Hammerson

There are still some TInker's Construct ores you have to go deep to find. Tin, I think. A bit annoying as I like building Brownstone roads

The best way of finding endermen is running around in flat landscapes (deserts, etc.) at night. Also, it's pretty easy to get a looting weapon in Hexxit due to Tinker's Construct and Enchanting Plus But I agree it's a bit too much of a hassle to get them. It's not impossible, it's just not worth the effort, since by the time you get it the Harken Scythe stuff isn't that interesting. Treasure chest loot needs to be tweaked - I found ten eyes of ender in chests before I found a single enderpearl. I'd increase the rate of raw materials of all sorts, and decrease the rate of finished stuff (from magic mirrors magic books to livingmetal giant swords). Some things are more fun to forge yourself, even in an adventuring-oriented mod.

I'm pretty sure it's not graphics related, but worldgen related. Hexxit adds a lot of stuff to worldgen. It's become better in the latest update though, and that's good, because besides getting a more powerful computer (or disabling mods, etc.) there's not much you can do.

I haven't actually tried Project Zulu brewing (is it disabled?) but I've noticed that NEI doesn't show the recipes for it at least. If anyone else wondered what the ectoplasm and shiny baubles were for, Project Zulu is the place to look - very well documented mod, too. I totally disagree with the person who would rather have Mo'Creatures, and anyway the author of that is anti-modpack.

I'd just like to add that chocolate mod is Better Dungeons (by Chocolatin), and yes, drops from those dungeons is where you find essences most easily. I've also found all-magic essences in Battle Towers, I wonder if those have some special logic to generate high-tier items from across all mods. I've found the staves to be a little underwhelming myself. Probably the healing one is decent on servers.

Great to hear, sct! I think the Enchant Plus mod is a bit over-the-top in Hexxit, to be honest. It's very easy to get optimally enchanted pretty much anything (well, apart from Hexxit gear) and keep it like that forever. It may have its place in a tech mod, paradoxically enough, where levels are more scarce. I'd love it in Tekkit. But with all the disenchantable stuff you find in Hexxit, it becomes ridiculous. One single Project Zulu labyrinth gave me enough books to disenchant to get to level 60 and then some.

About that... I've exited dimensional dungeons three times, twice through Limbo and one through a wooden door. Two of these times I've been dropped in lava pools - the last time through walking through a wooden door and being teleported into the MIDDLE of a vast lava sea in the nether, 1500m from spawn (I survived and made my way back home, but that's another story!) Dimensional dungeons used to be a safe and easy way to gain redstone, glowstone and all sorts of chest goodies. Warning: They are not any longer!! They are death traps.

Do what you would in vanilla for a while. Then take a look at your book, and build some of the stuff in it. Then seek out danger and excitement! For the funny things you find in chests, too many to count, just look them up in NEI or at worst look for info on them online. Various semi-tricky/undocumented stuff I've found out: * Legend gear quivers don't have the recipe in NEI, since it's the 0-arrow quiver there and it's the 1-arrow quiver you make. Just put leather in a V-shape with an arrow in it. Might want to use the Better Storage quiver anyway. * For bombs (similar issue), leather in U-shape with bomb in middle. * Many weapons have hold-right click charging effects of various sorts. Experiment. * Scythes double your harvests. * You can't cheese in dimensional doors dungeons now. If you dig through the roof/wall, scary new mob will spot you and pull you into limbo. * You need a diamond pickaxe to mine meteors. Mining meteors underwater sucks, by the way.

My guess is your creative test world is new, while your survival world is older? The recent Hexxit update added the Artifice plugin, which adds some new world gen. The nice, or possibly problematic thing with it, is that it tries to add this worldgen to already existing chunks (so there are strange new flowers all over, and marble in your basement). This is the only thing that I can think of that could make a difference between a creative world and a survival world. Try making a new survival world, see if that makes a difference. Then you can of course try posting some of the actual error messages you get, easier to help you then...