Creativity and Choice Over Obligation: Rethinking Game Progression

[winged bobcat]

but I can probably undo the deprecation stuff if he wants

[balmy tide]

I think let it ship as is maybe but dont change the assembler recipe is the moral of the story

[undone coyote]

it sometimes comes to me that if LATEX and SCP is one multi then many problem might be solved

[visual oxide]

wait but if you gut the singleblocks and add a scaling factor to assembler isnt that just gonna make wires take a gazillion times longer to coat in earlygame

i guess it wouldnt be that big of a scaling factor because its only lv mv hv

[dark mason]

the point is to scale it by material tier

so for the first few tiers itd have minimal impact

[visual oxide]

thats fair

idk how well that would scale into late game tho because i just tested a maxed latex vs 65k uxv prass and its around 40x slower which might actually cause bottlenecks

[vernal zephyr]

Stargate does tend to make one think "forget the efficiency I need throughput". Prass having unlimited 2/4 OCs makes it attractive in endgame.

I think it's good for there to be a choice there (efficiency vs throughput), but the specialized machine falling off does feel weird, even if it is at gate.
As long as it doesn't fall off too badly it's fine... 40x slower sounds scary but in 2.7 gate didn't need that much coated cable (IIRC) so it wouldn't have been bottlenecking regardless.

[merry pebble]

Even if it was 100 times slower than current, having it be its own dedicated process would basically not affect gate crafting times at all because that's still nowhere near the bottleneck that craft has

[fiery thicket]

just saw the upcoming-features and immediately thought of this thread, seems a bit counterintuitive that we agree there should be incentive to create more "pull" than "push" mechanics, then in the same update cycle do the same old "add new mb -> remove existing recipe"

[winged bobcat]

yeah we talked about un-deprecating it

[tawdry crane]

are there going to be any changes to CALs? they seem like one of the worst and most obvious offenders of "push" mechanics, due to their entirely artificial 6x cost reduction compared to singleblocks. i dont really see the reason for that because CALs already benefit from perfect overclocking.
i guess it wouldnt really matter that much because CALs are just better to use at that point, but the whole mechanic really feels like the game is kicking you in the ribs for fun as opposed to a natural increase in difficulty

[fiery thicket]

I think that's actually just an issue of presentation. Beamline provides many more times reduction in resources, but is what I think a very good example of optional but great line. The reason that everyone thinks CALs are mandatory for progression is because they're presented (at least in qb) as "normal cost" vs "6x inflation of singleblock", and that's anchoring expectations the other way

Wait, coming to think of it, the 6x cost is recursive right? I'm away right now so I can't check, but if that's the case, then I do agree it's a bit too egregious

[dark mason]

it’s not recursive

it’s 6x components except for circuits themselves

[fiery thicket]

Ah, then I think it's actually not too terrible

[dark mason]

but it’s also hard to frame it any other way. it is a 6x cost inflation. it’s really hard to present cal as giving a discount when you have one circuit cost 6 boards while every other circuit costs 1

[fiery thicket]

Fair point

[dark mason]

i don’t really mind cal, i think it’s fine as core progression (some things do actually need to be mandatory) but it’s fairly hard to make it feel like it’s giving you a bonus when it’s giving you circuits at the same efficiency you’ve come to expect from everything else

[tawdry crane]

yeah exactly

like if the amount of smds/boards needed for circuits grew steadily with each board tier, and the CAL curbbed that and provide a constant cost, it'd feel much fairer

[fiery thicket]

I can see that, I feel like when I unlocked the CALs, the biggest gain I felt was actually the perfect OCs

since the crystals were very slow at the hatch I had

[tawdry crane]

yep

[fiery thicket]

so maybe that can be further improved (earlier access? seems a bit difficult though)

[tawdry crane]

multi amp hatches (w/o tierskipping) ?

[fiery thicket]

would probably be too trivializing considering laser's not far off, and even just 16/64x means circuits are near instant

[tawdry crane]

thats fair

maybe room for a second energy hatch like the ABS got?

though idk that means there wouldnt be any reason not to, unlikethe ABS which doesnt perfect oc

[hollow depot]

another thing that could help CAL feel less bad is if the SoC recipes for early tier circuits got unfucked on CAL. there's no reason for the SoC nano / quantum recipe to be this bad (time wise, not resource wise)

[indigo slate]

Tbh I think a lot of the issues with CAL could be smoothed over by just pulling the 6x recipes from the SB entirely. Leave everything else as is but you’re introduced to SoC circuits for ULV—MV earlier on and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just saying ‘SoC circuits need CAL past MV (as do circuits past quantum’s)’. Doesn’t really fix the issue of the CALs then being hard required for progress but it does seem somewhat more honest

Outside something like that kinda does seem like a more broad reaching overhaul to the CAL would be required to add some other bonus outside having to build to it to avoid the 6x cost of later circuits would be needed

[hollow depot]

perfect OC is really enough, imo. you need to craft so many circuits that you will have to make it eventually, and even if someone takes their sweet time making it until UV or UHV with the 6x cost gone, then their loss

[tawdry crane]

idk to me it just feels like intentionally gutting player choice. it's like its trying to get as close to removing the singleblock recipes without actually doing it (because theyre still required for imprints)

[charred flax]

CAL has never been optional, nor is it ever meant to be. we shouldn't invent history just for the sake of this discussion

CAL circuit assembler mode tho is optional, and that can indeed help your business

[tawdry crane]

cal circuit assembler is goated

my 4 IV circuit assemblers would poop out a circuit every few millenia but my new circass is insane

[indigo slate]

Ngl I don’t think stuff like the CAL needs to be an optional upgrade, I think there does still need to be a core progression that gates certain items and the CAL is a nice step up from the SH CA. I think the ‘optional’ progression stuff needs to fall into two categories:

1. Unlocking higher tier stuff earlier but at a far higher cost in setup/efficiency
2. Boosting current separately viable lines to make them cheaper or to increase throughput

There is always the risk as the end game gets really filled out that the boosts of yesterday become the required numbers of today but that can be tackled either by ensuring new lines / processes are required as the games goes on or simply scaling the amounts of ‘x’ product beyond what the boosted amounts of exiting lines can feasibly manage to push players to engage in newer, more efficient lines. I think a lot of this thread tends to get bogged down in wether some system or line needs to be optional or not but maybe the focus should be more on optional content being a buff rather than being optional for the sake of optionality

[merry pebble]

Okay I want to try and view this in the context of challenge runs

Things like "solar only"

If what you want is replayability and player choice to make runs different based on the level of challenge, then what needs to be done is for a single aspect to be focused on at a time and widened. I have no idea why CALs are being mentioned bc they're just an inevitable part of progression but I don't think that's the direction that should be looked at

Solar only for example is in a pretty decent state (if you count EOHs as solars) More stuff like this where there's a clear path of progression in a different direction that wraps around back to the same end as the normal path is perfectly serviceable to me

[tawdry crane]

i mentioned CALs not because i think they should be optional but because i think the way they're introduced isnt very good

but i see what u mean yeah

[dark mason]

i agree with that. they feel super bad. theres a way to do mandatory progression without it feeling like a total slog

the fact that cal not only does not discount circuits but actually actively makes them worse to craft (by forcing you to craft in oversized batches) just feels terrible

[charred flax]

it's from the same person that consider a -10% EU/t usage on oil cracker to be quite impactful

or was it up to ~70% stainless casing saved from wallsharing?

[nocturne stump]

They're good changes - forcing players to spam machines and/or wait days doing nothing is a bad design. The existence of the "Stargate Waiting Room" indicates that this was necessary. However, those multiblocks don't add variety, they just remove tedium.

[nocturne stump]

The Solar Tower could be improved, though. It's kinda just useless right now.

[merry pebble]

Absolutely
We're on the right track with buffing stuff that exists with no place like HTGR

I think the devs need to collect more data on challenge runs that sort of exist but aren't fun due to lack of viable progression, and player feedback about what's not used and to find gaps in progression that can be filled by them or something new

[nocturne stump]

I find that magic mods, in general, are in that kind of in-between state here.

There are some practical uses for magic (teleportation, early mob spawning, baubles, maybe duping metals & purifying ores), but it only integrates with a small portion of the GTNH progression chain

[merry pebble]

I would really like to see a core GTNH specific magic mod that doesn't rely on gimmicks as much but can serve as a trunk with which thaum, witchery and botania can be anchored to

[nocturne stump]

There was the LEG earlier, which was a completely overpowered source of EU powered by magic, but that got removed for being too overpowered.

Bringing magic back to EU generation would give more value to magic investment, even if that EU generation method isn't optimal

The key concept here is "a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush" - "a less efficient automation which you can create immediately is better than a more efficient automation which requires you to invest in a different tech"

[merry pebble]

It reminds me of Stardew Valley runs where you can do every major milestone without 90% of the core mechanics with enough skill and luck

We just need an extra few routes that rely on something else

[dark mason]

i do think magic power generation should be more optimal. should feel rewarding. theres zero mystery why leg was overpowered

its literally just because essentia

[merry pebble]

Which is why I proposed essentially splitting the progression into three paths, one specialising in simplicity, one in speed, and one in efficiency

They could have their own machines or variations of the same

Actually rather, not specialising in one, sacrificing one

"Speed, material efficiency, simplicity, pick two"

[nocturne stump]

For the early tiers, we could also just make automations that use different resources.

[merry pebble]

Yeah, may not even need to be machine based

Just the systems around those machines

Tho I don't know if whats already capable already does that

[nocturne stump]

Have a tree farm? Use Benzene and plant-derived products.
Have magic tech? Use Essentia fuels and magic devices.
Want to automate everything? Use solar panels - they scale with your passive production.
Don't want to do anything interesting? Use fossil fuels to skip to more interesting technologies.

The simple solutions doesn't last for long, but it gets you there faster. The other technologies require more unfront investment, but carry long-term benefits.

[outer grail]

i do find the whole purpose of a stargate waiting room kinda bad practice you only waste a player time if it funny or rewarding to said player. Bare in mind a vast majority of the pack you already been waiting for machines and what not the name of the game is efficency. Also two scalibility is good and all for multis but it repeatitive and doesnt alloy creative automation it how fast can i MM a few dozen of these.

[merry pebble]

I like to take a step back and look at what pre-gate could be

[nocturne stump]

"How fast can I MM these" isn't really good design, in my opinion.

[outer grail]

really the magic mods in the pack are effectively gated and not gated you can pretty much get to end game thaumcraft in MV as there methods to get infusion in steamage

[merry pebble]

I see it as "the goal is in sight, this is the final sprint" so it being a kinda like tangible checklist of final steps you can blast through to give you a sense of momentum

[outer grail]

it not that the point im making.

[nocturne stump]

Not anymore, they removed the ender eye trade, and there's a good bit of tech locked behind ichorium (locked behind osmiridium)

[outer grail]

thought ic2 enderbloom still exists

[nocturne stump]

Oh yeah, that technically is still there.

[outer grail]

and bees can kinda do the ichorium

[winged bobcat]

there is an alternate recipe thats currently an open pr that would change the ender eye for an eldritch eye. this way people can get infusion <hv given they do some tc investment

this is in addition to the ender eye, so there would be 2 recipes

[nocturne stump]

Awesome. Does it need approval, or are we just waiting for "balance change" confirmation?

[winged bobcat]

it needs approval i just havent clicked it

[outer grail]

really the big one is goggles

[winged bobcat]

im 100% ok with it being in the game. i think its neat

[undone coyote]

but i must say that solar panel is not a long term solution at all thanks to the exponential increase of gt energy consumption

[outer grail]

as that hella gated

[winged bobcat]

i thought goggles were free post infusion

what goggles?

electric goggles?

[outer grail]

revealing

[nocturne stump]

There's no reason we can't make solar panels also scale exponentially

[outer grail]

if you did stone age thaum

it LV gated

[nocturne stump]

(Also, your resource production kinda scales exponentially too, so you should* be able to manufacture exponentially larger numbers of solar panels)

[outer grail]

MV is most of the fun things with enderio

[winged bobcat]

given that thaumcraft isnt even supposed to be accessible pre lv, i dont see it as that bad

well

[outer grail]

need energetic and vibrabt screws

[winged bobcat]

'not supposed to' in the general route of progression

[outer grail]

really given the whole varients and overall stone age thaumcraft has been in the pack since like 2.1 it safe to say pretty much steam age should be the start of magic imo

[nocturne stump]

Thaumcraft, I think, is placed pretty well.

We could move another magic mod down some tiers, though.

[outer grail]

honestly blood wouldnt be bad

[dark mason]

i cant imagine the solution being to push magic mods even further into the earlygame

[outer grail]

or witchery

[nocturne stump]

To be perfectly honest, I like its place too.

It has several strong utilities, and it already has very good GT integration where it is

[nocturne stump]

Witchery is probably the most likely choice.

We're not using the upper 50% of its progression tree

[dark mason]

witchery seems like the most likely candidate for getting ditched entirely since it has very little to offer and is arr

[outer grail]

honestly magic intergration need to be fairly seamless like if stome age thaum has been in pack so long let it stand

[nocturne stump]

And it's not all that powerful compared to the other mods

[nocturne stump]

That works too

[dark mason]

its mostly a pvp/trolling mod

and pvp trolling

[outer grail]

honestly if we could i do electrobobs

[nocturne stump]

Either we integrate it further, or we ditch it entirely

[dark mason]

botania should always have started in stone age though, ill maintain that until i die

[outer grail]

why though

[dark mason]

its the much more obvious low tech magic with pretty reasonable earlygame qol

it shouldnt have all its content locked behind truly insane gt gates

[nocturne stump]

I'd agree with you, but some of the things it provides are better suited for those higher tiers

[outer grail]

i cant recall what the biggest botania qol

[dark mason]

there are stark few things that fit that, and those can be individually tiered

[nocturne stump]

It's more suited for automation than the other magic mods

[outer grail]

i think it the cataylst

the i convert x to x

[undone coyote]

but in stone age its hard to do botania automation

[dark mason]

like sincerely who are we kidding with this

[nocturne stump]

Catalyst, Rannuncarpus, Hopperhock, good tool materials, rings

[nocturne stump]

Yeah, that can go down a tier

[dark mason]

totally disagree, botania of all the magic mods is the most automatable by itself

it was designed to be automated with only botania and vanilla mechanics

[outer grail]

what rannucarpus

[dark mason]

the whole idea of the mod

[outer grail]

i know orechild fun to

[nocturne stump]

Flower which places down blocks

You can filter by which block to place on

[dark mason]

its super cool to try and do botania+vanilla only botania automations. requires you to use your head a bit more than just slamming ae2 integration

[outer grail]

love hovering hourglass

very useful

[nocturne stump]

Much better than the Automagy hourglass

[undone coyote]

yeah it is, its designed to be automated with vanilla mechs

[outer grail]

wish golems ai pathing was better

as getting inventarium early be so good

[nocturne stump]

We don't expect players to automate in the stone age. Automation, at that stage, is generally just slowing yourself down and locking yourself away from all the good tools.

[outer grail]

pretty much magic ae2

[dark mason]

i know. im just saying botania is an automatable mod by itself

[pulsar kestrel]

orechid should be pretty easy to implement now, but I don't have time to do it myself

[dark mason]

and that it very obviously makes the most sense as an earlygame magic mod

[outer grail]

there 2

orechids irrc

nether and regular

[dark mason]

thaumcraft is even tech themed while botania is natural magic. its a perfect flavor fit and gameplay fit

[nocturne stump]

In GTNH, early Botania automation would be shooting yourself in the foot, unless we make Botania automation actually good in practice.

[dark mason]

im not saying it wouldnt be

im literally just saying that of all the magic mods, botania is least reliant on other things for automation

[outer grail]

honestly if you could get the animal infusion from horizons youd have a few farms easily

[dark mason]

though i certainly do think earlygame automation should be more encouraged

[nocturne stump]

That's good, but this doesn't matter in the context of GTNH, since tier progression cannot be boosted by this.

[outer grail]

isnt that bees tho or more given it so tedious not really

[dark mason]

i was just saying it i was not making a value statement about gtnh

i was purely responding to the viability of earlygame automation in terms of the tools you have

whether that would actually be useful is different. certainly not right now

[outer grail]

cause you can do bees in stone age

[nocturne stump]

It's not impossible. Make the item network tech dirt-cheap, and you have a pretty okay solution for automations

[dark mason]

i mean mainline and magic progression. bees are basically a strange minigame

[nocturne stump]

But it does have to be dirt-cheap (as in "can make a stack in LV without gargantuan effort")

[outer grail]

if i can skip BBF in steam age with bees and infernal blast ive done good

[outer grail]

isnt the corpora network like super annoying to use and dont you need for botania automation like a few items

[nocturne stump]

It's not awful

It works as a wireless network to access any item from a large assortment

The problems is that most stuff requires a redstone pulse to work

[outer grail]

i mean the type in chat functionality

[nocturne stump]

and the crafting automation cannot be made bulletproof in any good way.

[nocturne stump]

Nobody forces you to use that, and if it has bugs, report them so they can get fixed.

[outer grail]

thought that your supposed to use it

[nocturne stump]

It's like the ME Terminal for an ME network - useful, yes. required to use the system, no.

You can totally build a system without that block

Especially since everything is stored in standard inventories either way.

[outer grail]

really wish the golems where lower teir

[nocturne stump]

What locks them?

[outer grail]

cause there like the modern copper golems

[nocturne stump]

From what I remember, the main gate is nether stars, which are technically steam-age items

[outer grail]

let me check what gates inventarium as that be the set up

[outer grail]

inventarium need LV assembler

as you need cathode and project red

[nocturne stump]

That's not that bad. Plus, the inventarium isn't the main purpose of golems

[outer grail]

really it be the cores and technically inventarium at LV would go so hard

idk why it the projectred comparator

cause even the regular one be annoying

[vocal vigil]

I heavy approve this

[winged bobcat]

the hell sherma doin in gtnh

yeah i think ill approve that pr soon and dream can decide on it

[undone coyote]

sherma waiting for stargate:
♪fai ri du la thi ma net♪
♪do li pua na vo li net♪
♪pi na so mi mai ni set♪
♪dai na fun su lo! bon~♪

[tawdry crane]

something that might also be interesting to add would be cool enchantment interactions like rlcraft. currently the most interesting mechanic is uberchanting, but there could be special interactions that reward experimentation, perhaps even enchantments that are gated by tiers ?

[outer grail]

replace with like shadowmetal

[reef zealot]

oooooh, this would be funnnnnn

[dark otter]

I want to change the start point to steam, but combuster is closed to his opinion

[dark mason]

probably doesn’t help to try and sneak it

[dark otter]

I talked with Dream on private about that and he was ok about the change, also asked in Meta dev before I did the pr and there where also devs that where okay with that

[nocturne stump]

Which PR?

[dark otter]

A closed one

[dark mason]

a big downtier like that needs real discussion and for you to actually explain what you’re doing on the pr

instead of just recipe with no explanation

also i don’t think what you did was really a downtier. I don’t even know how you get botania flowers in steam age (im sure there is a way) but im interested in correcting the actual mainline progression gates, not adding more janky skips

if botania were to get downtiered, which i would very much be ok with, i would actually want the flowers etc to be obtainable in a normal way that the qb coaches you through

[dark otter]

The discussion: #meta-dev message

[dark otter]

You can start botania by bees and witchery

[dark mason]

yea frankly very few people responded to this and you’re really burying the lead when you say “botania is available in steam age” without mentioning that it needs you to do a bunch of weird progression skipping jank

[dark otter]

Is not a hidden knowledge

[dark mason]

anyways i don’t really care. but real downtier >>>>>> adding more weird skips

[dark mason]

seems hidden to me. ive been here three years and this is the first time ive ever heard it mentioned. no idea what witchery would even have to do with it

and bee breeding in steam down a decently long chain is certainly a progression skip

[dark otter]

Floral fertilizer can be made using mutandis

[dark mason]

ah right

[dark otter]

Yea well, I like gog so they don't seem to bad chains or recipes for me

[dark mason]

that’s fine but obviously you understand the difference between that and the “normal” route that is actually intended

[dark otter]

If you want a down tier ask combuster, since he will say an absolute no if I ask him

[dark mason]

i dont really think downtiering things by introducing more strange oddities that break the intended progression is the way to go

[dark mason]

yeah i don’t expect to get anywhere on that front either

maybe a better approach would be to get some devs to agree with you and make a short plan/design doc/explanation. Instead of trying to downtier through weird individual recipes

convince dream. he basically said so himself on the pr you’re talking about

where he said he was happy to listen to people with experience in it

[dark otter]

I don't see the problem in harder alternative routes, at first I proposed some approach similar to the one proposed for the infusion matrix, but then I realized that changes would need to be made in Botanic horizons, so I did the plate thing

[dark mason]

i dont want to argue about this

get an actual coalition behind you if you want to make major tier changes

im all on board for the big botania downtier if its actually well done

[dark otter]

I was just answering, I dont wanna argue, I will ask Dream with my opinions in DM, and ask then in meta

[undone coyote]

I cant see your discussions in that channel. Im generally positive on botania downtier, but I think it should somehow be embedded into main progression (not to say one should finish all botania tasks, just part of it). If botania is a complete side quest, there is not enough incentive for people to begin with it, since mainline of stone to steam then to LV is so important in production, adventure experience and many other things.

I understand that one of nhs core design is to make magic or some other mods parallel to main gt progression, while personally I think we could use mainline to guide people to begin with some of the side mods like botania, and left other things still optional.

[pulsar kestrel]

I like the idea of using magic to do things that don't make any sense tech-wise, like blood magic meteors in IV (or whenever you can unlock them)

If those things are unequivocally good it'll become the meta to do magic, but you won't be forced to. It should be fine as long as it isn't a CAL vs circass situation, where the tech path (circasses) is blatantly worse.

[reef zealot]

EV

[undone coyote]

Yeah im with you (dragon blood make me mad), but it actually needs a well balance. If magic cant help people with smth, it wont tie into the main game and few people gonna care about it. i feel like current botania is an example.

[gray prairie]

I feel as though Netherite and to a lesser extent prismarine line are pretty big offenders of this, at least with those you have magic options to make them a bit cheaper/easier though, I think more would benefit from further Magic integration vs being forced to use a bunch of multiblocks that you either only ever use for 1-2 other lines in the pack or that are already oversaturated. (and that aren't very fun to use in the first place, looking at you isamill)

It's a simple thing but even just more things in the vein of the new Magic Maintenance hatches would be nice, additional efficiency or overclocks from CV or Essentia, CV/t gates for extra parallels, perhaps a hatch that gives different bonuses dependent on the resource given? Or just new multiblocks with interesting combinations of in world aesthetics and unique progression/automation mechanics.

Just spitballing, would custom blood magic rituals be out of the question? Can't really think of a solid example but meteors fall off at a point and most of the rest of the rituals exist to provide things that Vanilla lacked, many of which have easier and better alternatives given the wealth of content mods in the pack.
The only ritual really relevant past UEV is the convocation of the damned and that is only for one thing, which I don't think any sane person would disagree puts people off of magic especially with how genuinely awful BMs thaum integration is.

When the new custom magic mod gets on its feet I can see that being a good home for things that could be put to use in the endgame as an alternative to the current paths, IMO a Magical Assemblyline style multi that has integration with all the schools of magic would be incredible, magic focused modules for the NAC that give unique reasons for use, something magic themed on the scale of the Forge of the gods(Which is already pretty magical honestly) would also be incredible, though I do think for that magic would need to catch up to the rest of the progression considering outside of 2.5 mechanics that you need for gate (and an optional 10 minute tops foray into Witchery) it is effectively entirely sidelined after Space Elevator at the latest.
There are so many absolutely gorgeous end game multis but none of them involve magic at all, nor do they have very interesting, if any, alternatives: BHC, Eye of Harmony, Gorge, NAC, etc.

I do think part of this is due to Eldritch and by extension Ichor being basically the most endgame magic in the pack(And all unlocked by IV) making it difficult to visualize endgame integration for magicks, right now the pack has many classic magic mods but their balancing is very much just rage-bait levels of Pain Vs. Reward.

Botania and Blood magic being by far and away the 2 biggest offenders of that in my experience, whereas Witchery and Thaum are made almost entirely irrelevant except to serve one single discount on Witcherys end and the medium for getting through the other two main magic mods on Thaums end.
The Corporea system in Botania is a pretty glaring example of an entire mechanic that has an interesting learning curve and a surprising amount of depth that is made entirely irrelevant due to it being tiered over a full tier past AE2.
All of Witchery suffers a similar fate, and BM + Thaum + Botania are all suffering greatly from being spread far too thin across the pack, I understand the desire to fit content from all of them into each tier but in practice It's just making people despise half the packs content.

[tender grove]

multidisciplinary magic is always fun imo
Lux Aetheria definitely needs multis with Style as it grows, or im worried it wont see as much adoption as it should
Galaxia dev is chaotic but progressing quickly because the team and hype are cycling into eachother.

New Magicmod presently has some cool ideas but its trying to stand up an entire magic system from scratch, and in the shadow of the other magic mods, without having a visual language of its own yet. Blood magic had simple pyramids, botania had flowers, thaumcraft had eldritch magic and its own previous three versions. They have their own playstyles.

To rethink progression we have to look at why we are doing things the way we are. In magic, the pack has to interact with a bunch of all rights reserved mods that (while cool and classics for a reason) totally lack the ability to scale. And since we have godforge, thats... an egregious omission, and puts some magic out of reach for some folks. Not everyone has the dosh for a Goose-Proof pc

Corporea network 🤝 golems
Tiered beyond their utility. pains me to say but nutripanel is better by then

Playing this sort of challenge run, I do see why infusion is gated as it is. I am set to have autocrafting before making my first LV motors, and I'll be starting LV with passive aluminium (nuggets) already in place.
Botania too, at least from a thematic perspective. The overworld is a magicless wasteland by comparison, but fine.

However, witchery is clearly being practiced by overworld witches in the "Villager Age"
the books and henges and witch cabins and apothecaries with mutandis prove this
Blood magic, aside from arcane stone bricks, has no reason to be tiered as it is 'vibes' wise, its just dependant on the attuned stone and arcane stone bricks in a very meatballcraft "magic is magic" way. Anti-disciplinary magic.

Blood magic and on a cutting machine full of blood?? which is weird but maybe we should lean into it, id rather my blood altar feel like precision blood machine than like thaumium and duct tape as it does now.

Similarly, Arcane stone bricks take laser cutter. I have made peace with this. Laser etched runes should ALSO be an option in lux aetheria probably, similar to this and blood magic?

Im of the opinion we need new magic before we can take another pass at balancing old magic, and we need both before we can really dig into this progression rework?
We can't create variety for varieties sake we have to make things we want to do that happen to lead in the direction of Progression (or happen to stand in the way, depending)

[gray prairie]

I really like your perspective, thanks for the response. I agree wholeheartedly that we need something fresh and new that can actually scale well into the end game to justify re balancing the current goofy old magic of gating very underwhelming stuff past UV in terms of its use in the "main" progression

Also yeah even with the new Runic Matrix recipe in 2.9 Golems and the Inventarium are pretty well and sidelined, I still made an inventarium in my current 2.8 run but I didn't bother with anything beyond the most rudimentary storage system because why do the golem cores require nether stars? Really lazy gating of some really limited features tbh

[tender grove]

new runic matrix recipe? :O

[dark mason]

runic matrix has a recipe with eldritch eye instead of ender eye

[gray prairie]

Technically MV gated now (I think? Maybe even late LV I forget what rose gold needs in the EBF but the recipe uses 4 Primal Charms and an eldritch eye so if you do profane wand skip then you can get it earlier than HV chem reactor)

[tender grove]

Late LV then, unless they add Rose Gold to the Infernal blastie its cupronickel
Probs still needs laser stone in MV, but thats close enough lol
thats ideal, since... as a gal in steam age infusion, so much of the good stuff is LV gated by lenses or other incidental requirements.

I think thats good, early magic still get manual nugget duping and greedychest sorting and whatever other basic resources they can handcraft in steam/Lv which is plenty strong. in LV/Mv they can get the essential tools to start all the other magic, the inventarium for early (very fiddly) storage. Corporea still takes sunnarium though.

In hv, when science gets the nutrient panel, Inventarium gets mirrors upgrade. They keep the QOL improvements over tech

I have to use a soul brazier to power a project coming up, since i cant make the relays until LV.

[gray prairie]

Its 320 seconds but rose gold is feasible in the first EBF the player will make

[gray prairie]

Soul brazier for cv transfer?

Now THATS some cursed tech

[tender grove]

its to power the Nethermind, for... renewable lava, since i wanted seared stone to build with

Because nothing says Challenge Run like starting LV with infinite lava
Playing like its still the Tekkit days and geothermal is king

[gray prairie]

Based

Man I wish geothermal gens werent a joke in this pack

[gray prairie]

Also W for using the nethermind, hope you're ready for all its weird side affects

The amount of things that the nethermind does that are only documented in code is at least 2

[tender grove]

Oooh nice, I dont know those yet?
It seems fitting that rigging a magnet, my soul, and hell itself together should have some side effects

[gray prairie]

Basically its going to transform an area into hell biome

Theres at least one old reddit thread that goes over the whole thing

[tender grove]

Interesting
So if i get cursed earth from ancient minesweep gamba, timewood clocks havent been patched in my version yet, AND if theres anything actually worth farming in the spawn list... I can have a spawnchunks-loaded bit of nether biome i guess?

[gray prairie]

Be prepared for ghasts

But yeah

Probably would make nether bees that only require biome/climate and not dimension a bit less of a pita

https://www.reddit.com/r/Thaumcraft/comments/67m55x/automagy_dimensional_lure_tc4/

Heres one of the threads I was thinking of

[glass current]

I think I remember someone having some notes from testing for speedrun about nethermind not sure who at this point, prob ducked

And isn't biome pot earlier than nethermind?

[gray prairie]

It is yeah

Well, in dailies its technically same tier

Not many Automagy recipes are changed, afaik the Inventarium and nethermind recipes are fully Vanilla

[gray prairie]

It was ducked yeah

Nethermind is basically useless but its fun to mess with

[snow swift]

Scroll to top, because fuck man, mobile kinda sucks

[balmy flame]

pin top post as standard, please?

[terse hollow]

True

Pls jsut do that for every post

[bright frost]

I think for magic specifically it has always existed in a kind of limbo where it’s role in the pack is very poorly defined, it’s always just been gestures vaugely QoL, but QoL can mean a lot of things and encourages short dips rather than deep engagement

Part of the end game difficulty imo with trying to figure out what magic should look like, is that the “tech” we are playing with is practically magic anyway, we are creating micro planets in the EoH, using a star to forge things with the gorge, we are masters of our universe. So what functionally makes us different from archmages

[glass current]

(style)

We do not have the right swag for identifying as archmages, at most technopriests

[bright frost]

Depends on if you made the infinity armor or not 😛

But yes the aesthetic and lore is important for magic to feel magic.

[glass current]

for me and mod mechanics i have an easy definition if a mod is magic or tech

mod is focused on in world crafting? its magic and i probably hate it
Mod is focused on in GUI crafting? its probably technical

which breaks the botania is tech mod axiom

One fun way to implement magic into gtnh would be shortcuts

Magic is you playing with powers above your understanding allowing you to skip pieces of progression for the cost of long time debuffs until you understand what you play with

Like warp is

Stuff like changing infernal blast furnace to allow smelting anything Kanthal/nichrome level but give warp for every operation to person that formed it

Knowing ppl tho that might end up too annoying

[gray prairie]

True

[gray prairie]

I do want to see the IBF get more uses but tbh I think expanding its function into a new multiblock would be better so that it can keep its current BBF but not dogshit niche.
A proper (Mega?) Infernal(Eldritch? Praetor?) Blast Furnace that can compete with Volcs or even the MEBF would be amazing, especially if it makes the current ~6x oreproc system that exists for the original IBF something viable and not just a niche barely touched mechanic.

[gray prairie]

I believe I saw something along these lines in the custom magic mod AOI, Magic should be able to allow for easing of/even "skipping" progression at the cost of the time and sanity investment, by tying into both magic and GT tier progression, which tbf is almost exactly where meteors currently lie.
Getting them is a pain and test of patience but you basically don't need any rockets if you put in the time to get them, and you still have to do GT progression to make use of them as you go.

[balmy flame]

Does this make Create a magic mod?

[glass current]

Yes, it's focused on in world crafting and aesthetics 😗

[amber river]

[gray prairie]

Gregtech is a magic mod confirmed, you craft multiblocks in world and some of them are aesthetic

[tender grove]

Sauron 🤝 GTNH playerbase
making a bunch of rings to advance in power

its litcherally a magic pack

[glass current]

But they do not have ITEMS in world they are black boxy

You put stuff in don't see what happens and different stuff pops out

[compact leaf]

So this makes EEC the only realistic multiblock since you see who's getting crushed

[gray prairie]

[amber river]

i think the biggest problem with late game progression is that the player NEEDS to do the exact same steps to reach the next tier in terms of:

• how to get the main metal / resource of the tier
• how to process this material in order to craft the next tier shenanigans

lets take LV as an excellent example of WHAT TO DO:

you need a lot of steel to progress, but you have a lot of options on how to get it, to name some of them:

• 8 bbfs, coke ovens with coal block
• arc furnace + ebf (late lv, at this point you dont even care anymore)
• nugget dupe
• raid 64 RLDs on stone age

its up on the player to use his brain and choose the best fitting option, there is no need to choose between a SS+ or D- method, just do whatever you feel right

same tier, energy wise:

• steam
• acid
• 577 coke ovens fuelling 4096 semi fluid gen
• oil

now lets see whats inside any tier after the tutorial (EV+), energy wise:

• naq
• cbt
• EOH if you torture yourself enough to reach this point

material wise:

• follow the same steps because any other method sucks enormous amount of geese donuts (the meta also sucks, but a little less)
• you will have nothing and will be happy

with that being said, as a humble hv player that is forever damned to stay in this tier, just add more lines, remove any bees that allow to skip them (i'm looking at you, kev) and let the players have fun while doing the normal cbt routine

dont wanna make the same multi to get your neutronium? there is this new line that uses some eldritch materials with cursed names, this new multi that requires this mechanic (not necessarily a new one, only needs to be good, let us deal with black hole compressor mechanics as early as LV )

[gray prairie]

This is very energy

Some good points tho, except kevlar bee

Kevlar bee should be buffed

Styrene butadiene rubber bee when 🗣️

[amber river]

i cant imagine how derranged one needs to be in order to get gate twice

"yeah bro cant wait to get past IV and spam the same multis, repeat the same strategy and wait a lot"

[weak palm]

don't check my roles then

might be too spooky

[visual oxide]

some people just enjoy the spam part of the game

uev+ is my fav part of the pack even tho its the biggest offender of this problem

[weak palm]

I love the early game, after UHV my interest tanks

[tawdry crane]

same tbh

so far i hate uiv sm 😭

[amber river]

i actually like the spam part of the game

it is enjoyable

what i dont like is to have only one option to get something that is required to progress, and this very option sucks

stainless steel is a good example of what not to do

the bee sucks btw

[compact leaf]

You mean it sucks since there is no way around it? I think stainless steel is fine since its main bottleneck is chromium supply

And there are different ways of getting that

[amber river]

yes

i think there should be another way to get stainless steel at HV, scalable to the next tiers, other than more ebfs

[compact leaf]

Hmm maybe a magic way? I'm not aware of different ways to make stainless irl

[amber river]

dont mention the m-name here

[compact leaf]

Using the IBF would be sweet

[amber river]

i wouldnt mind another tech way tbh

[amber river]

[compact leaf]

Maybe a fluid recipe?

Doesnt make that much sense though since you dont reach that temperature at HV

[glass current]

In the meanwhile ducked getting like 5 gates during the time it takes me to get to IV

On second (nether) run even

[tawdry crane]

i just wish proxies werent so expensive

[tepid shell]

im only just seeing this post now :) such a lovely idea pxx

peak game dev 🔥

[weak palm]

I'm a fan of open systems that leave players many options

https://tenor.com/view/cat-funny-cat-cat-funny-cat-flashbang-flashbang-gif-8479999063609699416

[tepid shell]

🎀 kitty flashbanged with the sheer fire of pxx's game dev ideas

🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥

[amber river]

[gray prairie]

Idk man its pretty fun and the pack changes enough between major version that i'll prob be playing this pack for many years to come lol

New exciting things keep the game interesting and the remaining cheeses that havent been nerfed by fun hating devs still exist

Best of both worlds

[gray prairie]

If you're autistic and unemployed enough this pack wont take more than 7 months

[glass current]

Ducked's group finished in 23 days 🙂

[snow swift]

asa team of competent stargaters and Soy

(competent, but soy wasnt a stargater then)

[gray prairie]

Oh I know

I watched xD

I started this run right before they finished

Been taking my time tho

Trying to actually engage with the content that isnt just bum rushing GT tiers

After getting gate/token in 3 months last run its nice to just play without a lot of teammates

[glass current]

I started my run before ducked's channel was a thing when gtnh announced variants (which disappeared somewhere lol) and me and few days later ducked got inspired to do nether run...
Only now I'm getting to IV lol

Previous run started with lashmak gtnh S1 I think and ended in IV around the time of threefold gtnh S3 I think

Anyway, should be enough of derailing...

[amber river]

and soy

[gray prairie]

Thats crazy

[snow swift]

He wasn't a Stargate then

[wanton moth]

So for atm for me, the part i find the most anoying is the IV/Early LuV, there are so many lines you are forced to make, from LV to IV there is a constant feel like you are progressing, but once you hit IV, you are forced to do all of the plat line and all the other lines one after another to progress all the way to netherrite line,.
For me that part atm is so dull, as it takes so long to do, and you do not feel like there is any progression.

[snow swift]

someone said that that's because people find the lines as a list of things to checkmark as done to progress, which is definately something people feel the more they've playeed trhouh it, and im inclined to agree
The first time you encounter it, its a cool new line to do. The second time its "oh, this agian"
THe only difference to early game is that its long and slightly tedious (hence a shift to maintained lines the longer poeple ahve played, at least going off persronal experience)

it's hard to have bypasses/alterantive paths for things like platline, naqline, and waterline tho, since theyre such central paths to progression

Like, mybe you could do some kind of magic-based reconcentration and processing for plat/naqline, for example by turning part of hte platinum to essentia then alchemically converting pla powder to plat dust, but thaucmraft alchemy is only 1 to 1 ine terms of item i/o

[wanton moth]

What could also help is if the lines are spread out more before you are forced to do them, move the platline as a forced early EV,

Sometimes it feels like IV should be two tiers instead of one, monazaite line, naquadah line, platlium line, netherrack line, and am i not forgetting one or two?

[serene badger]

naqline and netherite line are in LuV

IV is basically platline and optionally monazite/bastnasite line

but platline is absolutely massive compared to anything before

[wanton moth]

Kinda feels like they are IV cause you spent a lot of time doing them and then you get into luv and wolla two morelines right out of the gate, it feels like a slog

[wanton moth]

You need SAmarium to progress

ane cerium

[serene badger]

samarium can be gotten from the very short samarium line

for cerium you can also skip a large part by electrolysing bastnasite

[wanton moth]

yeah but poorer yield, and if it is as bad a platnium (i dont know if it is, it does now say, soi assum it is and build this long line too) id rather get the long line over with

[serene badger]

that's actually a good example for a skip, both of those things are a lot less efficient than monazite line but a lot easier to set up

with samarium you unlock a more efficient line in LuV, and I don't think cerium is used much so the low efficiency isn't important

[wanton moth]

this is what you need it for, been over a year since i last had a use for it so i cant remember, i just remember needing a god awful amount of those ingots

[snow swift]

techjnically plat part is ev

but yeah, maybe if you had to do plat + maybe palladium or iridium in ev, then the rest in iv, it owuld be better

lack of multiblocks in ev hurts tho

[snow swift]

samarium line is super good

its a bit of a loop, but its so good cokapred to mona/bast

[serene badger]

yeah the entirety of platline could be done in EV but only platinum is really useful

[wanton moth]

I kinda wish it was all EV, to force it, so IV pressure drops

[snow swift]

mutlbilcoks

also just splitting it in two is fine

possibly naq being iv and the rest luv owuld be a bit better

move half of platline to ev, first half of naqline to iv

[tawdry crane]

half of my gripe with LuV comes from those stupid milling multis

they're just ridiculously expensive and take hours to craft with all their slow alloys

[wanton moth]

yeah, IV / early LuV is a nightmare with long lines and a lot of it takes a long time to make, so you are just standing there cause you need those lines to build other lines

[snow swift]

nah, i tihnk its more luv thats the problem

you got naqline, waterline, netherite line

and theyre all big

i mean, water not that big, but its expensive

[wanton moth]

waterline is short, i like it, it is broken up across several tiers

as in,. short for luv

[tawdry crane]

yea i like waterline's tiering

well, it could be a bit more spaced out imo but it’s nice not having a greg wall of china blocking the way to do anything, and it lets you give each puzzle more thought

[wanton moth]

Yeah, I wish more lines had this, you add or replace components to it as you progress.

[tawdry crane]

as much as i shit talk netherite line, that skip in UV is amazing

still not free netherite ofc but it feels sooo rewarding

similar thing with the americium meteor

[reef zealot]

If I rememebr right, there is plans for a new chemical multiblock that can condense some lines and chemprocesses, not sure what progress, but I think that would be very nice addition

[serene badger]

#1366709433589043241 message this one?

[amber river]

this

[reef zealot]

yup

[clever mortar]

it seems that one's cancelled