Introduction:

Hey all,

I spent this week programming a new enchantment system for CivEx. I really needed to take a break from working on the map and MythicMobs, and I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. I’m very happy to be able to complete it before launch.

Map Progress

Not a lot of map progress this week as I needed to take a break from working on the map. I spent about four hours or so working on a chain of large tropical islands with lush jungles. You’ll get to see some renders of it next week when I finalize it.

Enchanting Overhaul

The new enchanting system is inspired by crafting systems from games like Path of Exile and Black Desert Online, and draws on a lot of their ideas. It will not only allow us to easily add new enchantments, but also accomplish a handful of things that many players had been wanting for a while.

The new system requires quite a bit more player skill and knowledge for both crafting and item appraisal. It also allows me a lot more freedom to balance recipes or resources required for enchanting, as it’s quite difficult to do that when the only requirements are XP (an ubiquitous resource) and lapis (a resource you need very little of to enchant in vanilla).

I’ve made a video showing off the new system, but I encourage you to read further if you’d like a better idea of how to use it in practice.

How does it work?

First off, forget everything about vanilla enchanting.

The system revolves around various types of “Crafting Orbs.”

To enchant an item, it must first be enhanced. Enhancing an item requires Enhancement Orbs, which come in three varieties, one for each: Tools, Armor, Weapons.

If you equip any crafting orb in your offhand and an applicable item in your main hand, you can use that orb on your other item by sneaking right-clicking.

Using an enhancement orb on a corresponding item has a chance to enhance it, increasing its enhancement effect (Efficiency/Protection/Sharpness) by one level. The orb is consumed in the process. Tools and weapons can be enhanced up to 5, while armor can only be enhanced to 4.

Items can be have up to as many enchantment affixes as their enhancement level. Their enhancement effect does not count as an enchantment for this purpose, so for example, a 5 Diamond Sword (which has Sharpness 5) can have up to five enchantments added to it.

There are several crafting orbs players can acquire other than Enhancement Orbs:

Orb of Enchanting:

• Adds two random enchantments to an unenchanted item. Enchantments added have randomized levels.

Celestial Orb:

• Adds a random enchantment to an item. The enchantment added has a randomized level.

Orb of Scouring:

• Removes all enchantments from an item. The item’s enhancement effect is unaffected.

Orb of Discord:

50/50 chance to trigger one of the following effects:

• Rerolls all enchantment affixes on an item
• Removes a random enchantment affix from an item

There will a sizable amount of new enchantments added to the game in order to make this new system more meaningful. Names are subject to change if enhancement vs enchantment etc. is hard to understand.

Enchanting Overhaul F.A.Q.

How do I get crafting orbs?

Crafting orbs will be acquired through a variety of ways. Many will be MythicMob drops and/or HiddenOre drops (as an addition to ore drops). Some orbs will be craftable either through normal resources or through activating an inert orb with EXP. No orbs will solely be available through HiddenOre. I haven’t decided the final specifics, but many players looking to gather as many crafting orbs as possible will probably find it most efficient to gather them by taking on some of CivEx’s most challenging PvE content.

What about enchanting tables or anvils?

Enchanting tables and anvils will be disabled. There will be a new repair system added, and likely a new crafting orb for renaming your weapons, tools and armor. The enchanting table and anvil blocks will be reserved for some future content (along with some other blocks like Shulker Boxes and Ender Chests).

How did you add custom textures for the crafting orbs? Are you using mods?

You won’t be required to install any mods to play on CivEx. Optifine’s CIT module allows resource pack creators to add custom textures that will work with CivEx’s custom items. I don’t have the skill or time to assemble an entire pack for all of CivEx’s custom items nor create their textures, but if any of you are interested in doing so, PM me over Discord or send me a modmail.

What do the new enchantments do?

The actual specifics of the new enchantments haven’t been finalized.

Why are you adding new content so close to release?

I’ve been working almost exclusively on the map and mythicmobs for the past three weeks now and it’s getting quite tiring. Overhauling the enchantment system has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and taking a break from working on the map will help prevent burnout.

Release Timetable:

I don’t expect to be able to release by Mid-December any longer. My attempts to find some community developers fell through after everyone I contacted either told me they no longer have enough time to participate or lost interest in the project (I’ve been told this is colloquially known as “MudkipGuy Syndrome”). For that reason I’m going to be scrapping the concept of fully custom crops via modified RB CropControl. There will still be some custom drops via cropcontrol in some of the more hospitable fractures, but I simply don’t have enough time to modify RB unless someone else gets back to me showing renewed interest.

I only have so much time I can put into this project by myself each week and December 15th happens to be during finals week.

What’s the holdup?

In order of difficulty (time required):

The Map

Honestly, the largest problem has been the map. Originally another person was going to make the CivEx overworld but after about three weeks they noticed they didn’t have enough time to do so and they gave me their notes, and I took over map production.

The map is a shit-ton of work. I’ve easily sunk something like 60 hours into it if you include the time I’ve spent re-learning some WorldPainter techniques as well as deciding biome placement and actually figuring out what each biome should look like. It’s not that this time doesn’t pay off, but it prevents me from doing other things that are also needed for CivEx. About two thirds of the overworld’s landmass is mostly completed (as in, it they need things like caves, cliffs, and rivers, which I either do last or do with WorldEdit) I expect the map to take at least 2-3 more weeks of dedicated work.

The actual Fracture maps aren’t as big of a concern. The fire Fracture still needs things like caves and objects but that’s about it. Another Fracture is still being worked on by the other map creator and whatever other Fracture needs I feel are required for launch I’ll fill with publicly available maps and remove any unwanted ores or items via script.

MythicMobs

MythicMobs is one of those things that I haven’t been able to really get to because of the map, and it's not something I can really cut corners for. I’ve been slowly chipping away at it whenever I’m missing that creative spark I need to work on the map, but honestly it’s something that I expected Winton and others to work on before they told me they didn’t have time to work on the server. I haven’t spent a lot of dedicated time on MythicMobs, so it will progress quickly once either new people start working on it or I finish other things and find time to work exclusively on it.

This is something that I absolutely get community help from and we will be hosting a MythicMobs creation contest sometime next week. I’ll also potentially show off a handful of the mobs created so far (There are like 10-15 completed or mostly complete, but I don’t want to spoil everything!)

Resource Balancing and Crafting Recipes

This will take up a good chunk of time, at least a solid week of dedicated work if not a bit more. I can probably shave off some time from this as well if I get some help from some of the people that I’ve been talking about RecipeManager with. I’ve done pretty much all of the programming work I need for this so far as well as much of the theorycrafting, the only part that’s really needed is to put down hard numbers for HiddenOre/RB as well as configure MM spawn rates and MM item drops/drop tables. I have a good chunk of the items names and bases planned out already but a lot of them are missing flavor text. The problem is that it is very difficult for me to begin this without significant progress of the above two parts.