Why don't people like IC2 anymore?

[Algester]

or we can just differentiate IC2-Exp and IC2-classic (1.4.x days) and no I dont accept IC2 (1.5.x days) so the question now why people hate IC2-Exp... how does that sound... orz...

 

[Cronos988]

THAT's the problem. Survival mode minecraft was never designed to be anything more than a casual game. trying to turn a casual game into an intense, high-investment game is what feels so wrong. sandbox was made for big projects... survival was made for making a house and hiding in it from zombies.

It's great that there is crossover, but it's PLAYER CREATIVITY that is supposed to require huge amounts of investment, not game mechanics. That was one of the reasons early redpower was so popular... there was no mining or 'quarrying' machine, but you had all the tools neccessary to invent your OWN mining or quarrying machine.

That was and is the biggest problem with IC2... all the craft and creativity is sucked right out on the road to quantum armor, and replaced with developer-designed chain grinding. Early IC2 and buildcraft were nothing more than TOOLS to be utilized alongside the great toolkit that was redpower, and without it, they both feel hollow, dried-out. They feel like nothing more than magic boxes to do what early minecraft players were proud of doing with nothing but the basic tools in minecraft, redstone wiring, blockbreakers, deployers, and frames.

Now that 'building giant machines' to automate each self-assigned minecraft task has been relegated to the junk heap, they are left without end goals. All that's left is the four hour casual game. People are in the process of trying to find a 'new minecraft' without redpower, and all the automation tools in the world don't make up for that wondrous feeling of making your first redstone flip-flop to power your automatic cobble-making contraption, the 'tree chopper' that uses birch because giant oak trees break it and blows through bonemeal like mad, and the enormous underground mob farm with a 'blade' made out of a ladder and a bucket of lava that regularly spewed out arrows, bones, and feathers.

Now we have automatic tree farmers, fifty pipes in a block, timers, obsidian machines, peaceful tables, and nerve gas. IC2 has morphed from a quickie tool to use to obtain the resources needed for the 'big projects' and is expected to carry the load itself... and frankly, it falls short of both expectations and fun factor.

Redpower is gone. Maybe it's time to start ditching the artifacts of it's heyday as well.

Thanks for this very insightful post. I feel you have described the issue nicely.

IC2 just doesn't offer this experience on it's own. The endgame of IC2 is creative-mode armor and creative-mode resources. But that only makes sense if you have a project that requires creative mode to be possible. It's right in the name industrial-craft. What does industry do? It makes things cheaper, faster, in larger quantities. But other mods offer the same features, and many of them in more interesting ways. So if you want "creative mode" there are many more ways to get there, and most of them feel more intuitive.

And compared to other mods, IC2 just doesn't seem to add any more venues for your creativity. Pretty much the only really creative mechanic of IC2 was the reactors, but they are only a means to an end. As Badger said, the modding scene has moved on a fair bit, and current gen mods offer so many creative venues, by also providing much of what IC2 does, that IC2 just looks pale in comparison.

But I think IC2 would still have a large audience nevertheless, if it weren't for the fact that many people started their modded minecraft experience with it, and it no longer feels new or exciting.

 

[Lathanael]

I can tell you why people have gone off IC2, it's plain and simple...

The recipes are now more complicated to make the EXACT same thing we were making months ago... Now maybe the modders should ask themselves how making something more complicated to make which is exactly the same machine as it was months ago, would appeal to ANYONE at all.

How is it more complicated:
Pre Exp steps:

1. Craft Furnace
2. Smelt iron ore
3. Resmelt it to get refined iron
4. Make whatever you wnated to make

Afterwards:

1. Craft Furnace
2. Smelt Iron
3. Craft hammer
4. Make plates (vastly faster than resmelting)
   
5. Make whatever machine you waned to make

That is one extra step which consumes less time than the re-smelt process previously did, so i'd say that is even. That leaves us with 1 extra step due to the the wire tool. Both things can be automated like before with the refined iron process. It's true that some recipes got an extra step now but on the other hand that step made some machines and items require LESS resources than before (batteries anyone?).

For me that isn't really more complicated at all. In fact it is easier in the beginning as less time is spent waiting for refined iron. IC2 has always been a craft-recipe-heavy mod and that is what i compare the exp line to. If you feel that it's the wrong approach so be it but please stop telling only one part of the story.

Currently the E-Net and the lack of new unique stuff are the big problems of IC2 imo not it's crafting chains.

 

[Nanolathe]

While I agree that the E-net and lack of unique stuff are two glaring problems with IC2 and IC2exp, surely you can concede that making the crafting chain longer, even by a single step, isn't exactly helping to keep IC2 an interesting and fresh mod either.

If IC2exp is supposed to be experimenting with new stuff then I'd actually like to see it experimenting with new stuff, not rehashing the old stuff into something many of us have seen before in another, all to (in)famous mod.

 

[Mevansuto]

Does anyone else dislike the obsidian nerf?

 

[DREVL]

What is the obby nerf?

 

[Alcheya]

How is it more complicated:
-snip-
That is one extra step which consumes less time than the re-smelt process previously did, so i'd say that is even. That leaves us with 1 extra step due to the the wire tool. Both things can be automated like before with the refined iron process. It's true that some recipes got an extra step now but on the other hand that step made some machines and items require LESS resources than before (batteries anyone?).

-snip-

Make gold wire:

Pre Exp:

Craft furnace
Smelt gold
Craft wire

Now:

Craft furnace
smelt iron
craft hammer
smelt iron
hammer iron
craft cutters
smelt gold
hammer gold
cut gold with cutters

---------------------------------------

The current pack of Monster and I saw another post saying DW20 pack both are missing the recipe to make copper wire for the MP Suits the TE way, so unfortunately had to use the ic2 recipe to make wire. I felt violated.

Looking back over the comments and the way I felt about GT when I first played it, I'd say the "GT Lite" analogy is spot on.

 

[jokermatt999]

crafting

Let's look at electronic circuits, one of the most common items.

1. Have iron ore, copper ore, rubber all smelted
2. Resmelt iron
3. Make a copper cable with rubber and copper
4. Make an electronic circuit

Now:

1. Have iron ore, copper ore, rubber all smelted
2. Make an iron plate
3. Make a copper plate
4. Make a copper wire
5. Make an insulated copper wire
6. Make electronic circuit

Not that different, right? Making plates can be quicker than resmelting refined iron, but most people would keep a stack or so of refined iron on hand anyway. It helped that it could generally be used for a lot of the same things as iron, at least from my recollection. Now, there's just a few more steps each time...but that annoyance adds up, especially in the early game when crafting is the most tedious. When making those first few machines takes twice as long, are most people going to stick with IC2, or start looking towards other mods?

 

[Mevansuto]

What is the obby nerf?

Blast resistance greatly reduced. When i first started playing Vanilla I'd line my walls with it for protection. Mad my houses too big though. I dare accuse this of being a Greg-Tech level vanilla nerf.

 

[Alcheya]

Let's look at electronic circuits, one of the most common items.
-snip-

not to mention you need to have a hammer and cutters made.. or you're adding more steps.

 

[Democretes]

Blast resistance greatly reduced. When i first started playing Vanilla I'd line my walls with it for protection. Mad my houses too big though. I dare accuse this of being a Greg-Tech level vanilla nerf.

That nerf has been in there for a long time. The only reason they did it was to prevent obsidian from being a cheap and easy way to make nuclear reactors safe, which is honestly pretty fair considering how easy a safe reactor is to build. Obsidian still has a good blast resistance. It's just not nuke proof.

 

[Democretes]

-snip-

It's because it's no longer just refined iron. Before you could just throw a stack into the furnace and you have some handy for whenever you need it. Now it's more than that. You can make the materials you need faster, you just need to make many more types. You need to snip all your cables -which used to be ingots in a line- and hammer all your metals -which never was a requirement- causing more recipes to take more time in their creation.

 

[DREVL]

Make gold wire:

Pre Exp:

Craft furnace
Smelt gold
Craft wire

Now:

Craft furnace
smelt iron
craft hammer
smelt iron
hammer iron
craft cutters
smelt gold
hammer gold
cut gold with cutters

---------------------------------------

The current pack of Monster and I saw another post saying DW20 pack both are missing the recipe to make copper wire for the MP Suits the TE way, so unfortunately had to use the ic2 recipe to make wire. I felt violated.

Looking back over the comments and the way I felt about GT when I first played it, I'd say the "GT Lite" analogy is spot on.

you forgot these steps
smelt iron
recraft broken hammer
hammer plates
smelt more iron
recraft broken cutters

I don't call it GT lite, gt., IC2, or IC2-exp

Its GT2.[DOUBLEPOST=1389118090][/DOUBLEPOST]

Blast resistance greatly reduced. When i first started playing Vanilla I'd line my walls with it for protection. Mad my houses too big though. I dare accuse this of being a Greg-Tech level vanilla nerf.

do not... that was fact well before Glolarious got a hold of it. That was ic2 since even before mc 1.2.5

 

[Mevansuto]

you forgot these steps
smelt iron
recraft broken hammer
hammer plates
smelt more iron
recraft broken cutters

I don't call it GT lite, gt., IC2, or IC2-exp

Its GT2.[DOUBLEPOST=1389118090][/DOUBLEPOST]
do not... that was fact well before Glolarious got a hold of it. That was ic2 since even before mc 1.2.5

I know it was. Still dislike it.[DOUBLEPOST=1389120189][/DOUBLEPOST]

you forgot these steps
smelt iron
recraft broken hammer
hammer plates
smelt more iron
recraft broken cutters

I don't call it GT lite, gt., IC2, or IC2-exp

Its GT2.[DOUBLEPOST=1389118090][/DOUBLEPOST]
do not... that was fact well before Glolarious got a hold of it. That was ic2 since even before mc 1.2.5

GT2 is just unfair and harsh. The difference is I like GregTech, it can be fun when you get past the grinding. Also if it runs parallel with GT's development it can't be it's successor.

 

[DREVL]

It certainly isn't IndustrialCraft. the 2 isn't there as a successor. Successors mostly mean they were better than the predecessor.

 

[SynfulChaot]

It certainly isn't IndustrialCraft. the 2 isn't there as a successor. Successors mostly mean they were better than the predecessor.

Untrue. Successors just mean that they 'succeed' in the definition to 'to follow or replace'. Strictly speaking IC2exp is, by definition, the successor to IC2 and IC.

 

[Mevansuto]

It certainly isn't IndustrialCraft. the 2 isn't there as a successor. Successors mostly mean they were better than the predecessor.

The Great Escape II. 'nuff said.

Oh, not enough? Die Hard 2, Ocean's Twelve, Grease 2, Blues Brothers 2000, S. Darko. Need I go on?

 

[SlightlyVisible]

So will it be rebranded IC3 when they're all done ?

 

[DREVL]

I don't know. I'll call it junk. On the realz, I'll probably still use it for the same reason I'm still using it, and for the same reason I always have used it...
early flight, Coal to Diamonds, and the induction furnace.

 

[Loufmier]

I don't know. I'll call it junk. On the realz, I'll probably still use it for the same reason I'm still using it, and for the same reason I always have used it...
early flight, Coal to Diamonds, and the induction furnace.

well, it's possible to ignore induction furnace for automated setups, since there is bunch of mods(TE included) that do round robing sorting, which allow to spread load between furnaces with no problem.