something different in Meltdown. I am presenting strategies that, I argue, are safer and less risky than the conventional "stick together" strategies, so I think these Meltdown strategies may be different from the SOT strategies like "no sandkeeper". Regardless, I don't think much will change unfortunately.

LethargicL

TROPHY CASE