FAR TOO MANY NERFS

Nerfing progression skips was a mistake.
"fishing sucks, it's mindless afking"
imagine hating on a timesink in a game that's one big timesink

Gentle reminder that "it doesn't affect me so I don't care" or "it doesn't affect me so it affects nobody" pro-nerf arguments will be ignored. Also, here's a PSA: you were absolutely never forced to go fish the Reaver Shark and use it. Nobody was holding a gun to your head. Just because you couldn't have the self-control to not use it doesn't make for a good pro-nerf argument.

Updated rant down below. (other blue header)

Since a lot of you don't seem to get it: The content you could skip was EARLY MINING. Tedious mining sections at the start of pre-hardmode and hardmode. Things you've already experienced and don't need to experience again. Things that add NOTHING to the game.

I don't know what kind of power trip they were having at ReLogic when nerfing the progression skips but this sucks. They've made sure you ABSOLUTELY don't miss out on ANYTHING now. "We've rebalanced the game and we're going to make sure you experience ALL OF IT, whether you want it or not!" -The dev team, probably.

Early 100 pickaxe power to skip the first 3 tool tiers and the first hardmode tier? Forget about it.
Hoarding crates to skip the first 3 tool tiers in hardmode? Forget about it.
Mining meteorites with bombs? Forget about it.
Early meteorite armor? You need to break the orbs AND defeat the boss before the meteorite spawns, so.. Fuggaddaboutit.

This only incentivizes me to outright cheat with inventory editors and whatnot. The first 3 ore tiers in pre-hardmode and hardmore are always going to be the most boring parts of a playthrough, why prevent players from skipping them?

"Play it however you want! As long as we're okay with the way you want to play it."

Why is progression skipping such a problem in a game that seems to pride itself on its hands-off-do-what-you-want gameplay? Not to mention that these nerfs have affected primarily one thing: MINING for basic ores. Not even high-end ores. Basic ores. The most tedious thing the game has to offer other than low-level fishing.


Updated "rant":
"The devs aren't power-tripping"

  • They added their own "OP" armor as means of debugging the game faster instead of having a proper debugging/creative mode.
  • They punished you for obtaining said armor via debuffs.
  • They actively silenced and punished anyone who would mention how to get that armor.
  • They actively silenced and punished anyone who would talk about nullifying the dev armor's debuffs that make it unusable.
  • Not content with having exclusive armor sets they stuffed their faces into the cloud sprites. It's creepy as ♥♥♥♥.
  • They "fixed" things they considered "exploits" and "overpowered" items and even mechanics that have been in place since 1.0 after 6 to 9 years. Take this into account: https://i.imgur.com/wvZBupS.png

  • Their reason for the Reaver nerf is that it "skips exploring for ores in pre-hardmode and hardmode." That is both untrue and dishonest. Realistically, the Reaver Shark allowed you to skip three tiers of basic gear tied to the basic ores you get in your world. Not skipping mining those ores entirely. Sooner or later you're going to need Iron/Lead anyway. Additionally, you'd still need ores to craft bows, arguably the safest weapon to use against bosses pre-minishark.
    Then comes the dishonesty and the straight up false part: it skips exploring/mining for ores in Hardmode. 100 Pickaxe Power is only enough to break Cobalt/Palladium. You can't progress any further than that with 100 PP. So which ores are we skipping, exactly? None. Do you want to bust your balls and go from Cobalt/Palladium gear straight to Spectre? Sure, you can do that. But you need a Forge and you need 200 PP pickaxe so their argument is still invalid. "So, we have brought these back inside the bounds." is no different from "You have to play by OUR new rules." Furthermore, take this sentence: "This will make the Reaver Shark capable of mining anything up to Demonite/Crimtane - so it is still valuable and useful, but no longer the "skip to the end" tool it once was." Skip to the end, eh? The end of what, pre-Hardmode? More dishonesty. I don't think they realize just how insignificant pre-hardmode actually is with all the padding content that has been added throughout the years. Although I'd argue that by 1.2 it was made entirely obsolete.

  • Let's look at fishing crates. First of all, let's look at how they phrased things: "Fishing in Pre-Hardmode to skip early Hardmode was an example of a fun alternate path to progression, but taken too far." So, it was a fun alternate path to progress. But it was too much fun. It was "taken too far." You hear that, people? You can't have too much fun in Terraria. You can have fun. But not too much fun. Let's move on to: "This allows you to fish instead of mine, but at least forces you to face the challenges of early Hardmode to do so." Forces me to face the challenges of early Hardmode? You mean dash and double-jump all the way to the ocean? I would almost agree if you didn't have the ability to like.. Not restrict yourself to walking on the ground at all times but this is a completely invalid point. The only challenge here is traversing the world and I'd argue that it's more tedious and challenge when you don't have the means to skip and jump across the map when you start out in pre-Hardmode. What are they going to do next? Are they gonna render us unable to place beds and set spawn points near the ocean to prevent us from just fishing crates once we're in Hardmode?
    And again, let's not forget how many crates you actually need in order to effectively skip the first three hardmode gear tiers. Rarity and loot tables exist for a reason. (Hey, remember when they nerfed item/gold farms by not allowing mobs spawned by statues to drop items and gold? Yeah. Fun. Thanks for nothing.)

  • Meteorite changes:
    First of all, being able to immediately spawn Meteorites and get Meteor armor is something that's been in the game since 1.0
    Mining it with explosives was a way to get some decent (but not for long) armor before acquiring a gold pickaxe, something which relied on.. You got it, more tedious mining for gear that's going to be immediately superseded by Shadow/Crimson or even Molten gear. That was also a pretty safe option that didn't require you to build scaffolding around the Meteorite itself given the ludicrous damage you get for just standing on it in pre-HM (Yes, I know it makes sense, it's probably really hot)
    But please, do try to construct an argument about how the space gun using 0 mana is overpowered. Amuse me.
    By locking it behind the boss you effectively reduce its usefulness to very specific cases and effectively make it even more situational than what it already was.
Now.. let's get into the most laughable argument of them all: "it's the developers' vision!"
But first, here's a PSA: Terraria isn't free and word of mouth is extremely powerful once the hype dies down and sales stagnate. Keep that in mind, yes?
Anyway, here's why that argument is completely irrelevant:

The developers have constantly changed their mind over the years. Look at all the Spectre Armor nerfs for example. Look at how much it changed and how they kept going back and forth between nerfing it and rebuffing it to its original stats BECAUSE PEOPLE WEREN'T HAPPY WITH THE CHANGES. Those kinds of changes happen to every single item in the game. You wanna look at a change that just screams "Haha, ♥♥♥♥ YOU!" ? The Arkhalis only drops from Expert mode treasure bags now. Why? It had an incredibly low spawn rate and mediocre damage that didn't scale well at all into Hardmode. And yet it was extremely useful for pre-HM. Sure, you could argue that you could just keep generating small worlds and hunting for those "shrines" but it took both time and luck. But you still had the option to do so. Now it's gone. By the time you're gonna get one from a bag it won't be useful anymore. It had been in the game for almost 5 years. Unchanged. Much like the other mechanics that got changed.

Why would anyone respect the developers' vision when it constantly changes by taking a step forward and ten steps back? Even THEY don't know what they want. And it's painfully obvious. Let alone respect the opinion of those who use it as an excuse. By using it as an excuse to change mechanics and items that have been in place for years (longer than it took them to cancel otherworld lmao, they're still salty) you're effectively advocating for them to do as they please and keep making the game grindier by removing options that could be used to skip tedious parts of the EARLY game. Don't try to argue that "they were busy" or that "they needed time to realize how game-breaking these things were". The music box duple was patched extremely quickly when it was discovered in 1.1. Something like abusing meteorite invincibility frames wasn't patched for almost an entire year. Hotfixes exist and don't try to warp the definition to fit your narrative. Don't try to argue that "hotfixes aren't meant to change content" because it's an incredibly flawed argument.

We had options. Options that hurt absolutely nobody. Options that made progression faster by allowing you to skip tedious and redundant mining. Options that allowed experienced players to skip tedious sections of the game they had already experienced before. Are there alternative skips? Absolutely. Are they the same? Not really. Are they faster? Doesn't seem like it.

Don't try to force your playstyle (or the devs') onto other people just cause these changes don't affect you directly. And don't try to call out people for being "toxic" when they refuse to follow your advice. The bloody Dark Souls community doesn't do this. And don't bring up speedruns. Speedruns aren't how most people play the game. Speedruns also skip chunks of the game. Isn't that what you're all against? Strange, isn't it?

Instead of trying to find out WHY people wanted to/were skipping part of the content they instead opted to nerf or prevent those skips entirely. Instead of improving into what could've been tedious gameplay that needed to be revised/updated (which is ironic since this update was SUPPOSED to do just that) they just decided to remove the means to make it less tedious. They aren't interested in pleasing the fanbase. (If you have mice in your apartment you're obviously gonna want to kill them, no? But wouldn't you want to find out WHY you've got mice coming into your house in the first place and nipping the problem in the bud? No? Well, enjoy having to spend money on mouse traps that might or might not work.) They introduced half-♥♥♥♥♥ and nonsensical mechanics that nobody asked for (npc happiness, half-♥♥♥♥♥ cheat mode that was probably half-♥♥♥♥♥ out of spite, torch luck (nice 180 they did there lmao), vanity slots changes, etc) tweaked a few things and BAM, final update, we're done here.

Closing thoughts:
If pre-hardmode is so important to you that you consider it vital/essential content and "actually playing the game" or whatever pretentious BS you believe in order to make yourself appear higher and mightier than everyone else: have you actually ever entered Hardmode? Have you experienced anything after the Dungeon or the Wall of Flesh? I don't think you have. Especially not after 1.2

Have a nice day, everyone. No matter how closed-minded you are and how much you want other people to play the game they paid for YOUR way and not theirs.



FROM STEAM.
 
Before we begin, some fact-checking:

  • They added their own "OP" armor as means of debugging the game faster instead of having a proper debugging/creative mode.
  • They punished you for obtaining said armor via debuffs.

That's normal. Indeed, getting debuffs for managing to get yourself developer-only items is pretty standard for Terraria.

Not only that, having "'OP' armor as a means of debugging the game faster" is standard practice in the game industry. It's where 99% of cheat codes, level-skips, and the like comes from. They put a way in the game so that testers can easily get to a particular point to reproduce a bug.

Using this as evidence of "power tripping devs" is just factually incorrect.

That having been said, I found your post very interesting. You speak at length about what parts of the game you don't like. But by my understanding, the parts of the game you want to skip constitute about 60% of what a normal user would have as a playthrough.

So my question is this: what parts of Terraria do you like?

I'm being serious. Terraria is a game about mining. A mining tool is literally one of the three items the game gives you at the start. If I hated mining through the ground so much that I wanted to skip both of the progression sections of the game that focus on that, I don't know why I would even play the game. It's clearly that I would hate the game more than I like it.

So what keeps you coming back to the game? What part of a playthrough is it that you look forward to?

Also, I find it interesting. At the start, you declare that people shouldn't say things like, "it doesn't affect me so it affects nobody." But then, you declare that "mining for basic ores" "add NOTHING to the game". Basically, you're declaring the opposite: "it affects me, so it affects everybody."

For whatever reason, you find "mining for ores" to be tedious and uninteresting. And personally, I would agree... if that were all I was doing. But nowadays (by which I mean since 1.2), I never mine "for ores". I mine because I'm looking for stuff; if I see ores, I'll collect them. But that's merely collecting ores on the way to the stuff I'm actually looking for:

Chests, herbs, gems, etc.

The fact that this process also nets me better armor and weapons based on ores is a nice bonus. But it's not the main point of the task.

In any case, that's why I find "mining for ores" to be interesting: because I never mine for ores.

If you find it uninteresting, OK, but... that's still a big part of Terraria's gameplay. Are you saying that the developers should cater to people who hate 60% of their game?
 
Always fun having someone making a discussion and simply ignoring or disregarding arguments which don't boast his opinion. That's not a discussion, it's a whine thread.

You are just making up random stuff which is not true at all.
Option a) You start the game, throw Bronze pick away, fish for Shark and mine Hellstone, beat the 4 bosses and enter hardmode.
Option b) You start game, mine gold/platinum, beat boss, craft crimson/demonite pick without ANY mining, mine hellstone, beat the remaining bosses and enter hardmode.
WOOOO SO TEDIOUS! It is such a chore to beat a boss and craft a "Reaver Shark" instead of fishing for a 1% drop...

I love the analogy of devs wanting you to get everything as being bad. Re-Logic makes a game just for you to skip a part of it? Nah, nah, nah buddy. We force you to enjoy our game to the fullest! It's a shame you don't like the whole package.

I don't get the dev armor part. They are vanity items, not something overpowered. They were a long time ago, and also unobtainable.

They never said it was too fun. It wasn't. It was too much of an exploit. You just made that "too much fun". Pixeling his face into a cloud is "too much fun", but I guess it's only okay if it's "your" fun.

You act like you're an expert on balancing stuff. Yet you don't know nerfs or buffs might take a long time of collecting data. It takes a while for devs to know what the community uses, what they neglect and what they abuse.
Devs don't just do a "haha, :red: you" change. They saw that noone used the Arkhalis pre-hm, so they gave it to the set of actual Arkhalis. If it was a weapon many used and values in pre-hm, it would not have changed. It is one example of how balancing and evaluating data works. Only a fool who doesn't think beyond his entitlement assumes devs nerf or buff stuff just to screw with people. Just a reminder about how much stuff was buffed in 1.4 compared to how little was nerfed. Just CTRL+Fing "increased" or "decreased" shows a ratio of 1.5 in favor of buffs.
To me it was pretty clear what they want. You simply do not understand this because you feel entitlement and value your opinion more than others, even seen here where you disregard opinions which don't fit you.

People skipped content because they could. Not because they wanted. You CAN download a save file or edit one yourself and give you best gear and skip content. You wouldn't want to skip if you never could in the first place.

No, never finished pre-hardmode. I am just too bad, so all I do is hoard Hellstone bars with my Molten Pickaxe and defeat EoC over and over again.
No, seriously, why are such topics always made by hypocrites? "I dislike people for forcing their opinion on me yet I force my opinion as the best and most right one out of the 250K of people who play the game right now" You might not value pre-hm. A lot of people certainly do.
Also, I find it interesting. At the start, you declare that people shouldn't say things like, "it doesn't affect me so it affects nobody." But then, you declare that "mining for basic ores" "add NOTHING to the game". Basically, you're declaring the opposite: "it affects me, so it affects everybody."

For whatever reason, you find "mining for ores" to be tedious and uninteresting. And personally, I would agree... if that were all I was doing. But nowadays (by which I mean since 1.2), I never mine "for ores". I mine because I'm looking for stuff; if I see ores, I'll collect them. But that's merely collecting ores on the way to the stuff I'm actually looking for:
This is called hypocrisy on a high level.
 
The developers said they want Terraria to be a game of player choice, and then they take away early game progression skips. Removing these skips only hurt experienced players, who have played many many hours, and do not want to slog through the early game for the 30th time.

The changes to Reaver Shark, Fishing, and Meteors were a terrible decision that will inevitably cause this game to lose veteran players in the long term.
 
I think the problem was that a lot of people were doing shortcuts that skip a lot of progression in the game. For example getting a Reaver Shark or Meteor Armor very early just skips pretty much most of the pre-Hardmode progression, and while it's not a bad thing to play like this, I think the devs tried to encourage players to explore a bit more and experiment with new weapons. There's still a bunch of good weapons, but they're a bit harder to get now. There's still a bunch of optional stuff you can do whenever you want, so the game isn't necessarily too restricting, it just tries to balance out stuff a little bit.

I personally really like that they did a huge overhaul with wings, their progression was an utter mess before 1.4. Angel/demon wings were completely useless for the amount of effort they take to get, while you could easily just buy leaf wings or get ice feathers which would last pretty much up to Plantera tier. Now leaf wings are comparable to angel wings, and I really like that change. They're good early Hardmode wings but if you want something better, you actually need to take some effort to get them. Some wings like spectre/beetle or wings from events are actually relevant now, as they are at least somewhat worth crafting now.

The Daedalus Stormbow is another great example, it was extremely overpowered before the nerf. That weapon was shredding through everything and was viable up to Golem tier. A weapon that you get at the beginning of Hardmode... viable up to Golem tier. That's so much content skipped with one cheesy weapon. After the nerfs, the stormbow is still actually decent, but it doesn't destroy bosses in 20 seconds anymore.

So yeah, the nerfs aren't really restricting, they were mostly made so other items are viable and not easily outclassed by a certain, far more superior item that breaks through most of the game's progression. You still have a bunch of optional routes to take, it's just that you can't cheese half of the game with one item that's out of place in the game's balancing.
 
So you want to move it from one location where it's useless to another where it's useless. Something like a hardmode pre-altar pick doesn't even exist since all hardmode picks are post altar.
No I thought about making it a pick which is faster than any pre-hardmode and can mine the basic hardmode ores like other picks. So fishing for it allows you to farm dirt and stones faster to get to your hardmode ores faster.
 
I think the problem was that a lot of people were doing shortcuts that skip a lot of progression in the game. For example getting a Reaver Shark or Meteor Armor very early just skips pretty much most of the pre-Hardmode progression, and while it's not a bad thing to play like this, I think the devs tried to encourage players to explore a bit more and experiment with new weapons. There's still a bunch of good weapons, but they're a bit harder to get now. There's still a bunch of optional stuff you can do whenever you want, so the game isn't necessarily too restricting, it just tries to balance out stuff a little bit.

But that's the issue. There is only a bit of new stuff pre-hard mode was added. They are really useful, new Mace together with new flail mechanic is basically OP, new Bow is good (and buff to another bow is great also) and all other were already closely studied before then people were working for best stuff for Expert Mode, where you can't just derp around with anything you want. Everyone who wanted to know already know best items and best strategies, some skips (or lack of) don't affect this much. I really wish for some alternative stuff or ways to progress and for some items to ease preparation for hardmode in terms of auxiliary items. So making all the preparation won't take so much time of constant grind. Instead, all the grind is now prolonged.
 
If the players are so experienced and pro-godlike, playing pre-hardmode normally does not take more time or is sluggish. If you are so pro, just kill BoC/EoW first and go mine hellstone instead of them to slog through fishing.
If people are so pro it will take them less time to finish a boss than fishing for a 1% chance drop with very limited bait.
The entire whining about Reaver Shark nerf is a delusion.
 
If the players are so experienced and pro-godlike, playing pre-hardmode normally does not take more time or is sluggish. If you are so pro, just kill BoC/EoW first and go mine hellstone instead of them to slog through fishing.
If people are so pro it will take them less time to finish a boss than fishing for a 1% chance drop with very limited bait.
The entire whining about Reaver Shark nerf is a delusion.
You think its about the reaver shark but its not if you cant see what we are on about just leave. Use your head and stop blindly defending. Its wrong.
 
You think its about the reaver shark but its not if you cant see what we are on about just leave. Use your head and stop blindly defending. Its wrong.
Why punish for fishing? it already is tedius. if they want to skip so be it who you think you are?
Yeah, sure, I don't see how you cry about fishing and skips and the only skip that was ever discussed here is the Reaver Shark skip.
If not, tell me which skips and which other fishing issues you talk about. It can't be crates, as you still get hardmode crates with the same odds just slightly later in the game and you spend the same time getting them.
Also the video literally list reaver Shark and you never mentioned that the video YOU posted lists it but you do not talk about the Reaver Shark.

At this point you are just trolling everyone and in my opinion this and the other topic should be closed long ago.
 
You think its about the reaver shark but its not if you cant see what we are on about just leave. Use your head and stop blindly defending. Its wrong.
Yeah, sure, I don't see how you cry about fishing and skips and the only skip that was ever discussed here is the Reaver Shark skip.
If not, tell me which skips and which other fishing issues you talk about. It can't be crates, as you still get hardmode crates with the same odds just slightly later in the game and you spend the same time getting them.
Also the video literally list reaver Shark and you never mentioned that the video YOU posted lists it but you do not talk about the Reaver Shark.

At this point you are just trolling everyone and in my opinion this and the other topic should be closed long ago.
Because of their inability to discuss the topic civilly, and instead chosing to bring it to a hostile personal level, these two members have had their privileges to post in this thread removed.

For everyone else, please keep the debate polite and there'll be no problems.
 
Their reason for the Reaver nerf is that it "skips exploring for ores in pre-hardmode and hardmode." That is both untrue and dishonest. Realistically, the Reaver Shark allowed you to skip three tiers of basic gear tied to the basic ores you get in your world. Not skipping mining those ores entirely. Sooner or later you're going to need Iron/Lead anyway. Additionally, you'd still need ores to craft bows, arguably the safest weapon to use against bosses pre-minishark.
Then comes the dishonesty and the straight up false part: it skips exploring/mining for ores in Hardmode. 100 Pickaxe Power is only enough to break Cobalt/Palladium. You can't progress any further than that with 100 PP. So which ores are we skipping, exactly? None. Do you want to bust your balls and go from Cobalt/Palladium gear straight to Spectre? Sure, you can do that. But you need a Forge and you need 200 PP pickaxe so their argument is still invalid. "So, we have brought these back inside the bounds." is no different from "You have to play by OUR new rules." Furthermore, take this sentence: "This will make the Reaver Shark capable of mining anything up to Demonite/Crimtane - so it is still valuable and useful, but no longer the "skip to the end" tool it once was." Skip to the end, eh? The end of what, pre-Hardmode? More dishonesty. I don't think they realize just how insignificant pre-hardmode actually is with all the padding content that has been added throughout the years. Although I'd argue that by 1.2 it was made entirely obsolete.

No, the reason they nerfed the Reaver Shark was simply because they didn't want to make Hellstone accessible before defeating any of the bosses. The reference to skipping HM-Ores was purely for the crates, not the Reaver Shark, so the "straight up false" part is simply a misunderstanding on your end.
I used and liked the Reaver Shark, but I do think that the nerf could have been handled better, since it really isn't "valuable and useful" any more.
My personal issue with pre-HM is that the progression is far less streamlined than HM in the first place. In HM you have to beat the Mech bosses, then Plantera, then Golem and then the Lunar event with the Moon Lord as the central line of progression and have other bosses and events on the side that you can go for to acquire additional gear.
In pre-HM can go through the bosses in their intended order, but there is really nothing that prevents you from only beating the WoF and being done with pre-HM without beating any other bosses.

Let's look at fishing crates. First of all, let's look at how they phrased things: "Fishing in Pre-Hardmode to skip early Hardmode was an example of a fun alternate path to progression, but taken too far." So, it was a fun alternate path to progress. But it was too much fun. It was "taken too far." You hear that, people? You can't have too much fun in Terraria. You can have fun. But not too much fun. Let's move on to: "This allows you to fish instead of mine, but at least forces you to face the challenges of early Hardmode to do so." Forces me to face the challenges of early Hardmode? You mean dash and double-jump all the way to the ocean? I would almost agree if you didn't have the ability to like.. Not restrict yourself to walking on the ground at all times but this is a completely invalid point. The only challenge here is traversing the world and I'd argue that it's more tedious and challenge when you don't have the means to skip and jump across the map when you start out in pre-Hardmode. What are they going to do next? Are they gonna render us unable to place beds and set spawn points near the ocean to prevent us from just fishing crates once we're in Hardmode?
And again, let's not forget how many crates you actually need in order to effectively skip the first three hardmode gear tiers. Rarity and loot tables exist for a reason. (Hey, remember when they nerfed item/gold farms by not allowing mobs spawned by statues to drop items and gold? Yeah. Fun. Thanks for nothing.)

This change has a clear purpose beyond removing the skip. Not getting a bonus from opening the crates in HM gives you no reason to save them up and actually get all the pre-HM gear from them in pre-HM where it is still useful and relevant, rather than getting it when it's already useless. Besides, if you want to fish crates in HM without "tediously" traversing the world, you can just use a Pylon or fish in a different biome.

Meteorite changes:
First of all, being able to immediately spawn Meteorites and get Meteor armor is something that's been in the game since 1.0
Mining it with explosives was a way to get some decent (but not for long) armor before acquiring a gold pickaxe, something which relied on.. You got it, more tedious mining for gear that's going to be immediately superseded by Shadow/Crimson or even Molten gear. That was also a pretty safe option that didn't require you to build scaffolding around the Meteorite itself given the ludicrous damage you get for just standing on it in pre-HM (Yes, I know it makes sense, it's probably really hot)
But please, do try to construct an argument about how the space gun using 0 mana is overpowered. Amuse me.
By locking it behind the boss you effectively reduce its usefulness to very specific cases and effectively make it even more situational than what it already was.

The Space Gun isn't overpowered in general, but it is too strong for a new character to acquire before even having something like a golden bow. And how is it overshadowed by Shadow/Crimson gear? Being able to shoot a decent ranged weapon infinitely is something pretty nice in pre-HM and I don't see how it's worse than melee/movement speed or some life regeneration.
If you want to compare it to Molten gear, then I guess that Crimson and Shadow armor are also overshadowed by it? You'd normally use those armor sets to explore Hell more safely in the first place.
And if you want to safely mine it, just get an Obsidian Skull or accessories crafted with it. Not taking damage from meteorite and hellstone is literally its main purpose.

The developers have constantly changed their mind over the years. Look at all the Spectre Armor nerfs for example. Look at how much it changed and how they kept going back and forth between nerfing it and rebuffing it to its original stats BECAUSE PEOPLE WEREN'T HAPPY WITH THE CHANGES. Those kinds of changes happen to every single item in the game. You wanna look at a change that just screams "Haha, ♥♥♥♥ YOU!" ? The Arkhalis only drops from Expert mode treasure bags now. Why? It had an incredibly low spawn rate and mediocre damage that didn't scale well at all into Hardmode. And yet it was extremely useful for pre-HM. Sure, you could argue that you could just keep generating small worlds and hunting for those "shrines" but it took both time and luck. But you still had the option to do so. Now it's gone. By the time you're gonna get one from a bag it won't be useful anymore. It had been in the game for almost 5 years. Unchanged. Much like the other mechanics that got changed.

The Arkhalis was replaced by an identical weapon called the Terragrim that simply deal 3 less damage while the actual Arkhalis was made a part of a developer set. For the purposes of playing the game, it was just nerfed a bit and that's it. I fail to see what your issue is.


Instead of trying to find out WHY people wanted to/were skipping part of the content they instead opted to nerf or prevent those skips entirely. Instead of improving into what could've been tedious gameplay that needed to be revised/updated (which is ironic since this update was SUPPOSED to do just that) they just decided to remove the means to make it less tedious. They aren't interested in pleasing the fanbase. (If you have mice in your apartment you're obviously gonna want to kill them, no? But wouldn't you want to find out WHY you've got mice coming into your house in the first place and nipping the problem in the bud? No? Well, enjoy having to spend money on mouse traps that might or might not work.) They introduced half-♥♥♥♥♥ and nonsensical mechanics that nobody asked for (npc happiness, half-♥♥♥♥♥ cheat mode that was probably half-♥♥♥♥♥ out of spite, torch luck (nice 180 they did there lmao), vanity slots changes, etc) tweaked a few things and BAM, final update, we're done here.

I can agree that the focus on just "nerfing skips" was misplaced and it would definitely have helped to look at why mining ores in pre-HM is something that so many people want to skip. One of the big reasons is the high cost of the silver/tungsten and gold/platinum armor sets and the sheer amount of time it takes to get enough ore for a full armor set and probably additional tools and weapons from it. Other armor sets had their cost reduced in the past, so why not these as well? As the tier of ore goes up, the quantity you find goes down while the ore cost of making bars goes up and on top of that, the number of bars required to get a full set of armor goes up as well, making the difficulty of getting a set go up exponentially.
Another reason is that the beginning of the game is actually disproportionally difficult, which is strongly amplified in expert mode and taken to ridiculous levels in master mode. When I first played expert mode, this part of the game was literally the more difficult than any boss fight in the game.
As for new mechanics, I do enjoy Journey mode. NPC-happiness I'm a bit meh on. I think, similar to my view on luck, it's better to incentivise with the carrot, not with the stick.


That aside, a small dev team like Re-Logic is bound to rethink things frequently. With only very few eyes to inspect new mechanics and therefore fewer angles from which they are looked at, there's bound to be more things that stand out when it's actually released.
With torch luck, they may have not thought about players unknowingly placing wrong torches everywhere and how the biome changes in HM would reduce a player's luck because a huge portion that used to be pure is now corrupt and has wrong torches placed everywhere. They saw the players' points of view on torch luck and figured that it was better to change it.
 
So you want to move it from one location where it's useless to another where it's useless. Something like a hardmode pre-altar pick doesn't even exist since all hardmode picks are post altar.
Multiplayer does exist and new players can join hardmode worlds. If anything, skips should exist for this reason only, and reaver shark would fit in hardmode perfectly.
 
I feel like they went a little too hard on the nerfs anyways. Terraria is partly a sandbox game, and these nerfs just take options away from the player. These changes "fix" progression less than they break it, and overall, massively increase the grindiness of the game. It feels like the devs just want us to play longer, but some people are either impatient, or have played the game so many times already that commiting the same grindy actions is getting rather boring. I for one hailed the introduction of fishing, as it'd make mining for hardmode ores much, MUCH less grindy. What I do now after a long mining session and I notice I STILL don't have enough ore to kit me and all my friends out? I literally open up a terraria item server, and spawn the bloody stuff in. i've probably already mined like 5k titanium ore in my terraria lifetime, and I'd rather not do any more.

I am aware journey mode exists, but for the record, journey mode =/= expert/master mode. Which offer more of a challenge, and additional interesting items/mounts. Not to mention relics are satisfying. Journey mode you have all the tools to cheat easily accesible, and you don't even get expert/master drops for upping the difficulty.

And this isn't a small nerf either. This isn't just about the reaver shark, which is a neat little easter egg for veteran players, mostly. I couldn't care less about that sequence break, seeing as hellstone armor is fairly pointless compared to crimson armor, which rewards you with great health if you keep dodging most of the attacks. And if you can't even kill the brain, one of the easiest bosses without hellstone? You'd probably just be suffering down the line anyways. Voodoo dolls still spawn straight away anyways, so you can still sequence break either way just by rushing the wall of flesh, big deal. If the devs really wanted to nerf skips like the shark, they'd have made the voodoo doll restricted behind killing the brain/eater.

Now fishing crates? They got absolutely GUTTED. You still only get three ores in your world. And palladium, orichalcum, titanium are far superior to any other. Fishing crates used to allow you to get that alternative ore in a modest timeframe. You can't even make frost/forbidden armor without titanium/adamantium.

1. pre-hardmode crates won't drop hardmode ores/items once entering hardmode crates anymore. Basically they have made fishing pre-hardmode extremely unrewarding. Not only are potion fish for rage, wrath, lifeforce etc not available yet... but you can't save up crates whilst doing fishing quests. Because those crates drop trash ore, gold crates are stupid rare so the only good ore you can get would take you hours for a full set. Might as well mine for silver/tungsten, and kill the brain. Hell, you probably don't even need better than cactus if you know what your doing and you spent a tiny amount of cash on grenades. Or jester arrows.

2. Fishing crates are now properly divided in tiers, where wood/iron/gold can potentially only drop iron/lead - silver/tungsten - gold/platinum. Same goes for hardmode crates, but over hardmode ores ofc. The worst part about this is that they haven't adjusted the droprates for crates AT ALL. Gold crates are still crazy rare. And crates drop just as much ore/bars as they did pre 1.4. But also, higher tier crates can still drop lower tier ores!?!? Congratulations on finally catching a gold crate, because you just got a bunch of silver bars. yay? They should've either made it much easier to get iron/gold crates, or upped the amount of rewards inside of one. The amount of useful ores is far below what it used to be.

3. Fishing power got a nerf across the board. because apparently fishing wasn't nerfed hard enough yet. Getting a gold fishing rod isn't exciting at all anymore. Either you get lucky and get it on your 1-15th quest. Or you don't, and you're already fed up with fishing because you only need it for potions. And after that it's still not that important, as the benefit is far less now. Which mind, is still a terrible way to get potion ingredients which are far more useful on higher difficulties. Which goes slower too now. Think about that when you're saying that fishing is a boring and unimaginative way of progressing, when it's pretty much mandatory for some players, and very nice for others who just want to progress a little faster through a boss fight with the help of buffs.

4. bait nerf. For anyone who knows the nuances of bait, yes it's very easy to get a :red:load of it, but I absolutely don't see why this had to be nerfed. Bait being more likely to get consumed adds literally nothing to the game except forcing me to go pickaxe some jungle bushes a little more often.

All in all fishing went from a useful tool to mitigate grind in a boring way that's less boring than mining to some, as it takes less time overall. To an absolutely useless mechanic that gives very little useful items except for the crystal serpent, and potion upgrades that have no other way of being obtained, so you're forced to do it. And that in one update. I would've preferred it if they'd taken a moment to rework the mechanic, rather than gutting it completely for no real reason other than slowing the game down. And I doubt there were many new players using fishing to skip mining. And if they do happen to have discovered that crates were super nice to have? Then it's their fullest right to use it if they prefer it over mining. I wouldn't be surprised if people actually start new worlds if they don't have titanium.
 
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The fishing is fine, but I agree that hardmode crates shouldn't drop pre-hardmode ores, or maybe drop a pre-hardmode and a hardmode.
 
I think fishing certainly still has its niche, even without glaring progression skips like the Reaver Shark, as a relatively risk-free way of gathering resources. While you may get less from an hour of fishing than you may have from mining, it's also far easier and less dangerous. In that regard, it makes sense that you get less reward, since there's less risk associated with fishing; with enough time put into it, you can still get all the same treasure, and fishing feeds into itself really well via crates and quest rewards so that you have the opportunity to do so (it's also insanely lucrative for the amount of effort you're actually putting in, which doesn't hurt either). I think this niche is particularly valuable in Hardmode, as it allows you to circumvent breaking Demon Altars and all the negative effects that brings, including:
  • Random mechanical boss spawns
  • Random pirate invasions, even after the first is defeated
  • Additional corrupt/crimson/hallow block spread
In my opinion, the benefits of avoiding these effects - particularly the biome spread - far outweighs the time spent fishing up crates to get the Hardmode ores.

Ultimately what it boils down to is the risk vs reward factor. If you want to gear up faster, you have to hit the caves, fight bosses, and potentially infect your world with dangerous biomes. Fishing provides a far safer alternative, so it makes sense that it doesn't match mining in terms of immediate reward.

Also:
you don't even get expert/master drops for upping the difficulty.
You can't even make frost/forbidden armor without titanium.

Neither of these are true; the hybrid armors can be made with either Adamantite or Titanium, and Journey Mode bosses can drop Expert and Master drops even if you change the difficulty in the middle of the fight.
 
The fishing is fine, but I agree that hardmode crates shouldn't drop pre-hardmode ores, or maybe drop a pre-hardmode and a hardmode.

you need 70 -100 titanium crates for a set of adamantium/titanium armor, and I think 30-40+ for gold/platinum from golden crates. I'm not sure how this is fine when it's merely a shadow of the old mechanic, and crates drop very little interesting items other than marginal amounts of potions, an exclusive mount, and an exclusive pet. The biome-specific crates are slightly more useful, but they only make up a flaw of the game when you can't RNG your way in to an item you want, like the incredibly rare lava charm or water wading boots. At that point those accesories simply aren't worth it to me.

Neither of these are true; the hybrid armors can be made with either Adamantite or Titanium, and Journey Mode bosses can drop Expert and Master drops even if you change the difficulty in the middle of the fight.

I misremembered the wiki there. I'll correct it in post. It's still 5 ore/bar though, and even after breaking the grand majority of altars these ores are needlessly rare.

While you may get less from an hour of fishing than you may have from mining, it's also far easier and less dangerous. In that regard, it makes sense that you get less reward, since there's less risk associated with fishing; with enough time put into it, you can still get all the same treasure,

I disagree. You get a couple pieces of gold from quests. (in expert and master especially, you're basically drowning in cash.. and you can get insane discounts after a pirate invasion with the card + npc hapiness) A couple of potions that offer tiny benefits, other than crate potions. And whilst mining is boring after a while, fishing gets boring far quicker. I don't think it's fine at all if you need to spend hours doing an even more boring activity to get a similar amount. I'd like to add that mining is only marginally more dangerous. If you swap to a summon build just for resource gathering, your summons will deal with any threat in no time at all. And even then, you can literally tunnel extremely fast with hardmode pickaxe/drills. Avoiding any danger altogether, isn't that lovely? The difference between mining and fishing is a bit disgusting.

and fishing feeds into itself really well via crates and quest rewards so that you have the opportunity to do so (it's also insanely lucrative for the amount of effort you're actually putting in, which doesn't hurt either). I think this niche is particularly valuable in Hardmode, as it allows you to circumvent breaking Demon Altars and all the negative effects that brings, including:
  • Random mechanical boss spawns
  • Random pirate invasions, even after the first is defeated
  • Additional corrupt/crimson/hallow block spread
In my opinion, the benefits of avoiding these effects - particularly the biome spread - far outweighs the time spent fishing up crates to get the Hardmode ores.

Having to use a bad mechanic to circumvent another bad mechanic isn't really good game design though. I'd honestly rather ruin my jungle by breaking as many altars as I can to get ore quicker (by the way, why is jungle corruption still a thing?), and risk fighting the destroyer that dies in a couple jester arrows, or two paricular spells... It at least speeds up the game a bit, rather than fishing which slows it to a crawl. Maybe at least make fishing follow expert mode logic, and have it go faster, be more rewarding on higher difficulties, like how it's much easier to get certain rare items, especially with luck. That has always been a huge appeal to me.
 
"you gotta mine for armor to progress now" is both incorrect and also just plain... how do I put this? The rare metals are well... rare, and while I can see iron or lead comfortably having enough ore to get armored up, as you go up to the better metal armors the bar costs get positively prohibitive, especially in multiplayer. There's a reason the Reaver Shark was so popular, folks: pre hardmode mining for armor is a soul crushing chore.

I would argue that many of the best pre-hardmode armor sets, like Molten Armor, Jungle Armor, or Necro Armor, either don't require mining or are made of common materials. hellstone is ridiculously common in the underworld, and it is pretty easy to mine with an obsidian skin potion.

I don't even bother with the rare-metal armor sets, there is absolutely no point to them.

My usual armor progression pre-hardmode is Jungle -> Defeat EoC and EoW/BoC -> Molten Armor -> Defeat Queen Bee and Skeletron -> Necro Armor (optional) -> WoF

(Before the Reaver Shark Nerf, I would usually use that to skip directly to Molten Armor before defeating any bosses. Yes, I am one of those people who WAY over-prepares for everything.)
 
Multiplayer does exist and new players can join hardmode worlds. If anything, skips should exist for this reason only, and reaver shark would fit in hardmode perfectly.

This is a great idea! I agree that the reaver shark in it's current state is little more than a curiosity and has no use in the game at all. The gold/platinum pickaxes are almost as good (55% for gold, 59% for platinum and shark), and I normally get them within the first few hours of starting a new world. Buffing the reaver shark to it's original strength and limiting to a hardmode-only drop would give it some use, if only in multiplayer.
 
This is a great idea! I agree that the reaver shark in it's current state is little more than a curiosity and has no use in the game at all. The gold/platinum pickaxes are almost as good (55% for gold, 59% for platinum and shark), and I normally get them within the first few hours of starting a new world. Buffing the reaver shark to it's original strength and limiting to a hardmode-only drop would give it some use, if only in multiplayer.

You might like scarab bombs. they're just normal bombs + one fossil each, and you can get fossils much easier now. they mine straight useable hallways, so you can get to new caves and ores super fast.
 
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