Vanilla+ - Press Release

[TomeWyrm]

@Type1Ninja Right, but they're not even good stepping stones into modded play. Also battlegear adds shields, and is an overhaul of combat. No overhaul mod should be in a pack like this that is presumably the introduction to modding for a vanilla player. Because the VAST majority of packs don't have battlegear. Not every pack will have HO (well anymore they do, but I blame that on the popularity of Ag Skies and its bretheren in the HQM packs). I'm a lot more lenient about deco mods because nearly all of them can be added after the fact with minimal effort, and it's one of the areas mods expand on that vanilla simply cannot touch. It also doesn't overwhelm someone with new goals, just new blocks that only look pretty.

If you dont like it..... Dont play it.

OBVIOUSLY if I don't like it I'm not going to play it. (seriously, "it's got configs" and "don't like it don't play it" are my two biggest pet peeves in this community. They're both completely obvious and 100% irrelevant to any conversation they're brought up in). Criticism is criticism, and well reasoned if not necessarily constructive criticism can be very helpful for people, such as the original authors, or even someone coming across this later that wants to make their own "Vanilla +" pack that actually plays like vanilla while showcasing modded features.

 

[Padfoote]

@TomeWyrm I seem to recall someone (tfox or BigBad, perhaps even slowpoke) saying that Hunger Overhaul is in there for a handful of the options and isn't actually being used to overhaul anything. As for the rest of your concerns, I haven't played with the pack and can't comment on those without making things up.

 

[Krhymez]

@TomeWyrm I seem to recall someone (tfox or BigBad, perhaps even slowpoke) saying that Hunger Overhaul is in there for a handful of the options and isn't actually being used to overhaul anything. As for the rest of your concerns, I haven't played with the pack and can't comment on those without making things up.

That mod was removed... it only has spice of life.

 

[HeroWing2]

Also why no FastCraft or the COFH version of it that I can't remember the name of?

Noch cofh based mods because i think a bunch of people Dont got a pc who can handle that fand because Theo Tommy played vannilla they wont care about that Problem and will never get into modded mc
Hope you guys understood me im not the best in englisch

 

[Type1Ninja]

@Type1Ninja Right, but they're not even good stepping stones into modded play. Also battlegear adds shields, and is an overhaul of combat. No overhaul mod should be in a pack like this that is presumably the introduction to modding for a vanilla player. Because the VAST majority of packs don't have battlegear. Not every pack will have HO (well anymore they do, but I blame that on the popularity of Ag Skies and its bretheren in the HQM packs). I'm a lot more lenient about deco mods because nearly all of them can be added after the fact with minimal effort, and it's one of the areas mods expand on that vanilla simply cannot touch. It also doesn't overwhelm someone with new goals, just new blocks that only look pretty.


OBVIOUSLY if I don't like it I'm not going to play it. (seriously, "it's got configs" and "don't like it don't play it" are my two biggest pet peeves in this community. They're both completely obvious and 100% irrelevant to any conversation they're brought up in). Criticism is criticism, and well reasoned if not necessarily constructive criticism can be very helpful for people, such as the original authors, or even someone coming across this later that wants to make their own "Vanilla +" pack that actually plays like vanilla while showcasing modded features.

Ok... This pack is intended to be Vanilla+, I think, but many people (including yourself) are interpreting that to mean "use this to get into modding." This is an enhanced vanilla experience, not a set of stepping stones. I agree with you that a stepping stone pack would be very different - heck, I made my own stepping stone pack, with the design goals of "include a tech mod, a magic mod, and try to keep the mod count low to avoid lag." Needless to say, Vanilla+ is NOT that pack. About overhaul mods - while they do change aspects of the game, that isn't a bad thing. A lot of the changes remain either similar to Vanilla or very intuitive - "Gee, I wonder what shields do!"
About your peeves - both are valid things to say. Refusing to change your configs is like playing on the highest difficulty setting in a game and then complaining that it's too hard; people just tell you to turn down the difficulty. Configuration files are just text-based options. "If you don't like it, don't play it" is similar - imagine a connoisseur of fine wines showing up on a show about beer, and complaining that it's uncivilized. Nobody wants that opinion because the person is complaining about something they already don't like - people who DO like it will disagree, and don't want to bother responding to or even thinking about that person's arguments.
In conclusion - no.

 

[TomeWyrm]

It's not even "enhanced vanilla" with some of those mods though. Growthcraft is "enhanced vanilla". Redstone Paste is "enhanced vanilla". Et Futurum is time-shifted vanilla . Hunger Overhaul (which was removed) isn't.

From the OP:

But one area we feel untouched is the standard vanilla experience. FTB Vanilla+ is our attempt to make a mod pack that delivers some of the benefits of Modded Minecraft whilst maintaining the Vanilla feel to a world. While our Lite packs are meant to dive into additional gameplay add-ons like infrastructure, technology, and magic, Vanilla+ is designed to enhance the core mechanics of Minecraft’s base content, providing a familiar yet enhanced playthrough.

Battlegear is "additional gameplay". Steve's Workshop is in no way "familiar". Red Power (Sorry, Project Red ) logic circuits at least makes sense to an experienced redstoner. Pam's Harvestcraft is too-far-removed from Vanilla, it doesn't add any new ideas... just a bunch of clutter (especially without Hunger Overhaul). I mean I agree with most of the choices in here. Railcraft is even an AWESOME idea, because it is very easy to make it into minecarts+ (which is a system that needs expanding in Vanilla, IMO). I don't feel any mods particularly need to be added, excepting maybe Back In Slime to compliment Et Futurum for the full 1.8 backport experience. I just think there's mods in here that detract from the — quite literally — stated goal, and some real performance tweaks that could be done: remove Carpenter's Blocks as without knowledge of how it works and what it does, you can very easily make a base that will tank 200+fps machines into the low-single-digit FPS range; add COFH Tweaks (no COFHCore required IIRC) because it makes the game run more smoothly, or FastCraft.

Config change? Servers. The vast majority of players cannot change the configs from pack defaults or they will be barred from playing with friends. Most of the time because they can't change that config on their server, sometimes because they play on multiple servers, and often because they won't be able to get their firends to change their configs. There's a reason packs are so popular, it's the "you don't need to tinker with this, it just works" factor. I've personally tried multiple instances before and that is an EXTREME amount of confusion with a client DESIGNED for it (MultiMC), and I rarely played it anyway because it was no longer the same pack that my friends were playing, which caused a lot of difficulties I'm not going to enumerate here. So yes; "change your configs" is an invalid argument, one designed to try and refute a point without addressing any of its concerns directly, and instead dismiss it out of hand. Which is why I blast people for saying it. "Don't play it" is worse. It's blatantly obvious, contributes nothing useful to the discussion, and again is an attempt to dismiss things out of hand. Address actual points (when they're there, and haven't already been addressed. Again, obviously) not just say "I don't want to pay attention to you, go away now".

 

[Type1Ninja]

It's not even "enhanced vanilla" with some of those mods though. Growthcraft is "enhanced vanilla". Redstone Paste is "enhanced vanilla". Et Futurum is time-shifted vanilla . Hunger Overhaul (which was removed) isn't.

From the OP:
Battlegear is "additional gameplay". Steve's Workshop is in no way "familiar". Red Power (Sorry, Project Red ) logic circuits at least makes sense to an experienced redstoner. Pam's Harvestcraft is too-far-removed from Vanilla, it doesn't add any new ideas... just a bunch of clutter (especially without Hunger Overhaul). I mean I agree with most of the choices in here. Railcraft is even an AWESOME idea, because it is very easy to make it into minecarts+ (which is a system that needs expanding in Vanilla, IMO). I don't feel any mods particularly need to be added, excepting maybe Back In Slime to compliment Et Futurum for the full 1.8 backport experience. I just think there's mods in here that detract from the — quite literally — stated goal, and some real performance tweaks that could be done: remove Carpenter's Blocks as without knowledge of how it works and what it does, you can very easily make a base that will tank 200+fps machines into the low-single-digit FPS range; add COFH Tweaks (no COFHCore required IIRC) because it makes the game run more smoothly, or FastCraft.

Config change? Servers. The vast majority of players cannot change the configs from pack defaults or they will be barred from playing with friends. Most of the time because they can't change that config on their server, sometimes because they play on multiple servers, and often because they won't be able to get their firends to change their configs. There's a reason packs are so popular, it's the "you don't need to tinker with this, it just works" factor. I've personally tried multiple instances before and that is an EXTREME amount of confusion with a client DESIGNED for it (MultiMC), and I rarely played it anyway because it was no longer the same pack that my friends were playing, which caused a lot of difficulties I'm not going to enumerate here. So yes; "change your configs" is an invalid argument, one designed to try and refute a point without addressing any of its concerns directly, and instead dismiss it out of hand. Which is why I blast people for saying it. "Don't play it" is worse. It's blatantly obvious, contributes nothing useful to the discussion, and again is an attempt to dismiss things out of hand. Address actual points (when they're there, and haven't already been addressed. Again, obviously) not just say "I don't want to pay attention to you, go away now".

Are you and I thinking of the same Steve's Workshop? I'm thinking about the crafting table thingy and I think you may be thinking of Steve's Factory Manager...
I would say Battlegear is a familiar concept. It's effectively Balkon's Weapons (very Vanilla) + dual wield, which isn't that hard to understand - "whoa, I can hold TWO things in my TWO HANDS? WAAAAT?!?!?!" Maybe we should just agree to disagree on Battlegear. Carpenter's Blocks is just fun to use, I don't care whether or not it's in. As for framerates... Pack authors should do their best to keep the lag low, but I'm not going to blame them if some decades-old toaster can't run it. It's part of the nature of Minecraft, and between Mojang's code and the permissions on the various FPS-improvement mods, pack authors can only do so much.
For configs: Are you sure changing them prevents you from playing on servers? It's not like mods... I think configs are always sent to the client to use as long as it's on the server. I may be wrong, but I don't think that's an issue. I still think "change the configs" is a valid argument - they're there for a reason; nobody's stopping you from tweaking it how you like and once you do it won't stop you from playing with your friends. When people say "don't play it" I think what they mean is "hey, I like this, please go trash talk it somewhere else." That is a valid sentiment. As humans, we get annoyed at each other all the time and block each other out; that's to be expected and should be respected (within reason).

Long story short: I think this pack is fine how it is. I think it enhances vanilla; no new progressions are added, so the goal remains the same - basically either "Get to the End" or "Build stuff." I think if this were really un-vanilla, the progression would be different; it would be "build the best ore-processor" or "get the biggest energy storage" or "finish all the magical researches" or "build the best reactor." Those are all very different from Vanilla, but I don't see any of those here, and I think that's my core point - I'm still playing this like I play Vanilla.

 

[Padfoote]

That mod was removed... it only has spice of life.

And that would be why I don't comment on things without playing them first.

Thanks.

 

[TomeWyrm]

That would be why I'm commenting on mods in the list as they relate to the theme, Padfoote. I have very little interest in the pack personally (I broke myself of vanilla nostalgia before the game went gold. Content mods are quite literally the only reason I play the game). I'm speaking as a pack designer, wondering why some mods were included and other mods weren't.

Type1Ninja. Yes I'm thinking of Steve's Workshop. The mod that adds auto-eject chain processing and other things to a 4-furnace/workbenches-in-one-block-with-a-GUI-that-uses-upgrades.

I'm like 95% confident that server configs still go all pear-shaped if the server and client disagree. Lots of mods handle it now (some better than others. The ones that change your config files instead of using a temporary set bug me a lot, but hey, whatever). I haven't tested recently though, if so then a large part of the argument I used is invalidated, but the spirit is still there. The thing is, no matter what you want to say about the individual points? Both of those are terrible cop-outs that dodge any real tackling of the issues raised. Ok, great. I can change a number in a text file because I'm a power user (seriously, almost NOBODY changes defaults), how does that in any way invalidate my saying that "this mod doesn't fit into a vanilla-type pack"?

 

[Krhymez]

I have been playing this pack for almost 5days of playtime(insane i know)
The server i play on updated pams to fix the dupe bug(hopefully this pack updates the mods soon as well)

Another issue im having is the LavaBoat mod, the boats are unplacable... without crashing.

Will FTB continue updating this pack?

Also any chance to get mo creatures or other animal mods in.

 

[Krhymez]

this would be amazing
http://www.curse.com/mc-mods/minecraft/226233-the-vanilla-enhancer-mod

 

[diggerjohn99]

How about some kind of minimap for Vanilla+? I tried to put Voxel in with liteloader, I had to delete the entire modpack.

 

[HeroWing2]

I personally vote for open Blocks because it has some Not op stuff and the stuff which doesnt fit in you can disable and a minimap is Not that much needed because of the biblio craft i think its called Atlas so no Problem at all

 

[Luppii]

As a dev for Luppii's Ladders I'm very glad to see that my mod is included in this pack, and that the authors understood the concept of the mod as an "enhancer to vanilla Minecraft".

 

[Sionw]

I think Railcraft and Project Red don't want tobe in -Vannila + becouse it's Tech mods.