Instead of simply being a minor event in a game, each of these becomes moments of joy that you have now reached the next level. Getting ingredients to make your first decent food. It also means a major sense of accomplishment when you open that gate to the next stage.
Even a door will need advanced tools you won't get until the Steam era at least.
All recipes are gated and modified - even vanilla ones. This means there's really nothing easy any more. GTNH is about taking the usual modball of magic and tech mods and making all the recipes Greg-ified. So you heard about this 'really hard' modpack that takes Gregtech to the Nth degree and want to join in on the fun? Well first let's sit down and talk about what GTNH is and isn't, and who this modpack targets.