Weapons & Equip What Thorium Mod teaches us about early game.

Xylia

Terrarian
I've been playing Thorium Mod lately, and I would have to say that the mod does a very good job of pointing out certain areas that the vanilla game could really use a facelift.

Now, before I get into my suggestion(s), I would like to clarify something:

I am not suggesting that we should implement anything from Thorium Mod directly into Vanilla.

What I am suggesting, however, is that we should take a step back, and analyze what the creators of Thorium did and why.

The first thing I immediately noticed about Thorium Mod, is that you are given a number of options right from the get-go as to what equipment you would like to use, and what sort of playstyle you would like to employ. With the Vanilla game, my playthroughs always tend to look somewhat the same: You start off getting some Ore Armor, probably Silver or Tungsten because Wood, Cactus, Copper/Tin, and Iron gear is just too ineffective to even be worth making. I'll usually make a Cactus Sword and a Cactus Pickaxe (because Cactus is so easy to get), but I probably won't get the armor because reducing damage taken by 2 isn't really worth messing with to be honest, when the weakest enemy in the game hits you for 7-11 damage.

Once I get that, then off to EoC I go; I will probably use a Cactus Sword until one of the following happens:

1). I find an Ice Blade (uncommon, I try to avoid the underground Ice because it's annoying at this stage of the game)
2). I find an Enchanted Boomerang (RNG)
3). I build enough housing to get the Demolitionist and buy enough grenades
4). I find something else like a Starfury (which requires me finding Grav Potions which is highly RNG)

Anyhow, once I have those, I will either seek out an Amazon (if I found an Ice Blade or some form of Enchanted/Ice Boomerang) or I'll simply use one of the above to kill the EoC, or barring that, I'll just use Fire Arrows and some form of bow.

Either way, the playthrough always follows that same path because to be honest, unless I go sequence breaking, it's the only viable path through EoC.

With Thorium Mod, however, all of that changes because they added a Pre-EoC boss and several armor/weapon sets:

1). Grand Thunder Bird: Is farmable without too much trouble; you need some iron, a couple stars, and some new drops from vultures to spawn him and he can be fought with just basic gear and is slightly easier than the EoC. He drops a couple different weapons, the best of which (IMO) is the Didgeridoo which I found myself using for half of Pre-Hardmode.
2). Thorium Ore: This makes an armor set, and several weapons including a gun, though from my experiences the stuff is harder to find than Gold/Platinum.
3). The Flute: This can be found in Wooden Chests and is good enough to help you through several other areas you wouldn't normally go to quite yet.
4). Aquatic Armor: If you don't mind some careful farming, one could kill pink jellyfish and crabs near a beach and get themselves a suit of this stuff. Also makes some throwing weapons and melee weapons that do DoTs.
5). Harpy Armor: If you found another weapon (like the flute, which is an excellent choice), you could try to find a sky island using grav potions or something and farm harpies for feathers and a new crafting material. This also gets you a weak pair of wings (!!) and can be done as soon as you begin the game once you get a weapon good enough to kill harpies.
6). Ice Armor: Ice creatures now drop Ice Shards which can be used to make an armor set and some weapons, IIRC, a gun included.
7). Grand Thunder Bird also drops Sandstone Bricks which can be used to make armor and gear mostly meant for throwing.
8). Cloth Bard armor can be made from Silk.
9). Healer Armor: I forget what you make this out of, IIRC, drops from enemies in the Underground/Cavern Layer.

And I think I'm forgetting some early-game armors. Some of these even have upgrades (the Bard and Healer sets), but the point is..... so many options. Early game isn't so boring now, it actually feels more like the rest of the game, especially post-hardmode where you have all of these options as to what to use.

The extra boss gives you the leg-up that you need to explore the Underground Desert (which becomes a viable part of your progression as a result, because you can explore that). If you can get a Didgeridoo off of the Grand Thunder Bird, you can easily survive in there with some care if you make either the sandstone brick armor or the bard armor. Due to how the place is set up, and how easy it is to find some underground houses, I was always of the opinion that the UD looks like a great beginner's area... except the enemies are just too strong unless you get extremely lucky with RNG.

Not so, in Thorium. Given all of the above options, many of which have very low RNG, you can go here pretty much first-thing after maybe a little spelunking to find yourself some starting gear to kill the GTB with.

So, what can we learn from Thorium Mod?

Simple: Early Game in Vanilla just doesn't have enough variety, enough options. Most of the weapons are very samey, carbon copies of each other. A Silver Broadsword is the same thing as a Tungsten, as a Gold, as a Platinum only they do slightly different damages. Anything less than Silver or Tungsten armor is not worth making for the amount of effort you need to put into acquiring it.

Thorium Mod gives you stuff that's not really overpowered, but yet interesting at the same time. Projectiles that home, Projectiles that bounce off of walls. DoT melee weapons. Wings. A craftable gun (and ammo). All of this, without doing too much damage to be overpowered.

Well, okay, the Didgeridoo is on the upper end of the power scale for early-game, but it's a boss drop. It at least is fun to use, and doesn't look/sound/function exactly like nearly every other weapon in its class until late hardmode when we finally start getting variety in weapons.

So my suggestion, would be to sprinkle a few more options, some of which would have very low RNG attached to them (farmable in some way) to early-game progression.

And the Underground Desert.... seriously.... that needs to be viable near the beginning of the game. So much wasted potential. Right now in Vanilla, you have no real reason to go there until way later, but yet there are a few items (like the Mandible Blade) that have damage so low that they look like beginner's weapons but yet are dropped by mobs you couldn't possibly kill unless you get lucky and trap one in terrain (and probably get killed by something else while trying it).

Oh, and one last thing Thorium Did: almost all of its melee weapons are autoswing AFAIK. Which all weapons should be. I don't like tiring my finger (and my mouse button) out spamming clicks using early-game vanilla weapons.
 
You are absolutely right, Terraria needs more options in pre-bosses. (but don't forget about loot from Shadow Orbs, it's also quite easy to get. )
Oh, and one last thing Thorium Did: almost all of its melee weapons are autoswing AFAIK. Which all weapons should be. I don't like tiring my finger (and my mouse button) out spamming clicks using early-game vanilla weapons.
Yeah, I don't see the point of weapons with no autoswing, it makes no diffrence in playthrough but is very annoying.
 
You are absolutely right, Terraria needs more options in pre-bosses. (but don't forget about loot from Shadow Orbs, it's also quite easy to get. )

Well, progression-wise, I always considered the orbs/hearts to be post-EoC, though I suppose nothing (except for the mobs in there) stops you from going there early... except for the fact that the first one broken is always the Musket/Undertaker and the third will spawn the boss, so you get 1 chance to get either a Rotted Fork, or a Vilethorn.

And of course, if you're going there extremely early, you will most likely trigger meteorites and goblin attacks which you may or may not be able to handle yet.

Yeah, I don't see the point of weapons with no autoswing, it makes no diffrence in playthrough but is very annoying.

Certain weapons, such as grenades I can see having no auto-swing because you wouldn't want to throw more than you actually mean to, but yes, all weapons should have auto-attack otherwise.
 
As a lover for the rapid-click rapid-fire weapons, I don't like the idea that every weapon should have autofire.
Some weapons, (Phoenix Blaster and Magic Dagger for example) are already powerful on their own. If these also get autofire, then they'll outclass other autofire weapons like the Minishark, Gatligator and Hellwing Bow directly.
It feels just similair as removing variety in the game, which is pretty much the opposite of what you would like.

I'm not completely disagreeing to your point, for example Swords.
But but the idea that every fast range weapons shoots the same way as the lazy Megashark doesn't feel fine to me.
 
Making the early-game less linear is pretty good, yes; although you're still pretty free to do whatever you like.

Yeah, I mean, you could fight the moonlord while wearing wood armor if you wanted... but that doesn't mean that it is... "viable" to do so, if you know what I mean?

For actual practicality purposes, vanilla game is very limited especially when it comes to viable armors until near the end of Pre-Hardmode when you finally get a little choice, and even then, the choice is rather lack-luster. It usually boils down to, if Crimson, use Crimson Armor. If Corruption, use Molten Armor at least for me.

There's Jungle, I suppose, but I find that Pre-Hardmode Mage is "meh" at best. There's Necro armor if I wanted to go ranged, but the damage bonus is not strong enough for me to notice much of a difference for the large difference in defense.

Otherwise... ya. That's about the size of it. I once threw on Fossil Armor for the lulz but found it to be pretty "meh" as well.
 
Yeah, I mean, you could fight the moonlord while wearing wood armor if you wanted... but that doesn't mean that it is... "viable" to do so, if you know what I mean?

For actual practicality purposes, vanilla game is very limited especially when it comes to viable armors until near the end of Pre-Hardmode when you finally get a little choice, and even then, the choice is rather lack-luster. It usually boils down to, if Crimson, use Crimson Armor. If Corruption, use Molten Armor at least for me.

There's Jungle, I suppose, but I find that Pre-Hardmode Mage is "meh" at best. There's Necro armor if I wanted to go ranged, but the damage bonus is not strong enough for me to notice much of a difference for the large difference in defense.

Otherwise... ya. That's about the size of it. I once threw on Fossil Armor for the lulz but found it to be pretty "meh" as well.
That shows that the lack of choice is mostly related to the set bonuses: Crimson Armor's stats apart from the set bonus are decent defense (Althrough the other armors' defense isn't much lower) and a weak damage bonus that is weaker than that of Pumpkin Armor's set bonus, but the set bonus makes it stronger than Shadow armor, and even preferable to Molten Armor (Which in itself is a near-direct upgrade over Shadow armor, as both buff melee weapons, but Molten's buff is stronger and the defense is higher). Similarly, Necro's set bonus is awful (At least when considering that ammo is hardly a big issue for the most part at that point), while Jungle Armor similarly has a set bonus that can make it inferior to Meteor Armor (Specially as the latter's buffed damage compensates for the increased mana cost in relation to Jungle armor).
This in general tends to affect the pre-1.2 armor sets, which are generally inferior to 1.2+ armors of the same or even lower tiers (The prime example being Cobalt/Mithril/Adamantite armors, which are generally weaker than their 1.2 alternates).
 
This in general tends to affect the pre-1.2 armor sets, which are generally inferior to 1.2+ armors of the same or even lower tiers (The prime example being Cobalt/Mithril/Adamantite armors, which are generally weaker than their 1.2 alternates).

Ever since Titanium Melee armor was nerfed, I find myself preferring Adamantite, though.

But yes, a lot of the 1.2+ stuff is just superior in every way.

And yeah, I know it's mostly the set bonuses, and that's something else that Thorium did quite well: pretty much every single armor set in Thorium has a useful set of bonuses (and a set bonus). Several of them have movement speed (you can tell that the makers of Thorium know why early-game Terraria tends to be the least exciting), one of them lets you breathe underwater (!!!!), another gives off light passively, small little things that aren't overpowered but yet they make me go "Hmm, which to choose...." becuase they are all good choices. Well, most of them.

There's this armor set that has 30 defense which is just ridiculous.......but -50% movement speed and run cap penalty. I'm sure taking 1 damage from nearly anything in Pre-Hardmode is awesome, but I prefer not to take two whole gamedays to get from my base to the dungeon for example lol.
 
I just want to say real quick that the idea of 'sequence breaking' in Terraria is a little silly; technically, of the 16 bosses you can fight in any given world (counting EoW and BoC as one since you'll usually only fight one or the other in a given world), you only need to kill 9 of them to 'complete' the game; 8 if you go fishing a lot. That is to say, EoW/BoC to be able to mine Hellstone (which you need for hardmode ores, unless you fish up a Reaver Shark or just open lots of crates), WoF for Hardmode access, the mechs to unlock Planty, Planty to unlock Golem, Golem to unlock the final event and the final 2 boss (Lunatic Cultist and Moon Lord). Everything else is basically completely optional and can be entirely ignored- the Eye especially, since the only useful thing he drops is Demonite unless you're in Expert Mode. (Basically, ignoring half of the pre-Hardmode bosses isn't really sequence breaking, since they have no true role in main progression. :p)

That said, I completely agree with the sentiment of 'less linear earlygame'. Ideally, I'd like some alternate progression options for getting from the start of the game to Hardmode (besides the currently-mostly-mandatory EoW/BoC -> WoF progression mentioned above; something I don't see many mods do), but at the very least some better options for earlygame equipment besides 'generic armor' would be greatly appreciated. It's definitely one of the perks of having Thorium.

Before anyone says something about me counting an awfully small number of bosses, I only count the main 15, the Martian Saucer, and Betsy as actual bosses. Flying Dutchman doesn't really do much besides act as support, the Pillars aren't really bosses so much as just targets after you slaughter an army, on account of literally doing almost nothing themselves, and for the most part none of the big Moon enemies pose enough of a threat by themselves to qualify as anything higher than mini-bosses; Ice Queen comes pretty close, though. Same goes for the Old One's Army. (The wiki seems to agree with me on this assessment, too.)
 
Well, when I say sequence-breaking, I'm talking about doing the bosses/biomes out of order, such as going to the Underworld as soon as you're able to mine Hellstone and skipping the Jungle and the Dungeon entirely and coming back with ridiculously overpowered gear.

In terms of numbers on the equipment (defense and stats on armor, damage on weapons) and the enemies' strengths, it looks like the developers intended for the standard progression to look like this:

Forest->Underground/Cavern=Snow/Underground Ice->EoC->EoW/BoC->Jungle=Meteorite->Dungeon->Underworld->WoF with the Underground desert being this weird side-path tacked on with no clear place in the progression. The biome screams "early game!" but the mobs' strength fall somewhere between the EoC and the Jungle.

If you follow that progression, you are pretty much shoehorned into statless gear, which means you have to wait until...

Magic: Jungle or Meteorite
Ranged: Dungeon
Summon: Jungle
Throwing: Underground Desert

And if you're melee, you're pretty much stuck with Crimson or Shadow->Molten Armor all the way. And of course, you're probably going to start with Silver/Tungsten Armor (unless you're bold enough to skip that and go straight to Crimson/Shadow) because it offers the best defense for the least effort (anything below is too much effort for too little gain, gold/platinum takes too much effort to get a whole suit and the difference is too small to notice).

This is where Thorium Shines. Right from the get go, you have access to several armors and you can pick&choose what you want before even touching the EoC and a lot of early game armors are very comparable to each other and are reasonably balanced and nearly all of them offer perks, many of these perks fill in gaping holes that early game presents (movement speed being too slow, a lack of easy light options, underwater breathing+swimming, etc).

It just makes the whole experience smoother was the point I was trying to make. And more varied options. Which is an awesome thing.

But yet the mod doesn't ram-rod anything down your throat; you can skip the optional bosses and areas if you want to and just do the Vanilla progression if that's your thing. Nearly all the optional bosses are manually summoned, which means you won't bump face-first into some weird boss because you stepped into it, and there aren't any overpowered enemies in the world where you feel like you must do the mod's optional content just to survive.

You can pick&choose what you wanna do.
 
Earlygame is meant to test your combat avoidance skills.

Yeah, I mean, you could fight the moonlord while wearing wood armor if you wanted... but that doesn't mean that it is... "viable" to do so, if you know what I mean?

For actual practicality purposes, vanilla game is very limited especially when it comes to viable armors until near the end of Pre-Hardmode when you finally get a little choice, and even then, the choice is rather lack-luster. It usually boils down to, if Crimson, use Crimson Armor. If Corruption, use Molten Armor at least for me.

There's Jungle, I suppose, but I find that Pre-Hardmode Mage is "meh" at best. There's Necro armor if I wanted to go ranged, but the damage bonus is not strong enough for me to notice much of a difference for the large difference in defense.

For actual practicality purposes, going for late pre-hardmode rush is about the fastest thing you can do, simply because of the existence of Reaver Shark opening Hellstone up and also because you can basically tackle pre-Hardmode bosses in pretty much any order. In fact, EoC is one of the most useless bosses out there since he offers basically nothing. You can rush end-pre-Hardmode sets pretty early on, esp. if you get an early pre-Skeletron water bolt.

Well, when I say sequence-breaking, I'm talking about doing the bosses/biomes out of order, such as going to the Underworld as soon as you're able to mine Hellstone and skipping the Jungle and the Dungeon entirely and coming back with ridiculously overpowered gear.

You can, and should, do the bosses/biomes out of order since corruption/jungle/dungeon/hell is equal in value and the rest simply aren't worth (desert) or can be easily done with no gear, as in copper pick/axe and blocks ONLY (everything except desert and corruption)

Meteor/Molten/Bone/Bee are about equal in effectiveness, especially when you consider that 1 grav potion or 1 3/4 length minecart zigzag track allows you to dodge basically everything from the WoF without even putting in any effort, not to mention ironskin and expert difficulty dmg spike.
 
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I believe that early game has enough variety: you have six viable armour sets to choose from (8 if you include fossil and both world evils), and a multitude of weapons.
What really needs more variety is early hardmode: Before the mechanical bosses there are only four armour sets, of which one of them directly outclasses the two others, and a summoner set. Realistically there are only three armour set choices before the mechanical bosses: The first tier of the hardmode ores if you are lazy, the third tier if you like grinding, or the summoner set. I guess you could include frost and forbidden as well, but I think that they are directly outclassed by adamantite/titanium.

And then for the fight against the mechanical bosses: it's almost consensus that the best weapon against the destroyer is the daedulus strombow, and then against twins and skeletron prime the megashark is the best. If you are bored of this, you could kill skeletron prime and twins first with a CAR, which really isn't much different.

It's not pre-hardmode that needs more variety, it's early hardmode.
 
The problem with that thinking, is that a lot of those sets that you mention are in late pre-hardmode.

Of the Pre-Hardmode Sets....

1). The Necro armor comes from the dungeon which is the 2nd to last place you visit before hardmode.
2). The Jungle Set is... well... in the Jungle. Not somewhere you're going to go at the beginning of the game.
3). The Throwing Set requires you to mine fossils which requires at the very least either a Reaver Shark, or the EoW/BoC pickaxe and requires surviving in the desert which means you need a weapon that does 16+ damage to actually kill the junk in there.
4). The Shadow/Crimson Armors which are arguably "melee" (but more general-purpose) require defeating the 2nd boss
5). Helfire Armor is literally the last thing you would get before Hardmode.

Whereas Thorium Mod offers several suits of armor (with themed albeit weak bonuses) before you even kill the first boss.

For anybody not speedrunning the game... it takes awhile to get through these early areas because movement is slow, it takes awhile to find better equipment, mine up ore, build houses, etc. It's nice to not have to wait 5+ hours into the game before you finally get armor with +ranged damage, for example.
 
The problem with that thinking, is that a lot of those sets that you mention are in late pre-hardmode.

Of the Pre-Hardmode Sets....

1). The Necro armor comes from the dungeon which is the 2nd to last place you visit before hardmode.
2). The Jungle Set is... well... in the Jungle. Not somewhere you're going to go at the beginning of the game.
3). The Throwing Set requires you to mine fossils which requires at the very least either a Reaver Shark, or the EoW/BoC pickaxe and requires surviving in the desert which means you need a weapon that does 16+ damage to actually kill the junk in there.
4). The Shadow/Crimson Armors which are arguably "melee" (but more general-purpose) require defeating the 2nd boss
5). Helfire Armor is literally the last thing you would get before Hardmode.

Whereas Thorium Mod offers several suits of armor (with themed albeit weak bonuses) before you even kill the first boss.
First of all there is no order of bosses, in fact I personally fight EoW first and ignore EoC, as defeating it provides little benefit.
I see that you conveniently forgot Meteor armour, which you can get within one to three hours of playing the game. With meteor armour + space gun, EoW is a piece of cake, and you can safely explore the jungle as well. Hell, even with shurikens the EoW is fairly easy. So you can get jungle armour and shadow armour at this stage.
With meteor armour + space gun you can easily defeat skeletron, meaning you can get necro armour.
Fossil armour shouldn't be too hard to get at this point.
Molten armour might be a bit more of a grind, but molten armour isn't necessary and is really just for people who like to be completely decked out before starting hardmode.

Early game to me is late pre-hardmode--unless your idea of early game is the first couple hours of a playthrough.
 
First of all there is no order of bosses, in fact I personally fight EoW first and ignore EoC, as defeating it provides little benefit.
I see that you conveniently forgot Meteor armour, which you can get within one to three hours of playing the game. With meteor armour + space gun, EoW is a piece of cake, and you can safely explore the jungle as well. Hell, even with shurikens the EoW is fairly easy. So you can get jungle armour and shadow armour at this stage.
With meteor armour + space gun you can easily defeat skeletron, meaning you can get necro armour.
Fossil armour shouldn't be too hard to get at this point.
Molten armour might be a bit more of a grind, but molten armour isn't necessary and is really just for people who like to be completely decked out before starting hardmode.

Early game to me is late pre-hardmode--unless your idea of early game is the first couple hours of a playthrough.
Lets look at it this way.
Say you are a new player. You hear that Terraria lets you make all different kinds of cool choices for your playstyle. Many people don't get through pre-hardmode as fast, meaning that a new player will just see a linear set of things with only stat changes. Pretty much the only unique good set of armor you can get early is meteor, which at least requires you to get the demolitionist to get to the Crimson Hearts/Shadow Orbs. Most new players won't know about that, however.
Changes like these are not only meant for experienced players, but to make this game fun for new people who don't know how the game works.
 
Lets look at it this way.
Say you are a new player. You hear that Terraria lets you make all different kinds of cool choices for your playstyle. Many people don't get through pre-hardmode as fast, meaning that a new player will just see a linear set of things with only stat changes. Pretty much the only unique good set of armor you can get early is meteor, which at least requires you to get the demolitionist to get to the Crimson Hearts/Shadow Orbs. Most new players won't know about that, however.
Changes like these are not only meant for experienced players, but to make this game fun for new people who don't know how the game works.

Basically the point I was trying to make, yes.

And yes, I forgot to mention the Meteor Armor... but again, even if a newer player did know about Meteor Armor, the first time or two you try mining meteors without getting killed several times is... not the easiest thing in the world until you get it down-pat. Also, when you're making meteor armor... you don't KNOW that it makes the space gun free until you make the whole set. It could easily be that someone might kill the EoW, make shadow/crimson armor, then make 1 piece of meteor and go 'pfft, this is worse than what I already have' and then not bother making the rest.

As for the EoC not being worth the time, eh. Sometimes I get terrible runs where I'll get a full suit of silver armor and still using a cactus sword because nothing else would drop. Killing the EoC lets you make a new sword, yoyo, bow, or axe and sometimes that's the best you can get at that point in the game.
 
The problem with that thinking, is that a lot of those sets that you mention are in late pre-hardmode.
Of the Pre-Hardmode Sets....

1). The Necro armor comes from the dungeon which is the 2nd to last place you visit before hardmode.
2). The Jungle Set is... well... in the Jungle. Not somewhere you're going to go at the beginning of the game.
3). The Throwing Set requires you to mine fossils which requires at the very least either a Reaver Shark, or the EoW/BoC pickaxe and requires surviving in the desert which means you need a weapon that does 16+ damage to actually kill the junk in there.
4). The Shadow/Crimson Armors which are arguably "melee" (but more general-purpose) require defeating the 2nd boss
5). Helfire Armor is literally the last thing you would get before Hardmode.

First of all, have you played recently? Molten is now melee and Shadow is now classless. Only Bee and Necro are locked behind bosses, both of which are easily cheesable with a minecart loop.

Jungle is pretty much the best early game place. Has lots of cool loot, shotguns and stuff, jungle armor, and is relatively easier to tunnel through than normal underground (since you can see trappers)

Reaver Shark is really easy to get once you have access to jungle grass.

Hellfire is also really easy to get if you are melee, just get aforementioned Reaver Shark and drop 3 NPCs in hell to drastically reduce spawn rates.

There is no such thing as "Mid" or "Early" pre-Hardmode, since the content is really easy to breeze through once you know what you are doing. Movement isn't THAT slow too, especially when talking about the Jungle, where movement is only slightly faster out in the open with max gear than when tunneling.
 
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