Some Observations and Feedback

[BioMasterZap]

First, thanks for the quick fix on the 1.20.4 version. The mod is loading up just fine now. I've been trying it out and have some observations and feedback I thought was worth sharing. Most of these probably aren’t bugs or issues and are more of initial impressions and suggestions, but some might be things you'd want to change. Also, I have looked over the data pack stuff and even made a data pack to tweak a few things more to my liking, but it was a lot to take in so apologies if anything I bring up is already possible to modify with a data pack and I just missed it.

General Stuff:

• Breaking a Cauldron filled with any stage of potion (i.e., when it changes from vanilla Cauldron to a Crafting Cauldron) does not drop a cauldron. The block break speed is slower so I doubt most players would keep mining it, but seeing as the Crafting Cauldron has a loot table for "minecraft:cauldron" and it turns back into a vanilla Cauldron when empty of potion, it seems like it intended to drop a cauldron.

• Snow Cauldrons go down a level when converting Magma Cream to Slimeball but Lava Cauldrons convert items without any loss. This is probably intended since Snow Cauldron has "id": "REMOVE_LEVEL" while Lava Cauldrons do not, which felt a bit strange. Though if lava is set to "remove level" it will remove all the lava since it seems lava does do stages like liquid/snow. Perhaps this is something the mod could add (provided there was a way to empty 1/3 lava)?

• The potioncraft.properties config might not be working. Before using a Data Pack, I turned "can_use_reagents" from true to false, but it still let me add ingredients like Glistering Melon and modifiers like Glowstone Dust to both potions and water. I'd guess this option might have been leftover from before the change to Data Packs since they can pretty much do the same thing.

The Potions:

• Potions could really use a cap on ingredients and/or effects. I am not sure if you could make it so potions can't have over X ingredients added to them, but adding some way to cap the level of effects would be nice. I was able to dump a stack (64) Blaze Powder into a Water Cauldron to make 3 Potions with Strength 20 for an hour and a half... I don't think I need to explain why +64 Attack Damage for over an hour may be a tincy bit busted.

• • To "fix" the above, I used a Data Pack to disable adding ingredients to potions (everything below "fermented_spider_eye" for "potion_cauldron_block" recipes"), which still allows for potions to be mixed and a single ingredient to be added to water, which is honestly pretty balanced but also made the default mixing/dilutions kinda weak. If there is a better way to customize this with a data pack, such as imposing duration/potency limits per effect, let me know.

• Additional options for mixtures would be nice. Currently, they seem kinda weak/bad since it not only dilutes the duration, but the level. For example, if I take 1 Speed II with 1:30 duration and 1 Strength II with 1:30 duration and mix them together, I get a 2 Speed I and Strength I with 0:45 duration, which is the same duration as drinking the pre-mixed potions but with half the potency. Likewise, mixing a Speed with 8:00 duration and Fire Resistance with 8:00 duration results in two Speed and Fire Resistance with 2:00 duration, which is half the duration.

• • Personally, I wouldn't mind an option to keep the potency the same and just dilute the duration so the above examples would make 2 Speed II and Strength II with 0:45 duration or 2 Speed and Fire Resistance with 4:00 duration. This seems reasonably balanced, at least if you aren't going way over the vanilla limits. I figure the intent was to add more ingredients to compensate, but with a data pack to address the previous point of no caps that is not possible.

• Likewise, an option for diluting to scale without diminishing returns would be nice. For example, if I add a Magma Cream to a Level 1 Cauldron, it makes 1 Fire Resistance with 3:00 Duration, but if I add a Magma Cream to a Level 2 Cauldron, it makes 2 Fire Resistance with 0:45 duration, half the duration for only brewing 1 at a time. Going to a water level of 3 reduces it to 0:20 duration. It would make more sense if mixing two potions reduced the duration by 1/2th instead of 1/4th (i.e. from 3:00 to 1:30, not 0:45) and three potions reduced to 1/3rd, not 1/9th (e.g. from 3:00 to 1:00, not 0:20).

• • Another thing to add is that potions like Instant Health I don't get diluted, so adding 1 Glistering Melon will make an Instant Health I that restores 4 health/2 hearts regardless of water level while adding 1 Magma Cream will be significantly worse with 3 stages of water than with 1. So even without my data pack, it still is not ideally balanced.

Sorry for this being such a wall of text and thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope it didn't come off as demanding or such; just stuff I thought would be worth mentioning.

[Sploder12]

Thank you again for the feedback!

General Stuff:

• That is definitely a bug! It was working at some point... Since it is a pretty major bug I should have a patch out by the end of this weekend.

• Yep, that is intended. Adding levels to the existing lava cauldron would probably be pretty invasive and difficult. But, it's something I'd like eventually.

• That is a leftover as you suspect. I'm still on the fence on what to do with it.

The Potions:

• The ingredient balancing is very non-existent right now. For v0.4.0 I plan to add data driven "potency" mechanic which would behave similar to the X ingredients idea.

• Making it more customizable would be good. The current system is meant to address that Minecraft does not have partial levels of potions, so a Speed I is internally diluted to Speed 1/2 with 1/2 duration. Which becomes the 1/4th duration in the end since there is no way to represent Speed 1/2 in the game. (this is also why the levels create the 1/4, 1/9 duration)

• Instant Health does get diluted! Kinda... Internally the Instant Health does have a potency and duration of 1/3, but that's meaningless since duration doesn't matter for Instant Health potions. I am unsure how to handle instant potions in a way that doesn't make them useless or better than other potions.

No worries! Your feedback is valuable and helps me improve this mod in ways I wouldn't be able to by myself.

[BioMasterZap]

I saw this mod updated earlier and checked the previous versions since I submitted this issue. The potency changes seems like a great way to handle the things I brought up. I also noticed that alongside potency, v0.4.0 moved down to 1.20.1. So I wanted to ask if you were planning to release another 1.20.4 version?

I understand if it is not a high priority and if you're more focused on getting features added and polished in one version before considering others, but I'm very much interested in trying out the new options (and v0.5.1 is not compatible with 1.20.4) so I thought it was at least worth bringing it up.

[Sploder12]

I have released v0.5.1 for 1.20.4 on modrinth now! I'm planning on supporting only 1.20.1 for now (unless another version is requested). Yeah, I'd like to release v1.0.0 before I start regularly supporting more versions.