Official 1.3 Launch Feedback Thread

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EXPERT MODE FEEDBACK (here he is again)

As I said in my BoC feedback, I feel (which is an opinion, not a fact) that the new AI of bosses plays a large role in Expert Mode, namely forcing you to adapt new strategies to defeat those bosses (no more standing still on platforms and throwing stuff at the EoW, having to avoid Skeletron's skulls without getting stunlocked by his spinning head (which happened at least five times to me)). So when I encountered the Queen Bee, I felt like there was unused potential.

Now, before I start talking about the AI, let me just say that according to me, the difficulty was spot on. She was very difficult, but by no means impossible, and once you figured out her patterns, it's just a matter of dodging (and while I'm pretty adept at dodging, I'm terrible at leading bullets, so I died a couple of times anyway).

Now about the AI, I still haven't figured out exactly what she does different from her regular version apart from being faster. Thus, for me, she wasn't any fun to fight. While Skeletron made me rage every time he killed me (which was a lot), I looked forward to seeing those skulls and dodging them. The Queen Bee just requires your normal strategy albeit with a bit more focus and reflexes.

So instead of speeding up the attacks, I propose to change them (as well). She currently has three distinctive attacks, which I think is enough: adding another as expression of her expert mode-ness would give you an AI you only notice a quarter of the time.

  1. Horizontal Charge.
A.K.A. the Breather Attack.

The problem with this attack is that it isn't as much an attack as it is a way for the Queen Bee to turn into a large fuzzy skipping rope with wings. With Rocket Boots, it's really nothing more than four seconds of getting a free shot (or barrage, in case of the Minishark) in, because you don't have to trace her, you can just fire straight to the left/right and hit every single shot. Good for normal mode, to ease the tension a little, but Expert Mode should keep you on your toes at all time.

My suggestion to change this is to change the horizontal charge into a direct charge like the EoC employs. Not immensely harder to dodge and it limits the free shots you get at her, so still a sort of breather attack, but an Expert Mode breather attack.

2. Bee Spawn

A.K.A. the Meat Shield Attack.

While the idea of spawning bees to distract the player is a good one, in my battles they just soak up bullets meant for Her Majesty (it's worse with piercing weapons like the Space Gun, where they just flat out lose their function). The cause of this is because they spawn at a standstill and it takes ages for them to actually move away, and while there are enough to eventually have about four chasing you, many other valiant soldiers are lost defending their Queen while they could be trying to deliver their own brand of acupuncture on the player's beehind (sic).

The solution? Fire them! No, I don't mean layoffs, I mean shooting them with high velocity, much like the stingers. In this way, they don't become immediate cannon fodder and can continue to harass the player while the latter is trying to avoid the actual stingers from attack 3 (we'll get to that). And while this would allow a clear shot at the Queen while she's spawning bees, this is A) somewhat countered by Horizontal Charge suggestion and B) forces the player to make a decision between delivering extra damage to the Queen but having to deal with bees AND stingers, or getting rid of the bees so he has less to worry about during attack 3, but losing that extra damage. In other words, the players get another facet added to their strategy. Isn't that just dandy?

3. Stinger Barrage

A.K.A the Rain of Pain

Compared to the first two attacks, I don't really see any 'problems' that should be 'fixed', because the Stinger Barrage is a solid attack as far as I'm concerned: swooping above or below the player while firing projectiles. And since I don't mind beefing up existing mechanics as a part of the Expert Mode AI as long it isn't the ONLY part of the Expert Mode AI (like the EoC, which combines Servant Spam with a brand new Charge), I'm going to leave this one for what it is. Hey, if it isn't broken, don't fix it (which generally could be said about this entire suggestion but shush).

So yeah, that's my two cents. Well, two dollars, really, but who's counting?

Back to the real topic at hand: I honestly think there needs to be a few more NPCS. This update brought in a whopping 1 new town NPC.
Adding NPCs for the sake of adding NPCs isn't a good thing. NPCs are added because there is a certain function or service that needs to be fulfilled, not because it makes your town look more lively.
 
So, the day is finally here! You have Terraria 1.3 in your hands at last - so as you dig ever deeper into the juicy new content and features, come back here and let us know what you think.

Not just bugs - you can feel free to report those in our BUG REPORT SECTION (remember to make it clear that you are playing 1.3), but feedback in general: balance, things you find cool (or less cool), fun stories, etc.

This - coupled with Bug Reports - will assist the team in any needed fixes and adjustments post launch.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: The Development Team is particularly interested in feedback on the newly-added Expert Mode - in regards to balance, overall fun & challenge factor, etc. So, please provide any thoughts you have here. In order to help make this specific feedback more noticeable, please mark any Expert Mode feedback with the text below (just copy-paste it). Thanks!

EXPERT MODE FEEDBACK

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Thanks Terrarians...now get out there and explore!!!
Loki it's amazing thanks
 
I cant live with the fact that if I left click once the block gets damaged. This way every time I enter my base I accidently wreck it (a few block go to the semi-broken texture) and have to replace the broken blocks.

A way of diabling that the block look damaged if you only left click once would be nice.
 
Expert Mode Feedback


Eye of Cthulhu: Hard enough when not prepared, and easy if you know what to do.
Took two tries.

Eater of Worlds: With a good arena can be easily dodged, and piercing weapons still rip it to shreds.
Took two tries.

Queen Bee: Hard to dodge, and very fast.
Took one try, although I did die when I rematched her to get more beenades for the WoF fight.
Skeletron: Projectiles are easy to dodge, when he spins it's possible to get comboed by him which can be hard to escape from, but having high mobility makes this boss fairly easy.
Took two tries.

King Slime: I didn't fight him at the correct tier so the fight was very easy, but the new spiked slimes and the teleportation made the boss look like it could be hard.

Wall of Flesh:
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First try: Not enough beenades.
Second try: My bees attacked a hungry behind the boss instead of the actual boss.
Third try: SUCCESS!

Destroyer: My arrows rained down from the heavens and he didn't stand a chance.
Took two tries but I don't know if the first one should count since it was a random spawn and I wasn't prepared.

Skeletron Prime: Easy, more arrows. Was anything actually changed about this fight?
Took one try.

Twins: Spasmatisms second stage is fast, and very damaging.
I haven't beaten them, but so far It's taken 3 tries.
PHM Blood Moon: EZ

PHM Slime Rain: I didn't have this happen until I had outgeared it.

PHM Goblin Army: The sorcerers died easily thanks to the NPCs, and everything else just fell in the two pits next to my house, it was pretty boring.

-----------------------------------Hardmode---------------------------------------

HM Blood Moon: Nothing really cool here.

HM Goblin Army: The Summoners teleport, fly everywhere, and have alot of damage, throw in all the other goblins and you have a recipe for one of the deadliest mid-game invasions.

Pirate Army: The pirates fell into the holes by my house, and the ship flew into the side of my house, and stayed there.

Solar Eclipse: As long as I don't open my door nothing can get in because theres a hole next to them.
 
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I can see that the message I'm trying to get across isn't getting through. Not that I'm terribly surprised, admittedly. I do tend to find that those most immersed in something have the hardest time grasping why what they enjoy is not enjoyable to others. I take my leave of this forum as well, then, and reiterate my hope that the developers at least listen to what I've said and consider fixing at least a few of the particularly broken aspects of this game's single-player experience.
 
I can see that the message I'm trying to get across isn't getting through. Not that I'm terribly surprised, admittedly. I do tend to find that those most immersed in something have the hardest time grasping why what they enjoy is not enjoyable to others. I take my leave of this forum as well, then, and reiterate my hope that the developers at least listen to what I've said and consider fixing at least a few of the particularly broken aspects of this game's single-player experience.

The problem isn't that no one's having a hard time grasping what you're saying. The problem is your complaint is based off of treating Terraria like any other action sidescroller when it is considerably more than that. Not only that but you keep claiming that common sandbox tactics(such as boxing oneself in to prevent damage are "unintuitive" but never once have you offered a single idea of what would be intuitive.

Like I said before, I get the feeling you're critiquing based on not what Terraria is(a sidescrolling sandbox game with action and platformer elements), but what you THINK it is(a sidescrolling action game) and there's a difference between the two.
 
Yeah King Slime and the Slime Rain happens way too late to be of any challenge. It should honestly happen on day 3 or something, before the average player is fully geared up. It didn't happen for me until I had literally beaten the Wall of Flesh.
 
This guy has somehow managed to offend me. But it could be because I am hopped up on mountain dew and theoretical-beef sticks and that opened up a few mental bulkheads and the offense just flopped in like an oily duck fresh from the BP craptastrophy. I have no problems with difficulty in this game, save for when I cant be bothered to set something up to fight fishron. But I don't fault terraria for that, since it's me who suddenly stopped giving a :red:. Perhaps now that I am back into terraria, I will force my thumbs into fishron's eyes while raging about cakes. Then beat the moon lord until items pop out.

I for one welcome the new game challenges.
 
Yeah King Slime and the Slime Rain happens way too late to be of any challenge. It should honestly happen on day 3 or something, before the average player is fully geared up. It didn't happen for me until I had literally beaten the Wall of Flesh.
Eh, it's a random event. I had my first one on day two or three. Even then, since world age doesn't necessarily correspond to player equip, having the slime rain(or at least its first occurrence) being forced to happen early in a world's life, it opens up the possibility of farming it. That said, perhaps a way to cause the event to happen wouldn't be a bad idea.

Perhaps now that I am back into terraria, I will force my thumbs into fishron's eyes while raging about cakes.

My imagination painted an, shall I say, interesting picture of that...
 
That + Phantasm with holy arrows - boss kills world records coming? (2 turret summons from moon lord + 2 clouds at once)
 

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The problem isn't that no one's having a hard time grasping what you're saying. The problem is your complaint is based off of treating Terraria like any other action sidescroller when it is considerably more than that. Not only that but you keep claiming that common sandbox tactics(such as boxing oneself in to prevent damage are "unintuitive" but never once have you offered a single idea of what would be intuitive.

Like I said before, I get the feeling you're critiquing based on not what Terraria is(a sidescrolling sandbox game with action and platformer elements), but what you THINK it is(a sidescrolling action game) and there's a difference between the two.

I would rather hope that what qualifies for "intuitive" in an action-oriented combat system is fairly obvious. Apparently not. Intuitive means:

* Responsive and consistent controls with predictable limits that can effectively be dealt with by the player
* An interface and HUD designed around the controls that is both helpful and unintrusive: there when the player needs it, easy to ignore when it's not
* Fair challenges that respect the limitations of the controls and options given to the player
* Telegraphing which allows the player to both anticipate coming attacks and gives them a reasonable chance to evade, defend, or counterattack
* Providing the player with the tools they need to do the job before thrusting them into a situation that calls for those tools
* Short iteration times between attempts at a challenge
* Options for combat besides "basic attack" and "dodge to not get hit"
* Not taking control away from the player

Terraria has quite a few of these, but is severely lacking in others. Saying "it's a sandbox game" does not excuse it from having a sub-par combat system. I have literally played NES games that do real-time combat better. The bosses being overly difficult is a symptom of a greater problem. "Fixing" them won't address the inherent flaws of the system, namely that the combat system itself is below standard. I have, however, provided a very simple way to actually address a key flaw with this combat system which would not take excessive amounts of work to implement: don't make boss monsters run away as soon as the player dies.

EDIT: Just in case someone wants to "call me out" for responding after I said I'm leaving, don't waste your time. I made this response in one final effort to help clarify my position. If what's posted here and before hasn't made my stance clear yet, I don't know what to tell you.
 
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I would rather hope that what qualifies for "intuitive" in an action-oriented combat system is fairly obvious. Apparently not. Intuitive means:
Take a look at your list. Note that I mentioned a lack of "intuitive tactics" because that's what you've been complaining about. Instead of actually offering a single tactic, you gave me a series of design goals. That is why I asked.

Even then:
* Responsive and consistent controls with predictable limits that can effectively be dealt with by the playe
Terraria has this
* An interface and HUD designed around the controls that is both helpful and unintrusive: there when the player needs it, easy to ignore when it's not
Done
* Fair challenges that respect the limitations of the controls and options given to the player
That's a matter of opinion, but I'm of the stance Terraria fits the bill
* Telegraphing which allows the player to both anticipate coming attacks and gives them a reasonable chance to evade, defend, or counterattack
Depending on the attack and purpose of a fight, this actually isn't a 100% active requirement. In some games, there's a massive amount of damage that won't be telegraphed because the purpose of the damage is to reduce your effective HP and/or test your healing capabilities. Even then, a majority of Terraria damage is telegraphed since it's predominately contact damage. I'll have to defer to others to know if the Lunar event suffers from this.
* Providing the player with the tools they need to do the job before thrusting them into a situation that calls for those tools
There's three ways I can counter this argument so I'll go ahead and give all of them.
1. This is only a design goal that's needed for linearly designed games. Open-ended games, like most sandbox games, have the freedom to do so considerably more sparingly.
2. Terraria actually does this. Start a map up and you're given the tools needed to manage to survive practically anything the game's going to throw at you then and there. 1.3 actually increased this since the guide can now protect a newbie while they're getting themselves figured out. After that any stronger content requires the player to actually go roaming around and or do certain things. For instance, EoC won't spawn on a player at night unless they have 10+ defense and 200 health. Go past that point(and since it checks for your defense at night-fall, you can actually have 400 health and turtle armor and not have it spawn by taking the armor off right before nightfall hits). Other such gates? Skeletron gates access to the dungeon, WoF gates access to Hardmode, Plantera gates the Lizhard Temple/Golem which gates the Cultists, which gate the Lunatic Cultist, which gates the Lunar Event.
3. Dying is part of the game. Hardcore characters aside, you have unlimited lives. With that being the case, Terraria has no requirement to be designed in such a way that a completely fresh player can start a world and go from there to beating the Moon Lord without once ever dying. In other words, death is a part of the game, if you died learn from it.
* Short iteration times between attempts at a challenge
This one's shaky because it's based upon opinion. What's short to you may be long to me or vice versa. Even then, Terraria tends to fall in this category. Failed at a boss? Gather what you need to spawn it again and do so. Depending on boss, may have to wait for nightfall but that's not a massive wait and gives you time to reflect on the failure and perhaps implement some additional preparation to assist the fight.
* Options for combat besides "basic attack" and "dodge to not get hit"
Given that you failed to define basic attack, I'm going to do so as any melee/ranged weapon with mundane swings/projectiles i.e. non-projectile melee weapons, standard bows and guns. So other offensive options(depending on the mob) in no specific order:
  • Magic weapons
  • Lava Pits
  • Mechanical traps(darts, spiky balls, etc)
  • NPCs
  • Dropping sand/silt/slush
  • Special weapons
As for your, "Dodge to not get hit" complaint, that's rather limited since there's really only three ways to not get hit: dodge, not be in range/LoS, or not get into combat. Now, even then, there's really only two general defensive options in any combat-oriented game: Don't take damage and effective health. Thus, I'll detail the options available there:

Not taking damage:
  • Dodging
  • Construction - Pitting mobs, walling mobs/yourself up, etc.
  • Not being in combat
  • Overwhelming firepower - Best defense is a good offense concept. In other words, kill it before it hurts you.
  • Utilizing LoS - This kinda overlaps with construction and/or firepower but can be done with natural terrain so it merits its own spot.

Effective Health:
  • Armor - Early on this is just getting better armor to decrease the damage per attack. Closer to end-game, you get options to either have additional defensive buffs, healing armor, or you go the ranged/summoner which would fall in the Overwhelming Firepower side of not taking damage defensive options.
  • Potions - Increases armor, health, regeneration, offers healing, etc.
  • Healing liquids - Honey baths.
  • Lower sources of damage - The old trap a slime with you to keep taking low damage or grapple onto a place spike trick.
* Not taking control away from the player
So are you suggesting that confusion effects, gravitational pulls, etc. should not exist in any game? Meh.

Saying "it's a sandbox game" does not excuse it from having a sub-par combat system.
That's not why I've been bringing it up. I've brought that up against your rants because you seem to consider the sandbox side to be completely and utterly separated from combat when it's not. Unlike some other sandbox games, there's not a single point in Terraria that the player has no ability to use the tools the sandbox aspect of the game offers in dealing with combat. Thus, if a player doesn't attempt to utilize the tools and tactics that offers in combat and fails in their fights, that's a fault of the player not the game.

I have literally played NES games that do real-time combat better.
Gimme a list, I'll check these games out and then explain how incorrect this statement is.

I have, however, provided a very simple way to actually address a key flaw with this combat system which would not take excessive amounts of work to implement: don't make boss monsters run away as soon as the player dies.
Yeah no, that pretty much means any boss can be defeated without skill by just kamikazing over, and over again. I can't think of a single valid reason why this should happen across the board.
 
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While I understand how the drax/hamaxe/whatever prioritize trees before blocks so that they can then mine blocks underneath them, the extended range of the laser drill makes this a problem. This wasn't a problem with the earlier combo tools since they have a shorter range, but this really gets in the way when I'm in the jungle and there's pretty much always a tree within 10 tiles.

This is also particularly wut-inducing when the smart select just selects a tree 30-50 tiles away from my cursor.

I originally put this as a bug but apparently it's feedback
 
speaking of the drill mount...does anybody else wish it took down walls too? not like we can be delicate with it anyway so why not roll hammer into it and make "hamdrax 2 the return" can't think of any use i'd ever have for stripmining a mountain that didn't involve nuking the background walls just as much as the blocks

otherwise it feels lame to decimate all those blocks and have to go back and hammer out the walls by hand :sigh:
 
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While I understand how the drax/hamaxe/whatever prioritize trees before blocks so that they can then mine blocks underneath them, the extended range of the laser drill makes this a problem. This wasn't a problem with the earlier combo tools since they have a shorter range, but this really gets in the way when I'm in the jungle and there's pretty much always a tree within 10 tiles.

I originally put this as a bug but apparently it's feedback
Eh, I wouldn't really use the smart cursor to mine more than a few blocks past the player. Anything farther than that, it's a better idea to toggle it off and work it manually.

That said, I would consider the fact that the cursor being on the right side of the player while the smart cursor is focusing on a block behind the player to be a potential issue. That's fine with the smart cursor when building but when destroying...not so much.

speaking of the drill mount...does anybody else wish it took down walls too? not like we can be delicate with it anyway so why not roll hammer into it and make "hamdrax 2 the return"

otherwise it feels lame to decimate all those blocks and have to go back and hammer out the walls by hand :sigh:
Hrms, not sure I'd want that as an inherent ability. Being able to toggle hammer time(couldn't help it) though isn't a bad idea.
 
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