Game Mechanics Ideas for improving RNG aspects of boss drops

Which option do you prefer?

  • Option 1

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Option 2

    Votes: 9 69.2%
  • Option 3

    Votes: 4 30.8%

  • Total voters
    13

That Martin Guy

Terrarian
Sometimes boss drops can be tedious. Right now I'm doing a mage playthrough, and I've gone through atleast 10 saucers trying to get its mage drops but instead getting xenopoppers and influx wavers instead of the mage drops. This is really annoying for me since it's not difficult for me to kill it with spectre armor, but it takes a really long time since I play on expert and he has both high health and defense. After this I finally got the drops I wanted, but now I would like to grind through duke fishron, which, again, can be tedious since the truffle worm is hard to find.

I know I'm not alone in the neverending quest of finding the drops for your class (hell, even yrimir had to go through a lot of planteras trying to get the trophy), and that is why I come to you today to bring up multiple ideas on how to improve upon this. The general idea is to make the bosses feel less grindy.

  1. Increasing the chance of a class drop based on damage dealt.
    In this example the game would track which damage type (melee, ranged, magic or summoned (thrown if it gets viable at some point)) dealt a certain amount of percent of the boss' health. Imagine a scenario where I'm fighting duke fishron as a mage/summoner mix. 50% is dealt with magic, 50% is dealt with summoned damage. The class based drops from the duke have 20% chance to drop each. With this example the chance to get a tempest staff, razorblade typhoon and bubble gun would be increased to 30%, while the chance to get a flairon or tsunami would be 5%. In multiplayer this number would be less relative to how much damage was done, and more what type of damage was done. The reason for this is that it is possible on a two player server that one of the players deals damage while the other one wields the spectre mask for healing the damage dealer.
  2. Decreasing the chance of getting duplicate drops. In this example, if you had already defeated duke fishron and proceeded to kill him once again, the item that he dropped previously would have a 10% chance to be dropped, while the items that didn't drop would have a 22.5% chance.
  3. Cycle through the drops. This would make the drops be made in a set order. The order would perhaps be based on the order of the most damage done with a certain type throughout an entire playthrough. In this example the order of how much damage the player has dealt with certain types would be Melee > Ranged > Summoned > Magic. If we use the duke fishron example again, he would first drop a flairon 100% of the time. Then he would drop a tsunami, then a tempest staff, then it would be a 50/50 to drop either the razorblade typhoon or bubble gun. If we kill him once again, and he had dropped the bubble gun previously, he would now drop a typhoon. At this point the duke would drop a flairon on the next kill, and the cycle would continue.
EDIT: Bonus idea related to trophies: make it drop every 5 times you defeat the boss. Not necessary, but sometimes you get really unlucky with trophy drops.
 
I feel ya, I could grind 30+ Moon Lords and still be missing 2 drops. Not to mention the epic grindquest for The Axe...

I vote for option 2. It feels the most evenly balanced without being too tedious to implement.
 
Agreed, but I like the idea of combining both options 1 and 2. If only one gets implemented though, it should definitely be option 2.
 
Wait, how would 2 get implemented? Wouldn't it be tough for the game to keep remembering what you have or have not gotten for every boss?
Maybe if the item is in your inventory then they will try not to give it to you?
 
Wait, how would 2 get implemented? Wouldn't it be tough for the game to keep remembering what you have or have not gotten for every boss?
Maybe if the item is in your inventory then they will try not to give it to you?
Just track what the boss has dropped so far, and use some kind of inverse weighted system.

For example, when a drop is successfully rolled, its probability will be cut in half for the next boss kill. All the other drop chances are then re-normalized so that the total chance is 100% again.

Example: Wall of Flesh
The WoF is guaranteed to drop 1 of the following 7 items on kill:
- Breaker Blade, Clockwork Assault Rifle or Laser Rifle (16.67% chance each, or 1 in 6)
- one of the 4 Emblems (12.5% chance each, or 1 in 8)

Let's say the WoF drops the Breaker Blade on its first kill. Its chance will be cut in half to 8.33% (1 in 12). The other 8.33% is distributed to the other loot:

p(CAR) and p(LR) += 8.33% x 16.67% / (1 - 16.67%)
(final probability = 18.33%, or 11/60)

p(each Emblem) += 8.33% x 12.5% / (1 - 16.67%)
(final probability = 13.75%, or 11/80)

(The total chance is 1/12 (BB) + 2x 11/60 (CAR & LR) + 4x 11/80 (4 Embs) = 100%, so the calculations are correct.)

This system can be easily modified to cut the drop chance to a third, or any arbitrary fraction.

I didn't do the math, but I also heavily suspect that the drop chances will never return to their original values. For example, after all the loot from the WoF has dropped once, on its next kill, the earliest loot will be the most likely to get dropped again.
 
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Um... what if two players want the same item? Sucks to be them when the boss refuses to drop it again until it cycles through all the other ones...
 
Um... what if two players want the same item? Sucks to be them when the boss refuses to drop it again until it cycles through all the other ones...
Perhaps the game could calculate that both of these players did the most damage with the same class, and therefore drop it twice in this case?
 
I honestly feel like this is kind of a lazy suggestion. I get it, farming is hard. But it is an essential part of the game as well!

RNG is very important, and this would break that feeling.
 
In what way is RNG important in this scenario? I can accept that you may have to grind a bit to get the item you want (which is why two of my suggestions aren't guaranteed drops), but having to kill the same boss 5 or more times is not challenging, but tedious. By that time you have most likely figured out a reliable strategy to defeat the boss, and you may become impatient which leads to frustration after a while. I can safely assume that most people who play this game thinks it's more fun to progress and get a surge of dopamine rather than getting frustrated over something they have no control over.
 
RNG is everything in this scenario.

If this suggestion were implemented, you could speed through the game with no difficulty, as everything you wanted from the bosses dropped immediately for you.
 
Um... what if two players want the same item? Sucks to be them when the boss refuses to drop it again until it cycles through all the other ones...
If this suggestion were implemented, you could speed through the game with no difficulty, as everything you wanted from the bosses dropped immediately for you.
You're hyperbolizing this suggestion as completely eliminating chance from the game.

RNG is reduced, but it's never completely eliminated. Just because a loot dropped once doesn't mean it won't drop on the very next kill, it merely means the chance of that happening is lower. (Exactly how much lower it is can be adjusted by the devs.)

I take particular offence with the second quote:

- Even if this suggestion (option 2) was implemented, the very first boss drop is still completely unchanged, because there are no "previous boss drops" to affect the chances. This suggestion merely aims to increase the chances of getting *all* the boss drops by the time you reach a certain threshold of kills (= the number of unique loot the boss has), which imo is a perfect anti-grinding feature.

- Sorry, the boss drops don't happen "immediately". You have to kill them first.

- Even if you get the drop you want on every first kill, tell me how that trivializes the next boss/challenge, i.e. lets you "speed through the game with no difficulty". Tell me which Slime King drop makes defeating the Eye of Cthulhu particularly easy. Tell me which Wall of Flesh drop makes early hardmode particularly easy. Tell me which Plantera drop makes Golem particularly easy. The examples go on and on. Don't get me wrong, the drops do help you progress (and they are MEANT to), but none of them are glaringly OP at their level.

- I think it's perfectly logical that if you're able to defeat a boss once, you're able to defeat it as many times as you want, for any given progression level. In effect, once you have shown that you can defeat a particular boss, you have a right of access to all of its drops, not just one. Tell me how defeating a boss ten times instead of once makes the game more difficult, apart from merely needing more time.

The game's difficulty comes from defeating bosses the *first* time. Also, from exploring, mining, acquiring materials, navigating hazards, housing NPCs, and so on. Requiring you to defeat a boss you already defeated once does NOT make the game more difficult. It only makes it more grindy, in other words, tedious.
 
What defines the difficulty of the game and boss fights, is certainly not RNG. RNG makes stuff unfair, tedious, and can ruin a perfectly well defined strat for a speedrun. Eliminating RNG to a low percentage, and keeping stuff more consistent and actually *learnable*, would only put the skill ceiling higher than it is. It's stupid to have a dice roll decide your drops, especially in a speedrun, where certain drops are more important for your class than others. All of those options seems fine and much better than what we currently have in Terraria.

Learning mechanics is much more rewarding and better defined, than relying on a dice roll.
It actually will take time to learn the drop cycles for each boss, which will make the game much better IN MY OPINION.
 
What defines the difficulty of the game and boss fights, is certainly not RNG. RNG makes stuff unfair, tedious, and can ruin a perfectly well defined strat for a speedrun. Eliminating RNG to a low percentage, and keeping stuff more consistent and actually *learnable*, would only put the skill ceiling higher than it is. It's stupid to have a dice roll decide your drops, especially in a speedrun, where certain drops are more important for your class than others. All of those options seems fine and much better than what we currently have in Terraria.

Learning mechanics is much more rewarding and better defined, than relying on a dice roll.
It actually will take time to learn the drop cycles for each boss, which will make the game much better IN MY OPINION.
(You do know that Terraria isn't designed to be a speed-run game, right?)

If a Sandbox game becomes too consistent, it loses replayability.
 
(You do know that Terraria isn't designed to be a speed-run game, right?)

If a Sandbox game becomes too consistent, it loses replayability.

Killing Duke Fishron or Moon Lord 20 times in a row, to get a proper drop, certainly is POSITIVE replayability.

No, it's actually negative, it makes you tired of the same stuff over and over.

Do you know what the definition of insanity is?
It's doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.
 
Killing Duke Fishron or Moon Lord 20 times in a row, to get a proper drop, certainly is POSITIVE replayability.

No, it's actually negative, it makes you tired of the same stuff over and over.

Do you know what the definition of insanity is?
It's doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.
I think it's clear that I disagree with this thread for a variety of reasons.
As I highly doubt anything you will say will convince me that this is a good idea, I will not participate anymore in this conversation.

Also, that insanity quote, beyond being pretty "meh" in the first place, doesn't actually apply here.
 
I like both options 2 and 3, but 2 seems to be random enough to still have "that tense moment where you see what drop you got". Option 3 basically makes boss drops into yet another grind, which would make things boring easily if you want a specific drop that is later in the cycle of drops.
 
I think it's clear that I disagree with this thread for a variety of reasons.
In all of your posts thus far, you still haven't explained exactly how this suggestion would make Terraria worse, or even what your playstyle is like.
The only conclusion I can infer is that you're the kind of person who likes rolling dice over and over and gets a thrill out of seeing what number you get each time.

For the other 99% Terraria players out there, the main reason they kill the bosses multiple times is so they can get a particular boss drop / all the boss drops. The secondary reasons are to loot money, and just for the fun of defeating a boss. This suggestion removes the vapidness of the first reason by greatly reducing the expected grinding time (also means you don't have to farm boss summoning items so much), and it does not affect the second or third reasons whatsoever. If you can find fault in the suggestion, it means none of these reasons are applicable to you, in which case I'm dumbfounded as to what kind of fun you have with the game.

If grinding for the sake of grinding is your cup of tea, no one's stopping you from doing it. The boss drops will actually still be random (and in fact will maintain a roughly even distribution over time), no matter if this is your first kill or your 10th. It will have a higher chance of dropping certain drops, but it is nowhere near certain. The only thing this suggestion does is to further minimize the chances of extreme cases happening, which imo makes this an excellent anti-frustration suggestion.

Or are you looking to boast to your friends that you got the same boss drop 4 times in a row, or that you had to defeat the boss x times in order to get the drop you want?

Why don't they just drop a new crafting material to craft these items instead?
The game does that for some of the bosses already. e.g. Shadow Scales / Tissue Samples, Bee Wax, the Souls of Might/Fright/Sight, Hallowed Bars, Beetle Husks, and the Lunar Fragments and Luminite Ore. I like that this is implemented, because it means you have access to the important stuff (such as the Nightmare/Deathbringer Pickaxe, or the Pickaxe Axe/Drax) right after your first boss kill. But I do think this would become unexciting if it were to be implemented for all bosses, because most of the boss drops can be considered "bonuses" i.e. of great help but not technically essential to the game.

In case someone thinks I'm not self-consistent, ppowersteef's suggestion effectively means you can choose what loot drop you want on the very first kill already. Whereas the original suggestion still leaves the first few drops up to chance. I do agree that grinding a bit to get what you want is fun and is, and should be, part of the game. But grinding beyond reasonable effort is not.
 
The game does that for some of the bosses already. e.g. Shadow Scales / Tissue Samples, Bee Wax, the Souls of Might/Fright/Sight, Hallowed Bars, Beetle Husks, and the Lunar Fragments and Luminite Ore. I like that this is implemented, because it means you have access to the important stuff (such as the Nightmare/Deathbringer Pickaxe, or the Pickaxe Axe/Drax) right after your first boss kill. But I do think this would become unexciting if it were to be implemented for all bosses, because most of the boss drops can be considered "bonuses" i.e. of great help but not technically essential to the game.

In case someone thinks I'm not self-consistent, ppowersteef's suggestion effectively means you can choose what loot drop you want on the very first kill already. Whereas the original suggestion still leaves the first few drops up to chance. I do agree that grinding a bit to get what you want is fun and is, and should be, part of the game. But grinding beyond reasonable effort is not.
Well, I didn't meant to do that for all of the loot of course, just only the class-based loot should be craftable.

And if you don't wanna add that to all bosses, then at least for the moon lord, Since sometimes the grind takes forever for something that should be rewarding at the first defeat.
 
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