Tried Too Hard to be the Modern RLCraft + GTNH (+ POE2)... And Failed at It

Prominence oh Prominence, if you think that your 2 minute made kitchen sink pack is bad because it's barely configured, try looking at this pack! Because even with all the "balans", custom items, quest and everything, this pack does almost none of it right. Let me dissect it one by one

Problem 1: The RPG Itself

Prominence promised to be an RPG, which as far as it does it, tries so hard to be a mix of POE2 and Rlcraft with all the armors, classes, and talent tree that it has. The problem is... balancing becomes insanely hard once you start locking people to certain builds.

For an example, Ranged builds can be seriously strong here, it's high dps, attacks from distance which is generally very safe even in tight dungeons, and were generally faster to reassemble into a hybrid magic build compared to Melee builds that needs to balance their mediocre dps, sustain themselves from being hit by bosses, and generally has a harder experience due to just how most boss AI's are not build to comprehend multiclass loadouts.

This isn't being mended by the talent tree or level progression in anyways, which also falls in the same problem as POE2 where there's too many small skills, but at the same time, not enough big skills which POE2 does provide, which this mod fails to do so and you're basically stuck in this condition of small gains at big cost and big gains simply locked. This also ain't being mended by the weapon skill tree, in fact, it doesn't even matter if you don't upgrade your skill tree at all, a crossbow can just cheese everything.

Same goes for the leveling, enemies always overlevel you, and even if you overlevel them, their stat boost is still bigger than yours, and how do you fix this infinite tug of war? yep, a crossbow and 3 blocks up.

The artifact interactions, trinkets as we say it, is also pretty much bandaid plaster to the actual problem of things. It's just bad, +8% random damage at the cost of literally searching tens of dungeon, is just bad progression, even worse than RLCraft, atleast you got goofy Lycanites.

Problem 2: The Tech not Teching Itself

Oh my goodness, i love tech mods, but this modpack is the first time i disliked the implementation of it. Usually you would add tech mods to a pack for certain reasons... automation, resource generation, storage, or logistics. The tech mods added here does not really solve any of that and instead add in an extra layer of headaches, STOP NERFING POWER GENERATION, I WANT MY AE2 SETUP TO BE GOOD.

Tech Reborn, basically IC2 recreated has it's own progression tree and interacts with no custom items of the pack, no reason to even play it. Modern Industrialization, basically Gregtech recreated and by extension IC2 recreation, also has it's own progression tree and interacts with no custom items of the pack, no reason to play it too... Industrial Revolution- NO NO NO, none of these tech mods actually does anything of substance even though they really should have because of the configuration being so unbalanced.

Ad Astra, allows you to go to the space... is there a boss or progression in the space? NO! Powah... basically a bandaid for FE generation now, just extremely lazy as an implementation.

Problem 3: The Story Itself?

Yep, the whole pack has a story, you are the flameborn of Vaaz, and... and... guess what, 100 hours of gameplay and i still don't have the story actually touched me in any way or sense. Whilst it is a common issue with most packs... especially a story driven RPG like Prominence, they should atleast make it make sense.

I'm taking this from the description of the mod itself, where it said that:

**"You one of the Flameborn of Vaaz, a race created by S'kellak, the Creator of All Things to protect and ensure the balance of all realms.

After thousands of years of peace, a ravenous force known as the Void has started an invasion into the universal realms, worlds filled with life and death, are now threatened to being destroyed completely. Will you fulfill your mission and stop the Void's Invasion?"**

And yet it doesn't really feel like you're fighting an invasion, or if there is even ONE Void (Eldritch End) being that invades the overworld, or even really attack you that much, this feels like a lazier version of SR Parasites and the Void enemies themselves are just so so basic, i'm genuinely baffled when i found out that these crooks are one of the supposed final enemies of the VI chapter that's invading the world, is that it?

Ohoho of course not, the title of the pack itself is... Hasturian Era which already spoils itself to be a homage to Hastur the King in Yellow... Yet in this pack, the closest thing to Hastur... is that one end game boss is just a reskin of another boss that is "possessed" by Hastur... are we joking? is that all the influence of THE KING IN YELLOW? Is that it?

Yes, that's it...

This is the main gripe that i have with this pack, it tries to be story driven, without properly driivng a story. So the car crashes, and then by extension the only plausible way they could introduce Hastur just like the rest of the pack would be in a fight and a fight and a fight, and i dislike this direction so much, it's not even a kitchen sink now, a kitchen sink pack has the luxury of turning into a real RPG. This one has bandaid fixed itself so much, that the wound is untreatable, it needs a total overhaul for it to even be able to pull of a True Hastur and another mindless boss fight.

If you've seen the ARG regarding the world that didn't exist, you know what i mean. An intangible God who's connected to the play and the lost city, Carcosa. Should be executed in a way better manner than just simply possessing a boss and buffs the boss into 2x the pain. And suddenly our origin of Flameborn of Vaaz, created by Skellak, literally has no affect on this whole ordeal. You could really ignore the entire lore and think of yourself as just default Steve being tossed to Prominence world and it won't affect a single narrative...

Conclusion

Q: Is it a good pack?
A: yes, it has many unique items.

Q: What's the catch to the statement?
A: If you ignore all the bleeding problems, balancing issues, tech mods spam as bandaid, barely any immersion that lets you sunk deep to the story, and no real consequences, then it's a good pack.

Q: If i don't ignore that?
A: It's a pack worse than any kitchen sink pack that you can make right now, atleast your kitchen sink, can still be reconfigured, this one needs an overhaul of it's own overhauling.

Q: Should beginners play this?
A: Genuinely, no, but if you wanna try, go on.

Q: Can this pack be fixed?
A: Absolutely, all the problem in this pack emerges from an unbalanced game design, or rather, a game deisgn that didn't consider enough variables for balancing. Completely fixable by the config, except for enemy AI.

Q: How would you rate this pack if all the issue is fixed?
A: Overall 4.5/5. Gameplay 4.5/5, Performance depends on how far it got optimized then, Aesthetics would still be 4/5, genuinely a very potential modpack