Discussion on thaumcraft warp and balancing it

[Prometheus0000]

Refer to #5604

This is so the discussion on warp balance can be separated from the discussion on warp research specifically for BM.

People have brought up: altering the warp theory configs (currently the highest effect is 80, it can go to 200), adding new effects (such as weaker monsters than the wither, or more 'scary' stuff), whether having a wither spawn is balanced (would blow up your base, at least on SP), the fact that pure tear is all or nothing, adding other stuff to reduce warp somewhat (An easier version of the pure tear that reduces it by, say 5? Something like heart canisters that are equippable, stack, and reduce warp by 1/2/3/etc?), a warp ward potion (presumably easier to get than the salt, or longer lasting), the fact that machines that exist (soul brazier and the tumor) have serious bugs, the very high amount of warp due to large numbers of addons, that people don't use BM because of the warp, that people who aren't familiar with TC can easily screw themselves over with warp, and probably some I missed.

[yukieiji]

Info on GTNH's warp

・All Warp Amount:	Permanent	Normal
667	512

・Warp Effect: (+ TC Warp Effect)	Warp Effect	Warp Amount
Fake explosion&Fake Creeper	10
Spawn bats	15
Poison	16
Jump boost	18
Rain&Blood&Nausea	25
Friendly Creeper	26
Lightning	30
Livestock rain	32
Wind	32
Blindness	43
Random teleport	45
Acceleration&Decay&Random tree	50
Chest scramble&Spawn Wither	80

・Item/Machine of reducing Warp	Item/Machince name	Mod	Type and amount of warp to reduce
Sanitizing Soap	TC	Temp only
Tabacco Pile(Default)	Thaumic Bases	Temp only(probability)
Wand Focus:Flux Scrubber	Thaumic Bases	Normal and Temp(probability)
Warped Tumor	Thaumic Horizons	All(up to 50)
Soul Brazier	Thaumic Exploration	All
Pure Tear	Warp Theory	All

・Item/Machine of prevent WarpEffect	Item/Machince name	Mod
Arcane Spa	TC	Temp only
Thaumic Sauna Stove	Witchin Gadgets
Talisman of Remedium	Thaumic Tinkerer

[Prometheus0000]

The soap has a chance (50%+?) to reduce normal warp as long as you're under warp ward/in the salted water.

[quedral]

Yes, We all know and hate warp. its an annoyance and unavoidable.

Any case if you want to add an item (craftable by infusion i assume) that reduces warp you probably need to code an addon and add items that do that right? i don't see any other way.

Alternatively amount of warp added can be reduced by altering TC and its addons recipes which is kinda PITA going through 1 by 1 each one.

I would like to see amount of warp reduced/removed or managed by other item however both alternatives require serious work and i am doubtful that anyone would like to tackle that.

[Prometheus0000]

Well, I checked and figured adding a new item to warp theory wouldn't be that hard, and it wasn't! I added an item that reduces warp by 1, it goes temp -> norm -> perm so you still need to use soap for optimal usage.

Some things to note: 1) It reuses the texture of the pure tear, if someone wants to submit one with a change in the color slightly or something. The center red to blue or something? 2) I can't figure out how to get the research to unlock OTL. It shows up when you use the cheat thaumonomicon though. 3) It needs a real recipe (for the pack), it's using a copy of the vanilla WT PT one. It should be much easier than the PT. 4) If approved, stuff like the recipe needs to be added to Warp-Theory.zs 5) I tried getting the version to update, it didn't for some reason

You can check out the code or use this file: WarpTheory-1.7.10-1.0k-Dev.zip

https://github.com/Prometheus0000/WarpTheory/tree/AddNewItemTest

[ScriptedPiky]

I like the sound of it being able to remove warp, but I wonder if there will be a chance to remove perm warp, as being able to remove it on a "lesser" tier item can be quite powerful. However, with some balancing of the recipe, we could strike a sweet spot for it.

[Prometheus0000]

Changed the Warp-Theory.zs, it now shows up properly after you have the pre-req (though, should it be eldritchmajor instead of minor? Will people clear all their warp before getting the second eldritch research?) It currently has the recipe for the Pure Tear as a placeholder.

Warp-Theory.zip

[Prometheus0000]

How about this for the Warp Theory effects config:

Warp Effect	Warp Amount
Fake explosion	10
Spawn bats	15
Fake Creeper	20
Blindness	25
Poison	30
Rain	35
Blood	40
Jump boost	45
Nausea	50
Friendly Creeper	60
Livestock rain	70
Wind	80
Lightning	95
Random teleport	110
Acceleration	125
Decay	140
Random tree	155
Chest scramble	170
Spawn Wither	200

So until you get to 70, no crops will be damaged, and no blocks altered until 125.

[richardhendricks]

Lightning causes damage because it can knock carts off of rails or start fires

[yukieiji]

If we change the amount of warp and warp effect, we have to consider how much research is acceptable. If you increase the effect of Wither Spawn to 200, you will be allowed to research Ichor(Until the unlock of Ichor, about 200 Warp(Permanent100, Normal100) accumulate) @Prometheus0000 How much do you think research should be acceptable?

[repo-alt]

Lightning causes damage because it can knock carts off of rails or start fires

Carts, bah, it can destroy a rocket...

[Prometheus0000]

Shouldn't you have carts underground to not get killed by normal lightning anyway? I guess fires are a thing, but all acceleration, decay and random tree (worse than it sounds) all change 'natural' blocks. And I imagine random teleporting is more annoying too.

Well, I don't really have any numbers for you about that. I just think it's too much too soon now, and I also rearranged them in a more logical order. Like, why was blindness 43, while lightning was 30? If people want it to max at 100 or 150, that would still be better than it is now. I do think you'd probably (guessing mostly) have around 100-150 to unlock ichor stuff? But that's just research, you could get that done almost immediately, in MV or HV, right?

Try using the salts for warp ward before going to a rocket. But I don't know if you can place water on other planets, so you might not be able to do the same thing before you come back if you didn't bring a teleportation option.

[ScriptedPiky]

I love that idea actually of increasing the warp effect requirement levels. And if the item to remove the warp is in combination with the re-arranged warp you presented, may I introduce something for this? If the player has 50 or below permanent warp, the chance to remove 1 perm warp becomes 1% with that item (not the pure tear). For every extra warp above the minimum 50 line, add 1% extra chance for removing 1 warp until the 100% cap has been reached. And depending on the recipe given, this could be an interesting gamble, as removing perm warp is extremely powerful, but spending great amounts of resources for something early compared to the pure tear is certainly interesting

[richardhendricks]

That feels too powerful to me. So at 100 warp the item guarantees removing permanent warp?

[ScriptedPiky]

Ah that seems a lot better actually. Yeah, at 100 & above you'll have a better chance, or anything below 100 will result at a 0% to prevent cheesy gambling methods?

[Prometheus0000]

I have no idea how to code that, so I'm gonna say no. I basically just copy-pasted and changed the names for most of it. Also, 1% sounds kinda low, maybe 2%? if someone else wants to do it. I'm not sure. It depends on what the configs end up like.

Uh, that's what it does now, just 1 point at a time (compared to the PT). Piky suggested making it chance based.

[leagris]

I'd give my 2¢ opinion now.

Straight Rule #1: No Permanent Warp should be gained, unless a Thaumaturge badly screws things up, rushes researches, acts stupidly or foolishly.

Permanent warp could be cut by 1 point every 6 real-life hours offline, that's 4 points of permanent warp removed each day, 28 per week, and a total redemption of maximum 200 permanent warp would be totally cleared after 50 days offline.

[yukieiji]

What Ichor can researched is the amount of warp that can complete all of her TC research and one other MOD research. And further research can be done using Wand Focus and its additional items. Considering this, I think that the amount of warp in the wither spawn is about 100 to 150 is appropriate.

[yukieiji]

How about this for the Warp Theory effects config. Shows the player that the warp is dangerous by adding a little tighter effect with a lower warp amount effect.

Warp Effect	Warp Amount
Fake explosion&Fake Creeper	10
Spawn bats	15
Jump boost	18
Poison	20
Rain&Blood&Nausea	25
Wind	30
Friendly Creeper	35
Livestock rain	40
Blindness	45
Lightning	50
Random tree	70
Random teleport	80
Acceleration&Decay	100
Chest scramble	110
Spawn Wither	120

we may want to add some effect between 50-70 and 80-100

[Prometheus0000]

If you say you want to add more effects then why are you still combining some of them? And why is blindness so high up, it isn't really bad at all?

[yukieiji]

I think that Blindness effectively didn't make it much more difficult to explore and craft (some mobs attack used this effect). The reason why add warp effect is because a new warp effect is considered as shown in #4270

[Prometheus0000]

When I said high up I meant in relation to how much warp you have (high=more warp). It's much less bad than lightning for example.

But someone has to code that (new effects). Are you going to code that? I certainly can't. We have to deal with the current reality rather than put it in space for effects that may never get coded. They can always be added in later.

What do other people think about when the Wither should spawn? I'm not particularly attached to 200. I just wanted to use the whole range so that they could be scaled.

[mitchej123]

Depends on what the effect is... There's a few people who might be willing to code it.

[ScriptedPiky]

I had an idea long ago that could replace the Wither effect with super powerful warriors instead. Enemies such as zombies or skeletons equipped with Void or Shadow fortress armor, along with enchanted gear & weaponry, they are, however, given 4 seconds of immunity and are unable to attack (or simply have the weakness & resistance and or absorption buff/debuff set to a very high amount) during this period of time in order to prevent cheese kills. They either do not drop their armor or have a very low probable chance of dropping it. They could exist in the same similar fashion as the Eldritch Guardian spawns as well.

[Prometheus0000]

If you wanted to replace the Wither you could also use the bosses of the Eldritch dimension.

[0lafe]

I always found the wither wasn't really a fighting problem as much as the destruction it would do ro the base. Much like pollution, the negative personal effects aren't that bad. Blindness, lightning, bats, poison, etc, don't do much to actually hurt you. It's only when you get things like lightning hitting rockets, ponds in your ebf, or withers blowing up your base, you start actually being negatively impacted. If there isn't much world based negativity to warp, there's more ability to pass the max warp and not even really need a tear.

Id keep withers as they do provide a reason to REALLY not want to hit max warp, as opposed to simply being an annoyance.

[mitchej123]

Move withers up, but them or something similar should be kept in place near max warp.

[Anarack]

Well... minus the wither affect does nothing on any server with a protection system. So you are punished for not disabling it essentially outside of the officials.

[Prometheus0000]

I figured out how to use PSP to adjust the color of the new item. Anyone want to suggest a color? It only really affects the red in the middle.

[Prometheus0000]

I did some research on how much warp is needed to get the pure tear. Using commands gives the prerequisite researches too.

Using the command to unlock ICHOR_CLOTH gives 34+19=53 warp, but doesn't research everything in the TT or Vanilla tabs or unlock eldritch. Using the command to unlock ICHORIUM gives 78+59=137 warp, and researches almost everything (including non-vanilla researches on vanilla tabs) in the TT and Vanilla tabs, and only the first eldritch research. Using the command to unlock PURETEAR gives same as above, plus the second eldritch research.

So getting Ichorium to unlock requires minimum 137 warp it seems. Of course, this excludes various useful researches, and stuff on the GTNH, BM, or Witchery tabs.

It seems Ichorium has weird requirements compared to unlocking compared to just the Ichor Cloth, which should be the requirement to unlock the research. Of course, this was a test instance, there might have been something I was supposed to scan, but I checked the code (and script) and couldn't find anything. And I thought you needed all the Vanilla-eldritch+TT research to unlock Ichor to begin with, but it seems that's not the case.

[richardhendricks]

Someone else pointed out that a player not knowing better is going to be stuck with more warp than a seasoned veteran who knows what they're doing. We can fix that by improving the quests, or by adding an information-only quest that has instructions on where to concentrate efforts if you want X/Y/Z.

[richardhendricks]

Also, AFAIK, nothing in Witchery gives warp. Should it? Are there separate penalties in Witchery for equivalent levels of abilities?

[Prometheus0000]

I have it open and there's 10 warpy researches there, for 22 points.

[yukieiji]

@richardhendricks What about moving WarpWarinig's research to the Vanilla TC Basic Information tab, as some players don't progress through the quests and don't know the effect of warp? (Those who do so think that they rarely see GTNH tabs)

[richardhendricks]

I think it's a good idea. File a separate ticket.

[yukieiji]

@richardhendricks Opened pull request #5659

[Prometheus0000]

Could someone tell me if I did this right? It seems to work ingame properly.

added import java.util.Random; at the top. Tutorials said import java.util.*, but I imagine that would call/import a bunch of unnecessary stuff?

//add function to remove 1 warp
public static void purgeWarpMinor(EntityPlayer player)
{
    removeWarp(player, 1);
}

Above changed to below

//add function to remove 1 warp, chance based
//warp < 50 = 0%, warp >= 150 = 100%
public static void purgeWarpMinor(EntityPlayer player)
{
    Random ran = new Random(); 
    int rn = ran.nextInt(101);
    rn = rn-50+getTotalWarp(player);
    if (rn >=100)
        removeWarp(player, 1);
    else
        return;
}

[Prometheus0000]

I have finished making changes to the new item. It's now chance based, see above. I've also come up with a recipe for it:

The middle is hardened ice, the rest is quicksilver blocks, magicales, odor of purity, BM blood/life essence in a cell, aurelia petals, and max tomato. I tried to use some aspects that I didn't see too often, as well as auram and praecantatio. There's no sano since it's in the tomatos, and you probably used a ton to make soap anyway.

You can try it for yourselves: Warp Theory with new item.zip

Do people agree with this? It uses parts from multiple mods to make it harder. I wasn't sure if making it require slates might be better than cells for example. Magicales might be too hard with the LP cost and the growth medium. Max tomatos is from the IC2 crop, I'm not sure what the drop rate is or how many people get the crop either. I can change the randomization range, but having it changed from a config would be too much for me. For the effects config discussion do we need to take a vote on when the wither should show up?

[Prometheus0000]

I have created a poll about when the wither should spawn, which order the warp events should be in, and whether people want more warp events: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HMZKKX6

[Prometheus0000]

So as a result of the survey (only 12 responses, but I want to move forwards): https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-GPFTT7HT7/ I'm submitting a PR based on it with the following:

Warp Effect	Warp Amount
Fake explosion	10
Spawn bats	15
Fake Creeper	20
Blindness	25
Poison	30
Rain	35
Blood	40
Jump boost	45
Nausea	50
Friendly Creeper	60
Livestock rain	75
Wind	90
Lightning	105
Random teleport	120
Acceleration	130
Decay	140
Random tree	150
Chest scramble	160
Spawn Wither	170

It seems people want more warp effects, but that's probably better suited to another ticket. If anyone cares enough, you can open another issue to talk about that.

[richardhendricks]

How are the events weighted? Another way to make it less annoyingly dangerous would be to weight events based on (current warp - place in the chart). IE if your warp is 29:

Warp Effect	Warp Amount	Weight	Chances
Fake explosion	10	19	41%
Spawn bats	15	14	30%
Fake Creeper	20	9	20%
Blindness	25	4	9%

Total weight = 46

This would make the higher warp effects low chances until you get beyond them. Not 0, but low that gradually increases.

[Prometheus0000]

I think it makes ones you're currently near occur more often? I'm not sure, I never thought about that, and that's beyond a config change too. But I didn't get the earlier ones as much when I had a decent amount of warp. You could try looking in the code yourself I guess.

[redmage17]

We should add more things to just screw with the player as warp is intended to be a mental corruption and symbolizes a descent into madness. Phantom mobs, noises etc are good(Things that are not there and mess with a players overall mental state).

Also since we are tweaking things is this a good place to mention the tallow recipe? It is required for purifying soap, and it feels forced and arbitrary just using soap stone. For one soapstone is not used for tallow. FAT is.

If we want to make adjustments for soap recipe specifically that may brew another discussion. But Tallow should used fat from things such meat and rotting flesh.

[McFrugal]

I wound up disabling the fake explosion and fake creeper effects in single player because I quickly got used to them and they became nothing more than a distraction.

My suggestion is to remove ALL of the Warp Theory effects. Most of them have unintended consequences (wither griefing other players, lightning breaking rockets, swamp breaking multiblocks, chest scramble griefing other players, livestock rain trampling crops, etc etc etc.) and the ones that aren't glitchy or broken are either annoying, annoying and pointless, or immediately lethal in specific situations.

The vanilla warp effects are enough, I feel. They even scale with how much warp you have!

[Prometheus0000]

My suggestion is to remove ALL of the Warp Theory effects.

Dream will say no.

In addition, the vanilla warp effects are completely pathetic and totally ignorable. Especially since they stop happening after a while.

[Dream-Master]

NO as Prometheus said :P

[mitchej123]

We should adjust the warp levels and effects (and maybe add some alternative ones), but disabling them is silly.

[McFrugal]

Ok, let's look at the vanilla warp effects. Unnatural Hunger: you will starve to death at higher amounts of warp, unless you eat rotten flesh immediately. This is the main afk-killer. I imagine the healing axe works to endure the hunger drain, but then you're stuck holding it for the entire length of the effect. Blurred Vision: can't see shit Blindness: same Flux Flu: harmless unless you wanted to make something with vis. Thaumarhia: leaves pools of flux goo lying about which you have to clean up, which is easy so it's pretty much harmless. Unless you're afk, in which case it might spawn fibrous taint under you, which would kill you and taint your biome. Flux Phage: contagious flux flu, doesn't transmit forever though. Still mostly harmless. Sun Scorched: fucks up your vision and makes you catch on fire in sunlight. Ignorable if you have a pigman backpack. Eldritch Guardians: not too tough, but if you go afk they might kill you. Do magnum torches prevent them? Deadly Gaze: not a problem for you, but could kill livestock, golems or villagers. Mining Fatigue: is a real problem if you're mining or fighting when it happens. Night Vision: actually positive? Warp Reduction: I didn't know this existed until today. Probably extremely rare, but reduces (sticky? temporary?) warp. None of these effects screw you over in any permanent way, and only Deadly Gaze could be used to grief. The worst one is unnatural hunger IMO. Why does warp theory also have a blindness effect?

All warp effects go away if you don't do anything that increases warp for a long period of time. Even Warp Theory effects go away, don't they? If they don't, that seems like a bug. The reason they go away at all is to allow people to eventually go afk with moderate to high amounts of warp and not die from unnatural hunger or guardians; Azanor added that feature after people complained about not being able to afk. Getting a bit of temporary warp from an Eldritch Guardian will cause a resurgence, so it's not like you can pretend you have 0 warp forever.

Warp will never ever be balanced if the way it's approached in this pack is "try to screw over the player for having high warp". That just means players will either avoid thaumcraft as much as possible so that warp is never a problem, or completely eliminate it by using pure tears or whatever after unlocking all the research that requires warp, which means it's only briefly a problem. Actually balanced warp would be possible to live with at the amounts you'd be expected to have for Ichor research. Right now it's not, because Warp Theory is garbage and throws withers at you alongside ruining your base in other ways.

An alternative to messing with Warp Theory's settings is to reduce the amount of researches that give warp. Thaumcraft's warp system is balanced around the amounts of warp you get from the base thaumonomicon, so with every addon present it gets further and further out of whack. GTNH has all of the addons, so it's as bad as it can possibly get. The default Warp Theory settings are presumably balanced for the base level of warp as well.

[Prometheus0000]

Even Warp Theory effects go away, don't they? If they don't, that seems like a bug.

They do not. Because otherwise you'd just get all the warp, afk in a hole or something, and then never deal with it again.

An alternative to messing with Warp Theory's settings is to reduce the amount of researches that give warp.

Did you not see the link up at the top?

[johnch18]

I'm not super familiar with thaumcraft, so bear with me here. What if all forms of warp, including "permanent", dissipated with time sort of like how pollution does?

[Prometheus0000]

Then you go back to afking in a hole.