Alright, here's my feedback for the modpack.
First, my status:
https://imgur.com/a/Nhlf7
Modpack version: Alpha 0.62a
Time spent: ~30 hours (probably more)
I enjoyed the theme of the pack. You start in a wasteland, with the only other biome being the ocean biome. The only things that are left in wastelands are small patches of grass and dead trees, since ores are absent from the overworld. However, even from these small things, I can bring nature back to this planet. So I used the quest book to progress, starting with Tinker's Construct first to create tools and the workbench, and then switch over to Botania. As I have never gotten that much into Botania before, I enjoyed the first quests related to it. Magical crops were next. The first seeds are cross-bred from AgriCulture, the rest are made in a runic altar with Botania. Some seeds require their essences to be made, which are a reward from repeatable quests. However, the late-game seeds like emerald require only one essence, while the earlier ones like iron need multiple essences. I also have to wait a maximum time of 5 minecraft days before I can get the next essence from the same repeatable quest, which is a bit too long in my opinion. Nevertheless, I progressed by making my seeds all get 10/10/10 stats. I never learned what the strength stat is good for, though.
Between nuturing new plants, I also got into Mariculture. The crucible furnace took me long to make, as I had to get iron first. When I was done crafting it, I only needed it to smelt cobblestone into seared stone, and never used it again. I had also tried to smelt iron in it first to double my output, but it turned out that the lava is not hot enough to melt iron blocks (1535°C needed, the furnace only heated up to 1500°C). With the seared stone I made the smeltery and upgraded my pickaxe. The next steps were to visit the nether and start with Witchery, a mod which I also never bothered to use before. Visiting the nether, it turns out that all ores are present there, however not yet mineable. I was disappointed that in a modpack in which we are supposed to grow ores, the nether contained them. I only mined what I needed for the nether ores progression quest, which told me what tool level I needed to get the next set of ores. However, the quest never told me
which tools these tool levels have. At that point, the progression was no longer clear to me. Some further quests in the Botania quest line unlocked more magical crops essences, without ever indicating so. As automation also is postponed to late-tech, I ended up manually farming my ore essences. When I finally had the chance to get Thaumcraft golems, I again was disappointed to not have a mod to sort and route ores (and no, Buildcraft still does not do that well).
Witchery turned out to be a good mod, however with wrong/vague documentation and unsufficient information in the quest book. The witchery and late game essences quest book categories also were very, very laggy for me. In the meanwhile, I found out that there is a hidden quest that is enabled when you get your first bees. The quest requires you to build up reputation, which I never got that high during my whole playthrough.
For Witchery, I needed dragon crystals which require the Alfheim protal from Botania. From the ingame documentation, I thought I needed lots of mana, however as I filled my two mana pools and waited a long time while that happened, it turned out that the activation almost takes none at all. This has not been stated anywhere. I did notice that the quest book descriptions also became more and more vague with the later quests (like how we are supposed to get Rutile ore seeds, that quest should be moved to the next essence tier quest as it is the only one that can't be finished at the same point as the others of the same tier). Having finished the Witchery quest line, the last quests in the Botania line wanted me to get a full set of terrasteel armor. It takes long, very, very long. The gaia spirit quest shouldn't have that one as requirement. While waiting for the mana to accumulate, I died in the nether due to falling into lava. I cheated in the rest of the terrasteel ingots and finished the quest, curious to find out whether it unlocks the last tier of magical crops essences. It did not. I stopped playing after that and wrote this review.
All in all:
+ New theme, ores are obtained using a mixture of Botania, Magical Crops and AgriCulture (and not from Ex Nihilo or something)
+ The pack stays mostly magic-themed, there are mods like Mekanism, but these are end-game, as the recipes are changed to use end-game materials
+ A huge amount of quests with fair rewards
+ Wasteland!
+ Progression is slow, but steady
- The progression is not always obvious
- Some mods like Thaumcraft, Blood Magic have no quests yet (or at least as far as I progressed)
- Ores in the nether
- The terrasteel armor quest grind
- What's the reputation good for, other than the bee quest?
- The lack of storage management early to late game
There probably are some points which I forgot, but overall I enjoyed the pack.
By the way, is there some quest missing from the first chapter? I am at 91% but never got another quest there.