Balance or Tedium

[Runebooke]

I know I am probably opening up a box of chocolates with this thread, but nevertheless I have contemplated this concept about FTB, and their mod list choices. FTB modpacks are known for attempting at being balanced, but this also poses another question. If the methods for true balance are not there, should they be implemented via tedium? I want to know the communities opinions. Because, to me at least, modpacks have at least 1 mod that breaks everything else in balance. A prime example of this is ore doubling, via dust or smelting, and by various other methods. Ore doubling is implemented in a few mods of different themes. However, they vary largely in the waste/cost of materials to make them. So, by having mods doing roughly the same thing and only varying in cost, people ALWAYS seem to take the path of least resistance. Therefore, the popular fix is lowering the obtainable rate of materials. This is accomplished by decreasing generation, increasing material cost, or both. In my opinion, if you alter game play by any of these two methods, artificial difficulty is created, aka. tedium. And with the varying performance limitations of servers and PCs, expecting everything to be automated is a little much in my opinion. What is your opinion?

 

[malicious_bloke]

Depends.

Give me a tedious and repetitive task and I will automate it.

Refuse me a way to automate it and I will reject your config and substitute my own.

Don't think your hipster manual process can be automated? Think again. My desire to have my base automagically create things for me is far greater than my desire to sit there and repeatedly do the same bloody thing, just because a mod designer thought making a tedious, grindy manual process was a decent substitute for "challenge" in their mod.

Put senseless busywork in your mods and I WILL automate it somehow...

 

[rhn]

Ftb modpacks are known for attempting at being balanced

They are?

What other people call "tedium" and "grinding" I use as breaks to embrace my ingenuity and creativity. To try and automate things in creative ways(or just automate EVERYTHING!) and build architecture that I like. I really don't mind that it takes a month to reach the end of some tech tree, I am not racing to get there anyway. And I usually always end up with an overabundance of materials anyway due to so much time spend nerding with automation or building.

What I do mind is that I reach the end of tech tree in one mod in 2 hours and another mod then takes a month(of mods of comparable rewards). That is poor modpack balancing. These mods should either not have been in the same pack or they should have been configured/altered to be balanced with each other. And this is where I personally think effort should be put by modpack creators(FTB included) to try and bring mods selected for a pack somewhat in line with each other. Stuff like selecting easy mode recipes for one mod, Hardmode recipes for another to bring them to the same level and possible minetweak some recipes to the same effect if need be.

 

[Azzanine]

They are?

What other people call "tedium" and "grinding" I use as breaks to embrace my ingenuity and creativity. To try and automate things in creative ways(or just automate EVERYTHING!) and build architecture that I like. I really don't mind that it takes a month to reach the end of some tech tree, I am not racing to get there anyway. And I usually always end up with an overabundance of materials anyway due to so much time spend nerding with automation or building.

What I do mind is that I reach the end of tech tree in one mod in 2 hours and another mod then takes a month(of mods of comparable rewards). That is poor modpack balancing. These mods should either not have been in the same pack or they should have been configured/altered to be balanced with each other. And this is where I personally think effort should be put by modpack creators(FTB included) to try and bring mods selected for a pack somewhat in line with each other. Stuff like selecting easy mode recipes for one mod, Hardmode recipes for another to bring them to the same level and possible minetweak some recipes to the same effect if need be.

I think someone has defined what balance in modpacks should be. Where everything is consistently hard/ easy.


Also regarding the main post; Equating balance with tedium is kind of wrong, tedium is but one method to create balance. It's not the most ideal method as tedium is not fun games/mods should be aiming for an overall fun experience.

 

[Runebooke]

I think someone has defined what balance in modpacks should be. Where everything is consistently hard/ easy.


Also regarding the main post; Equating balance with tedium is kind of wrong, tedium is but one method to create balance. It's not the most ideal method as tedium is not fun games/mods should be aiming for an overall fun experience.

Thank you for clarifying that. Minecraft is a game, not a job. So, how long should it take someone to touch on everything in a mod-pack? A week? A month? I ran a small TPPI server were a couple of guys played thousands of hours, and still havent covered the game. Part of the reason was, It was optimized for "Balance", if you want to call nerfing recipes that. After 4 months they still did not touch everything. That said, I guess what I really want to say is, I hope FTB would create a modpack that was less "balanced" and more fun every once in a while.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Tedium does not equate difficulty, it equates boredom. At least in my book. Make me manually do something a bazillion times, or add in artificial difficulty through a dozen different steps just for the sake of complexity, and I yawn and go elsewhere.

 

[namiasdf]

Depends.

Give me a tedious and repetitive task and I will automate it.

Refuse me a way to automate it and I will reject your config and substitute my own.

Don't think your hipster manual process can be automated? Think again. My desire to have my base automagically create things for me is far greater than my desire to sit there and repeatedly do the same bloody thing, just because a mod designer thought making a tedious, grindy manual process was a decent substitute for "challenge" in their mod.

Put senseless busywork in your mods and I WILL automate it somehow...

i.e. Old GT. If it's complicated for the sake of being complicated, also to a point where it isn't fun, but just dumb...

Right now, no mod is really that way. Mods that are overly complicated, offer great rewards. Mods which skim this fine line are those like Mekanism, and RoC (and all the other ReikaTech). Those are meant to burn time /w the tedium that comes with the mod. The result are equally as rewarding/complicated systems which you can be proud of.

Just remember that most people like playing a variety of mod, so if you monopolize their time with tedium, chances are they will eventually drop your mod, in lieu of more convenient alternatives, such that they have more time for other mods.

 

[HeilMewTwo]

Tedium does not equate difficulty, it equates boredom. At least in my book. Make me manually do something a bazillion times, or add in artificial difficulty through a dozen different steps just for the sake of complexity, and I yawn and go elsewhere.

Sometimes I do like lots of steps when making an item, it makes it feel like a puzzle for me. Though I do agree with you about the manual method and tedium.

 

[giesergast]

i love automation my friends are always like "dude you have 500 stacks iron blocks you will never use more" im always like "no" i love just getting more automatticly just becuase it feels good. i automate everything not becuase its easy or becuase im lazy just becuase i love that "challenge" something taking a lot of time is not what "challenge"is for me it is having to think about something hard to get something to work on itself. its about figuring out what big reactor to make and how to automaticly make solar penals .

just my thoughts

 

[Psychicash]

The problem I've always had with things is there's a point where you make things so easy that it becomes almost creative mode. A good example of this is Mine Factory Reloaded IMO. In less than 3 days (game time) I had 4 zombie spawners (vanilla) in a room with a MFR spawner and grinder. In 1 hour of it running I had roughly 5000 ender pearls. It became a point that number of resources didn't matter because they came so easy I may have well been cheating them in.

MFR does have some balanced blocks, harvester and planter being two of them. At the same time there people who don't like those and would rather use the enderio farm block which takes hoes and axes. There's an additional cost (aside from power) and a change in automation.

So you have to decide where your fun lies. Do you want to explore and are you challenged by figuring out how to automate things yourself or discovering things in the wild? Do you want to automate things so that you hit a button and a bunch of automation goes on behind the wall and out pops a piece of bubble gum with a 7 course meal? Where's the balance? That's kind of personal question because we all enjoy different things.

In regards to ore... Factorization you can... tripple? or quadruple your ore production and yes it is automatable. Honestly I had way more fun mining and mining and designing automation for the factorization ore processing because I couldn't find a video I had to figure it out for myself. And the amount of time it takes to process vs what you get gives some balance but the fun I had was well worth it.

 

[giesergast]

i tottaly agree with you and the nice thing is you can just choose to do this in minecraft.

minecraft (or feed the beast) is in its essence not a competetive game its not about who gets the most recourses or something its just about having fun.wich is why i always try to do the stuff i find awesome not necceceraly the best things (eventough this is often the same). if it was a competetive game nooone would do thaumcraft or ars magica or many other mods i mean they are often not strictly " good" you do it becuase its awesome as sh**t

 

[DrKnoz]

I absolutely agree with you. It's the reason i refuse to update rotarycraft to newer versions.

 

[TheGreatKamina]

So you have to decide where your fun lies. Do you want to explore and are you challenged by figuring out how to automate things yourself or discovering things in the wild? Do you want to automate things so that you hit a button and a bunch of automation goes on behind the wall and out pops a piece of bubble gum with a 7 course meal? Where's the balance? That's kind of personal question because we all enjoy different things.

i tottaly agree with you and the nice thing is you can just choose to do this in minecraft.

minecraft (or feed the beast) is in its essence not a competetive game its not about who gets the most recourses or something its just about having fun.wich is why i always try to do the stuff i find awesome not necceceraly the best things (eventough this is often the same). if it was a competetive game nooone would do thaumcraft or ars magica or many other mods i mean they are often not strictly " good" you do it becuase its awesome as sh**t

This kind of hits on the way I tend to play the game. I don't go for automating all the things or end-game equipment because they feel too "power game"-ey for my taste. I like to get out of my base and see the world, maybe hunt some random mobs, because it provides a change of pace from trying to "advance" in the game, which gets a little dull after a while. That said, I do like designing complicated mechanisms when I'm in the mood, though not for anything practical.

It is a perception of mine that other players on servers tend to do just the opposite, i.e. rush to AE or Kami or what have you, just to reach the end so to speak.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Me, personally, I can't help but rush some things. I know the ins and outs of so many mods now that working with them has become a matter of course and is more there to fill the space between punching trees and doing interesting things. For instance, I know a lot of TE's recipes and power generation techniques (my current early-game favourite is MFR sewage and sugar in a reactant dynamo) and there's not much new to fill in the gap there outside augments and screwing with autonomous activators in various and sundry ways. With something like that, I can't help but rush thru it because I have almost everything planned out in my head by the time I find a hole in the ground to call home. Things like Rotary/ReactorCraft, or ChromatiCraft, or Mekanism 8? I have to take them a bit more slowly than normal because a lot has changed recently with them, or in the case of ChC, are completely new mods to me. Those things? The new, interesting things? I tend to take my time with them naturally to savour the flavour, as it were.

I'm not fond of tedium. Give me GregTech or TerraFirmaCraft, and I'll tell you to stick 'em where the sun don't shine. I don't mind the early game taking a while to get through, that's completely normal and expected. However, I like actually feeling like I'm getting somewhere as I go thru a mod's tech tree, and at a reasonable pace. Mid-game should be faster, more efficient, and more powerful than early-game, and late-game should be better than the both of 'em. If I have to wait 10 minutes to make a basic circuit in your mod, then I'm going to move on to something else. My free time is precious to me, and I'm not going to waste it dealing with slow, tedious bullshit.

 

[DerpyPanda22]

Regarding the original post the people that build the modpacks for ftb really don't have that much creative freedom when they are creating the kitchen sink packs. A really good example would be Ic2 vs Thermal Expansion; they are two extremely similar mods that do the majority of the same things but one has less complicated crafting recipes but both are extremely popular so the pack devs have to put both in. A mod pack doesn't really need to be balanced if they have all the mods that the majority of people want to play

 

[TheGreatKamina]

Me, personally, I can't help but rush some things. I know the ins and outs of so many mods now that working with them has become a matter of course and is more there to fill the space between punching trees and doing interesting things. For instance, I know a lot of TE's recipes and power generation techniques (my current early-game favourite is MFR sewage and sugar in a reactant dynamo) and there's not much new to fill in the gap there outside augments and screwing with autonomous activators in various and sundry ways. With something like that, I can't help but rush thru it because I have almost everything planned out in my head by the time I find a hole in the ground to call home. Things like Rotary/ReactorCraft, or ChromatiCraft, or Mekanism 8? I have to take them a bit more slowly than normal because a lot has changed recently with them, or in the case of ChC, are completely new mods to me. Those things? The new, interesting things? I tend to take my time with them naturally to savour the flavour, as it were.

I'm not fond of tedium. Give me GregTech or TerraFirmaCraft, and I'll tell you to stick 'em where the sun don't shine. I don't mind the early game taking a while to get through, that's completely normal and expected. However, I like actually feeling like I'm getting somewhere as I go thru a mod's tech tree, and at a reasonable pace. Mid-game should be faster, more efficient, and more powerful than early-game, and late-game should be better than the both of 'em. If I have to wait 10 minutes to make a basic circuit in your mod, then I'm going to move on to something else. My free time is precious to me, and I'm not going to waste it dealing with slow, tedious bullshit.

I get this, actually. Rushing to the fun parts makes sense. Rushing for the sake of rushing, or for bragging rights, does not. For me it's more of a "the lower tiers are fun, too" sort of deal.

 

[RavynousHunter]

I get this, actually. Rushing to the fun parts makes sense. Rushing for the sake of rushing, or for bragging rights, does not. For me it's more of a "the lower tiers are fun, too" sort of deal.

Aye. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a little competitive building, myself, and I love showing off, but I wouldn't let it get in the way of my enjoying a good mod at an appropriate pace.

 

[Pyure]

Tedium does not equate difficulty, it equates boredom. At least in my book. Make me manually do something a bazillion times, or add in artificial difficulty through a dozen different steps just for the sake of complexity, and I yawn and go elsewhere.

fwiw, the appeal for GT users isn't the tedium itself, its the difficulty of making that tedium go away.

I hate making just about everything in GT, but making Pump covers really grinds my gears. Speaking of which, you probably need tiny gears for that. And tiny screws. And rods and a bunch of little tools (screwdrivers, wrenches....etc). It can really suck the soul out of a person.

But...how the hell can I make this easier on myself? Well I can just uninstall GT and pretend the problem doesn't exist, or I can overcome it. I can make a factory that makes pumps for me. *That* is hard to do. That's where a "tedious" mod becomes "difficult."

 

[malicious_bloke]

Needs clippy.

"I see you just made subpart #1045/a-2. Would you like me to help you make the same thing 184'000 times so you can make a basic block that works in the world?"

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

fwiw, the appeal for GT users isn't the tedium itself, its the difficulty of making that tedium go away.

I hate making just about everything in GT, but making Pump covers really grinds my gears. Speaking of which, you probably need tiny gears for that. And tiny screws. And rods and a bunch of little tools (screwdrivers, wrenches....etc). It can really suck the soul out of a person.

But...how the hell can I make this easier on myself? Well I can just uninstall GT and pretend the problem doesn't exist, or I can overcome it. I can make a factory that makes pumps for me. *That* is hard to do. That's where a "tedious" mod becomes "difficult."

That's nice, but it also isn't relevant to the comment quoted. The question was specifically about tedium and difficulty, not how Gtech adds complexity. Try to force me to do something manually, and I will get bored. Add in artificial difficulty by adding in dozens of steps in your manual process, and I will yawn and walk away. Has zero to do with processes that can be automated.