Is "Blood Magic" Overpowered?

[RedBoss]

As someone who had misgivings at first, I like Blood Magic so much that it's on my "Can't Play Modded MC Without" list. Right along with Thaumcraft & Mekanism. That said I haven't gotten into alchemy a lot so I can't comment. I will say that you can keep witches with just a vanilla name tag so there's no need to gripe about jailer's safari nets. Plus witch regen is a vanilla mechanic. Then you go into factoring the myriad mod spawn methods and it's just a non-issue to me.

Any OP comments seem to lean on cross mod interactions. In the realm of mods, BM is powerful but at a great cost. That's not even factoring in the learning curve. With the API release, I feel the truly genuine OP gripes will come from addons.

If you feel the need to tweak then go ahead Way, it's your mod. But I'd rather you leave it alone or add configs instead of nerfing for the sake of power gamers.

 

[ThatOneSlowking]

Use the various Civilian screams from HL2. Lots of mods use and it ends up being comedic instead of horrifying.

Since im too lazy to re-open HL2
Link pls

 

[CodaPDX]

I've gone fairly deep into blood magic, and it's quickly become one of my favorite mods.

I do have some reservations, though.

• Zerging your way through the early game is an issue. I'd recommend having a penalty associated with death - maybe emptying any nearby altars, taking a hit to your LP network, having a couple minute debuff during which you're unable to contribute LP, or something like that.
• The well of suffering can be easily exploited with witches. More prosaic cursed earth spawners and other ways of keeping it stocked with mobs aren't so much of a problem, since they require a reasonable amount of effort to implement and can have risks of their own (creepers blowing holes in things), but being able to just stick a dozen witches in jailer's nets and put them in a box underneath the altar feels more than a little cheaty. I'd recommend either making the well kill mobs dead in one go, or having it apply a "suffering" debuff that prevents mobs from being healed. Changing the well into a one-mob jail cell is also kind of a neat idea. Stick a mob in there, get a constant trickle of LP into your network. Different mobs could give different amounts of LP, and you could even require an antagonistic element to be supplied to keep the ritual going. Crystallos for blazes, sanctus for wither skellies, crepitus for villagers, aether for an earth elemental, etc. You could also balance it rather easily by making only a few rituals be able to fit in range of an altar, forcing players to create multiple altars if they want to have a large number of mobs suffering at once.
  
• The spell system is a neat concept, but it's a titanic pain in the ass to make anything functional out of it. Even when you do make something functional, the vast majority of the spells are more gimmicky than useful. I could see some being really cool in an adventure map, like the ice bridge, but in everyday survival they really don't make much sense, considering the huge investment required. As is, the original spell system is far more useful, since it has a number of useful modes that are fairly easy to get going.
• The demons and elementals are almost laughably easy to kill, compared to the weaponry and armor that the mod provides to fight them. I went into the demon fights expecting a wither level challenge, but ended up fighting something only marginally scarier than an angry zombie. Elementals can be annoying with some of their debuffs, but still go down a bit easier than a wither. It also feels odd to have the easy summons (6 of the element of your choice) be the ones that lead to harder fights.
• Glowstone is kind of ugly. Can we please have alternate block options for the capstones on the altar? Filled sockets, maybe?

 

[Eyamaz]

If you feel the need to tweak then go ahead Way, it's your mod. But I'd rather you leave it alone or add configs instead of nerfing for the sake of power gamers.

Configs for days.

 

[KillerRamer]

Configs for days.

Can I get thirty likes for this... Legit... It's why I hate it when people are like... "WIPE IT OUT AND MAKE IT ONE WAY OR THE HIGHWAY." Configs are love babeh. Use em.

 

[Dylan4ever]

This reminds me that I totally need to dive into BM in my 1.7 world...

Anyway, about OP'ity... I really don't have much to say. I never got far enough into this since I really sparsely actually play MC. I will probably think of a bunch of things to say while writing this though, so let's begin...

1) Zerging to me isn't really a problem. I don't do it because I find it pathetic. If people want to be a douche about it and use this "exploit", let them. It ruins their own experience, not mine.
2) Alchemy seems rather powerful, but ofcourse the cost is huge. The only thing that worries me is extremely long-lasting potions of, say, regeneration. In a UHC enviroment, if you would get that far into it, you'd be set. However, I don't think many people are reckless enough to play this in UHC, so not much if a problem again (if anyone does play BM in UHC, I take my hat off to them).
3) Serenade of the Nether & lava power. More of a cross-mod exploit. Infinite LP grants you infinite power in most mods, which might be one of the most powerful exploits ever (I know an even better one thanks to @KillerRamer though... But that one does not involve BM, so I am keeping my mouth shut ).
4) The ease of generating LP with any autospawning system. Instead of requiring a ton of infrastructure, farming, etc. you can fairly easily create a variety of infinite LP setups that don't require as much work as they should. Witches and Cursed Earth farms are just the tip of the iceberg.

My biggest balance problem (and conclusion) is that it is too easy to exploit the mod in a modded enviroment. But that is cross-mod stuff. You could implement tweaks to put a stop to things, but in the end, there isn't much you can do (without removing all the fun stuff).

So, nothing to worry about. I love the mod. I think it is nicely balanced. Cross-mod stuff just offsets the balance a bit (much).

~ Dylan

 

[Not_Steve]

Can I get thirty likes for this... Legit... It's why I hate it when people are like... "WIPE IT OUT AND MAKE IT ONE WAY OR THE HIGHWAY." Configs are love babeh. Use em.

I have never seen someone say that they wanted fewer config options...

 

[CodaPDX]

Serenade of the nether is easily one of the more balanced things in the mod. It costs 500 LP per bucket of lava, which isn't all that much, but if you're relying on it to power anything more than a couple dynamos it becomes very, very easy to run out of power if you don't have any passive LP generation. It's also not the most efficient way to convert LP into RF (or EU, or whatevs). Sticking a lava crystal in a steam dynamo will give you a bit more than 50% more RF per LP than using a magmatic dynamo supplied with a serenade of the nether.

 

[KillerRamer]

Serenade of the nether is easily one of the more balanced things in the mod. It costs 500 LP per bucket of lava, which isn't all that much, but if you're relying on it to power anything more than a couple dynamos it becomes very, very easy to run out of power if you don't have any passive LP generation. It's also not the most efficient way to convert LP into RF (or EU, or whatevs). Sticking a lava crystal in a steam dynamo will give you a bit more than 50% more RF per LP than using a magmatic dynamo supplied with a serenade of the nether.

but that's just it. This can be easily brought into high power. A fake player given a dagger to kill mobs on the altar could gather the blood needed for free power/ lava. One hostile mob covers the cost of a bucket of lava, the input could even then by made positive adding sacrifice runes to it. It also depends how quickly you burn through lava aswell. If it's a smeltery, it would last ages. Three buckets of lava can smelt huge amounts of ores. A dynamo can also go a fairly large distance with a bucket of lava. Auton activator, slicing up mobs and granting power to a sigil for lava / or a crystal could lead to some really nice early game power thinking about it now..

Nevermind can't use an auton activator to do it...

 

[Eyamaz]

(if anyone does play BM in UHC, I take my hat off to them).

Thanks
I actually play in an environment harder than UHC. BM actually suites HC style play very very nicely and one of the reasons I love it.

 

[CodaPDX]

but that's just it. This can be easily brought into high power. A fake player given a dagger to kill mobs on the altar could gather the blood needed for free power/ lava. One hostile mob covers the cost of a bucket of lava, the input could even then by made positive adding sacrifice runes to it. It also depends how quickly you burn through lava aswell. If it's a smeltery, it would last ages. Three buckets of lava can smelt huge amounts of ores. A dynamo can also go a fairly large distance with a bucket of lava. Auton activator, slicing up mobs and granting power to a sigil for lava / or a crystal could lead to some really nice early game power thinking about it now..

The dagger of sacrifice doesn't work with fake players.

I've done the early game lava crystal smelting thing. One lava crystal in one steam dynamo, trickling power into a hardened energy cell. Every so often I'd grab my sacrificial knife and some potions and go fill up my LP network at my T2 altar. It works fine, but it's not really any different or better than just dumping a bunch of coal in a hopper above the dynamo. Or making a potion generator from Extra Utilities and just tossing the potions in there.

 

[KillerRamer]

The dagger of sacrifice doesn't work with fake players.

I've done the early game lava crystal smelting thing. One lava crystal in one steam dynamo, trickling power into a hardened energy cell. Every so often I'd grab my sacrificial knife and some potions and go fill up my LP network at my T2 altar. It works fine, but it's not really any different or better than just dumping a bunch of coal in a hopper above the dynamo. Or making a potion generator from Extra Utilities and just tossing the potions in there.

Just learned that the hard way.

I'll come up with a new design for a bit that's less trickly. This is going to be more of a challenge for myself to make this work.

 

[KirinDave]

The only part that I feel is "overpowered" is the ability to use a handful of witches with the Well of Suffering to have infinite LP generation. I feel like it gives players a cheap way out of making some sort of mob trap to fuel the altar instead.

It's pretty difficult for that mechanic to not end up being infinite LP, one way or another. If it isn't 6 witches (the #rr "witch reactor") then it's golems. If it isn't golems, it's ars bosses. If it isn't ars bosses, it's the horned huntsman.

We've always considered thsi somewhat offset by the fact that by the time you get this working correctly, you've basically maxed out the mod, dropped a few stacks of gold, and then all you have is an infinite but rather slow network. To actually keep up with heavy use of rituals you need multiple setups like this.

And for light use... the ease and low cost of self-sacrifice altars with a regen ritual is incredibly hard to pass up. Let's face it, they are way cheaper and just as good for all but heavy automation uses. You can have LOL-lp, but only a few power users need more than a T4 altar selfsac altar and blood orb for most effects that people expect.

[DOUBLEPOST=1398121514][/DOUBLEPOST]

Just learned that the hard way.

I'll come up with a new design for a bit that's less trickly. This is going to be more of a challenge for myself to make this work.

My last season of my let's play powered my whole base off LP if you're curious. Of particular note was the way I got LP out of the altar for storage, and how I converted it to RF.

 

[KirinDave]

• The well of suffering can be easily exploited with witches. More prosaic cursed earth spawners and other ways of keeping it stocked with mobs aren't so much of a problem, since they require a reasonable amount of effort to implement and can have risks of their own (creepers blowing holes in things), but being able to just stick a dozen witches in jailer's nets and put them in a box underneath the altar feels more than a little cheaty.

The thing is, the witches are just the tip of the iceberg. Any mob with reasonable regeneration is superior. In my opinion, witches are a harder solution than cursed earth and fans pushing mobs into an obsidian box over the altar. I've seen designs that use the wither itself as a rather impressive LP target since its regen matches the altar quite well.

Heck, a dark room above y:100 is actually an incredibly strong source of LP if you set it up right. You have to idle to make it work, but that's hardly a terrible constraint given how powerful things like vanilla pigmen spawners can be.

Most people don't really get how easy it is to spawn mobs. The "witch reactor" is popular mostly because it is very kind on servers.

And of course, even if you're clever and optimize and understand ever facet of the mod you're looking at HOURS of stand-still-try-not-to-die-with-another-mod-helping-you-out action in the early game. Most people see this and bank right out. If blood magic were less powerful, the ubiquity and awesomeness of Thaumcraft would eclipse it utterly in the very competitive magic mod scene.

Elementals can be annoying with some of their debuffs, but still go down a bit easier than a wither. It also feels odd to have the easy summons (6 of the element of your choice) be the ones that lead to harder fights.

I personally think the wither is a total chump. I don't even move when I fight him, I just shoot him then cut him. If I am doing it earlier before I have full baseline blood armor, I use the sigil of the phantom bridge about y+10 over the ground so I never get caught up in terrain and just kite the wither killing him with shots.

People keep telling me the wither will use, well, wither on me. They should tell that to the wither, because he has never inflicted this status on me across 3 versions of minecraft and over a year of play. I killed 5 on camera for my upcoming episode and it was a joke. I didn't even have blood armor, I was wearing runic and using an energy blaster and a blood sword with Sharpness III.

Compare that to the holy elemental, which can kill an inexperienced player incredibly fast if they don't understand what it's about to do (sparkles are deadly, Way must be a fan of Twilight!). I also know a bit about the next round of content for the mod and uh... all I can say is that the stuff Way has been talking about is mobs that are more like puzzle games than bossfights.

 

[egor66]

My answer to the OP is yes this mod is or can be OP, but my main problem with it is that its normally know as Emo magic on a lot of the servers I have used, this is for the self stabbing part, & the pure boredom just standing for a long time stabbing one self...

The only reason I use it, is because its part a pack I am currently playing on servers, & I need to use it to complete quests, sry to say I am not a fan at all, there are far more fun magic base mods (unfair to name) that I don't find as tedious, mho.

 

[CodaPDX]

It's pretty difficult for that mechanic to not end up being infinite LP, one way or another. If it isn't 6 witches (the #rr "witch reactor") then it's golems. If it isn't golems, it's ars bosses. If it isn't ars bosses, it's the horned huntsman.

We've always considered thsi somewhat offset by the fact that by the time you get this working correctly, you've basically maxed out the mod, dropped a few stacks of gold, and then all you have is an infinite but rather slow network. To actually keep up with heavy use of rituals you need multiple setups like this.

Pretty much what Dave said. That said, unless you’ve got a truly epic steam engine array or are dropping meteors every 15 minutes or so, two or three wells full of witches generates more than enough LP for even the most intense crafting.

I personally think the wither is a total chump. I don't even move when I fight him, I just shoot him then cut him. If I am doing it earlier before I have full baseline blood armor, I use the sigil of the phantom bridge about y+10 over the ground so I never get caught up in terrain and just kite the wither killing him with shots.

People keep telling me the wither will use, well, wither on me. They should tell that to the wither, because he has never inflicted this status on me across 3 versions of minecraft and over a year of play. I killed 5 on camera for my upcoming episode and it was a joke. I didn't even have blood armor, I was wearing runic and using an energy blaster and a blood sword with Sharpness III.

Compare that to the holy elemental, which can kill an inexperienced player incredibly fast if they don't understand what it's about to do (sparkles are deadly, Way must be a fan of Twilight!). I also know a bit about the next round of content for the mod and uh... all I can say is that the stuff Way has been talking about is mobs that are more like puzzle games than bossfights.

Well, I never said the wither was hard.

 

[Mevansuto]

The thing is, the witches are just the tip of the iceberg. Any mob with reasonable regeneration is superior. In my opinion, witches are a harder solution than cursed earth and fans pushing mobs into an obsidian box over the altar. I've seen designs that use the wither itself as a rather impressive LP target since its regen matches the altar quite well.

Heck, a dark room above y:100 is actually an incredibly strong source of LP if you set it up right. You have to idle to make it work, but that's hardly a terrible constraint given how powerful things like vanilla pigmen spawners can be.

Most people don't really get how easy it is to spawn mobs. The "witch reactor" is popular mostly because it is very kind on servers.

And of course, even if you're clever and optimize and understand ever facet of the mod you're looking at HOURS of stand-still-try-not-to-die-with-another-mod-helping-you-out action in the early game. Most people see this and bank right out. If blood magic were less powerful, the ubiquity and awesomeness of Thaumcraft would eclipse it utterly in the very competitive magic mod scene.



I personally think the wither is a total chump. I don't even move when I fight him, I just shoot him then cut him. If I am doing it earlier before I have full baseline blood armor, I use the sigil of the phantom bridge about y+10 over the ground so I never get caught up in terrain and just kite the wither killing him with shots.

People keep telling me the wither will use, well, wither on me. They should tell that to the wither, because he has never inflicted this status on me across 3 versions of minecraft and over a year of play. I killed 5 on camera for my upcoming episode and it was a joke. I didn't even have blood armor, I was wearing runic and using an energy blaster and a blood sword with Sharpness III.

Compare that to the holy elemental, which can kill an inexperienced player incredibly fast if they don't understand what it's about to do (sparkles are deadly, Way must be a fan of Twilight!). I also know a bit about the next round of content for the mod and uh... all I can say is that the stuff Way has been talking about is mobs that are more like puzzle games than bossfights.

Try killing a Wither in vanilla though.

 

[Padfoote]

Try killing a Wither in vanilla though.

It's still quite easy.

 

[Mevansuto]

It's still quite easy.

But not as easy. I always forget to prepare and just place it outside of my base.

 

[KillerRamer]

But not as easy. I always forget to prepare and just place it outside of my base.

You can make it in a cave and murder it in an enclosed space. Little prep needed.