This update is a major internal rewrite focused on stability, scalability, routing reliability, and production readiness.

Large parts of the plugin architecture were redesigned to improve failover handling, backend monitoring, reconnect behavior, and long-term maintainability.

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Added
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Centralized Health Monitoring
- Added async centralized backend health monitoring
- Added cached backend health states
- Added backend latency tracking
- Added backend quarantine handling
- Added automatic backend recovery detection
- Added safer ping scheduling system

Sticky Sessions
- Added real sticky-session support
- Players now prefer previously connected healthy backends
- Added stale session expiration handling
- Added safe sticky-session fallback behavior

Weighted Balancing
- Added configurable weighted backend balancing
- Routing now properly respects configured server weights
- Added improved balancing logic combined with:
- backend health
- player limits
- latency checks
- sticky sessions

Routing Improvements
- Added improved fallback routing
- Added deterministic routing behavior
- Added retry cooldown handling
- Added safer reconnect flow
- Added backend quarantine protection
- Added reconnect spam protection

Metrics & Diagnostics
- Added improved routing diagnostics
- Added backend monitoring improvements
- Added cleaner debug output
- Added better lifecycle logging

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Improved
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Architecture
- Reworked internal plugin architecture
- Split large systems into dedicated services
- Improved service separation and encapsulation
- Improved maintainability across routing systems
- Improved lifecycle management
- Improved async safety

Performance
- Reduced unnecessary allocations
- Reduced repeated routing lookups
- Reduced async scheduler overhead
- Reduced ping amplification during outages
- Improved routing hot-path efficiency
- Improved cache usage

Concurrency
- Improved thread safety
- Improved session state handling
- Improved reconnect synchronization
- Improved retry handling under heavy load
- Improved async task cleanup

Reliability
- Improved backend outage handling
- Improved fallback reliability
- Improved retry stability
- Improved shutdown handling
- Improved startup validation
- Improved reconnect handling during backend instability

Security
- Improved plugin messaging validation
- Improved malformed packet protection
- Improved backend validation
- Improved routing safety protections

Codebase
- Cleaned and standardized code formatting
- Removed excessive AI-style comments
- Removed noisy block comments
- Simplified internal structure
- Cleaned unused logic and redundant code
- Improved readability across the project

Documentation
- Fully rewritten README
- Added architecture documentation
- Added routing documentation
- Added deployment recommendations
- Added troubleshooting guidance
- Added scaling recommendations
- Added configuration explanations

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Changed
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Java Version
- Updated project target from Java 8 to Java 17

Plugin Naming
- Standardized plugin naming to:
- `FlowGate-Lite`

Artifact Naming
- Final build artifact is now:
- `FlowGate-Lite-1.0.4.jar`

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Fixed
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- Fixed backend ping amplification
- Fixed unsafe plugin messaging behavior
- Fixed multiple routing edge cases
- Fixed reconnect instability issues
- Fixed various async lifecycle problems
- Fixed inconsistent plugin naming
- Fixed startup validation issues
- Fixed shutdown cleanup issues
- Fixed several routing race-condition risks
- Fixed stale retry/session handling
- Fixed inconsistent balancing behavior

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Recommended
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Before deploying to production:
- stress-test reconnect behavior
- test backend outage scenarios
- test proxy restart behavior
- verify failover routing under load
- monitor memory usage during extended runtime

Compatibility

- Java 17+
- Waterfall
- BungeeCord-compatible proxy environments