[Suggestions] Betwenlands achievements and other...

I am coping this from my slightly misplaced (and nicely directed to post here by those devs) post on the Sevtech issues forum. I'm going to lazily paste it from there, but don't want to dilute it from the original thought (I apologize it its a little blunt). And as I mentioned to the SevTech Devs, I'm not a coder, I've no experience there, these are just suggestions (gripes), but I do realize that working on such a pack is nothing simple and that doing so for people to freely play is an incredibly respectable thing to do.

--- https://github.com/DarkPacks/SevTech-Ages/issues/2655 ---

While I admittedly am not a huge fan of The Betweenlands, its a well made mod with lots of depth but anything that forces you into difficult combat in Minecraft (some just not well fleshed out) while sticking you in place constantly is not typically fun especially in 1.9+ combat, and the night cycles are more than a little of an added pain. It feels like something where you are either forced to cheese your way through the whole thing or wait until you are so OP that nothing matters, and at that point there isn't much of an incentive to complete it.

There are a few things that could be improved for this pack dealing with the Betweenlands starting with the achievement tabs. I love the use of the tabs to guide you through the progression, but unlike the Twilight Forrest achievements tab (or any of the specific ages ones), the Betweenlands has 7 with just a few things on most of them? Why not just put them all in one tab to make it far simpler to track your progress or quickly be able to look for what you are after in that land.

A way to negate the constantly being stuck to the ground would be great. The rubber boots help a little but don't help with the slime and for faster travel you are forced to switch between them and better (or more convenient boots like the slime ones) all the time just to walk about. This is like dealing with the Abyssal sludge, except that its constant in some sections of the Betweenlands, and since visibility is limited much of the day cycle its hard to avoid.

Speaking of visibility, before you are able to get night vision potions in the Betweenlands (bringing ones in doesn't work), or any tech/magic mod for it, you are basically stuck in one place waiting for the night to pass because its pitch black making travel, or anything else, near impossible. Some way to either negate that or just brighten it up enough to travel before you have night vision would be amazing, be it some sort of Betweenlands amulet or just easier access to potions that would work (though you are already having to eat something extra because of the sickness effect).

Again, I don't feel like The Betweenlands is a horrible mod, its just that a few of the aspects of it are more terribly tedious than adding a challenging yet rewarding experience.

Thanks for all the effort on this pack, all in all this whole pack is great, just could use a few balancing fixes for certain sections of the progression if possible. I'm not sure if these are things that can be worked on but were just possible suggestions from my perspective.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. While I’m not a coder myself, I can provide my input on your suggestions while the other team members are away (doing rl stuff).

I definitely agree with you on the achievement/advancement situation. While some of the tabs do have more advancements than they initially appear to, it would be less annoying if they were all grouped into one tab. The sheer number of them might be confusing and it would be harder to categorize them, but eh.

I haven’t played SevTech, but it would seem that fast travel in the pack is a bit more of priority, whereas the Betweenlands mod itself isn’t so much. However, if you know how to characterize sections of the dimension by their “difficulty of movement” or other, it’s actually not that hard to get around. Only certain blocks cause slowdown and most of those are negated by the Rubber Boots. The area you’ll still have difficulty in is the Sludge Plains biome, which is like that because it is supposed to be a particularly difficult area more ideal for its rewards than for passing through.

The day/night cycle was a relatively recent addition to the mod, and it definitely makes half of the experience significantly darker. We do have plans for some way to be able to control this cycle, as well as for other light sources such as firefly lanterns or some other. However, I think that if there was too easy a way to brighten up the dimension, it would destroy part of the atmosphere that the mod is trying to achieve, as well as the point of the cycle itself (besides other possible additions we will make to it in the future). For now, though, just spam Sulfur Torches everywhere you go :P

I understand many of your frustrations with your experience, and we will continue working on balancing the mod to our best ability. It should be taken to mind, however, that half of the Betweenlands experience is coming face to face with these difficulties, not just working around them. You do not have to cheese your way through the whole game, or wait to become OP, because despite these hindrances you can find ways to manage them. You can learn to live with some slowing blocks, perhaps dig them out of your path or make Weedwood Walkways that speed your movement up; you can live with the darkness by brightening your way with torches, or finding fireflies to hang out next to or capture with a net for later use. They’re honestly not that tedious when you figure out that they are livable, even when you don’t necessarily have the materials to directly counteract them. And if you feel something needs to be changed to better fit your specific needs, you can check out the configuration file for the mod and/or utilize other mods to tweak things. I do think some of your issues may stem from the fact that you are playing SevTech, and that is different from the experience base Betweenlands is.

Sorry, that got a bit ranty. All that said, the input you gave is highly appreciated. I personally do think the mod still has a good number of changes coming its way before it will be fully balanced and complete; just know that in its current state it is completely possible to enjoy the content of the mod and have fun (and not cheese) while still living with the gripes you mentioned. So again, thanks. :)

I appreciate your quick response to my comments, and I do hope that they aren't taken fully as negative, I do like that people are still taking the time to make mods for such an old simple game. And its ok to rant, I tend to be a little wordy when I type things up as well, better to fully explain than to leave things to be assumed.

I again wrote that initial comment for the SevTech devs more so as I was neither used to active forums (and responsive Devs) for mod packs or knowing that this pack specifically had a GitHub page to use, so it was more for that environment and possible tailoring of their pack. I did try to be positive and insightful but I can be a bit blunt at times. I would highly recommend SevTech, the progression system and incorporation of so many mods, limiting advancement, etc., make it almost like a whole new version of the game. And I wouldn't say fast travel is very much an initial thing, especially when you are introduced to the Betweenlands mod.

I've seen a lot of different variations of the progression/achievement tabs systems, depending on the intended use of the pack, I would say that there still isn't enough of them for 7 unique tabs either way, but if you were intending for the Betweenlands being an addon for packs such as SevTech instead of just a stand alone then it would probably be better to find a system that they would look and feel good incorporated into one tab. I wish I had experience coding as I would write one up for the suggestion (or just for adding to other packs, along with other ideas I had for incorporating achievements and possible rewards for larger packs to incentivize people to finish them), but I can't so I won't.

I do understand the value of having dynamic lighting to deal with, and I give you the atmosphere and sky features are neat. This isn't fully the issue with that, its more that it lasts for so long, especially when much of the rest of the time its still very dark even with the lighting turned to "bright". If it was only for a couple minutes of the night that it was fully dark then you could figure something else out to do such as crafting, but there is no way to sleep through it and while I personally did use other means just to not be standing on a tree in the dark for what seemed forever (used totems and tried ones that 'rotted' as soon as I spawned in), they still all but fully restrict travel as you are limited to stationary lighting that is only a small area around you, and with it mostly being a water environment and the large distances you need to travel for the "loot" places, simply placing torches isn't exactly a great option, and not really a good one no matter the pack unless you are lighting tunnels or around a base. Unlike most mods you can't even use your regular torches so you are forced to mine in the dark (no charcoal even) or attempt to explore for a short amount of time (again at long distances) to find sulfur for them. I didn't know about the fireflies yet so I'm not familiar with how far a distance you get from them around you, and I do know about the night vision potions but that's still further into the pack than just exploration and loot gathering unless you simply focus on that.

The issue of sticking in place isn't just annoyance from being slow, its more to do with the not so fun 1.9+ combat that also slows you down and makes being overwhelmed FAR easier to happen, and honestly the mobs here are also a bit harder and more aggressive than typical zombies & creepers (but I'd guess that's intentional). If its only random then it isn't so bad, and maybe I just got a bad starting point, but I walk out my tree and there are those slimes making a mess hunting me down bumping me everwhere, the whites running me down, and the birds bumping also pushing me places I don't want to be. I mentioned to the SevTech Devs that a coating or amulet would be nice (something to work towards) that would negate, maybe to a minimum, the effects for when you have to travel into those areas, possibly that wears off over use. And I have tried the boots, but again we get into the issue with the lighting since once it isn't fully bright out you can't tell the difference of the ground you are walking on, and once it gets dark you are probably just trying to run to cover to avoid the baddies.

I think Sevadus himself put it well when talking about the Minecraft combat recently, its not really a game designed for much of it, and unlike games where when you die you keep your inventory, you can end up in a constant death loop just trying to get your stuff back, that honestly isn't fun and for those who don't care to cheat it back it makes it almost rage quit inducing when its made even more complicated. Such as interesting, complicated fights on top of high towers, with long treks back having nothing, just to hopefully retrieve your gear without lots of dying over and again on the way... But then much of the whole Minecraft experience is either working to become OP (with mods) or learning ways to build around every obstacle that you encounter instead of fighting through it.

Not to fully just bitch, I do think the herb lore aspect is interesting, surprised you can't farm/grow more of it though from what I've seen. And the gecko part is a good added bit of funny.

As I mentioned I feel that there is depth to this mod, but for the Minecraft system there are just some gameplay issues that I personally feel only slow things or complicate them down a bit much. I'm not sure at what point you are supposed to be exploring this mod, if its intended for other mod heavy packs, or what. Getting into it would make me think its not exactly somewhere you would just start out going to, but I don't want to assume. I again hope this isn't simply taken as someone bitching, if I didn't care or see potential I wouldn't bother honestly, I don't want to offend anyone taking the time to do something like this for people to be used for free and little if any thanks.

Yeah, the Betweenlands actually wasn’t originally designed around the idea of modpacks. I personally still think it’s best as a stand-alone, maybe with some light improvement mods on the side, but it’s completely possible to incorporate it into modpacks (and do it well). Darkosto is actually a friend of the development team so that’s pretty much how it got in. As I’ve said, I haven’t played SevTech so I’m not sure how well it works in that, and my points are based around my experience playing Betweenlands on its own.

I do kind of like the idea of multiple advancement tabs, especially since the mod has whole expansive sections to it, but perhaps not as many as there are currently. That applies to both a potential modpack-specific version (or whatever modified version SevTech is using) as well as the stand-alone version.

The way the cycle works is that there is a rift that occasionally appears and brightens things up, whether day or night. Perhaps if there was a way to make it so that night is less dark towards its edges and darkest at “midnight”, that would help. We could also make it so that the already existing Moss Beds allow you to skip night. But as it is, not every night is the same level of darkness because of the rift, and you can use that to your advantage.

I don’t think there’s a way we can control or manage the current Minecraft system without changing fundamental aspects of the mod. I don’t imagine an amulet or trinket of some kind would be easy to get without exploration. But there are ways already in the mod to improve the combat situation significantly, and don’t require much to obtain; for instance, certain shields have unique and useful properties, such as ramming into foes head-on, and there are amulets centered around Middle Gems that provides varying and very helpful buffs. Pretty much the idea is that you brave the wilderness for basic resources, and through them you can get a pretty solid foothold pretty quickly. Again, it’s completely possible to do so while dealing with the darkness and slowdown. It may be more or less tedious depending on your individual experience, but it’s completely possible and enjoyable. Also, it does sound like you got unlucky, or possibly encountered a bug or issue of some kind - if you spawned next to slimes, you’re in a Sludge Plains biome, and the trees are supposed to be coded not to spawn there.

It is possible to farm aspects. You find Aspectrus Seeds in common Pots/Chests, Plant then on Rubber Plank fences using the mod’s own farming system, and apply an Aspect Vial of your choice to them. All the details for that can be found on the wiki (although some of it may be outdated).

Don’t worry, you’re not being bitchy or anything of the sort. You have valid criticisms, and you’re clearly trying to be respectful. I try to be the same all the time, lol. And you’re not wasting anybody’s time either. I tend to stick around the community and respond to people when the other devs are away doing other stuff.

Quick additional comment. There is an alcove in the Cragrock Tower (I think like 2nd floor) that always has pots that you CAN'T get to. There actually might be a couple of those in the tower. Its that the stairs and pillars stop you from getting behind them to get the pots. Wouldn't be a big deal other than the loot chances for certain things.

Break the pots and use a water bucket to push the items toward you. Or just raid the tower after you conquer it.

Yeah, that's already a thing that's planned to change I think.

I took the time to make a quick (amateurish) possible look for a single Tab, since I'm complaining I should at least do a little of the foot work as well. This was just a simple, especially working with paint 3D which is garbage, mock up. I tried to make them flow decently for when you might start working on them in the mod and connected to when you were likely to find/deal with them. There are a couple that didn't quite fit as well, the bog doesn't have a "find" thing though you could possibly add something for those shrines and then the monster killing one would have a better fit for that area. The double icons might be a bit much for this layout.

single tab

I think the main reason the advancements were split up is that without another mod the advancement window is extremely small and it's be quite annoying to navigate through such a big tree

Angry-Pixel / The-Betweenlands

[Suggestions] Betwenlands achievements and other... #621