Balance and what that means...

[Zandorum]

I've been thinking about what balance is and what It means to me personally, I'd like to see what other people think. I feel that just because something costs alot doesn't mean its balanced. Example being the Flying rings in Extra Utilities, I feel they ruin flying and I turn them off so I don't have free flying, Now I wouldn't say they cost alot and if anything are cheaper than most jetpacks but my point still being that they ruin a part of the modded experience for me, A better example would be the Awakened Ichorium Pickaxe and the Bedrock Dimension not much needs to be said about that. In the case of Mod Wide balance I feel IC2 for example is significantly more balanced than Mekanism and Thermal Expansion. What's balanced, Whats unbalanced that's my question to you. Do you agree with what I'm saying or am I full of it. Is Minecraft even supposed to be balanced and have a long play time or be a Chaotic Sandbox.

I'm truly interested in everyone's opinion on this.

Edit: I've made it so you can pick both in the poll due to request. If you have no personally lean towards either one I'd recommend picking both.

 

[Strikingwolf]

Can we have a neither option?

 

[Wagon153]

To be perfectly honest, I don't find anything OP. I hate hate hate the term OP. And balance, I've never had an issue with. I don't mind being uber powerful and invincible. And I don't mind the grind of Gregtech.

 

[tedyhere]

Balance is like opinions...everyone has a differing view on it.


Minecraft is something different to different people. Myself I like to leave mods as they are as much as possible for MYSELF. When I make a pack for general use I try to balance things out to what mainline packs are balanced to UNLESS I am making a specifically designed pack that is meant to be balanced differently.

You will get a differing opinion from each poster I would gather.

 

[Zandorum]

Can we have a neither option?

I changed it so you could pick both if you feel both, if you actually mean neither than do you mean you don't play minecraft because neither would mean that you don't wan't content what so ever.

To be perfectly honest, I don't find anything OP. I hate hate hate the term OP. And balance, I've never had an issue with. I don't mind being uber powerful and invincible. And I don't mind the grind of Gregtech.

I personally like to beable to die to something, now that's always possible in PVP assuming you have things like the Strix Rapier around if you have things like Blood Magic or something the Sap's power quicker than normal combat for the Quantum Armor but I'd like the NPC's to occasionally overwhelm me no matter how good of equipment I have. Now that doesn't mean I don't want a Super End Game where I can't die but I'd rather that didn't come until about 2 months into my world.

 

[tedyhere]

I changed it so you could pick both if you feel both, if you actually mean neither than do you mean you don't play minecraft because neither would mean that you don't wan't content what so ever.

Depends on your definition of "balance" Vaygrim's chance is balanced around being fun and casual. Blood n Bones is balanced around being extremely difficult and progression based

 

[Strikingwolf]

I changed it so you could pick both if you feel both, if you actually mean neither than do you mean you don't play minecraft because neither would mean that you don't wan't content what so ever.


I personally like to beable to die to something, now that's always possible in PVP assuming you have things like the Strix Rapier around if you have things like Blood Magic or something the Sap's power quicker than normal combat for the Quantum Armor but I'd like the NPC's to occasionally overwhelm me no matter how good of equipment I have. Now that doesn't mean I don't want a Super End Game where I can't die but I'd rather that didn't come until about 2 months into my world.

Both

 

[Zandorum]

To be perfectly honest, I don't find anything OP. I hate hate hate the term OP. And balance, I've never had an issue with. I don't mind being uber powerful and invincible. And I don't mind the grind of Gregtech.

Depends on your definition of "balance" Vaygrim's chance is balanced around being fun and casual. Blood n Bones is balanced around being extremely difficult and progression based

I always play with extreme difficulty but a like it being free form so you can go the route you like and ignore other routes if you like, I always go back to them. I play a Blood n' Bones esk game of Minecraft I guess. I do like Progression as well but I still like having multiple options at the start instead of only 1.

 

[tedyhere]

I play on normal and sometimes peaceful if I want to not worry about stuff. This is why Minecraft is so popular, you can play how you want.

I also turn off mobGriefing and things like taint, warp and things I don't like that hamper gameplay and punish you for playing a mod.

 

[1SDAN]

I like dying a lot, but I hate being unable to at the very least postpone my deaths
I like dying to have a purpose, for it to matter
I like having to closely manage my resources, to have every block of dirt count

And yet those 'balance' philosophies of mine will be called 'stupid' within 1 minute of posing it on a SkydoesMinecraft video. It's not because they are bad at the game, nor does it mean I have a bad idea of what 'balance' is, it's that everyone has a different skill set and set of preferences. You ever hear of the phrase 'You can't please everyone' ? Because if you haven't, I think you've just discovered the problem with 'balance'.

 

[darkeshrine]

I think that balance is basically when mods don't step on each others' toes and make thing easy. Just as an example is how easy Blood Magic gets when you have Botania's Fallen Kanade. When no mod makes another mod considerably easier is when I think it's balanced.

Unfortunately, there will always be something that makes something else ridiculously easy and I would never ask that a mod developer limit themselves to worrying about mod x having block y that makes something stupidly easy. Due to this alone, I voted for a chaotic sandbox.

 

[Zandorum]

I think that balance is basically when mods don't step on each others' toes and make thing easy. Just as an example is how easy Blood Magic gets when you have Botania's Fallen Kanade. When no mod makes another mod considerably easier is when I think it's balanced.

Unfortunately, there will always be something that makes something else ridiculously easy and I would never ask that a mod developer limit themselves to worrying about mod x having block y that makes something stupidly easy. Due to this alone, I voted for a chaotic sandbox.

I would like to point out the health regeneration beacons exist in base minecraft in relation to that Blood Magic Botania crossover and to stepping on toes I can come up with a bunch of offenders EE2, Aethercraft.

 

[darkeshrine]

I would like to point out the health regeneration beacons exist in base minecraft in relation to that Blood Magic Botania crossover and to stepping on toes I can come up with a bunch of offenders EE2, Aethercraft.

Beacons require you to kill a wither. EE2 is known for it's all around lack of balance what with its cheap infinite anything mechanic. Never seen Aethercraft before, but it seems to be a cheaper ee2.

 

[Golrith]

Beacons require you to kill a wither. EE2 is known for it's all around lack of balance what with its cheap infinite anything mechanic. Never seen Aethercraft before, but it seems to be a cheaper ee2.

Not really, Aethercraft is a port of Energy Manipulator mod, and the original mod (and thus Aethercraft) has a lot of "balancing" options in config (at my request ) so you can have lossy conversions and other forms of "balance". Plus combined with the ability to define your own values for items.
The only thing I've done is get rid of all the tiers that AetherCraft has introduced, reverted back to a single tier using "end game" materials for crafting recipes, plus only raw materials have values, not crafted (where possible), has a lossy conversion.

 

[Skyqula]

To me, balance is mechanics that allow you to do something, without making annything else obsolete.

So to me, automated mining in its current form in modded minecraft is completly broken. Why mine manually when you can have machines do it faster then you can do it yourself? When it will find everything possible, including all those rarer materials that manually might be hard to find. At the same time, a mod like Tinkers Construct is amazing, not only the way you make tools, but also the t2 tools. They atleast close the gap between automated and manual mining a little.

But also flight. Some mods like adding flight, like IC2. You start out with a weak jetpack, you can fly for a short time, its not realy fast. Requires some infrastructure to get going. You offer up your chest piece. Its kinda cool. Then we have something like advanced genetics or ExU ring of flight or MPS. It might take some time to get flight. But when you have it there is no drawback. Its not one or the other. Its not limited, you can keep going forever. There is just no gameplay left. Whats worse, it completly absoletes things like minecarts, boats and even just walking/sprinting (speed potions/beacons).

Now modded minecraft is full of unbalanced mechanics. Some worse, some acceptable because they are pure fun. And thats what modded MC realy is, not a balanced gameplay experience, but people having fun doing whatever (wich can include makin balanced modpacks).

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Oh joy- another one of these threads.


Long answer:
I guess I like some balance within an individual modded instance- everything kinda having a similar cost to function ratio I guess [cost being skill, space/size as well as the obvious power and materials]
Outside of that- different mods/packs/instances for different difficulty curves- its your mod; go nuts. Its not our place to dictate what you can and can't do with your creations.
But please try to avoid stirring up excessive amounts of shit with the community. Drama is kinda irritating after a while.

 

[1SDAN]

To me, balance is mechanics that allow you to do something, without making annything else absolete.

So to me, automated mining in its current form in modded minecraft is completly broken. Why mine manually when you can have machines do it faster then you can do it yourself? When it will find everything possible, including all those rarer materials that manually might be hard to find. At the same time, a mod like Tinkers Construct is amazing, not only the way you make tools, but also the t2 tools. They atleast close the gap between automated and manual mining a little.

But also flight. Some mods like adding flight, like IC2. You start out with a weak jetpack, you can fly for a short time, its not realy fast. Requires some infrastructure to get going. You offer up your chest piece. Its kinda cool. Then we have something like advanced genetics or ExU ring of flight or MPS. It might take some time to get flight. But when you have it there is no drawback. Its not one or the other. Its not limited, you can keep going forever. There is just no gameplay left. Whats worse, it completly absoletes things like minecarts, boats and even just walking/sprinting (speed potions/beacons).

Now modded minecraft is full of unbalanced mechanics. Some worse, some acceptable because they are pure fun. And thats what modded MC realy is, not a balanced gameplay experience, but people having fun doing whatever (wich can include makin balanced modpacks).

Time to open THAT can.

What if a mod's creator has a different idea of 'balance' than other devs?

 

[Wagon153]

Time to open THAT can.

What if a mod's creator has a different idea of 'balance' than other devs?

GOD FORBID.

 

[Skyqula]

Time to open THAT can.

What if a mod's creator has a different idea of 'balance' than other devs?

Reading is so hard...

Now modded minecraft is full of unbalanced mechanics. Some worse, some acceptable because they are pure fun. And thats what modded MC realy is, not a balanced gameplay experience, but people having fun doing whatever (wich can include makin balanced modpacks).

Now if you want to discuss the actual point I brought up, then I am all ears.

To me, balance is mechanics that allow you to do something, without making annything else obsolete.

 

[Scottly318]

Personally? Balance is a subjective term that needs defined by each mod author. as what I see as balance another person might see as unbalanced. Prime example: you believe that TE is unbalanced. I personally see it as being very balanced. You can't compare one mod to another as the creators may have vastly different visions for how they want their mod to be.