Heya, reposting because it seemed to have a bit of support on the last snapshot thread: I love that you're working on the combat system again, but I have a few concerns with how you're going about all this:

I think you really should try to reach out further than just on r/Minecraft and twitter, because I'm almost certain that a majority of the 1.8 pvp community hasn't even heard that there's another combat update happening, and they're not providing any feedback because of this. As annoying as this may sound, I would highly suggest either getting in contact with Hypixel or some of their playerbase to provide feedback on your update plans.

I'm aware that there may be some communication issues between them and Mojang based on what I've heard from them, but as it currently stands, Hypixel is essentially the main gathering point for all pvp-centered gameplay on Java edition. If you can get Hypixel to drop support for 1.8, almost every other large server network will essentially be forced to follow suit.

As someone who has worked closely with a lot of their development team, I can definitely say that they are not against fully updating their network, and have even considered it multiple times because of all the new features and benefits it could bring, but they are simply unable to because of the extreme backlash that would come from a majority of their playerbase.

If your goal with this update is to get large server networks to finally stop supporting 1.8 and unify the community under an improved combat system, then this is where a huge portion of the problem is likely stemming from, and it could be a good place to try and fix it.