PC 1.4.1 - NPC Happiness Feedback

[Sprite]

Gotta say, I'm not happy with the 1.4.1 happiness rework. While yes, it is a VERY useful mechanic for certain NPCs (Tinkerer, maybe the Angler? Definitely the Mechanic), it's not very useful for other NPCs (Guide, Stylist, Tavernkeep).
However, the changes brought in 1.4.1 made optimizing happiness into one of the more tedious things in the game, right next to farming for Ankh Shield parts, and farming up fishing quests. The new town search radius is way too big, and causes problems for those of us who have a base with various NPCs living in it. (For instance, I have a town of 4 NPCs for the Ocean at 120' Surface, a town of 4 NPCs for Hallow in 122' Underground, and a town of 3 NPCs for Underground at 306' Underground.) The new radius makes them all unhappy, even though they're fairly spaced apart.
The changes to the love/hate relationships also HEAVILY penalizes the player for putting all related NPCs into the same biome (IE: Tinkerer, Clothier, and Demolitionist) just from one NPC not liking someone else, so they hike their prices. This really needs a rework, since you can't please your NPCs anymore without having to go through the hassle of shuffling other NPCs into places they don't like, or being stuck around someone they hate, then shuffling them back... You see where this is going?

At first, NPC happiness was a very good idea. Things worked and were tolerable. Now... It sucks. It legitimately sucks. Please, go back, overhaul this mechanic. It's so ungodly tedious to deal with now, I'd rather just slaughter my NPCs than deal with the shuffling (sans the Tinkerer. He's the only good NPC in the game.)

 

[Leinfors]

As mentioned in other threads, the increased radius was actually a change made in response to player feedback that it was too hard to get NPCs close enough to register as neighbors for happiness purposes.

It seems the reaction has been anything but well received, and since no one seems to find the change valuable, and its been having a negative impact, then I am intending to likely fully revert the change. It was only ever made based on players requesting a broader detection for neighbors anyway, so if it didn't succeed in that regard, then I have no personal attachment to the change.

 

[Sprite]

I can see what you were aiming for, I really do, but all of my NPCs are now cranky. Like, super cranky. It isn't just distance and detection that's an issue -- it's how the whole system works now. The changes to love/hate relationships means you are forced to sacrifice happiness on one or more NPCs just to get the value of another one high enough for it to matter.
Before the update, the Tinkerer was just fine living in the Underground/Caverns nearby-ish to the Demolitionist and the Clothier. You got discounts. Now, with the same distance and the same spot, he hikes his prices up because he doesn't like either of them. So then you have to move the Mechanic and the Dye Trader down to the Underground/Caverns to make him happy. But now the Mechanic is unhappy because she's stuck living underground.
The Arms Dealer is fine, as his likes and dislikes are fairly well aligned with the Nurse and Steampunker (mostly since the Nurse is neutral to the Desert.)
Tavernkeep is moot since he isn't affected by NPC Happiness, which is a really odd choice.
The Witch Doctor is fine since Dryad likes both him and the Jungle, Guide is neutral.
Other NPCs are either too unimportant to really care about (as they give nothing useful to an actual playthrough), or they are fine as they are.

The major NPC that needs a rerouting for this is either going to be the Tinkerer or the Mechanic. Tinkerer needs to live in a neutral place for the Mechanic, or Mechanic needs to stop hating the Underground/Caverns. These two NPCs are actually mega important in their own ways, having to shuffle them around is just a major pain in the rear and the current changes actually made me want to just stop playing the game as a whole, even stopping the renovations on my hub world base.

 

[Lord Garak]

As mentioned in other threads, the increased radius was actually a change made in response to player feedback that it was too hard to get NPCs close enough to register as neighbors for happiness purposes.

It seems the reaction has been anything but well received, and since no one seems to find the change valuable, and its been having a negative impact, then I am intending to likely fully revert the change. It was only ever made based on players requesting a broader detection for neighbors anyway, so if it didn't succeed in that regard, then I have no personal attachment to the change.

I think "finnicky" is in general the best word for the happiness system since its introduction. It constantly seems to arbitrarily decide certain NPCs are close enough and certain aren't with no clear reasoning.

 

[ItsTheKais]

As mentioned in other threads, the increased radius was actually a change made in response to player feedback that it was too hard to get NPCs close enough to register as neighbors for happiness purposes.

It seems the reaction has been anything but well received, and since no one seems to find the change valuable, and its been having a negative impact, then I am intending to likely fully revert the change. It was only ever made based on players requesting a broader detection for neighbors anyway, so if it didn't succeed in that regard, then I have no personal attachment to the change.

For whatever it's worth, I've found the change valuable. I want to build towns with decently-sized buildings with a nice buffer between them, so I can fit plenty of decor. The pre-1.4.1 distances were way too cramped for my liking, but the new distances give me... still not quite as much wiggle room as I'd like, but enough that I can make it work if I finagle where the NPCs stand in their houses.

I do agree with Garak that it's not obvious what counts as "nearby" and what doesn't in this system. I think a way to visualize the neighbor-check region would satisfy a lot of the unhappy folks, though I don't know how that would be implemented.

Another thought: what if you used different distances depending on how much the NPC is liked/disliked? The more you like someone, the less you mind them being around. So for the crowding check, you'd keep the current distance threshold for hated NPCs, but as you go up through disliked, liked, and loved, the closer those NPCs can be be before they cause a crowding penalty. Conversely, the more you like someone, the farther you're willing to walk to see them. So for the liked/disliked neighbor check, keep the current distance for loved NPCs and reduce the distance as you go down to hated. This way, bonuses become easier to earn and penalties become harder to incur, while still requiring that thought be put into how the houses are arranged.

 

[Lakmoots]

As mentioned in other threads, the increased radius was actually a change made in response to player feedback that it was too hard to get NPCs close enough to register as neighbors for happiness purposes.

It seems the reaction has been anything but well received, and since no one seems to find the change valuable, and its been having a negative impact, then I am intending to likely fully revert the change. It was only ever made based on players requesting a broader detection for neighbors anyway, so if it didn't succeed in that regard, then I have no personal attachment to the change.

Look... I absolutely *hate* the happiness system - it is a bizarre destruction of sand-box game that FORCES you to do things in an exact and specific way, but...

I do think the wider radius for town detection is *good*... except it has magnified all the other problems associated with happiness.

For instance, increasing the cap to 4 people for overcrowding does *nothing* if they detect other NPCs very, very far away - it seems you broke your own mechanics by doubling up on all the penalties.

Why not simply decrease the detection of other NPCs and remove the extra penalties? Why add a larger detection radius for towns when all the other systems you added mitigated or destroyed it?

Everyone wants the system to be *easier* and less of a penalty. Increasing the cap to 4 was *brilliant* as well as increasing the town radius.

... then you screwed it all up by doubling all the penalties and stuffing up the changes.

For the love of GAWD... just wind back the penalties and leave the bonuses.

 

[Sora_92]

I read there are some issues with rounding the happiness now or something, but,
I'm quite confused what detection range actually got doubled or more... because they only seems to detect that there are many NPCs nearby (while they're actually quite far) but won't notice preferred neighbors if their houses are just a bit farther. Or I dunno.

Which means, you couldn't actually have them as "neighbors" but like have to make sure they live in the same house... that would be also very restrictive on building separate houses for everyone in a not very cramped town (to avoid them being unhappy about overcrowded town ...but they just won't notice that a liked neighbor lives in the next house. not even if they actually walk around the day and actually visit them, because it's so close that they will go and walk that distance no problem...

while reverting the changes to pre-1.4.1 might be a good idea, I think they might could have some larger detection range for neighbors they like. I mean, that might be not balanced with them would have a smaller detection ranged for disliked neighbors, (but if you want to make NPCs happy you will try to move disliked NPCs farther) and if some builders want to make the NPCs happy and also build them separate houses in a somewhat spacious town, why to give them a penalty?

Several people were complaining that the happiness system interferes with large castles. but I think it also interferes with larger towns as well... instead it seems to encourage to have several small castles with a few NPCs cramped together in each...

 

[Sprite]

For whatever it's worth, I've found the change valuable. I want to build towns with decently-sized buildings with a nice buffer between them, so I can fit plenty of decor. The pre-1.4.1 distances were way too cramped for my liking, but the new distances give me... still not quite as much wiggle room as I'd like, but enough that I can make it work if I finagle where the NPCs stand in their houses.

I do agree with Garak that it's not obvious what counts as "nearby" and what doesn't in this system. I think a way to visualize the neighbor-check region would satisfy a lot of the unhappy folks, though I don't know how that would be implemented.

Another thought: what if you used different distances depending on how much the NPC is liked/disliked? The more you like someone, the less you mind them being around. So for the crowding check, you'd keep the current distance threshold for hated NPCs, but as you go up through disliked, liked, and loved, the closer those NPCs can be be before they cause a crowding penalty. Conversely, the more you like someone, the farther you're willing to walk to see them. So for the liked/disliked neighbor check, keep the current distance for loved NPCs and reduce the distance as you go down to hated. This way, bonuses become easier to earn and penalties become harder to incur, while still requiring that thought be put into how the houses are arranged.

The town search radius should be reverted. Consider the following: On a Small or Medium world (especially since Medium is an ideal world for a small multiplayer world), with that 240 block radius, you'll wind up with a lot of overlap between surface and underground housing. This actually makes it harder for those who want to just casually enjoy the game, or build a base in my case, because there just isn't much you can do with a 480 block combined radii searching for each other and making everyone unhappy. The 50 block radius for nearby NPC happiness checking is okay, but should be shortened a bit though.

Look... I absolutely *hate* the happiness system - it is a bizarre destruction of sand-box game that FORCES you to do things in an exact and specific way, but...

I do think the wider radius for town detection is *good*... except it has magnified all the other problems associated with happiness.

For instance, increasing the cap to 4 people for overcrowding does *nothing* if they detect other NPCs very, very far away - it seems you broke your own mechanics by doubling up on all the penalties.

Why not simply decrease the detection of other NPCs and remove the extra penalties? Why add a larger detection radius for towns when all the other systems you added mitigated or destroyed it?

Everyone wants the system to be *easier* and less of a penalty. Increasing the cap to 4 was *brilliant* as well as increasing the town radius.

... then you screwed it all up by doubling all the penalties and stuffing up the changes.

For the love of GAWD... just wind back the penalties and leave the bonuses.

See my previous posts. Wider town detection radius is bad, not good. Larger town NPC detection is fine, but 240 block town search radius causes a lot of problems in Small and Medium worlds when it comes to surface and underground bases.

I read there are some issues with rounding the happiness now or something, but,
I'm quite confused what detection range actually got doubled or more... because they only seems to detect that there are many NPCs nearby (while they're actually quite far) but won't notice preferred neighbors if their houses are just a bit farther. Or I dunno.

Which means, you couldn't actually have them as "neighbors" but like have to make sure they live in the same house... that would be also very restrictive on building separate houses for everyone in a not very cramped town (to avoid them being unhappy about overcrowded town ...but they just won't notice that a liked neighbor lives in the next house. not even if they actually walk around the day and actually visit them, because it's so close that they will go and walk that distance no problem...

while reverting the changes to pre-1.4.1 might be a good idea, I think they might could have some larger detection range for neighbors they like. I mean, that might be not balanced with them would have a smaller detection ranged for disliked neighbors, (but if you want to make NPCs happy you will try to move disliked NPCs farther) and if some builders want to make the NPCs happy and also build them separate houses in a somewhat spacious town, why to give them a penalty?

Several people were complaining that the happiness system interferes with large castles. but I think it also interferes with larger towns as well... instead it seems to encourage to have several small castles with a few NPCs cramped together in each...

They increased town search radius (240 blocks) and nearby NPC search radius (50 blocks). Town search radius makes NPCs whine about over crowding and NPC search radius makes them find other NPCs within the town you built.
You can have them as neighbours, I had a perfectly fine setup before in my hub world. The changes to the spacing and NPC whining ruined it though, and now I have to remodel my ENTIRE NPC system because of it.

 

[Panicky]

Hey, long time lurker here, made this account just to voice my opinion.

The happiness system is what it is, 1.4.1 was the last update and that is ok. I'm fine with pylons and the way they are obtained, also with price decrease, what bothers me is the price increase. The happiness system doesn't translate well into early game, when you have no building materials and no mobility to go around and make villages around the world. And if you make a hub around you spawn while you progress, you suffer penalty when trading with NPCs.

One small change in removing the negative modifier and keeping the rest would make a world of difference. This would make so that players can choose when to obtain pylons and respective discount prices, but wouldn't feel too much pressure to start doing that early on. From what I've seen here on forums and reddit, most people (that are not satisfied with happiness system) would be fine with only the negative modifier to be removed.

@Leinfors I'm not really sure if there is anything you can do, but would it be possible if you guys can discuss about this? I mean really, removing negative price modifier doesn't really change that much, and people who want to build small villages will continue to do so, it just removes the pressure from people who don't like that playstyle, or have something else in mind with their builds.

 

[Sprite]

Hey, long time lurker here, made this account just to voice my opinion.

The happiness system is what it is, 1.4.1 was the last update and that is ok. I'm fine with pylons and the way they are obtained, also with price decrease, what bothers me is the price increase. The happiness system doesn't translate well into early game, when you have no building materials and no mobility to go around and make villages around the world. And if you make a hub around you spawn while you progress, you suffer penalty when trading with NPCs.

One small change in removing the negative modifier and keeping the rest would make a world of difference. This would make so that players can choose when to obtain pylons and respective discount prices, but wouldn't feel too much pressure to start doing that early on. From what I've seen here on forums and reddit, most people (that are not satisfied with happiness system) would be fine with only the negative modifier to be removed.

@Leinfors I'm not really sure if there is anything you can do, but would it be possible if you guys can discuss about this? I mean really, removing negative price modifier doesn't really change that much, and people who want to build small villages will continue to do so, it just removes the pressure from people who don't like that playstyle, or have something else in mind with their builds.

1.4.1 is the last CONTENT update. As in, what is currently in the game for players to obtain and play around with in vanilla is not going to change or have any additions further down the line. 1.4.2+ will be optimizations and bug fixing until the game gets to a point where they are happy with the product.
Not having negative modifiers means that they players will NOT be as inclined to optimize their layouts and expand their base locations. Removing the negative modifiers as a whole is a bad idea, they just need to be scaled back and tweaked. Without a negative modifier, you might as well not have the happiness mechanic at all, as you're just playing 1.3.x with an imbalanced buff to NPCs.

 

[Panicky]

Not having negative modifiers means that they players will NOT be as inclined to optimize their layouts and expand their base locations.

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. I don't see that as a bad thing at all. People that want to build around the map can do it, you use happiness in order to get pylons + price decrease (which in it self is enough imo). It opens all the possibilities as it was pre 1.4, without anything negative.

 

[Sprite]

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. I don't see that as a bad thing at all. People that want to build around the map can do it, you use happiness in order to get pylons + price decrease (which in it self is enough imo). It opens all the possibilities as it was pre 1.4, without anything negative.

And that's actually a really, really bad idea. Not having negative modifiers just turns the whole mechanic into a joke and horribly imbalanced. There needs to still be a negative modifier in place, otherwise just scrap the happiness system as a whole and let players buy and use pylons based on number of NPCs in a given area instead.
The happiness mechanic is best used for select NPCs (Tinkerer, Arms Dealer, Mechanic, Witch Doctor, Wizard, and Merchant specifically. Sometimes Cyborg, but rarely.) The rest it doesn't matter with since their prices don't matter, don't apply (in the case of the Tavernkeep), or are too expensive and situational to matter anyway (Nurse).

 

[Panicky]

So wait, is it actually really that bad that I want to build a centralized base? Is it such a bad idea that I need to be punished by having to pay increased prices?

 

[Sprite]

So wait, is it actually really that bad that I want to build a centralized base? Is it such a bad idea that I need to be punished by having to pay increased prices?

For the mechanic of NPC happiness, yes. People have wanted simple ways to get from one biome to another very quickly, and this was the answer. Yes, you could use Teleporters, but that required a lot of wire to do so.
Before 1.4, centralized bases is what literally everyone and their mother would do. Set up an office-like base and that was all. Then it encouraged players to spread their NPCs out to get various bonuses and to try to optimize living areas to have easier access to various places and NPC bonuses. 1.4.1 screwed that all up.
Building that one centralized base just means that you're lazy and don't really care about much. You don't need to make the houses fancy, just in correct places. If you're concerned about the actual happiness buff, then you need to optimize the town's NPCs to fit your needs. It's no wonder why you want to remove the negative effects of happiness -- you're too lazy to actually work around it, and just want simple easy buffs for free.

 

[Panicky]

Well I guess you can assume a lot of things about me, I'm not even going to respond anything back for you calling me lazy, I don't want to start an argument here.
In my opinion the situation is simple, by removing negative reinforcement (which usually is not good to use in games anyway, games should feel fun, not punishing) people that like the happiness mechanic don't lose anything. It's a win-win scenario.
Why is it so hard to understand that people like to play a sandbox game differently? It's like you are trying to come into my game and tell me the way I'm playing is wrong. Most of the playerbase build centralized bases since the launch of Terraria, but I guess that was wrong way to do it.

 

[litephorical]

I'd like to weigh in on this because the Happiness system really feels like one of the most frustrating and finnicky parts of the game to me, which is a stark contrast to the genuinely wonderful and polished feel 1.4 as a whole (and especially 1.4.1) has.

In addition to tweaking the numbers/detection radiuses, I personally would love an option during world creation (maybe unlocked after the Princess moves in for the first time?) to disable the Happiness system on a world-by-world basis, and have the ability to buy pylons instead just be based around having a town in the first place. This would let people customize their NPC setups a lot more, and would greatly remove the tedium associated with trying to find the one or two most "optimal" NPC setups and then always choosing those.

 

[Sprite]

Well I guess you can assume a lot of things about me, I'm not even going to respond anything back for you calling me lazy, I don't want to start an argument here.
In my opinion the situation is simple, by removing negative reinforcement (which usually is not good to use in games anyway, games should feel fun, not punishing) people that like the happiness mechanic don't lose anything. It's a win-win scenario.
Why is it so hard to understand that people like to play a sandbox game differently? It's like you are trying to come into my game and tell me the way I'm playing is wrong. Most of the playerbase build centralized bases since the launch of Terraria, but I guess that was wrong way to do it.

Yes, and this is meant to curb that by giving the players a good incentive to not build one centralized base, with all of your NPCs crammed into a cubicle office by making them very unhappy. Wouldn't you be unhappy if you were stuck crammed into a tiny space with 20 other people?
There is this magical word called "balance" that I think you should look up in the context of game design and mechanic design. If you introduce something that's extremely good (like the happiness mechanic reducing costs of reforging and item purchases) without any downsides to it, it becomes imbalanced (or "imba" for short.) That's why the devs take the time to both buff and nerf various things in the game, like weapons, bosses, various enemies, etc. Everything in a game has to have a give and take otherwise things get skewed out of whack.
Take base building for instance. You have to build a base to house your supplies and have a safe place to teleport home to. But as a trade-off, you need to spend time farming for the materials and building it instead of exploring and farming up gear. If you spawned with a perfect base already built, why bother sinking time into building anything? Or even trying to be creative?
To not have any negative modifiers in the NPC happiness mechanic would make it imbalanced as all get-out. This is coming from someone who would religiously build centralized bases. (I had one in my hub world until the NPC happiness mechanic came out, then I actually took the time to space them out and have different warps. You know, reasonable people stuff.) You can rehouse the NPCs that actually mattered into optimal spaces for their bonuses and leave the rest crammed somewhere else, but I doubt you'd even want to do that. To give a mechanic without any balancing factor is bad game design, plain and simple.

 

[Panicky]

Wouldn't you be unhappy if you were stuck crammed into a tiny space with 20 other people?

It's a horrible world filled with monsters, and evil biome is spreading around the world bringing even more monsters, wouldn't you want to stick together in order to have better chance at survival?
It makes no sense that all the vendor NPCs want to be alone, they would want as many potential customers as they can.
It makes no sense that the party girl wants to be alone.

Just because a base is centralized doesn't mean it's cramped. Just because villages are spread out doesn't mean they are good for NPCs (people are still stuffing them into shoeboxes).

All this change does is remove player choice, you know that one thing that player should have in a sandbox game.

Without being penalized can you build:
A base under the ocean (we've seen many amazing builds like that)? No
A floating base to protect your NPCs (they would surely be ok with that, it's the safest option)? No
Can you build couple of bigger bases, with 7-8 NPCs around the world? No, you are still penalized

There is no choice. That's the issue.

 

[MrD108]

One of the biggest problems with the location of NPCs when calculating their luck is the position of the NPC Banner, which the player has absolutely no influence on. Sometimes it appears higher, sometimes lower, sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left, even in the middle, it can happen, or under the shelf-platform. And it is the distance factor. If players were able to choose where to hang the flag using the house menu, they would have more freedom when building their structures, as it could really affect the distance of their NPCs.
Is there a chance that players will get control of this element?

 

[Sprite]

It's a horrible world filled with monsters, and evil biome is spreading around the world bringing even more monsters, wouldn't you want to stick together in order to have better chance at survival?
It makes no sense that all the vendor NPCs want to be alone, they would want as many potential customers as they can.
It makes no sense that the party girl wants to be alone.

Just because a base is centralized doesn't mean it's cramped. Just because villages are spread out doesn't mean they are good for NPCs (people are still stuffing them into shoeboxes).

All this change does is remove player choice, you know that one thing that player should have in a sandbox game.

Without being penalized can you build:
A base under the ocean (we've seen many amazing builds like that)? No
A floating base to protect your NPCs (they would surely be ok with that, it's the safest option)? No
Can you build couple of bigger bases, with 7-8 NPCs around the world? No, you are still penalized

There is no choice. That's the issue.

Whatever you say, bud. Whatever you say.