Expand Your Terraria Empire - Pylons, Town Building, and NPC Happiness

Well, it's certainly a good change, minus the price penalty for older builds. It'll make navigation easier and make my usual main base less bloated. It's still not exactly what I was hoping for, though. Building housing for NPCs is one of the three things in this game that brings my progression down to a crawl and I dread it in every new playthrough. I enjoy building casually from time to time but I get most of my fun from trying out new weapon loadouts. Making compact housing not only allows me to return to the action faster, but is also more convenient to have all NPCs in one easy to access area. I'll definitely try the new stuff but I don't know if I'll stick with it for all playthroughs.

I would have preferred an addition that removes the need to build NPC housing altogether; I'd like an NPC that sells blueprints and builds pre-made houses as long as you have the materials and some coins in your inventory- perhaps with modding support to have the community make and share their own blueprints. Ah~ A lad can dream.

Edit: To the admins, don't forget about Negativity Bias. Any nerf, even if it's small, is going to have a greater effect on a person than a buff of equal value. Some of the people complaining are likely to not even bother with this new town system so all they're going to experience is either no change or a negative change. Since those people have no positives to look forward to and the best they can hope for is to break even, you can imagine where the complaints are coming from.
 
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Will each NPC always prefer the same biome? Will the Dryad always want to live in the Forest, and the Pirate in the Ocean, and the Witch Doctor in the Jungle? If so, it really feels like it goes from "build 3x10 pillars at spawn, with one 3x10 in the jungle for Leaf wings and one in a Mushroom biome for the Truffle" to "put square peg in square hole and round peg in round hole"
 
Uhhh... I like those new windows `:passionate:
UPD. Looking like 2x2 inactive 45 degrees rotated glass blocks. And what's happened with walls and bg? There's new option to rotate blocks?
 

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For concern 3, the pylons have to be in their specific biome, and you can only have one pylon per biome active, so while it may replace sky rails for getting to the jungle and the dungeon, for example, getting to anywhere at those biomes will still need teleporters, it just means now you don't have to sit there for hours just wiring from the center of the world to the jungle.

And on a personal note, sky rails will still be plenty useful for dealing with skeletron, the mechanical eyes, and the mechanical skull, I just may not build it across an entire medium or large world anymore.

For the personal concern, I agree, while I personally think people are overblowing the issues, ultimately the devs are just trying to put out the fire by putting oil on it by antagonizing the ones with complaints and then whining when that (shockingly) doesn't stop the complaints. add on that we were told they only announced this pre-release because it needed in-depth explanation... so you'd think they'd be ready and willing to answer questions to clarify it, not clam up and refuse to talk about it.
 
I understand that Pylons are only one per biome, but the issue was never really travelling within one biome as much as it was travelling between the biomes. Since you get one Pylon per biome, you can strategically place them in a way that functions fairly similarly to teleporters, at least for surface travel. Underground travel is where I can see Pylons not being as useful, seeing as how the majority of the underground is made up of huge biomes spanning the entire width of your world. However, just making a hellevator at each Pylon seems like a pretty easy solution to this.
I can see what you mean, but I do still think teleporters have their use, just in the short range. for example, lets say my main central base is in the forest, but so is my general boss arena, the pylons won't help but a teleporter will. I'd also still need the teleporters for a plantera arena, and so on. Its more of a time saver, because I know in older versions I'd hop on and try to build teleporters for across the map usage for my friends and it was mind numbing to go from the middle of the map, to the jungle, and to the dungeon, on a large world. Pylons mean I don't have to do that, but I can still set up teleporters to get into my closed-off base, my bunker for the destroyer, and my farming areas.
 
I'm just wondering if this happiness / Pylon change is something that could be toggled on a world-by-world basis, like on the world creation menu.

Eh, what do I know. I'm no programmer.
 
Well clearly this forum is not for me then, i've got slap in the face for liking certain playstyle and he's got a laugh.
Cya in the game anyway after May 16th. Still won't be forced by them to play as they want me to play even if they make merchant selling torches for 1 platinum.
Not everyone has 25 hours per day to spend on building like @Khaios and nothing else.
Would pay dollars for dlc disabling this feature.
 
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Well clearly this forum is not for me then, i've got slap in the face for liking certain playstyle and he's got a laugh.
Cya in the game anyway after May 16th. Still won't be forced by them to play as they want me to play even if they make merchant selling torches for 1 platinum.
Not everyone has 25 hours per day to spend on building like @Khaios
Would pay dollars for dlc disabling this feature.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I genuinely hope that a majority of people love the new feature, as I'm sure it can bring something to the table. Pre-hardmode teleports already sound pretty nice, especially if you're on a large world. And I'm sure Red was just kidding when he threatened penalties..... right?

Plus, the devs have now fully endorsed modding, so I don't think they'd give a second glance if someone modded the game to your liking. Heck, that's why I use Fargos to bypass that jerk of an angler, making me wait 24 hours before another fishing quest. I'll never get that achievement.
 
No big deal, I'll just make ten little boxes instead of one big box.

Galaxy brain time.

But for real though, this is amazing and gives me incentives to not do the aforementioned cardinal building sins. (I'm in that post and I don't like it) It's worth it for the teleportation alone.
 
They don't care about me so i don't care about them, i will be doing megabasing despite of restrictions.
As i said, they won't force everyone to be @Khaios only because @ChippyGaming was advertising him recently.
I'll make special prison for NPC on spawn for 1.4 launch ;)
We survive corona so we will survive unfair feature ^^
 
Does it?

If you have 8 Pylons in the world, figuring out which one the Dryad is at takes more than 2 seconds. You have to search through the map (which may be rather big), looking at every Pylon location until you find her.



I don't know what you mean by "NPC prison", but my bases are designed for easy navigation from room to room.



When I said that this mechanic had no "depth", I was referring to the gameplay depth, the mechanical complexity of the actions the player takes and the variety of choices the player has. I don't care if this mechanic allows an NPC's personality to be imposed on the gameplay. What I care about is how that imposition affects the gameplay.

From a gameplay perspective, this mechanic is exceedingly shallow. Every NPC has one or more preferred biomes. They have one or more un-preferred neighbor NPCs. And you can find out about any/all of these... by asking them.

This has all the complexity of a game of Go-Fish with all the cards face-up: just pair the ones who match. Problem solved.

So where's the depth?



I've never played this game. However, I imagine that, from a gameplay perspective, "making friends" with them requires more effort than just asking them their preferences and moving them to that preferred location, right?

Because that's all Terraria is bringing with this change. There's no "sense of accomplishment" to be had for a task that is rather trivial.



For you, a specific game feature was able to inspire you to consider what might be an interesting home tailored to an NPC. That's great for you, and I mean that sincerely.

But do not mistake a source that managed to inspire you as being the only possible source for similar inspiration for others.

There is nothing that prevented anyone from previously coming up with those ideas. In fact, I rather suspect many people have used these ideas to varying degrees previously. This feature is not empowering you to do something you could not before; at best, it has inspired you personally. But that's just you, personally.

Creativity, or a lack thereof, is not why people don't commonly build these things in their runs through Terraria. It's because, as I have stated before, NPCs are game mechanics; they exist for the player to be able to use them. And the most convenient way to use them is if they are all right there next to each other.

If you play Terraria for long enough, and are trying to just experience the content of the game, NPCs are just a means to an end. So you spend the bare minimum of time on them that the game requires and you move on. And people will continue to do that in 1.4.

All 1.4 did was change what that bare minimum would look like. Instead of one set of boxes, you have several. But they'll still be cookie cutter, minimum effort boxes, because that's what it takes to get to what they feel are the good parts of the game.



You can only have one active spawn point. I picked the Dryad as an example because, by and large, you only rarely need her services. If your bed will only be near a couple of NPCs, you won't pick the Dryad as one of them.



I can get used to a lot of things. You haven't explained why I should have to get used to it. It's not improving my play experience. Or at least, not in a way that couldn't easily be achieved in another way.



The question you're not asking is why people build these so-called "commieblock towers" in the game. You seem to think of it purely as a stylistic choice. It's not.

It's a choice that favors player convenience. It allows me to see the greatest number of NPCs all at once, and to quickly and efficiently access them if I need to. They're right there; I don't have to go looking for them, or activate a Pylon or whatever else.



But that's kind of the point. See, the correct way to deal with cheese strategies against the Moon Lord is not to make the Moon Lord arbitrarily invulnerable to cheese strats. It's to not put cheese strats into the game. I mean, Vampire Knives. That doesn't even rise to the level of a "strat"; it's just a weapon you pick up that turns the game into easy mode. If you put an easy-mode weapon in the game, it's silly to give the final boss a "you can't use the easy mode weapon against me" ability. It's a bait-and-switch: you teach the player to use easy-mode, then you take it away when they need it the most, forcing them to learn all the stuff they didn't learn when they were relying on easy-mode.

Your analogy is good, because this feature comes from the same kind of thinking. This mechanic feels very artificial, something bolted onto an existing system in order to forceencourage players to play in a way that isn't necessarily how they would play otherwise. The devs don't like people making tight-knit homes for NPCs, so they hurt you if you play that way.

You say you have to search out through your entire map to find the dryad as if you don't learn the layout of your map through playing the game. Do you have to figure out how the inventory screen is laid out every time you open it? Of course not, it just becomes muscle memory. The same will happen here.

By NPC prison, I mean a bunch of cookie cutter rooms placed side by side in one spot. You have to navigate through the whole thing searching for where you put the Dryad, because there is no rhyme or reason to NPC placement in a prison. You just throw them into an empty room and that's all it is.

Where's the depth of the characters having personality? In the fact that it impacts their emotions and causes them to increase or decrease their prices towards you based on how you treat them. Treat them poorly and throw them into a place they hate living and they're not going to give you good prices. Place them in their favorite place with their friends? They're going to love you and give you a Pylon plus discounts for treating them kindly instead of shoving them into a wooden box on top of your base that they can never escape.

All that is required to make friends in Stardew Valley is to talk to the NPCs and give them gifts that they like every day. They have gifts that they like and gifts that they dislike. If you give them gifts they dislike, they don't like you and don't give you any good items. If you give them nice gifts they like, then they give you nice gifts and special cutscenes and open up an entire marriage game mechanic. Just like how making friends with your NPCs in Terraria opens up the game mechanic of Pylons. The downside of not becoming friends with NPCs in Stardew Valley is that there are a ton of items and events that are locked behind making friends.

The fact that I was able to be inspired to build in a new location despite me only creating NPC prisons in the past shows what this feature hopes to accomplish. Yes, there is nothing preventing people from coming up with those base ideas for their NPCs, but there is also literally no incentive whatsoever for doing so. This fixes that. The game doesn't want to punish people who don't like building though which is why the mechanic doesn't REQUIRE you to make nice looking houses, it just exists to give you the inspiration and motivation to do so. It literally does not require you to do that at all, and the only downside is slightly increased prices. If you really only care about prices and not the look of their houses, just make your NPC prisons at each of the Pylons. While you make your prisons that are functionally identical to making one large NPC prison in one spot, everyone else can be inspired by this new mechanic and build some nice houses.

Also, if you only rarely need the Dryad, why is it so much of an inconvenience to need to take 2 extra seconds to get to her? I could maybe see where you're coming from if it was for an NPC you use all the time, but if it's someone you'll rarely be visiting, how is it such an inconvenience to use a Pylon to teleport to them?

If your entire argument is about the convenience to the player, what is your opinion on the Dungeon Guardian? What is your opinion on Hellstone releasing lava upon being destroyed? What is your opinion on herbs needing special conditions and times to grow? All of these things are inconvenient and make you take a bit more time to access certain things, but they're logical game mechanics. What's so different about this?
 
Guys, if you think about it, the criteria for happiness are:
No overcrowding
No hated NPCs
No disliked biomes

I'd imagine that you need:
0 criteria to get an increase in prices
1 criteria to nullify the increase in prices
2 criteria to give a decrease in prices
3 criteria to get a Pylon

That'd make the most sense. Unless you build an awful NPC prison where all of the NPCs are overcrowded next to people they hate in one singular biome, you're not really going to be affected by the price.

If you want to nullify the price increase, you could:
Space out your NPCs a tiny bit, but still have them all in one general location
Rearrange your NPCs to be next to people they like, but still have them all in one general location
Put your NPCs into biomes they like, but have them separated into different general locations.

Any single one of those things is likely all it'll take. You cannot legitimately complain about having slightly increased prices for making a tower of 24 boxes crammed next to each other. Want to build an NPC castle? Go ahead, just make sure their rooms aren't jam packed right next to each other or make sure they have neighbors they like. Want to give the Goblin Tinkerer an Arctic Workshop? Go ahead, just make sure he isn't living with people he hates or make sure he isn't crowded next to a ton of people. The only thing that this update is punishing is the use of a singular central NPC prison, since it's unrealistic for NPCs to enjoy living like that.

Well for one it's being implemented nine years into the game's development.

How else do updates work? Do you want them to go back in time and implement it 2 years in?

Well clearly this forum is not for me then, i've got slap in the face for liking certain playstyle and he's got a laugh.
Cya in the game anyway after May 16th. Still won't be forced by them to play as they want me to play even if they make merchant selling torches for 1 platinum.
Not everyone has 25 hours per day to spend on building like @Khaios and nothing else.
Would pay dollars for dlc disabling this feature.

Oh no I have to place my NPC prison in separate biomes or else my musket balls will cost 8 copper instead of 7, how ever shall I do this without spending 25 hours a day on building??????

Remember when they said that building skill has absolutely nothing to do with the price increase? You can literally build your classic convenient NPC prison and access it immediately across the world using Pylons. It's not that hard of a feature to completely ignore.

We don't know how much the prices will be increased or what the threshold and exact conditions for the penalty will be.

Do you seriously legitimately expect that ReLogic will make torches cost 2 platinum a piece? Do you really think that the people who have created this wonderful amazing masterpiece of a game over the past 9 years that can be played for thousands of hours with constant fun would make a completely unbalanced pricing system right on their last update? That's just disrespectful.
 
Heh, yep. I don't build castles. I put toilets next to book-cases, a piano above my bed on a series of weird drippy yellow platforms, another toilet next to some books and a golden chalice, a vase next to a chandelier made of flesh, a second bed above a bathtub made of glass, and a clock made of beautiful crystal next to the chimney I put below the dresser.

The NPCs are just happy to get away from the zombies and weird flying eyeballs.
 
That does not look like a castle to me, and every bit like "a squishy set of minimalist apartments."
And that is the issue people are having with this change: some things are subjective! I quite like the look and feel of the bases I build. Being hit with a fine for not making things twice the size will kill all my enthusiasm for the game.
I have no intention to ever go to those 3x10 prison cells I have seen people use... But if having one central nexus to build around is "wrong" enough to incur a penalty, then I guess I'm not creative enough to play this game any longer.
 
That does not look like a castle to me, and every bit like "a squishy set of minimalist apartments."
One persons "squishy set of minimalist apartments" is another's castle. The semantics may be more of the issue then the actual issue, as I touched on about how our idea of the building spectrum is going to be different to the one that was brought up by Loki earlier in the thread, less "our" and more speaking to that of the individual.
 
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