I hope you have a flame retardant suit handy... I've got mine on, with a huge bag of marshmallows handy
Announcing FTB Infinity Evolved, FTB Tweaks, and FTB Utilities.
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I hope you have a flame retardant suit handy... I've got mine on, with a huge bag of marshmallows handy
Nope, no flame war.
Read up on the topic, "Play to win".
Everyone sets their own rules. If you play in creative, there is no limit, no restriction, no shortage.
There is at least two major concepts of creativity: What can you do if you are not limited (other than time), and what can you do if you have some limit on what you do.
I like the second; so I don't "Play to win" in the sense of making something with no limit on what I do. For me, the _process_ of building is as important as _what_ I build.
And for that _process_ to be meaningful, it can neither be too cheap nor too expensive. If it's super cheap, it may as well be creative. If it comes about by abusing the (err, what _used_ to be, no longer is) the 8-chunk and 32 block distance/30 second timeout rule -- a rule that only exists as a way to make an infinite world finite for the computer -- then that's -- to me -- abusing a rule of the implementation of the world of minecraft.
For me, that's "too cheap". Not in the sense that a "Play to win" person looks at an opponent who says "That's a cheap move, play serious" as they die, but in the sense of "The game, for me, what I want to share with others, is about the process, not the final building".
But there is one thing that I absolutely agree with the "Play to win" people on. The game is what you play when you know the rules. If one person knows more about the game, the rules, what can be done, etc., then the other person is at a disadvantage.
And if the people who designed the pack say "This is a good pack, with good decisions made", because they know more about what's going on than the other players do, that's a problem.
That's basic customer server/program design. You look at how the people who are not the designers/programmers look at and use the program. In this case, look at people who don't know all the details other than what's given to them. And people say things like "I didn't know there was a guide", or "the guide didn't help enough with X", etc. Combined with "We're still writing the guide".
Result? You answer that.
Yep. No questions or disagreements. I set the rule of "No mob farms", a rule that will have to be removed as I move into RotaryCraft, because it was designed around the assumption of mob farms (at least as far as I can tell so far), and even goes to the trouble of making spawner controllers, and devices to harvest / move spawners, so that you can do it. But ... nothing to control creeper spawns that I've seen so far, and gunpowder is still my limiting resource.
I do learn about things, as best I can.
Sometimes, that means first-hand experience.
Sometimes, that means learning from others that have been there, tried that.
If you are going to say that the only valid way to learn is first-hand, and nothing can be learned from others who came before you, I will disagree with you.
My first attempt with mods was with ModLoader, and Shelves. I liked the idea of being able to see what was in storage. I thought that the trade-off of visual display, plus being usable as stairs, was worth the smaller storage (9 stacks instead of 27 per block).
Then, I wanted to let a friend join me, and make my world multi-player. That was my first lesson in the potential problems with mods. I had to remove all the shelves first -- ModLoader mods did not work in multiplayer. The first time, I missed a few, and had to go back and fixup/reconvert that single player world.
I moved forward. I added Mystcraft, and then said "Modded stuff in ages, the overworld stays clean", just to avoid that problem moving forward. Now? 147 world with EBXL, Twilight forest, mystcraft, and a vanilla overworld.
Can't really move the 147 EBXL stuff to 1710, and there's no ages where we'd want to either. So no problem.
Now, on this topic:
This discussion came from another thread. Someone over there pointed out that what was being said did not belong in that thread, that if the goal was to make comments on the modpack, that it belonged in the modpack thread. They were right.
The basic complaint is simple:
1. "Expert" mode was introduced as a way to "force you into mods you wouldn't otherwise use", with the claim that "Our goal here is to create a pack that will extend your gameplay without introducing massive amounts of grind." Yet many well-known things became super-expensive, and the alternatives that were left cheap are not well-known. And the guide-book that would explain all this was not finished yet.
... Actually, that's pretty much all of it.
I've seen a couple of threads of people complaining about the level of grind, and the lack of knowledge of the other options. Not just the one.
Secondary: "there's just so many different things we need to build."
It's not just extend your playtime. It's not just having to play in mods that you normally don't, and build multiple sets of infrastructure. Or, perhaps it is -- perhaps that the outcome. Being forced to build a lot of things that you normally would not.
The stated goal was to have multiple options on how to proceed. Multiple ways to make X, involving items from A-C on one hand, D-G on the other, etc. Give you the choice of how to go, which mods to use, etc. That wasn't done. So everything needs everything, and nothing can be left out.
That's the stated design goal: You need to work on everything in the pack.
Maybe that's too many things. I don't know.
But it seems like this pack is about the _progression_ being the game. Instead of creative's "the _building_ is the game", or normal "the _process_ needed for building is the game".
If someone completes the progression, and reaches the end, do you see them as saying "World done, start the next pack", or do you see them as saying, "OK, now I'm level 60, now the game can begin"?
Hmm. I guess that's why I never really got interested in Direwolf's worlds. From what I've seen, he's more about the tech progression, rather than using the tech to do something more interesting than a 9x9.
===
Really side notes: In 1.0/1.1, extreme hills had the values for base height and max height switched. It was equivalent to a negative value for height variation. The result was massive floating rock mountains that we don't see anymore, that looked like Pandora, that was great views, and horrible dark, hard-to-navigate, mobs-in-the-daytime trouble. It really needed ores in those floating rocks to make the whole thing worth going through. Sadly, I did not keep that world. I thought I'd start fresh.
---
In 1.2.5 (100% certain), and I think 147 (not so certain), chunks took block ticks at a range of 8 chunks from the player. Even if you set render distance to far, and loaded 16 chunks, only 8 would tick. Yes, I watched grass (and cracked sand) spread and stop.
In 1.7.10, that's gone. If you have render distance of 10, then you get block ticks, and grass spread, in all chunks. Which in turn means that the chunks on the edge will force loading of "distant" chunks, which in turn will unload. The constant cycle of load/unload for edge chunks as you are sitting still is a pain; that mob spawning only works properly at 10, and you are ticking 21*21 chunks instead of 17*17 chunks -- 441 instead of 289, or 50% more CPU load (plus the constant disk IO, plus the conversion from NBT to objects, plus the GC) -- doesn't help lower-end computers, and it would change the type of rule abuse that needs to be done.
Read up on the topic, "Play to win".
Everyone sets their own rules. If you play in creative, there is no limit, no restriction, no shortage.
There is at least two major concepts of creativity: What can you do if you are not limited (other than time), and what can you do if you have some limit on what you do.
I like the second; so I don't "Play to win" in the sense of making something with no limit on what I do. For me, the _process_ of building is as important as _what_ I build.
And for that _process_ to be meaningful, it can neither be too cheap nor too expensive. If it's super cheap, it may as well be creative. If it comes about by abusing the (err, what _used_ to be, no longer is) the 8-chunk and 32 block distance/30 second timeout rule -- a rule that only exists as a way to make an infinite world finite for the computer -- then that's -- to me -- abusing a rule of the implementation of the world of minecraft.
For me, that's "too cheap". Not in the sense that a "Play to win" person looks at an opponent who says "That's a cheap move, play serious" as they die, but in the sense of "The game, for me, what I want to share with others, is about the process, not the final building".
But there is one thing that I absolutely agree with the "Play to win" people on. The game is what you play when you know the rules. If one person knows more about the game, the rules, what can be done, etc., then the other person is at a disadvantage.
And if the people who designed the pack say "This is a good pack, with good decisions made", because they know more about what's going on than the other players do, that's a problem.
That's basic customer server/program design. You look at how the people who are not the designers/programmers look at and use the program. In this case, look at people who don't know all the details other than what's given to them. And people say things like "I didn't know there was a guide", or "the guide didn't help enough with X", etc. Combined with "We're still writing the guide".
Result? You answer that.
Yep. No questions or disagreements. I set the rule of "No mob farms", a rule that will have to be removed as I move into RotaryCraft, because it was designed around the assumption of mob farms (at least as far as I can tell so far), and even goes to the trouble of making spawner controllers, and devices to harvest / move spawners, so that you can do it. But ... nothing to control creeper spawns that I've seen so far, and gunpowder is still my limiting resource.
I do learn about things, as best I can.
Sometimes, that means first-hand experience.
Sometimes, that means learning from others that have been there, tried that.
If you are going to say that the only valid way to learn is first-hand, and nothing can be learned from others who came before you, I will disagree with you.
My first attempt with mods was with ModLoader, and Shelves. I liked the idea of being able to see what was in storage. I thought that the trade-off of visual display, plus being usable as stairs, was worth the smaller storage (9 stacks instead of 27 per block).
Then, I wanted to let a friend join me, and make my world multi-player. That was my first lesson in the potential problems with mods. I had to remove all the shelves first -- ModLoader mods did not work in multiplayer. The first time, I missed a few, and had to go back and fixup/reconvert that single player world.
I moved forward. I added Mystcraft, and then said "Modded stuff in ages, the overworld stays clean", just to avoid that problem moving forward. Now? 147 world with EBXL, Twilight forest, mystcraft, and a vanilla overworld.
Can't really move the 147 EBXL stuff to 1710, and there's no ages where we'd want to either. So no problem.
Now, on this topic:
This discussion came from another thread. Someone over there pointed out that what was being said did not belong in that thread, that if the goal was to make comments on the modpack, that it belonged in the modpack thread. They were right.
The basic complaint is simple:
1. "Expert" mode was introduced as a way to "force you into mods you wouldn't otherwise use", with the claim that "Our goal here is to create a pack that will extend your gameplay without introducing massive amounts of grind." Yet many well-known things became super-expensive, and the alternatives that were left cheap are not well-known. And the guide-book that would explain all this was not finished yet.
... Actually, that's pretty much all of it.
I've seen a couple of threads of people complaining about the level of grind, and the lack of knowledge of the other options. Not just the one.
Secondary: "there's just so many different things we need to build."
It's not just extend your playtime. It's not just having to play in mods that you normally don't, and build multiple sets of infrastructure. Or, perhaps it is -- perhaps that the outcome. Being forced to build a lot of things that you normally would not.
The stated goal was to have multiple options on how to proceed. Multiple ways to make X, involving items from A-C on one hand, D-G on the other, etc. Give you the choice of how to go, which mods to use, etc. That wasn't done. So everything needs everything, and nothing can be left out.
That's the stated design goal: You need to work on everything in the pack.
Maybe that's too many things. I don't know.
But it seems like this pack is about the _progression_ being the game. Instead of creative's "the _building_ is the game", or normal "the _process_ needed for building is the game".
If someone completes the progression, and reaches the end, do you see them as saying "World done, start the next pack", or do you see them as saying, "OK, now I'm level 60, now the game can begin"?
Hmm. I guess that's why I never really got interested in Direwolf's worlds. From what I've seen, he's more about the tech progression, rather than using the tech to do something more interesting than a 9x9.
===
Really side notes: In 1.0/1.1, extreme hills had the values for base height and max height switched. It was equivalent to a negative value for height variation. The result was massive floating rock mountains that we don't see anymore, that looked like Pandora, that was great views, and horrible dark, hard-to-navigate, mobs-in-the-daytime trouble. It really needed ores in those floating rocks to make the whole thing worth going through. Sadly, I did not keep that world. I thought I'd start fresh.
---
In 1.2.5 (100% certain), and I think 147 (not so certain), chunks took block ticks at a range of 8 chunks from the player. Even if you set render distance to far, and loaded 16 chunks, only 8 would tick. Yes, I watched grass (and cracked sand) spread and stop.
In 1.7.10, that's gone. If you have render distance of 10, then you get block ticks, and grass spread, in all chunks. Which in turn means that the chunks on the edge will force loading of "distant" chunks, which in turn will unload. The constant cycle of load/unload for edge chunks as you are sitting still is a pain; that mob spawning only works properly at 10, and you are ticking 21*21 chunks instead of 17*17 chunks -- 441 instead of 289, or 50% more CPU load (plus the constant disk IO, plus the conversion from NBT to objects, plus the GC) -- doesn't help lower-end computers, and it would change the type of rule abuse that needs to be done.
We discussed things last night, and decided to go ahead with the project. It was choice of 1) Custom modpack and world gen 2) Tweak Infinity Evolved and use a custom map we build.
Going with the second option, as that will let our players load up infinity and play on 3 different flavors. I'll be using Cityworld Plugin to generate parts of the map with vast ruined cities, sandy mountains and wasteland, sewers, tunnels, and bunkers. Other parts will be generated by BOP with mostly wasteland, dead forest swamps, and other unappealing areas. Finally, small pockets of greenery, generally with a higher elevation, towards the edges of the map. Ores will change up as you get further from the epicenter. There will be custom ruins done with a couple of mods to add structures, many hidden underground. The map will get pre-generated out to about 10k, and then we'll strip out anything not in Infinity, and have the map already loaded up as people start to explore. Mobs will be significantly hungrier, and level of difficulty will be greater. The server will be kept close to single player experience. No instant tp to spawn or home. Looking at about a two month project. 1 month on recipe changes and balancing, another happily spent using Ruins mod to build underground bunkers, ruined labs and factories, etc.
Looking forward to it as i love worldbuilding in general. I run comic and game stores for a living going on 30 years now. I read everything and run a lot of RPG's. I do story and mod balancing, and have a talented group of guys who code the stupid ideas i come up with and do most of the work. ) I'll pop you a message when we get close. It will be hosted on the Lolnet servers where i Admin and play too much.
Anyone else have issues with Rowan and Alder saplings not being able to be burned in the witches oven?
Other saplings burn just fine in it.
Thanks
Other saplings burn just fine in it.
Thanks
No, i've had no problems with Rowan and Alder. Only started into witchery but have burned a bunch of them.
Updated to 2.1.3 and it is fixed now.
I had not restarted the launcher in a while so I didn't realize there was a new version out.
I had not restarted the launcher in a while so I didn't realize there was a new version out.
As I walk in late to the conversation, I'm hoping to see a more established magic path from your first piece of cobble so one who is not good/impatient with tech can still experience the game the same as the tech folk.
I will sit on the fence and watch this pan out...
Wishful thinking, but that's my 2 cents of skimming the last 2 pages...
I will sit on the fence and watch this pan out...
Wishful thinking, but that's my 2 cents of skimming the last 2 pages...
Adjusting difficulty can be approached in many vastly different ways.
There is increasing or decreasing something in the game so that it takes longer to accomplish the same task. The biggest example of this I can think of right now is "Torchlight 2". Where the one of the differences between "Normal" and "Elite" difficulties was a massive increase to the enemies health. It took a lot more time to defeat anything. Making the game a extreme grind.
There is changing the AI that is used by NPCs in the game. An example of this is Mortal Kombat 3. The opponents would adapt quicker to your style of combat and use a different styles themselves.
Some difficulty is set by the players aptitude, knowledge, skill, and approach to the game. Some difficulty is coded into the game itself. Some of those difficulty settings can be adjusted, some can't.
There are self imposed challenges. Where the player sets a set of restrictions on themselves to increase the difficulty of the game. Iron Man playthroughs of Diablo 2 and the Nuzlocke challenge in pokemon are examples of this.
Forgot why I quoted this during responding to the other quote. I really do like this quote though.
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I'm a little late to the party, but I must say I am really enjoying this pack. Seems like a great idea, especially for people like me who like longevity in their worlds. Lots and lots to work towards!
Just had to create an account after all this time to say thank you to the whole FTB team, and all the mod developers that contributed to this pack. I have been playing and enjoying Minecraft for years mainly because of the efforts of the modded community here at FTB. Infinity Evolved takes it all to a whole other level. I have been playing expert mode for what seems like months now and it really has helped me approach the game in a new and fresh way. I have been spending a lot more time on my living spaces mainly because I have decided to slow down and smell the roses. I can say I have enjoyed mods like Immersive Engineering and Witchery as well. I may never have tried to string power lines across a river from my wind farm up on top of that hill over there down to my logging shed. It just feels right and looks amazing.
The great thing is if you don't like the way expert mode was put together you can take normal and tweak it a little or a lot to try to create your own custom experience all without having to build yet another pack that someone else has to download.
Thanks again. I am loving it all.
Side Question: Are signalum bows meant to be OP? I noticed the crossbow was nerfed. I am guessing the values are in the mod and not a setting in the pack config.
The great thing is if you don't like the way expert mode was put together you can take normal and tweak it a little or a lot to try to create your own custom experience all without having to build yet another pack that someone else has to download.
Thanks again. I am loving it all.
Side Question: Are signalum bows meant to be OP? I noticed the crossbow was nerfed. I am guessing the values are in the mod and not a setting in the pack config.
I haven't tried to add Iguana, but it's one of a shortlist of mods that i wish were in the pack. Even if they were turned off by default, having them available would let us do servers with different flavors of Infinity, and players would just use the same pack.
Iguana Tweaks, Hunger Overhaul, Deadly World, Epic Siege, Custom NPC's and Lycanites mobs.
Iguana Tweaks, Hunger Overhaul, Deadly World, Epic Siege, Custom NPC's and Lycanites mobs.
I debated on Iguana's Tinkers' Tweaks for a while if for nothing else than the ability to replace tool parts (and also repairing tools in the 2x2 grid in the player's inventory). There's also a bunch of mods I ended up adding myself to Evolved, like TTFTCUT's "Cutting Edge" (specifically for the Treetapping Kits - IC2/MFR Trees give liquid rubber, Pam's Harvestcraft Maple Trees give liquid maple syrup [I gotta fit them Canadian stereotypes]), Malisis' Doors (+ Core), PneumatiCraft (which I feel should've been in the pack to begin with, but hey), "Ancient Trees" (mainly cause I like the trees and the planks, the fact you have to find them in dungeons/chests kinda balances them out a bit) and a few Thaumcraft addons that I rather like (Like Horizons now that it finally has a config file). Just my two cents on other mods that could be added.
(There's also "Matter Overdrive", but I'm working on custom recipes/configs for that).
I wanted Iguana for opposite reasons Right now you lose a tool (hard with graves and TC tools not despawning, but can happen) or want to make a new one, you just make it and add the stuff you want. Done. Having to level up each tool, especially if you gave it a high value for exp, made leveling up a pick an accomplishment. A good community on a server needs long term players. Keeping playes on DW20 is tougher than on infinity, and we had 2/3 of our infinity players rush off to Expert mode. They were bored and done with infinity. A good portion of the player bases wants the challenges.
Right now you lose a tool (hard with graves and TC tools not despawning, but can happen) or want to make a new one, you just make it and add the stuff you want. Done. Having to level up each tool, especially if you gave it a high value for exp, made leveling up a pick an accomplishment. A good community on a server needs long term players. Keeping playes on DW20 is tougher than on infinity, and we had 2/3 of our infinity players rush off to Expert mode. They were bored and done with infinity. A good portion of the player bases wants the challenges.FTB Tweaks is a very simple mod that introduces the concept of game modes. This allows you to set up multiple minetweaker profiles and switch between them on the fly, giving the ability to switch game modes without a server restart.
Re-reading this, i noticed the word "multiple". Does FTB tweaks currently support adding another mode? I'm working on themed server that will still use infinity modpack, but with recipe changes, and configuration changes. This could be very handy if we could just set up a 3rd mode.
Re-reading this, i noticed the word "multiple". Does FTB tweaks currently support adding another mode? I'm working on themed server that will still use infinity modpack, but with recipe changes, and configuration changes. This could be very handy if we could just set up a 3rd mode.
Poking around in Evolved's folder (several assumptions are going to be made), go into /modpack/ and you should see a file named "gamemodes.json," you'll want to edit the "modes" with the name of your new mode (has to be in quotes (" ")). Then create a folder in the same location with the same name as what you put into the config (I assume it's case-sensitive), your scripts go into that new folder.
A heads up about something that could upset a bit of progression. Players have discovered the Excavator from Immersive Engineering. When set up, this will produce thousands of blocks or ores from a chunk. (No blocks actually mined). One chunk in 6 is default for veins. A vein can will have primary/secondary/tertiary ores. My first one is copper. I have about 200 stacks of copper ore, 20 stacks of gold, and 4 stacks of ferrous so far. (although it ran for a while overflowing the diamond chest, so i lost some ). The vein is still over 80%
They do take a lot of steel to make, and take 4k Rf/t to run. So a midgame item.
Amount of ore can be configured lower, giving smaller veins. And the speed can be adjusted to take more time, and i assume more power per ore.
The part that might unbalance things a bit is a shiny/nickel/irridium vein. One was just found on our server, and suddenly the gold rush is in full swing with people testing chunks and making excavators.
Edit: Should have found this first http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/thr...adv-solar-panels-variety.129932/#post-1493816
They do take a lot of steel to make, and take 4k Rf/t to run. So a midgame item.
Amount of ore can be configured lower, giving smaller veins. And the speed can be adjusted to take more time, and i assume more power per ore.
The part that might unbalance things a bit is a shiny/nickel/irridium vein. One was just found on our server, and suddenly the gold rush is in full swing with people testing chunks and making excavators.
Edit: Should have found this first http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/thr...adv-solar-panels-variety.129932/#post-1493816
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Actually, from the 2.2.0 changelog
-Decreased Excavator output to 6,912 from 76,800 (This will fill a diamond chest)
-Decreased Excavator output to 6,912 from 76,800 (This will fill a diamond chest)