Weapons & Equip Fixing the Classes

[YourLocalTerrarian]

So right now as of 1.3, we have 4.5 classes. 4 full classes, (Melee, ranged, magic, summoner), and one half class, (throwing), and it’s bugging the hell out of me. (In my opinion) the throwing class is unecessary, and isn’t even a full class. The developers even said it won’t be a full class. I think we should re join the throwing class back into the ranged class, and start helping classes that need help, like the early game summoner.

Here’s why I think we should get rid of the throwing class.

1. It’s only a half class, it nearly ceases to exist hardmode, and it will never be a full class.

2. It’s a knock off ranger, they both literally use consumable projectiles to fight. The only difference is that the ranger uses weapons to launch them.

3. Having 4 classes was just better, and more simple.

4. We could start filling gaps in the other classes.

 

[Electroman102]

Absolutely no support. There is already special ores and armor for the throwing class. If you don’t like that the throwing class is only 1/2 if a class, then it would be better to add to the class

 

[Mislic]

There is nothing more temporary than developer promises, you know. They say something all the time and change their mind later if they see fit.

I don't get it why and how would removing the throwing almost-class make us able to "start filling gaps in the other classes" and how does it prohibit us from doing this right now? Helping early game summoner, or other classes, or even the throwing semi-class itself can all be done independently.

Also, I think ranger is just a knockoff mage, they both literally use weapons to kill stuff, but one uses mana and the other uses consumables (which clearly shows us that ranges is an inferior clone of the mage, as mage can go on forever potentially).

Having 3 classes is even better, and more simple for sure.

 

[temery2383]

Also, I think ranger is just a knockoff mage, they both literally use weapons to kill stuff, but one uses mana and the other uses consumables (which clearly shows us that ranges is an inferior clone of the mage, as mage can go on forever potentially).

Having 3 classes is even better, and more simple for sure.

Oh snap. The tables have turned.

 

[YourLocalTerrarian]

Absolutely no support. There is already special ores and armor for the throwing class. If you don’t like that the throwing class is only 1/2 if a class, then it would be better to add to the class

That’s why I said we should put those back into the ranged class.

And why add to the class? It’s almost exactly the same thing as the ranger.
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There is nothing more temporary than developer promises, you know. They say something all the time and change their mind later if they see fit.

I don't get it why and how would removing the throwing almost-class make us able to "start filling gaps in the other classes" and how does it prohibit us from doing this right now? Helping early game summoner, or other classes, or even the throwing semi-class itself can all be done independently.

Also, I think ranger is just a knockoff mage, they both literally use weapons to kill stuff, but one uses mana and the other uses consumables (which clearly shows us that ranges is an inferior clone of the mage, as mage can go on forever potentially).

Having 3 classes is even better, and more simple for sure.

The ranger’s specially is long ranged attacks, and using endgame stealth to do more damage.

The mage using magic attacks that have a variety different ranges and effects, and endgame mages can buff and heal players.

4 classes offer a nice variety.

 

[Electroman102]

Yes, throwing weapons are similar to ranged weapons, but this isn’t enough of a reason to remove an entire class. Like I said, the answer is to add, not subtract

 

[Mislic]

Nah, thrown items have sexy and unique effects that ranged doesn't, they aren't the same. And even if they look the same to somebody, I'd personally still prefer evolution of the thrown class, not deletion of it, that's all.

Mages wreak havoc at long range too. And the only thing deducible from their ability to wreak aforementioned havoc at short/mid range as well (possibly using some funny and cool mechanics, potentially healing/buffing people even) is the fact that they are much cooler than rangers.

P.S. And don't let stealth fool you. It's just the evil plan of one wicked dev who stole stealth from mages and gave it to rangers.

 

[Kazzymodus]

Expanding the throwing class is not going to happen. If you ask me, throwing should never have been turned into a class in its own right at all.

First of all we need to make it very clear that whether a weapon is melee, ranged, magic or thrown is not defined by the effect those weapons have, but primarily by how they are used. Not because it's basically impossible to get a homogeneous description of the classes based on weapon effects (with the sole exception of Summoning weapons), but because how a weapon of a certain class is used is largely consistent around the board, with only a few exceptions. So without further ado:

• Melee weapons are weapons that do not require anything to use. There are no melee weapons that do not conform to this condition (although there are a few weapons in other classes that do conform to this condition).
• Ranged weapons are weapons that require ammunition to be used. This can be generic ammunition (arrows, bullets) or specific (stakes, candy corn). The only exceptions to this are the Harpoon, Paintball gun, Piranha Gun and Toxicarp (also the Water Gun and Slime Gun, but those do not deal damage), which do not require ammunition or mana, fitting the criteria of melee weapons.
• Magic weapons are weapons that require mana to be used. Again, there are no magic weapons that do not conform to this condition. While most summoning weapons also require mana, those are so homogeneous that they can be easily distinguished from magic weapons.
• Summoning weapons are weapons that create minions or sentries. This is the only class that can reliably be classified based on weapon effects, because all weapons in said class create either minions or sentries.
• Throwing weapons are weapons that consume themselves when used. There are two exceptions to this, which are the Ale Tosser and the Bone Glove, which instead fit the criteria of ranged weapons.

As you can see, the criteria of "consuming themselves" is very similar to "consuming ammunition". This is perhaps unsurprising, because all weapons we now know as thrown weapons originally were ranged weapons. So if you are concerned that merging throwing (back) into ranged prevents any future thrown weapons being added, then there's no reason to worry, as thrown weapons existed before the thrown class did. Or in other words, you don't need a throwing class to have thrown weapons. Not that it matters, because throwing weapons are fundamentally flawed to begin with, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Absolutely no support. There is already special ores and armor for the throwing class. If you don’t like that the throwing class is only 1/2 if a class, then it would be better to add to the class

The problem is that the throwing class is not remotely half of a class, it's far less than that. It has only two armour sets (both pre-Hardmode, where throwing is still viable) and only a fraction of the weapons the other classes have. In fact, if you wanted to fully dissolve the throwing class, literally all you'd have to do would be to change the damage type on all throwing weapons to ranged. That's literally it. All bonuses unique to throwing weapons would still exists, because throwing weapons would still exist, only as a subclass to ranged, the same way bows and guns are.

But for the sake of argument, let's look at expanding the throwing class, and more specifically why it wouldn't work.

One of the most important aspects of Terraria is that equipment and progression is tiered. This means that as the game progresses and more powerful enemies appear, new weapons from higher tiers need to be created. In other words, if you want to expand the throwing class and (ideally) make it viable, you'd need at least one item for every new tier of progression. The underlying premise here however is that as items get more powerful (i.e. higher tier), they get more difficult and/or expensive to obtain. How does this affect the different classes?

For melee weapons, this is not a problem, as once obtained, they can be used without restriction. The same goes for magic and summoning weapons: while they require mana to be used, that is a resource that endlessly regenerates, and Mana potions are not expensive, should you choose to use those. Ranged weapons are slightly more complicated in that they require ammo, but, and this is the crux of the matter, while the weapon might be difficult or expensive to obtain, ammunition is not. It might take a few tries to get, say, the Venus Magnum from Plantera, but once you have it getting ammunition for it at the Arms Dealer is a breeze, and a cheap one at that. You don't have to kill Plantera again to get more ammunition.

And this is exactly where the problem with thrown weapons is. Because they consume themselves rather than ammunition, they're in short supply. Say, for instance, Plantera dropped a new type of javelin, 100 at a time. That gives you 100 javelins to work with. If you want more, you'll have to kill Plantera again, and then only hope you actually get that javelin drop to begin with. So if you make throwing weapons available through drops, it would make them extremely difficult and/or impractical to consistently obtain and use.

You could circumvent that problem by instead making throwing weapons purchasable, but that causes a different problem. Say that those javelins we were talking about could additionally be bought from the Arms Dealer after killing Plantera. It would make them much more readily available, yes, but to have a comparable value to the other Planetera drops, they'd need to be significantly more expensive than simple bullets. That would make throwing vastly more expensive than any of the other classes. Sure, ranged can be expensive if you exclusively use Chlorophyte or Luminite bullets, but the keyword there being 'can'. In fact, if you get yourself an Endless Musket Pouch, ranged effectively becomes free.

You could again circumvent this by making certain weapons exclusively purchasable and others exclusively obtainable from NPCs. That way, you can make the farmable throwing weapons expensive so they're profitable, and the purchasable ones cheap so that throwing is comparable in cost to ranged. But apart from that meaning that item value no longer reflects the item's power, that seriously limits your options. You'd have to make the purchasable weapons less powerful to offset their availability, meaning that the more powerful throwing weapons of that tier are the exclusive drops. Meaning in turn that if you want to play throwing with the most powerful weapons, you will end up grinding NPCs for them anyway. Is that fun? Possibly. But I doubt it.

Now, you could get rid of all that balance hassle by saying "Well, what if we make a throwing weapon that can fire endlessly?". You could, but then it ceases to be a throwing weapon and becomes a melee weapon (e.g. Daybreak). "What about an item that uses special ammunition like the Bone Glove?". Again, you could, but that would simply be a ranged weapon. Considering such weapons throwing weapons because "that's what they do" would force you to look at every single weapon in the game and reassign them where necessary.

Shadowflame Knife? Well, technically you throw them, so they should be throwing weapons. North Pole? Shoots a projectile, so ranged. Harpoon? Well, it's attached to the base gun, so it's basically a melee weapon. The result is a strongly disputable thematic consistency, and a complete lack of any mechanical or technical consistency. That is not something you want in a game, and especially not in a video game.

So in short, throwing is incredibly difficult to satisfyingly implement without ruining the underlying balance. Not because of the throwing class, but because of throwing weapons themselves. If you want throwing 'in spirit', with weapons like the Daybreak, then sure, we can do that. But consumable throwing weapons ('true' throwing weapons) just run into issues that only increase in severity as the game progresses.

Also, I think ranger is just a knockoff mage, they both literally use weapons to kill stuff, but one uses mana and the other uses consumables (which clearly shows us that ranges is an inferior clone of the mage, as mage can go on forever potentially).

There's a fundamental difference here, in that ranged weapons have all the benefits of special ammunition like Chlorophyte bullets to boost their damage and effectiveness, which magic weapons lack. Furthermore, ranged weapons are as much limited by their reliance on consumables as magic weapons are by their reliance on mana. In fact, it is ranged that can unconditionally go on forever (through the Endless ammunition items), whilst magic can not (there's no endless mana potion), and takes a Mana Sickness penalty to boot. With proper preparation, ranged is much more reliable than magic is.

Nah, thrown items have sexy and unique effects that ranged doesn't, they aren't the same. And even if they look the same to somebody, I'd personally still prefer evolution of the thrown class, not deletion of it, that's all.

If we look at all classes, then throwing arguably has the least amount sexy and unique effects. Melee has Flails and Beam Swords, ranged has unique bows and guns like the Pulse Bow, Dart Pistol and Flamethrower, magic has probably the single largest diversity of effects, and even summoning has a lot of uniqueness to it. What's throwing got? The Beenade and Molotov Cocktail are probably the most exciting ones, the rest is very straightforward. I will say that throwing has a lot of potential, but as of now, it's not exactly a showstopper.

 

[AgentNoName101]

The whole point of throwable consumables is to be a side weapon in regards to what you normally use, such as using the bone glove alongside magic weapons in case you run out of mana. Simply put, Throwing class is meant to be an emergency weapon that is simple to understand, in that they are used instantly, you can easily tell how many you have left, and if you run out of ammo/mana, it's a temporary alternative to going melee. This makes it a class that is more oriented to newer players, as they are normally used for emergencies. I believe that making some more hardmode throwing weapons would be more fun, having unique and cool effects in exchange for their single use, instead of just removing it because it seems less useful than other classes.

 

[temery2383]

I love how detailed and thought out that response was. Good point well made.

And this is exactly where the problem with thrown weapons is. Because they consume themselves rather than ammunition, they're in short supply. Say, for instance, Plantera dropped a new type of javelin, 100 at a time. That gives you 100 javelins to work with. If you want more, you'll have to kill Plantera again, and then only hope you actually get that javelin drop to begin with. So if you make throwing weapons available through drops, it would make them extremely difficult and/or impractical to consistently obtain and use.

Perhaps throwing weapons could have a high chance (maybe even 75% or so) not to be consumed, but even that wouldn't totally solve the problem.

 

[YourLocalTerrarian]

In fact, if you wanted to fully dissolve the throwing class, literally all you'd have to do would be to change the damage type on all throwing weapons to ranged. That's literally it. All bonuses unique to throwing weapons would still exists, because throwing weapons would still exist, only as a subclass to ranged, the same way bows and guns are.

That’s EXACTLY what I was suggesting in my post, i think that would be the best thing to do.

 

[Mislic]

Awesome post, Kazzymodus. Unfortunately I can not agree on some points. The first one being the main one: your weapons taxonomy.

Classification you proposed looks interesting and quite logical (except summoning that is), but substituting assumptions/opinions for facts to use them as the base for some proof later on is just plain wrong. Weapons are actually granted the damage type not by their "used" method, nor even by effect, but just by developer (or manager/designer/product owner) feeling, his view of what weapons should be of what type. This view is affected by let's say traditional fantasy classification, other games, personal preferences and experience. Ale Tosser and Bone Glove would have just been made ranged, but they do "feel" like throwing, not shooting, that's why they are thrown.

Melee weapons could easily use mana/stamina as well by the way, as they do in reality (other games implement such system sometimes). The fact than they shoot things often is only about game balance and fun of playing the melee class, nothing else. Games always have this disbalance problem of melee vs ranged so in the end it's easier to just make them all effectively ranged. Making all/some thrown endless or close to that wouldn't make them melee at all. And actually yeah, Daybreak might be converted to thrown too (maybe with some tweaks), as well as some other spears, Flying Knife, Vampire Knives (yes!) and maybe some more.

The easy way to kinda fix thrown and make it playable would be to take boomerangs from melee and give them to thrown, potentially tweaking boomerang mechanics slightly (and adding more to smooth the progression, of cause). Razorblade-Typhoon-like homing chakram would perfectly fit. A couple of sets and additional helmets too, mind me. Keeping a couple of relatively easily craftable/obtainable boomerangs/chakrams at each progression level would enable farming common mobs and self-defense for the throwing user.

Additional craftable "consume themselves" could be added pretty easily as well, just by making use of existing crafting station progression. No need to farm bosses for them, using the newly-unlocked crafting station would suffice. Usage of some relatively rare resource could be fine too if we just greatly increase the number of crafted copies.

Throwing some Enchanted Stars crafted from farmed Fallen Stars at Hellforge for seventy piercing damage to finally kill Wall of Flesh would be quite rewarding for players who struggled with it before (unless they want to spend money on weaker grenades or very dangerous dynamites that is). Later on those same Fallen Stars could be turned into Comets at the Ancient Manipulator to wreak havoc to the Moon Lord for those craving.

Glowing Mushrooms (grown at carefully built farms!) could be Autohammered into contagious Mushroom Bombs that spread lingering frostburn (or alike) to other enemies on touch with infected ones.

Toxic Flask can be made endless thrown just the way Shadowflame Knife is melee now (hmm, Shadowflame Knife isn't thrown yet?.. Interesting...).

Thrown could be given some new mechanics like "charges". You get a neat rare trinket and it's initially charged a little. Let's say your found an awesome "Blazing Sprout" thrown weapon that looks like a burning branch while held and like a fiery phantom of itself when thrown (the branch stays in your hand, just the fiery "copy" flies toward enemies). It has about a hundred charges initially (shown like a stack number in the interface, but its actually a single item). Charges drop down with each throw and when you spend all of them it either can't be used at all or maybe changes visual to a simple burned dead branch that can now only hit in melee for same/lower damage). Dryad can recharge it (for a reasonable price) up to 999 (or higher?) to let you chastise the unfaithful all day long. Multiple Blazing Sprouts don't share charges, so finding second one could potentially double your weapon supply.

Hell, even Spikes and Wooden Spikes can crafted into thrown spikes of some sort.

Ugh, dreams went too far I guess.

Anyway, with (some) of those changes throws weapons turns from being "expensive" (as you pointed about buying them from vendors when they get unlocked) to "can be expensive" or even "free" (using slightly lower tier version or an endless version of about current tier) - same as ranged.

Again, applying some strange exhausted restrictions to cut off any renew possibility is not healthy, it can potentially disrupt anything possible for sure (if tried hard enough).

Considering such weapons throwing weapons because "that's what they do" would force you to look at every single weapon in the game and reassign them where necessary.

Sounds good actually, shall be done sooner or later.

On throwing "sexy and unique effects" note. I never said throwing has more special stuff than ranged. I just said it "has" unique stuff that ranged has not. All I mean is that thrown already has a nice base even as is, with further development it can become a pretty interesting play-style for both new and old players.

All in all - I'm totally for throwing semi-class further elaboration, not for it's removal.

 

[Kazzymodus]

Awesome post, Kazzymodus. Unfortunately I can not agree on some points. The first one being the main one: your weapons taxonomy.

Classification you proposed looks interesting and quite logical (except summoning that is), but substituting assumptions/opinions for facts to use them as the base for some proof later on is just plain wrong. Weapons are actually granted the damage type not by their "used" method, nor even by effect, but just by developer (or manager/designer/product owner) feeling, his view of what weapons should be of what type. This view is affected by let's say traditional fantasy classification, other games, personal preferences and experience. Ale Tosser and Bone Glove would have just been made ranged, but they do "feel" like throwing, not shooting, that's why they are thrown.

Yes and no.

While you are right in that what class a weapon is assigned to basically comes down to the developer's feeling, it is in their best interest to be internally consistent, both for design and technical purposes. Especially if the answer to the question "which class does this weapon fit best in?" isn't clear cut.

Let's take the Bee Gun, for instance. It uses mana, so it's a magic weapon, but since it 'shoots' bees, it might fit better as a ranged weapon. Then again, bees are minions in their own way, so they could also fit in summoning.

Why is it a magic weapon then? There's two answers, really. The first is that the developers 'felt' it should be. The second is that they wanted Queen Bee to drop a weapon for every class and they needed a magic weapon.

If you're going to look at every weapon and decide its class based on its effect, not only are you going to get arguable assignments, but you have a very good chance of throwing the entire class equilibrium out of whack. Melee gets drained of many powerful weapons, ranged and magic start fighting about whether or not this weapon should use mana or not (e.g. "why does it cost mana to throw a flask?") and throwing gets huge gaps in its progression. If you put the class equilibrium first, you may get questionable assignments, but they won't break the classes as a whole.

This equilibrium is also why expanding the throwing class without taking anything from existing classes is such a huge issue: the representation of throwing would need to be on equal footing with the other four existing ones. This would involve creating a lot of new weapons and armours without expanding the game longitudinally causes a lot of bloat.

So while I can't tell you what exactly the developers are thinking when adding weapons, I do think they very much keep the balance of the classes (which in this paradigm, throwing isn't) in mind, so to expand them all relatively equally. If that means that a cool weapon that doesn't feel like melee has to become a melee weapon, then so be it. Furthermore, if they have a cool idea for a ranged weapon, but have too many ranged weapons already, they might choose not to add it. In short, the damage type of a weapon depends on what damage types are needed, not on what is a thematic fit.

As for why the Bone Glove is throwing, I find it much more likely that it is because their ammunition, Bones, were throwing weapons, so the Bone Glove capitulates on that. The Ale Tosser is then the only weapon that I would argue is a throwing weapon because 'it feels like one'. That's not enough for me to conclude that class assignment is based on a case by case feeling a weapon has any more than it is on internal consistency.

Melee weapons could easily use mana/stamina as well by the way, as they do in reality (other games implement such system sometimes). The fact than they shoot things often is only about game balance and fun of playing the melee class, nothing else. Games always have this disbalance problem of melee vs ranged so in the end it's easier to just make them all effectively ranged. Making all/some thrown endless or close to that wouldn't make them melee at all. And actually yeah, Daybreak might be converted to thrown too (maybe with some tweaks), as well as some other spears, Flying Knife, Vampire Knives (yes!) and maybe some more.

This is exactly the problem. Reassigning weapons would largely break Melee. That's not fixing the problem of throwing, that's moving the problem of throwing to melee, where it arguably has a larger impact.

The easy way to kinda fix thrown and make it playable would be to take boomerangs from melee and give them to thrown, potentially tweaking boomerang mechanics slightly (and adding more to smooth the progression, of cause). Razorblade-Typhoon-like homing chakram would perfectly fit. A couple of sets and additional helmets too, mind me. Keeping a couple of relatively easily craftable/obtainable boomerangs/chakrams at each progression level would enable farming common mobs and self-defense for the throwing user.

See my comment about bloat above. If we just completely disregard classes, this is putting weapons and armour sets where they aren't needed. You do not want to expand the game laterally in such places, as it simply serves to contrast with the (either already or at that point) 'undernourished' portions of the game.

Additional craftable "consume themselves" could be added pretty easily as well, just by making use of existing crafting station progression. No need to farm bosses for them, using the newly-unlocked crafting station would suffice. Usage of some relatively rare resource could be fine too if we just greatly increase the number of crafted copies.

Said progression is much too spread out to nicely cover the different tiers. You get Anvils -> Hellforge -> Mythril Anvil -> Adamantite Forge -> Autohammer -> Ancient Manipulator. Basically that translates to Start -> Late Pre-Hardmode -> Early Hardmode -> Post-Plantera -> Celestial. That's massive gaps in the progression, and I'd argue that the Autohammer shouldn't even be included and should be purely for the crafting of Shroomite.

Again, applying some strange exhausted restrictions to cut off any renew possibility is not healthy, it can potentially disrupt anything possible for sure (if tried hard enough).

I can not stress enough that this is not the case. As I've explained above, a weapon's function is, or at least can be, largely independent from its class. A rigid adherence to said classes does not prevent any innovative new weapons: it hasn't for the past five years, there's no reason to assume it will in the future or when throwing is merged back into ranged.

On throwing "sexy and unique effects" note. I never said throwing has more special stuff than ranged. I just said it "has" unique stuff that ranged has not. All I mean is that thrown already has a nice base even as is, with further development it can become a pretty interesting play-style for both new and old players.

I still fail to see which those are, if I'm completely honest.

 

[Mislic]

it is in their best interest to be internally consistent

Are you quite sure you know what's in their best interest? Except making money? Which usually involves making the game interesting enough for as many people as possible?

Let's take the Bee Gun, for instance... Why is it a magic weapon then?

You do know why, come on.

There's two answers, really.

There you go.

The first is that the developers 'felt' it should be.

That's what I said all this time.

The second is that they wanted Queen Bee to drop a weapon for every class and they needed a magic weapon.

Yes, this too. And you talk about keeping balance as well all the time.

If you're going to look at every weapon and decide its class based on its effect, not only are you going to get arguable assignments...

"Arguable assignments" happen all the time, inside games and in reality. That's why we have this argument right now!

...but you have a very good chance of throwing the entire class equilibrium out of whack.

Define "entire class equilibrium" please. If you mean approximate equality in numbers of weapons for different classes, it doesn't seem to exist right now. Summoner only has 13 weapons, it's sentry off-class (kek, 6th class incoming?) has 8 sentries. Thrown has 20 weapons. Ranged has 89 weapon rows in the table (didn't bother counting precisely what belongs to PC, just used javascript to see the number of rows). Melee has 150(!) weapon rows in the table.

Melee gets drained of many powerful weapons

Which ones? I didn't propose taking "many powerful weapons" from melee. A couple of actually useful boomerangs won't ruin it at all.

ranged and magic start fighting about whether or not this weapon should use mana or not

No they won't. Not more than now. Debatable weapons will, just as they do now, most won't.

If you're going to look at every weapon and decide its class based on its effect ... throwing gets huge gaps in its progression

I don't get it. Thrown already has huge gaps (the biggest one called hardmode). Intention is to gradually fill those gaps.

If you put the class equilibrium first, you may get questionable assignments, but they won't break the classes as a whole.

Why should we get "questionable assignments" then, with such a nice system? Everything shall be crystal clear and simple, right?

This equilibrium is also why expanding the throwing class without taking anything from existing classes is such a huge issue: the representation of throwing would need to be on equal footing with the other four existing ones

No, representation of the thrown class mustn't be close to other classes right away. It can grow with time, nothing wrong with that.

a lot of new weapons and armours without expanding the game longitudinally causes a lot of bloat.

Yee, new weapons and armor! Want those! Wrap me two, please! This is not a "bloat", its called new content. And it's up to devs to fit it nicely.

So while I can't tell you what exactly the developers are thinking when adding weapons

Very honest.

I do think they very much keep the balance of the classes in mind...

Yes, I think they do.

...so to expand them all relatively equally

No, we wouldn't have this ton of melee then.

which in this paradigm, throwing isn't

Again, assumptions used as axioms. 1.3 started the thrown class by introducing some thrown weapons and by taking some ranged weapons away from ranged and making them thrown. All that was done to actually merge thrown back into ranged pretty soon it seems, right?.

If that means that a cool weapon that doesn't feel like melee has to become a melee weapon, then so be it.

No, why should it? It has it's natural type, why would it become melee? Maybe it gets postponed 'til better times, that's it.

Furthermore, if they have a cool idea for a ranged weapon, but have too many ranged weapons already, they might choose not to add it.

Yes, like previous one.

In short, the damage type of a weapon depends on what damage types are needed, not on what is a thematic fit.

No, the introduction of a weapon in-game depends on what damage types are needed, the damage type doesn't.

As for why the Bone Glove is throwing, I find it much more likely that it is because their ammunition, Bones, were throwing weapons, so the Bone Glove capitulates on that.

Yeah, quite possible. Or maybe somebody wanted a new thrown weapon and this one looked cool enough and closer to actually throwing bones than to shooting them.

The Ale Tosser is then the only weapon that I would argue is a throwing weapon because 'it feels like one'.

But all other thrown?

That's not enough for me to conclude that class assignment is based on a case by case feeling a weapon has any more than it is on internal consistency.

They are all actually being thrown! What's so wrong with calling per se thrown weapons "thrown weapons"? Why should "internal consistency" be invented for this?

Reassigning weapons would largely break Melee. That's not fixing the problem of throwing, that's moving the problem of throwing to melee, where it arguably has a larger impact.

No, it wouldn't, as I said earlier. Melee would hardly notice the change. Boomerangs becoming thrown won't even affect melee much at the early game stages, as class-specific gear bonuses are yet barely noticeable. And some other long-waited tweaks might be finally done. I love flails, they should be reworked, not to become just yoyos but to be useful after boomerangs are taken away. Now after we have an alternative fire concept spears might actually become a hybrid weapon. Left click would deal relatively short-ranged melee damage, right click would throw, dealing thrown damage.

You do not want to expand the game laterally in such places, as it simply serves to contrast with the (either already or at that point) 'undernourished' portions of the game.

I see it as actually "feeding" those parts. To make them nice and curvy.

Basically that translates to Start -> Late Pre-Hardmode -> Early Hardmode -> Post-Plantera -> Celestial. That's massive gaps in the progression, and I'd argue that the Autohammer shouldn't even be included and should be purely for the crafting of Shroomite.

Ugh, it was an addition, not the whole progression system. Nothing stops devs from using more conventional methods, like boss drops and crafting. Steampunker crafting stations could be used as an after-one-mechanical-boss progression checkpoint. Martian Conduit Plating could be used as a post-Golem thrown crafting material (as lots of other blocks are now). Well, it's easy to think of new ways and to incrementally implement them in-game. I didn't expect it was that necessary here.

I can not stress enough that this is not the case.

I do hope it isn't. And that your intention is to just make the game better the way you see it.

A rigid adherence to said classes does not prevent any innovative new weapons: it hasn't for the past five years

Exactly. Because "rigid adherence" didn't even happen.

I still fail to see which those are, if I'm completely honest.

Every second thrown practically? Tosser, Glove, all grenades (especially bouncy one), Bone Javelin, Molotov, Spiky Ball, Beenade, Rotten Egg and arguably some more.

Your creative energy could be of much better use elsewhere in my opinion. And mine as well, btw (but your posts are interesting, thank you for that). As I now see it you just want thrown class removed by any means, even by creating whole theories of what could have been possibly done and then basing your urge on those. I want to be a little more realistic, not to introduce whole new concepts just for the sake of the argument. Some dev could drop by to close that question. I propose incremental changes, you propose some very rigid scheme that still has exceptions and doesn't look natural. And I just don't want thrown class to be removed. I find it interesting and as a nice possibility of replaying this great game again, in a new way. It looks impossible right now to add anything after Moon Lord, so putting content in the middle (or even all over the place) is an easy (yet working) solution.

Sorry, but I will refrain from further arguments based on theories, assumptions and faulty axioms. Anything else - be my guest.

 

[Lord Garak]

There is nothing more temporary than developer promises, you know. They say something all the time and change their mind later if they see fit.

I don't get it why and how would removing the throwing almost-class make us able to "start filling gaps in the other classes" and how does it prohibit us from doing this right now? Helping early game summoner, or other classes, or even the throwing semi-class itself can all be done independently.

Also, I think ranger is just a knockoff mage, they both literally use weapons to kill stuff, but one uses mana and the other uses consumables (which clearly shows us that ranges is an inferior clone of the mage, as mage can go on forever potentially).

Having 3 classes is even better, and more simple for sure.

No matter what way you go about it Mage has to sacrifice damage potential to keep mana flowing. Ranger is superior because consumables are much easier to acquire.

 

[Lord Garak]

@Mislic I have this precise argument all the time, so I have to respond. At this point in Terraria's lifecycle a lot of new content is bloat. The game's fundamental balance has had a wrench thrown in it for ages now, purely because there are so many weapons and so few worth using. That isn't even addressing how much harder it is to acquire some for no apparent reason. Things like the OOA are nothing but bloat that don't need to be in the game. New content is not a blessing to many games. It is a curse that distracts from fundamental issues like balance and elegance of gameplay.

And yes, gutting melee would be a disaster, and it would be noticed. Melee needs its thrown options like the Hatchet and Shadowflame Knife to remain viable in lategame, and against flying enemies.

 

[Mislic]

Duh, that mage vs ranger was mostly a trolling attempt. Also, if you formally reread what you wrote you'll notice the word "acquire". Which probably involves doing something specific, bound to NPCs/crafting/whatever. Not just freely soaring around like a bird without ever needing anything...like mages do. Olympic runner can easily sacrifice ten minutes to get a burger and still he'll come faster than a random wannabe. Also I am overwhelmed by the depth of this: "Ranger is superior because consumables are much easier to acquire."

Some things are always harder to acquire than others, nothing wrong about it. Yeah, maybe all this situation is a semi-bloat already. At least when I saw OOA, its difficulty and it's loot I thought: "Wait, is it even possible to beat this event using it's own loot?" Also it seemed kinda weak. Like it should be lower in the progression graph. Final explanation for myself was: they didn't have enough time to make it the right way, as other game's owners really wanted things to move on already. Anyway, it's more than normal for an sandbox/RPG (built-in "elegance of gameplay" in a sandbox? naa, go find one yourself) to have a ton of stuff that turns out to be plain weak and unnecessary. It's very hard to predict everything solo, players will find new ways. Then comes time for a big overhaul. Which could start from let's say... giving boomerangs to thrown?

P.S. Never had to rely on Possessed Hatchet nor Shadowflame Knife yet during my numerous melee-only runs.
P.P.S. Gonna replay again I think. First as ranger, then as melee.
P.P.P.S. Side question, what do you think, wouldn't yet another kinda-early-game summoner proposal (1 weapon 1 set) bloat the game (or this forum at least) too much? I'd give it a try then.

 

[Lord Garak]

Mage doesn't soar around without a care. It's an incredibly squishy class that needs to constantly get more weapons and accessories to remain viable compared to a powerhouse like Warrior. And "sandbox" is a sub-genre when talking about a complex adventure/exploration game with RPG elements.

And I don't know why you're being so hostile, but no, summoner content would not bloat the game given that Summoner isn't 2/3 as developed as any other class.

 

[Mislic]

Dunno where you saw hostility, sorry it it looks like that.

We have different views on what "squishy" means, and whether tons of weapons are fine for Terraria's genre.

Freedom to Thrown Class!