Minecraft Mod & Modpack Reviews

"Reliable" indeed. It works, and it works great. The perfect Block Swap upgrade, enabling significantly more fine-grained customization with an arguably easier syntax (although the ability to directly migrate Block Swap's syntax shows the deep level of care put into this mod). Like other projects of this author's, Reliable Replacer is the best of its kind that I have found so far and showcases an attention to detail which makes it an absolutely necessary tool for any modpack developer's arsenal. About the only criticism I have is that some rules can't be nested in certain ways, which I'm not even sure is an actual complaint considering I'm usually trying to do things I'm not supposed to when making modpacks.

Objectively, it's probably the best Minecraft mod ever made. Create is so polished and expansive that it's arguably capable of delivering as much content as the vanilla game, while maintaining a consistent and impressively high standard of quality.
What sets Create apart from other mods is how basic tools and components interact in exceedingly intricate and fascinating ways. Vanilla Minecraft is an exercise in this philosophy: redstone is wonderful in its simplicity and simultaneously absurd in its depth. Pistons move blocks, Hoppers move items, Redstone Lamps turn on and off. Despite Minecraft's commitment to having fundamental constituent parts that anyone can understand, redstone can be leveraged to build anything from a door that opens automatically to a computer that can run Minecraft inside of Minecraft.
Create feels like taking this same design concept to its logical conclusion. Rarely does a block or item in Create perform a complex function all by itself; instead of a magic machine which produces Cobblestone and automatically outputs it to a neighboring inventory, Create has drills for breaking the blocks and novel ways to move items around and flexible filtration systems for ensuring your Cobblestone goes where you need it to. There is sincere thought put into how each available tool can be used in myriad ways, and how those tools interact in an exponential explosion of possibility. That is the key word which defines this mod: Possibility. It's all well and good that Create is exceptionally-made, with beautiful textures and a genius in-game documentation system in the form of Ponder, but it is also enormously interesting in that rare way where the possibility space is so large that imagination genuinely is the limit.
This is a point which is unfortunately missed in many of Create's derivatives. Many add-ons to the mod are antithetical to its design; they give solutions rather than tools. Create is frequently overshadowed by simpler mods which combine its multi-step contraptions into single blocks. Due to its popularity (and, being honest, its near-incomparable quality), many large contemporary modpacks include Create without giving it the treatment it is asking for, leading to players blitzing through the "progression" of the mod when that is not the primary purpose around which it is constructed. It is surprisingly feature-complete on its own, and it's difficult to get bored of innovation. Install just Create and let your ingenuity run wild, and see if you can't make something unique.

Honestly speaking, FTB StoneBlock 4 is a pack I didn't expect to like as much as I did. The original StoneBlock, released in 2018, was a novel idea and something of an unusual twist given the extreme saturation of the skyblock genre (no doubt exacerbated by the popularity of SkyFactory and Project Ozone). Since then, many packs have come out which use the same [something]Block formula, and a disappointingly large number of them are derivative. The same resource acquisition methods, the same rough progression, the same suite of popular mods, and a thematic coat of paint depending on the setting.
I mostly started playing StoneBlock 4 because it was a 1.21 pack that was relatively complete. While I thought the pack might be too directionless for me, its progression was pleasantly unexpected. The new methods of resource acquisition aren't too tedious (at least compared to the dreaded sieving) and somehow the pack manages to include exploration, a feat which saw me bored of digging tunnels and yet still enjoying every quick jaunt to a dungeon or hidden grotto. By far the most competent aspect of StoneBlock 4's progression is the way it branches, converges, and branches again in order to give the player multiple options but not force them to go too far down one path. One of the pack's various gimmicks is the World Engine, a stationary machine which is used for various crafts and which the player slowly upgrades as they progress. A World Engine upgrade or important craft acts more as a checklist of obtainable items which come from different mods; this allowed me to pick and choose the order in which I wanted to pursue the subcomponents of the next goal. This might not sound like much (and I can see someone who prefers linearity getting overwhelmed), but it's what kept me playing instead of being faced with the mandatory next task and just closing the game instead.
Speaking of overwhelm, though, this pack suffers from the same issue that plagues most large kitchen-sink packs: repeated content. Several mods are included that I barely, if ever, touched during my playthrough. Integration is minimal and often focused on the central progression; recipes which are not pursuant to a World Engine upgrade, for example, are usually untouched. For some reason AE2 and Refined Storage are both included, when I can't imagine a situation where I would use both. I pursued Malum, Ars Nouveau, and Occultism only because one item would be required for something else I was trying to do. I didn't even think about Hostile Neural Networks because Apotheosis spawners are exponentially more powerful. Mekanism and Oritech were my main technology(-themed) mods; Immersive Engineering seems like a formality. I'm not sure I ever actually used Create. Productive Metalworks is riddled with bugs and a very frustrating requirement; XyCraft is incomplete. The mod selection is somehow nearly the same as OceanBlock 2 despite the different locale, and this is where the earlier critique of similar packs with different aesthetics comes rushing back in full force. The parts of StoneBlock 4 I enjoyed most were those unique to the pack itself: the World Engine, the custom dungeons with compasses which lead you to them, the bespoke resource generation. There were some sticking points in the regular gameplay loop (I found the "events" so obnoxious I had them all turned off before I even had a proper base set up), but the quests felt mostly balanced with one another in terms of how much they asked the player to accomplish.
I would recommend StoneBlock 4 to someone looking for casual yet consistent modded experience on a newer Minecraft version. It's a fine pack for someone who enjoys automation, light exploration, and open-ended progression which doesn't expect the player to use every available mod.

The impact of this mod will be limited by the amount of advancement that need to do checks, which it optimizes.

If you have a cobbled-together modpack with something such as Blaze and Caves Advancement Pack, the performance hit is absolutely noticeable, opening chests takes visually longer, and this mod can turn this scenario into something stable. In this way it can be an obvious lifesaver.

It comes with a downside of that advancement triggers can be slower to trigger, and sometimes seemingly failing to trigger at all. This isn't that much of a problem unless its a complex trigger, and therefore advancement, not getting your fancy advancement sucks. This can also cause issues with mods that rely on advancements for progression gating, such as Spectrum and Pastel (and more specifically the APIs the rely on, Databank API and Revelationary API).

A useful performance mod, yet one with a gameplay impact. Rating it 3.5 of 5, has its obvious use cases. As a player or pack developer you should approach this as a case of cost/benefit.

You would need CraftTweaker and a billion add-ons to mimic all the features groovyscript ships by default. Only thing missing for now are mixins. Hope these will become a feature in the near future. It also comes with its own resource loader so no need for another one, when making a modpack.

Also as a developer myself adding support for groovyscript is much easier in comparison to CraftTweaker.

I have no idea about any of the modern versions, nor the interest to test any of them, but there is a reason why I rewrote Neat as part of Ender's Modpack Tools to be more performant as you can notice the slow down, when there are larger groups of entities on the screen.

While at it I also added more option about the look of the overlay, which is why it only gets a 2.5 as it lacks options besides changing the colors.

Shipping an empty jar as mod is stupid. At this point just make it another config option. But great 36 million downloads.

Is is weird reviewing my own project? Maybe. Do I care? Don't think so.

Gameplay

This is another modpack creator mod. Imagine it as a much more powerful chisel GUI - instead of changing a block 1:1 you can craft items on the fly using resources in your inventory, offhand etc. Each crafting window can be opened by either an item or by a block in a world - turn any block into a crafting table. Each recipe category can have multiple trigger items and blocks, each with their own recipe modifiers, crafting time, consumption chance, you name it.

Performance

Has practically no impact on the game at all, especially without any recipes configured. Only reason to not give 5/5 is the lack of caching, which would slightly improve performance, while having a Crafting GUI open - still don't know if this would even be noticeable.

Aesthetics

Designs are up to the modpack author, but I provide multiple options for backgroud, borders, corners while also supporting custom textures. Furthermore I provide hooks to play sounds and spawn particles. So feel free to make your recipes visual appealing.

Note on playtime: The overall time is influenced by developing, play testing and experimenting with CraftTweaker and Groovyscript support.

Is is weird reviewing my own project? Maybe. Do I care? Don't think so.

Though maybe I should say that I didn't create the pack initially. I started maintaining it after the original author left the Minecraft community and did so for the past few years. I also rewrote large parts behind the scenes, so I know this pack inside out.

Gameplay

I mean the whole flatmap-skyblock map isn't new as the pack took heavy inspiration from Anti-Material Energy, which used the old MineChem mod to supply the player with elements. This pack uses Alchemistry - a spiritual successor of MineChem for 1.12 and the core gameplay loop contains collecting all types of antimatter (renamed concrete) to get access to the whole periodic table. To achieve this the player has to experiment with different mods to get access.

The first 2 questbook chapters are pretty straight forward. The mid-game is weird as the pack uses the Atum 2 mod and having a random generation in the progression of a sky block-esque pack just feels off. Once that part is finished the rest of the pack is more cohesive.

Performace

Skyblock packs have great performance, we have a tiny mod list with around 120 mods and we've stress tested multiple servers together with the Antimatter Chemistry Community. Still no cleanroom launcher - yet.

Aesthetics

If you like the dytopian and very bright flat map awesome. I hated it. Though the pack offers enough options to setup a pretty base only a few hours into the pack.

Note on the playtime: I lost count how many times I beat the pack. There was a time where I began to speedrun the first chapters and I crafted the Extreme Crafting table in under 24 hours playtime. If you don't include the grind in the end needed for all the infinity stuff, this is quite a short pack.

Is is weird reviewing my own project? Maybe. Do I care? Don't think so.

Gameplay

Depending on the packmode you choose to play this, you experience will differ greatly. I know that, it is intended.
The pack originated back in 1.10.2 as a small project for a good friend of mine to play during his stream. After having a server with almost 20 active players it was the first time I got recognized for something I made. What a great feeling.
A few years passed and I started to rebuild the experience for 1.12.2 - so the so called "legacy" mode is exactly this - a recreation of the adventures we used to play back in 1.10, but I always preferred modpacks that challenge the player with interesting automation mechanics. So over roughly 3 years and many, many hours I handcrafted a complete new path through almost all mods in the pack, featuring all crafting method, mob drop etc.
Overall the resonance, especially for the overhauled early and mid-game was mostly positive, but as in most "expert" (I hate this term) packs the end-game can get quite boring as you wait for resources and progress slows down even more. So I guess give it a try and just stop when you killed your first chaos guardian. :3

Performance

For roughly 300 mods it runs surprisingly good and yes this is without cleanroom-loader. This would probably improve things, but I simply don't have the time right now to publish an update for it. Also yes it runs on 4GB RAM, but users had issues on older laptops.

Aesthetics

The pack installs the unity resource pack by default and uses a bunch of addons to further build a cohesive experience. I mean it by no means can be compared to something like RotN, but it was enough to get it to a state that doesn't feel weird, when you fly through your base.

Note about the playtime: I finished the legacy mode like 5 times with roughly 200 hours each and beat the nightmare mode on my third attempt after roughly 700 hours according to FTB Teams, the first two attempts died around the 200 and 300 hour mark. This also doesn't include the time spend to actually develop the pack, that would easily add another 1k-2k hours.