tModLoader Calamity Mod

[colinavvv]

woah honesty bomb

Wtf did he actually say that in the post you quoted, I think the mod is very balanced

 

[Fabsol]

Well, this sure was something.

 

[orangepecan]

Repeating: People are not TASbots. People will get hit because Terraria WANTS you to get hit. Between lasers that move faster than you can react being sprayed with a random spread, Santank bullets you can't even SEE, dozens and dozens of monsters all spamming you at the same time... and to get off vanilla for a second, look Calamity's very own Supreme Calamitas and Providence. Bullet hell so thick, so dense, and so random that you have to be a total god to make the "defense is useless because dodging is the best mitigation of damage!"argument stand. It falls way the hell apart.

It's a flawed argument and only applies to the inhumanly skilled or TAS. In normal play, you WILL get hit, the game is DESIGNED to get you hit, and the game has systems explicitly put in place to mitigate those hits and it makes up all that Terraria is in the late game. A wall of text about how well you can dodge does not change this, just makes you look like a braggart because you're personally so far above the other 3 million players who enjoy the game.

I don't get it. First of all, I never said I am some god at dodging in Terraria. FAR from it. In fact, I explicitly stated as such in my post, so I am not even sure if you actually read it. I cannot beat Revengeance DoG or Yharon legitimately because my eye sight doesn't allow for it. I simply cannot react in time to some of the that goes on.

Second, you are applying the bullet hell logic to Calamity, which I don't disagree with, but seem to be in favour of the nerfs to DR and life regen that Drew has imposed. I have stated on multiple occasions that I personally have not found a combination within the confines of vanilla, Calamity and Fargo's that allows for face tanking Revengeance bosses, so I am not sure exactly what the nerfs are trying to accomplish.

My direct question @MountainDrew : which players are you targeting with these nerfs? Because to me it very clearly isn't the ones who are playing legitimately without any cheese tactics. As I said before, there is PLENTY enough incoming damage that any upper limits on DR and life regen appear completely unnecessary.

 

[PurpleNecromancer]

I don't get it. First of all, I never said I am some god at dodging in Terraria. FAR from it. In fact, I explicitly stated as such in my post, so I am not even sure if you actually read it. I cannot beat Revengeance DoG or Yharon legitimately because my eye sight doesn't allow for it. I simply cannot react in time to some of the that goes on.

Second, you are applying the bullet hell logic to Calamity, which I don't disagree with, but seem to be in favour of the nerfs to DR and life regen that Drew has imposed. I have stated on multiple occasions that I personally have not found a combination within the confines of vanilla, Calamity and Fargo's that allows for face tanking Revengeance bosses, so I am not sure exactly what the nerfs are trying to accomplish.

My direct question @MountainDrew : which players are you targeting with these nerfs? Because to me it very clearly isn't the ones who are playing legitimately without any cheese tactics. As I said before, there is PLENTY enough incoming damage that any upper limits on DR and life regen appear completely unnecessary.

The primary problem isn't just people equipping OP regen accessories (can't really think of a lot of post-ML accessories that actually affect regen) but Terraria's formulas for regen were not really balanced for ML-level, let around post-ML level. For example, having higher base HP than 500 makes regen increase a lot, which makes it harder to balance with Calamity's HP increasing items and armors. Stacking regen and damage resist without reliance on Calamity items also made Expert Ragnarok from Thorium not very worrisome until Dying Reality or when Slag Fury set me on fire. Back when Fargo's souls could make you have 2000 HP, Expert Yharon could literally not bring me below 60% HP without me trying to get hit due to regenerating hundreds of HP per second. Even a small fraction of that ridiculous regenerating stacked on top of damage resist unaffected makes even Devourer far less scary once you understand how he attacks you.

While I'm not a fan of how Drew nerfs it right now, it's better than nothing at all. A direct change to the regen formula itself post-ML seems better imo, but I don't really get how easily that could be coded.

 

[Frous]

I don't get it. First of all, I never said I am some god at dodging in Terraria. FAR from it. In fact, I explicitly stated as such in my post, so I am not even sure if you actually read it. I cannot beat Revengeance DoG or Yharon legitimately because my eye sight doesn't allow for it. I simply cannot react in time to some of the that goes on.

Second, you are applying the bullet hell logic to Calamity, which I don't disagree with, but seem to be in favour of the nerfs to DR and life regen that Drew has imposed. I have stated on multiple occasions that I personally have not found a combination within the confines of vanilla, Calamity and Fargo's that allows for face tanking Revengeance bosses, so I am not sure exactly what the nerfs are trying to accomplish.

My direct question @MountainDrew : which players are you targeting with these nerfs? Because to me it very clearly isn't the ones who are playing legitimately without any cheese tactics. As I said before, there is PLENTY enough incoming damage that any upper limits on DR and life regen appear completely unnecessary.

Terraria and every game gets beaten because people get preparation for it, reads are more important than reflexes in any game you play, and being unable to beat a boss is most of the time lack of preparation, instead of lack of balance.

 

[orangepecan]

The primary problem isn't just people equipping OP regen accessories (can't really think of a lot of post-ML accessories that actually affect regen) but Terraria's formulas for regen were not really balanced for ML-level, let around post-ML level. For example, having higher base HP than 500 makes regen increase a lot, which makes it harder to balance with Calamity's HP increasing items and armors. Back when Fargo's souls could make you have 2000 HP, Expert Yharon could literally not bring me below 60% HP without me trying to get hit due to regenerating hundreds of HP per second. Even a small fraction of that ridiculous regenerating stacked on top of damage resist unaffected makes even Devourer far less scary once you understand how he attacks you.

While I'm not a fan of how Drew nerfs it right now, it's better than nothing at all. A direct change to the regen formula itself post-ML seems better imo, but I don't really get how easily that could be coded.

Hmm.. I did not realize that a higher max HP increases regen speed that much. That seems.. strange to code it that way. I always assumed it was just flat HP/sec, like in virtually every other game I've seen regen in, and you just boost it further with more flat HP/sec.

All that being said, to reach such ridiculous HP levels, you need to use other mods, or grind very, very heavily for some very hard to make accessories in Fargo's. It just doesn't seem like something worth considering. If you've gotten to that point through the intense grinding of getting Fargo's accessories, in my mind, you've earned the privilege to roflstomp these bosses. If you cheated in some crazy stuff and then come brag about it in the forums.. well, that's what ignore buttons are for.

I dunno.. I guess I just don't care that much for anti-cheat measures in casual games.

Terraria and every game gets beaten because people get preparation for it, reads are more important than reflexes in any game you play, and being unable to beat a boss is most of the time lack of preparation, instead of lack of balance.

I agree to a point. There is a lot of bullet hell tactics going on in the Yharon and Providence fights that it comes down to luck as well. If that Infernado shows up in a bad spot, you're toast. Unless there's some trick to manipulating how these things spawn. I ALWAYS seem to run into them.

 

[Krispion]

Years ago I'd have agreed with you, but ever since Pumpkin Moon, the game has been driven more, and more, and more into a "hardcore" experience.

Expert Mode is legitimately tough as damned nails and even in normal mode, Duke Fishron is all but unbeatable to some people even still because he was expressly designed with a "git gud" pattern learning mentality. Just look at all the anticheeses and enrages and specific mechanic exceptions they slapped onto Moon Lord. Look at the Lunar Event at ALL and tell me these fancy DR items and full range of super powerful number-modifying potions weren't made with the goal of being casual. 1.3 opened the floodgates for the "git gud" crowd to spill in and it's not a mod's fault, I'll tell ya that.

I'm sorry but this is just absurd... Terraria, even on expert mode, is not a hard game at all. I think you should try some of the popular competitive games out there or something like Dark Souls if you want a difficult game. After one or two playthroughs of Terraria you should be able to clear expert no sweat.

 

[Uncle Danny]

I'm sorry but this is just absurd... Terraria, even on expert mode, is not a hard game at all. I think you should try some of the popular competitive games out there or something like Dark Souls if you want a difficult game. After one or two playthroughs of Terraria you should be able to clear expert no sweat.

Aye, there's no huge amount of added challenge in Expert Mode Vanilla, heck, they give you a 17% DR accessory for just defeating the third boss.

 

[orangepecan]

I'm sorry but this is just absurd... Terraria, even on expert mode, is not a hard game at all. I think you should try some of the popular competitive games out there or something like Dark Souls if you want a difficult game. After one or two playthroughs of Terraria you should be able to clear expert no sweat.

Yep.

Even a game like Dark Souls has been shown to be made a joke. Any game that doesn't have PvP elements can eventually be figured out and made easy.

 

[General Milky]

I'm sorry but this is just absurd... Terraria, even on expert mode, is not a hard game at all. I think you should try some of the popular competitive games out there or something like Dark Souls if you want a difficult game. After one or two playthroughs of Terraria you should be able to clear expert no sweat.

I've played the hell out of all Souls games but demons, consider the bullet hell shootemup genre as my home comfort zone, enjoy difficult rom hacks and fan games of series I like such as Megaman, and generally am an addict to overcoming grim odds in about everything I play.

Don't patronize me in an attempt to make your argument look better. Expert is hard. Look around the forums you're actually posting on right now. People struggle with it. It's a hard game with borderline unfair attacks and lots of trial, error, and experimentation to win. Yeah, maybe it gets easier after you've done it a ton of times and learn what to do, but so does ANYTHING.

 

[Uncle Danny]

I've played the hell out of all Souls games but demons, consider the bullet hell shootemup genre as my home comfort zone, enjoy difficult rom hacks and fan games of series I like such as Megaman, and generally am an addict to overcoming grim odds in about everything I play.

Don't patronize me in an attempt to make your argument look better. Expert is hard. Look around the forums you're actually posting on right now. People struggle with it. It's a hard game with borderline unfair attacks and lots of trial, error, and experimentation to win. Yeah, maybe it gets easier after you've done it a ton of times and learn what to do, but so does ANYTHING.

It really doesn't, all it does it increase damage and hp, there are no large AI changes (aside from bosses, but you can still apply the same arena tactics and whatsoever to them) so even if you just played normal mode only once, it's easy to avoid most attacks.

 

[Krispion]

I've played the hell out of all Souls games but demons, consider the bullet hell shootemup genre as my home comfort zone, enjoy difficult rom hacks and fan games of series I like such as Megaman, and generally am an addict to overcoming grim odds in about everything I play.

Don't patronize me in an attempt to make your argument look better. Expert is hard. Look around the forums you're actually posting on right now. People struggle with it. It's a hard game with borderline unfair attacks and lots of trial, error, and experimentation to win. Yeah, maybe it gets easier after you've done it a ton of times and learn what to do, but so does ANYTHING.

There was nothing patronizing in my comment whatsoever, so any that you perceived is your own insecurity. Most games (most, not multiplayer competitive games) do become easy if you play them enough, but it's about how much you have to play until it becomes easy. You do not have to play Terraria long before it becomes easy, end of story. The fact that you struggled with the game so much doesn't mean it's hard for others. You see people talk about expert being hard so much because the people that find it easy (or of moderate difficulty) aren't making posts about it. After all, why would they? Who honestly expects Terraria to be some hardcore experience that takes thousands of hours to master? Probably no one, nor should they. It's a sandbox RPG aimed at kids and teens. This isn't StarCraft or DotA.

 

[General Milky]

You do not have to play Terraria long before it becomes easy, end of story.

Says WHO though? You? I'm sorry, but no, flexing that gamer cred isn't a substitute for a point. Expert is punishing. It IS. You lose most of your life with each hit you take, the game is spammy as all hell, and I'm pretty sure more people out there than not might have had a little trouble with it because it takes practice and preparation to do anything particularly easily. There's no "end of story" on it being easy, because there's an absolutely staggering number of players who DISAGREE with you, and I'm one of them. Also, VERY important note and distinction to make here, by the way; when I say Terraria is hard, I do NOT mean that I struggle with it. Let's get that clear right now; I have my head on straight enough to realize that just because I can do something doesn't mean it's trivial. Yeah, it can be made to be that way. You know what? That's the ENTIRE ROOT POINT of the debate.

Yes, Terraria can be MADE easy. Dark Souls can be MADE easy. Terraria can, indeed, even on Expert, be made a total joke anyone can beat. ...But it involves exploiting and stacking the hell out of some stats Calamity's nerfing. On a casual player basis, on the level of someone who doesn't know the ins and outs an what things to use and where, Terraria's an overwhelming experience that very much DOES get very serious on its hard mode. If you know what to do, though, it's brainlessly easy, and that seems to be what Drew's trying to hold back.

The bottom line is, Terraria's tough. You may disagree and say other games are harder or that you can do x to make y no longer a problem, but those are all dodges and deflections that take away from what we're trying to look at; Terraria, and how its mechanics work, and do NOT work, in order to make a satisfying experience to the type of player willingly putting themselves into the thick of things with game mods to make things more challenging. Take it or leave it.

 

[orangepecan]

I've played the hell out of all Souls games but demons, consider the bullet hell shootemup genre as my home comfort zone, enjoy difficult rom hacks and fan games of series I like such as Megaman, and generally am an addict to overcoming grim odds in about everything I play.

Don't patronize me in an attempt to make your argument look better. Expert is hard. Look around the forums you're actually posting on right now. People struggle with it. It's a hard game with borderline unfair attacks and lots of trial, error, and experimentation to win. Yeah, maybe it gets easier after you've done it a ton of times and learn what to do, but so does ANYTHING.

As Krispion stated, the amount of repetition required to make Terraria easy is substantially less than most games that are considered hard.

Says WHO though? You? I'm sorry, but no, flexing that gamer cred isn't a substitute for a point. Expert is punishing. It IS. You lose most of your life with each hit you take, the game is spammy as all hell, and I'm pretty sure more people out there than not might have had a little trouble with it because it takes practice and preparation to do anything particularly easily. There's no "end of story" on it being easy, because there's an absolutely staggering number of players who DISAGREE with you, and I'm one of them. Also, VERY important note and distinction to make here, by the way; when I say Terraria is hard, I do NOT mean that I struggle with it. Let's get that clear right now; I have my head on straight enough to realize that just because I can do something doesn't mean it's trivial. Yeah, it can be made to be that way. You know what? That's the ENTIRE ROOT POINT of the debate.

Yes, Terraria can be MADE easy. Dark Souls can be MADE easy. Terraria can, indeed, even on Expert, be made a total joke anyone can beat. ...But it involves exploiting and stacking the hell out of some stats Calamity's nerfing. On a casual player basis, on the level of someone who doesn't know the ins and outs an what things to use and where, Terraria's an overwhelming experience that very much DOES get very serious on its hard mode. If you know what to do, though, it's brainlessly easy, and that seems to be what Drew's trying to hold back.

The bottom line is, Terraria's tough. You may disagree and say other games are harder or that you can do x to make y no longer a problem, but those are all dodges and deflections that take away from what we're trying to look at; Terraria, and how its mechanics work, and do NOT work, in order to make a satisfying experience to the type of player willingly putting themselves into the thick of things with game mods to make things more challenging. Take it or leave it.

I find this to be a bit of a strawman because your argument does not consider the calibre of player that we would typically be referring to in discussions revolving around the mechanics in question. The people who find issues with the easy-ness of Terraria and are looking for ways to make it harder, through nerfs or otherwise, are players that have already mastered the ins and outs of the base game. These players look to mods to add further challenge or depth to the gameplay. The casual players that find vanilla expert hard are not applicable in this situation IMO.

 

[General Milky]

As Krispion stated, the amount of repetition required to make Terraria easy is substantially less than most games that are considered hard.

Which would be a lovely counterpoint if I was trying to say Terraria's the hardest game in the world. Yes, there's harder videogames, whoopdiedoo, but that's not at all what anyone's talking about. The world doesn't work exclusively in extremes, if I say Terraria's hard, I don't automatically mean it's the dark souls of the universe, life, and everything; what I MEAN is it's something people struggle with and that's very much on purpose, hence the POINT of an expert mode at all. It's not a "casual" experience anymore, it's veering more to the hardcore. This doesn't mean it's in' DoDonPachi.

It's a serious game. With serious flaws and mechanics that don't work well at high value. Calamity's not misguided in editing and tweaking the worst offending components to make a better balanced experience not ruined by the usual cure-all solutions. That's all it boils down to.

 

[orangepecan]

Which would be a lovely counterpoint if I was trying to say Terraria's the hardest game in the world. Yes, there's harder videogames, whoopdiedoo, but that's not at all what anyone's talking about. The world doesn't work exclusively in extremes, if I say Terraria's hard, I don't automatically mean it's the dark souls of the universe, life, and everything; what I MEAN is it's something people struggle with and that's very much on purpose, hence the POINT of an expert mode at all. It's not a "casual" experience anymore, it's veering more to the hardcore. This doesn't mean it's in' DoDonPachi.

It's a serious game. With serious flaws and mechanics that don't work well at high value. Calamity's not misguided in editing and tweaking the worst offending components to make a better balanced experience not ruined by the usual cure-all solutions. That's all it boils down to.

I'm not disputing that balance changes should be made in an effort to preserve the intended challenge. I am merely suggesting that there might be better ways to go about it. And also that there are certain scenarios not worth considering when attempting to implement such changes in a single player game that has a multiplayer component where you are not forced to play with players who don't want to play legit.

We'll have to agree to disagree on what constitutes a "serious" game I guess. A Starcraft 2 tournament with a $100,000 prize pool is serious. Terraria.. just isn't.

 

[Kefke]

As Krispion stated, the amount of repetition required to make Terraria easy is substantially less than most games that are considered hard.



I find this to be a bit of a strawman because your argument does not consider the calibre of player that we would typically be referring to in discussions revolving around the mechanics in question. The people who find issues with the easy-ness of Terraria and are looking for ways to make it harder, through nerfs or otherwise, are players that have already mastered the ins and outs of the base game. These players look to mods to add further challenge or depth to the gameplay. The casual players that find vanilla expert hard are not applicable in this situation IMO.

This is where Calamaty seems to be a bit bipolar to me, actually. There's powerful gear in Calamaty - a popular Youtuber mentioned in one of their episodes how much more powerful Calamity made them than Thorium, for example - but at the same time has some brutally hard enemies and mechanics to increase the base difficulty of the game. So, who is it catering to? If the goal is to be hardcore, then the high-power gear doesn't make sense. For instance, what's the difference between the number of life-stealing/healing weapons included, and the "broken" regen mechanics? Why are there armours that grant DR, increased life and regen, other effects to negate damage, or even convert it into healing.

This still isn't me saying that there shouldn't be a challenge worthy of the gear given, but the power of the items seems greatly at odds with the philosophy that Terraria is too easy.

 

[orangepecan]

This is where Calamaty seems to be a bit bipolar to me, actually. There's powerful gear in Calamaty - a popular Youtuber mentioned in one of their episodes how much more powerful Calamity made them than Thorium, for example - but at the same time has some brutally hard enemies and mechanics to increase the base difficulty of the game. So, who is it catering to? If the goal is to be hardcore, then the high-power gear doesn't make sense. For instance, what's the difference between the number of life-stealing/healing weapons included, and the "broken" regen mechanics? Why are there armours that grant DR, increased life and regen, other effects to negate damage, or even convert it into healing.

This still isn't me saying that there shouldn't be a challenge worthy of the gear given, but the power of the items seems greatly at odds with the philosophy that Terraria is too easy.

This is kind of the point that I was trying to make earlier. Calamity itself created the problem that Drew is now trying to rectify by nerfing base mechanics.

I'm pretty convinced though that this attempt at nerfing "broken" mechanics isn't necessarily aimed at balancing Calamity/vanilla, but rather aimed at other mods that increase the power of the character even further. Namely Fargo's. I just don't think it's worth considering however. The game with just the vanilla/Calamity experience is perfectly well balanced from what I have experienced so far. Trying to compensate for the power creep of other mods just reduces the quality of the experience for people who aren't using those mods, and almost makes those other mods now a requirement to be able to fully enjoy the experience.. which is quite counter intuitive IMO.

To your other point.. I suspect the idea was that the Calamity devs initially wanted to make extremely challenging boss encounters, and were forced to make incredibly powerful gear in order to make those challenges beatable.

 

[Trevorpusspuss]

Can someone explain to me the deal behind the Doggo balancing? Why is it so bad for people to ask for a nerf let alone get one? They're basically mocked considering how you can't even butcher him and he's constantly getting buffed for no legit reason.

 

[Kefke]

To your other point.. I suspect the idea was that the Calamity devs initially wanted to make extremely challenging boss encounters, and were forced to make incredibly powerful gear in order to make those challenges beatable.

I suspect you're right. Or at least close. Players like to feel powerful. Facing a tough enemy that you know is tough, and managing to overcome it, is a great sense of achievement. Regardless of which efforts are involved, people want to feel like their efforts were worth it. It doesn't matter if the exact effort involved was "pure skill", the dedication to grind materials, or just finding a clever exploit.