tModLoader Calamity Mod

[TALONIUSZAN]

I usually play with multiple mods enabled at once, and I've noticed that, because Calamity forces items into slots 8, 9, and 0, some items are unable to spawn in your inventory upon character creation. Can these items please be set to only be craftable at demon altars for free or something? Thanks.

 

[Flamingo]

I like how (as far as I care) this forum went from everybody nagging at a guy for complaining about the "piss ocean" to everybody's talking about Goozma, Xeroc, Draedon, Yharim, and a bunch of other superbosses that aren't even in playable versions of the mod yet.

The promise of what could be is more exciting than the details of what has been. Goozma could be anything. Maybe the glowy bit in his center is another ninja, like the King Slime, only the ninja is awake this time and shoots throwing stars at you. Whatever, you want, that might be what you get.

Until it's real.

 

[IDGCaptainRussia]

The promise of what could be is more exciting than the details of what has been. Goozma could be anything. Maybe the glowy bit in his center is another ninja, like the King Slime, only the ninja is awake this time and shoots throwing stars at you. Whatever, you want, that might be what you get.

Until it's real.

Too true, But I'd prefer to be kept on suspense and see what they come up with. The part that surprised me most was bosses who were planned to be fought AFTER Yharim.

 

[ARTEZUI]

I like how (as far as I care) this forum went from everybody nagging at a guy for complaining about the "piss ocean" to everybody's talking about Goozma, Xeroc, Draedon, Yharim, and a bunch of other superbosses that aren't even in playable versions of the mod yet.

Isn't it great? Let's keep that going!

 

[Technotoad64]

Oh boy, it has had alot more than that

Here's a recap of how turbulent this thread is (in relative order of me keeping up with this thread). These are not how I feel, this is just the general "vibe" of how the general felt at the time

Scal is broken/cheap/overpowered and not fun!
latest version of the mod can't downloaded without joining the calamity discord (Planetoids/future bosses update)
Discord drama brought into this forum and Morningdrew does not care (and then he returns)
Mod no longer works in 32bit systems (lots of people getting that error) and had to be split up
That one guy and people questioning rouge damage
and now people talking about future bosses of the mod

I'm not looking to point fingers or start a fight, I'm just adding onto the comedy that's the Calamity mod thread XD

Calamity also includes a whole ton of progression-speeding (and sometimes even -skipping) stuff (evil island, ice tomb, biome shrines, planetoids, starter bag, tons of recipes, pre-mech Plantera, Golem, and Cultists, etc...) that could (and considering the mod's size, maybe should) be downloadable as a separate mod, like the music is.

 

[Flamingo]

Isn't it great? Let's keep that going!

It lacks substance, since Goozma, Yharim, etc don't exist. In the here and now, there's a lot of errors associated with Planetoids, and space problems revolving around the general additions made by Calamity. There's also not that much boss discussion regarding existing bosses because they're solved puzzles, really.

In honesty, let's discuss boss design. Based on what we currently have, what might post-Yharon bosses look like? Because currently, bosses like DoG are fairly restrictive and dull. DoG is spongy, predictable, has multiple phases to drag things out, invulnerability periods, but what does the fight actually feel like? In real terms, I think most players cheese DoG in one way or another because his design is cheesy in the first place. You have to outlast the stupid thing, so the current most common strategy is to dig a pit and fall down it, shooting at DoG as it chases you. This repetitive, dull routine can last ten or fifteen minutes.

Future bosses could be anything, because they don't exist yet. It's possible to get excited about them. If you want. But again, there's no substance until they do exist, and based on how tedious DoG, Yharon, and Calamitas can be, I would expect Goozma and other bosses to be very spongey, to have multiple stages so you can't move through the fight even with powerful gear, to employ obnoxious instant death attacks, to fill the screen with as many projectiles as a high-end machine can handle, and to just generally be kinda sucky from a strict design perspective.

 

[IDGCaptainRussia]

Calamity also includes a whole ton of progression-speeding (and sometimes even -skipping) stuff (evil island, ice tomb, biome shrines, planetoids, starter bag, tons of recipes, pre-mech Plantera, Golem, and Cultists, etc...) that could (and considering the mod's size, maybe should) be downloadable as a separate mod, like the music is.

Evil island is a godsend that prevents making another world, I love it.
I've never even once encountered an ice tomb, strange.
planetoids don't serve much purpose atm, they were originally the way you summoned the future bosses, now you just make a few accessories (that aren't even really worth a slot) with the cinderplate.
biome shrines, don't recall those.

I do believe something will be done to make expanding the world to fit in the planetoids worth it later on thou, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[ARTEZUI]

It lacks substance, since Goozma, Yharim, etc don't exist. In the here and now, there's a lot of errors associated with Planetoids, and space problems revolving around the general additions made by Calamity. There's also not that much boss discussion regarding existing bosses because they're solved puzzles, really.

In honesty, let's discuss boss design. Based on what we currently have, what might post-Yharon bosses look like? Because currently, bosses like DoG are fairly restrictive and dull. DoG is spongy, predictable, has multiple phases to drag things out, invulnerability periods, but what does the fight actually feel like? In real terms, I think most players cheese DoG in one way or another because his design is cheesy in the first place. You have to outlast the stupid thing, so the current most common strategy is to dig a pit and fall down it, shooting at DoG as it chases you. This repetitive, dull routine can last ten or fifteen minutes.

Future bosses could be anything, because they don't exist yet. It's possible to get excited about them. If you want. But again, there's no substance until they do exist, and based on how tedious DoG, Yharon, and Calamitas can be, I would expect Goozma and other bosses to be very spongey, to have multiple stages so you can't move through the fight even with powerful gear, to employ obnoxious instant death attacks, to fill the screen with as many projectiles as a high-end machine can handle, and to just generally be kinda sucky from a strict design perspective.

The people of this thread are entirely of their own right to talk about whatever they would like to in relation to this mod.

While I do agree with you on the merits of DoG, I feel that a majority of the bosses in post-Moon Lord gameplay are rather fine, excluding certain aspects about the Providence fight, Devourer of Gods (as mentioned), and other bosses that have attacks and phases designed not to keep the fight difficult, but just make the fight last longer. However, I feel that if Fabsol simply takes their time to design these things a little longer, we can be graced with an actually fulfilling experience.

Call it idiotic optimism if you want to, but I'd genuinely like to see what comes next. If it turns out to be an awful turnout, I do intend on voicing my complaints. I did so earlier in the Supreme Calamitas hitcounter argument. But I'd feel much better on my personal, singular note keeping my head up high until I have a reason to lower it.

However, at this rate I'd genuinely just suggest to stop playing this mod if all you expect is absolutely disappointing game mechanics and abysmal gameplay altogether. Things do not seem intent on changing, and based on not only Fabsol's replies, but the general state of things altogether, that doesn't seem to be subject to change either.

Beyond that, I don't really want to continue discussing with you. Hopefully you can find someone else willing to reply more satisfyingly and host a genuine discussion!

Evil island is a godsend that prevents making another world, I love it.
I've never even once encountered an ice tomb, strange.
planetoids don't serve much purpose atm, they were originally the way you summoned the future bosses, now you just make a few accessories (that aren't even really worth a slot) with the cinderplate.
biome shrines, don't recall those.

I do believe something will be done to make expanding the world to fit in the planetoids worth it later on thou, we'll just have to wait and see.

Personally I hope planetoids get more of a point post-Moon Lord or in late hardmode. So far the only real point they have is pre-hardmode, Cinderplate uses and the Soul Artifacts, but that feels a little lacking with the potential they could hold. Maybe they could have something to do with some new armour sets, maybe? Or they could help expand the Rouge Class a bit?... there's a lot of possibilities.

 

[Cyrille]

Haven't played terraria/this mod in a while, seems I missed quite a bit - sorta confused about the new Rogue damage type though, is it just a renamed Thrown or do vanilla bonuses to Thrown not work on it? Do Rogue bonuses work on vanilla/mod Thrown weapons? Sorry if these are really dumb questions, the wiki explains what thrown is but not really how it interacts with vanilla/other mod content.

 

[ARTEZUI]

Haven't played terraria/this mod in a while, seems I missed quite a bit - sorta confused about the new Rogue damage type though, is it just a renamed Thrown or do vanilla bonuses to Thrown not work on it? Do Rogue bonuses work on vanilla/mod Thrown weapons? Sorry if these are really dumb questions, the wiki explains what thrown is but not really how it interacts with vanilla/other mod content.

Rogue, from what we know and have seen so far, is a modification of thrown. It is, however, a different damage type altogether. Thrown damage buffs do not apply to it, and vice versa.

Fabsol intends on expanding on this and providing us with more information in the future, but currently they are unable to do so for us at the time.

 

[Cyrille]

Rogue, from what we know and have seen so far, is a modification of thrown. It is, however, a different damage type altogether. Thrown damage buffs do not apply to it, and vice versa.

Fabsol intends on expanding on this and providing us with more information in the future, but currently they are unable to do so for us at the time.

Oof... that's unfortunate. So much for doing a thrown playthrough right now haha. I'll do another class and hope Rogue eventually gets Thrown compatibility or reverted, then, 'cuz that really hurts Thorium/Spirit and leveling mod compatibility. Thank you for letting me know, especially so quickly!

 

[Flamingo]

Oof... that's unfortunate. So much for doing a thrown playthrough right now haha. I'll do another class and hope Rogue eventually gets Thrown compatibility or reverted, then, 'cuz that really hurts Thorium/Spirit and leveling mod compatibility. Thank you for letting me know, especially so quickly!

A reversion does not appear likely. Noting that it came out with a "leveling" feature, the most likely reason for the change from "throwing" to "rogue" is that throwing damage is programmed unusually in the base game, and Fabsol wanted the player to level up in accordance with the damage type they were using at the time. There's also some ominous promise of more to come, but with no details forthcoming because "they might get someone fired".

There are a few other "leveling" mods out there, and most of them get around the technical issue by having the player gain generalized experience, which they can choose to invest in some way or another. Why Calamity needs to overlap with those mods and integrate its own similar mechanics as a mandatory part of the mod package is beyond me.

In short, Calamity will probably be incompatible with all other throwing mods from this point forward, and will likely alter all vanilla equipment to make it similarly incompatible.

 

[Flamingo]

While I do agree with you on the merits of DoG, I feel that a majority of the bosses in post-Moon Lord gameplay are rather fine, excluding certain aspects about the Providence fight, Devourer of Gods (as mentioned), and other bosses that have attacks and phases designed not to keep the fight difficult, but just make the fight last longer. However, I feel that if Fabsol simply takes their time to design these things a little longer, we can be graced with an actually fulfilling experience.

I think this segment is an edit, so I missed it earlier.

Personally, I think an important factor to good boss design is the understanding that the player is always going to be the most powerful thing in the game. If you design a "Devourer of Gods", then the implication is that
Player > DoG > God
Or in other words, the player is essentially two steps above a god by the time he fights DoG. The point isn't to make DoG feel powerful, the point is to make the player feel powerful. If the boss is a decent challenge, then the fulfillment of having overcome that challenge makes the player feel good at the game and more "powerful" in a real world sense.

The big problem with DoG, Calamitas, and Yharon is that it feels like Fabsol is focused primarily on trying to make the bosses feel stronger than the player even though, by design, they're intended to be defeated. In my opinion, the fact that Yharon talks down to you for defeating him and forces you to fight him twice is just a disgusting misunderstanding of the relationship between the player and the game. Calamitas also talks down to you if you beat it, acting as though the player had to cheat to win but still trying to represent Calamitas as this ancient evil worthy of respecting.

Based on the other post-Moonlord bosses, I suspect that Fabsol is going to proceed with the same mentality and make his other super bosses be condescending and spongey. In a relative sense, I dislike post-Moonlord progression in Calamity because I think the player gets weaker instead of stronger. He finds himself with fewer tools, and the boss fights are longer without really becoming mechanically more engaging in the context of Terraria's normal gameplay.

 

[Technotoad64]

I would expect Goozma and other bosses to be very spongey, to have multiple stages so you can't move through the fight even with powerful gear, to employ obnoxious instant death attacks, to fill the screen with as many projectiles as a high-end machine can handle, and to just generally be kinda sucky from a strict design perspective.

Oh, and they might also

• Become immune to damage if it exceeds a cap
  • (no fun, but understandable--as long as the cap isn't so low that it's reachable with that same mod's weapons and bonuses)
• Either be so fast that you have to run away constantly in a straight line
  • (though this can be avoided if it has a turning radius that lets you go toreador on it, which is way cooler)
• Trap you in an arena so you can't run away
  • (I actually kinda like this one, in moderation anyway--it prevents the "Prometheus" escape method)
• Summon a previous boss
  • (kinda pointlessly drags the fight on, imo--if you're fighting the boss in the first place, you've already proven you can beat the previous ones, making this kinda filler)
• Be invulnerable until you get rid of enough minions
  • (can be fun (Celestial Pillars) or just aggravating (Tremor's Fungus Beetle), depending on execution)
• Have a timer that instantly kills you if you take too long to finish the fight
  • (basically a dps floor; might be discouraging for certain builds (Thorium's Expert Mode Ragnarok as Cleric), though it can be an easy way to build suspense)
• Instakill you if you're not taking enough damage per hit
  • (same as the dps cap, this is understandable as long as it isn't accidentally doable with the mod's own stuff)

And, hey. If we're lucky, maybe some of the more annoying trends will fall out of favor and certain fights will become a lot more fun! After all, they did remove SCal's hit counter and DoG's (absolute) immunity on body hits.

 

[Technotoad64]

[...A]n important factor to good boss design is the understanding that the player is always going to be the most powerful thing in the game. If you design a "Devourer of Gods", then the implication is that
Player > DoG > God
Or in other words, the player is essentially two steps above a god by the time he fights DoG.

Well, you have beaten the Slime "God" pre-Hardmode, Astrum "Deus" pre-Moon Lord, and most recently Providence, the Profaned "Goddess". I think it just means that being a "god" in this setting isn't a very big title.

The point isn't to make DoG feel powerful, the point is to make the player feel powerful. If the boss is a decent challenge, then the fulfillment of having overcome that challenge makes the player feel good at the game and more "powerful" in a real world sense. The big problem [...] is that it feels like Fabsol is focused primarily on trying to make the bosses feel stronger than the player even though, by design, they're intended to be defeated.

Amen! For me, knowing that beating the boss has to be possible kind of makes it feel like the game is pointlessly gloating, but for some people, making the big-bad-evil-guy seem impossible to beat builds excitement because it's like a personal challenge, like, "Oh, he's been holding back this whole time? I can't wait to see his real form!"

In my opinion, the fact that Yharon talks down to you for defeating him and forces you to fight him twice is just a disgusting misunderstanding of the relationship between the player and the game.

I guess the idea is that he was just toying with you before, and got bored and left after you hit him enough times. Only after beating a buffed Mothron (why Mothron? no idea) does he think maybe he should actually try to stop you. And, you know, some people are into that, like, "now I've shown you that I'm a real threat, haha!"

Calamitas also talks down to you if you beat it, acting as though the player had to cheat to win but still trying to represent Calamitas as this ancient evil worthy of respecting.

I guess the idea is that... well, she's just a crazy ...

Based on the other post-Moonlord bosses, I suspect that Fabsol is going to proceed with the same mentality and make his other super bosses be condescending and spongy.

Yeah, I'm getting kinda tired of the "nuthin personell, KID" stuff, too. It would be refreshing to have one of the bosses give dialogue that's less cocky and overconfident, since, again, we all know you're beatable, Mr/s. Big-Bad!

In a relative sense, I dislike post-Moonlord progression in Calamity because I think the player gets weaker instead of stronger. He finds himself with fewer tools, and the boss fights are longer without really becoming mechanically more engaging in the context of Terraria's normal gameplay.

That might be an inevitable problem of extending a game's play-time so far past where it was originally meant to be over, you kinda run out of stuff to work with. New ore spawns, biomes, or events would help with that, but Calamity's main emphasis is and will probably always be on the chain of bosses, meaning that that's the only post-ML stuff that's likely to get added. I think it would be pretty cool if, for example, the Abyss didn't generate until after beating a post-ML boss. Or maybe if you had to beat SCal to make a new ore generate in hell. Things along the lines of Uelibloom and Exodium, though Exodium doesn't have anything but a single weapon and a few accessories to its credit yet.

 

[Cyrille]

A reversion does not appear likely. Noting that it came out with a "leveling" feature, the most likely reason for the change from "throwing" to "rogue" is that throwing damage is programmed unusually in the base game, and Fabsol wanted the player to level up in accordance with the damage type they were using at the time. There's also some ominous promise of more to come, but with no details forthcoming because "they might get someone fired".

There are a few other "leveling" mods out there, and most of them get around the technical issue by having the player gain generalized experience, which they can choose to invest in some way or another. Why Calamity needs to overlap with those mods and integrate its own similar mechanics as a mandatory part of the mod package is beyond me.

In short, Calamity will probably be incompatible with all other throwing mods from this point forward, and will likely alter all vanilla equipment to make it similarly incompatible.

Oh... is that true? I tend to use a lot of mods so compatibility is really important to me. Already dislike the other unnecessary and unwanted vanilla changes Calamity makes enough, I don't want to drop the mod but I want throwing damage not rogue haha.

 

[Flamingo]

Oh... is that true? I tend to use a lot of mods so compatibility is really important to me. Already dislike the other unnecessary and unwanted vanilla changes Calamity makes enough, I don't want to drop the mod but I want throwing damage not rogue haha.

I'm in the same boat. For all the things I do like about Calamity, it feels like there's getting to be more and more non-negotiable aspects of the package that I really don't like or that I already have. Unnecessary restrictions to vanilla equipment is a very good example, because if I didn't want to play with certain items then I wouldn't use them. I almost never bother looking for a Daedalus Stormbow, for example, because at this point I can beat the Destroyer without even building an arena, but it annoys me that it's not a nice little ace in the hole if I happened to stumble across it. Likewise, what's with the nerfs to the Reaver Shark? Or the Vampire Knives? Or to summoning as a whole?

When did I ever say to myself, "You know what, summoner class is just TOO GOOD, I want a mod that makes them do zero damage, but still eats up the max number of damage frames." Summoner class is awful, and the ability to use it in conjunction with a restrictive set of non-competing weapon types did not demand an overhaul of a destructive nature.

Personally, I keep some older versions of Calamity and rollback to previous versions when I feel like a new version didn't add enough to make up for what it took away.

That might be an inevitable problem of extending a game's play-time so far past where it was originally meant to be over

I disagree. Let's suppose that Cryogen was a post-Moonlord boss, but with damage and health scaled to be competitive with Moonlord gear. Would that really be so bad? It's a boss fight I really like in Calamity. It's creative, it goes through a variety of interesting cycles in a fairly swift-paced fight, it throws projectiles at me but enough that I can still make sense of it, and the closest thing to "invulnerability" is a shield that I can actively attack and damage.

Just because the boss comes after Moonlord doesn't mean that it needs to give the player whiplash. There's not some rule that says there has to be a sensory overload, or that the whole screen needs to be tinted bright colors. In fact I think losing my cursor in the Moonlord's projectiles was always the worst thing about the Moonlord.

 

[Cyrille]

I'm in the same boat. For all the things I do like about Calamity, it feels like there's getting to be more and more non-negotiable aspects of the package that I really don't like or that I already have. Unnecessary restrictions to vanilla equipment is a very good example, because if I didn't want to play with certain items then I wouldn't use them. I almost never bother looking for a Daedalus Stormbow, for example, because at this point I can beat the Destroyer without even building an arena, but it annoys me that it's not a nice little ace in the hole if I happened to stumble across it. Likewise, what's with the nerfs to the Reaver Shark? Or the Vampire Knives? Or to summoning as a whole?

When did I ever say to myself, "You know what, summoner class is just TOO GOOD, I want a mod that makes them do zero damage, but still eats up the max number of damage frames." Summoner class is awful, and the ability to use it in conjunction with a restrictive set of non-competing weapon types did not demand an overhaul of a destructive nature.

Wait, what did Calamity do to summoning? I was familiar with the other mentioned changes (and generally dislike them - tho the buffs to some underused weapons are cool) but hadn't seen anything about summoning getting rekt.

 

[Flamingo]

Wait, what did Calamity do to summoning? I was familiar with the other mentioned changes (and generally dislike them - tho the buffs to some underused weapons are cool) but hadn't seen anything about summoning getting rekt.

I think this is reverted now - or in the process of being reverted - but for a while summons were changed to deal close to zero damage if you held another weapon type. This restriction may have only been when playing in one of the many, many alternative difficulty modes (I think Revengence), but I'm not sure anymore. It affects a game mode I often play Calamity in, at any rate.

But it struck me as odd from square one because if you're not careful, summons were already capable of lowering your DPS. I think the change was to enforce a "pure summoner" approach to summoning, but it doesn't work because summon AI is too dumb.

 

[IDGCaptainRussia]

I think this is reverted now - or in the process of being reverted - but for a while summons were changed to deal close to zero damage if you held another weapon type. This restriction may have only been when playing in one of the many, many alternative difficulty modes (I think Revengence), but I'm not sure anymore. It affects a game mode I often play Calamity in, at any rate.

But it struck me as odd from square one because if you're not careful, summons were already capable of lowering your DPS. I think the change was to enforce a "pure summoner" approach to summoning, but it doesn't work because summon AI is too dumb.

Oh god I forgot about that change, I hope that did get reverted.

Summons were often not fast enough/too derpy to be the only source of damage and often enough, they would get randomly unsummoned (ususally from having too many buffs) which made the class unplayable.

One thing I know Calamity does do is it updates your summons with your current damage boosts to summon damage, this way you can't just "summon minions with high damage accessories, and the and then switch over to ones with more defense that don't decrease minion count"
Here's all the changes to the base game: https://calamitymod.gamepedia.com/Vanilla_changes at the very least Calamity's wiki is kept consistently updated.