Thaumcraft 4 is Released!

[Hyperme]

Three pages in and we're getting dangerously close to 'well play creative then' type nonsense, if we haven't already arrived. Seriously, video games here. Let's use a terrible, terrible analogy, since those are fun.

Say I like reading the books. But in order to read the books, I need to solve a riddle. And it's different each time, even if it's the same book and I'm the same person. Now if I like the riddles, yay I guess. But if I don't, well now what? Not read the books? That's kind of annoying. I guess I'll watch the TV. But what if I don't like riddles because I've had to solve so many of the bloody things to read the books I'm now sick of the riddles?

For my, those were the fatal flaws in Thaumcraft's previous research system. The gameplay was disconnected from the rest of the game, and after doing it once or twice, it just became a chore. Perhaps TC4's increase of control over research will help, but you can only move so many runes about before you start to hate the system. And if you don't like puzzles, well screw you, it appears, since all the not-puzzle content in a not-puzzle game is behind puzzles. Puzzles that are randomly generated, so you can't even be like 'how am i bear skates'.

Some kind of Sudoku based thing with each research having some kind answer key and seeding any random parts off of player id is really the only good idea I can think of for research in Minecraft.

 

[Succubism]

I'm not in the mood to tiptoe around my own semantics.
I like TC4. I think it's a vast, vast improvement of itself and yes it has his flaws.

Spoiler alert; everything has it's flaws.

Anyway, yeah. I'll be working further on my guide tomorrow. Later.

 

[Azzanine]

My outside perspective is that both systems old and new look just as bad. So much neat stuff in TC3 that I just wont get to becasue I don't relish collecting x thousand seeds for research. The old system takes a lot of time too if you factor in time taken to set up and gather resources.
Usualy I can't toy with Thaumcraft until late game where I have an insane amount of everything. Trying to do it mid game or even late game is just a practice in perseverance.

This new system the only tedium seems to come from the mini game and maybe running around scanning blocks for research points. Not sure if this is better or worse as I haven't played TC4 yet.

 

[dgdas9]

My outside perspective is that both systems old and new look just as bad. So much neat stuff in TC3 that I just wont get to becasue I don't relish collecting x thousand seeds for research. The old system takes a lot of time too if you factor in time taken to set up and gather resources.
Usualy I can't toy with Thaumcraft until late game where I have an insane amount of everything. Trying to do it mid game or even late game is just a practice in perseverance.

This new system the only tedium seems to come from the mini game and maybe running around scanning blocks for research points. Not sure if this is better or worse as I haven't played TC4 yet.

Hmm, sorry, but if you haven't played, you probably shouldn't say it's bad.

 

[Succubism]

Hmm, sorry, but if you haven't played, you probably shouldn't say it's bad.

He didn't say it's bad, he says that at a glance the minigame looks tedious and rightfully so because at first I said the same thing and I quote; "THIS RESEARCH MECHANIC IS SO FUCKED."

-Snip.-

As the self-appointed, self-proclaimed site TC expert. -Snort.- I can certainly see where you're coming from.
I've played the mini-game and trust me, at a glance it's much, much simpler than it actually looks and in a ways it makes things easier.
People forget that a lot of what the minigame has to offer is a way to research different things with the possibility of making it easier to do so, like not necessarily having to use every aspect to do with the research topic. I refer you to my guide for more details.

Seriously, give it a try sometime. I'll give you a summarized bit of instruction if you can't figure it out at first like I couldn't.

 

[Azzanine]

Hmm, sorry, but if you haven't played, you probably shouldn't say it's bad.

Yeah, I did say it LOOKED just as bad I didn't say it WAS bad.
If the new system lets me start Thaumcraft sooner (not necessarily quicker) then it succeeds. But as it stands research is still just a cockblock to gate content and is by design something you have to overcome to get to the goodies.
Research is necessary for the mod's balance, as getting to all the stuff quickly would make the experience too rich. but I would not call research (as the mod depicts it) a fun activity.

The new mechanic *looks* just as fun as the old one.

 

[Succubism]

-Snip.-

Here's a link to the TC4 config, I saved it as a txt file so chrome doesn't yell at you. You should have a look at it.

 

[dgdas9]

Yeah, I did say it LOOKED just as bad I didn't say it WAS bad.
If the new system lets me start Thaumcraft sooner (not necessarily quicker) then it succeeds. But as it stands research is still just a cockblock to gate content and is by design something you have to overcome to get to the goodies.
Research is necessary for the mod's balance, as getting to all the stuff quickly would make the experience too rich. but I would not call research (as the mod depicts it) a fun activity.

The new mechanic *looks* just as fun as the old one.

Not going to argue about being fun or no, but you CAN start thaumcrafting earlier. I mean, I don't even have machines qnd stuff and I am already thaumcrafting.

Oh, and sorry.

 

[Succubism]

I'd say TC4 is now... Eeeeh... Early-Mid game. Because really you have to know what you're doing or have a cheat sheet next to you to remember all the aspect combinations and such. It's not the mini-game that's annoying it's the aspects that you have to combine. That, to me, is the biggest flaw.

 

[dgdas9]

I'd say TC4 is now... Eeeeh... Early-Mid game. Because really you have to know what you're doing or have a cheat sheet next to you to remember all the aspect combinations and such. It's not the mini-game that's annoying it's the aspects that you have to combine. That, to me, is the biggest flaw.

Hmm, I just started combining random aspects, and it all went good. Oh, and you can see the combos you already "know" in your thaumanomanomanomicon.

 

[Succubism]

Hmm, I just started combining random aspects, and it all went good. Oh, and you can see the combos you already "know" in your thaumanomanomanomicon.

Yeah that's fine but you have to consider that combining, activating, deactivating, etc always uses up a research point and unless you have a LOT of points and patience, especially for aspects that require a lot of combining steps like instrumentum, it gets annoying when they go to waste, like for trying to apply that aspect to a research note that doesn't use it.

Furthermore, it's rather annoying how you can go through a lot of combinations and aspects but you can't research grass until you're mid into your aspect research. Grass should be straight up first thing you could research. Just saying. It's fucking everywhere.

 

[dgdas9]

Yeah that's fine but you have to consider that combining, activating, deactivating, etc always uses up a research point and unless you have a LOT of points and patience, especially for aspects that require a lot of combining steps like instrumentum, it gets annoying when they go to waste, like for trying to apply that aspect to a research note that doesn't use it.

Aura nodes. Go out at night and search for light in the middle of nowhere. Once you find it, research them. They give you lots of points

Furthermore, it's rather annoying how you can go through a lot of combinations and aspects but you can't research grass until you're mid into your aspect research. Grass should be straight up first thing you could research. Just saying. It's fucking everywhere.

I agree.

 

[Succubism]

Aura nodes. Go out at night and search for light in the middle of nowhere. Once you find it, research them. They give you lots of points.

If that's the case then I'd have to, depending on difficulty, put Thaumcraft into more of the mid-game level, considering the buff that zombies got that overwhelm early-game players.

Anyway guys, I've been working my ass off all day and now I'm gonna crash. Catch y'all later.

 

[dgdas9]

If that's the case then I'd have to, depending on difficulty, put Thaumcraft into more of the mid-game level, considering the buff that zombies got that overwhelm early-game players.

Anyway guys, I've been working my ass off all day and now I'm gonna crash. Catch y'all later.

Hmm, not really, I am playing RR and, well, I am still in early game, but with project red's emerald/ruby/saphire/stuffFromRP2 swords, and an almost cheaty recipe that adds sharpness only costing iron and stone, I am preetty much still alive

 

[matpower123]

Tip Time!:
Crystal Clusters near research tables/Infusion Table generates primal aspects!
So you can generate them.

 

[RedBoss]

Also the TC4 api isn't widely used yet. Dartcraft just added support, but others will be coming. This will help greatly with the shortage of research points. But I agree with regards to the research being a burden. Now that I understand how to use the new system, the first few research achievements were great. Now all I can think about is how much I DO NOT want to do this more than once.

Thaumcraft has some of the coolest gear in all of mods to me. The golems are awesome for me since, if I'm honest, I kinda actually hate the overly complicated tech stuff. The research though is a huge barrier to entry and I honestly can see why so many people are turned off by it. Kudos to Azanor for changing the system, but I've barely begun and I'm bored with shifting runes.

 

[Necr0maNceR]

I'm glad the new research system is an actual puzzle as opposed to the item sink/lottery the last one was. I do think the last one looked cooler though. A piece of parchment with random symbols and glowing dots seems kind of bland in comparison.

 

[Succubism]

Tip Time!:
Crystal Clusters near research tables/Infusion Table generates primal aspects!
So you can generate them.

As do nodes, candles and other attributing items. This is in the thaumonomicon and also help reduce flux with infusion altars with the exception of nodes.[DOUBLEPOST=1381492345][/DOUBLEPOST]

Also the TC4 api isn't widely used yet. Dartcraft just added support, but others will be coming. This will help greatly with the shortage of research points. But I agree with regards to the research being a burden. Now that I understand how to use the new system, the first few research achievements were great. Now all I can think about is how much I DO NOT want to do this more than once.

Thaumcraft has some of the coolest gear in all of mods to me. The golems are awesome for me since, if I'm honest, I kinda actually hate the overly complicated tech stuff. The research though is a huge barrier to entry and I honestly can see why so many people are turned off by it. Kudos to Azanor for changing the system, but I've barely begun and I'm bored with shifting runes.

While I agree that other mods will help greatly in the research stage, I like to judge mods on their own merits, which is why my guides are made with the assumption that you have only installed the mods necessary for it's existance and nothing else, like Thaumic Tinkerer would only have Thaumcraft.

 

[matpower123]

As do nodes, candles and other attributing items. This is in the thaumonomicon and also help reduce flux with infusion altars with the exception of nodes.[DOUBLEPOST=1381492345][/DOUBLEPOST]

While I agree that other mods will help greatly in the research stage, I like to judge mods on their own merits, which is why my guides are made with the assumption that you have only installed the mods necessary for it's existance and nothing else, like Thaumic Tinkerer would only have Thaumcraft.

I think I jumped this Thaumnomicon part. :/
I just found this while I was talking in #Thaumcraft,and looks like most people doesn't know about it in other places.

 

[Omicron]

Furthermore, it's rather annoying how you can go through a lot of combinations and aspects but you can't research grass until you're mid into your aspect research. Grass should be straight up first thing you could research. Just saying. It's fucking everywhere.

Flawed train of thought: electricity is everywhere in nature, and it took humanity a good long time to figure out that it even existed (and another good long time until it could be put to sensible use afterwards).

Just because something is everywhere doesn't mean that that thing is easy to understand. A casual observer might not even know what to look for in order to define what forms the core concept on which a thing is based (which is what Thaumcraft aspects are). Only with sufficient prior knowledge, the observer will even be able to see what he's looking at.

Just ask good doctor Faust on his opinion on the matter...