NPCs & Enemies Change Projectile Reflect Mechanic

Which of these should be implemented?

  • Change reflecting enemies' animations

    Votes: 20 64.5%
  • Restrict what can be reflected

    Votes: 8 25.8%
  • Expand what can be reflected

    Votes: 7 22.6%
  • Make more enemies reflect projectiles

    Votes: 5 16.1%
  • Reduce damage of reflected projectiles

    Votes: 22 71.0%
  • Add an effect to reflected projectiles

    Votes: 15 48.4%
  • Remove reflecting entirely

    Votes: 2 6.5%
  • Keep it as is

    Votes: 3 9.7%
  • I have suggestions of my own (comment below!)

    Votes: 4 12.9%

  • Total voters
    31

CellarDoor96

Terrarian
Now, I can't be the only person who was frustrated by the Solar Pillar at first, and I think we all know the exactly two reasons why: Crawltipedes and Selenians. Crawltipedes are a matter for another discussion, but today I'm here to talk about our dear friends the Selenians, along with their other reflective brethen the Mimics.

For those who don't know, Selenians are an enemy spawned by the Solar Pillar that normally act like your average fighter AI, except that when they get close they perform a spinning jump at you, a la Sonic the Hedgehog (or Samus's Screw Attack depending on your reference pools). During this spinning attack animation, they will reflect some player-fired projectiles, which can then hit the player that fired them and deal full damage. Since the definition of "projectiles" also includes beam swords such as Meowmere, this means that it's very easy to kill yourself by accident and often have no idea why.

This mechanic is silly for the following reasons:

-It is extremely inconsistent in what it reflects. Bullets, arrows, and beam swords get reflected, but rockets don't? Why does Razorblade Typhoon work but Nebula Blaze doesn't? The rather arbitrary rules as to what gets reflected and what doesn't make it extremely hard for a first-time player to figure out what's okay to use and what will get him or her killed. Either it should reflect all projectiles (which would be bad for the ranger class), or simply a specific subset of projectiles (e.g. bullets only), or it should not reflect any at all.

-It is very poorly telegraphed. There is absolutely nothing to the Selenian's animation that might make a player think, "Hey, I bet this enemy reflects projectiles now." It spins, yes, but other enemies in the game also spin and don't reflect projectiles, which in fact makes it even less likely that a first-time player will figure it out before killing themselves unwittingly. Either all spinning enemies should reflect projectiles (which would actually be a good way to introduce the mechanic to players early on, though Skeletron and Giant Tortoises would need a nerf), or the Selenians should have a different animation that makes it more clear that they can reflect things, such as a highly visible, glowing shield (that doesn't blend in with its regular coloration). The Mimics don't have quite the same problem, since it does make some sense that a closed chest might reflect bullets, but they could still use a clearer indicator that they are now in "defense mode" and their rules have changed.

-It is way too punishing. Since by endgame most player-fired projectiles can kill a player in only a few hits, it's very possible for a player to die before they even have a chance to realize what is happening, which is just way too much punishment for something they had no way of noticing. This could be solved by halving the power of reflected projectiles, which would make sense since endgame enemies are way more durable than players are.

-Projectiles do not harm the player when not reflected off of these specific enemies, with a few exceptions such as some rockets. For instance, I can spam rainbow cats all over the place with my Meowmere and never be harmed by them, but once they bounce off a Selenian or a Mimic, they're suddenly instant death? Since it would make some weapons useless to have all projectiles be harmful to the player, the only ways to fix this are to indicate somehow that the enemy has altered the projectile (such as giving it a brighter glow once it bounces off of them), restrict the types of projectiles that can be reflected to ones that don't already bounce around, or remove the reflection mechanic entirely.

All in all, it's just a really badly implemented game mechanic. When I first encountered it via getting killed repeatedly by my own Meowmere, I thought it was a glitch, and if an actual game mechanic in your game can be mistaken for a glitch, that's a sign that something's wrong. My ideal scenario would be to remove it entirely, but there are plenty of ways it could be changed or expanded upon so that it isn't so unfair to first-time players.

If you have suggestions of your own for how this mechanic could be changed to make it better, or you think it's fine and doesn't need changing, feel free to let me know below.
 
"Unique" is not an excuse for "Poorly Designed"

I don't think any numbers even need nerfing, it just needs to be telegraphed and introduced better. Make it consistent on what is reflected, when those things are reflected, and implement it elsewhere so it isn't just a single enemy's mechanic that shows up once right at the end of the game.
 
I'm 50/50 on the idea of removing it entirely, but something needs to be done with the reflect property.

The damage and the inconsistency between what can and can't be reflected are the biggest issues to me. Yesterday I was trying to find a list of what can or can't accidentally kill you, because there's no real rule to follow. I would certainly agree with making the reflect state more noticeable as well (better graphic and highly noticeable sound), especially with how many projectiles can ricochet naturally and the overall chaos of the lunar events.
 
As one of the many people who has been no scoped by their own sniper rifle due to Selenian reflection attack, I wholly understand this idea. You cannot tell the difference between reflected projectiles and ordinary ones when you are contending with swarms of other extremely powerful enemies which in the Solar Pillar's case are highly mobile and have large contact damage.
 
-It is extremely inconsistent in what it reflects. Bullets, arrows, and beam swords get reflected, but rockets don't? Why does Razorblade Typhoon work but Nebula Blaze doesn't? The rather arbitrary rules as to what gets reflected and what doesn't make it extremely hard for a first-time player to figure out what's okay to use and what will get him or her killed. Either it should reflect all projectiles (which would be bad for the ranger class), or simply a specific subset of projectiles (e.g. bullets only), or it should not reflect any at all.
Yeah, this is the main problem, I don't know want weapon cannot be used.
But, does it reflect Razorblade Typhoon? I used it and didn't find so, or maybe not notice so.
 
I had this with the Meowmere at first, and I was EXTREMELY confused. Then I learned this. I can't help but support this.
This mechanic really is irritating. I think a good way to help telegraph this would be for it to not just say you were killed by said projectile. Rather, it should tell you that it was reflected by the Selenian.

I never had a problem with Selenians so i do not support.
Then you've probably just stuck with melee, for the most part.
 
I'm okay with this enemy, even if it's sometimes annoying to fight. I think the only thing needed is a good animation showing a shield or something that makes his ability more obvious.

When I was fighting some of my first Lunar Events in MP with a friend, I kept shooting Meowmere projectiles near the Solar Pillar and I died twice by my weapon. I thought it was a bug, but I checked the wiki and I noticed they can reflect projectiles. How could I notice this in a mess of Meowmere projectiles?

So yeah, I support it partially. I'd like to see a new animation to make it more fair.
 
Sorry to leave this for so long, I've been really busy with school and such.

Anyway, I'm a bit on the fence as to whether I want it completely removed myself - it does make for an interesting enemy, but "interesting" is not the same as "fun", and I personally do not find Selenians fun to fight. If there were some strategy that they forced you to adopt, then that'd be one thing, but all you need to do to beat them is switch your weapon. And that's if you can even figure out what's going on and which weapons are safe to use, since they don't exactly offer much room for experimentation. I suspect that even if the telegraphing and implementation issues were fixed, it'd still be better off removed if only for the simple fact that it doesn't actually add anything to the game.

Still, fixing the telegraphing issues is a good starting point, so that's all I'm looking for here. As long as the problems I listed in my original post are addressed, I'll be happy. Thanks to everyone who supported, hopefully the devs will notice this.

I never had a problem with Selenians so i do not support.

This is a poor reason not to support. I've never had a problem with Moon Lord, but I can still support certain changes to him out of consideration for other players.
 
I counted at least 18 cases of this feature being reported as a bug, usually with a meowmere or a nebula blaze. One can tell something's not right just from that.
 
I like the idea of changing the visuals of the affected proyectile and give a distinctive "shield" when in reflection mode
 
I don't have much experience with reflected projectiles, but the fact that there always seems to be a thread reporting this as a bug means that something has to be fixed. Maybe the death messages should be changed to indicate that the player was killed by a reflected projectile as well?
 
I counted at least 18 cases of this feature being reported as a bug, usually with a meowmere or a nebula blaze. One can tell something's not right just from that.

Yeah, you would think that the devs would catch on. To paraphrase Arin Hanson from Game Grumps, when an actual moment in your game makes the player think it's a glitch, there's something seriously wrong there.

I like the idea of changing the visuals of the affected proyectile and give a distinctive "shield" when in reflection mode

Yeah, those are my favorite ideas for improving it, too. I was thinking that maybe the Selenian could be encased in a glowing blue "shield" while it's spinning so that it's easier to notice, and projectiles could gain a bright white "aura" around them after they're reflected. For Mimics, I think they should kick up a small dust cloud when they slam shut, to signify to the player that they are closed and nothing is going to hurt them now.
 
I find projectile reflection rather unique and fun, so I'm against removing it (Accidentally killing your friends while fighting mimics had never been so much fun). However, it is poorly telegraphed and inconsistent. So, to solve that:

-Projectiles reflected should be completely engulfed in a cloud of shiny, bright particles, to be easily recognisable. Furthermore, the color should be dependent on the enemy who reflected it: Reddish for Crimson Mimics, Orange for Selenians, Pale purple (with bits of green) for Corrupt Mimics, and so on.
-All projectiles should be reflected, without exceptions. Homing ones would bounce back from the point they made contact. Lasers would bounce like the Shadowbeam staff, and rain-like spells (Like the ones casted from the Nimbus Rod) would bounce on the enemy, creating harmful, "Magic Dagger-esque" proyectiles around the enemy.
-Lastly, proyectiles should do halved damage in normal mode, and full damage on expert.

P.S.: Minion projectiles should also be reflected; however, they would not target enemies that are shielding.
 
I don't really think it would be a good idea to have all projectiles be reflected, because then rangers would just be SOL when it comes to the Solar Pillar, to say nothing of warriors and mages, who also rely heavily on projectile weapons at endgame. In fact, if that change were implemented, then players would basically be forced to use Keybrand and... hm, actually, I think that's the only post-Plantera weapon in the game that doesn't use projectiles of some kind, except for the Solar Eruption that you get after beating the Solar Pillar. No, I think a better solution would be either:

-To make it so only certain types of projectiles can be reflected, such as bullets and arrows, but no others. This would make it more intuitive and avoid surprising the player (too much) while also giving the player plenty of room to play around it. You can throw sword beams into the mix too if you really don't want people spamming Influx Wavers and Meowmeres for some reason, but I think players should be able to use melee weapons against the melee pillar.

OR

-To make it so only non-piercing projectiles are reflected. This would leave all the classes plenty of room to work around it and also be a lot more intuitive than the current system. Warriors could use Influx Waver and later Meowmere (which would also remove the problem of getting murdered without warning by cat-spam), rangers could use Chlorophyte arrows and Meteor Shot (and later Luminite bullets), mages could use Razorblade Typhoon and later Last Prism, and summoners... would be pretty much unchanged.
 
one way they could make projectile reflection easier to deal with would to simply not have reflected homing projectiles home back into the player, with a prime example for homing back into the player once deflected being chlorophyte bullets
 
I never reported it as a bug but I did screenshoot it thinking it was:

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Since I had experienced nothing else in the game to do this (I hadn't encountered biome mimics), I thought it was a bug, as I was also using a new 1.3 weapon. I just assumed the Seedler was bugged.

I'm fine with the mechanic but it needs to be made more clear of what's happening. Something also needs to be done with Crawltipede, as a first time player would have no clue they have to stick close to the ground to keep it from aggravating. Giant flaming monster worm in the sky, your first reaction is to FLY high in the sky to dodge it, as you've done ever since you've obtained wings. (It could also allow more room for the player to jump without aggroing it.. worldgen isn't always nice).

I'd also like a reduction in damage from reflected projectiles.. I get really sour when I'm at 450 or more HP and get killed in a single shot.
 
support, i think the projectiles should do less damage and they should also shoot off in a random direction instead of directly back at you some of the time. currently it's stupidly difficult to kill a selenian as a ranger or mage, or even melee.
 
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