NPCs & Enemies Blood Moon fishing rework

652Graystripe

Plantera
Since 1.4 was released, I've been doing a lot of Blood Moon fishing. The fights are fun for the most part, but they can be a little gimmicky, and the RNG involved with the drops is quite annoying.

As a way of reworking it, I've decided to make the enemies special quests from the Angler.
Angler.png

During a Blood Moon, if you speak to him, he'll have an option for a "Special Quest" (normal quests are still available). This will be to defeat a particular fished-up enemy; if you fish while the Blood Moon is still active, it will spawn. Once you defeat whatever it is, you can speak to him again to get loot (and another quest, if it's still a Blood Moon). Loot depends on the enemy he's asked you to defeat.

Additionally? For convenience's sake, he's also immune to the attacks of all fished-up enemies. This comes in particularly handy in Hardmode, where mine keeps getting killed by the Dreadnautilus in particular. And frankly, I can imagine him being some kind of blood-slick abomination from a tear in the fabric of natural law.

Quests and rewards are as follows. Note that all quests will reward 7-10
Chum_Bucket.png
Chum Buckets, as well as standard "common" Angler items (such as fishing potions and bait).
Zombie_Merman.png

50% chance during pre-Hardmode; 10% chance during Hardmode
Reward: one of the
Vampire_Frog_Staff.png
Vampire Frog Staff,
Blood_Rain_Bow.png
Blood Rain Bow, or
Chum_Caster.png
Chum Caster.

"Have you ever met a merman? I bet you haven't, because they're all dead! That's right, all the mermen in <World Name> died out before you ever got here. That's terrible, because I always wanted to see one. But because of the dark magic of the Blood Moon, they can come back as zombies! Kill one and show it to me, so I can see what they looked like without getting bitten or clawed or whatever!"
Wandering_Eye_Fish.png

50% chance during pre-Hardmode; 10% chance during Hardmode
Reward: one of the
Vampire_Frog_Staff.png
Vampire Frog Staff,
Blood_Rain_Bow.png
Blood Rain Bow, or
Chum_Caster.png
Chum Caster.

"What's with all the weird eyes and stuff in <World Name>? I don't know, and I don't care! But I know that on nights like these, a special eye fish can rise up out of the deep with the special goal of killing things! Kill it right back and bring it to me!"
Hemogoblin_Shark.png

30% chance during Hardmode
Reward: one of the
Haemorrhaxe.png
Haemorrhaxe or
Blood_Thorn.png
Blood Thorn.

"Let me tell you a spooky story. Did you know that there's blood in your veins... right... now?! Haha! I just learned that from <Nurse's name>, and it totally freaked me out. She also said that it's full of this stuff called hemoglobin, which is cool, because you should catch me a hemo-goblin shark!"
Blood_Eel.png

30% chance during Hardmode
Reward: one of the
Haemorrhaxe.png
Haemorrhaxe or
Drippler_Crippler.png
Drippler Crippler.

"Zooming through the sky, it's the Blood Eel! Did you know that its jaws can unhinge up to 180 degrees to swallow its prey whole? And it's not actually a fish, but a demon that takes the shape of one? I think that's totally awesome! Go kill it for me, minion!"
Dreadnautilus.png

20% chance during Hardmode
Reward:
Sanguine_Staff.png
Sanguine Staff (100%) and
Blood_Moon_Monolith.png
Blood Moon Monolith (25%)

"Ooooh, you're going to be SO dead! I just learned about this eldritch abomination lurking in the waters of <World Name>. It's called the Dreadnautilus, and it's going to murder you to death! I really want its beautiful shell, so you should go kill it for me!"

Additionally, since the Dreadnautilus is kind of a weird fight, I've reworked it slightly:
-For its spin attack, it fixes on where you are when it starts the attack. This allows you to properly dodge it if you're fast enough.
-It's no longer invulnerable while spitting blood.
-Speaking of the blood, the angle of spray is slightly reduced to allow you to more easily strafe around it. And it sparkles a little bit, making it more visible in the deep, dark depths of the night.

All enemies still have their normal drop tables, allowing you to pick up additional loot. On the topic of the Chum Caster, its current bonus is now replaced with 50% extra fishing power during a Blood Moon, so if you want to get some regular fishing done...

Additionally, to make this more farmable:
Bloody_Tear.png

Bloody Tear
-Craftable with 1
Life_Crystal.png
Life Crystal and 5
Deathweed.png
Deathweed
A terrible night to have a curse indeed.
 
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The system is fine, just raise the drop rates and nerf Dreadnautilus. There is no point in reworking everything like this.
 
The system is fine, just raise the drop rates and nerf Dreadnautilus. There is no point in reworking everything like this.
That's the main reason why I chose to leave the normal drops in place and, well, nerf the Dreadnautilus. This is effectively increasing drop rates.
 
I actually really like the presentation of having the Angler sending you to kill these! Some of the Blood Fishing enemies currently feel like they could have just been regular, non-fished-up enemies (to me, at any rate), and this would certainly alleviate that issue. However, there are two problems I see with your current idea:
  1. Going back and forth between the Angler and fishing would make Blood Fishing slightly more annoying, as it would require you to go back to the Angler every time you kill an enemy. Maybe you could make it so you need to kill enough of an enemy for the Angler, instead of just one. This'll give you more of a chance to actually farm the enemies while leaving the Angler as a secondary option.
  2. Getting the Blood Fishing loot, with this system, would be too easy. This kinda works against the first point, but is probably more important, anyways. I think a simple increase of item drop rates would be plenty, especially with the first idea I presented. You COULD still have the enemy-specific loot as quest rewards if you made them less common, just to, again, keep Angler as a secondary option.
I do also have an idea for you, if you don't mind:
  • Make it so you get Chum Buckets and the Chum Caster from the Angler instead of the enemies. That way, players would be getting weapons by fighting enemies, and fishing gear by talking to the fishing NPC.
 
I actually really like the presentation of having the Angler sending you to kill these! Some of the Blood Fishing enemies currently feel like they could have just been regular, non-fished-up enemies (to me, at any rate), and this would certainly alleviate that issue. However, there are two problems I see with your current idea:
  1. Going back and forth between the Angler and fishing would make Blood Fishing slightly more annoying, as it would require you to go back to the Angler every time you kill an enemy. Maybe you could make it so you need to kill enough of an enemy for the Angler, instead of just one. This'll give you more of a chance to actually farm the enemies while leaving the Angler as a secondary option.
  2. Getting the Blood Fishing loot, with this system, would be too easy. This kinda works against the first point, but is probably more important, anyways. I think a simple increase of item drop rates would be plenty, especially with the first idea I presented. You COULD still have the enemy-specific loot as quest rewards if you made them less common, just to, again, keep Angler as a secondary option.
I do also have an idea for you, if you don't mind:
  • Make it so you get Chum Buckets and the Chum Caster from the Angler instead of the enemies. That way, players would be getting weapons by fighting enemies, and fishing gear by talking to the fishing NPC.
1. You're absolutely right, given that I gambled on the Angler being close to the place you're fishing at (not too outlandish, but you're right, not everyone does it). Part of the reason I gave him immunity to these enemies was to allow him to be as close as possible.
2. I did kind of wonder that, especially with the Sanguine Staff being the only possible Dreadnautilus reward. One thing I considered is updating the rewards so you're guaranteed to get stuff like Chum Buckets (and maybe other general fishing rewards like Sonar Potions), but you get the special drops only sometimes. On the flipside, where there's that chance, you begin to run into RNG, although I'd like to keep the chance as high as possible. There's also the issue of defeating the enemies in their own right, which can be a right pain with the Dreadnautilus in particular. I decided to sort of err on the side of caution here.
 
I quite like this. Would improve the problems the current Blood Moon fishing has, as fun as it was to be randomly fishing, have a blood moon start, and suddenly fish up an extremely powerful enemy for the first time, haha
 
Hmm I agree there is a problem with the existing bloodmoon enemies but I'm not sure about the solution I think the idea of the Chum Caster being a angler reward for killing Bloodmoon enemies makes sense but I don't like the idea of him outright giving you the other items. It might also be useful to have a special bait that grants a similar effect and with the Chum caster and chum bucket guarantees pulling up a blood moon enemy even without the Angler. The loot also seems a bit strange in that it is fairly random and largely disconnected and unbalenced in terms of how hard the enemies are to fight and summon. Also worth noting that prehardmode there is only a ranged weapon and summon weapon while in hardmode there is only a hamaxe and melee mage and summoner weapons respectively I know classes aren't intended to be a thing beyond what gets boosted by what gear type but it largely limits the advantage for even trying for players not interested in a specific archetypes loot. Especially when compared to other miniboss type monsters these guys are quite rare in actually dropping loot which is annoying particularly in the case of Dreadnautilus.
 
Little bit confused by what you mean here - are you saying that this makes it too easy to get them? It doesn't seem like removing the RNG-ey random fishing is making it any more difficult, just less annoying. You still have to fight the bosses, after all.

And if someone doesn't want to fight them because the loot isn't good, well, more power to them, I guess. I don't want blood moon fishing to be a mandatory thing for all classes, just an auxiliary feature. This just makes it more accessible.
 
Little bit confused by what you mean here - are you saying that this makes it too easy to get them? It doesn't seem like removing the RNG-ey random fishing is making it any more difficult, just less annoying. You still have to fight the bosses, after all.

And if someone doesn't want to fight them because the loot isn't good, well, more power to them, I guess. I don't want blood moon fishing to be a mandatory thing for all classes, just an auxiliary feature. This just makes it more accessible.
Ah I am honestly more worried about the banners if you have to talk to the angler every time it would get tedious so I mainly wanted a way to fight them without needing the Angler. The bit about the loot is more of a pet peeve of mine in that most optional events are disproportionately biased in their loot. In fact the only 3 optional events which even feature an item for each type are, tier 2+ OOA(sentries only for summoner), the Post Plantera Solar Eclipse, Pumpkin Moon, and Martian Maddness

As for the Summoner RNG Conversation:
-The Finch Staff should have just been made a normal surface chest item locking it to the already limited living tree houses was a needless complication.
-The Slime Staff should have been made a drop from King Slime.
-The Vampire Frog staff and even the Blood rain Bow were honestly a bit of a let down at least on Master relative to the difficulty of taking down a Wandering Eye Fish. This is part of why I like the idea of making the Chum Caster a Angler award for killing the blood moon enemies. I don't have a problem including the weapons per say it just wouldn't fit the character of the Angler's other rewards which don't include any weapons only tools accessories and decorations.
-The Blade Staff should have been a drop from Hallowed Mimics. Rare items only really work fairly if there are enough weapons to compensate for the potential absence on a playthrough and the only other option at that point of progression is the Spider staff. They didn't even give a summoner drop from the Goblin Summoner.... Relogic what the ****. >_<
-The Sanguine staff honestly doesn't even really fit Dreadnautilus very well it isn't the only item like this but it stands out fairly well in how extreme it is
 
Why does every mini-event or mini-biome have to become something more, bigger, Huuuuuuuuuge! and whathot for the sake of making it huge?
Imo leave the small things small. And enjoy the little things.
And why does it have to be a 100% drop from the quest? The things that the new Bloodmoon adds are fairly strong in the step of the game. Re-Logic are geniuses at balancing the game, and giving the drops a low, but still fairly high dropchance was a good idea.
 
Why does every mini-event or mini-biome have to become something more, bigger, Huuuuuuuuuge! and whathot for the sake of making it huge?
Imo leave the small things small. And enjoy the little things.
And why does it have to be a 100% drop from the quest? The things that the new Bloodmoon adds are fairly strong in the step of the game. Re-Logic are geniuses at balancing the game, and giving the drops a low, but still fairly high dropchance was a good idea.
I disagree with almost everything in this comment
 
I disagree with almost everything in this comment
So you disagree with questions? Weird, but okay, whatever floats your boat.
With the opinion on mini biomes staying small? Okay, your opinion, my opinion...
Again a question? See above.
If you disagree that the items are strong, why do you want them in the first place? Why are they worth to start a quest, fish up an enemy, defeat it and turn in the quest, probably getting something else? This kinda contradicts itself.
Disagreeing with the fact, that Re-Logic are geniuses? Okay, people disagree with the earth being a globe. I mean, you're wrong, but okay.
 
So you disagree with questions? Weird, but okay, whatever floats your boat.
Why does every mini-event or mini-biome have to become something more, bigger, Huuuuuuuuuge! and whathot for the sake of making it huge?
Imo leave the small things small. And enjoy the little things.
And why does it have to be a 100% drop from the quest? The things that the new Bloodmoon adds are fairly strong in the step of the game. Re-Logic are geniuses at balancing the game, and giving the drops a low, but still fairly high dropchance was a good idea.
Don’t be a Smart Alec, Just-a-Beer.

Imo leave the small things small. And enjoy the little things.

The things that the new Bloodmoon adds are fairly strong in the step of the game.
The Blood Moon literally just got expanded; you know and acknowledged this. It’s definitely larger than the Slime Rain, at least, which is more of a Mini-Event than the Blood Moon.

I’ve actually heard a lot of people complaining about the drop chances being ridiculous, as WELL as some of the items themselves not being worth the challenge of getting them. I’ve only heard of the latter for the Vampire Frog Staff and Blood Thorn, but it’s worth a mention.
 
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Don’t be a Smart Alec, Just-a-Beer.
Yes, you got it right, I meant those questions. I cut my post answering him/her into parts and meant those two lines as questions, and not anything else.
P.S. My nick has nothing to do with beer, or the English language in general. I am not a native, and it is a thing in my language, not a wordplay or anything in the language of the Englishmen.
The Blood Moon literally just got expanded; you know and acknowledged this. It’s definitely larger than the Slime Rain, at least, which is more of a Mini-Event than the Blood Moon.
Yes I did, sure. Well, if you compare it to the Solar Eclipse or any other Lunar event, it is a small thing. Smaller than Pumpkin Moon, Frostmoon or the Lunar Cultist event.
It gives you stuff thich is intended for pre-hardmode or early-to-mid-hardmode.
I’ve actually heard a lot of people complaining about the drop chances being ridiculous, as WELL as some of the items themselves not being worth the challenge of getting them. I’ve only heard of the latter for the Vampire Frog Staff and Blood Thorn, but it’s worth a mention.
There is no such thing as definitive worth in this game to be honest. Everyone makes his/her own worth.
If item XY is not worth the grind for you, you simply do not grind for it.
If you grind for item XY despite the grind, it has worth to you.
Saying I want to grind it but it's not worth is an oxymoron.
Bloodmoon items are most of the times gimmicks with like 1 or 2 of them actually being really good. And those have higher drop chances.
I mean, take Slime Staff for example. An absolute trash summon weapon, and becomes obsolete almost instantly. Yet people spend hours or days farming it and see it as novelty.
But something else that is equally useless and more or less novelty needs a change because people also create artificial worth around it.
Hell, I get confused by that topic and lose my thread.
 
Why does every mini-event or mini-biome have to become something more, bigger, Huuuuuuuuuge! and whathot for the sake of making it huge?
Imo leave the small things small. And enjoy the little things.
And why does it have to be a 100% drop from the quest? The things that the new Bloodmoon adds are fairly strong in the step of the game. Re-Logic are geniuses at balancing the game, and giving the drops a low, but still fairly high dropchance was a good idea.
Thankfully this doesn't make it any bigger than it is already. I personally like it the way it is - not mandatory, of course, but potentially a profitable thing to do. Although, like everyone else, I struggle with the Master Mode fights and dislike the RNG.

In terms of the drop chance, you're right that 100% is crazy high. Killing the Dreadnautilus, while hard, is definitely possible. For that one, given the feedback I've gotten, I'm going to rework it so that the staff is a chance, and the only guaranteed item is the Chum Bucket (maybe some coin too, I'unno).
 
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