Where is the line between contraption and exploit?

[Hoff]

Your argument has a flaw; it's one hundred percent wrong.

Unless you've paid the mod makers, you have absolutely no right to tell them what to do. And even if you had paid, (for example vanilla), Mojang still wouldn't have to do what you say because, guess what? They don't work for you.
If you really want EE2 then go and play tekkit.. (does tekkit still have EE2 or is it updated now? I don't really care...)

The mod author will code what they want into their mod. If it is a good mod, then people will like it. If it is so overpowered that even the modmaker realises it, then they will re-code it, wether you like it or not.

If you want a personal coding-slave, hire someone.

You don't get it; I don't care if he doesn't maintain the code. The fault still rests on his shoulders for those that liked EE2 and would have liked it updated. It's not that he has to do it but the expectation of it still falls on his shoulders unless. If the code were freely available(Haven't even actually checked if it is) then it no longer does. Besides; I never said he had to do any of it. If he wants to be a perfect mod maker in my eyes then yes he would have to do those things. Not to mention your theory on Mojang not doing what it's customers ask for is completely ridiculous. A company specifically caters to its audience.

They will code what they want and re-code what they want but to shun something because of a personal feeling they hold about what they have created is pathetic and, again, in my eyes makes them a terrible mod maker.

I want no such slave, as you seem to love to go on this hyperbole rant, I merely have expectations for mod devs and if they fall short of them then so be it. My feelings about a mod maker mean nothing, after all. No ones does really.

But really your consequent post(s) will mean nothing as you seem to be of those that feel there is some sort of universal and arbitrary line of balance that everyone falls in line to.

 

[brujon]

Pahimar repeteadly stated that he was not happy with the way the mod turned out, and that is why he's remaking it from scratch. If you, or anyone else for that matter, want to remake EE2, go and do what BWF did, look at the code, write brand new code that does the same thing. There are literally thousands of tutorials on the net about decrypting and deobfuscating code, and way back in the day when Minecraft didn't have any mod support, the Minecraft source code was already floating around the net for prospective mod makers to use. EE2 is still his intellectual property, so you can't just go ahead and update his code and re-release it. Well, actually you can, but it's frowned upon. There can and there cannot be legal consequences for this, and it's quite a coin toss whether something will or will not happen. It will definitely aggravate Pahimar and a LOT of people if you do this though.

There are a lot of people who swear by EE2, just look at how Tekkit continues to be popular despite not updating past 1.2.5. I, for one, am happy that we're no longer slaves to EE2, and that every other mod is now free to balance itself with a bit more certainty that everything will simply not have an EMC value eventually.

 

[Hoff]

For one I would not simply take his code and update it without his express permission. Even just replicating it would be the same thing with a new name as far as I am concerned.

You were also never a slave to EE2. You chose it. Servers chose to use it when they could have not. Look at DW20 in his previous SSP world. The only reason it was considered OP by so many was because they chose to exploit it. Not to mention that being able to be pseudo-creative is not a bad thing. I'm not sure where the idea came from but it is false. Many do enjoy such gameplay.

 

[brujon]

I never said it was a bad thing, in fact, i encourage it. What makes EE2 stand out for me is the fact that you could generate items from nothing, with close to no effort. After you killed your first skeleton, mined one of every ingot/ore, you could just teach bonemeal to the transmutation tablet and mindlessly bonemeal the ground in a dark room and gather flowers/seeds and feed that to get any resource you had already collected. This is something that could be done in the first HOUR of gaming. Make a deployer do it for you, craft a bunch of transposers to suck it from the top, feeding directly into a condenser, and bam.

It made literally every other resource gathering mechanic from every single one of the other mods redundant. You didn't need farms, you didn't need quarries, you didn't need anything other than the transmutation tablet and crafting tables. It broke the balance in every modpack it was ever added in, it is disruptive.

And it was disruptive even if you chose not to exploit it. You could get a Collector/Relay setup in less than a day of gaming, and it's an infinite loop of generating EMC that can become every energy in the game. You're generating items from *nothing*. It's something that takes absolutely no effort on your part, no effort whatsoever. In the span of a few hours you could build a house out of diamond blocks and not give two rat's ass about it because next morning you'd wake up to a stack of red matter. It made everything redundant.

The ONLY way to avoid it unbalancing everything else, was to simply NOT USE IT. Which was basically impossible if you were in any kind of server that had PvP enabled, because anyone with Gem/Red Matter armour, is basically INVINCIBLE. All other mods had their own share of exploits, but then, you could do everything without using them, and not fall too far behind if you knew what you were doing. EE2? You didn't NEED exploits, it gave you all the tools you ever needed to break the game, forevermore.

Never needing to go mining, to head back to the nether, or even pump lava, or basically use any machine from any other mod to do anything, because EE2 did everything better. No balance because of it. This is what i mean about being a slave to it. Sure you can avoid it EASILY if you're playing SSP, but in SMP, especially when PvP or Griefing was enabled? You HAD to use it, because it gave you the ONLY tools that you could use to defend yourself against all the other people that used and abused it.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Modders have NO responsibilities. Players have NO rights other than those that copyright law grants them. Anyone that tries to impose responsibilities on modders or assumes additional rights for themselves is... well, I've been warned once for losing my temper over modder-abuse so I'll end there.

 

[jumpfight5]

Now this fine thread is dandy and great,
But one wrong post turned it into flame bait!
In order to protect this from getting locked,
This thread here will let you be rocked!
By raps of course, what did you think?
Well, anyways, here's the link!
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/the-official-flame-battle-thread.16680/

 

[Hoff]

I never said it was a bad thing, in fact, i encourage it. What makes EE2 stand out for me is the fact that you could generate items from nothing, with close to no effort. After you killed your first skeleton, mined one of every ingot/ore, you could just teach bonemeal to the transmutation tablet and mindlessly bonemeal the ground in a dark room and gather flowers/seeds and feed that to get any resource you had already collected. This is something that could be done in the first HOUR of gaming. Make a deployer do it for you, craft a bunch of transposers to suck it from the top, feeding directly into a condenser, and bam.

It made literally every other resource gathering mechanic from every single one of the other mods redundant. You didn't need farms, you didn't need quarries, you didn't need anything other than the transmutation tablet and crafting tables. It broke the balance in every modpack it was ever added in, it is disruptive.

And it was disruptive even if you chose not to exploit it. You could get a Collector/Relay setup in less than a day of gaming, and it's an infinite loop of generating EMC that can become every energy in the game. You're generating items from *nothing*. It's something that takes absolutely no effort on your part, no effort whatsoever. In the span of a few hours you could build a house out of diamond blocks and not give two rat's ass about it because next morning you'd wake up to a stack of red matter. It made everything redundant.

The ONLY way to avoid it unbalancing everything else, was to simply NOT USE IT. Which was basically impossible if you were in any kind of server that had PvP enabled, because anyone with Gem/Red Matter armour, is basically INVINCIBLE. All other mods had their own share of exploits, but then, you could do everything without using them, and not fall too far behind if you knew what you were doing. EE2? You didn't NEED exploits, it gave you all the tools you ever needed to break the game, forevermore.

Never needing to go mining, to head back to the nether, or even pump lava, or basically use any machine from any other mod to do anything, because EE2 did everything better. No balance because of it. This is what i mean about being a slave to it. Sure you can avoid it EASILY if you're playing SSP, but in SMP, especially when PvP or Griefing was enabled? You HAD to use it, because it gave you the ONLY tools that you could use to defend yourself against all the other people that used and abused it.

First 4 paragraphs I say, so? The first collector was terribly slow and had a decent cost if you weren't using any exploit to get there faster(Bonemeal exploit since you chose it as an example(As an aside most of the "something from nothing" came from vanilla or other mods. Aka ore doubling, infinite milk/stew, etc. The only one introduced by EE2 was the collector and took some time to actually get decent pay off from it without boosting yourself to it through exploit)). A single EMC a second would take several tens of thousands of seconds to pay off. Not to mention the relay. Now pouring resources into it you could climb the ladder much faster, but, to be efficient about it you'd have to grind down your resources in a macerator. Which means you'd have to get in to IC2 to be truly efficient about it.

As for SMP; when you choose to play SMP you give up the right to your idea of balance and forfeit it to the server owners. You choose to play on a server with EE2, with PvP, etc. You did not have to. If it was something you did not enjoy being a "slave" to, you could always avoid it. Are people slaves to modular power suits now? Quantum? They are the absolute pinnacle now. Doesn't that make you a slave to IC2 or MP when the server has those things enabled?

There will always be a pinnacle to everything and when a mod offers the ability of everything it will almost always take place over other mods. It's like trying to put BTW(if you ever could) or TFC into the modpacks now. Hell it's like GT now; GT is THE end game. Nothing competes with it's sheer numbers. It always wins out. It may not have all 52 cards in the deck but it's pushing for it quick.

 

[Hoff]

Modders have NO responsibilities. Players have NO rights other than those that copyright law grants them. Anyone that tries to impose responsibilities on modders or assumes additional rights for themselves is... well, I've been warned once for losing my temper over modder-abuse so I'll end there.

Yeah in the same way people who make games have "no responsibilities". They may not have to follow through on them but the consequences of such fall with them. When you choose to create something it immediately becomes your responsibility. Players have the right not to play a mod, to tell a mod maker their mod sucks, to tell them they feel the route they are taking is bad for the mad, and the right to hold expectations for mods and mod devs. Those of course all are of no real consequence but they are their rights. Mod devs have the same rights as well though. They can tell the world to stick it and do whatever they want, but they does not mean they are not responsible for the loss of those that enjoyed the way the mod was before that. This responsibility carries no real weight per se but the disappointment of those people is on them.

Now this fine thread is dandy and great,
But one wrong post turned it into flame bait!
In order to protect this from getting locked,
This thread here will let you be rocked!
By raps of course, what did you think?
Well, anyways, here's the link!
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/the-official-flame-battle-thread.16680/

Nothing I've said is flamebait, if you're referring to me. Unless you consider my personal feelings of balance in my own game and the expectations I hold to be flamebait. Which if so this forum has become quite sad that someone can't have a radical opinion without it being flamebait. Of course that's only when it's against the majority. If someone proclaims zeal over a mod that is in good graces so much so that other mods in the past are nothing to it they're fine.

 

[Monkey6775]

My entire thing is massive rescource collection and farms. I don't really consider anything cheaty but then again im questing to fill a Extra dimensional barrel full of diamond blocks and get max size tanks of all liquids so im not really taking any prisoners on the "exploit" thing. I have a self replicating HV factory i use EE3 and soul shards to get infinite iron. And i use soul shards to supply the coal for my Steam engine.

 

[Neirin]

GT is THE end game. Nothing competes with it's sheer numbers. It always wins out. It may not have all 52 cards in the deck but it's pushing for it quick.

I know you're just posting flame-bait now, but I couldn't resist responding. Yes, GT is THE end game mod. However, the big difference between GT and EE2 is that EE2 was also THE early game mod and THE mid game mod. The most efficient way to accomplish anything when EE2 was involved was to figure out the best way to generate EMC and then just do that until you could transmute as close to whatever your end goal was as possible. Sure, you could rig up other systems of production that didn't use EE2, but they would always fall in the "just for fun" category compared to a system using EE2. That's not as big of a problem in a sandbox game like minecraft as it would be elsewhere, but it's still a problem.

 

[jumpfight5]

Nothing I've said is flamebait, if you're referring to me. Unless you consider my personal feelings of balance in my own game and the expectations I hold to be flamebait. Which if so this forum has become quite sad that someone can't have a radical opinion without it being flamebait. Of course that's only when it's against the majority. If someone proclaims zeal over a mod that is in good graces so much so that other mods in the past are nothing to it they're fine.

Jeeez man, it was a rap!
Let's check you feet; do they even tap?
I failed to see your hands once clap!
To rap is not always to rhyme,
But one must always be in time.
Just try it once, don't get mad
I saw your post and said "E-Gad!"
I wasn't referring just to you,
Other posters on this thread need to be taught too!

 

[Hoff]

I know you're just posting flame-bait now, but I couldn't resist responding. Yes, GT is THE end game mod. However, the big difference between GT and EE2 is that EE2 was also THE early game mod and THE mid game mod. The most efficient way to accomplish anything when EE2 was involved was to figure out the best way to generate EMC and then just do that until you could transmute as close to whatever your end goal was as possible. Sure, you could rig up other systems of production that didn't use EE2, but they would always fall in the "just for fun" category compared to a system using EE2. That's not as big of a problem in a sandbox game like minecraft as it would be elsewhere, but it's still a problem.

No; I'm not. An opinion on a subject is not flamebait. Learn to differentiate. Exploiting EE2 is what made it THE early and THE mid game mod.

As for the bolded; it's only a problem if the individual playing feels it is a problem. No other opinion matters, at all.

 

[Neirin]

No; I'm not. An opinion on a subject is not flamebait. Learn to differentiate. Exploiting EE2 is what made it THE early and THE mid game mod.

As for the bolded; it's only a problem if the individual playing feels it is a problem. No other opinion matters, at all.

You are stating an opinion that's clearly controversial (to say the least) and rejecting any criticism as irrelevant. Either you're trolling or you should take a step back and consider how people might see you as one given your rhetoric.

 

[Hoff]

You are stating an opinion that's clearly controversial (to say the least) and rejecting any criticism as irrelevant. Either you're trolling or you should take a step back and consider how people might see you as one given your rhetoric.

Because the criticism IS irrelevant. It is an opinion. It does not have to follow logic or any given standards. I am perfectly within the subject to explain my opinion as is anyone else that does so. Any criticism given to their opinions is as well, irrelevant. Know why? Because we're simply explaining how we feel about it. As well there is no standard for balance because it always differs between people. Learning how other people feel and why they feel that way is important though to allow you to refine your own opinion. If this basic concept of discussion is beyond you, please, do not discuss further.

 

[kilteroff]

The line is user determined. I choose not to do anything I personally deem as exploitative; usually anything that's infinite. Simple as that.

Just my 2c

 

[brujon]

I just explained to you how EE2 is an infinite and self-expanding system, but you refuse to listen. I will now make the math to prove just how fucked up it was.

So, you start the game, you mine, you get about 14 diamonds, go to the Nether, get some glowstone, and that's about 2 or 3 hours of play. Nothing unusual there, right? Efficient mining at Y 12 can get you even more than that, but i digress.

You now build the tablet, teach it everything you've mined so far, and build your first collector. It generates 4 EMC/s, which you store by using the process that goes from coal to Aeternalis Fuel.

4 EMC/s averages out to 1 diamond every 24 minutes, or 8192 EMC every 24 minutes. But you don't care about that, you care about producing enough EMC to be able to produce your Antimatter Relay, a process which will take 5 hours completely unaided. So you go around, get the rest of the resources you haven't taught to your tablet yet, or just go watch TV or something, and come back to your relay. The next collector will now take 4 hours and 20 minutes, so you go watch some more TV. You come back, plop your second collector. You're now generating 10 EMC/s. The next collector will take 2 hours and 18 minutes. You come back, plop another one down, go back to watching TV. You're now generating 15 EMC/s. Next collector in an hour and a half. It's starting to get pretty good. One hour later, bam, another collector. In another hour, you'll have 6, generating 30 EMC/s.

This process will take little more to half a day, with you intermittently interfering to put down the next collectors. Now the really fun part begins. You need 213,889 EMC to create your Relay Mk2. In fact, it's a bit less than that, because you'll use your Mk1, so it's 139712 EMC needed. Which will take you 77 minutes and change to make. Easy peasy right? You come back, take your relay off, upgrade it to a Mk2. You're now generating 24 + 18 = 42 EMC/s. Which means that to upgrade all of your collectors at once, a VERY inefficient process, will take only 5 hours.

It's stupid. You haven't been playing for 24 hours yet, and you're generating a diamond every 3 minutes. And i intentionally made the process EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT, because it was COMPLETELY UNAIDED. ALL it took from you was the initial input to make your first collector, and you're now almost to pseudo-creative levels. Power Flowers are a feature of EE2, i didn't exploit ANY of the EMC generating methods here, if only ONE of those was used, this whole process could've took 5 or 6 hours. In just a couple of days, you'll have so many power flowers, you won't even know what to do with all the EMC. This is for SSP, for SMP all times are multiplied by 4.

Really, EE2 was, indeed, very broken. Everyone knew that, everyone still played with it because it's human nature to use the most efficient way. It doesn't matter if you say "But you had a choice not to", because it still remained broken. It's exponential growth, exponential growth is bad. Every day or so you upgraded from one tier to the next, until you could make a T3 complete Power Flower in a matter of minutes, eventually seconds. You would lose Klein Star Omegas to lava and laugh. Again, this was doable really, really fast, and with no input for the player, this is bad design right there. If you helped even a little, without using any exploits, just mining, this could be sped up much, much faster...

 

[jumpfight5]

A lot of mods work like that. Not "gen diamonds in 3 mins", but...
UU-Matter. It generates and you put it into solar generation. Then you get more, and more, and more.
Boilers. You get energy to power the MFR machines, more energy, more machines, more wood, more boilers, more energy...
Lots of mods have exponental growth, but the stuff you could get from EMC was much more than you could get from boilers. You can get unlimited energy this way, but you didn't really need unlimited energy. After a certain point you wouldn't use it. Who needs 90,000,000 mj/t?
But with EMC, you could get diamonds and coal and iron and gold and everything you'd ever need to work on all the other mods. So, eventually you wouldn't use it, making the game end earlier...?
I'm not really on a side here...just pointing the exponential growth on almost everything. Quarries? Get the materials from them to make more of them. Same goes for almost anything that will get you resources.

But FTB (and tekkit, AND the mod maker) are done with EE2.

 

[brujon]

Yeah, but with UU you have to put in a lot of resources manually before even getting to that point. Boilers + Wood... But where will you get the iron from? You have to quarry.

Only UU works relatively similar to how EE2 exponential growth was, but it's heaps slower, and takes a whole lot of resources to get the process kickstarted. That you have to get yourself, either by quarrying or by other means. You have to work for it... When you get to the point where you can make a solar factory, you're already pretty end game.

 

[Hoff]

snip

You don't get it. I could make a system that blew that made the same amount of EMC your 24 hour system does in about 20 minutes. By the time your system has 1 diamond I'd have 2 red matter. In 12 minutes I could double that.

It still does not matter to me.

For me, personally, this is all still balanced because in my world I play without balance. Balance and being broken are 100% subjective. I don't care if every other human on earth found it OP. For me it was all balanced. Exponential growth is only bad because you don't want it. It's not bad design, it's a design you don't like.

 

[Lambert2191]

The mod maker thought it was so OP that he discontinued it and decided instead to rewrite the entire mod.
It wasn't balanced, if your opinion on balance differs from the opinion of the guy who wrote the mod, then your opinion is wrong.