Mod Mechanics you like/don't like

ariosos

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Some things I don't like - (it's super late at night - might be rambling on here)

- Compact XYZ machines (a.k.a., "You need the power to make the power that you no longer need because you just made the power") - That is, maybe using the same 6-10 resources for each tier of machine. If that's not enough, (especially solars with 6, 7 or 8 tiers), it's make 8 of these and combine it with something. Want 32,000 RF? That'll be 500,000 lead and 2 million glass please (rough numbers here)! Ok, I get it's supposed to be super expensive, but such a setup would require tons of power to get that 500k lead and 2 million glass (quarries, cobbleworks, wrecking terrain to the farlands, etc. - ok, so the last one is a bit of an exaggeration, but still...). I prefer mods like IC2 and Ultimate Solars where you actually have to make an infrastructure (true, IC2 has increased it's difficulty since I first played with the ultimate solars back in 1.4.7). The later involved rare items (uranium -- yellorium should be a greatly weaker form of uranium, not its' equal...), iridium (either super rare, or done by something like the Molecular Assembler), and an infrastructure you had to setup before you even thought of getting an Ultimate Solar. In short, I liken it to this - Remember Super Mario 3's P-wing that you got after this hard par-kour like level with void below you? Once you get the p-wing, you no longer needed it - at least I didn't. That's how compact machines feel.

- Tedium. Not everyone plays on a SMP server, and not everyone has 12-18 hours a day (seems that way sometimes. lol) to play single player. But, there are mods that force you to wait a LONG time for some process to complete (I'm talking hours). Either it's just waiting for some hours-long counter, or going down a rabbit hole from an early/mid-game item (IC2 went this direction... kind of borderline, but still...), I get kind of tired with these types of mods. I suppose this is also a side-effect of "realism" I've seen talked about earlier in this thread (and I've seen it discussed in other games too - namely players wanting to add more realism, which essentially mods allow you to do.). I feel that kind of takes away from the scope of the game a bit.

- No documentation. If I can't figure it out, and there's no useful wiki, I probably won't use it. It's like, "Here's this mysterious item! You figure out how to make it work!". Granted, I do like how a lot of these mods now have their own books, which kind of leads into the next one...

- Too Many Items. :) Too many books, too many mob drops, too many seeds, too much rare loot, too many mod item parts (like TE servos, retrievers, filters, etc.). Granted, some of the later can be good, but I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of items. Another mod, Xeno's Reliquery (haven't played it in awhile because of it) has extra mob drops for every mob that I won't even use... and makes no sense what-so-ever in making items from that mod.

At least the good thing is, there's ModTweaker...
 

TheGreatKamina

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I really liked Amalgam's approach to making tools and armor. Mixing metals and other materials to create a new alloy that balanced between the stats of each material used was a rather nice and interesting concept. One that needs continuing.
Was the way metals/gems/dusts/etc combined realistic? No. But I think it's a fun mod anyway. I'd like to see the mod updated, since it currently uses the old Forge Liquids API, and that causes crashes.

One thing that kind of bothers me with Tinker's Construct is that making metal parts out of casts usually weakens the metal as a whole. I'd like to see a complete forging mechanic as an add-on for TiC which, when tool parts are heated and hammered (Kind of like Terrafirmacraft), the tool part gains some benefits (Rods get 25% better handle modifier, for instance, and tool heads enjoy a 25% total durability boost) if it's done right. The poorer you do on the reforging minigame, the less the benefit will be - even up to a 10% loss in durability and handle multiplicand.
Wow, I had not heard of that... that is really cool, it'd be neat to see that mechanic rolled into something more complex with more kinds of metal and the forging mechanics you mentioned.

Kind of a pet peeve of mine with mods (and I'm not sure if this is so much a mechanic as it is a game balance issue) is mods with very "tall" tech trees and/or enormous material costs where the end results make a decent portion of the game trivial. The reason these bug me is they tend to cause people to play very linearly - focusing exclusively on getting the next best thing - and once they achieve "endgame" they quickly become bored. This can lead to quite lonely and uninteresting multiplayer experiences.

Another mechanic that I think warrants discussion is ore doubling. It was first introduced in Industrial Craft, and needed (IMO) because that mod is very metal-hungry, and ever since then it seems like most of the major mods include a mechanic to at least double your ore yields. It's just become a done thing nowadays. Now, I'm not saying I dislike having ore doubling available to me, but I feel like some of the mods that have it really don't need it to stand on their own, simply because they provide value in other ways (TiCo springs to mind). I think Thaumcraft's 3x3 furnace strikes a nice balance there - a little something extra, but not excessively so.
 
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KingTriaxx

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Ore Doubling lets me do more with less. I need only one or two quarries, instead of three or four. Or I can focus on just getting diamonds, redstone and other 'gems' or natural 'dusts'. I don't need to strip mine everything as I go to ensure I have resources.

The fact I can build an entire house out of solid gold blocks because I've doubled it all, is just a side benefit.
 

Henry Link

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Kind of a pet peeve of mine with mods (and I'm not sure if this is so much a mechanic as it is a game balance issue) is mods with very "tall" tech trees and/or enormous material costs where the end results make a decent portion of the game trivial. The reason these bug me is they tend to cause people to play very linearly - focusing exclusively on getting the next best thing - and once they achieve "endgame" they quickly become bored. This can lead to quite lonely and uninteresting multiplayer experiences.

While I agree with the general jist of players going for an end game goal. I don't think this falls to the fault of the mod maker. Rather, I think it has to do more with the type of players that play modded minecraft. There is a lot of players that aim for that goal and then get bored. In general most players forget this is still minecraft and it should be about building not about reaching this end game tech or magic goal.
 

Golrith

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Another mechanic that I think warrants discussion is ore doubling. It was first introduced in Industrial Craft, and needed (IMO) because that mod is very metal-hungry, and ever since then it seems like most of the major mods include a mechanic to at least double your ore yields. It's just become a done thing nowadays. Now, I'm not saying I dislike having ore doubling available to me, but I feel like some of the mods that have it really don't need it to stand on their own, simply because they provide value in other ways (TiCo springs to mind). I think Thaumcraft's 3x3 furnace strikes a nice balance there - a little something extra, but not excessively so.
In my modpack, I've reduced ore gen to roughly 25% normal (using mainly poor ores, with clumps of normal ores and occasional dense ores). Now ore doubling (and more) is vital, across all mods, and not just a few of them. Since the pack includes Mekanism with it's 5x system, that gives you a big goal to work towards.
 

epidemia78

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While I agree with the general jist of players going for an end game goal. I don't think this falls to the fault of the mod maker. Rather, I think it has to do more with the type of players that play modded minecraft. There is a lot of players that aim for that goal and then get bored. In general most players forget this is still minecraft and it should be about building not about reaching this end game tech or magic goal.

Yep, I play to build. And the fun only truly begins once Ive reached so-called endgame status. Although I wouldnt want to play at all without mods. They give me a reason to build.

In my modpack, I've reduced ore gen to roughly 25% normal (using mainly poor ores, with clumps of normal ores and occasional dense ores). Now ore doubling (and more) is vital, across all mods, and not just a few of them. Since the pack includes Mekanism with it's 5x system, that gives you a big goal to work towards.

I dont really like Mekanism ore processing past the 3x phase. I built a 4x system in my current world but its overkill in a mod where the digital miner exists. Also it causes lag when running especially when it stops and starts because one machine goes faster than the others.

I like Witchery's mechanics/style. The item names are so cool, it helps me remember the recipes without having to always use nei. Oil of Vitriol + ghast tear =Diamond vapor. The magic is very understated compared to some others, it doesnt bash you over the head with magic sparkles every second. Everything about it seems extremely well thought out. Its just damn classy. I wish it was more useful in SSP but I plan to tweak some recipes.
 

KingTriaxx

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It's insanely useful in exploring Twilight Forest Dungeons. Two or three Poppet shelves full of Death Protection Poppets? Yes thank you. Enough for one or two levels of maze. :D I've only ever gotten to 3x Mek processing when I've used it. I find that if I need more than 3x, Rotarycraft is much simpler.

The one thing I don't like about Witchery is the necessity of an instruction manual for spell casting with the wand, and the lack of one that I can craft. (Unless I'm missing something.)
 
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OreCruncher

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For me it is not necessarily the mechanics of a single mod, rather, its the mechanics and interactions of multiple mods within a modpack. To be honest I dislike a bunch of the current FTB packs because of this. Believe it or not the best pack I think that was made was Mindcrack. :)
 

Golrith

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For me it is not necessarily the mechanics of a single mod, rather, its the mechanics and interactions of multiple mods within a modpack. To be honest I dislike a bunch of the current FTB packs because of this. Believe it or not the best pack I think that was made was Mindcrack. :)
Indeed, there are plenty of mods that include "toys" that totally negate the "toys" and indeed "the progression" of other mods
 

GreenZombie

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It's insanely useful in exploring Twilight Forest Dungeons. Two or three Poppet shelves full of Death Protection Poppets? Yes thank you. Enough for one or two levels of maze. :D I've only ever gotten to 3x Mek processing when I've used it. I find that if I need more than 3x, Rotarycraft is much simpler.

The one thing I don't like about Witchery is the necessity of an instruction manual for spell casting with the wand, and the lack of one that I can craft. (Unless I'm missing something.)

you ... die in mazes?

I mean, I'm damn lazy and always forget to take potions despite having many mods that make potions even easier and more powerful than vanilla. And then complain on the various mod forums that the boss fights in the mods are to hard to do properly so I cheese them by building shelters from which I can attack from safety which makes them too easy.

Well, my new plan to cheese less, but still avoid potions, is to simply figure out why/how Beacons are not working in my modpack - I suspect some mod such as Botania has helpfully disabled vanilla beacon base materials such as gold and iron in favor of its own materials - and then build interesting arenas in which to perform boss summons, which are centered in the warm bask of the buffs from several beacons.
 

KingTriaxx

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In the hell mazes of the Twilight Forest? Yes. Between creepers and the sympathetic detonations of the bricks, and the bloody charging minotaurs, yes, I do die.

That said I've only ever used one or two potions, and I tend to eschew most armor. It seems to be bad luck. I wore a full set of iron into the nether, took two steps out of the portal, and dropped forty blocks into lava.
 

DriftinFool

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Growing AE2 crystals is annoying. AE2 addons mod takes care of this with a crystal growth chamber. No water or dropping items.
Having to move a manager from Steve's Factory Manager and losing your program. Fortunately, Steve's addons adds a program copier.
Thaumcraft crucible crafting......

The most frustrating thing I have played with is RFTools endergenic generator. I spent days in a test world playing with them to get a good setup. With them infused, I was making 12-14k rf/t and a pearl lasted for several minutes. I build it in a world and it works fine. I try to build the same thing in another world, it won't work. The timing in them is too precise for modded minecraft. A little tick lag, a stutter from journey map, or even world loading between dimensions is enough to make it lose a pearl and get stuck in the wrong mode, which makes it constantly fire and lose pearls for no energy. The concept is amazing, but setting one up to consistently work is not possible in every world.
 

UberAffe

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Growing AE2 crystals is annoying. AE2 addons mod takes care of this with a crystal growth chamber. No water or dropping items.
Having to move a manager from Steve's Factory Manager and losing your program. Fortunately, Steve's addons adds a program copier.
Thaumcraft crucible crafting......

The most frustrating thing I have played with is RFTools endergenic generator. I spent days in a test world playing with them to get a good setup. With them infused, I was making 12-14k rf/t and a pearl lasted for several minutes. I build it in a world and it works fine. I try to build the same thing in another world, it won't work. The timing in them is too precise for modded minecraft. A little tick lag, a stutter from journey map, or even world loading between dimensions is enough to make it lose a pearl and get stuck in the wrong mode, which makes it constantly fire and lose pearls for no energy. The concept is amazing, but setting one up to consistently work is not possible in every world.
I agree that the reliance on 0 tick lag is annoying but I still love the concept scaling power through more than just an excessive number of machines.

As for ae2 I hate the crystal growing now, it wasn't so bad before pure crystals. Back when you could treat them like a farm.

Sent from my C811 4G using Tapatalk
 

ljfa

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Yeah, tick lag is a bitch indeed.
I tried to make a mechanic which relies on mining stone as quickly as possible (with only vanilla unenchanted tools to keep it fair). Looks like the best way to do it is with a few golden pickaxes (because one of them only lasts like 30 blocks). It was kinda fun to figure that out during my testing ^^
It seems to work well in singleplayer, but as soon as I tried it on a laggy server I instantly had to dispose of this idea. It is simply impossible if the blocks reappear after you mined them.
 

Reika

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Yeah, tick lag is a bitch indeed.
I tried to make a mechanic which relies on mining stone as quickly as possible (with only vanilla unenchanted tools to keep it fair). Looks like the best way to do it is with a few golden pickaxes (because one of them only lasts like 30 blocks). It was kinda fun to figure that out during my testing ^^
It seems to work well in singleplayer, but as soon as I tried it on a laggy server I instantly had to dispose of this idea. It is simply impossible if the blocks reappear after you mined them.
You could add some sort of registry of "broken blocks", added to when a player tries to break a block (clientside), then check every couple ticks (serverside) if the block has been removed, then if so remove it from the registry, else try again.
 

ljfa

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You could add some sort of registry of "broken blocks", added to when a player tries to break a block (clientside), then check every couple ticks (serverside) if the block has been removed, then if so remove it from the registry, else try again.
Hm yeah, I could do something like that
but I have to see if I want to keep the mechanic like that anyway. It's kinda too much hit or miss right now.
 

GreenZombie

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In the hell mazes of the Twilight Forest? Yes. Between creepers and the sympathetic detonations of the bricks, and the bloody charging minotaurs, yes, I do die.

That said I've only ever used one or two potions, and I tend to eschew most armor. It seems to be bad luck. I wore a full set of iron into the nether, took two steps out of the portal, and dropped forty blocks into lava.

Wear Armor. With Protection IV. Those minotaurs are not survivable otherwise.
 

KingTriaxx

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Mostly it's only a problem when they manage to surprise me. If I see them, I can dodge the charge and give them a good smacking from behind.