MobArena Versions Save

Added

• Support for chest references in item syntax. The new inv syntax allows for referencing container indices in the config-file. This should help bridge the gap between class chests and various other parts of the config-file, such as rewards and upgrade waves.
• Support for saved items. The new /ma save-item command can be used to save the currently held item to disk, which allows it to be used in various places in the config-file. This should help bridge the gap between the config-file and class chests for config-file centric setups.
• New per-arena setting monster-teleporting allows monsters to teleport inside the arena region. This should allow for stuff like /tp commands and for Endermen to "do their thing".
• New permission mobarena.admin.errors for better error visibility. Players with this permission will get a message if an arena encounters an error. Currently, the only such error is the one resulting from Spigot's "max max health" setting throwing an exception when monster health is set "too high".

Fixed

• Explosion damage caused by Exploding Sheep now correctly counts as monster damage. This means that the explosions only affect other mobs if the per-arena setting monster-infight is set to true.
• Explosion damage caused by the boss ability obsidian-bomb now correctly counts as monster damage. This means that the explosions only affect other mobs if the per-arena setting monster-infight is set to true.
• An old discrepancy with auto start timers in the auto-ready logic has been removed. This fixes an issue in MobArenaStats where the extension would throw errors in arenas with auto-ready: true and a non-zero auto start timer. Note that the combination of auto-ready: true and a default-class now requires the use of a start-delay-timer to prevent the arena from starting immediately when the first player joins.
• Signs in arena regions, as well as Arena Signs anywhere, can no longer be edited by right-clicking.
• Signs now correctly restore themselves again in arenas with soft-restore: true.

Stats and Placeholders and Tools, oh my!

It's safe to say that it's been a while since the last MobArena update, and while MobArena 0.107 does bring a flurry of bug fixes and a handful of exciting new features, it may seem a little underwhelming to some.

However, the main focus of this update is actually not so much about the plugin itself, but about the ancillary projects that have cropped up around it. It is my pleasure to introduce the first two official MobArena extensions:

• MobArenaStats, a basic persistent stats collection plugin that runs alongside MobArena and uses its events to record various data points about each session and the players that participate in it. The plugin extends MobArena with a handful of commands to interact with the data, but its focus is mainly to just collect session stats in a database (SQLite, MySQL, or MariaDB) so that server owners can make their own leaderboards however they want.
• MobArenaPlaceholders, a PlaceholderAPI expansion for MobArena. It adds placeholders for MobArena itself, but it also hooks into MobArenaStats, which makes it possible to make in-game leaderboards using third-party plugins dedicated to that kind of stuff. A big thanks to @Maroon28 for getting this project on its feet!

The projects live in the new MobArena organization on GitHub, and they are free, open source software, just like MobArena is. GitHub Releases and GitHub Actions are currently the only distribution channels, but that may change in the future (dedicated Spigot resource for Stats, PAPI eCloud publishing for Placeholders).

Note that both projects require MobArena 0.107 or later to work!

There is also a little bonus project, Mule's Tools, a place for web-based utilities that can aid in working with MobArena config-files. The only available tool right now is the Wave Analyzer, which helps visualize the wave progression of an arena (which waves will spawn at which wave number).

Goodbye 1.8 and 1.12

MobArena has a long history of maintaining backwards compatibility for older server versions for as long as possible. The strategy was to target older versions of the Bukkit API, which has had major breaking changes en masse since 1.9. As the API continues to evolve, additional breaking changes are inevitable, and this makes it increasingly difficult to maintain backwards compatibility, while also adding support for modern aspects of the game.

I believe everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy MobArena if they want to. However, the effort required to maintain support for 1.8 and 1.12 has become a significantly limiting factor in the further development of the plugin. That's why I have decided to drop support for versions prior to 1.13, and as a result, there are no builds for 1.8 and 1.12 this time around.

If anyone would like to continue to maintain versions of MobArena for 1.8 and/or 1.12, please feel free to hit me up on Discord, and I'll help you get started. I will leave the respective branches in the repo for a while, so anyone else can fork the project and pick up where I left off.

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Added

• New monster variant angry-bees can be used to spawn angry bees.
• Husks, drowned, piglins, hoglins, and zoglins can now be spawned in their baby versions using the baby prefix seen on other monster types (e.g. baby-zombie).
• Pet names are now per-class configurable via the optional pet-name property, which defaults to <display-name>'s pet (the <player-name> variable is also supported).
• New per-arena setting auto-leave-on-end can be used to automatically "kick" spectators when the current session ends.
• New per-arena setting clear-wave-leeway allows for tweaking the number of mobs allowed to be alive before the next wave spawns. The setting affects clear-wave-before-next, clear-wave-before-boss, and the final wave check, and it defaults to 0.
• New per-arena setting auto-ignite-fuse makes the fuse time for auto-ignited TNT configurable. The unit is ticks and defaults to 80.
• Added boss abilities disorient-all, fetch-all, pull-all, and throw-all. These abilities work like their target-specific and distance-based counterparts, but affect all players in the arena.
• (API) MobArena's internal command handler now supports registering pre-instantiated subcommand instances. This should make it easier for extensions to avoid the Singleton anti-pattern for command dependencies.
• (API) MobArena now fires MobArenaPreReloadEvent and MobArenaReloadEvent before and after, respectively, reloading its config-file. This should allow extensions and other plugins to better respond to configuration changes.

Changed

• MobArena now targets the Minecraft 1.19 version of the Spigot API (but still works on 1.13-1.18). This should make it easier to tackle feature requests and bug reports related to modern Minecraft.
• Monsters are no longer stripped of the weapons they spawn with naturally, only their armor. This should improve forwards compatibility with new weapon-reliant monsters.
• The regex pattern for the player list command is now less greedy, so it will only match on /ma players, /ma playerlist, and /ma player-list. The previous pattern matched on anything that starts with player, which rendered the /ma player-stats command in MobArenaStats impossible to invoke.

Fixed

• Pillagers and vindicators no longer spawn without their much-needed weapons.
• Piglins, piglin brutes, and hoglins no longer zombify. This fixes a bug where the mobs would despawn due to the zombification process.
• Zombies, husks, drowned, zombie villagers, piglins, hoglins, and zoglins without the baby prefix are now forced into adulthood to prevent them from occasionally spawning as babies.
• Evokers are once again capable of spawning vexes on 1.18.1+.
• Reward groups with nothing in them no longer cause errors when earned/granted.
• The title-based announcer and the title-based boss health bar have been fixed to work with the breaking change to the Title API in Spigot 1.17.
• Arena Signs now correctly update for arenas that don't have kebab-case names in the config-file.
• Block explosion events cancelled by other plugins now remain cancelled unless MobArena specifically uncancels them for an arena.
• Flaming arrows now ignite TNT blocks in the arena.
• Players no longer take fall damage when they leave (or get removed from) an arena while falling.
• Players no longer take damage from projectiles shot by pets of other players.
• Normal shulker boxes are now properly removed from inventories of players using the My Items class.
• Class pets are now correctly removed from the arena when their owner dies, rather than when they leave.
• MobArena no longer nags players with the mobarena.admin.teleport permission when they engage in a teleport that would have otherwise been blocked.
• MobArena now correctly sets the source property on auto-ignited TNT.

Added

• It is now possible to write custom formulas for wave growth in Default Wave, swarm amounts in Swarm Waves, and boss health in Boss Waves, allowing for much more control and fine-tuning. The formulas support various session-related variables as well as various mathematical operators and functions. Formulas can be predefined as macros in the new formulas.yml file. Check the wiki for details.

Changed

• bStats Metrics client updated to 2.2.1.
• MobArena now uses Github Actions instead of Travis CI. This should make it easier to get development builds directly from Github for those interested.

Fixed

• Arena signs in unloaded or missing worlds no longer break the startup procedure. Sign data is stored in a new format that MobArena will automatically migrate to on a per-world basis during startup.

Minor breaking changes

MobArena 0.105 includes a rework of how arenas and classes are referenced, both internally in the plugin, but also in permissions, commands, etc. Instead of the ambiguous and arbitrary "config names", MobArena now uses "slugs", which just means a kebab-case version of a name. For example, the slug for an arena named "Castle of Doom" will be castle-of-doom, and the slug for the implicit "My Items" class is my-items. All commands that take arena or class names as arguments will tab complete slugs, so they should be fairly easy to figure out.

The goal of this change is to make the plugin more consistent about arena and class references in commands, permissions, etc., as well as to allow for multi-word names. Backwards compatibility has taken a backseat for the sake of maintainability and clarity, so certain adjustments may be necessary in some setups:

• Permissions: All permissions for arenas and classes must be changed to the new slug-based permission keys. For example, the permission for the "My Items" class is now mobarena.classes.my-items.
• Class signs: It may be necessary to recreate the signs for classes with multi-word names. The name on the sign should match the name in the config-file (or the slug). For example, My Items (or my-items) instead of Myitems.
• Default classes: The per-arena setting default-class may need to be adjusted. The class name should match the name in the config-file (or the slug). For example, if the default class is "My Items", the value should be My Items (or my-items).
• Custom integrations: Custom commands or integrations may need to be adjusted accordingly. If you're running a setup like that, you probably already know what you're doing and what you need to do. If not, hop on Discord.

Added

• A new ready state is now available for arena sign templates. Signs are in this state when all players in the lobby have readied up, but the arena has not yet started due to a start delay timer. Check the wiki for details.
• Arena signs now support dynamic list entry variables for 4 different player lists. As an example, <notready-1> results in the name of a player in the lobby who hasn't readied up yet. This is useful for visualizing who is holding up the lobby. Check the wiki for details.
• Elytra are now supported chest pieces in class chests.
• Boss names now support color codes.
• New per-arena setting arena-warp-offset can be used to spread out players randomly by an offset from the arena warp. This should help prevent players taking suffocation damage.
• New per-arena setting announcer-type determines where to display per-arena announcements such as wave spawns, auto start timers, boss abilities, and death messages. Options are title (default) or chat.
• It is now possible to group rewards. For example, all(stick, bone) results a stick and a bone, while random(all(stick, bone), all(dirt, stone)) results in getting either a stick and a bone or a dirt block and a stone block.
• The new nothing keyword can be used to not grant a reward. This can be used in a crude way to create "loot table"-style reward systems where there is a chance that something is reward, but it might also just be nothing.
• Boss rewards also support the all() and random() functions as well as the nothing keyword.
• New command /ma addreward <player> <thing> can be used to add a reward to an arena player's reward list. This can be useful for hooking into the rewards system from scripts or other plugins.
• The /ma addarena and /ma autogenerate commands now supports multi-word arena names.

Changed

• The Root Target ability now uses potion effects (slowness, slow falling, and negative jump boost) instead of repeated teleports. This should make for a smoother root experience.
• Permissions for arenas and classes are now based on "slugs". It is now possible to configure permissions for arenas and classes with multi-word names (including "My Items"). Check the Permissions page on the wiki for details.
• Commands that resolve arena and/or class names now consistently resolve and tab complete "slugs" instead of arbitrarily "squashed" names. This greatly improves support for multi-word names.
• The class signs generated by the /ma autogenerate command now use class names from the config-file instead of arbitrarily "squashed" names.
• Leaderboards now use arena and class names from the config-file instead of arbitrarily "prettified" names.
• Using spectate-on-death: true no longer forces players out to their join location/exit warp before moving them to the spectator area. This should prevent "jumpy" behavior in multi-world setups.
• Config-file errors imposed by incorrect usage of /ma setting no longer cause "internal errors". Instead, the errors are properly communicated in the command output similar to how the /ma reload command works.
• Guardians and elder guardians no longer instantly retarget players when they break line of sight. This should make their behavior work a bit closer to vanilla.
• (API) MobArenaHandler now returns class name slugs in the getPlayerClass() methods.

Fixed

• Elytra and Netherite armor pieces now correctly auto-equip if specified in the generic armor node in classes in the config-file.
• Players should now properly respawn at the spectator area rather than at world spawn on servers with plugins that override respawn locations.
• Config-files with missing pet-items nodes no longer errors. A missing pet-items node in global-settings is treated as empty, i.e. no pet items will be registered.
• The player-time-in-arena setting has been fixed.
• The soft-restore setting has been fixed for blocks broken by players. Note that the functionality is still unreliable for non-trivial blocks.
• Items in class chests are now cloned before they are made unbreakable and given to players. This fixes an issue where setting unbreakable-weapons: false had no effect on the items. Note that any affected items in existing class chests will need to be replaced.
• (1.8) Potions no longer turn into water bottles.

Removed

• The MagicSpells integration has been removed. This means that the extra magicspells.yml config-file (if it exists) no longer does anything and can be removed.

• The region overlap check now works across both arena and lobby regions, i.e. all four combinations of intersections between two regions (arena-arena, arena-lobby, lobby-arena, and lobby-lobby) are evaluated.
• Arenas with missing regions no longer cause errors in the region overlap check.

• It is no longer necessary to have recurrent waves for an arena to work. MobArena automatically creates a "catch all" recurrent wave in case the arena session reaches a wave number that isn't covered by any other wave definitions.
• Entities outside of the arena can no longer target players, pets, or monsters inside of the arena.
• Tab completion for /ma kick and /ma restore now uses actual player names instead of display names.
• If the world of an exit warp, leaderboard, or linked class chest is not available on (re)load, MobArena now throws a config error instead of failing silently later down the road.
• Overlapping arena regions are now reported as warnings in the server log during arena load, because overlapping regions can result in undefined, buggy behavior.
• MobArena's internal version checker has been rewritten. It now uses the resource API of Spigot instead of DBO. It's also a lot more lightweight and caches results for up to one hour.

• Extended and upgraded potions are now supported in the item syntax by prepending long_ or strong_ to the data portion of a potion item (e.g. potion:strong_instant_heal:1 will yield a Potion of Healing II). Check the wiki for details.
• MobArena now has basic tab completion support for most of the commands that take arguments.
• The pet-items node in global-settings now supports any living entity as a pet - even zombies! Pets will aggro hostile mobs that damage their owner, but only tameable pets (wolves, cats, etc.) will properly follow their owners around. This should also allow 1.14 servers to replace ocelot with cat in their pet-items node to get cat pets working again.
• Pets now have custom names that denote who their owner is, e.g. "garbagemule's pet".
• Pet items can now be used in Upgrade Waves. When an Upgrade Wave spawns, all pet items are transformed to pets just like when the arena session starts. Note that while only Upgrade Waves trigger this behavior, pet items obtained elsewhere (e.g. from Supply Wave drops) will also be transformed on subsequent Upgrade Waves.
• Potion effects can now be used as upgrades in Upgrade Waves. Check the wiki for details.
• Tridents and crossbows are now considered weapons with regards to the unbreakable-weapons flag. All class items that have durability now have their unbreakable flag set to true unless the unbreakable-weapons and/or unbreakable-armor flags are set to false.
• Leaderboards now work again on servers running Minecraft 1.14+.
• Class chests (non-linked) now work again on servers running Minecraft 1.14+.
• MobArena no longer crashes when players try to join with items that lower their max health below the default of 20. Players with lower max health will notice missing health in the lobby, but it will quickly regenerate to full.
• Food levels no longer deplete for players in the lobby and spectator area.
• Wither skeletons now correctly spawn with stone swords.
• Mobs now correctly take damage from player-made iron golems.
• Cat and parrot pets now also sit when their owner joins an arena (although parrots perching on players' shoulders will still follow them into the arena).
• Pig zombies are now angry immediately after they spawn as they should be.
• Vexes summoned by evokers are now kept track of, so they count towards clear-wave-before-next, and they are properly removed at arena end.
• Support for denoting potion effects by magic number IDs has been dropped. This means that if your config-file has any such magic numbers in it, MobArena will no longer successfully parse them and will throw an error on startup.
• Support for auto-respawning has been dropped. The hacky way it was implemented is not officially supported by the Bukkit API and is highly discouraged because it is very buggy.

• MobArena no longer touches the flySpeed player attribute when players join an arena. This should fix issues where a crash would result in players being "locked in the air" when trying to fly outside of the arena. It also introduces compatibility with plugins that use flight to augment player abilities.
• Fixed a bug introduced by a breaking API change in Spigot where a player with a nearly full inventory might cause item rewards to change stack amounts.
• MobArena no longer uncancels teleport events that occur outside of its own context when players have the mobarena.admin.teleport permission. This fixes a bug where the permission could override the cancellation of events that weren't related to MobArena.
• When resetting player health, MobArena now uses the player max health attribute base value rather than a fixed value of 20. This fixes crashes associated with max health values lower than 20, and ensures that players always get a full heal with values higher than 20.
• The server version check on the main build (currently for 1.13) now explicitly looks for incompatible versions rather than compatible versions. This brings back the "works unless otherwise specified" nature of the plugin, and thus a MobArena build for Minecraft 1.13 should (knock-on-wood) work on 1.14.

Thanks to:

• minoneer for help with fixing and testing the teleport bug

• Like the other user commands, the permission for /ma ready now defaults to true.
• Unbreakable weapons and armor now use the unbreakable item flag instead of item durability and on-hit repairs. This means that MobArena's unbreakable items are now compatible with plugins that depend on special durability values, such as QualityArmory.
• Spectators can no longer take damage when the arena isn't running.
• Pets can now teleport back to their owners if they get too far away.
• Enchantment names are now case insensitive (i.e. FIRE_PROTECTION is the same as fire_protection).
• All commands are now case insensitive. This means that typing /ma join is the same as typing /MA JOIN. This should help reduce the confusion with commands like /ma l where the L can be confused with a 1 (one).

• It is now possible to add a fixed delay (in seconds) between waves with the new per-arena setting next-wave-delay.
• The new per-arena setting join-interrupt-timer makes it possible to add a "delay" to the join and spec commands. If the player moves or takes damage during this delay, the command is interrupted. This should help prevent exploits on PvP servers.
• Right-clicking is now allowed in the lobby. This makes it possible to activate blocks like buttons and levers.
• Snow and ice no longer melts in arenas.
• Much of the parsing logic has been rewritten so that MobArena now logs more user-friendly errors when it encounters invalid values in the config-file.
• If MobArena fails to load due to config-file errors, it now enters a type of "error state". In this state, it responds to all commands (except for the reload command) with a short message explaining why it's disabled.
• It is now possible to reload config-files with /ma reload.
• The reload command now also reloads global settings, e.g. the global messenger prefix.
• Armor stands can now be placed in arenas and lobbies.
• The new command /ma ready (/ma rdy for short) can be used as an alternative to the iron block for readying up.
• Total experience is now correctly stored, reset, and restored on arena join/leave. This fixes a potential bug where total experience could increase in the arena, but levels and progress would still get reset at arena end.
• The per-arena setting keep-exp returns. If enabled, any experience collected during an arena session is added as a reward on death or when the final wave is reached.
• Waves will no longer intermittently progress at double frequency in some arena sessions. This long-standing bug where waves progress at "double speed" has finally been fixed.

Thanks to:

• Sait for adding the /ma ready command
• PrinceIonia, Nesseley, and Diamond_Cat for help with test of dev builds