Expand Your Terraria Empire - Pylons, Town Building, and NPC Happiness

Admittedly I feel like letting NPCs use pylons would be way more of a mistake than it sounds like. With enough pylons (like half a dozen), you'd have no idea where anyone is at any given time. The Guide would probably end up in hell and summon the wall of flesh on his own and shut the pylons down for a week.
Valid point, it sounded nicer in my head. I can't imaging they would make a hell pylon though... Anyone living there would be in constant danger from Bone Serpents. NPCs die surprisingly quick.
And, on that note: Pylons need living NPCs. If you only had 2 down there, and one dies from a sneak attack from an imp, that pylon goes down... Which would be infuriating.
 
I made an account to play devil's advocate here. How will this affect current players that are focused on the adventure of Terraria rather than the building aspect of it? It's really worrying if the happiness ruins current prices. Let me explain, I understand we don't HAVE to participate in this system, and I'm completely on board with giving new and cool additions to players who care to their npcs, that includes discounted prices. HOWEVER, if this affects anything current in 1.3 ex: making current items or services such as reforging cost x’ more just because we may not like a lot of building or still want to play the old way then this is very penalizing to player choice.

Can you guys explain how this will work as it's very worrying. I really don't want to have to be told to play with npcs a specific way if I just want to play with the npcs the old way and not focus on a lot of building. I feel like I'm going to be hamstrung into this if a lower happiness jacks up their current 1.3 item prices.

Edit: It seems genuine questions were met with vague and negatively downplayed response even though I thought the purpose of these posts was to talk with the community about the system. I'll still play Journey’s End to give it a fair shake.

Okay I can't even wish the team the best anymore. If this is the attitude of the developers for genuine concerns from their community then this is baffling and I can no longer support them in general even with disagreements. I'll still recommend the game but I'll be doing it very hesitantly with warning. The game itself is great but I can't enjoy something that is ran by developers that dismiss concerns and just want to hear an echo chamber of praise. I'm on the edge on not even wanting to give Journey's End a fair try now. This system regardless of what would happen wouldn't have killed off my love the game, but the team behind it unfortunately will.
 
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Okay, I have somewhat mixed feelings about this.

I know that I don't need to build fancy bases or anything, just put different boxes in different biomes, assign a few NPCs there and you get the benefits along with teleporters without needing to wire along with a price reduction. This will be incredibly useful especially on large worlds, as getting from point A to B on foot is extremely boring, and dying midway means that your progress just got reset, so hurray.

However, like others have said, this punishes castle builder/users greatly. I think not being able to use pylons is already a huge enough penalty, and from what I read, the fact that you will be penelized by having a price increase when building them too cramped just punishes people for making casles. Having pylons around already means that the castle build won't be that much more convenient. I think that warpping with pylons is even faster than climbing NPC towers since you can just warp to the group of NPC you want.

I would like to have different bonuses according to which style you prefer. Building towns have pylons and price reductions, so building castle should have another bonus. Because currently left as it is, this just punishes building big central builds. Maybe make the NPCs gradually warm up to the place and have their happiness increased over a period of time? So then it becomes the question of wanting an easier early game or end game.
 


Happy Friday Terrarians!

Remember a few State of the Game's ago when we mentioned that we were working on something pretty cool that would potentially change the way that people approach certain aspects of the game? Well, the time has come to give you a peek behind the curtain at Terraria HQ and let you in on some juicy details surrounding this new feature coming to Journey's End!


Building has always been a staple of the Terraria experience - but functionally-speaking, there has never been any real reward to making fun creations outside of the adoration of the community. Similarly, everyone builds their central base and sort of shoves everything there... sure, some folks build in other biomes, but only for fun. What if we told you that Journey's End is going to change all of this up, raising building up to being a core gameplay feature with its own rewards?

Introducing...


THE TERRARIA TOWNS SYSTEM


Towns will reward building like never before. Taking the time to spruce up your base(s), plan for NPC placement, and building bases in multiple locations will now provide you a variety of benefits that have never before been available. Of course you don't HAVE to partake in this new system, but we think you will find the positives in doing so to be quite tempting indeed. :cool:


Excited? Scared? Let's take a few minutes to dive into how this new approach to building works, shall we?

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TREAT 'EM RIGHT! - NPC HAPPINESS


During Journey's End development, we conducted a focus group with all of the Terraria NPCs. Outside of some very strange requests (no, Guide, we cannot 'remove all doors at night'), their feedback was very clear: they are tired of being shoved into tiny cubicles or L shaped tubes and they want you to know this!

In order to help raise NPC morale so that they could be at their very best - and to reward players who go that extra mile to treat their NPCs with the respect they deserve, we are introducing the NPC Happiness System. How does it work? What does this mean for you? Read on....


What affects NPC Happiness?
  • NPC's are happier when you locate them in biomes that they prefer​
  • NPC's are happier when they like their neighbors​
  • NPC's are happier when they are not overcrowded with other NPCs​

Adding nice furniture and aesthetics doesn't directly affect NPC Happiness... but it sure will make you feel better about yourself when your friends come over for a visit. ;)


What Happens if my NPCs are Happy/Unhappy?
  • NPC Shop prices will adjust based upon how happy each NPC is at the time​
  • If you make an NPC happy enough, you will gain access to a Pylon for that Biome (more on this below!)​
How can I tell if my NPCs are Happy?
  • You will notice a new dialogue option for Happiness for each NPC
  • This will give you hints about what might make them happier as well!​

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DIVERSIFY & SPREAD OUT - BIOME BASES & TOWNS


Pretty much everyone does the same thing when base building right? A big central area right at the initial spawn point... crammed with NPCs and crafting stations and storage and more. At best, people stick up a single room with a bed for boss fight respawns. We can do better than this, and what about all of the other poor biomes that would love to have you set up shop in their neck of the woods, and - again - those poor NPCs may not want to live in the Forest Biome!

But wait, there's more! If you group at least 3 NPCs together in a given location, it will be recognized as being a Town. Towns are not subject to enemy spawning - outside of invasion events - and you will get to hear the super cool town music when you visit!



All together, with Journey's End in conjunction with the Happiness System, you will be rewarded for building multiple bases across the scope of your world like never before!

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Forest Base

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Underground Base

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Snow/Ice Base



Well, that is great and all, but how will you get around your world to visit your now happy, but far-flung NPCs? Let's bring it all together and close out with the brand new Pylons!



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ROADS, WE WON'T NEED ROADS - INTRODUCING PYLONS


We briefly mentioned these mysterious Pylons in our section on things you can get with happy NPCs. So what are these, and why should you care? Well, if you have enough happy NPCs in a given biome, you will unlock the use of a Pylon for that biome. Pylons allow you to instantly teleport from one Pylon to another! With Pylons in place, your "big central base" now becomes an interconnected network of cool outposts all over the world, allowing you to get around quickly without the need to lay tracks or teleporters... and providing you a home away from home wherever you are!


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PYLON INSTRUCTION MANUAL

You can only have one Pylon of a given biome type placed at a time (so you can not have, for example, an Ocean Pylon at both Oceans)

Pylons must be placed in their aligned biome in order to function (you can place them anywhere else, but they will not work!)

Pylons must also have two nearby (and living) NPCs in order to function - again, the idea here is to reward building those bases/towns! :)

Pylons cannot be used during Boss Battles or Invasion Events!

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Pylons are quite easy to use. Once placed in their aligned biome, you simply click on a nearby pylon. This will take you to the map screen where you can locate another placed pylon to which you want to teleport, click it and off you go!



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That's all for today! Look forward to more Terraria: Journey's End Feature Articles throughout the next few weeks up until Launch Day, May 16th, 2020!
I like pylons but i bet they will be pretty expensive to make, also this oasis. Does this mean new fishing quests??
 
After having thought about it some more, I'd probably be fine with this if it were just Pylons. That is, in order to build a fast-travel point, you have to have X number of NPCs in a town at that location. If that's all the feature was, it'd be a solid piece of design, since there are plenty of NPCs that a particular player rarely needs (non-ranger builds rarely needs the Arms Merchant, people who aren't interested in painting don't need the Painter, etc). These rarely used NPCs can be employed to build fast-travel points.

If they took out the whole happiness thing and made the decision one of "which NPCs do I want near my main base, and which ones do I want in other towns", then the decisions would entirely be up to the player, not to some arbitrary set of rules the game imposes on you.
 
You know
....if I just want to play with the npcs the old way and not focus on a lot of building. I feel like I'm going to be hamstrung into this against my will if a lower happiness jacks up their current 1.3 item prices...

As the game is currently YOU HAVE TO build a home if you want an NPC, so all that changes is that you build that place somewhere other than spawn. It's not really extra building is it?

....However, like others have said, this punishes castle builder/users greatly....

It may not satisfy you but you can create biomes, so you could have a castle with all the biomes in it.
 
After having thought about it some more, I'd probably be fine with this if it were just Pylons. That is, in order to build a fast-travel point, you have to have X number of NPCs in a town at that location. If that's all the feature was, it'd be a solid piece of design, since there are plenty of NPCs that a particular player rarely needs (non-ranger builds rarely needs the Arms Merchant, people who aren't interested in painting don't need the Painter, etc). These rarely used NPCs can be employed to build fast-travel points.

If they took out the whole happiness thing and made the decision one of "which NPCs do I want near my main base, and which ones do I want in other towns", then the decisions would entirely be up to the player, not to some arbitrary set of rules the game imposes on you.
I like this solution because it still keeps the main aspect of this feature, fast travel, but takes out the happiness thing.
 
After having thought about it some more, I'd probably be fine with this if it were just Pylons. That is, in order to build a fast-travel point, you have to have X number of NPCs in a town at that location. If that's all the feature was, it'd be a solid piece of design, since there are plenty of NPCs that a particular player rarely needs (non-ranger builds rarely needs the Arms Merchant, people who aren't interested in painting don't need the Painter, etc). These rarely used NPCs can be employed to build fast-travel points.

If they took out the whole happiness thing and made the decision one of "which NPCs do I want near my main base, and which ones do I want in other towns", then the decisions would entirely be up to the player, not to some arbitrary set of rules the game imposes on you.
You can even keep the discounted prices IMO, just don’t raise them for people who don’t want to build. Then it’s all incentives- carrots as opposed to sticks.
 
You can even keep the discounted prices IMO, just don’t raise them for people who don’t want to build. Then it’s all incentives- carrots as opposed to sticks.

I disagree. There's ultimately no difference between raising prices for those not complying and lowering prices for those who comply. In both cases, there is a clear incentive to comply: you pay less for stuff. And since money is easily the worst feature of Terraria (seriously, can we do away with the RNG-based Tinkerer already and just pay a single really large fee to get what prefix we want? That'd be far better than this NPC happiness feature), that's a pretty big incentive. Especially early-game.
 
I can think of a few relatively simple solutions.

Happiness is an expert mode feature, which requires a bit more finesse to play the game anyways.

A way to make a mini-biome so you can make your castles. Yes, you've still got a grey stone castle with a parapet... but the water is freezing and there's snow falling in this one specific area. Obviously this limits your pylons, but hey, make teleporters.

Alternatives to biomes-building in general. The wizard doesn't like hot places, well, install a bathtub made of ice in the desert. Give him a fountain within X blocks with a certain amount of water, or a mini-oasis. We already have mechanics for 'this has to be in the area', don't we? Just have a few alternate building options. It'll add more flavor to the characters. You might have to do some rearranging as people move in, but that's fine. Now you have a wizard in a desert just enjoying the fact that he didn't think he'd like it here.
 
I disagree. There's ultimately no difference between raising prices for those not complying and lowering prices for those who comply. In both cases, there is a clear incentive to comply: you pay less for stuff. And since money is easily the worst feature of Terraria (seriously, can we do away with the RNG-based Tinkerer already and just pay a single really large fee to get what prefix we want? That'd be far better than this NPC happiness feature), that's a pretty big incentive. Especially early-game.
You’re right, but at least refraining from raising doesn’t throw out the game’s current monetary progression. Incentives to make something easier are better than ruining the current game progression as a punishment from not using a new feature.
Those who do not use the new feature do not lose out compared to their 1.3 selves, but those who wish to utilise a new feature can, and are rewarded for doing so (which is common practice when devs introduce a feature they want people to utilise.) Raising prices will only increase the number of people who begrudgingly use the feature out of a sense of loss aversion, which will not make them more appreciative of it.
 
So there are really 3 groups complaining here:

1. "Higher Prices" - how do you know what you have built now will trigger this? You don't. Well, unless you build the L-shaped tubes... then yeah, you probably do. :p

If it does, how do you know that making 5 mins of adjustments wouldn't sort it all out?

"OMG my Tinkerer hates the Desert = I am going to pay more" - that isn't what it says. To MAXIMIZE his happiness, maybe... but not to "get him to neutral"... this is why there are multiple happiness levers to pull. I've also missed the mountains of complaints over the years about <NPC> that only sells <item> when in <biome>, which one could argue is much more closely related to "progression" than coins... but that's another topic. :)

AGAIN, "avoiding higher prices" is on one end of a SPECTRUM that ends on the other with "here is a Pylon".

Also, you have zero idea how high these prices go. I've seen lots of wild assumptions there....

All of the above is predicated on guesswork and assumptions with a lot of emotionally charged adjectives thrown in - who knows, maybe you will turn on your game May 16th and realize all of that gnashing of teeth was for naught. ;)

Of all of it, this one is the most overwraught vs reality... which I suspect folks will discover in a few short weeks.


2. Why can't I do whatever I want and still get Pylons/I want my <NPC> to live in <Biome>.

Read the description carefully. Happy NPCs = get Pylon. 2 NPCs nearby = use Pylon. What word is missing from the second sentence? :p

I don't know about you, but I might earn the Pylon and then move things around.

Pylons are a powerful boon - but an optional one. You can straight up choose to ignore this altogether... or make the effort to get them. Your choice.


3. What about the "V"/Corruption/Crimson?

Defending against the spread of these is part of the game. Sure, the Clentaminator is a big way - but its so expensive, right? 74 silver and change will buy you a stack of 99 Purification Powders. You would be surprised what that can do to clean up some messes until you get there. That's my understanding unless @Leinfors knows some aspect that I do not.

Or you know, again, just.... don't go for Pylons and play things as you always have... or just don't use that one Pylon until you can reclaim that turf.
 
This sounds awesome. I'm curious about something though. Yes you get the pylon for having happy NPC's, but what if they later become unhappy. I feel like the Pylon's shouldn't work if this happens.
 
If I may weigh in and ask, since I am admittedly not entirely certain myself at the moment

The lower prices and Pylons are rewards for increasing Happiness, correct?

Say I bring my current world into 1.4, with all my NPCs in the town I built for them. Will all of my prices be the same as before I began accounting for Happiness?
Will all of the dialogue be as it always was if you never check the Happiness?
Because this seems like the ideal approach to me.
A feature that doesn't effect the gameplay, but if you search for it you are rewarded; as opposed to being punished for not taking part.
 
---Ooh. Eeh. Honestly, i don't like this. It was already a huge pain in the butt to house all the NPC'S, this'll just make it worse. There's also(in my opinion) an incentive to keep NPC's away from your base so you can hear the old night music(the town music is cool but i prefer the original) and get monsters to spawn. Not a huge fan of this.
 
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