Crowdsourcing a Challenge

[deemera]

So, I've always been a fan of challenges. I tried out the Refugee to Regent Challenge
. I even wrote my own challenge inspired by it. After a long hiatus, I'm back and looking to try again. I figured I'd do a bit of brainstorming with the community this time around.

My goal is to design a challenge that is:

* Easy to follow
I'd rather not have to keep referring to a wiki the whole time, wondering whether I needed 6 or 8 5x7 buildings.
* Progression-based
I want to see that I'm making progress as the challenge unfolds

I think the easiest way to accomplish both of these goals is with a tiered unlock system (like I used in the Tier 10 Challenge). As you progress through the levels of the challenge, different materials unlock.

1 -
2 Wood
3 Stone
4 Iron
5 Redstone
6 Gold
7 Diamond
8 Obsidian
9 Glowstone
10 Endstone

For instance, until you get to level 2, you can't craft anything containing wood (yes, no crafting table). This makes it very easy to follow. You don't have to reference a list of allowed and forbidden items. You just have to look at the recipe you're trying to craft, and have a good idea of the progression.

My difficulty now is figuring out how to unlock each level. The Tier 10 challenge was plagued with math. To get to the next level, you needed to tally up all your stuff (inventory/built), and look on charts and add up your current points. That's too much work. But I'm also not a fan of "build 30 empty buildings that no one will ever use for anything". Any ideas?

 

[Lethosos]

The mod Progression can handle unlocking things for you; it has quite a few options on how a tier is unlocked. I've been slowly working on a City challenge myself using that, HQM, and SquidUtils.

Sent from my Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron using Tapatalk 2

 

[deemera]

I actually tried some of this yesterday. I didn't have specific level unlock conditions in mind, so I just played. I used the 1.7 Direwolf20 pack (1.5)

Level 1: Nothing Unlocked
No wood means no crafting table, no chests, no doors, no tools. So, I did a fair bit of tree punching. I built myself a log framework house with clay walls. I planted cactus and reed patches, and an oak and spruce tree farm. To "stay in character" I left the doorway to my house open, rather than walling myself in at night "Cask of Amontillado"-style. I may have gone a bit overboard. By the time I was done, I had full stacks of apples (found a small apple orchard), dirt, sand, oak, spruce, and wheat seeds.

Level 2: Wood Unlocked
A lot of stuff is suddenly available. Crafting Table, tools, Tinker tables, chests, ladders, doors. Still can't light my house though (coal doesn't unlock yet, and charcoal requires a furnace). "In character" I thought it seemed a bit dangerous to be digging unsupported mining tunnels, so I tried digging a stair-step quarry. Mostly got dirt. Then I found a natural cave and dug up a bit of cobble from its floor (plus marble and some other mod stone types, even a few pieces of iron and coal). I started a ditch irrigation farm for all my seeds, and animal paddocks for cows and chickens. Once again, as an "in character" thing, I decided that it made little sense to slaughter sheep for their wool, so I didn't have wool right away (had to wait for my cotton to grow). Tree farming is a bit easier with a wood axe and sickle. But at this point, it started to show that I didn't know what I was waiting for to progress. This is also the level when I noticed that my oak wood was bugged. I could turn it into planks, but oak wood planks couldn't be turned into anything else (not even sticks). They still worked for Tinker's Construct tools, and I later found that I could still burn oak logs into charcoal.

Level 3: Stone Unlocked (and coal)
Due to not really knowing what my unlock conditions should be, I sort of petered out here. I turned a bunch of oak wood to charcoal, upgraded my tools...

----------------------------

Still don't really know what to use for the unlock conditions. I'm toying with the idea of getting a number of stacks of the next level's material. So to unlock wood, you need some stacks of wood. Maybe equal to the level. Or maybe an exponential growth curve. So to get to level 2 requires 2 stacks of wood, then level 3 requires 4 stacks of cobble... But that means that level 7 will require 64 stacks of diamonds.

And then while I'm playing, I tend to want to follow all these fiddly little "in character" rules. I don't really want to codify all those, because that adds a lot of bookkeeping. But when I'm playing, I tend to enjoy working through/around those a lot more. "Building a wood supported clay house" and "farming cotton to make a bed" are more fun than "mining 4 stacks of cobble".

 

[Psychicash]

-snip-
But I'm also not a fan of "build 30 empty buildings that no one will ever use for anything". Any ideas?

I have to say that on one hand I'm not a fan of empty buildings either. On the other hand they really do make for interesting terrain. It really makes the area have a feel... especially when you start kidnapping villagers villagers start moving in.

On the other hand it can be a little frustrating to see all this "unused" space. It really depends on your goal.

I don't care for the idea of a large base with all this tech stuff/magic/whatever with only me... it's kind of lonely

 

[deemera]

I don't care for the idea of a large base with all this tech stuff/magic/whatever with only me... it's kind of lonely

Yeah, that's the downside of playing single player.

 

[DaTa___]

Still don't really know what to use for the unlock conditions. I'm toying with the idea of getting a number of stacks of the next level's material. So to unlock wood, you need some stacks of wood. Maybe equal to the level. Or maybe an exponential growth curve. So to get to level 2 requires 2 stacks of wood, then level 3 requires 4 stacks of cobble... But that means that level 7 will require 64 stacks of diamonds.

Well, "collect stack of wood" is a boring and non-creative thing. I think, you should focus on what actions are available to you when you are at specific level of progress. For example, collecting of logs to unlock wood operation looking logical step, but gathering of 64 logs is boring, 8 logs is too fast. How about other actions available? For example, you still can punch and kill mobs with hand. How about "collect 8 logs and kill 8 mobs, so your hands become strong enough to refine wood to planks and sticks"? etc

---

You must remember that player can avoid some progression steps by gathering resources from environment. E.g. mob drops (iron, gold, swords, shovels, bows, arrows), dungeon/fortress/stronghold/pyramid/etc, mineshaft chests (diamonds, iron, gold, tools, armor, food, bunch of resources from random mods, e.g. tin, copper, iridium, dark steel...), applied energistics meteorites, thaumcraft mounds, witchcraft structures, villages and villagers tradings. You must handle multiple types of resource (e.g. yellorium ore = uranium ore, vanilla log = any mod log, railcraft abyssal stone resources (lapis, emeralds), clear glass from some mods = glass). Multiple types of processing (TiC smeltery, pulverizing of silktouched ores, auto-smelt tools, etc). And more and more, what I can't imagine.

 

[casieg]

Long ago I did a modern city challenge. I was thinking it would be neat to to redo it using HQM and the BC builder and blueprints. Something like a completed HQM quest gives a reward of a blueprint for some random building, say a worker's home. Build so many worker's homes and you get a blueprint for a factory for them to work in. Something like that.

 

[Psychicash]

Yeah, that's the downside of playing single player.

Oh no that's not single player... Mostly people are either way ahead of me and already have anything I make or way behind and "I want to do it myself" responses. Which is fine. It's difficult to find a symbotic relationship between people. Most people want to play on a multiplayer server but don't want to participate with other people directly.

Casieg, that's an awesome idea. I think that would totally work. Of course you could then put optional building ideas in with the blueprints.

 

[casieg]

Truth is I've been wanting to write a city building mod for a while. The general idea is that most machines need villagers to automate and villagers need a supply of shelter, food, and money to keep working. Buy and sell resources via magic blocks linking to other "cities".

So you would start your city by collecting and selling some resources manually. Once you had enough money you could buy blueprints for a few simple structures, a home and a tree farm. Build those, supply your villager with food and money, and he will run your tree farm. Sell those logs and buy a farm. Sell the wheat and buy a simple power plant. Keep going and you'll have a big city full of quarries, marketplaces, factories, etc.

 

[Shattered box]

Truth is I've been wanting to write a city building mod for a while. The general idea is that most machines need villagers to automate and villagers need a supply of shelter, food, and money to keep working. Buy and sell resources via magic blocks linking to other "cities".

So you would start your city by collecting and selling some resources manually. Once you had enough money you could buy blueprints for a few simple structures, a home and a tree farm. Build those, supply your villager with food and money, and he will run your tree farm. Sell those logs and buy a farm. Sell the wheat and buy a simple power plant. Keep going and you'll have a big city full of quarries, marketplaces, factories, etc.

If the final mod is something like this then that's a guaranteed download from me (i don't like tier progression and progression locking type things) this comment got my mind racing and my heart beating so many possibilities and such a cool mechanic to play with!

 

[malicious_bloke]

Truth is I've been wanting to write a city building mod for a while. The general idea is that most machines need villagers to automate and villagers need a supply of shelter, food, and money to keep working. Buy and sell resources via magic blocks linking to other "cities".

So you would start your city by collecting and selling some resources manually. Once you had enough money you could buy blueprints for a few simple structures, a home and a tree farm. Build those, supply your villager with food and money, and he will run your tree farm. Sell those logs and buy a farm. Sell the wheat and buy a simple power plant. Keep going and you'll have a big city full of quarries, marketplaces, factories, etc.

A city full of villagers you say...

*ponders the possibilities*

 

[KingTriaxx]

BC autocrafting tables make excellent fake villagers. Resources go into chests on one side of the house, then get auto-crafted underneath, and come up into the 'finished' products chest on the other side. Make it all hidden and it appears to be the villager's work.

Depending on the type of villager you've got, you can have either one product, or several. A blacksmith might produce both ingots and blocks of various metals. Use factorization heaters and Steve's factory manager to have furnaces going constantly. (Dust goes in, gets smelted, then taken back to be ground behind the scenes, and then put back into the furnace, so it looks like it's always producing even if it's not.)

I've never been a big fan of tiered progression. It just feels too artificial. I've been playing a challenge restricting me to not teleporting things. (Other than me.) And no flight. (Beyond what a TiCon Longsword provides.)

That's not entirely fair. YogLewis usually knows what he's doing, but he spends most of his time trying to herd cats.

 

[Type1Ninja]

BC autocrafting tables make excellent fake villagers. Resources go into chests on one side of the house, then get auto-crafted underneath, and come up into the 'finished' products chest on the other side. Make it all hidden and it appears to be the villager's work.

Depending on the type of villager you've got, you can have either one product, or several. A blacksmith might produce both ingots and blocks of various metals. Use factorization heaters and Steve's factory manager to have furnaces going constantly. (Dust goes in, gets smelted, then taken back to be ground behind the scenes, and then put back into the furnace, so it looks like it's always producing even if it's not.)

I've never been a big fan of tiered progression. It just feels too artificial. I've been playing a challenge restricting me to not teleporting things. (Other than me.) And no flight. (Beyond what a TiCon Longsword provides.)

That's not entirely fair. YogLewis usually knows what he's doing, but he spends most of his time trying to herd cats.

Those are cool ideas.
I think the phrase you're looking for is "herding lolcats." It's an easy mistake to make.
Duncan knew what he was doing, at least way back in 1.2.5... And then never caught up to anything after that... XD

 

[KingTriaxx]

That's der bunny. Yeah, I've seen the problem happen with more than one LPer.