PC Doubts about the purpose of post-ML weapons

[TheJoekster]

I come from Terraria 3DS (2016), which in its final version ran the PC equivalent of 1.2.4. This version saw either Golem or Duke Fishron as the final boss (depending on how one plays the game), and also had the Pumpkin and Frost Moon events. The end-game items for Terraria 3DS were almost certainly Fishron, Frost Moon, and biome chest loot, as well as some other indispensable items (e.g, Sniper Rifle, Terra Blade.) Endgame armor came from Ocram drops, or the canonical post-Golem Shroomite/Beetle/Spectre armor sets. End-game weapons dealt good damage on optimized sets, dealing enough damage to admit high levels for the Moon events. Notably, you weren't invincible. Your firepower was finite, and taking care of Fishron and the Moon events in the endgame took some amount of effort and forethought (which, for me, kept the endgame interesting and fun.)

I have finally begun playing Terraria 1.4 for PC. I am aware of the post-Golem content (watched Ningishu, et al. for fun when I didn't have PC), including the drops from ML, and the Zenith. The weapons ML drops seem so absurdly powerful to me that I don't understand what purpose they could serve. I have seen the Last Prism one-cycle the eyes of the Moon Lord. The Meowmere and Star Wrath similarly make the ML fight effortless. The SDMG's rate of fire is horrifying.

What is the place of these weapons in the endgame? Nothing in this game is nearly threatening enough to match the damage of post-ML gear. You become an effectively infinite being the moment a ML weapon drops, let alone once you have Luminite armor. I understand why this sounds like it would be fun at first, but for lack of a better analogy it seems like you would suffer the same fate as Boros (OPM): bored out of your mind because nothing is challenging. There is world building, of course, but you never needed post-ML weapons to make very large and very cool builds.

This is not a dig against anyone who is fond of a post-ML weapon. I'm only looking for someone to ease my concerns for what end-game combat challenges will bring.

 

[Unit One]

I come from Terraria 3DS (2016), which in its final version ran the PC equivalent of 1.2.4. This version saw either Golem or Duke Fishron as the final boss (depending on how one plays the game), and also had the Pumpkin and Frost Moon events. The end-game items for Terraria 3DS were almost certainly Fishron, Frost Moon, and biome chest loot, as well as some other indispensable items (e.g, Sniper Rifle, Terra Blade.) Endgame armor came from Ocram drops, or the canonical post-Golem Shroomite/Beetle/Spectre armor sets. End-game weapons dealt good damage on optimized sets, dealing enough damage to admit high levels for the Moon events. Notably, you weren't invincible. Your firepower was finite, and taking care of Fishron and the Moon events in the endgame took some amount of effort and forethought (which, for me, kept the endgame interesting and fun.)

I have finally begun playing Terraria 1.4 for PC. I am aware of the post-Golem content (watched Ningishu, et al. for fun when I didn't have PC), including the drops from ML, and the Zenith. The weapons ML drops seem so absurdly powerful to me that I don't understand what purpose they could serve. I have seen the Last Prism one-cycle the eyes of the Moon Lord. The Meowmere and Star Wrath similarly make the ML fight effortless. The SDMG's rate of fire is horrifying.

What is the place of these weapons in the endgame? Nothing in this game is nearly threatening enough to match the damage of post-ML gear. You become an effectively infinite being the moment a ML weapon drops, let alone once you have Luminite armor. I understand why this sounds like it would be fun at first, but for lack of a better analogy it seems like you would suffer the same fate as Boros (OPM): bored out of your mind because nothing is challenging. There is world building, of course, but you never needed post-ML weapons to make very large and very cool builds.

This is not a dig against anyone who is fond of a post-ML weapon. I'm only looking for someone to ease my concerns for what end-game combat challenges will bring.

To me, they are your reward, and are meant to be slightly over powering. You bested the final boss, you get crazy cool weapons. You do get to fight down previously-challenging enemies at ease now.

But I also agree with your point that there being hardly any challenge anymore, it can lead to boredom. Which is why, for me personally, I enjoy then starting a new world and doing it all over again. The randomness of the world and drops makes each playthrough unique.

 

[VenonUIO]

That's an inevitability. The last functional reward you get in a game will always be "pointless" because it's the last reward, thus there's no further challenge to test its worth on, only enemies you already beat with lesser weapons. Even if you did add post-Moon Lord content, then it would raise that whatever rewards you get from that would also invalidate everything prior to it.

The only way to "solve" this would be to just not reward you with any gear at all for beating the endgame, and that just makes you wonder if there's any incentive or point in challenging yourself in said endgame if there's no functional payoff for doing so. I think it's completely fine as is, personally. Everything before the Lunar Events won't be that challenging even prior to beating the Moon Lord; as post-Golem, Fishron and Empress gear trivialises every normal mob and allows you to beat the aforementioned bosses much easier.

Post-ML gear is useful for repeating the Lunar Events for even more gear, getting a higher score on Pumpkin/Frost Moon, and building. I'm of the view that it's better for post-ML gear to be there and merely an option, rather than just not existing and leaving you feeling like beating the Moon Lord has no tangible payoff.

 

[Leinfors]

There is a sort of reverse Chicken-Egg argument to be made for post-final boss weapons.

On the one hand, if the final boss gives high powered loot, then yes, there is "nothing challenging to use it on". Of course, the player can always use it to steamroll previous content and explore the world with increased safety, to say nothing of more easily re-defeating the final boss.

Alternatively, the final boss gives no loot. But then players feel unrewarded for their struggle. You can beat the final boss, but aside from the accomplishment itself, why bother?

This is a question that is frequently raised, especially with suggestions to add a post-Moon Lord final boss. And I consider it a somewhat endless cycle to feed into. If we add a post-Moon Lord boss to use our Moon Lord gear on, then inevitably, people will want a gear reward from that boss. And then inevitably, people will want something to use that reward on, resulting in us needing to add a post-post-Moon Lord boss to satisfy. And then they want gear rewards again, and it just cycles forever.

We ultimately decided that you get loot from the final boss, and that's it. I personally prefer this option, it gives players a powerful and enjoyable gear reward to continue playing as they see fit with. I would feel far more dissatisfied with the alternative.

 

[a31337]

There is a sort of reverse Chicken-Egg argument to be made for post-final boss weapons.

On the one hand, if the final boss gives high powered loot, then yes, there is "nothing challenging to use it on". Of course, the player can always use it to steamroll previous content and explore the world with increased safety, to say nothing of more easily re-defeating the final boss.

Alternatively, the final boss gives no loot. But then players feel unrewarded for their struggle. You can beat the final boss, but aside from the accomplishment itself, why bother?

This is a question that is frequently raised, especially with suggestions to add a post-Moon Lord final boss. And I consider it a somewhat endless cycle to feed into. If we add a post-Moon Lord boss to use our Moon Lord gear on, then inevitably, people will want a gear reward from that boss. And then inevitably, people will want something to use that reward on, resulting in us needing to add a post-post-Moon Lord boss to satisfy. And then they want gear rewards again, and it just cycles forever.

We ultimately decided that you get loot from the final boss, and that's it. I personally prefer this option, it gives players a powerful and enjoyable gear reward to continue playing as they see fit with. I would feel far more dissatisfied with the alternative.

This gave me an idea. You could inspire yourself from Calamity mod and make the final boss drop an item that activates some sort of Boss Rush gamemode, with all bosses (with potential exceptions) having upscaled health and damage to match post ML gear. So this would kind of qualify as post ML content, but at the same time it only reuses bosses we already met.

Now this adds the question of what reward(s) should Boss Rush give you? And to answer that question - more challenges, obviously. Not necessarily a Boss Rush 2 type challenge, but some kind of "binding" that restrains you in different ways, making the game more challenging, similar to Hollow Knight's Pantheon mechanics. And yes, if you've played the game, the naming is one-to-one, so the binding name might need a relabel.

Some examples of bindings would be the following:

• Accessory binding : the player is limited to a maximum of 3 accessories regardless of difficulty;
• Melee binding : all damage dealt to bosses further than 10 tiles is negated;
• Damage binding : all player damage is halved;
• Health binding: all player health is halved;
• Hardcore binding : all attacks deal 5000x damage.

 

[Dragrath]

This gave me an idea. You could inspire yourself from Calamity mod and make the final boss drop an item that activates some sort of Boss Rush gamemode, with all bosses (with potential exceptions) having upscaled health and damage to match post ML gear. So this would kind of qualify as post ML content, but at the same time it only reuses bosses we already met.

Now this adds the question of what reward(s) should Boss Rush give you? And to answer that question - more challenges, obviously. Not necessarily a Boss Rush 2 type challenge, but some kind of "binding" that restrains you in different ways, making the game more challenging, similar to Hollow Knight's Pantheon mechanics. And yes, if you've played the game, the naming is one-to-one, so the binding name might need a relabel.

Some examples of bindings would be the following:

• Accessory binding : the player is limited to a maximum of 3 accessories regardless of difficulty;
• Melee binding : all damage dealt to bosses further than 10 tiles is negated;
• Damage binding : all player damage is halved;
• Health binding: all player health is halved;
• Hardcore binding : all attacks deal 5000x damage.

As a supporter of inclusion of a boss rush mode I would argue it should be a score based mode I can see "binding" modifiers like you suggested being things which modify the total score awarded by the fights.
Of course my suggestion had been more of a it continues until all players present die (respawning disabled for the event) and NPCs and day/night time progression would be "frozen"(NPCs couldn't be harmed or help fight)

The only functional things I could see such a mode being good for would be:
1)World mechanic changes(say changing difficulty or activating certain special seed mechanics, rescaling enemies/NPC's towards endgame stats, etc.
2)An ability to enhance earlier game weapons and armor to endgame levels of certain essential stats: No other changes beyond raw stats i.e. damage, defense I would expect reach knockback use time mana cost etc. to be unaffected for balance purposes and so the weapons feel the same level of effectiveness as they had in their proper stage of the playthrough.) Basically it would be mostly for the lols letting you scale your favorite earlier progression items to be somewhat useable again. I mean I doubt I'm the only person who in endgame wishes they can effectively use their trusty old Water Bolt, Clockwork Assault Rifle, Onyx Blaster, Shadowflame Bow, Dribbler Crippler etc.
3)Nonfunctional prize items for decoration and or vanity etc.

 

[ScourgeOfCorruptor]

There is a sort of reverse Chicken-Egg argument to be made for post-final boss weapons.

On the one hand, if the final boss gives high powered loot, then yes, there is "nothing challenging to use it on". Of course, the player can always use it to steamroll previous content and explore the world with increased safety, to say nothing of more easily re-defeating the final boss.

Alternatively, the final boss gives no loot. But then players feel unrewarded for their struggle. You can beat the final boss, but aside from the accomplishment itself, why bother?

This is a question that is frequently raised, especially with suggestions to add a post-Moon Lord final boss. And I consider it a somewhat endless cycle to feed into. If we add a post-Moon Lord boss to use our Moon Lord gear on, then inevitably, people will want a gear reward from that boss. And then inevitably, people will want something to use that reward on, resulting in us needing to add a post-post-Moon Lord boss to satisfy. And then they want gear rewards again, and it just cycles forever.

We ultimately decided that you get loot from the final boss, and that's it. I personally prefer this option, it gives players a powerful and enjoyable gear reward to continue playing as they see fit with. I would feel far more dissatisfied with the alternative.

This doesn’t have to be the case if there is no final boss, like in 1.2.4.1. In 1.2.4.1 the endgame rewards were meaningful as they allowed you to get farther into the moons.