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.

[Rakdarian]

As someone who really likes to have permanent night vision on, blindness is fucking annoying. like getting caught out in the middle of the night

[Rakdarian]

But more to the point, even with the more frustrating warp effects like swamp or decay, both of those can be ignored or mitigated with base construction and the like. Being able to pursue more powerful things before you really ought to is a real fun and fluffy way to play the pack. So far my only complaint has been with the one ring implementation where eventually youll get the warp effect of your player.data folder corrupting.

I spend quite a lot of time at high warp levels, for the most part it just changes how i build my bases.

[McFrugal]

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.

Like I said, that doesn't work in the long run, because literally any warp-related activity will trigger a resurgence. The warp effects come back, and you'd have to wait several hours again to get them to go away.

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?

I did, but figured it was discussion related specifically to Blood Magic, since that's how you described it. If research-warp is already being reduced that's good; when will that happen?

I thought of another option though! Remove Warp Theory entirely. No way to reduce permanent warp, but the warp effects aren't as debilitating.

[Prometheus0000]

Like I said, that doesn't work in the long run, because literally any warp-related activity will trigger a resurgence. The warp effects come back, and you'd have to wait several hours again to get them to go away.

That's why you do all the warp stuff at once. and make all the stuff that needs it. Until IV when you can make the tears.

I did, but figured it was discussion related specifically to Blood Magic, since that's how you described it. If research-warp is already being reduced that's good; when will that happen?

What? Read it. Dream said no.

I thought of another option though! Remove Warp Theory entirely. No way to reduce permanent warp, but the warp effects aren't as debilitating.

Serious suggestions only.

[McFrugal]

Like I said, that doesn't work in the long run, because literally any warp-related activity will trigger a resurgence. The warp effects come back, and you'd have to wait several hours again to get them to go away.

That's why you do all the warp stuff at once. and make all the stuff that needs it. Until IV when you can make the tears.

Right, and then you have to: A, never make anything that gives you warp when crafted and B, never fight an ethereal guardian.

I did, but figured it was discussion related specifically to Blood Magic, since that's how you described it. If research-warp is already being reduced that's good; when will that happen?

What? Read it. Dream said no.

You wanted me to read an apparently-unrelated discussion to get a single post from Dream about not reducing warp at all?

I thought of another option though! Remove Warp Theory entirely. No way to reduce permanent warp, but the warp effects aren't as debilitating.

Serious suggestions only.

It was serious. Warp Theory is a bandaid for excessive addon use that comes with a big injection of "screw the player". In the end it's only purpose in the pack is to solve problems it itself produces.

[Prometheus0000]

It was serious. Warp Theory is a bandaid for excessive addon use that comes with a big injection of "screw the player". In the end it's only purpose in the pack is to solve problems it itself produces.

Dream would not agree to it, thus it is pointless to suggest. Plus I'd rather have WT in so I can clear the warp completely eventually.

[Rakdarian]

what gives you warp when you make it, i know theres stuff that warps you when you hold it/wear it or eat. but i dont think of anything

[McFrugal]

Unless it was changed, making Ichor gives you warp. Voidmetal gives warp when you craft items from it. So does making flesh golems. I'm sure there are a lot more things like that.

[Rakdarian]

huh, must not have noticed, i usually make tons of things out of voidmetal too

[bedrill64]

Normal and temporary warp that you gain during certain activities should be totally neglected in the discussion, due to the fact how trivial it is to get rid of it using calming flux scrubber focus.

[yukieiji]

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".

I don't think trying to screw over, because GTNH have been warned by both Quest and Research that Warp is dangerous. I think it's just self-imposed.

[Prometheus0000]

You're supposed to be smart enough to not 'research all the things'. And you have impure tears if you do. There's definitely too much warp in BM, at least for the sigils, but most of it is just kinda spread around, but there's so many researches. And I have no idea why dream added it to the witchery researches.

[repo-alt]

The problem with impure tears is that you have to gain a lot of warp to make them. Especially in BM, but also for other ingredients.

[McFrugal]

Plus I'd rather have WT in so I can clear the warp completely eventually.

If WT wasn't in the pack, only vanilla warp effects would be present. You said those were nothing to worry about, so why would you need to clear the warp?

[bedrill64]

You can get impure tears in less than 80 warp, no risk of withers, and you can reduce your warp below 50 with them, to be fair if you are not going all in, all you need is an altar which is not that much of a problem warpwise.

[McFrugal]

Why is the bot lying about this being fixedindev for "quite a while"? It literally just added the label. I am quite interested in exactly how this is fixed at all, since last I heard it was stonewalled.

[DrParadox7]

While I do see an improvement with the changes brought forward, I don't believe these have been optimal.

Thaumcraft 4 and its addons do a great job on providing immersive options for making warp manageable and with the Warp Theory changes these inherent gameplay challenges have become a mere progression checkbox to the Pure Tear, making any interesting warp management implementation from every other mod obsolete.

My belief is that features should complement each other rather than override them completely.

Naturally I do agree that these wheezing levels of warp are far excessive but ultimately the issue falls largely in the near immutable levels of Permanent Warp.

Rather than have Warp Theory cleansing methods outright stomp all other methods it should instead compliments them by converting permanent warp into sticky warp.

My proposed changes would be:

• Impure Tear: Converts 1 Permanent Warp into 1 Normal Warp for every 25 permanent warp over 50 but also generating an equivalent amount of temporary warp.

/r Now, if only there were easy ways to remove temporary warp...

Theme: Effectively taking poison as medicine increasing temporary warp for more compatibility to depravity and madness. If we consider Permanent Warp as PTSD then let us consider the impure tear as embracing insanity. Sigmund Freud proposed that madness develops often as a self preservation mechanism for when reality becomes too much to bear with insanity taking its place reducing frequency of such episodes.

• Pure Tear: Convert up to 200 permanent Warp into Normal Warp. Every point of Normal & Temporary creates dissonance, lessening its potency.

If the dissonance is too high the process will fail and a backlash of 5 permanent warp and 5 normal warp is given to the player and warp events ensue proportional to the difference.

Theme: The " just take this one ailment to cure ALL madness" is but a delusion. Warp is but a consequence of your own actions of not respecting that of which should be left alone. Redemption ought to be earned by first doing everything that is in your power to deal with the repercussions before seeking more permanent solutions.

• Mirror: Rapidly ejects the normal warp of its users into the environment causing warp events in the process. Synergizes well with a both tears to get rid of large amounts of warp fast.

Should be gated very lategame.

[DrParadox7]

I've made a working prototype with the above defined changes found here: https://github.com/DrParadox7/WarpTheory

It still needs the messages and research notes re-written to mirror the changes implemented but it functions as described above from testing. I would like to preface that I am yet to be fully proficient in Java and having some more experienced eyes on it would be helpful to improve upon it.

[McFrugal]

The Pure Tear outright failing if your Normal Warp is too high seems like a nasty failure state. If you had too much Normal warp at that point, before the mirror, what would you use to remove it?

[yukieiji]

I think this Impure Tear change is OP considering that temporary and normal warp can be easily removed with Wand Focus:Flux Scrubber

[DrParadox7]

The Pure Tear outright failing if your Normal Warp is too high seems like a nasty failure state. If you had too much Normal warp at that point, before the mirror, what would you use to remove it?

Wash off as much sticky warp as possible, clear all temporary warp and dump what you can in a Soul Brazier or similar before attempting.

[DrParadox7]

I think this Impure Tear change is OP considering that temporary and normal warp can be easily removed with Wand Focus:Flux Scrubber

Its effectiveness is directly dependant on the players level of permanent warp. Currently, the impure tear removes a flat 5 permanent warp.

This implementation converts 1 permanent warp into 1 regular warp for every 25 permanent warp over 50.

This change would nerf impure tear at lower levels but buff it at higher levels (Between 0 to 26 Permanent Warp dependant on your permanent warp levels).

Because of this feature you’ll never be able to remove all warp with it as it only really works if you are impure with warp.

[DrParadox7]

Ok, I've changed things a bit based on feedback received:

• Amulet: Constantly removes Sticky Warp creating warp events in the process. If under Warp Ward, the benefit continues without the warp events.

• Impure Tear: Converts Permanent Warp into Normal Warp exponentially to total permanent warp ((Permanent Warp/100)^3) producing an equivalent amount of Temporary Warp.

At Max Permanent Warp(667) this is 296 Permanent Warp converted.

• Pure Tear: Purges all non-permanent warp AND:

IF Total Warp > 70: Clear Permanent warp exponentially to total warp ((75/Total Warp)^450) and backlashing with warp events equivalent to its benefit (Total Warp^2/500, Capped at 250 Warp). This backlash is reduced by half if under Warp Ward.*

IF Total Warp < 70: Purge all warp with no downsides.

Additionally recipe takes 3 primordial pearls, returned unpowered on infusion crafting (This persists even when recipe is Minetweaked).

Impure Tear vs Pure Tear:

These changes make sub-200 warp attainable (dare I say a necessity with withers) without having to purge all warp.

Purging is still possible but requires more effort and progression from the player, aimed at rewarding those who managed warp well instead of benefitting all indiscriminately.

[McFrugal]

Looks pretty cool to me. Cleaning your warp becomes a process using many different items if you've got high warp (amulet, soap, bath salts, impure tears) and eventually a painful one when you swap to Pure Tears.

[Cata-bre]

While I'm happy with the new warp theory numbers, it really was just kicking the can down the road. You can research a bit more, but it doesn't address the core problem that pure tears are the best (and least interesting) way to remove warp. Your warp management suggestion looks great.

[DrParadox7]

My main concern was the Pure Tear stepping over every other mechanic. These changes allow for it all to synergize well with all other contents.

For example:

• With the Impure Tear converting Permanent warp to Normal Warp creates:

1. -Lots of Temporary Warp (addressed by Soap or Relaxing Tobacco)
2. -Lots of Normal Warp to be washed off. (suddenly the Wand Focus: Flux Scrubber looks useful now)

The second part looks like a pain, until you unlock the amulet allowing you to clear off warp on the go while creating events.

What if you don't want warp events? Warp Ward buff until you're clean. The benefits still remain while under it unlike previously.

• With the Pure Tear scaling exponentially the lower on warp you are makes the Warped Tumor an actual feature rather than an exploit since going from 150 Permanent Warp to 100 Permanent Warp is the difference between clearing out 3 Permanent Warp and 13 Permanent Warp.

As it stands, this self-infusion has little impact if used legit (50 permanent warp is nothing when permanent warp is so prevalent in GTNH).

You can pick it up and try the changes here: https://github.com/DrParadox7/WarpTheory/releases

[github-actions[bot]]

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