Game Mechanics Character difficulty idea: Worldcore

[crumblingstatue]

Short summary

Worldcore* characters are tied to the first world they enter, and they have a limited pool of lives that can be replenished by certain events.

Motivation

Hardcore is a thrilling game mode that rewards caution and careful preparation. The main problem with hardcore is that eventually, your judgement will lapse for a moment, or something really stupid and unfair happens that you couldn't foresee, and then it's all over. You don't get a second chance. This disincentivizes putting a lot of effort into your world, because it would be all wasted when you eventually die to some unforeseen accident. I know there is the option to create a new character in the same world, but many people (including myself) prefer keeping one character per world, because the character's journey is intertwined with the changes they make to their world.
Mediumcore is an interesting alternative, although technically it's just a more punishing softcore. You can die an unlimited amount of times, so it doesn't quite come close to the same thrill as hardcore.

What if there was a difficulty that is almost as thrilling as hardcore, but allows for the occasional death that can happen to even experienced players, or even despite careful preparation?

Detailed description

Prehardmode

A worldcore character starts out the same way as a hardcore character. No extra lives, if you die, that's it.
One of the most rewarding experiences in hardcore is taking things super carefully in early prehardmode, and building around enemies, traps, etc.
Since the world is still fresh at this point, having to start over from scratch in case of death isn't too devastating.

The deviation from hardcore starts when you defeat your first boss.
For every boss you defeat for the first time, you gain an extra life, up to a maximum of 3**.
The maximum is there so you can't hoard lives to trivialize the danger of dying. There should always be the threat of death looming on the horizon.
Note that boss refights don't give you an extra life. Only defeating a boss for the first time.
What about a character just jumping from world to world, defeating bosses for the first time?
To combat this, a worldcore character would be tied to the first world they enter***.
Once they entered that world, they are locked to that world, and can't enter any other world.

Hardmode

It is much easier to die in hardmode than pre-hardmode (especially easy to die on master difficulty to one hit kill enemies), and there is only a finite number of bosses to replenish your lives.
But maybe once the forces of light and darkness are released, the world finally has the power to slowly regenerate your lives.
My idea is once every 2 moon cycles, you gain an extra life (up to the maximum of 3).
After Plantera is defeated, this could be increased to once every moon cycle.
This would make it easier to grind late hardmode bosses, where there is a real chance of dying, even if you're well-prepared.

Summary

Worldcore strikes a balance between the danger and excitement of hardcore, and being able to put love and care into your world without fear of losing it to some kind of freak accident.
I know a new difficulty option is probably out of scope for new features, but I felt like I had to write down this idea anyway. Maybe it could make for a good mod, or maybe it could make it into a hypothetical Terraria 2.

Footnotes

* Worldcore is a working title. There may be a better name for the difficulty, I'm open to suggestions.
** I think 3 is a good default, but I'm not dead set on it. Maybe it could be configurable.
*** I think this is a good feature to have in general. Other difficulties could also have the option to lock a character to a world. Many people prefer one character per world.

Unresolved questions/misc

- Should a worldcore character drop coins or items on death? I think coins is fine, since the main thrill is in the limited number of lives. But maybe it could be configurable.
- Maybe there could be a permanent shimmer buff or something to increase the max number of lives. Although it should probably be obtainable only in late-hardmode, where you have already overcome most challenges.
- Maybe defeating Moon Lord could make life pool replenishment even faster, since you pretty much saved the world and overcome the hardest challenge.

 

[Aceplante]

The main appeal of hardcore IS the fact that you only have once chance. It forces you to be careful at ALL times, and have an escape always ready. Knowing you have extra lives ruins that.

With your suggested mechanics, what if you attempt a boss and die, try again and die, then now knowing you are on your last life, what stops someone from just afking for 2 moon phases? At that point it is basically mediumcore with forced waiting if you dont want to lose your character. This does not seem fun and is not something that we should encourage but would be an unavoidable side effect of getting lives back over time. The boss suggestion however is interesting, but also unsustainable since you can only defeat a boss for the first time a limited number of times. perhaps this finite-ness is a good thing? Or, what if we make lives not regenerate at all, forcing you to value the ones you have? I worry that people will view the first two lives as expendable, get to the last one, and at that point it is just hardcore again.

Also, what if you forget whether you're on your last life or not, take a risk and die? "but i thought I still had one left?" resulting in again, still ultimately losing your character same as your would in hardcore.

Losing your character doesnt feel great, but is the main appeal of hardcore.

While the "this player is unable to enter any other world" part is an amazing suggestion, it should not be lumped in with all this other stuff.

 

[crumblingstatue]

The main appeal of hardcore IS the fact that you only have once chance. It forces you to be careful at ALL times, and have an escape always ready. Knowing you have extra lives ruins that.

It's a middle ground between knowing you can try any number of times, and knowing that this is your only shot.
In softcore, there is no real tension, because you can just keep dying over and over again until you finally succeed. But you can't do the same if you only have a few tries. You still have to make preparations and focus. It's more rewarding to do this if you know you avoided certain death this way, than knowing you could have just brute forced it and kept dying until you succeeded.

With your suggested mechanics, what if you attempt a boss and die, try again and die, then now knowing you are on your last life, what stops someone from just afking for 2 moon phases?

There is nothing stopping someone from doing that, but if someone would just AFK it, they would probably not pick this difficulty mode in the first place. Rather, the intention is to rethink your strategy, do more preparations, perhaps take a breather and do some fishing, etc. Do less dangerous things until you can feel a bit safer again.
There are so many things to do in Terraria other than fighting.
Also, regeneration is for hardmode only. So people disinterested in actually doing careful preparations won't be able to brute force their way through pre-hardmode.

perhaps this finite-ness is a good thing?

Yes, that's the idea. However, it's much easier to die in hardmode, and also much more devastating to lose a world you potentially played for dozens of hours. Which is why I think there should be a way to regain lives in hardmode.

I worry that people will view the first two lives as expendable, get to the last one, and at that point it is just hardcore again.

Well, it would be foolish to view the first two lives as expendable, since they are the shield between you and finality. But I guess some players are indeed going to be foolish. This difficulty would be for players who appreciate the safety extra lives provide.

Also, what if you forget whether you're on your last life or not, take a risk and die?

There should be some kind of indication that you're on your last life. I haven't thought about what it would be.
Perhaps a skull icon in the buff list that says "This is your final life" when you hover over it with the mouse.

Losing your character doesnt feel great, but is the main appeal of hardcore.

I agree, but I think there is room for a middle ground for people who like to play carefully, but also don't want to lose their worlds to random chance, or to a temporary lapse in judgement, etc.

 

[TechnicalityCreations]

Not sure if this fits vanilla, but it could be a pretty fun mod. I could probably do it if you wanted me to

 

[Coleyohley]

I really like this, though I'm not sure how I feel about maximum lives being kept at 3 if each first boss kill is going to get you another life. In a way, it actually encourages you  to die so that the extra lives from new bosses aren't wasted, and I don't know how I feel about that. Maybe the first boss kill could drop a consumable item that gives you an extra life instead, so you're not wasting potential lives if you play well and beat the boss with all 3 of your lives intact. That way you can store them for later when you really need them instead of potentially missing out.

I do really like this idea, though it does have a few logistical issues: the one I mentioned above, of course, but also, how does this work in multiplayer? If you join your friend's playthrough and have a grand ol' time, playing carefully and not dying, and then one day their world accidentally gets deleted or gets corrupted, what then? Are you just unable to play that character ever again, even though you still had all of your lives and there were no mistakes on your part? You could partially solve this by making the mode exclusively single-player, but file corruptions happen all the time, especially if you use the Steam Cloud, and you'll be stuck with a completely unplayable character in your list all through no fault of your own.

I do really like the idea of limited lives that you can work hard to get back, but limiting this to a single world causes a lot of issues.

 

[crumblingstatue]

Not sure if this fits vanilla, but it could be a pretty fun mod. I could probably do it if you wanted me to

Not sure how well TModLoader plugs into character creation, but if you feel inspired to create a mod similar to this idea, I'd be happy to try it out!

I really like this, though I'm not sure how I feel about maximum lives being kept at 3 if each first boss kill is going to get you another life. In a way, it actually encourages you  to die so that the extra lives from new bosses aren't wasted, and I don't know how I feel about that.

I've been thinking about potential rewards for killing a boss with lives maxed out, like a 30 minute exquisitely stuffed buff, but that would make it an extra reward that you wouldn't get in hardcore, and that feels kinda cheaty. But maybe there could be some other kind of rewards.

Maybe the first boss kill could drop a consumable item that gives you an extra life instead, so you're not wasting potential lives if you play well and beat the boss with all 3 of your lives intact. That way you can store them for later when you really need them instead of potentially missing out.

The problem with that is that you could hoard extra lives, making the game have much less tension if you managed to procure a bunch of extra life tokens that you can use at any time.
It's the reason why I put a max limit on extra lives in the first place. I'm actually considering 2 extra lives might be a better max (so dying 3 times from max = game over).

I do really like this idea, though it does have a few logistical issues: the one I mentioned above, of course, but also, how does this work in multiplayer? If you join your friend's playthrough and have a grand ol' time, playing carefully and not dying, and then one day their world accidentally gets deleted or gets corrupted, what then? Are you just unable to play that character ever again, even though you still had all of your lives and there were no mistakes on your part? You could partially solve this by making the mode exclusively single-player, but file corruptions happen all the time, especially if you use the Steam Cloud, and you'll be stuck with a completely unplayable character in your list all through no fault of your own.

I've been thinking, and I think one way to solve it would be to have an option to "unlock" a locked character, but this action would reset extra lives to 0.
After unlocking, you can join a new world (and get locked to it), and gain extra lives by defeating their bosses for the first time.
But if you joined an existing world that already has bosses defeated, you wouldn't gain any extra lives for those.

 

[TechnicalityCreations]

Not sure how well TModLoader plugs into character creation, but if you feel inspired to create a mod similar to this idea, I'd be happy to try it out!

I’ve been thinking about building a library that allows you to easily add to character/world creation UI

 

[Gugavo :]]

Short summary

Worldcore* characters are tied to the first world they enter, and they have a limited pool of lives that can be replenished by certain events.

Motivation

Hardcore is a thrilling game mode that rewards caution and careful preparation. The main problem with hardcore is that eventually, your judgement will lapse for a moment, or something really stupid and unfair happens that you couldn't foresee, and then it's all over. You don't get a second chance. This disincentivizes putting a lot of effort into your world, because it would be all wasted when you eventually die to some unforeseen accident. I know there is the option to create a new character in the same world, but many people (including myself) prefer keeping one character per world, because the character's journey is intertwined with the changes they make to their world.
Mediumcore is an interesting alternative, although technically it's just a more punishing softcore. You can die an unlimited amount of times, so it doesn't quite come close to the same thrill as hardcore.

What if there was a difficulty that is almost as thrilling as hardcore, but allows for the occasional death that can happen to even experienced players, or even despite careful preparation?

Detailed description

Prehardmode

A worldcore character starts out the same way as a hardcore character. No extra lives, if you die, that's it.
One of the most rewarding experiences in hardcore is taking things super carefully in early prehardmode, and building around enemies, traps, etc.
Since the world is still fresh at this point, having to start over from scratch in case of death isn't too devastating.

The deviation from hardcore starts when you defeat your first boss.
For every boss you defeat for the first time, you gain an extra life, up to a maximum of 3**.
The maximum is there so you can't hoard lives to trivialize the danger of dying. There should always be the threat of death looming on the horizon.
Note that boss refights don't give you an extra life. Only defeating a boss for the first time.
What about a character just jumping from world to world, defeating bosses for the first time?
To combat this, a worldcore character would be tied to the first world they enter***.
Once they entered that world, they are locked to that world, and can't enter any other world.

Hardmode

It is much easier to die in hardmode than pre-hardmode (especially easy to die on master difficulty to one hit kill enemies), and there is only a finite number of bosses to replenish your lives.
But maybe once the forces of light and darkness are released, the world finally has the power to slowly regenerate your lives.
My idea is once every 2 moon cycles, you gain an extra life (up to the maximum of 3).
After Plantera is defeated, this could be increased to once every moon cycle.
This would make it easier to grind late hardmode bosses, where there is a real chance of dying, even if you're well-prepared.

Summary

Worldcore strikes a balance between the danger and excitement of hardcore, and being able to put love and care into your world without fear of losing it to some kind of freak accident.
I know a new difficulty option is probably out of scope for new features, but I felt like I had to write down this idea anyway. Maybe it could make for a good mod, or maybe it could make it into a hypothetical Terraria 2.

Footnotes

* Worldcore is a working title. There may be a better name for the difficulty, I'm open to suggestions.
** I think 3 is a good default, but I'm not dead set on it. Maybe it could be configurable.
*** I think this is a good feature to have in general. Other difficulties could also have the option to lock a character to a world. Many people prefer one character per world.

Unresolved questions/misc

- Should a worldcore character drop coins or items on death? I think coins is fine, since the main thrill is in the limited number of lives. But maybe it could be configurable.
- Maybe there could be a permanent shimmer buff or something to increase the max number of lives. Although it should probably be obtainable only in late-hardmode, where you have already overcome most challenges.
- Maybe defeating Moon Lord could make life pool replenishment even faster, since you pretty much saved the world and overcome the hardest challenge.

I think worldcore would be better without the hardcore part, a character tied to a world seems interesting but it could be a separate setting from the normal character difficulty

 

[Mille Marteaux]

The concept of "permanent death but with extra lives you can regenerate" doesn't really work if there are infinite amounts of them.

I've seen it myself personally in another game's private server - they tried adding a permanent death mode, while the game had a drop item that would instantly revive you if you died for any reason and you could quickly log out if you were in a bad position by pressing two keys on the keyboard, no questions asked and no delay.

If people didn't have extra lives, they played very safe content with no chance of killing them that could drop the extra life items. If they did have extra lives, they were basically just playing with a special colored username that showed off how "skilled" they were for reaching level cap and having rare items in a game mode that would delete their character if they died without a safety net.

I think a mode that ties a character to a world is a good idea, but this isn't really the right way to do it.

If you want to feel like there's a punishment for dying but don't want to commit to Hardcore, then play Mediumcore. Mediumcore is not a "harder softcore" but rather it is a Hardcore that allows you to continue playing after a mistake and gives you a good reason to keep all that hoarded gear laying around in case you die and need to do a gear recovery run. Mediumcore will make you better at the game in ways that Hardcore and Softcore can't.

If you want to feel like there's a punishment for dying, but you don't want to commit to either Mediumcore nor Hardcore, you likely just want bragging rights.

 

[crumblingstatue]

Mediumcore is not a "harder softcore" but rather it is a Hardcore that allows you to continue playing after a mistake and gives you a good reason to keep all that hoarded gear laying around in case you die and need to do a gear recovery run.

I don't think calling it hardcore makes any more sense than calling it softcore. Like you said, it allows you to continue playing after a mistake, so it's not hardcore.

Mediumcore will make you better at the game in ways that Hardcore and Softcore can't.

In my experience, mediumcore just makes people tilted more than anything else. They will just get angry, and throw themselves at the game until they can retrieve their gear. They don't necessarily have to play exceedingly well or carefully.

If you want to feel like there's a punishment for dying, but you don't want to commit to either Mediumcore nor Hardcore, you likely just want bragging rights.

Not really, no.
If someone just wanted bragging rights, they could just play hardcore and and cheat (by keeping backups of their character, etc.)
I just think that infinitely dying without punishment is immersion breaking, whereas having something like the world expending its energy to resurrect you because it needs you is nice for immersion.
So I wanted to share this idea.
But it's cool if nothing comes out of it. I'm fine just playing softcore and doing my own book keeping and deleting the world if I die too many times.

 

[crumblingstatue]

I think worldcore would be better without the hardcore part, a character tied to a world seems interesting but it could be a separate setting from the normal character difficulty

Well, anyone who feels locking a character to a world is a good idea is free to suggest it as a separate idea.
I personally don't feel like making another suggestion post for it, so feel free to, if it interests you.