and why I always find the kitchen-sink style of modpack to quickly stop being interesting, particularly in multiplayer.
I think it's because I like to have interesting problems to solve, or at least things I can do that are Helpful. Building a factory that makes something people need, making (part of) a transport network, setting up a complicated magic mod's altar structure for communal use, that sort of thing.
Large modpacks, however, have two issues I've come across that make this a lot harder to do than it would seem:
- A lot of mods seem poorly balanced for multiplayer, and things end up in a state where, if I take a break for a few days (or, heaven forbid, join a server after it starts), anyone who hasn't has progressed massively in various mods1 and already solved most of the interesting problems.
- Having a bunch of mods that all do the same general thing means that they all have different approaches to doing the same things. Inevitably, some of these ways are going to be significantly easier than others, and often what one mod is designed around being difficult, expensive, or at the very least interesting to do/obtain/set up (such as brass in Create or steel in IE2) is trivial and much more boring in another mod3.
As a result, I generally end up joining a server, setting up a house, working on a project or two, and then losing interest as the possibilities close off and I start to fall behind in my capabilities. Sure, I could do things as vanity projects (or, as a friend once said, "vainglorious monuments to our hubris"), but that's often not nearly as satisfying.
Not really sure if I have much of a point writing this, other than "if you want me to stick around in a modded minecraft server, please run something more thought-out than All The Mods 69420" - I just got thinking on the subject again and felt a need to articulate my thoughts.
(Also, these packs often feel like just as much of a hastily thrown-together mess as "kitchen sink modpack" would have you expect, but that's a mini-essay for another time)
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Not to mention how most magic-themed mods have progression through combat, and I am Not Good At Minecraft Combat.
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IE actually is better about this than many other mods - its refineries for biofuel use a sulfur dust catalyst specifically because adding the more realistic sulfuric acid to IE would have (due to the relative place in the progression of the two mods) utterly trivialized Mekanism's sulfuric acid production process, and the author wanted to avoid that.
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No, "you control the buttons you press" doesn't apply in a multiplayer scenario, where other people's priorities may be quite different and your source of enjoyment is solving problems. You can't control the buttons other people press, and once a problem's been solved, a less-optimal solution is pretty much useless.
