The gameplay is actually rather fun, its a bit punishing even given the forced hardcore which based off the wordage of some of the things in the modpack that was supposed to be optional. I had fun was stockpiling resources making sure i didnt have to worry about too much, but one of the major progression points forces you to wander from spawn to some cities, the cities are supposed to give you access to materials you otherwise cant get with some of the loot just being stuff thats harder to get, the first thing you really look for is stuff for a smeltry, normally this involves basically throwing some rocks together but the recipe is disabled to force city exploration, not terrible… unless it has only a chance to spawn in the cities…. and the cities aside from the starting one(ones?) arent even guaranteed. Like imagine if you had to get something from a village and it only spawned in one specific house variant. Now imagine that item isnt just something you want but something needed for progression, something you have 0 other options to get it through. Now imagine that before playing this you kept seeing propagabda of sorts (yt playthroughs of earlier versions of the pack) showing you getting tons of resources, sprawling cities packed with tough monsters as well as a good chunk of the exclusive materials you were looking for. Well congrats youve officially been set up for disappointment. Just about all the famous playthroughs dont play on the latest version you could theoretically have a similar playthrough because its the same pack but you will have a much worse time, youll get disappointment instead of wonder. If i had known what the pack was now, i wouldnt have started playing in the first place. I died probably honestly at least 50 times, 50 worlds deleted due to deaths. It was fun i loved getting to a point where it didnt feel like i was punished because the tree used just too much bonemeal or the dust you sifted gave you none of the things you were looking for. Only to have me killed because a 2 shotting enderman stayed aggroed and killed me 2 seconds after “respawning” (theres a mod where you can basically build clones so when you die you transfer to a clone instead of the worl getting deleted.) It feels punishing to play, you will get beat down repeatedly. If you like that youll probably have fun, but i dont think most average people would, that might not hold true for the kind of people that would play modded minecraft, idk. The atmosphere is tense you really do feel like you are livibg by a steing for a good while. Especially if you play on hardcore but when you go out of your way ti travel hundreds of blocks hoping to find something to help you progress only to find nothing and get insulted for literal cobwebs and empty bottles and smpty chests as the Literal only loot, maybe then youll see why this pack gets a 1 for balance and progression but a 5 for aesthetics for me.