FTB Infinity Expert Mode | Behind the scenes with tfox83

tfox83

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have been getting a lot of questions about this Infinity Expert Mode so hopefully this will clear some confusion. Also please keep in mind Infinity Expert mode is not released to the public yet and I do not have a hard ETA in place yet.

So about two months ago I wanted to develop a new modpack for Feed The Beast that had a longer play life and a sense of forced progression without the need of a guide to have to constantly refer too. I started choosing mods for this pack and even sent out a few surveys to the community to get a feel of what you all wanted in a modpack, and the answer always comes back to a vast majority wanted a mixture of tech and magic mods so they can do what they want and play with others on a server that have a different play style than they do. So of course I started choosing mods and before I knew it had a base pack that I could launch and create a new world, however this was the easy part. Next came custom configs/recipes to make things a bit harder. I started on the custom stuff and realized the mod list was extremely close to Infinity which is quickly becoming the most successful pack in FTB’s history. So I set back and thought about things for a bit and I decided why make a pack to compete with Infinity, why don’t I take my resources and time and make Infinity better! This is how Infinity Expert Mode was born.

I then reached out to a few mod developers for some answers on how to make this possible. My requirements were that the player could toggle between normal and hard within the same or existing worlds. Also I wanted the client to be able to connect to a server that is in hardmode then connect to a server that is in normal and not have to reboot nor input any information. Also I wanted the player to be able to revert their world at any time back to normal mode in SSP or SMP without breaking things. Once this was a possibly we rolled with the idea. A mod was developed called FTB Tweaks (Authors name will be released at time of mod release) which allows just this. So now all that was left was hours and hours of scripting to customize the pack. As I type this about three quarters of the recipes/changes are complete, and I hope to finish these within the next two weeks. I will then install this on our Official FTB One server and send the players the files they need for this to work, we will of course be in expert mode. You will be able to see some sneak peaks from streamers that play on FTB One. We will test it for a couple weeks and once we iron out the bugs I will release it in Infinity as a standard update. I have no ETA just yet but I can assure you it is at least 2-3 weeks away minimally. When you see this screen once you update Infinity you will know you have expert mode available in that version.

World restarts are not required for expert mode, however to get the best experience I do suggest if you want to try out Infinity Expert Mode a fresh world is the best, so you can see all the changes from Minecraft day one. FTB never supports adding or removing mods but we all know it’s pretty common for people to add or remove mods from Infinity with no issues, however, if you plan on playing on hard mode adding and removing mods will break Infinity Expert Mode as a lot of the recipes are cross-mod written. Client only mods like HUDs/Mini Maps can be added/removed with no issues however always back up your world and remember we do not offer support to edited/unlocked modpacks.

So this basically wraps up the thought process behind FTB Infinity Expert Mode. I hope all of you are just as excited as I am to play the new harder Infinity! And remember if Expert Mode isn’t for you when you update Infinity when this is available just log into your existing world and continue playing as normal, you will see no difference and can continue enjoying FTB Infinity as you do now.

Once again thank you to everyone in the community for all your support from developers to players!
 
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Yusunoha

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Jul 29, 2019
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this has been something I've been wanting to see in modded minecraft for quite some time now, being able to change the difficulty of a modpack with ease, allowing you to play a modpack in more than one way
 

Watchful11

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Nov 6, 2012
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Wanna know it too. Will it possible to run hard mode only in server?
It's completely server side. The client doesn't have to do anything to connect to one type of server or the other.
 

tfox83

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Jul 29, 2019
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Interesting, will ftb tweaks be available for third-party mod pack makers?
To what extent can one tweak?
Yes once the update to Infinity is released that contains FTBtweaks the mod will be on Curse so anyone will be able to use it.
 

rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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Very nice. Glad to see FTB finally started moving down this direction!
Remember it being not that long ago that devs were laughing of the idea of using recipe tweaks, custom mods etc. to impose balance, progression etc. on "kitchen sink" packs :p
Hope to see this becoming a regular thing. Probably not every pack, but would love to see some official packs taking inspiration from TPPI for example.

Is there any place where we can get a description of what this "hard mode" actually entails? Description in the OP is rather vague. Is it just making progression take longer, more grinding? Will there be cross mod balancing? Are you gating progressions through certain mods, thereby limiting options?
 
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Flipz

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Jul 29, 2019
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I can list a few...

Flamegoat
FireBall1725
Drullkus
Cricket
WeAllPlayCast
Quetzi
Myself
Tfox
Slowpoke
Watchful
AlexBegt

Me, occasionally. Haven't been on in at least a month, though, probably closer to two.

Speaking of which, will there please be a map reset to go along with this update? :p
 

Andy78

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Jul 29, 2019
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Very nice. Glad to see FTB finally started moving down this direction!
Remember it being not that long ago that devs were laughing of the idea of using recipe tweaks, custom mods etc. to impose balance, progression etc. on "kitchen sink" packs :p
Hope to see this becoming a regular thing. Probably not every pack, but would love to see some official packs taking inspiration from TPPI for example.

Is there any place where we can get a description of what this "hard mode" actually entails? Description in the OP is rather vague. Is it just making progression take longer, more grinding? Will there be cross mod balancing? Are you gating progressions through certain mods, thereby limiting options?
And will be there ingame "achivement book" or smthing similar?