Thoughts On EE3

[Loufmier]

People get more satisfaction from working towards a goal, then just being given whatever it was taht they wanted. It's human nature.

Why do you see posts in the Community forum with people posting a screenshot of a chest full of gregtech Chrome blocks and stuff like that? And why do people 'ooh' and 'ahh' over it? People get satisfaction doing work and then having something to show for it, especially if it is something other people don't have.

If we real life had a Creative mode in it, everyone would be driving a ferrari and very soon... no one would care about ferraris.

Someone could post a screenshot of a house made of diamond blocks and no one would care, assuming it was creative mode. If they posted they made it in survival, people would be impressed. If they said they did it in vanilla survival, the person would get a huge positive response from people. its the SAME house. Sure people would enjoy (or not enjoy) the design and idea, but part of teh appeal is that the person worked for that goal.

so its nothing more than comparing sizes of a dick, or whatever its called in English. its kinda shameful, if you ask me.

In playing FTB I have found that EE3 becomes a lot more playable if you go into the config and switch the minium stone from 1,500 uses to 150 uses... suddenly, you have to think whether it's worth transmuting something. With the default value, you basically only build one or two minium stones for entire months of playing. It's practically infinite, and if it ever does run out, bdy the time it does you have enough minium shards for three dozen others, even without a dedicated mob grinder. If you instead go and make transmuates themselves a semi-rare resource, then the fact that you can turn cobble into diamonds becomes a lot less unbalanced (because doing so will EAT YOUR STONE).

i wonder what will happen, when recipe for philosopher`s stone is finally implemented...

 

[Omicron]

Depends on what hoops you have to jump through to make the philosopher's stone... and we'll see what Pahimar comes up with in terms of configuring it. He has always stated that he aims to expose as much configurability to server operators as possible, in order to avoid what happened with EE2 on servers back in the days of yore.

 

[Runo]

In playing FTB I have found that EE3 becomes a lot more playable if you go into the config and switch the minium stone from 1,500 uses to 150 uses... suddenly, you have to think whether it's worth transmuting something.

This is amazing. I need to do this.

 

[Enigmius1]

If that passive method is about as expensive as a quarry + energy support structure (and requires manual intervention from time to time) you are correct.

However that isn't the whole problem that might arise with EE. Generating valuable resources from stuff that you have plenty of and would maybe even just void otherwise is a game changer. Diamonds may not be rare for you (they still usually are somewhat limited for me) and there is a lot of different stuff that might be somewhat limited. If you can transfer stuff from whatever you have to whatever you need, having a unlimited supply of a single resource means, you now have a unlimited supply of every resource. As it is now, you build a tree farm to get trees and saplings, you build a quarry to get stone and ores, you create a animal pen to get meat etc. With unlimited transmutation capability, you just built whatever is easiest to create a huge amount of and be done with everything you might ever need.

Combine both, an unlimited supply and an unlimited transformation machine, and you basically have removed all scarcity and the need for any kind of storage/sorting system.

As I pointed out, scarcity/rarity is a vanilla concern, not a modded MC concern. There's not much more to say about it. Mod packs like what FTB offers don't add to the vanilla game, they change the vanilla game. When we're not talking about "balance", what are we talking about? Frame quarries, turtle mining scripts, bee breeding, tree farms, mob grinders, and any other system in the long list of automated processes that eliminate the relevance of the word scarcity. But then we decide we want to talk about "balance" and we forget about all the things we were just talking about to automate the resource acquisition game. It's just not an intelligent argument.

 

[Zexks]

As long as we're able to make cobble stone infinitely it will always be considered OP. Doesn't matter how little value he makes it, or what he does, as long as we can make things infinitely and transmute them into other things, EE will be considered OP.

 

[cynric]

As I pointed out, scarcity/rarity is a vanilla concern, not a modded MC concern. There's not much more to say about it. Mod packs like what FTB offers don't add to the vanilla game, they change the vanilla game. When we're not talking about "balance", what are we talking about? Frame quarries, turtle mining scripts, bee breeding, tree farms, mob grinders, and any other system in the long list of automated processes that eliminate the relevance of the word scarcity. But then we decide we want to talk about "balance" and we forget about all the things we were just talking about to automate the resource acquisition game. It's just not an intelligent argument.

I disagree. Sure, compared to vanilla, the amount of resources you gain by using all those automated builds is huge. However the resource requirement is also pretty incredible. Where in vanilla a single stack of iron is plenty for a while, a single boiler plus engines consumes a few stacks. A single HV solar array consumes more resources than I have ever needed in all my vanilla games combined. Plus the number of different resources is increasing with every mod you add. Sure, after a few weeks in a new world you have the basic materials covered, but as soon as you look at a mod you haven't heavily invested yet, you are starting with the basics again and have to work your way up.

For example lets look at bees. You can have all the iron and gold and diamonds in the world, you still have to go out there, get some basic bees and start breeding to get to the higher level stuff (royal jelly or those silky comb bees or whatever comes even later). Now insert unlimited cheap transmutation, and suddenly your upgraded barrel of stored wood or wheat turns into those end of the line materials of totally different mods and you just jumped ahead hours/days/weeks.

Even if you only count vanilla items, ever watched any of those lets play series? DW20 or odedex for example, I remember them mentioning that they are about to run out of something on many occasions (usually diamonds, redstone, some metal after a huge build). I doubt they would ever run out, if everything in their storage system could just be transmuted into what they need at the moment. So yes, I think there is a danger with removing scarcity even from modded minecraft.

 

[Enigmius1]

I disagree. Sure, compared to vanilla, the amount of resources you gain by using all those automated builds is huge. However the resource requirement is also pretty incredible. Where in vanilla a single stack of iron is plenty for a while, a single boiler plus engines consumes a few stacks. A single HV solar array consumes more resources than I have ever needed in all my vanilla games combined. Plus the number of different resources is increasing with every mod you add. Sure, after a few weeks in a new world you have the basic materials covered, but as soon as you look at a mod you haven't heavily invested yet, you are starting with the basics again and have to work your way up.

For example lets look at bees. You can have all the iron and gold and diamonds in the world, you still have to go out there, get some basic bees and start breeding to get to the higher level stuff (royal jelly or those silky comb bees or whatever comes even later). Now insert unlimited cheap transmutation, and suddenly your upgraded barrel of stored wood or wheat turns into those end of the line materials of totally different mods and you just jumped ahead hours/days/weeks.

Even if you only count vanilla items, ever watched any of those lets play series? DW20 or odedex for example, I remember them mentioning that they are about to run out of something on many occasions (usually diamonds, redstone, some metal after a huge build). I doubt they would ever run out, if everything in their storage system could just be transmuted into what they need at the moment. So yes, I think there is a danger with removing scarcity even from modded minecraft.

You're comparing apples to oranges to pomegranates. In my last world, I had a gold chest designated for iron ingots and eventually had to start converting the ingots into blocks because the chest was full. By the time I had pushed that world as far as it would go I had about 20-25 stacks of iron blocks. All without the use of EE, and without ever feeling like I was grinding for anything. And my point is that we can do this with quarries and frame bores and turtles and all these other things that allow us to automate production and that's fine, but as soon as we start seeing similar outcomes from EE it suddenly becomes a problem. Whether I'm indifferent to any sense of value attached to my iron ingots because I got them by transmuting them from trash blocks or because I got them from a quarry setup where I routed all the trash blocks into a void pipe makes absolutely no difference.

 

[Eunomiac]

Oh dear, a game balance thread. It'd be smart to run away, but I'm really very stupid.

I want to watch that Direwolf20 SMP vid where pahimar talks about the new EMC system, but I'm a few episodes behind still, and I don't want to spoil anything (is it sad that I consider what DW20 is building next to be a spoiler? )

Anyway, my biggest concern about EE3 is its "4x Iron = 1x Ender Pearl" recipe, and what that might mean for what's coming in the rest of EE3.

In vanilla Minecraft, such a conversion isn't a big deal---but only because, in vanilla Minecraft, there's about two things Ender Pearls are good for (and even then, I'd argue the recipe is out of whack---it's still a whole lot easier (and safer) to pop into a cave/ravine for a few ingots of Iron than it is to hunt Endermen by moonlight). But in modded minecraft? This single recipe completely redefines the entire economy, whether you're converting Ender Pearls to Iron or the other way around. In SSP, acquiring Ender Pearls becomes a tedious exercise instead of an opportunity for new and different gameplay. In SMP, it's the recipe in reverse that causes problems: Iron, Gold and Diamonds become utterly worthless the moment some enterprising player sets up an Ender Pearl farm in the End (which usually takes a day or two).

Importantly, my biggest concern with the Minium Stone and, possibly, EE3 as a whole is not game balance. Rather, it's how the EE series tends to make entire swaths of gameplay obsolete, replacing them not with something fun and different, but with a boring crafting grid recipe. Do you all remember making the transition from MC 1.2x to MC1.4, and being amazed at how much there was to do? Without my Transmutation Tablet, I actually had to "farm" things like Wheat and Sugar Cane, and "chop" Wood, and "gather" Glowstone, and "breed" Cows for meat and Leather! EE3 is supposed to be an improvement, but the same problems are already appearing: Why automate a squid farm when you can just squeeze ink out of roses? Why gear up with an Athame to bravely prowl the night for Endermen when you can extract ender juice out of Iron from your hotbar? An easier way to get these things is gravy (e.g. MFR's squid farms), but taking fun gameplay opportunities and replacing them with crafting grid recipes? Oh I really hope EE3 is going to be better than that.

 

[Flipz]

*snip*

Well, half the problem with MOST mods in terms of "balance" is that they balance for Vanilla; while that works for Vanilla...well, it's less so when multiple mods get together to play. One of the things Dartcraft does that I like is requiring Forestry recipes (disabling the vanilla recipes) for certain things in Dartcraft if Forestry is installed--adapting itself to suit modpacks that include Forestry. While Dartcraft still has a long way to go in terms of balancing itself for a modded Minecraft environment (particularly with regard to accommodating things like Tinker's Construct), it's a step in the right direction, and I'd like to see EE3 (and other mods!) take the same path--it sounds like DynEMC is built with this in mind, but I'm in Eunomiac's boat as far as not spoiling the video for myself.

For me, though, it comes down to choice. There are times where I'd rather go hunting for Endermen than mining in caves, and times where I'd rather go mining in caves than hunting for Endermen. By offering me a choice, I get to do what I WANT to do, rather than HAVING to do something in order to climb the basic tech tree. One thing that irritates me to this day is that there is no renewable way to get redstone, and as far as I can tell no way at all to get it other than mining (or getting lucky with dungeon chests, but that's essentially the same thing in terms of spending all your time underground). Thus, I HAVE to do something I don't like to do (caving and/or mining to near bedrock and then branch mining) if I want to explore ANY tech mod whatsoever.

My playstyle is to set up in one location, build a whole bunch of stuff and stay there for a long, long time, and THEN if I get bored/decide I want to build something different I'll go exploring to find a new home. I'm well aware that I do a LOT less moving than most players do, and I find myself running short of non-renewable resources. I don't like being forced to go exploring further and further and further out before I'm ready, so I appreciate when EE3 lets me turn the resources I have into the resources I need. Would I appreciate something a little more immersive (i.e. bees)? Yes. Would it get boring really quickly if I could turn ANYTHING into ANYTHING else? Yes. But thus far EE3 seems to be pretty fair about not allowing too many transformations, and requiring multiple steps to get from, say, wood to diamonds.

If/when EMC comes back into play, we'll see how well it plays with everything else. I think Enigmus was on to something when he said that EMC conversion should be one-way--you can dump items into EMC, and can earn EMC from generators, and can use that EMC to create high-tier items (iridium, anyone? assuming that's basic IC2 and not GT), but nothing that could be converted back using the basic transmutation recipes. Essentially, keep the Minium Stone and the EMC systems completely separate.

Are there going to be cross-mod exploits and loops? Yes. They'll happen with any kind of interacting systems, and EE3 is no exception. These sorts of exploits/loops can (and should) be minimized, but at the end of the day common sense (i.e. I CAN do this crazy automation process to make me 90 diamond blocks in an hour, but I SHOULDN'T and won't because it'll make things too easy for my tastes/unbalance the server economy/ruin other people's fun) has to rule--if we enter the mindset that we HAVE to close EVERY loophole there ever is, was, or will be for the sake of some arbitrary vision of "balance", we'll find ourselves becoming the next Greg. And really, the Greg we already have is far more than enough as it is--we don't need another.

 

[cynric]

One thing that irritates me to this day is that there is no renewable way to get redstone, and as far as I can tell no way at all to get it other than mining (or getting lucky with dungeon chests, but that's essentially the same thing in terms of spending all your time underground).

Actually, there are other ways. You can definitely get it from uu-matter and I thought I read about redstone producing bees, although I'm not a bee person, so I don't know that for sure.

edit: an yes, I really hope it works out just fine, because I really like having the option to transmute stuff. However if it is so convenient (not needing to create another factory or travelling to a distant location to find that rare $whatever or killing a lot of mobs that are hard to find or kill) it should be rather limited in other ways.

Making it expensive might not really work that well, because what seems to be expensive for one player another has stored in upgraded barrels. Requiring manual labor could do the trick, or requiring a set amount of time (while preventing automation or just creating an insane number of parallel production facilities).

 

[Scroff]

Actually, there are other ways. You can definitely get it from uu-matter and I thought I read about redstone producing bees, although I'm not a bee person, so I don't know that for sure.

Energetic Bees

 

[Someone Else 37]

I remember hearing something a while back about Pahimar planning on adding a half-dozen different types of EMC- I don't remember exactly, but I would imagine that it's something like Thaumcraft aspects if there were a lot less of them.

Speaking of which, Thaumic Tinkerer adds an aspect-based transmutation device. I don't hear anybody complaining about it being OP (or the vanilla Thaumcraft metal transmutations for that matter), while right here is yet another thread filled with complaints about EE3.

If whatever Pahimar comer up with in the future is very expensive or otherwise difficult to get, I wouldn't be surprised if even more people don't like it- some will inevitably call the transmutations "too cheap" after you manage to build the very expensive device, while the others will call the device too expensive in the first place.

So what is it about EE, specifically, that people don't seem to like? Is it the connection to EE2?

 

[Flipz]

So what is it about EE, specifically, that people don't seem to like? Is it the connection to EE2?

I think that's it entirely. People formed an opinion about EE2 (or just gained an opinion through cultural osmosis without having actually PLAYED the mod), and thus EE gained a certain stigma/reputation. No matter what Pahimar does, there will now be dozens of people who don't give him or his mod a fair chance (no matter WHAT he calls it) because of EE2. It's not fair, but that's how it happens. :/

 

[Eunomiac]

So what is it about EE, specifically, that people don't seem to like?

Importantly, my biggest concern with the Minium Stone and, possibly, EE3 as a whole is not game balance. Rather, it's how the EE series tends to make entire swaths of gameplay obsolete, replacing them not with something fun and different, but with a boring crafting grid recipe. Do you all remember making the transition from MC 1.2x to MC1.4, and being amazed at how much there was to do? Without my Transmutation Tablet, I actually had to "farm" things like Wheat and Sugar Cane, and "chop" Wood, and "gather" Glowstone, and "breed" Cows for meat and Leather! ... An easier way to get these things is gravy (e.g. MFR's squid farms), but taking fun gameplay opportunities and replacing them with crafting grid recipes? Oh I really hope EE3 is going to be better than that.