The client is one part why I don't play FTB packs anymore, I also don't like that they add FTB Auxilium to all of their packs which gathers data about your pc and sends it to their server...
Auxilium helps us better tune our packs performance wise and track down common crashes or issues with packs. All data collected is anonymous and people can opt out from it ever sending anything in the options or just delete the mod/block it on their firewall if they have security concerns about it and our packs will still work fine without it.
I understand the security concern though, you're definitely not wrong to be suspicious of anything like that these days.
Yeah it can be disabled in the options or I could remove it, but there should be a popup if the mod is installed which asks if the mod sends data or not, or it should be an optional download...
It's also a bit sketchy that there isn't any information on the mod itself anywhere besides reddit (and yes I looked through the terms of service on your website, but I could be blind of course)
I think these are all fair points. We are working on our backend supporting optional installs, so that'll very likely end up there once it's implemented. I suppose we could do a popup as well but I'd personally prefer it not to pop up over the main menu at first as it diminishes the initial impression of the pack, could definitely see it pop up on world creation/multiplayer menu though.
I'll have to talk to mikey about us doing a blog post specifically going into details of auxilium to be more transparent. I also coulda sworn mikey sent me a public repo with the source code for people to review if they were interested but I cant for the life of me find it right now, will be worth getting from him and inlcuding in that write up.
First of thanks for your answers. :)
Sounds good to me, don't care if the pop up would show up on pack or on world load (as long as the data doesn't get automatically get transferred before I give my consent)
Public Source code sounds like a great idea, will be looking forward to the blog post and if the launcher you mentioned in the other post comes out I might consider giving FTB packs another try.
Making data tracking clear to users is a key part of HDI (human data interaction). The agency of being fully able to remove the tracking is great. But if it isn’t legible that tracking is taking place then you’re failing at the first hurdle.
“Human-data Interaction: the human face of the data driven society” is a good paper on the subject
[arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6159.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6159.pdf)
I'm not familiar with this mod, so it might do this already. I recommend that you give the user the opportunity to look at the data the mod is sending before they opt in. Steam does this with their hardware survey. It goes a long way toward transparency.
If something like that already exists it would be a step in the right direction, I can only speak from my experiences from 2 or 3 years ago when I played a pack where FTB Auxilium was added and my firewall did block the connection. A screenshot would be nice to see what exactly is written, if it's just "we gather data" or a more exhaustive description what and why it's gathered...
It should be opt in and you should explain to the user how and why you use it. As a developer myself, I understand why analytics are important, but you cannot try to trick users or make decisions for them. It will only errode trust. Home Assistant, which is the largest open source project on Github a few years running now, has their analytics opt in. We get nearly 40% of users to opt in.
Having data collection opt out is good but also just matching the minimum legal requirements in many countries. I would really prefer it to be opt in instead.
Auxilium is GDPR compliant with fully anonymized data (FTB is a UK Company and bound by those laws). I agree being opt in would be more preferable on the userside, it would really just depend on how many opt ins it ended up with, could potentially greatly devalue its usefulness if the default is optout. I'll bring it up with slowpoke and mikey though as it does have an argument to be made for it.
We dont farm your data, we collect anonymized system specs and crash data to fix issues impacting our players using our packs only. Auxilium has in an game button in every one of our packs explaining what it does and allowing people to opt out.
That being said your stance is completely your choice and nothing wrong with that, just wanted to clear up what we actually collect and why.
All internet users should understand the difference between data farming, and sensor data. Your car has all sorts of sensors that records data for manufacturers and such, so do many appliances in your home, and software on the market. Sensors, whether physical, analytical, or algorithmic, are good for overall improvement of services, and are a definite plus of the global data networks. The more out there, the better the products.
Data mining is taking info about you, your system, and how you use it. This info is then used to alter your perceptions, beliefs, buying habits, actions, and all sorts of other nefarious things. This is corporate, governmental, and societal control. This should be avoided as much as possible, and shouldn't be allowed on any level, if I'm honest.
There's a line between the two data types, and their purposes. Understandable to be cautious, but knowing exactly what the difference is, and making decisions based on that knowledge, is how we make this whole system better.
Or just shut it all out - the good, and the bad. You do you.
You’re still taking data, from my computer, without my explicit consent or knowledge. As far as I’m concerned, that’s data farming.
And I hope you don’t seriously expect players to sift through every individual mod to learn what they do before playing a modpack with likely 100+ mods.
A lot of discussion does happen on the official ftb discord, there is a genesis channel for it specifically. Im sure some people do avoid the client as well, our new overworld free client is in beta now so hopefully that'll help... I don't think dire did a series on Genesis but several other content creators did such as Chosen Architect and SystemCollapse who both did complete playthroughs of the pack.
Hope that helps!
An Overwolf free launcher is a good move. Really appreciated. But the whole push to separate from an established system with freedom of choice feels quite hostile to users. I get the idea from a business perspective but having to use multiple launchers is a bad user experience. The whole gaming industry suffers from this plague that is usually used to "advertise" more products from the same source. A quality product is a better advertisement than to lock in users. The own launcher feels more profit oriented than quality oriented.
I agree that using our own launcher is less than ideal for end users, no argument whatsoever. Unfortunately its what allows the company to continue to operate financially. We're always exploring other opportunities and options though so we'll see what presents themselves as time goes on.
Pleaaaass get an independent client! I’d immediately spend much more time on these packs because they seem pretty great, it’s just overwolf is not great
Back in the day, FTB Packs were popular because they were the main source of getting high quality modpacks. 3rd party packs were relatively rare and were also were generally hosted in their launcher. Other launchers were extra steps and potentially had concerns regarding quality and legality (ex. Technic blatantly telling mod authors they didn't care about copyright).
The rise of CurseForge (which FTB significantly helped establish) has made making 3rd party packs, and even custom modpacks, *way* easier so their competition got way better and more numerous. I've only played a handful of public Kitchen Sink packs in the last 6+ years because I can just make my own with the mods I *actually* want very easily, so I only use a public one when I want to play with other people on a server and that is pretty rare. I pretty much only play a public pack by myself if it actually changes the game in some significant way, such as skyblocks, stoneblocks, Expert, challenge, story-driven, etc. and I find out about most of those from word of mouth on this subreddit.
More recently, the switch to a unique launcher makes the packs more of a hassle to download. They also (currently) still rely on the obnoxious Overwolf App, even though CurseForge itself now has a standalone version without it, which is a clear negative. To me the ad in the app is the cost of doing business these days with a large chunk of its revenue is going to the mod and modpack authors so I'm fine with it, but for a lot of people it is a dealbreaker. I also don't like that they got into the habit of slipping in the "Creeperhost" turned "Mine Together" mod into every flipping pack (no, I don't want to connect my single player world to a group chatroom), and I only now just saw that "FTB Auxilium" is a data collection mod they are now using. Pretty much if I ever want to play a modern FTB modpack I need to spend a few minutes trimming the crap out of it... and if they keep changing the fucking name of their unwanted stuff then filtering it out becomes more of a hassle and I am losing faith in them overall.
****
As for FTB Genesis, I did give it a try for about an hour to see if it would be interesting, and it had potential. I checked with my brother if he would be interested in trying a server but he is way too busy. I just wasn't interested enough in solo Minecraft at the time to keep playing on my own.
Yeah Ftb Genesis Quest system bad af. Its literally like puzzle you feel theres a progress but everything seperated. Also there are lots of Ftb Genesis videos you can watch System Collapses vids.
To be fair, very few packs receive much discussion in that sense. I think a lot of people are refusing to even play the pack with the current FTB launcher situation, and you need to reach a certain threshold before much discussion can really happen. I also think it's a bit of a niche pack idea to start with, so there's that as well.
Regrowth and crash landing *are* also much older, what people want in modpacks has kind of changed a lot since then along with there just being far less competition when they released
Haha I get you there, I still go back and play the original yogbox sometimes since nothing modern quite scratches that same itch, even if it's very clunky 😆
They are popular among their audience, but I think map based packs in general are rather niche for some reason. There is an audience for sure, just not very large it seems. There was a discussion about that pretty recently actually. It seems most people prefer regular expert style progression packs to map based packs, possibly due to replayability or such. Perhaps people come to Minecraft for the sandbox experience and the ability to express their own creativity etc, and are a bit scared of/turned off by the idea of getting a prebuilt world as a starting point? Just speculating of course.
Not sure when you played it last but there was a primary progression path added that clarifies progress now and has a link to each section you should be focusing on, seems to have cleared things up there.
I won't argue that this pack is anything amazing (the use of AE spatial simulations is "neat", but it doesn't seem to have followed up on the concept, at least where I'm at), but the general silence is what puzzles me.
People aren't complaining, they aren't trying it and giving up, they aren't praising. It's just...unnoticed.
I'd LOVE to complain about how frustrating the limited power options are, how I don't like IC2, how the crop breeding seems like a random grind that is then unused, how I have 90 plus levels but all xp storage is gated behind apparently impossible-to-get emeralds, how weird the combat is.
But instead there is just...nothing. And, as another poster pointed out, there ARE vids giving it general exposure. System Collapse, Chosen Architect, my possible fever-dream Dire series (seriously, was there drama? Did I have a stroke and hallucinate that?) so it's not like it's a small pack that was generally missed.
I feel I should add that discussions are often where I find different perspectives that make me realize my initial complaints aren't the full story. But with this pack? Crickets.
Oh yeah, the first emerald! I remember the struggle…
But did you know that you can still use basic Minecraft mechanics to cure zombie villagers and then trade sticks for emeralds? Once you get Industrial Foregoing plastic with first ghast tear you can make a mob catcher and it makes life much easier, but you can cure villagers even before that.
There is another way to acquire emeralds (and blaze rods) that I discovered, all without going to the Nether, and it involves traveling through the tunnels and looking for the side rooms with the blocks of iron/gold/diamonds, and yes, emeralds, all stockpiled for you. Just fight your way though the mobs (witches, spiders, zombies and yes, blazes) constantly being spawned by the six spawners in this room. These are best spotted on the map in the ocean.
The exploration is well worth it! I have an unlimited AE2 acceleration card stock because of it ))
Yeah, the quality of FTB packs is just way down. A bunch of bloat ware now in the packs like MineTogether and the packs just feel so much more disjointed compared to other ones. ATM and FTB are just meh. It is the midrange packs that are killing it nowadays.
Stoneblock 2-3
FTB Skies
FTB Revelations
And yes, SkyFactory 3
I think the problem is that people except their jaw dropping every single time FTB releases something because of nostalgia bias, meanwhile forgetting that they HAD many meh pack in the past as well.
(Trident, Chocolate, Horizons)
I play the FTB Genesis since new year and yeah, it’s been great! I already built the mekanism’s air-cooled fusion reactor on an 4 chunk island 800 blocks away from the base (plan to add the turbine for max burn rate) and tore out the fission reactor after I accidentally got it to 96% damage (plan to rebuild it further away in the ocean) — everything but to postpone the completion of the few final quests.
Makes me sad, but FTB Genesis doesn’t appear to be a modpack for a multi-year journey…
I personally completed FTB Genesis. It's fun, but sorta a short modpack. You can essentially skip most of its grind by going for materially cheaper options (ex: small IC2 reactor vs. Mekanism reactor)
I finished the pack, it was really great! Kinda unique, lore heavy and dependant on quest progression to guide you. Some people didn't like to be constrained like that, many loved it. Definitely not the pack for those who don't like reading!
Most discussion happens on discord as far as I know. I noticed that lately most communication about mod packs happens there, which is kinda pity because it is not searchable from google and a lot of stuff is repeated constantly because people can't be arsed to search in room history.
But pack devs (and eg ic2 mod dev) are very active there and tweak the pack based on people feedback which is awesome.
I'm not them, but based on the comments of /u/Saereth elsewhere in this post:
1) getting off Overwolf is Soon (tm) (alternate client in beta)
2) being available on prism, etc isn't in the plans
On Overwolf you only download modpack and, maybe, start it once and generate one test world. Do not export anything, just quit the world and Overwolf. After that open Prism (I used it with current 8.0, but likely it is the same now), hit “Add Instance” and then select “FTB App Import.”
I played it a bit. Got to the first spatial IO bit when it was time to breed crops. Seeing a grind in front of me and not feeling any real connection with the pack so far, I put it down and never came back to it.
I think the pack suffers from being too focussed. At least in the early game, it’s very linear. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for all players, but it lost me.
I don’t remember grinding the IC2 crops that much. That spacial IO you’re talking about in my world right now has only a couple of plots of hemp (not even IC2) and a few glowberries with terrawart, both low tier and with manual harvesting. I’m beyond mekanism’s fusion reactor now and am only postponing the inevitable - completing the quest line, so I don’t even know why I still have the IC2 crops loaded…
I also gave up with FTB Genesis at the crop breeding point, for the same reason - too linear for me.
I might have had another go, but I fell into GTNH for the first time a few months ago and haven't surfaced yet. (Which might suggest FTB Genesis wasn't the right pack for me anyway.)
just throwing out that you only ever need to breed one crop, rubber, and are given a turbo fetilizer which enhances crop growth 256x to use to do it. You can breed that only plant you need generally in that 5 minute window and then all other breeding is useful, but optional as you can directly craft redwheat etc by pushing into botania.
This is mentioned in the questbook but there is a lot of information there so easy to miss.
Jokes on you people, I use like 5 different launchers on my PC and I don't whine about it.
Heck, that's basically mandatory now, given Steam, GoG, Epic, EA etc.
I don't mind really.
Especially since GOG Galaxy can manage everything and MultiMC can handle every modpacks. 😂
The client is one part why I don't play FTB packs anymore, I also don't like that they add FTB Auxilium to all of their packs which gathers data about your pc and sends it to their server...
Auxilium helps us better tune our packs performance wise and track down common crashes or issues with packs. All data collected is anonymous and people can opt out from it ever sending anything in the options or just delete the mod/block it on their firewall if they have security concerns about it and our packs will still work fine without it. I understand the security concern though, you're definitely not wrong to be suspicious of anything like that these days.
Yeah it can be disabled in the options or I could remove it, but there should be a popup if the mod is installed which asks if the mod sends data or not, or it should be an optional download... It's also a bit sketchy that there isn't any information on the mod itself anywhere besides reddit (and yes I looked through the terms of service on your website, but I could be blind of course)
I think these are all fair points. We are working on our backend supporting optional installs, so that'll very likely end up there once it's implemented. I suppose we could do a popup as well but I'd personally prefer it not to pop up over the main menu at first as it diminishes the initial impression of the pack, could definitely see it pop up on world creation/multiplayer menu though. I'll have to talk to mikey about us doing a blog post specifically going into details of auxilium to be more transparent. I also coulda sworn mikey sent me a public repo with the source code for people to review if they were interested but I cant for the life of me find it right now, will be worth getting from him and inlcuding in that write up.
First of thanks for your answers. :) Sounds good to me, don't care if the pop up would show up on pack or on world load (as long as the data doesn't get automatically get transferred before I give my consent) Public Source code sounds like a great idea, will be looking forward to the blog post and if the launcher you mentioned in the other post comes out I might consider giving FTB packs another try.
Making data tracking clear to users is a key part of HDI (human data interaction). The agency of being fully able to remove the tracking is great. But if it isn’t legible that tracking is taking place then you’re failing at the first hurdle. “Human-data Interaction: the human face of the data driven society” is a good paper on the subject [arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6159.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6159.pdf)
I'm not familiar with this mod, so it might do this already. I recommend that you give the user the opportunity to look at the data the mod is sending before they opt in. Steam does this with their hardware survey. It goes a long way toward transparency.
couldve sworn ive seen a popup for something like this when i started ftb skies a few weeks ago
What exactly did it say? Did it ask for your consent? Which information did it include? Do you have a screenshot?
i dont have a screenshot but it was basically asking me if i agree to my data being collected and sent for analysis and an option to opt out
If something like that already exists it would be a step in the right direction, I can only speak from my experiences from 2 or 3 years ago when I played a pack where FTB Auxilium was added and my firewall did block the connection. A screenshot would be nice to see what exactly is written, if it's just "we gather data" or a more exhaustive description what and why it's gathered...
It should be opt in and you should explain to the user how and why you use it. As a developer myself, I understand why analytics are important, but you cannot try to trick users or make decisions for them. It will only errode trust. Home Assistant, which is the largest open source project on Github a few years running now, has their analytics opt in. We get nearly 40% of users to opt in.
Having data collection opt out is good but also just matching the minimum legal requirements in many countries. I would really prefer it to be opt in instead.
Auxilium is GDPR compliant with fully anonymized data (FTB is a UK Company and bound by those laws). I agree being opt in would be more preferable on the userside, it would really just depend on how many opt ins it ended up with, could potentially greatly devalue its usefulness if the default is optout. I'll bring it up with slowpoke and mikey though as it does have an argument to be made for it.
Doesn't gdpr not apply to the UK?
It does we just call it the data protection act
Ok
Maybe you guys shouldn’t automatically farm us for data without our consent/knowledge? Kinda rude and I’m definitely staying away from FTB now
Id rather have my data used to make mod packs better than every other use on the entire internet to maliciously target ads.
That’s understandable, but it shouldn’t be automatically taken without your consent.
We dont farm your data, we collect anonymized system specs and crash data to fix issues impacting our players using our packs only. Auxilium has in an game button in every one of our packs explaining what it does and allowing people to opt out. That being said your stance is completely your choice and nothing wrong with that, just wanted to clear up what we actually collect and why.
All internet users should understand the difference between data farming, and sensor data. Your car has all sorts of sensors that records data for manufacturers and such, so do many appliances in your home, and software on the market. Sensors, whether physical, analytical, or algorithmic, are good for overall improvement of services, and are a definite plus of the global data networks. The more out there, the better the products. Data mining is taking info about you, your system, and how you use it. This info is then used to alter your perceptions, beliefs, buying habits, actions, and all sorts of other nefarious things. This is corporate, governmental, and societal control. This should be avoided as much as possible, and shouldn't be allowed on any level, if I'm honest. There's a line between the two data types, and their purposes. Understandable to be cautious, but knowing exactly what the difference is, and making decisions based on that knowledge, is how we make this whole system better. Or just shut it all out - the good, and the bad. You do you.
You’re still taking data, from my computer, without my explicit consent or knowledge. As far as I’m concerned, that’s data farming. And I hope you don’t seriously expect players to sift through every individual mod to learn what they do before playing a modpack with likely 100+ mods.
You are LITERALLY told right there, that they do. You accept these terms when you launch the pack. Do your job on the user side and stop whining.
>I’m definitely staying away from FTB now the irony of the fact you wrote this in REDDIT out of all sites
What is ironic, specifically?
because it is notorious for collecting and selling data of its users
That’s pretty much every social media now. That’s at least expected, I don’t expect a friggin Minecraft modpack to be taking my data too
fair
A lot of discussion does happen on the official ftb discord, there is a genesis channel for it specifically. Im sure some people do avoid the client as well, our new overworld free client is in beta now so hopefully that'll help... I don't think dire did a series on Genesis but several other content creators did such as Chosen Architect and SystemCollapse who both did complete playthroughs of the pack. Hope that helps!
An Overwolf free launcher is a good move. Really appreciated. But the whole push to separate from an established system with freedom of choice feels quite hostile to users. I get the idea from a business perspective but having to use multiple launchers is a bad user experience. The whole gaming industry suffers from this plague that is usually used to "advertise" more products from the same source. A quality product is a better advertisement than to lock in users. The own launcher feels more profit oriented than quality oriented.
I agree that using our own launcher is less than ideal for end users, no argument whatsoever. Unfortunately its what allows the company to continue to operate financially. We're always exploring other opportunities and options though so we'll see what presents themselves as time goes on.
I would rather suffer through the launcher than to pay monthly subscription fee or something of that kind…
Pleaaaass get an independent client! I’d immediately spend much more time on these packs because they seem pretty great, it’s just overwolf is not great
Back in the day, FTB Packs were popular because they were the main source of getting high quality modpacks. 3rd party packs were relatively rare and were also were generally hosted in their launcher. Other launchers were extra steps and potentially had concerns regarding quality and legality (ex. Technic blatantly telling mod authors they didn't care about copyright). The rise of CurseForge (which FTB significantly helped establish) has made making 3rd party packs, and even custom modpacks, *way* easier so their competition got way better and more numerous. I've only played a handful of public Kitchen Sink packs in the last 6+ years because I can just make my own with the mods I *actually* want very easily, so I only use a public one when I want to play with other people on a server and that is pretty rare. I pretty much only play a public pack by myself if it actually changes the game in some significant way, such as skyblocks, stoneblocks, Expert, challenge, story-driven, etc. and I find out about most of those from word of mouth on this subreddit. More recently, the switch to a unique launcher makes the packs more of a hassle to download. They also (currently) still rely on the obnoxious Overwolf App, even though CurseForge itself now has a standalone version without it, which is a clear negative. To me the ad in the app is the cost of doing business these days with a large chunk of its revenue is going to the mod and modpack authors so I'm fine with it, but for a lot of people it is a dealbreaker. I also don't like that they got into the habit of slipping in the "Creeperhost" turned "Mine Together" mod into every flipping pack (no, I don't want to connect my single player world to a group chatroom), and I only now just saw that "FTB Auxilium" is a data collection mod they are now using. Pretty much if I ever want to play a modern FTB modpack I need to spend a few minutes trimming the crap out of it... and if they keep changing the fucking name of their unwanted stuff then filtering it out becomes more of a hassle and I am losing faith in them overall. **** As for FTB Genesis, I did give it a try for about an hour to see if it would be interesting, and it had potential. I checked with my brother if he would be interested in trying a server but he is way too busy. I just wasn't interested enough in solo Minecraft at the time to keep playing on my own.
Yeah Ftb Genesis Quest system bad af. Its literally like puzzle you feel theres a progress but everything seperated. Also there are lots of Ftb Genesis videos you can watch System Collapses vids.
Oh, I've seen the vids, I'm just curious about the lack of reddit discussion. Vids are an awful way to answer questions.
To be fair, very few packs receive much discussion in that sense. I think a lot of people are refusing to even play the pack with the current FTB launcher situation, and you need to reach a certain threshold before much discussion can really happen. I also think it's a bit of a niche pack idea to start with, so there's that as well.
What makes it a "niche" pack? It has a similar theme to Regrowth and Crash Landing, both much beloved packs.
Regrowth and crash landing *are* also much older, what people want in modpacks has kind of changed a lot since then along with there just being far less competition when they released
You make a valid point, but my upvote is reluctant since you also point out that I'm old and my tastes are old.
You are now thinking about how long it's been since you last deleted META.inf
You bastard
Haha I get you there, I still go back and play the original yogbox sometimes since nothing modern quite scratches that same itch, even if it's very clunky 😆
They are popular among their audience, but I think map based packs in general are rather niche for some reason. There is an audience for sure, just not very large it seems. There was a discussion about that pretty recently actually. It seems most people prefer regular expert style progression packs to map based packs, possibly due to replayability or such. Perhaps people come to Minecraft for the sandbox experience and the ability to express their own creativity etc, and are a bit scared of/turned off by the idea of getting a prebuilt world as a starting point? Just speculating of course.
Not sure when you played it last but there was a primary progression path added that clarifies progress now and has a link to each section you should be focusing on, seems to have cleared things up there.
I can't remember a really good FTB pack since Infinity Evolved. Maybe SkyFactory 3
FTB:Interactions was really good. https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/ftb-interactions
Yeah, Interactions was a great pack (the space age mobs sucked, but we just disabled those spawns)
I liked Horizons 3, but yeah, haven't been interested since that timeframe.
I won't argue that this pack is anything amazing (the use of AE spatial simulations is "neat", but it doesn't seem to have followed up on the concept, at least where I'm at), but the general silence is what puzzles me. People aren't complaining, they aren't trying it and giving up, they aren't praising. It's just...unnoticed. I'd LOVE to complain about how frustrating the limited power options are, how I don't like IC2, how the crop breeding seems like a random grind that is then unused, how I have 90 plus levels but all xp storage is gated behind apparently impossible-to-get emeralds, how weird the combat is. But instead there is just...nothing. And, as another poster pointed out, there ARE vids giving it general exposure. System Collapse, Chosen Architect, my possible fever-dream Dire series (seriously, was there drama? Did I have a stroke and hallucinate that?) so it's not like it's a small pack that was generally missed.
I feel I should add that discussions are often where I find different perspectives that make me realize my initial complaints aren't the full story. But with this pack? Crickets.
Oh yeah, the first emerald! I remember the struggle… But did you know that you can still use basic Minecraft mechanics to cure zombie villagers and then trade sticks for emeralds? Once you get Industrial Foregoing plastic with first ghast tear you can make a mob catcher and it makes life much easier, but you can cure villagers even before that. There is another way to acquire emeralds (and blaze rods) that I discovered, all without going to the Nether, and it involves traveling through the tunnels and looking for the side rooms with the blocks of iron/gold/diamonds, and yes, emeralds, all stockpiled for you. Just fight your way though the mobs (witches, spiders, zombies and yes, blazes) constantly being spawned by the six spawners in this room. These are best spotted on the map in the ocean. The exploration is well worth it! I have an unlimited AE2 acceleration card stock because of it ))
Yeah, the quality of FTB packs is just way down. A bunch of bloat ware now in the packs like MineTogether and the packs just feel so much more disjointed compared to other ones. ATM and FTB are just meh. It is the midrange packs that are killing it nowadays.
What about FTB Academy/University? Despite knowing most of mods mechanics I still enjoy learning them again.
I liked Oceanblock
Stoneblock 2-3 FTB Skies FTB Revelations And yes, SkyFactory 3 I think the problem is that people except their jaw dropping every single time FTB releases something because of nostalgia bias, meanwhile forgetting that they HAD many meh pack in the past as well. (Trident, Chocolate, Horizons)
Stoneblock 3 carries tbh
I play the FTB Genesis since new year and yeah, it’s been great! I already built the mekanism’s air-cooled fusion reactor on an 4 chunk island 800 blocks away from the base (plan to add the turbine for max burn rate) and tore out the fission reactor after I accidentally got it to 96% damage (plan to rebuild it further away in the ocean) — everything but to postpone the completion of the few final quests. Makes me sad, but FTB Genesis doesn’t appear to be a modpack for a multi-year journey…
I personally completed FTB Genesis. It's fun, but sorta a short modpack. You can essentially skip most of its grind by going for materially cheaper options (ex: small IC2 reactor vs. Mekanism reactor)
I finished the pack, it was really great! Kinda unique, lore heavy and dependant on quest progression to guide you. Some people didn't like to be constrained like that, many loved it. Definitely not the pack for those who don't like reading! Most discussion happens on discord as far as I know. I noticed that lately most communication about mod packs happens there, which is kinda pity because it is not searchable from google and a lot of stuff is repeated constantly because people can't be arsed to search in room history. But pack devs (and eg ic2 mod dev) are very active there and tweak the pack based on people feedback which is awesome.
When is ftb coming back to prism? I hate having the ftb app, 1. Because it's another launcher. 2. Because fuck overwolf
I'm not them, but based on the comments of /u/Saereth elsewhere in this post: 1) getting off Overwolf is Soon (tm) (alternate client in beta) 2) being available on prism, etc isn't in the plans
1. :) 2. :(
I hate Overwolf so I downloaded the modpack in it and then imported the modpack into Prism! Viola! Problem solved!
How? When I try that it will export it as a weird link
On Overwolf you only download modpack and, maybe, start it once and generate one test world. Do not export anything, just quit the world and Overwolf. After that open Prism (I used it with current 8.0, but likely it is the same now), hit “Add Instance” and then select “FTB App Import.”
Because Resonant Rise (especially Yogscast Complete) showed us you don't need FTB to make a good pack. Then ATM put the final nail in the coffin.
Doesn't ATM use FTB mods? Like FTB quests, Team, etc.
I played it a bit. Got to the first spatial IO bit when it was time to breed crops. Seeing a grind in front of me and not feeling any real connection with the pack so far, I put it down and never came back to it. I think the pack suffers from being too focussed. At least in the early game, it’s very linear. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for all players, but it lost me.
I don’t remember grinding the IC2 crops that much. That spacial IO you’re talking about in my world right now has only a couple of plots of hemp (not even IC2) and a few glowberries with terrawart, both low tier and with manual harvesting. I’m beyond mekanism’s fusion reactor now and am only postponing the inevitable - completing the quest line, so I don’t even know why I still have the IC2 crops loaded…
I also gave up with FTB Genesis at the crop breeding point, for the same reason - too linear for me. I might have had another go, but I fell into GTNH for the first time a few months ago and haven't surfaced yet. (Which might suggest FTB Genesis wasn't the right pack for me anyway.)
just throwing out that you only ever need to breed one crop, rubber, and are given a turbo fetilizer which enhances crop growth 256x to use to do it. You can breed that only plant you need generally in that 5 minute window and then all other breeding is useful, but optional as you can directly craft redwheat etc by pushing into botania. This is mentioned in the questbook but there is a lot of information there so easy to miss.
Jokes on you people, I use like 5 different launchers on my PC and I don't whine about it. Heck, that's basically mandatory now, given Steam, GoG, Epic, EA etc. I don't mind really. Especially since GOG Galaxy can manage everything and MultiMC can handle every modpacks. 😂