Random rants about aspects of game Balance and democracy

no crime. im shure youre a great guy to have a beer with. just being heavy handed you make yourself subceptible to the kind of critique i am staging here, but im shure you can deal with that.

now, what do you think about a dedicated balance thread? if i got you reight earlier, you'd rather have dedicated testers than the community commenting on balance issues?

Quote from Zoidberg

now, what do you think about a dedicated balance thread? if i got you reight earlier, you'd rather have dedicated testers than the community commenting on balance issues?

Well, "experienced" would be the more correct term I would use. I've been playing Minecraft for 4 years now, been with IC for almost 3 years. I've seen alot of changes, some cool and others lethargic. While I doubt there are any Minecraft Alpha players out there like myself, it would help if their exposure to the mod was a little more than just "at-face-value" type deal. Something with a bit more rooted sense of understanding as to how the mod works overall, and how it compares to just straight vMC play...

While your sub-forum idea sounds good, it may not account for the full range and scope of players out there. There are those who gear toward hard-core progression. Then, there are those who prefer more simplistic play out of the sake of enjoyment of the game. Game balance for individuals is a bit like prescribing medicine. Not everyone can handle the same level of 'grind' that others can, and some 'doses' of mechanics may be too 'diluted' for other players to fully take advantage of to enjoy. Sure, some of the configs. help in that regard, but they don't catch everything the mod can throw at a player. This type of balance also reflects in their additional choices of other mods that is also added into their Minecraft client...

So while it's a nifty idea, it's still something that has to be custom tailored for the end-user. And, like most politics, it's hardly something everyone is going to agree on, lol...

dude! you played minecraft alpha? holy shi*t!

i agree about your point of "an ic mod that is a good crowd pleaser is a bad ic mod". never the less i think some community feedback should be used in order to get the balance right. maybe its too early to start balancing this wip, but i was wondering if there could be a thread dedicated to balance (i was not even thinking about a sub-forum). because the only thread on balance that i was able to find was THIS one. and it was started by a guy who thought the friggen metal former was too expensive.

what i wanted to suggest was a thread that clearly states that the ic mod will be offering "underpowered" stuff compared to other mods but still asks the community about what they think should be changed balance wise. not to balance ic with other mods but to balance ic "internally". for example it feels weird to me that a lapotron crystal is not significantly more expensive than an energy crystal and that the crazy expensive thing about an mfsu is the mfe in it.

i know it has been suggested in the past and the devs probably dont want to hear it anymore, but giving two piles of diamond dust for macerating one diamond would help a lot in that regard. if that makes things to cheap, cost could be added somewhere else to balance things out again.

The problem isn't with IC2's cost, it's with the trend of every single FTB mod effectively offering you endgame content in the first day of play. Relative to OP shit like that, of course IC2 seems weak.

Quote from GregoriusT

Welcome to Democracy, where people are bashing each other to force their opinions, to end up with the same Situation as before.

Damn Greg, just keep reminding me how much my country suck, lol

Quote from MagusUnion

Damn Greg, just keep reminding me how much my country suck, lol

Hell, humanity sucks as a whole!

Quote from Chocohead

That seems a bit unfair. After all, it is humanity which made the sucky scale

That just shows that we all suck!

Quote from MagusUnion

While I doubt there are any Minecraft Alpha players out there like myself

Playing since Alpha 1.1 I personally don't see anything wrong with IC2 Experimental, it adds a lot more stuff and makes the mod more fun. Before the biggest problem I had was that there was no mid-game, there was "I have no resources to build anything" and then there was "I have too many resources now and may as well build my house out of copper and tin blocks". IC1 was fun but had many bugs and looking back was too basic. IC2 was a big improvment but was overall very bland. IC2 Experiemental adds a lot more processing and a lot more options (Solars arent the only good option, you can power with geothermal, biofuel, coal, nuclear, ect) I think the biggest problem is mod compatability, its not up to the mod authors to make these mods balanced, its up to you to balance out the mods. If your playing with 80 mods, disable all the other ore generation so you don't have 8x the copper and tin and so on. And don't use those "overpowered" mods unless they are essential. No Equivilent exchange, no mystcraft lava / uumatter realms, no set and forget ore generation/ power gen. Its up to you to make it enjoyable. Too hard or grindy? Make it playable by lowering EU requirement for UU or increase ore generation. Too easy? Ease up on the mods or ore generation or just avoid the gear that makes you invincible within one day of playtime. Personally IC2 + BC for automation and its good, you either run into resource problems, diamond problems, EU or MJ problems, ect. Always a problem, always a solution, keeps it interesting and fresh.

Copper and tin? Pfft. Build it out of advanced machine casings.

Quote from Chocohead

Can't - need the iron! It's all the smaller mods which don't add/use copper or tin

We had the opposite problem on an older FTB Ultimate Server I used to play on. We built our recycling plant out of iron, because we were constantly running out of tin and copper.

Quote from UnknownVoid

IC2 Experiemental adds a lot more processing and a lot more options (Solars arent the only good option, you can power with geothermal, biofuel, coal, nuclear, ect)

i dont think solars were ever a good option. way too expensive in terms of coal and iron. geothermal was much stronger in IC2 than experimental. railline through your nether portal and be done with it (if you have railcraft - if not, you just produce uu IN the nether). its good that they nerfed geothermal. to me it seems that now you got less options with energy production: you MUST go nuclear now - which is great, because if you didnt, you would miss out on some excellent mod content. and it also forces you to do some redstone wiring which is an actual meaningful increase in difficulty.

i also dont see how ANYBODY would power with the coal that he needs for diamonds or biofuel that is not stackable in a generator (or is it in experimental? i didnt try)

i agree with your balance statement. the mod can only balance ITSELF. it would be ridiculous and disgusting to make IC as powerful as equvalent exchange.

I feel especially disgusted with the forge hammer and wire cutter i have used IC2 for so long and this new feature is really taking me away from what i wanted to do with this mod b/c i feel like im grinding which reallly drives me away from any mod. I renember "classic" IC2 and playing with my friends and making giant machine shops and then trying to make it on the new builds and it just didnt feel the same. I still love the mod and how it helps me but i feel like its lost its purpose.

The cutter and hammer are annoying .. But you can make a machine do to the work for you. Sorry I forget the name, but it does exist!

if you dont like GT dont install it and the ic2 changes are better as i rather go exploring and mining to get some iron to make a hammer rather than wait for a furnace to cook iron into refined iron also the old ic2 was too quick plus this ic2 is experimental. experimental is not final so things can change, it mainly about trying ideas out and seeing if they work and are balanced.