Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

[JohannSimm]

This is the one piece that didn't need a buff lol, it had the best ranged/melee offensive bonuses of any pre mech chest piece.


This is still kinda bad, and the set bonus isn't good enough to justify using this over spider greaves. I can get an extra spider that can easily do 2x the damage of the frostburn you suggested and knock enemies back.


This one is ok.

As a whole the set isn't bad but move some of the chest piece's stats to the legs.

This is what I've decided on. I've split the attack speed bonus between the breastplate and the helmet, although the full +14% could potentially go on either one. I also increased the Frostburn damage by another 8 DPS for good measure.

Frost Breastplate
20 defence >> 18 defence [-2]
+11% melee and ranged critical strike chance
New: +7% melee attack speed

Frost Leggings
13 defence >> 16 defence [+3]
New: +11% melee and ranged critical strike chance
+7% melee attack speed
+8% movement speed >> +10% movement speed [+2%]

Frost Helmet
10 defence >> 13 defence [+3]
+16% melee and ranged damage
New: +7% melee attack speed

Frost armour
47 defence [+4]
+16% melee and ranged damage
+22% melee and ranged critical strike chance [+11%]
+14% melee attack speed [+7%]
+10% movement speed [+2%]
Set Bonus: Melee and ranged attacks inflict Frostburn [New: Player-inflicted Frostburn damage is increased by 400%]

 

[Square Izzy]

Hey Leinfors et al.,

Registered to add my 2c here, thanks for creating such a forum and actively engaging with the players (as many have already said).

I've read through this entire forum over the last ~48 hours (it's huge). One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the crippling lack of invulnerability frames when charging through enemies on the new Zoologist horse mounts. Which would help distinguish it more from the flamingo which at this stage is the better mount but should be weaker.

And I just wanted to put one more voice behind the many crying out for help with the summoner early game. I've seen a number of responses to such pleas that boil down to "just use another weapon" which to me is a cop out response, as class challenge play throughs have been a much beloved way to enjoy this sandbox game for as long as there have been distinct class identities in the game (the evidence is all over YouTube).

The best solution I've seen suggested so far that doesn't call for the creation of any new items is to retro-fit an underused pre-hardmode armor set like the obsidian outlaw armor to become a summoner set (this is also the right point of progression when other classes all have access to their first class armor set).

Edited for typos.

 

[JohannSimm]

A few suggestions:
– To make the Golem more difficult, make it so that he no longer retracts his fists when they are struck by your attacks. This means you are forced to dodge his attacks instead of just blocking them. A second idea to make the fight more difficult is to make his head and body separate targets with their own health pools during the second phase, forcing the player to destroy them both. And in the second phase, while the fists are undestroyed, the body regenerates. But that might be difficult to implement.
– Make Lihzahrd Bricks renewable by having them drop from the Golem. Alternatively, have the Witch Doctor sell them once the Golem has been defeated.
– Have the Witch Doctor sell the Lihzahrd Altar for 10 gold once the Golem has been defeated, making it renewable.
– Make the Lihzahrd Furnace a light source, to match Furnaces and Forges.
– Add Glass to the crafting recipes of the Adamantite and Titanium Forges.

 

[Square Izzy]

I have another thought re summoners which is somewhat more outlandish and probably a pipe dream.

The addition of whips as summoner weapons made me wonder if dart weapons would be a good candidate for moving from ranged to summon damage. Darts, much like whips, are a (less than pleasant) aspect of handling dangerous animals IRL.

Probably a silly idea, but I thought it worth throwing out there as dart weapons don't receive the same degree of item support as other ranged weapons currently.

Ooh! Also this would partially resolve the lack of access to debuffs that the summoner class currently suffers from.

 

[J Bame]

Palladium Armor
General stats buffs. Regen nerfed by 1/3.

Disagree with the proposals for this one. It's straight up a nerf since the little stat gain doesn't compensate for the Rapid Healing nerf, and I feel like "very high regen but bad everywhere else" should stay as Palladium Armor's identity, so nerfing the Set Bonus and improving the base stats isn't what I'd do.

Mythril Armor
General stats buffs. Ranged set bonus improved.

Cobalt Armor
Substantive raw stats buffs, including increased defence and additions of damage and critical strike chance increases. Improved set bonus for ranged.

Okay these buffs make them better armors but... they still won't be used. The biggest issue with these two armor sets isn't just that they are weak, it's also that there is literally no reason to waste time getting the materials for them when that time could've gone to just getting Adamantite/Titanium armor instead, as those two have objectively better stats and ofc should remain that way.

The only way to really make these armors relevant is either with new unique Set Bonuses like their 1.2 counterparts (something that has already been confirmed to not be on the cards) or with some really pushed buffs to their individual pieces to make them good for Hybrid armor sets. I gave the latter option a shot in my mod, although chances are I pushed some changes a bit too far to fit very well in vanilla...

Maybe they are just doomed to be weaker versions of Adamantite armor that are easier to get.

Frost Breastplate
20 defence >> 18 defence [-2]
+11% melee and ranged critical strike chance
New: +7% melee attack speed

I'd rather not buff an already broken armor piece. Your buffs to the helmet are still kinda meh so maybe you can move this melee speed buff there.

 

[SsIras]

About Adamantite.
Wouldn't it be cool if the set bonus could increasse magic speed and ranged speed? That did make it quite unique among armors. For melee it could just have the highest melee speed bonus in the game.

Other (weird) suggestions:
Chloeopyte leaf crystal cause triple damage agaist bosses. It's weird but the only thing Chloropyte armor isn't good for is bosses, I think that fixes it.

Spectre Mask magic damage and crit chance from 5% to 8%
This is one of the worst magic helmets in the game despite being second to last you get.

Frost Armor inflicts chilled debuff
dunno if that's possible, I remember vaguely someone saying it wasn't but I think it did make it as unique as its counterpart, Forbidden armor.

Crystal Armor giving you the abilty to dash
Weird, but I think it would be a fairly interesting set bonus, you can only get dash from armors post-moon lord normally.

 

[J Bame]

Frost Armor inflicts chilled debuff
dunno if that's possible, I remember vaguely someone saying it wasn't but I think it did make it as unique as its counterpart, Forbidden armor.

I tried to mod Spazmatism's AI to move faster when using its Flamethrower; he went flying off screen and then my game crashed. It took me 5 hours across two days to figure out how to speed him up properly.

The devs said many times that messing with enemy AIs is very troublesome.

Crystal Armor giving you the abilty to dash
Weird, but I think it would be a fairly interesting set bonus, you can only get dash from armors post-moon lord normally.

Helps, but doesn't fully compensate for the trash stats. You can just use SoC and a better armor.

 

[Leinfors]

-Many Armor Rebalances-

Some interesting stuff here, with some similarities to my write-up proposals under review currently.

Frost Armor inflicts chilled debuff
dunno if that's possible, I remember vaguely someone saying it wasn't but I think it did make it as unique as its counterpart, Forbidden armor.

The amount of effort necessary to go into a speed-reducing debuff at this time would far outstrip the potential gain, and is far outside of the scope of my changes. It would likely require hand-adjustment and testing for dozens, if not hundreds, of enemies, as well as tons of Immune enemies, which is why AI impacting debuffs are typically avoided (See: Confusion, a good lesson in why not to repeat that mistake).

I tried to mod Spazmatism's AI to move faster when using its Flamethrower; he went flying off screen and then my game crashed. It took me 5 hours across two days to figure out how to speed him up properly.

The devs said many times that messing with enemy AIs is very troublesome.

Pretty much this. Sure, we could manually modify an enemy's speed when afflicted by a debuff. But that same code won't apply to the next enemy, which would have to be manually modified, and so on and so forth. Every weird type of AI would have to be manually assessed, every enemy would have to be manually tested to make sure it didn't break, and many enemies might literally be impossible to apply this sort of code to outright.

One has to wonder, when investing in dozens-to-hundreds of hours of code effort in hand-tweaks and bug fixes, if its worth that much for a debuff, when the same amount of effort could be turned towards any number of other useful features or content.

Frost armour
Set Bonus: Melee and ranged attacks inflict Frostburn [New: Player-inflicted Frostburn damage is increased by 400%]

My initial concern with such an idea is that it is not possible as described, and after conferring with Yorai, this appears to be the case.

Oiled works because the enemy is oiled as a result of player damage, and thus the game can say "If Enemy is oiled, then DoTs do X". It is the combination of two Enemy-side debuffs, Oil + DoT, that results in the combination.

You can't have a player worn set bonus dictate that enemies take increased Frostburn damage due to multiplayer situations. There is no "player ownership" of enemy debuffs, so there is no way to assign that an enemy had Frostburn inflicted by Player A, and so needs to take bonus damage.

This is not to say that there is no solution here, but all solutions I'm aware of require entirely new Debuffs, which is "less likely to be approved". My proposal writeups have some alternative solutions as a result.

 

[SsIras]

Disagree with the proposals for this one. It's straight up a nerf since the little stat gain doesn't compensate for the Rapid Healing nerf, and I feel like "very high regen but bad everywhere else" should stay as Palladium Armor's identity, so nerfing the Set Bonus and improving the base stats isn't what I'd do.

And this is the problem with Cobalt sets. It is worse in stats than Palladium, but it doesn't have an useful set bonus to compensate.

Maybe they are just doomed to be weaker versions of Adamantite armor that are easier to get.

The sad part is that Adamantite is pretty much a weaker version of Titanium, it has some extra stats that attempt to compensate, but Titanium is just better 90% of the time.

I tried to mod Spazmatism's AI to move faster when using its Flamethrower; he went flying off screen and then my game crashed. It took me 5 hours across two days to figure out how to speed him up properly.

The devs said many times that messing with enemy AIs is very troublesome.



Helps, but doesn't fully compensate for the trash stats. You can just use SoC and a better armor.

Yeah, I realized it is too much work to make chilled a viable option.

Some interesting stuff here, with some similarities to my write-up proposals under review currently.




The amount of effort necessary to go into a speed-reducing debuff at this time would far outstrip the potential gain, and is far outside of the scope of my changes. It would likely require hand-adjustment and testing for dozens, if not hundreds, of enemies, as well as tons of Immune enemies, which is why AI impacting debuffs are typically avoided (See: Confusion, a good lesson in why not to repeat that mistake).

Ok, what about Cystal Armor dash? It doesn't need any sprites to make it happen, but would it be possible to ask for an animation since its technically a "rushed" armor set?
And the Chloropyte set bonus doing extra damage against bosses? I don't recall this mechanic existing, but would it be possible?

 

[Leinfors]

Ok, what about Crystal Armor dash? It doesn't need any sprites to make it happen, but would it be possible to ask for an animation since its technically a "rushed" armor set?

Crystal Armor dash could work, though I give it 75% odds of being shot down. Red previously shot down similar additions to the armor when it was in the initial last-minute phase, when it was the question of the armor being anything more than a vanity at all. The generalist-flat damage bonus was my last ditch effort to prevent it it from being just a vanity, with all other options at the time not being approved.

And the Chloropyte set bonus doing extra damage against bosses? I don't recall this mechanic existing, but would it be possible?

I don't see a need for Chloro's set bonus to do extra damage to bosses. Its effectively a flat DPS addition, with a high base damage (and hence less subject to defense), one which favors single-target combat rather than multi-target combat. It actually performs fairly well against most bosses.

I'm not against a buff here, but I don't see any justification for this specific buff.

 

[J Bame]

And the Chloropyte set bonus doing extra damage against bosses? I don't recall this mechanic existing, but would it be possible?

Not a dev but I think you just have to check if the hit enemy is classified as a boss, it wouldn't be hard to implement at all.

Oiled works because the enemy is oiled as a result of player damage, and thus the game can say "If Enemy is oiled, then DoTs do X". It is the combination of two Enemy-side debuffs, Oil + DoT, that results in the combination.

You can't have a player worn set bonus dictate that enemies take increased Frostburn damage due to multiplayer situations. There is no "player ownership" of enemy debuffs, so there is no way to assign that an enemy had Frostburn inflicted by Player A, and so needs to take bonus damage.

This is probably a lazy-coder solution but what if the Set Bonus/Magma Stone also inflicted some sort of hidden debuff to those enemies that amplifies the DoT of the main debuff?

 

[Leinfors]

This is probably a lazy-coder solution but what if the Set Bonus/Magma Stone inflicted some sort of hidden debuff to those enemies that simply amplified the DoT of the main debuff?

I think the easiest, and cleanest, solution is to just replace the debuff inflicted with a nearly identical one that does more damage with a different name. Its less amount of work and less convoluted. Easy isn't necessarily lazy, if its also the best solution, and the easier it is, the more likely it is to be approved. Still less likely to be approved, but its on my proposal list.

Oiled, in my opinion, was a very messy mechanic to begin with, and it was added because it was a direct mechanic in Dungeon Defenders 2. It was a better fit there, as its more of a strategic game with more time to think. I don't seek to replicate it in a new form.

 

[SsIras]

Crystal Armor dash could work, though I give it 75% odds of being shot down. Red previously shot down similar additions to armor set bonuses when in the approval phase.



I don't see a need for Chloro's set bonus to do extra damage to bosses. Its effectively a flat DPS addition, with a high base damage (and hence less subject to defense), one which favors single-target combat rather than multi-target combat. It actually performs fairly well against most bosses.

I'm not against a buff here, but I don't see any justification for this specific buff.

Right, I don't find it entirely effective against bosses because Titanium Barrier and Spectre Mask does its DPS job better. But I suppose it's fair that it is a middle term between both.
What could be made different is to give ranged and magic chloropyte sets similar buffs to the melee one.
It could be a simple 5% boost to crit chance or something like increased ranged speed and mana regeneration.

Speaking of the Spectre Mask, I have a weird fix for the fast firing problem. Couldn't we remove the re-spawn timer of the orbs entirely but make them temporally weaker if you're firing too fast?

As for Crystal Armor, either way, a stat buff would be welcome too, it is technically in the same tier as Hallowed armor.

I think the easiest, and cleanest, solution is to just replace the debuff inflicted with a nearly identical one that does more damage with a different name. Its less amount of work and less convoluted. Easy isn't necessarily lazy, if its also the best solution, and the easier it is, the more likely it is to be approved. Still less likely to be approved, but its on my proposal list.

Oiled, in my opinion, was a very messy mechanic to begin with, and it was added because it was a direct mechanic in Dungeon Defenders 2. It was a better fit there, as its more of a strategic game with more time to think. I don't seek to replicate it in a new form.

I think oiled would be a lot better if Explosive Trap inflicted On Fire!
Maybe buff the damage boost a little too.
And Red Riding Leggings could also gain 10% crit chance to better scale to Shinobi/Dark Artist (it would still be quite a bit beneath these in total damage boost)

 

[Leinfors]

Right, I don't find it entirely effective against bosses because Titanium Barrier and Spectre Mask does its DPS job better. But I suppose it's fair that it is a middle term between both.

Titanium Barrier is extremely close range and requires risk, and Spectre Mask is a post-Plantera mage only set. They aren't really comparable. Chlorophyte is literally free damage for zero effort. It may not be enough damage to be worthwhile, but it is what it is. I think anything living in the shadow of Shadow Dodge/Holy Protection is going to suffer from that, but that was the price of keeping Shadow Dodge at all, rather than removing it entirely.

What could be made different is to give ranged and magic chloropyte sets similar buffs to the melee one.
It could be a simple 5% boost to crit chance or something like increased ranged speed and mana regeneration.

The change to Melee was deliberately just for Melee. There is not meant to be symmetry with the other classes there, because Melee is traditionally underpowered in regards to other classes. If I added more to Ranged/Mage, I'd need to add more to Melee again.

Any kind of buff to Chlorophyte set is likely to be universal.

I think oiled would be a lot better if Explosive Trap inflicted On Fire!

I don't see that happening. May as well have skipped the concept entirely. OOA content is, at least at the surface level, intended to pay homage to DD2, and this was part of the mechanic. Inflict Oil, stack with Fire, and you got a good synergy. If it just inflicted Fire and Oil at once, then there is no point at all. Maybe the concept is hamstrung somewhat, but because of its nature as a DD2 content crossover, that is not a change I'd be in favor of making, since, its dishonest to its roots.

I have some other solutions in mind.

Speaking of the Spectre Mask, I have a weird fix for the fast firing problem. Couldn't we remove the re-spawn timer of the orbs entirely but make them temporally weaker if you're firing too fast?

Theoretically possible, but that would be a massive change, and I'd rather iterate. If you completely remove the timer, then the set bonus of Spectre Mask is literally "deal double your damage, but its wall-hacking and homing". It needs some sort of limitation. People tend to underestimate the potency of wall-hacking/homing free bonus projectiles. The current response of the community towards Flamelash and Magic Missile being extremely strong is evidence of that, and that was just homing.

Remember, in 1.4, I already increased the damage of the bonus projectiles from 50% to 100%, and increased the cooldown rate by 66%. That significantly reduces the impact of defense on the bonus projectiles (which was a very fair criticism), and allows 66% more bonus DPS over time. If I need to increase the cooldown rate again, I can follow up on that, or even look into other flat bonuses elsewhere, but outright removal of the cap?

I'd have to check my math, but that level of damage would, I believe, outperform even Nebula Armor at 3x Damage Stacks. Adding a "damage penalty" cap instead of a "no more projectiles" cap is likely not much better, because if the damage penalty kicks in, you end up in the same boat as pre-1.4, where Defense penalties impact the bonus projectiles too much. I can just increase the cap, within reason, for a more controlled increase in effective DPS.

Its also more work, both in time and complexity, which is a point against, when simple changes can accomplish the same goal.

 

[J Bame]

People tend to underestimate the potency of wall-hacking/homing free bonus projectiles. The current response of the community towards Flamelash and Magic Missile being extremely strong is evidence of that, and that was just homing.

There is a difference between these two, though. Some homing weapons such as the new Magic Missiles or Razorblade Typhoon do only require enough mental capability to know how to press the left button of your mouse for proper use, but Spectre's set bonus requires you to hit something first before the balls come out, it's not fair to treat it like a braindead attack because the weapon that procs them will almost always require skill to use.

It's a fact that something that hits very rapidly like a Razorpine or Inferno Fork will benefit less from Spectre Mask than something like a Nebula Blaze or Heat Ray that hits at a normal rate and doesn't care about the cooldown; 1.4 didn't fix this. Titanium Barrier is a set bonus with a similar problem with assymetry; since the shards always spawn on hit and they always deal 50ish damage, it is much stronger with rapid hit weapons than with slower ones (for an extreme example, compare its DPS at point blank when using a Dao of Pow and then when using a Megashark with Crystal Bullets)

I don't think these set bonuses are bad or overpowered because of this, but they could be rebalanced so that they are the same with all weapons used: The Spectre Balls could deal 10-20% defense-piercing damage with no spawning cooldown, and Titanium Barrier's Shards could have their damage and/or a chance to spawn based on the Weapon's Damage/Use Time.

 

[SsIras]

There is a difference between these two, though. Some homing weapons such as the new Magic Missiles or Razorblade Typhoon do only require enough mental capability to know how to press the left button of your mouse for proper use, but Spectre's set bonus requires you to hit something first before the balls come out, it's not fair to treat it like a braindead attack because the weapon that procs them will almost always require skill to use.

It's a fact that something that hits very rapidly like a Razorpine or Inferno Fork will benefit less from Spectre Mask than something like a Nebula Blaze or Heat Ray that hits at a normal rate and doesn't care about the cooldown; 1.4 didn't fix this. Titanium Barrier is a set bonus with a similar problem with assymetry; since the shards always spawn on hit and they always deal 50ish damage, it is much stronger with rapid hit weapons than with slower ones (for an extreme example, compare its DPS at point blank when using a Dao of Pow and then when using a Megashark with Crystal Bullets)

I don't think these set bonuses are bad or overpowered because of this, but they could be rebalanced so that they are the same with all weapons used: The Spectre Balls could deal 10-20% defense-piercing damage with no spawning cooldown, and Titanium Barrier's Shards could have their damage and/or a chance to spawn based on the Weapon's Damage/Use Time.

To be fair, the Mask set bonus works really well with the Spectre Staff, which seems fitting. But yeah, it can be annoying that if you're attacking really fast, it's like the set bonus ceases to exist.
And since the Mask currently has such a small damage bonus, it can be replaced with something stronger way too easily in some cases.

 

[CrabBar]

The Spectre Balls could deal 10-20% defense-piercing damage with no spawning cooldown

I suppose one of the reasons why there is a cooldown in first place is because you practically double amount of projectiles on screen, and the half of them is homing which is really aggressive towards performance.
One way to compromise is to make projectiles have a cooldown regardless, however, during that cooldown dealt magic damage will be charging up next projectile, increasing its' total dmg.

 

[Leinfors]

Performance impact due to unlimited projectiles is a valid consideration.

Unfortunately, all of these advanced alternative solutions are beyond the scope of the sort of changes I can make.

Hence why, if Spectre changes at all, it'll likely be flat stat changes to the pieces themselves, or an increase in cooldown rate. I do not foresee its core functionality being overhauled, or the cap being abolished.

 

[SsIras]

Performance impact due to unlimited projectiles is a valid consideration.

Unfortunately, all of these advanced alternative solutions are beyond the scope of the sort of changes I can make.

Hence why, if Spectre changes at all, it'll likely be flat stat changes to the pieces themselves, or an increase in cooldown rate. I do not foresee its core functionality being overhauled, or the cap being abolished.

I honestly think just buffing the spectre mask itself solves the problem due to the "it tops everything else" logic.
It doesn't even need to beat all other avaible armor sets in stats, just be good enough that the defense you're getting justifies the slight DPS loss.
Its stats will probably be topped of by Dark Artist set anyway (by the way, is Dark Artist losing the mana reduction from tw Apprentice set an oversight? I feel it should still be there, even if it means nerfing Dark Artist a little).

 

[JohannSimm]

Okay these buffs make them better armors but... they still won't be used. The biggest issue with these two armor sets isn't just that they are weak, it's also that there is literally no reason to waste time getting the materials for them when that time could've gone to just getting Adamantite/Titanium armor instead, as those two have objectively better stats and ofc should remain that way.

Maybe they are just doomed to be weaker versions of Adamantite armor that are easier to get.

There is one solution, which is similar to my solution to fix Copper / Tin and Iron / Lead armor. Reduce the crafting requirements to zilch. I'm thinking about 5 bars or less to craft each piece of Mythril or Cobalt armor. Currently, these armor sets require a hundred or more ore to produce. You could even divide the current requirements by 5. Each Cobalt hat piece could cost 2 bars. The leggings would cost 3, and the breastplate 4. That's about 27 ore for a full set. Mythril has the same cost ratio, so the same reductions could be done for it. Then the armors could be an easily-obtained stepping stone on the way to Adamantite / Titanium.

Here's a further question. Is anything made with Cobalt or Mythril currently worth it? What about the Palladium and Orichalcum tools and weapons? Some of those could be buffed as well, or have their costs reduced.

I also would like to once again mention my idea of having ore swords gain +20% or +15% crit chance while used with their matching armor set. Phaseblades and Phasesabers could have an innate +20% or +15% crit chance, as well as apply a debuff that reduces enemy defence by 10 (Phaseblades) or 20 (Phasesabers). I also think the Night's Edge could have an innate +20% or +15% crit chance, in addition to gaining autoswing.