Weapons & Equip The Leaf Wings need a bit more nerfing

[L0ST5ILVER]

Hello, I hope you're all doing well.
The 1.4 added plenty (understatement of the century) of new features, many changes and necessary nerfs, and I think we can all agree that balancing is one of the most important things in game development.
Some of the most beneficial nerfs of 1.4 are the Reaver shark and Meteorite nerfs, as they help restore the flow of the game's progression.

Spoiler

(for anyone wondering, reaver shark was nerfed to 59% pickaxe power and meteors will now only spawn after the EoC/BoC have been defeated, and are no longer affected by explosives)

The Leaf wings were also nerfed, however I think the nerf should've tackled the method of obtaining it rather than how good the wings are.
You see, my issue is that the wings are available as soon as you enter hardmode, skipping the need to grind Wyverns like most other wings require, and in my opinion is necessary to the game's progression.

I think the wings should be removed from the Witch doctor's stock and instead replace it with a new item, such as the "Large Kapok Leaf" that costs 75 gold at night, and functions identically to the Frozen and Fire feather, they would be combined with Souls of flight to make the Leaf wings, because if Angel and Devil wings require souls of flight then these should too. Who here remembers the last time they made Angel or Devil wings? I don't, because they require a ton of grinding for some really low tier wings, where the Leaf wings can just be bought like *that*, making the wings below it totally redundant, and might as well not exist.

An indication of their quality could also be wise, with some sort of tooltip, maybe something like "Made out of old torn kapok leaves, It's not much but it'll do for now" or something like that, to indicate that these wings are not the best available. (So new players are informed that they should upgrade soon)
Showing Wing stats could also be a useful feature, listed under all wings so players know how good their current wings are.


I know some of you might say "The nerf in 1.4 was more than enough", but I respectfully disagree, just making them bad wings doesn't fix the issue of skipping a (to me) core part of the gameplay experience. They are cheesey even with the current nerf, they still act as a method to skip Wyvern fighting, and to me that impedes the game's progession.


TL;DR -
Remove leaf wings from the Witch Doctor and replace it with a crafting material to be combined with souls of flight to make the leaf wings so that wyvern fighting remains part of the game's progression. (Also a tooltip to indicate their low quality would be nice to indicate to newer players that they should upgrade soon)



Thank you for reading, I hope this small suggestion is considered for a future patch of 1.4

King regards,
-L0ST

 

[PricklyPineapple]

They already nerfed the Reaver Shark. That was enough. If you don't like the leaf wings don't use them.

 

[L0ST5ILVER]

They already nerfed the Reaver Shark. That was enough. If you don't like the leaf wings don't use them.

Players will use the tools the game developers provide them, even if they are inherently cheese, so to say "Just don't use them" is a flawed argument, but when you consider that they also act as an easy skip to one of the game's core elements, saying "just don't use them" is just straight up ludicrous.
Also I have no clue what relevance the Reaver shark has to the point you were making. But either way your point doesn't make sense, it's like saying "plantera is hard enough, the golem doesn't need a buff".

 

[Magi∆]

golem DOESN'T need a buff. and wyverns are hard to kill

 

[L0ST5ILVER]

golem DOESN'T need a buff. and wyverns are hard to kill

Try to stay on topic of the thread, I never made the point that golem or wyverns need changing, I was just giving an example. This thread is about leaf wings.
But even so, Bosses are hard to kill as well, that doesn't mean the game should give an alternative cheese option to skip bosses like the Leaf wings skip wyverns, and they are not hard to kill if you use strategy, like anything in Terraria.

 

[Rasea]

You see, my issue is that the wings are available as soon as you enter hardmode, skipping the need to grind Wyverns like most other wings require, and in my opinion is necessary to the game's progression.

I have to disagree with your reasoning. Yes, stuff like the Reaver Shark were nerfed (as you used it as an example) because it skipped too much progression. The big ol' 1.4 balance thread by one of the designers pointed out that Re-Logic isn't against skipping progression, because they like the freedom of play. But they are against skipping large chunks of progression. Which was the case for the Reaver Shark.

The Leaf Wings don't do this. But I'll explain in sections.

First off, HM itself already entails a lot of grinding. HM hurts, so you need to go and mine enough Cobalt/Palladium for its pickaxe, then mine Mythril/Orichalcum for the relevant Anvil, then you need to mine Adamantite/Titanium for that gear, then you need to create a relevant forge in order to smelt high level ores. Then you have to go and build hellevators/barriers between your evil biome and the jungle so that it doesn't screw you over because HM activated the Hallow/evil streaks that can very easily ruin your world or make things a lot more difficult. Then you have to get started on making your HM gear, usually a weapon (like the Onyx Blaster). Adding all of this on top of asking the player to kill 3-4 wyverns is asking a lot of the player, especially since getting one to appear can be a bit tedious without a Water Candle (and still isn't guaranteed). And the wyverns themselves do a lot of damage and are a pain when all you have to work with are Rocket Boots/its upgrades.

Second off, you still need Souls of Flight. The Leaf Wings don't let you bypass most of the Wyvern grind. They give you a bit of breathing room and maneuverability in early HM. You'll still have to go back and farm many, many more wyverns as you upgrade your wings to new ones (such as Frozen and Butterfly). Leaf Wings are good, but they're mostly a starter set of wings.

Third off, they're 75 gold. This is on top of the pylon cost for all the biomes and all the other money you're spending (wiring, decorating, ammunition, blocks, Traveling Merchant). It's not a small investment. Yes, there are many methods to farm money, but it's still asking the player to do some effort to get it.

 

[ScienceGuy116]

One idea is to have the witch doctor sell a crafting material to make a leaf set and weapons, and also the wings. It would only be slightly cheaper, and would need only one or two per item.

 

[L0ST5ILVER]

First off, HM itself already entails a lot of grinding. HM hurts, so you need to go and mine enough Cobalt/Palladium for its pickaxe, then mine Mythril/Orichalcum for the relevant Anvil, then you need to mine Adamantite/Titanium for that gear, then you need to create a relevant forge in order to smelt high level ores. Then you have to go and build hellevators/barriers between your evil biome and the jungle so that it doesn't screw you over because HM activated the Hallow/evil streaks that can very easily ruin your world or make things a lot more difficult. Then you have to get started on making your HM gear, usually a weapon (like the Onyx Blaster). Adding all of this on top of asking the player to kill 3-4 wyverns is asking a lot of the player, especially since getting one to appear can be a bit tedious without a Water Candle (and still isn't guaranteed). And the wyverns themselves do a lot of damage and are a pain when all you have to work with are Rocket Boots/its upgrades.

Your argument here doesn't have much structure, because you're saying players play differently, but then giving a bunch of examples of playing the game in a certain way...
Let's not forget that before leaf wings we HAD to fight Wyverns, and all the issues you listed still applied in even 1.0.
Also in Expert mode you'd need to kill no more than 2 wyverns, only 1 if you're lucky, and in normal mode you'd only have to kill 3 unless you were unlucky, so kind of a moot point saying that you have to kill multiple of them.
Also you can do all of these anyway, fighting wyverns doesn't change that. You also don't have to grind, some players don't care about the light and evil spreading, some people would rather stick for slightly weaker weapons if they don't like grinding. Killing 1-2 Wyverns is not a lot to ask, considering how much content the game has.
If you don't have a water candle then go get one, you've obviously killed skeletron, which means they're like... really... Really easy to get, again, kind of a moot point.
"They do a lot of damage", not really, if you are even half decent at dodging you can EASILY learn the attack pattern of a wyvern, and if you have a sky bridge (not hard to make) they are even easier to kill, anything that pierces destroys wyverns, which is why the Destroyer is so easy to kill.

Second off, you still need Souls of Flight. The Leaf Wings don't let you bypass most of the Wyvern grind. They give you a bit of breathing room and maneuverability in early HM. You'll still have to go back and farm many, many more wyverns as you upgrade your wings to new ones (such as Frozen and Butterfly). Leaf Wings are good, but they're mostly a starter set of wings.

One of the points I made, which you seem to have missed, was that new players won't know the difference, they aren't likely to know that "oh those wings must be better", I imagine a lot of people don't even know wings are different, some new players think that all wings are functionally the same, and it'd take them a long time to notice. The reason I have a problem with this is because they are basically just given to you, considering the grind you have to go to to get rocket boots, then Terraspark boots is insane but the leaf wings are just like "hey here's wings", that isn't the terraria way, things aren't just given to you.

Third off, they're 75 gold. This is on top of the pylon cost for all the biomes and all the other money you're spending (wiring, decorating, ammunition, blocks, Traveling Merchant). It's not a small investment. Yes, there are many methods to farm money, but it's still asking the player to do some effort to get it.

75 gold is nothing, I enter hardmode with typically 1-3 platinum. We also all managed before Pylons were a thing, so I doubt this makes a difference. Gold is also very VERY easy to grind, even in Master mode, just killing the EoC/BoC/EoW over and over again, then selling the bars will turn you into a millionaire in mere minutes.

 

[Rasea]

Let's not forget that before leaf wings we HAD to fight Wyverns, and all the issues you listed still applied in even 1.0.

Yes, these issues existed, but clearly it was addressed. Leaf Wings were put into the game to give the player a bit of breathing room. I think that's fine.

Also you can do all of these anyway, fighting wyverns doesn't change that. You also don't have to grind, some players don't care about the light and evil spreading, some people would rather stick for slightly weaker weapons if they don't like grinding.

Sure, you can use weaker gear or not prepare for the corruption. But in most cases, you will have to grind for the ore tiers because you need the Mythril/Orichalcum anvil in order to make basically anything in HM. You'll also need the Titanium/Adamantite Forge if you want to do higher tier stuff.

But if we assume you somehow don't need to do that... what's the problem, then? If you have no problem with players not needing to grind, why is getting Leaf Wings so easily a problem?

"They do a lot of damage", not really, if you are even half decent at dodging you can EASILY learn the attack pattern of a wyvern, and if you have a sky bridge (not hard to make) they are even easier to kill, anything that pierces destroys wyverns, which is why the Destroyer is so easy to kill.

It's anecdotal, but I died several times to them as a new player about 3 weeks ago. I had already looked at the wiki (something casual players likely won't do) so I knew what to expect and they still shaved off chunks of my health in normal mode, nevermind expert or master. They're still a threat and still dangerous.

The reason I have a problem with this is because they are basically just given to you, considering the grind you have to go to to get rocket boots, then Terraspark boots is insane but the leaf wings are just like "hey here's wings", that isn't the terraria way, things aren't just given to you.

They aren't just given to the player. The player has to locate the Witch Doctor in the jungle (which players couldn't know without the wiki or being told pre-1.4). You then need the 75 gold to buy them. You still have to put effort in to get them. There's other things which require minimal effort of the player. Buying Rocket Boots is a huge boost in your maneuverability, but all you have to do for that is get some Hunter potions and go down your Hellevator (or dig one or two more to better your chances).

Also, like... Journey Mode exists now. The player is just given things now. You're given free items in it, and the various creative features in that mode gives you tons of free things. Clearly Re-Logic has no problem with this.

75 gold is nothing, I enter hardmode with typically 1-3 platinum. We also all managed before Pylons were a thing, so I doubt this makes a difference. Gold is also very VERY easy to grind, even in Master mode, just killing the EoC/BoC/EoW over and over again, then selling the bars will turn you into a millionaire in mere minutes.

Sure, you can do that, but casual players likely won't be doing that. But if we assume that this is only an issue for players with some knowledge of the game, taking advantage of an imbalance in progression, I still disagree. I still believe that they serve to give the player some breathing room in early HM as they prepare to mine a bunch of ore and get set up for the bosses and deal with world purity.

And the world purity thing is more of an issue now, because there's been lots of reports of your evil biome spawning right in the middle of your jungle, resulting in your jungle being taken over extremely easily. Some players have even said that they had to make new worlds because they couldn't get to Plantera quickly enough to deal with it.

 

[Sora_92]

I think it's fine the way it is. Leaf wings used to be surprisingly high-tier (and more expensive, but still dirt cheap for how good theay were), but right now, they're really low-tier.
But they are one of the few wings (along with fin wings and some others?) you can aquire as-is, without the need to craft them.

Never mind fighting wyverns, you can absolutely destroy them with something like golden shower in seconds... but leaf wings do help a lot with that too because wings boost mobility a lot.
I think the main problem is, that all the craftable wings require mythril/orichalc anvil. So that means you either have to smash an altar, or fish up tons of crates. I wanted to avoid smashing altars early now on this playthrough (because pirates and stuff are a huge pain when you don't have adequate gear) so after crafting some magic tomes, I fought some wyverns, and then realised I can't craft wings from soul of flight (even though I got a giant harpy feather too) without a hardmode anvil. so I went to fish, and it took roughly 75 - 100 crates I think that gave me just enough of one of the ores to craft an anvil. actually that roughly 12 bars worth of orichalc I needed for the anvil came from like 3 crates, the rest was other stuff, some crates had just things like a bunch of tin bars or like 15 silver coins and nothing else XD lol, that's RNG for you...

Point being, leaf wings offer decent wings for early hardmode, at a dirt cheap price. this might be a bit unfair, but all the higher tier wings are locked behind LOTS of fishing, or smashing some altars (risking to be murdered by pirates 23 567.5 times, if you're running arounf in pre-hardmode gear.)

It might would be nice though, if the tooltip of wings would somehow tell about their tier though, so players could see leaf wings are very low-tier, and that it would be wise to fight some wyverns and craft better wings as soon as they can do that.

 

[Dapling]

Considering that literally EVERY option is either better or equal, they really don’t need it. You can get away with leaf wings for a while, but good luck defeating plantera with bare minimum aerial movement. They don’t need to be nerfed at all.

 

[Banmei]

...Who here remembers the last time they made Angel or Devil wings?...

I do. Sorry to sidetrack your post but I make them almost every new start. Bat-like Wings? Who DOESN'T like Bat-like wings. All the cool creatures have them or some variation of the sort.

 

[L0ST5ILVER]

I think it's fine the way it is. Leaf wings used to be surprisingly high-tier (and more expensive, but still dirt cheap for how good theay were), but right now, they're really low-tier.
But they are one of the few wings (along with fin wings and some others?) you can aquire as-is, without the need to craft them.

Never mind fighting wyverns, you can absolutely destroy them with something like golden shower in seconds... but leaf wings do help a lot with that too because wings boost mobility a lot.
I think the main problem is, that all the craftable wings require mythril/orichalc anvil. So that means you either have to smash an altar, or fish up tons of crates. I wanted to avoid smashing altars early now on this playthrough (because pirates and stuff are a huge pain when you don't have adequate gear) so after crafting some magic tomes, I fought some wyverns, and then realised I can't craft wings from soul of flight (even though I got a giant harpy feather too) without a hardmode anvil. so I went to fish, and it took roughly 75 - 100 crates I think that gave me just enough of one of the ores to craft an anvil. actually that roughly 12 bars worth of orichalc I needed for the anvil came from like 3 crates, the rest was other stuff, some crates had just things like a bunch of tin bars or like 15 silver coins and nothing else XD lol, that's RNG for you...

Point being, leaf wings offer decent wings for early hardmode, at a dirt cheap price. this might be a bit unfair, but all the higher tier wings are locked behind LOTS of fishing, or smashing some altars (risking to be murdered by pirates 23 567.5 times, if you're running arounf in pre-hardmode gear.)

It might would be nice though, if the tooltip of wings would somehow tell about their tier though, so players could see leaf wings are very low-tier, and that it would be wise to fight some wyverns and craft better wings as soon as they can do that.

Okay, fair points. However, what's the point of Demon and Angel wings then? Since they require souls and I believe an anvil, so if not remove them from the Witch doctor, then at LEAST make them worse than the Demon/Angel wings, this was actually a point Unit One made when I asked him about this. The leaf wings as they stand render anything beneath it useless.

Considering that literally EVERY option is either better or equal, they really don’t need it. You can get away with leaf wings for a while, but good luck defeating plantera with bare minimum aerial movement. They don’t need to be nerfed at all.

Yes they do. As I said above, to be worse than Angel / Demon wings is probably the most apt nerf, as they are literally redundant due to Leaf wings.

 

[Chthonic One]

I would like to point out to everyone here that not only are there leaf wings, but there are in fact more powerful fin wings available for free from fishing quests. I received them upon my first fishing quest in hard mode. Leaf wings are not the only wings available early on without souls of flight.

 

[Sora_92]

Well, angel/demon wings might be quite useless indeed, but same goes for things like copper armor, when it has roughly the same stats as wooden armor, at takes tons of bars to craft. Or pearlwood weapons and armor.

They might however, like @Banmei said can be nice vanity wings, for characters of certain theming.

 

[Banmei]

I would like to point out to everyone here that not only are there leaf wings, but there are in fact more powerful fin wings available for free from fishing quests. I received them upon my first fishing quest in hard mode. Leaf wings are not the only wings available early on without souls of flight.

Shhhh!!! You remember the fisherman's mantra?

"What happens in the ocean stays in our pockets."

FISHING IS NERFED GAHHHHHH!!!!!! We need more items! Especially decorative ones or ones that allow us to fish up things better so we can fish up more things.

Thanks.

 

[Rasea]

I do. Sorry to sidetrack your post but I make them almost every new start. Bat-like Wings? Who DOESN'T like Bat-like wings. All the cool creatures have them or some variation of the sort.

...Why? They're the same as Leaf Wings but require more effort and you're basically just wasting Souls that could go towards Frozen/Harpy and the later upgrade of Bee/Butterfly.

 

[DinoZers]

Jajaja, No

 

[L0ST5ILVER]

...Why? They're the same as Leaf Wings but require more effort and you're basically just wasting Souls that could go towards Frozen/Harpy and the later upgrade of Bee/Butterfly.

Exactly so make the Angel/Demon wings easier to get, or nerf the leaf wings further so the other 2 are even remotely viable.

 

[Unit One]

Jajaja, No

Hi there @DinoZers, a friendly reminder that if you’re posting in a suggestion thread, it’s expected that you offer constructive criticism, and not just a blatant dismissal of “no”. Please keep this in mind if you decide to post in the future.