ShadySadie
New member
Suggestions for the Next Prison Server: Keep Mining at the Center
Thank you for reading this. I am going to spend a lot of time on this, and I hope it is taken seriously. This will probably become a long list.
I fell in love with the Prison game mode when I was a little girl . I absolutely love it!
Minecraft is mostly about mining and crafting. It is in the name. "Mine"+"Craft". There is also exploring, PvE, and PvP, but Prison removes most of that and focuses heavily on mining. That is what makes it special.
Anyone who has spent hours just digging knows the mental state I mean. It is almost hypnotic. It is peaceful. It is simple, but satisfying.
That is also why I strongly dislike PvP being tied to Prison progression. I despise PvP. I do not participate in PvP. I have played Complex Prison since Season 1 and have never once attacked another player. When I visit Skull Island and someone attacks me, I stand still and return to spawn.
The problem is that Complex keeps making PvP feel mandatory for advancement. I will not do it.
In the past, I could collect gold shards and trade them with other players for hidden treasures. It usually cost me several extra stacks of shards, but that was fine. It gave peaceful players a way to keep progressing. Since the ability to sell or trade shards was removed, Prison has become nearly unplayable for me. I did not even join the current season until yesterday, just to clear my vault.
For players who did not play Prison back around 2012, here is the basic idea.
You started at level C and worked your way up through B, A, Elite, and eventually Freedom. The early prisons looked rough. C was ugly: stone, cobble, bedrock walls, and a very prison-like feeling.
Even when Prison later expanded to A through Z, the early mines still felt ugly and harsh. As you progressed, the areas became better-looking. That visual progression mattered. It made it feel like you were working your way out of something.
No offense to the builders, but the early Complex mines feel too nice. Starting in a beautiful mine weakens the feeling of progression. I think early mines should feel rough, ugly, and prison-like. Later mines should become cleaner, richer, brighter, and more impressive.
Freedom was eventually dropped from many Prison servers because nobody really wants to reach the end and stop. Prison should be a long-term, almost perpetual game.
The core of Prison should stay simple:
Mine.
Sell.
Rank up.
Upgrade.
Prestige.
Keep going.
That loop is the game. The peaceful mining loop is not a lack of content. It IS the content.
With that said, here are the main problems I see with the current system.
1. PvP is required
This is the biggest issue for me.
When players asked Complex to remove PvP, it was removed briefly. Then, a few days later, items were added that allowed players to create PvP zones and force peaceful players into PvP while they were trying to visit the shard merchant or do a little PvE.
That was extremely frustrating. I went from being happy that PvP was gone to feeling like peaceful players had been tricked.
Complex already has plenty of servers designed specifically for PvP. Prison does not need to become another one of them. The point of Prison is to remove most of the distractions and focus on mining, progression, upgrades, ranking up, and long-term goals.
I am not asking for PvP players to lose their content. PvP can exist. PvP players can have risk/reward areas, leaderboards, cosmetics, titles, faster rewards, or special competitive goals.
But peaceful players need a complete path forward too.
PvP should be optional side content, not a requirement for advancement. If an item or objective is important for progression, there should be a peaceful way to earn it. It can be slower. It can take more grinding. But it needs to exist.
Skull Island should be a risk/reward shortcut, not a wall blocking peaceful players.
2. The learning curve is too steep
Complex Prison does not have a learning curve. It has a learning cliff.
New players join every day and ask the same questions over and over. I would guess there are at least 25 new players a day who are confused almost immediately. Most of them do not get answers, not because older players are trying to be rude, but because we have answered the same questions hundreds of times.
So the new players leave.
The tutorial needs a lot of help. Prison has become too complicated to expect new players to figure everything out from chat, trial and error, or old players repeating explanations.
I even started making video tutorials myself, but I scrapped the idea because I had too many negative things to say about PvP and gift cards. I did not want a tutorial to turn into a complaint video.
The server needs better built-in teaching.
A good tutorial should not dump everything on the player at once. It should teach the next thing only when the player needs it.
For example, there could be:
A /guide command.
A “what do I do next?” command.
Clickable tutorial menus.
Beginner quests.
NPCs at spawn that explain one topic at a time.
Short tutorials for selling, ranking up, tokens, pickaxe upgrades, mines, crates, gangs, auctions, prestiging, rankup keys, and common commands.
The goal should be simple: a brand-new player should be able to join, understand what to do next, and stay long enough to enjoy the server.
3. New players are being targeted for bad rankup-key trades
Another major issue is what happens when brand-new players join.
New players are valuable. They are not just temporary visitors. Some of them may become long-term players, active community members, helpful mentors, voters, rank buyers, or future supporters of the server.
If they leave because they are confused, ignored, or taken advantage of before they understand the game, the server loses more than one new player. It may lose someone who could have become part of the community for years.
Right now, some experienced players rush to new players and offer to rank them up quickly. For example, they may offer to rank a new player up to level M in exchange for that player’s rankup keys.
To a new player, this sounds like a great deal. They get several ranks instantly and feel like someone is helping them.
But in reality, it is usually a terrible deal for the new player.
The early ranks are extremely cheap for seasoned players. A few million IGM may sound like a lot to a new player, but it is almost nothing to an experienced player. Meanwhile, rankup keys are valuable.
So the experienced player spends a small amount of IGM and receives the new player’s rankup keys, which may be worth far more than the rankups they paid for.
This creates a bad first experience. Many new players probably do not even realize they were taken advantage of until later. By then, they may already feel stupid, angry, or done with the server.
We need to stop chasing new players away with scams, confusing systems, and lack of information.
Possible fixes:
New players should be warned clearly that rankup keys are valuable.
The tutorial should explain rankup keys before players can trade them away.
There could be a short trade restriction on rankup keys for new players.
There could be a confirmation warning when a new player tries to trade rankup keys.
The server could show a warning such as: “Rankup keys are valuable. Be careful trading them, especially as a new player.”
Rankup keys could be account-bound for the first certain amount of playtime.
Helping new players is good. Taking advantage of them before they understand the economy is not.
If the server wants new players to stay, they need enough information to protect themselves before they start trading away valuable rewards.
4. Prison money does not feel like a real economy
Prison money is mostly used for ranking up from A to B, B to C, and so on. That part makes sense. Ranking up should cost money.
The problem is that prison money has very little value outside of rankups. It can buy low-level items, but those are usually items nobody really wants. For serious items, especially high-level or top-tier pieces, players do not want prison money. They want gift cards.
So the server ends up with two very different economies.
Prison money is the rank-up currency.
Gift cards are the endgame trading currency.
That makes mining feel less rewarding than it should. Mining gives money, but money mostly just unlocks the next mine. It does not give players much real buying power for the items they actually want later in the game.
I am not saying gift cards should be removed. Gift cards support the server, and they clearly have a place.
The problem is that normal prison money needs more purpose after basic rank progression.
There should be expensive, useful, repeatable ways to spend prison money on things players actually want. Not just level-one trash items, but meaningful progression.
For example, prison money could be used for upgrade materials, item tier fragments, rerolls, repair systems, prestige boosts, cosmetic unlocks, private mine improvements, slow guaranteed paths toward better gear, combining lower-tier items into higher-tier items, long-term mining milestones, or expensive NPC shops that sell useful progression materials.
The fix is not to force players to accept money for top-tier items. They will not. They will just trade privately.
The better fix is to create server-controlled money sinks that make prison money valuable again.
Gift cards can still be faster. Keys can still matter. Paid players can still support the server. But prison money should not become almost useless outside of ranking up.
Otherwise, the game teaches players to mine, sell, and earn money, then eventually shows them that the best items exist in a different economy.
5. Vertical shafts make mines unpleasant to use
As a player who enjoys Prison, it sometimes feels like the people designing new items do not understand what makes Prison fun.
So many newer items make it harder to simply dig. Some create huge vertical shafts all the way down to bedrock. This makes the mine unpleasant to use.
I spend too much time falling into holes and returning to the surface instead of actually mining.
Powerful tools and effects are fine, but they should make mining better. They should not make the mine worse for everyone else.
No item should allow one player to ruin the usability of a shared mine.
Possible fixes:
Limit how deep vertical shaft effects can go.
Make deep holes refill quickly.
Make shaft effects work only in private mines.
Make destructive effects personal or visual instead of physically ruining the shared mine.
Create temporary platforms, layers, or mine behavior that keeps players from constantly dropping to the bottom and having to return to the surface.
Keep strong mining items, but make sure they do not interrupt the basic mining flow.
Prison should encourage digging. Some of these effects do the opposite.
6. Gangs feel nearly mandatory
Nothing should feel mandatory.
Gangs can be a good system for social players. They can create teamwork, competition, shared goals, and long-term group progression.
The problem is that if you are not in a gang, you are seriously handicapped.
Some objectives are difficult or impossible to complete without a gang. At the same time, joining a gang creates risk. I joined one before and ended up losing billions and missing items. I will not do that again.
Gangs should be rewarding, but they should not be the price of admission for full progression.
Solo players need a fair path too.
Possible fixes:
Add solo objectives that parallel gang objectives.
Add solo contracts.
Add personal prestige tasks.
Add public co-op objectives that do not require trusting a gang.
Make gang rewards useful, but not required for basic advancement.
Separate solo progression from gang progression.
Let gangs be an advantage, not a requirement.
A player should be able to enjoy Prison fully without joining a gang.
Another possible gang-related fix would be to split certain mining events into gang and independent categories.
One of the automatic events is based on how many blocks players can mine in a set amount of time. That event is already split between prestige and non-prestige players, so the server already recognizes that different player groups should not always compete directly against each other.
Sometimes this event is gang-based. When that happens, players without a gang are basically left out.
I think those events should also have a gang/independent split.
Gang players could compete in the gang category, and players who are not in a gang could compete in an independent category. That would let gangs keep their content without excluding solo players from the event entirely.
This fits the larger point: gangs should be useful and rewarding, but they should not make independent players feel like they are missing part of the server.
7. Boosting affects progression too much
Boosting may be smart play, but it also hurts the progression curve.
By boosting, I mean the common Prison strategy where several players pool their money into one player. That player ranks up much faster, reaches better mines, earns better money, then pays the lower players back with interest. Those players then rank up faster too, and the cycle continues.
I understand why players do it. It is efficient, and it is not the same as hacking or cheating. It is players using the system in the most effective way available.
The problem is that boosting can make normal personal progression feel less important. Instead of each player mainly advancing through their own gameplay, the best strategy becomes pooling money, pushing one player ahead, then using that higher income to pull everyone else forward.
There is also the issue of players buying prison money with gift cards to rank up very quickly. I am not sure whether that should be allowed or not. That is for the server to decide. But either way, money alone should not be enough to skip the gameplay part of Prison.
One possible fix would be to make rankups require both money and personally earned rankup credit.
Rankup credit could come from Prison-related gameplay. Mining would be the normal peaceful way to earn it. Other Prison-themed events could possibly award it too. Skull Island could be the optional high-risk way to earn or lose it.
The important part is that rankup credit should be personal and not directly tradeable. Players should not be able to simply buy it from another player or receive it through /pay.
This would keep teamwork possible. It would still allow money to matter. It would still allow gift cards to support the server. But it would prevent money alone from replacing gameplay.
The goal should not be to punish teamwork. The goal should be to keep boosting from completely bypassing the intended progression path.
Prison should still require personal participation.
8. Skull Island should be optional risk/reward
Skull Island should not be removed. Some players like that content, and it should have a real purpose.
The problem is when Skull Island becomes required for progression. Peaceful players should not be forced into PvP to get important items or complete advancement.
Skull Island should be optional risk/reward content, not a required gate.
One possible way to do this would be to connect Skull Island to the same rankup credit system.
Rankups could require both money and personally earned rankup credit. Mining would be the safe path. Skull Island could be the optional high-risk path.
This should not require a separate Skull Island currency. If a player already earned rankup credit, they should be able to choose how much of that credit they want to risk.
For example, if a player mines for several days and earns 5 million rankup credit, they could choose to go to Skull Island and risk that credit. If they kill another player who is also risking credit, they could steal rankup credit from that player. If they die, they could lose the credit they chose to risk.
That creates real risk/reward.
A player who risks 100 blocks worth of credit can only win or lose around that level.
A player who risks 100,000 blocks worth of credit is choosing a much bigger risk.
A player who risks 5 million blocks worth of credit is making a serious gamble, but that should be their choice.
Players who enjoy mining can ignore Skull Island and progress by mining normally.
Players who enjoy PvP can use Skull Island as a risky shortcut by wagering rankup credit they already earned.
The key difference is that Skull Island would not give exclusive mandatory items. It would let players risk progress to gain progress.
There would still need to be anti-abuse protections so this does not become a way to buy rankup credit through staged kills. For example, rewards could require real combat, have same-player cooldowns, use rank/prestige range limits, block obvious alt farming, and reduce rewards for repeated kills between the same players.
But the basic idea is simple:
Money alone should not rank a player up.
Players should personally earn rankup credit.
Mining should be the safe path.
Skull Island should be the optional high-risk path.
Both paths should feed into the same rankup progress system.
This gives Skull Island meaningful rewards without locking mandatory progression items behind PvP.
The important part is that peaceful players still need a full path forward by mining normally. Skull Island should be a shortcut for players who choose the risk, not a requirement for players who came to Prison for mining.
9. Prison identity is drifting
This is the bigger issue behind several of the smaller issues.
Complex keeps adding systems that may be interesting by themselves, but some of them pull Prison away from what made Prison good.
Prison should not become Factions, KitPvP, Skyblock, or an RPG server with mining attached.
Before adding a new system, I think the question should be:
Does this improve mining, selling, upgrading, ranking up, prestiging, or long-term Prison progression?
If the answer is no, then it should be optional side content, not required progression.
The heart of Prison should still be mining.
Suggestions
1. Add more Prison-style digging games
I would like to see more mini games and events that actually feel related to Prison.
The current mini games may be fine, but many of them do not feel connected to Prison. I would rather see more mining-based activities than unrelated mini games.
For example, there could be a shovel-based digging game with massive sand or gravel areas and hidden rewards.
The reward system would need to avoid chest-finder cheats, so maybe rewards should not be placed in normal chests. Instead, rewards could be attached randomly to blocks, or every block broken could have a small chance to trigger a reward.
The exact system does not matter as much as the idea.
Add activities that still feel like Prison.
Possible ideas:
Shovel digging events.
Timed excavation rooms.
Ore rush events.
Rare block reward events.
Rubble-clearing challenges.
Tunnel races.
Massive sand or gravel digs.
Cooperative mine-clearing events.
Fossil or treasure-style digging.
Random reward blocks hidden inside large dig areas.
The point is to add more content without moving away from the Prison theme.
2. Make peaceful progression complete
Every important progression item should have a peaceful path.
PvP can be faster. PvP can give bonus rewards. PvP can have exclusive cosmetics, titles, or leaderboard value.
But peaceful players should not be blocked from advancement.
If an item is needed for meaningful progression, there should be a mining-based way to earn it.
3. Make Skull Island optional risk/reward
Skull Island should not be removed. Some players like that content.
But Skull Island should be optional risk/reward content, not a required gate.
Peaceful players should have another way to get important progression items, even if it takes longer.
A rankup credit system could give Skull Island real value without making it mandatory. Mining would be the safe path. Skull Island would be the high-risk shortcut.
4. Give prison money more real uses
Prison money should be more than a rank-up meter.
Ranking up should still cost money, but there should also be meaningful ways to spend money after that.
The server needs expensive, useful, repeatable money sinks that players actually care about.
This would help keep mining relevant and make the economy feel more connected to the core game.
5. Protect shared mines from destructive items
Powerful items should not make public mines annoying to use.
If an item creates huge shafts, constant holes, or broken terrain that interrupts normal mining, it should be limited, changed, or moved to private mines.
The basic act of digging should remain smooth.
6. Make gangs optional
Gangs should be rewarding for players who want them, but solo players should not be locked out of important objectives.
Add solo paths, solo contracts, personal milestones, public co-op systems that do not require joining a gang, and independent categories for events that currently leave non-gang players out.
7. Reduce boosting by requiring personal rankup credit
Rankups should require both money and personally earned rankup credit.
This would not remove teamwork, and it would not stop gift cards from supporting the server. It would simply prevent money alone from replacing gameplay.
Rankup credit could be earned through mining, Prison-themed events, or optional Skull Island risk/reward.
If Prison is about progression, then advancement should require personal participation.
8. Protect new players from bad trades
New players need better information before they start trading away valuable rewards.
Rankup keys should be explained clearly. New players should be warned before trading them. The server should not let brand-new players accidentally hand away valuable items before they understand what those items are worth.
New players are future regulars, future community members, and future supporters. They should be protected long enough to understand the server.
9. Improve the tutorial before launch
New players should not have to rely on chat to understand the server.
The new server should launch with better guidance from the beginning. A player should always be able to answer one question:
What should I do next?
10. Test the system before the real season
A short public test season could help find problems before they affect the real season.
Use boosted progression and let players test the economy, PvP systems, gangs, enchants, mines, events, rankup credit, Skull Island, and progression. Players will find broken mechanics quickly.
It is better to find those problems before the real launch.
Closing thought
The main thing I want is for Prison to stay Prison.
Keep the mining. Keep the selling. Keep the rankups. Keep the pickaxe upgrades. Keep the long-term progression. Keep the peaceful, hypnotic mining loop that made the game mode great in the first place.
But please give peaceful players a full path forward, improve the tutorial, protect new players from bad trades, fix the economy problems, give prison money more real value, reduce mine-destroying vertical shafts, make gangs optional instead of required, reduce boosting problems, split gang events so independent players are not left out, make Skull Island optional risk/reward instead of mandatory, and add more Prison-themed activities.
Please do not build a server where mining is just one activity among many.
Build a better Prison server, where mining is still the heart of the game.
Thanks for reading,
Sadie
Thank you for reading this. I am going to spend a lot of time on this, and I hope it is taken seriously. This will probably become a long list.
I fell in love with the Prison game mode when I was a little girl . I absolutely love it!
Minecraft is mostly about mining and crafting. It is in the name. "Mine"+"Craft". There is also exploring, PvE, and PvP, but Prison removes most of that and focuses heavily on mining. That is what makes it special.
Anyone who has spent hours just digging knows the mental state I mean. It is almost hypnotic. It is peaceful. It is simple, but satisfying.
That is also why I strongly dislike PvP being tied to Prison progression. I despise PvP. I do not participate in PvP. I have played Complex Prison since Season 1 and have never once attacked another player. When I visit Skull Island and someone attacks me, I stand still and return to spawn.
The problem is that Complex keeps making PvP feel mandatory for advancement. I will not do it.
In the past, I could collect gold shards and trade them with other players for hidden treasures. It usually cost me several extra stacks of shards, but that was fine. It gave peaceful players a way to keep progressing. Since the ability to sell or trade shards was removed, Prison has become nearly unplayable for me. I did not even join the current season until yesterday, just to clear my vault.
For players who did not play Prison back around 2012, here is the basic idea.
You started at level C and worked your way up through B, A, Elite, and eventually Freedom. The early prisons looked rough. C was ugly: stone, cobble, bedrock walls, and a very prison-like feeling.
Even when Prison later expanded to A through Z, the early mines still felt ugly and harsh. As you progressed, the areas became better-looking. That visual progression mattered. It made it feel like you were working your way out of something.
No offense to the builders, but the early Complex mines feel too nice. Starting in a beautiful mine weakens the feeling of progression. I think early mines should feel rough, ugly, and prison-like. Later mines should become cleaner, richer, brighter, and more impressive.
Freedom was eventually dropped from many Prison servers because nobody really wants to reach the end and stop. Prison should be a long-term, almost perpetual game.
The core of Prison should stay simple:
Mine.
Sell.
Rank up.
Upgrade.
Prestige.
Keep going.
That loop is the game. The peaceful mining loop is not a lack of content. It IS the content.
With that said, here are the main problems I see with the current system.
1. PvP is required
This is the biggest issue for me.
When players asked Complex to remove PvP, it was removed briefly. Then, a few days later, items were added that allowed players to create PvP zones and force peaceful players into PvP while they were trying to visit the shard merchant or do a little PvE.
That was extremely frustrating. I went from being happy that PvP was gone to feeling like peaceful players had been tricked.
Complex already has plenty of servers designed specifically for PvP. Prison does not need to become another one of them. The point of Prison is to remove most of the distractions and focus on mining, progression, upgrades, ranking up, and long-term goals.
I am not asking for PvP players to lose their content. PvP can exist. PvP players can have risk/reward areas, leaderboards, cosmetics, titles, faster rewards, or special competitive goals.
But peaceful players need a complete path forward too.
PvP should be optional side content, not a requirement for advancement. If an item or objective is important for progression, there should be a peaceful way to earn it. It can be slower. It can take more grinding. But it needs to exist.
Skull Island should be a risk/reward shortcut, not a wall blocking peaceful players.
2. The learning curve is too steep
Complex Prison does not have a learning curve. It has a learning cliff.
New players join every day and ask the same questions over and over. I would guess there are at least 25 new players a day who are confused almost immediately. Most of them do not get answers, not because older players are trying to be rude, but because we have answered the same questions hundreds of times.
So the new players leave.
The tutorial needs a lot of help. Prison has become too complicated to expect new players to figure everything out from chat, trial and error, or old players repeating explanations.
I even started making video tutorials myself, but I scrapped the idea because I had too many negative things to say about PvP and gift cards. I did not want a tutorial to turn into a complaint video.
The server needs better built-in teaching.
A good tutorial should not dump everything on the player at once. It should teach the next thing only when the player needs it.
For example, there could be:
A /guide command.
A “what do I do next?” command.
Clickable tutorial menus.
Beginner quests.
NPCs at spawn that explain one topic at a time.
Short tutorials for selling, ranking up, tokens, pickaxe upgrades, mines, crates, gangs, auctions, prestiging, rankup keys, and common commands.
The goal should be simple: a brand-new player should be able to join, understand what to do next, and stay long enough to enjoy the server.
3. New players are being targeted for bad rankup-key trades
Another major issue is what happens when brand-new players join.
New players are valuable. They are not just temporary visitors. Some of them may become long-term players, active community members, helpful mentors, voters, rank buyers, or future supporters of the server.
If they leave because they are confused, ignored, or taken advantage of before they understand the game, the server loses more than one new player. It may lose someone who could have become part of the community for years.
Right now, some experienced players rush to new players and offer to rank them up quickly. For example, they may offer to rank a new player up to level M in exchange for that player’s rankup keys.
To a new player, this sounds like a great deal. They get several ranks instantly and feel like someone is helping them.
But in reality, it is usually a terrible deal for the new player.
The early ranks are extremely cheap for seasoned players. A few million IGM may sound like a lot to a new player, but it is almost nothing to an experienced player. Meanwhile, rankup keys are valuable.
So the experienced player spends a small amount of IGM and receives the new player’s rankup keys, which may be worth far more than the rankups they paid for.
This creates a bad first experience. Many new players probably do not even realize they were taken advantage of until later. By then, they may already feel stupid, angry, or done with the server.
We need to stop chasing new players away with scams, confusing systems, and lack of information.
Possible fixes:
New players should be warned clearly that rankup keys are valuable.
The tutorial should explain rankup keys before players can trade them away.
There could be a short trade restriction on rankup keys for new players.
There could be a confirmation warning when a new player tries to trade rankup keys.
The server could show a warning such as: “Rankup keys are valuable. Be careful trading them, especially as a new player.”
Rankup keys could be account-bound for the first certain amount of playtime.
Helping new players is good. Taking advantage of them before they understand the economy is not.
If the server wants new players to stay, they need enough information to protect themselves before they start trading away valuable rewards.
4. Prison money does not feel like a real economy
Prison money is mostly used for ranking up from A to B, B to C, and so on. That part makes sense. Ranking up should cost money.
The problem is that prison money has very little value outside of rankups. It can buy low-level items, but those are usually items nobody really wants. For serious items, especially high-level or top-tier pieces, players do not want prison money. They want gift cards.
So the server ends up with two very different economies.
Prison money is the rank-up currency.
Gift cards are the endgame trading currency.
That makes mining feel less rewarding than it should. Mining gives money, but money mostly just unlocks the next mine. It does not give players much real buying power for the items they actually want later in the game.
I am not saying gift cards should be removed. Gift cards support the server, and they clearly have a place.
The problem is that normal prison money needs more purpose after basic rank progression.
There should be expensive, useful, repeatable ways to spend prison money on things players actually want. Not just level-one trash items, but meaningful progression.
For example, prison money could be used for upgrade materials, item tier fragments, rerolls, repair systems, prestige boosts, cosmetic unlocks, private mine improvements, slow guaranteed paths toward better gear, combining lower-tier items into higher-tier items, long-term mining milestones, or expensive NPC shops that sell useful progression materials.
The fix is not to force players to accept money for top-tier items. They will not. They will just trade privately.
The better fix is to create server-controlled money sinks that make prison money valuable again.
Gift cards can still be faster. Keys can still matter. Paid players can still support the server. But prison money should not become almost useless outside of ranking up.
Otherwise, the game teaches players to mine, sell, and earn money, then eventually shows them that the best items exist in a different economy.
5. Vertical shafts make mines unpleasant to use
As a player who enjoys Prison, it sometimes feels like the people designing new items do not understand what makes Prison fun.
So many newer items make it harder to simply dig. Some create huge vertical shafts all the way down to bedrock. This makes the mine unpleasant to use.
I spend too much time falling into holes and returning to the surface instead of actually mining.
Powerful tools and effects are fine, but they should make mining better. They should not make the mine worse for everyone else.
No item should allow one player to ruin the usability of a shared mine.
Possible fixes:
Limit how deep vertical shaft effects can go.
Make deep holes refill quickly.
Make shaft effects work only in private mines.
Make destructive effects personal or visual instead of physically ruining the shared mine.
Create temporary platforms, layers, or mine behavior that keeps players from constantly dropping to the bottom and having to return to the surface.
Keep strong mining items, but make sure they do not interrupt the basic mining flow.
Prison should encourage digging. Some of these effects do the opposite.
6. Gangs feel nearly mandatory
Nothing should feel mandatory.
Gangs can be a good system for social players. They can create teamwork, competition, shared goals, and long-term group progression.
The problem is that if you are not in a gang, you are seriously handicapped.
Some objectives are difficult or impossible to complete without a gang. At the same time, joining a gang creates risk. I joined one before and ended up losing billions and missing items. I will not do that again.
Gangs should be rewarding, but they should not be the price of admission for full progression.
Solo players need a fair path too.
Possible fixes:
Add solo objectives that parallel gang objectives.
Add solo contracts.
Add personal prestige tasks.
Add public co-op objectives that do not require trusting a gang.
Make gang rewards useful, but not required for basic advancement.
Separate solo progression from gang progression.
Let gangs be an advantage, not a requirement.
A player should be able to enjoy Prison fully without joining a gang.
Another possible gang-related fix would be to split certain mining events into gang and independent categories.
One of the automatic events is based on how many blocks players can mine in a set amount of time. That event is already split between prestige and non-prestige players, so the server already recognizes that different player groups should not always compete directly against each other.
Sometimes this event is gang-based. When that happens, players without a gang are basically left out.
I think those events should also have a gang/independent split.
Gang players could compete in the gang category, and players who are not in a gang could compete in an independent category. That would let gangs keep their content without excluding solo players from the event entirely.
This fits the larger point: gangs should be useful and rewarding, but they should not make independent players feel like they are missing part of the server.
7. Boosting affects progression too much
Boosting may be smart play, but it also hurts the progression curve.
By boosting, I mean the common Prison strategy where several players pool their money into one player. That player ranks up much faster, reaches better mines, earns better money, then pays the lower players back with interest. Those players then rank up faster too, and the cycle continues.
I understand why players do it. It is efficient, and it is not the same as hacking or cheating. It is players using the system in the most effective way available.
The problem is that boosting can make normal personal progression feel less important. Instead of each player mainly advancing through their own gameplay, the best strategy becomes pooling money, pushing one player ahead, then using that higher income to pull everyone else forward.
There is also the issue of players buying prison money with gift cards to rank up very quickly. I am not sure whether that should be allowed or not. That is for the server to decide. But either way, money alone should not be enough to skip the gameplay part of Prison.
One possible fix would be to make rankups require both money and personally earned rankup credit.
Rankup credit could come from Prison-related gameplay. Mining would be the normal peaceful way to earn it. Other Prison-themed events could possibly award it too. Skull Island could be the optional high-risk way to earn or lose it.
The important part is that rankup credit should be personal and not directly tradeable. Players should not be able to simply buy it from another player or receive it through /pay.
This would keep teamwork possible. It would still allow money to matter. It would still allow gift cards to support the server. But it would prevent money alone from replacing gameplay.
The goal should not be to punish teamwork. The goal should be to keep boosting from completely bypassing the intended progression path.
Prison should still require personal participation.
8. Skull Island should be optional risk/reward
Skull Island should not be removed. Some players like that content, and it should have a real purpose.
The problem is when Skull Island becomes required for progression. Peaceful players should not be forced into PvP to get important items or complete advancement.
Skull Island should be optional risk/reward content, not a required gate.
One possible way to do this would be to connect Skull Island to the same rankup credit system.
Rankups could require both money and personally earned rankup credit. Mining would be the safe path. Skull Island could be the optional high-risk path.
This should not require a separate Skull Island currency. If a player already earned rankup credit, they should be able to choose how much of that credit they want to risk.
For example, if a player mines for several days and earns 5 million rankup credit, they could choose to go to Skull Island and risk that credit. If they kill another player who is also risking credit, they could steal rankup credit from that player. If they die, they could lose the credit they chose to risk.
That creates real risk/reward.
A player who risks 100 blocks worth of credit can only win or lose around that level.
A player who risks 100,000 blocks worth of credit is choosing a much bigger risk.
A player who risks 5 million blocks worth of credit is making a serious gamble, but that should be their choice.
Players who enjoy mining can ignore Skull Island and progress by mining normally.
Players who enjoy PvP can use Skull Island as a risky shortcut by wagering rankup credit they already earned.
The key difference is that Skull Island would not give exclusive mandatory items. It would let players risk progress to gain progress.
There would still need to be anti-abuse protections so this does not become a way to buy rankup credit through staged kills. For example, rewards could require real combat, have same-player cooldowns, use rank/prestige range limits, block obvious alt farming, and reduce rewards for repeated kills between the same players.
But the basic idea is simple:
Money alone should not rank a player up.
Players should personally earn rankup credit.
Mining should be the safe path.
Skull Island should be the optional high-risk path.
Both paths should feed into the same rankup progress system.
This gives Skull Island meaningful rewards without locking mandatory progression items behind PvP.
The important part is that peaceful players still need a full path forward by mining normally. Skull Island should be a shortcut for players who choose the risk, not a requirement for players who came to Prison for mining.
9. Prison identity is drifting
This is the bigger issue behind several of the smaller issues.
Complex keeps adding systems that may be interesting by themselves, but some of them pull Prison away from what made Prison good.
Prison should not become Factions, KitPvP, Skyblock, or an RPG server with mining attached.
Before adding a new system, I think the question should be:
Does this improve mining, selling, upgrading, ranking up, prestiging, or long-term Prison progression?
If the answer is no, then it should be optional side content, not required progression.
The heart of Prison should still be mining.
Suggestions
1. Add more Prison-style digging games
I would like to see more mini games and events that actually feel related to Prison.
The current mini games may be fine, but many of them do not feel connected to Prison. I would rather see more mining-based activities than unrelated mini games.
For example, there could be a shovel-based digging game with massive sand or gravel areas and hidden rewards.
The reward system would need to avoid chest-finder cheats, so maybe rewards should not be placed in normal chests. Instead, rewards could be attached randomly to blocks, or every block broken could have a small chance to trigger a reward.
The exact system does not matter as much as the idea.
Add activities that still feel like Prison.
Possible ideas:
Shovel digging events.
Timed excavation rooms.
Ore rush events.
Rare block reward events.
Rubble-clearing challenges.
Tunnel races.
Massive sand or gravel digs.
Cooperative mine-clearing events.
Fossil or treasure-style digging.
Random reward blocks hidden inside large dig areas.
The point is to add more content without moving away from the Prison theme.
2. Make peaceful progression complete
Every important progression item should have a peaceful path.
PvP can be faster. PvP can give bonus rewards. PvP can have exclusive cosmetics, titles, or leaderboard value.
But peaceful players should not be blocked from advancement.
If an item is needed for meaningful progression, there should be a mining-based way to earn it.
3. Make Skull Island optional risk/reward
Skull Island should not be removed. Some players like that content.
But Skull Island should be optional risk/reward content, not a required gate.
Peaceful players should have another way to get important progression items, even if it takes longer.
A rankup credit system could give Skull Island real value without making it mandatory. Mining would be the safe path. Skull Island would be the high-risk shortcut.
4. Give prison money more real uses
Prison money should be more than a rank-up meter.
Ranking up should still cost money, but there should also be meaningful ways to spend money after that.
The server needs expensive, useful, repeatable money sinks that players actually care about.
This would help keep mining relevant and make the economy feel more connected to the core game.
5. Protect shared mines from destructive items
Powerful items should not make public mines annoying to use.
If an item creates huge shafts, constant holes, or broken terrain that interrupts normal mining, it should be limited, changed, or moved to private mines.
The basic act of digging should remain smooth.
6. Make gangs optional
Gangs should be rewarding for players who want them, but solo players should not be locked out of important objectives.
Add solo paths, solo contracts, personal milestones, public co-op systems that do not require joining a gang, and independent categories for events that currently leave non-gang players out.
7. Reduce boosting by requiring personal rankup credit
Rankups should require both money and personally earned rankup credit.
This would not remove teamwork, and it would not stop gift cards from supporting the server. It would simply prevent money alone from replacing gameplay.
Rankup credit could be earned through mining, Prison-themed events, or optional Skull Island risk/reward.
If Prison is about progression, then advancement should require personal participation.
8. Protect new players from bad trades
New players need better information before they start trading away valuable rewards.
Rankup keys should be explained clearly. New players should be warned before trading them. The server should not let brand-new players accidentally hand away valuable items before they understand what those items are worth.
New players are future regulars, future community members, and future supporters. They should be protected long enough to understand the server.
9. Improve the tutorial before launch
New players should not have to rely on chat to understand the server.
The new server should launch with better guidance from the beginning. A player should always be able to answer one question:
What should I do next?
10. Test the system before the real season
A short public test season could help find problems before they affect the real season.
Use boosted progression and let players test the economy, PvP systems, gangs, enchants, mines, events, rankup credit, Skull Island, and progression. Players will find broken mechanics quickly.
It is better to find those problems before the real launch.
Closing thought
The main thing I want is for Prison to stay Prison.
Keep the mining. Keep the selling. Keep the rankups. Keep the pickaxe upgrades. Keep the long-term progression. Keep the peaceful, hypnotic mining loop that made the game mode great in the first place.
But please give peaceful players a full path forward, improve the tutorial, protect new players from bad trades, fix the economy problems, give prison money more real value, reduce mine-destroying vertical shafts, make gangs optional instead of required, reduce boosting problems, split gang events so independent players are not left out, make Skull Island optional risk/reward instead of mandatory, and add more Prison-themed activities.
Please do not build a server where mining is just one activity among many.
Build a better Prison server, where mining is still the heart of the game.
Thanks for reading,
Sadie