[1.5.2] [4.891124] Biomes O' Plenty 0.1.3 - BTW Edition

[CreeperCannibal]

I can understand that man. I guess the reason why I didn't worry about balance at first, or disregarded any red flags was due to the assumption that "if it doesn't introduce new blocks it doesn't break anything" and of course forgetting about how jungles and swamps screwed the game's balance. If memory serves me well there are also a few blocks added in. The quicksand in the jungles has me worried the most right now in concerns that it can kill mobs via suffocation and drop the loot below making it a cheap replacement for sawblades. That is of course if it's this biome mod that has it. Another feature os the sanctuary biome, but like I said, dunno which biome mod has it. At the best, maybe there will be a new version made with tweaks for BTW. Here's to hoping that such a thing happens.

Edit: No hope needed as 'Balance Tweaks On Demand' are confimed via the post below ;) . Thanks adubbz :).

[Adubbz]

I think there might be a bug that causes volcano biomes to be the only one that is generated. I must have flown 1-2 km and it was nothing but volcano. Still happened when I used a seed.

Oh damn, yeah... I think i forgot to remove some debug code that causes that >_>

[Adubbz]

First of, thanks for giving us the opportunity to use Biomes O'Plenty with BtW. A change in scenery sounds tempting enough that I may in fact start a new world now. That having been said, I do have one question...

If in the future there are custom blocks from the Forge version added however, then that may change.

What would the effect be on the world if more biomes were added at a later stage? I'm asking this as my current world dates from when BtW went multiplayer (bit earlier even, as it started as a vanilla world). As such, I am a bit worried about things that might affect the world in the long term.

If such a thing did happen, it'd likely be configurable anyways. However, the worst that could happen is there being a weird looking "cutoff" between the new biomes and old ones, however they shouldn't touch your existing world.

[Adubbz]

Enviornmental veriety and diversity in BTW in the form of an addon? Surley the great hooch in the sky has started to rain mana again.

We'll see. I'm very much in support of a biome add-on designed for BTW, but given it seems to be a straight port, I am rather nervous that there will likely be significant balance issues involved. I'm not sure if the author is really interested in supporting this to the extent required to make sure that doesn't happen, or even sure if he plays btw.

When I'm trying to resolve nagging issues like the balance of swamps and jungles...well, like I said, something like this makes me rather nervous if it's not designed specifically with the mod in mind.

If you happen to notice any severe balance issues with certain things, feel free to let me know and i'd certainly be happy to work with both yourself and the community on it. Constant balance is certainly something you sign up for the moment you release an BTW add-on, and i by no means believe this one should be an exception. That said, hopefully there arn't a huge amount of balance issues as it stands, the only things i can think of off of the top of my head are possibly the spawning of mushrooms.

With regards to the potential for new blocks being added, if such a thing happened it would only be the decor blocks (so quicksand wouldn't be added), and they'd have to be ones capable of using metadata.

[Adubbz]

Updated the OP with a new release fixing only Volcano biomes generating on the client version. Sorry about that.

[FlowerChild]

If you happen to notice any severe balance issues with certain things, feel free to let me know and i'd certainly be happy to work with both yourself and the community on it. Constant balance is certainly something you sign up for the moment you release an BTW add-on, and i by no means believe this one should be an exception. That said, hopefully there arn't a huge amount of balance issues as it stands, the only things i can think of off of the top of my head are possibly the spawning of mushrooms.

With regards to the potential for new blocks being added, if such a thing happened it would only be the decor blocks (so quicksand wouldn't be added), and they'd have to be ones capable of using metadata.

If you're willing to work on potential balance issues, then yeah man, that's totally cool, and I very much appreciate the effort.

Off the top of my head, mushrooms and spawn locations are the ones I'd be worried about if your add-on doesn't add in any additional food sources (and cocoa beans once I finish balancing jungles and make them edible in the early game). I'm also assuming that the spawning of abandoned villages and looted temples remains unchanged by your mod, as obviously that would be a big one. Wolf availability is a bit of a question mark for me since they are central to tech progression in the mod, but given they are now also a danger to the player, that's somewhat self balancing. There's also the question of wind power if you have any biomes that aren't subject to weather but which don't have similar disadvantages to deserts (like lack of wood, food, and the slowing effect of sand). Animal spawning could also be a potential issue depending on how easy it makes it to attain various resources and food. There's more subtle issues too mind you, like if the greater diversity of biomes results in it making it very easy to find your way around the world given the abundance of natural landmarks, but I doubt there's much you could do there (it occurs to me that one option though would be for me to put in a hook that increases spawn distance with the add-on installed to compensate for that).

It is unlikely I'll be playing the add-on myself as I always play with only BTW installed as it's important to my ongoing balance work to not cloud my play experience with other mods, so my input will likely be limited to observations based on what I hear from other players. That's not a statement on the quality of your mod, but rather is a general policy for me as a developer.

Glad to hear you're willing to support the mod on that level though. I was getting a bit concerned when you basically described it as a quick port as to whether any additional work would go into it.

[Adubbz]

I made you a quick little trailer for the addon, showing off at least a couple of the biomes included - Feel free to use it any way you wish!

Thanks for that man, will add it to the OP :)

[Adubbz]

Off the top of my head, mushrooms and spawn locations are the ones I'd be worried about if your add-on doesn't add in any additional food sources (and cocoa beans once I finish balancing jungles and make them edible in the early game).

Currently spawn locations can be pretty much anywhere apart from Volcanos, so I definitely will be switching them up a bit and removing deserts and snow biomes as potential spawn locations.

With regards to mushrooms, despite adding them to several biomes I haven't actually seen all that many of them, so *hopefully* they should be fine but if someone could clarify this, it'd be great.

If I remember correctly, other than the vanilla jungle, I don't believe any other biomes from this addon use cocoa beans so that should remain as you balanced it.

I'm also assuming that the spawning of abandoned villages and looted temples remains unchanged by your mod, as obviously that would be a big one. Wolf availability is a bit of a question mark for me since they are central to tech progression in the mod, but given they are now also a danger to the player, that's somewhat self balancing.

The only thing that is changed is the addition of extra locations in which villages can spawn. Abandoned villages are still abandoned and looted temples are still looted. The only thing that may need tweaking here is the potential locations of villages, although, for the most part that shouldn't have too much of an impact anyway.

There's also the question of wind power if you have any biomes that aren't subject to weather but which don't have similar disadvantages to deserts (like lack of wood, food, and the slowing effect of sand). Animal spawning could also be a potential issue depending on how easy it makes it to attain various resources and food.

Wind power should be as you'd expect, with it only not having rain/snowing only where appropriate. Animal spawning on the other hand should be fairly similar to as it is normally, however tweaking is always welcome if some biomes are pointed out where his is not the case.

There's more subtle issues too mind you, like if the greater diversity of biomes results in it making it very easy to find your way around the world given the abundance of natural landmarks, but I doubt there's much you could do there (it occurs to me that one option though would be for me to put in a hook that increases spawn distance with the add-on installed to compensate for that).

Yeah, would certainly be willing to work with you on that one. Such a hook would certainly help counter the problem.

It is unlikely I'll be playing the add-on myself as I always play with only BTW installed as it's important to my ongoing balance work to not cloud my play experience with other mods, so my input will likely be limited to observations based on what I hear from other players. That's not a statement on the quality of your mod, but rather is a general policy for me as a developer.

That's cool man, happy to see you've recognised it at the least :)

Glad to hear you're willing to support the mod on that level though. I was getting a bit concerned when you basically described it as a quick port as to whether any additional work would go into it.

No problem man, it probably was a poor choice of words on my part but at least it's been clarified now :)

[Gabecraft1234]

I have been flying around in creative for about half an hour and I have yet to come upon a village abandoned or otherwise can anyone confirm their existence? I may have just been unlucky.

[Husbag3]

I have been flying around in creative for about half an hour and I have yet to come upon a village abandoned or otherwise can anyone confirm their existence? I may have just been unlucky.

It has been said before in this thread that they will spawn in biomes with flatish terrain. These are evidently going to be less frequent with all the new biomes.

[Adubbz]

Updated the OP to 0.0.5 which tweaks the biomes in which the player can initially spawn in. It may not work when respawning due to Hardcore Spawn though, as i'm unsure as to whether it checks biomesToSpawnIn in WorldChunkManager before deciding whether or not to spawn a player in a certain location.

[DaveYanakov]

I noticed that the mystic grove biome remained dry during a rainstorm. Is that intended? What is the drawback for the combination of wood and free windmills?

[Rob]

I noticed that the mystic grove biome remained dry during a rainstorm. Is that intended? What is the drawback for the combination of wood and free windmills?

Having to look at a pink sky all day? :-P

[Equitis1024]

Another balance issue to keep in mind is the same problem that vanilla jungles have. Hostile mobs don't normally spawn on leaves and therefore any biome with lots of underbrush feels too safe. This definitely seemed to be true of the Sacred Springs biome, at least.

That being said, I haven't found any of your biomes to be nearly as easy as vanilla swamps, and some biomes are much more difficult than any of the vanilla ones. Being stuck on a volcano with only stone tools as night approached was quite a fun nightmare, and I couldn't help but wish there were some inventive to risking life and limb venturing into the hard biomes.

All things considered, I've spent a couple hours playing with this so far and found the experience at least as difficult as it is with vanilla biomes, and the terrain much more interesting. Thanks for making this!

[Psion]

Man, this is one treat i wasn't expecting! Sacred springs is my favorite biome in your mod! It's like extreme hills, only prettier! (highlands and jade cliffs get an honerable mention though. :P)

Thanks a bunch for this wonderful present, Adubbz!

Granted, I do see the point about sacred springs being too safe thanks to the masses of underbrush. On the other hand though, the terrain is incredibly uneven, which means lots of hunger consumption jumping around to get everywhere. As long as the BTW port doesn't have the hunger and health restoring springs, i guess it's sort of balanced, with less danger but more hunger.

>: Great, here i was enjoying bioshock and a billion other games I've been getting from steam sales, and now you threw in this lovely gem to call me back. XD

[Gabecraft1234]

Didn't FC change it so that mobs will spawn on leaves when he fixed vMC jungles?

One balance concern that I have is village spawning. Villages are a crucial stepping stone in the BTW tech tree. You don't need them immediately but in order to progress to the upper levels of the tech tree finding one is mandatory. Currently villages are just too rare. I spent and hour flying around in creative in two separate worlds to check out all the new biomes and did not find a single village. It was not a terrain issue either. I flew over vast tracts of flat biomes without a sighting.

[FlowerChild]

Didn't FC change it so that mobs will spawn on leaves when he fixed vMC jungles?

I did, but that's hard coded to be a special case for jungle biomes. I can easily turn it into a hook that can apply to other flagged biomes though if there's a need.

[Gabecraft1234]

IMO the only one that needs mob spawning on leaves is the Heathland.

[Adubbz]

I noticed that the mystic grove biome remained dry during a rainstorm. Is that intended? What is the drawback for the combination of wood and free windmills?

Just fixed this, leaving the only ones that still have rain in them the Dunes, Ominous Woods and Volcano biomes, each of which have their own reasons that you should deeply consider before building there.

[Zeeblosity]

This makes want to actually take the scenic route and explore for villages on foot rather than using quick travel with nether portals. Thank you very much.

[Adubbz]

Didn't FC change it so that mobs will spawn on leaves when he fixed vMC jungles?

I did, but that's hard coded to be a special case for jungle biomes. I can easily turn it into a hook that can apply to other flagged biomes though if there's a need.

Yeah, would be good. There are a handful of biomes that certainly would benefit from such a hook. On another note, a hook for excluding biomes that you can Hardcore Spawn in would be great too.

[Adubbz]

Updated the OP to 0.0.6, which makes rain fall in the Mystic Grove. Apologies for the constant updates to those that may not like it, just lots of tweaks need to be made during the first few releases and i like to get them out as soon as i can.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, would be good. There are a handful of biomes that certainly would benefit from such a hook. On another note, a hook for excluding biomes that you can Hardcore Spawn in would be great too.

Sure, will throw in the first, the 2nd though, I'm not certain would be such a good idea upon further consideration. Depending on region, HC Spawn may have a hard time finding a location for the player to begin with depending on geography. Also, there's a precedent in BTW of potentially spawning in desert biomes and basically being screwed on a respawn. Given I doubt your ratio of hostile biomes is any higher than that of desert to other in vanilla, I think we're good on that one.

[Adubbz]

Sure, will throw in the first, the 2nd though, I'm not certain would be such a good idea upon further consideration. Depending on region, HC Spawn may have a hard time finding a location for the player to begin with depending on geography. Also, there's a precedent in BTW of potentially spawning in desert biomes and basically being screwed on a respawn. Given I doubt your ratio of hostile biomes is any higher than that of desert to other in vanilla, I think we're good on that one.

Fair enough, i was slightly unsure if that's the way it worked in regular BTW (excluding deserts and such) but that clarification is good to hear. Also, yeah, the dangerous biome ratio is pretty much the same so that would be another reason on not messing with it.

[FlowerChild]

Fair enough, i was slightly unsure if that's the way it worked in regular BTW (excluding deserts and such) but that clarification is good to hear. Also, yeah, the dangerous biome ratio is pretty much the same so that would be another reason on not messing with it.

Yeah, I think it's the best route as the initial spawn location can go as far from the origin as necessary to find hospitable terrain, while HC Spawn is limited to a fixed radius around that point. Thus, I could see biome setups that could result in HC Spawn not being able to find any suitable terrain (or a very small amount) if we started excluding specific biomes. Also, the impact on gameplay of HC Spawning into a hostile environment is much less severe than on initial spawn.