Doanage
Terrarian
This is an idea that was once implemented in one of my favorite old-school MMORPGs--Ultima Online. I think this addition would make Terraria a massively more enjoyable experience, as for me travel-time has never been a game-enhancing feature in any game--Terraria included. (I say this as someone who loves Terraria and has "enjoyed" hundreds of hours of my life playing it. When you spend this much time with a game you love, you can't help but notice all the room for improvement as well.)
Anyway, the idea is simply this: Similar to how a player can set a "spawn point" and "recall" to it using a bed and potions or mirrors, it would also be possible to "enchant" a certain type of item (call it a "rune") to link to any arbitrary location in the world, and then recall/teleport to that point using another item (call it a "rune book") on the enchanted rune. Obviously we already have teleport pads, which are great, but it's quite tedious and time-consuming to build the wiring for these things over any large distance--particularly through the underground--and they aren't exactly convenient to use.
------------In More Detail----------------
To make this system very intuitive and user-friendly it would require some additional interface coding (nothing too complex), but I'd envision it kinda like this:
-----Runes----------------
In-game, there will be items called "runes" (perhaps sold by the wizard). Runes will correspond to locations in the world in a one-to-one mapping, and they are blank by default but may be "enchanted" by the player to "remember" the location where there rune was enchanted. Blank runes will stack, enchanted runes will not. To enchant a rune, the player equips it to a slot in the hot bar and uses it (perhaps consuming mana and/or reagents in the process). That rune will now correspond to the point where the player character is currently standing. After being enchanted, the game will auto-label the rune with a time-stamp and pair of coordinates corresponding to the time and location of enchanting (mainly just to give it a unique name for player convenience). This rune does nothing on its own, which brings us to the second part.
-----Rune Books---------
A "rune book" will be an equipable accessory with it's own unique slot (similar to pets, mounts, the hook, etc...), and its own associated hotkey. Rune books will be linked to a separate list in the inventory (similar to coins or ammo) that will be faded-out unless a rune-book is equipped. In the slots of this list a player may place enchanted runes, and may also enter labels for the slots containing runes (Ex: "Sky Lake" or "Underworld, east edge"). Upon pressing the "rune book hotkey," the list of populated rune slots will pop up, and the player may click on one of them to "recall" to the location associated with the rune.
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------------Final Thoughts----------------
Clearly there are many different ways to implement a system similar to this--some better than others--and clearly this might have some impact on game balance as players would undoubtedly try to "exploit" the system in various ways. Regardless, this was just a primer to get the conversation started. One nice thing about a "rune" and "rune book" system is that it would easily allow for equipment upgrades that could be fun to pursue. For instance, better runes and/or rune books might enhance things like: number of rune slots available, number of times per day rune recall could be used, the speed and/or costs of enchanting or recalling, types of biomes that may be marked for recall, mitigation of a debuff like "teleportation sickness", ability to recall during a boss fight, ability to recall to other worlds (if the game gets expanded in a way that would allow this), etc...
Anyway, please let me know your thoughts. Like/Dislike? Any glaring issues I've overlooked?
Anyway, the idea is simply this: Similar to how a player can set a "spawn point" and "recall" to it using a bed and potions or mirrors, it would also be possible to "enchant" a certain type of item (call it a "rune") to link to any arbitrary location in the world, and then recall/teleport to that point using another item (call it a "rune book") on the enchanted rune. Obviously we already have teleport pads, which are great, but it's quite tedious and time-consuming to build the wiring for these things over any large distance--particularly through the underground--and they aren't exactly convenient to use.
------------In More Detail----------------
To make this system very intuitive and user-friendly it would require some additional interface coding (nothing too complex), but I'd envision it kinda like this:
-----Runes----------------
In-game, there will be items called "runes" (perhaps sold by the wizard). Runes will correspond to locations in the world in a one-to-one mapping, and they are blank by default but may be "enchanted" by the player to "remember" the location where there rune was enchanted. Blank runes will stack, enchanted runes will not. To enchant a rune, the player equips it to a slot in the hot bar and uses it (perhaps consuming mana and/or reagents in the process). That rune will now correspond to the point where the player character is currently standing. After being enchanted, the game will auto-label the rune with a time-stamp and pair of coordinates corresponding to the time and location of enchanting (mainly just to give it a unique name for player convenience). This rune does nothing on its own, which brings us to the second part.
-----Rune Books---------
A "rune book" will be an equipable accessory with it's own unique slot (similar to pets, mounts, the hook, etc...), and its own associated hotkey. Rune books will be linked to a separate list in the inventory (similar to coins or ammo) that will be faded-out unless a rune-book is equipped. In the slots of this list a player may place enchanted runes, and may also enter labels for the slots containing runes (Ex: "Sky Lake" or "Underworld, east edge"). Upon pressing the "rune book hotkey," the list of populated rune slots will pop up, and the player may click on one of them to "recall" to the location associated with the rune.
--------------------------------------------
------------Final Thoughts----------------
Clearly there are many different ways to implement a system similar to this--some better than others--and clearly this might have some impact on game balance as players would undoubtedly try to "exploit" the system in various ways. Regardless, this was just a primer to get the conversation started. One nice thing about a "rune" and "rune book" system is that it would easily allow for equipment upgrades that could be fun to pursue. For instance, better runes and/or rune books might enhance things like: number of rune slots available, number of times per day rune recall could be used, the speed and/or costs of enchanting or recalling, types of biomes that may be marked for recall, mitigation of a debuff like "teleportation sickness", ability to recall during a boss fight, ability to recall to other worlds (if the game gets expanded in a way that would allow this), etc...
Anyway, please let me know your thoughts. Like/Dislike? Any glaring issues I've overlooked?
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