Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

[CellarDoor96]

I'll join those saying Blood Thorn and Cool Whip need a buff badly. For the Blood Thorn it needs an increase in both range and damage, but for the Cool Whip I'd like to see if there's any way to make the snowflake apply tags to enemies instead of damaging them directly. It would let it keep its uniqueness among whips (since it's a minion applying the tag instead of the whip itself) while also letting it synergize with minions as whips are supposed to.

Also I don't know if this could really be counted as a balance change, more like a bug fix, but if you increase the Stardust Dragon's base damage to 67 and change its damage formula from this:

Damage*(1.69+.46*(length-1))

to this:

Damage*(1+.27*(length-1))

then it would make its displayed damage actually match its damage at 1 segment, without changing its actual performance at all. It's just always bothered me that its tooltip never matches its actual damage at any point.

 

[Flubman]

One thing I do want to reiterate here, based on seeing some posts, that reworks/redesigns to how equipment or weapons work is considerably unlikely. This especially includes adding new items entirely.

Unless it is calling upon basic functionality that exists elsewhere (Adding a debuff immunity to an armor or something), we are unlikely to see fundamental redesigns or new mechanics for weapons. Direct stat changes (either changing the number, or changing the stats affected) are the simplest and most likely changes I will be able to be making.

Would you be open to changing the stats of mounts/accessories?

 

[J Bame]

I wonder why summon weapons can't make critical strike... If they can, it might be a good idea for whips to bonus minion's crit rate.

Minions being unable to crit was caused by a coding limitation back in 1.2, when there were literally 3 minions in the entire game so it wasnt really worth fixing.

As the class got more and more new content with time, this limitation was never fixed and now summoner is balanced around not having natural crits and instead relying on hardcoded stuff like Crit Whip Tags and Monk armor's set bonus

Making them crit now would be a global DPS buff to all summon staves in the game, the majority of which they don't need, and a change that would require a rebalance to all summoner gear throughout the entire game to include natural crit change, one that is completely unnecessary because Summoner's problem was never the inability to deal critical hits and the class works just fine as is.

6. Lava Fishing: I see no real gameplay reason to make it so slow. Sure, it makes sense that you would find less fish in lava than you would in water, but this is yet another contributor to just how grindy getting the Terraspark Boots can get. Also, nothing you can get from lava fishing is outright overpowered, so this isn't really a balancing concern. I say make the lava fishing catch rate similar to that of fishing in water. This would make a major feature touted for 1.4 a lot more user-friendly without breaking anything.

Lava fishing is slow because it has the best loot pool of any fishing spot in the game.

Fishing in normal water is much faster but a lot of your catches are Bass and other low tier catches, while most of your catches in lava are Obsidifish (material for the best QoL potion in the game), Obsidian Crates (better than the average crate) and Flarefin Koi (which is basically half a Seafood dinner because Inferno potion is pretty useless)

9. Pirate: The Pirate is a notoriously useless NPC in Terraria. To give him a use, perhaps allow him to sell the Gold Ring? I know that seems like a big change, but at least it'd give him something worth buying without being very game-breaking. Also, maybe you have him sell explosive bunnies again? I know he used to do that, but maybe that's too broken given how powerful they are now.

One interesting idea would be to turn the Pirate Set he sells from a Vanity set to a Whip based armor set, much like what was done to Obsidian. Once the latter inevitably gets a big nerf, a pirate whip set will still leave us with a viable Whip armor in hardmode.

This probably wont happen but one can dream or play TRAE where I made this change

I'll join those saying Blood Thorn and Cool Whip need a buff badly. For the Blood Thorn it needs an increase in both range and damage, but for the Cool Whip I'd like to see if there's any way to make the snowflake apply tags to enemies instead of damaging them directly.

A range buff for blood thorn won't really do anything unless it's so ridiculous that it covers the screen; its range against enemies is fine and its attack style prevents it from hitting aerial enemies reliably. Something that'd go a long way is a noticeable lifespan increase to the Thorns, you'd be able to cast them to stunlock grounded enemies and deal constant damage to them. Combine this with a removal of its damage falloff and Blood Thorn becomes a much better weapon.

Cool Whip can get a boring but practical solution: a tag damage bonus of its own. Literally everyone's problem with it is that its On-hit effect doesn't buff minions in any way, and this fixes that problem. Also works as a compensation buff to Blade Staff once it gets its AP bug fixed.

 

[Flubman]

Lava fishing is slow because it has the best loot pool of any fishing spot in the game.

Fishing in normal water is much faster but a lot of your catches are Bass and other low tier catches, while most of your catches in lava are Obsidifish (material for the best QoL potion in the game), Obsidian Crates (better than the average crate) and Flarefin Koi (which is basically half a Seafood dinner because Inferno potion is pretty useless)

Fair point. What do you think of my Lava Charm suggestion (making it a 10%-15% chance)?

 

[Lynxical]

A range buff for blood thorn won't really do anything unless it's so ridiculous that it covers the screen; its range against enemies is fine and its attack style prevents it from hitting aerial enemies reliably. Something that'd go a long way is a noticeable lifespan increase to the Thorns, you'd be able to cast them to stunlock grounded enemies and deal constant damage to them. Combine this with a removal of its damage falloff and Blood Thorn becomes a much better weapon

I forgot this weapon existed, but yeah it’s pretty bad, I agree with this change, it would make it way better because it just doesn’t do anything, which is sad because it’s such a sick weapon

 

[Flubman]

I think that the Voodoo Demon should be detectable by the Lifeform Analyzer because it's an uncommon enemy that's necessary for progression.

EDIT: I also think that the Strange Plant nerf was entirely unnecessary. It devalues the Dye Trader without helping the game's balance at all. The obvious solution is to make it so that Strange Plants grow in a world throughout the entire game.

 

[GoldenTerrabyte]

I think that the Voodoo Demon should be detectable by the Lifeform Analyzer because it's an uncommon enemy that's necessary for progression.

EDIT: I also think that the Strange Plant nerf was entirely unnecessary. It devalues the Dye Trader without helping the game's balance at all. The obvious solution is to make it so that Strange Plants grow in a world throughout the entire game.

I agree to this, especially since the rewards are purely cosmetic. I once heard people say that the reason for the change was because the dyes sold for too much to be balanced for the early game, but if that's the case, why not just lower the selling price and bring them back to pre-Hardmode?

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

I know that this isn't specifically related to balance, but I'd really appreciate this nonetheless.

I think the Metal Detector and Lifeform Analyzer's priority lists should be looked at, because currently there are cases where it thinks something is more valuable/rare than it actually is. With the Metal Detector, it's only really an issue with Life Crystals. You're bound to have 400 health by the time you're in Hardmode, so there's no reason for them to be prioritized over Hardmode ore. I'd move them down to be in-between Chests and Cobalt. Also, while this is less of an issue, Strange Plants could also be moved down, since they are less important than Hardmode ores.

The Lifeform Analyzer has a few cases where it considers certain somewhat common enemies to be rarer than much more important enemies. I suggest that the ranger Dungeon enemies (Skeleton Sniper, Tactical Skeleton, and Skeleton Commando) be moved down to 1 rarity (if you don't understand what I mean look at the wiki page for Lifeform Analyzer), and Bone Lee and Paladin be moved up to 2 rarity. The three dye beetles (Lac Beetle, Cochineal Beetle, and Cyan Beetle) should have a rarity of 1 instead of 2, and certain other underground enemies should have 2 rarity instead of 1, like the Lost Girl. Also is Tim truly twice as rare as Rune Wizard?

 

[Shyguymask]

The whip is too "dominant". I can't see the cooperation between whips and summoned minions. Of course I'm not saying this to cripple the whips, instead, I want to see more powerful summoned minions effected by whips. Compared to whips, they are too weak now.

An important reason of the "OP" situation, is that, buffs gained by the previous whip still work after switching to another whip. Player can make extremely high damage by quickly switching between whips (the Snapthorn or Durendal, with other whips, like the Firecracker). This seems to be a flaw. Whips should bonus summoned minions for the most part, not just bonus themselves (even other melee weapons, that's terrible). After all, summoner is the summoner, not the whipper, right? I saw many players play as a summoner but only use whips, just because they'er much more powerful. That's missing the purpose.

This is wildly inaccurate.

Attack speed for whip DPS is only one of the reasons to whip stack, and it rarely is the MAIN reason. Whip stacking is most often used to stack Summon Tag damage to make the minions themselves more powerful. Some minions like Blade Staff relies mostly if not entirely on cooperation/synergy with Whips to deliver competitive DPS compared to other options. Even the Firecracker's damage output depends entirely on the minion's base damage. And hell, the reason people whip stack Firecracker with Durendal for speed is not for Firecracker's own DPS, but to proc the 2.75x tag effect much more often, which again happens from the cooperation with the minion you're using.

Morning Star and Cool Whip are example of whips have weak or zero synergy with minions, and they just so happen to be the two most unviable whips alongside the starter Leather Whip. Hell, even Dark Harvest, a semi-valid example you could have used but didn't, has the Dark Energy effect being useful in a handful of situation when coupled with fast attacking minions.

The reason Summoner in general easily achieves high DPS is exactly because of the minion-whip synergy being very effective. Use Obsidian armor without minions and your damage output will drop significantly in Pre-Harmode, and take a nosedive in Hardmode. Use Sanguine Staff with a glass cannon Spider Armor set with no whips or other weapons, and your DPS will still be mediocre at best.

later-stage armors should also have chance to enhance whips (like the spider, the forbidden, the sallowed, etc.)

Summoner even without Obsidian armor is strong enough at it is and does not need major buffs like this to its Hardmode armors. Hallowed Armor Summoner is already one of the best armor sets in the whole game including for "Mixed" playstyles.

 

[FalconO5🌳]

A couple of suggestions:

I think the archery potion should have its damage increase reduced from 20% to 10%, it's way too good of a bonus for how early you can get it and how easy it is to get, and comes with an already useful velocity increase

I don't know if this is as simple as changing the use style and some lines of ai code or completely reworking its ai and damage stats, but if it is simple enough, it would be nice if flairon worked like a 1.4 flail, since its sprite suggests being a normal flail rather than a launched one and there isn't any post-golem normal flail currently.

 

[Leinfors]

This thread has picked up pretty fast, faster than I expected. I was planning to try and respond to almost everything, but I see I won't be able to do that.

I'll probably hand pick things to respond to moving forward, given my time constraints. Things I find particularly interesting/likely, or things I probably won't be able to do but want to comment on. I will still read every single post, of course.

 

[NeoPhantom]

This thread has picked up pretty fast, faster than I expected. I was planning to try and respond to almost everything, but I see I won't be able to do that.

I'll probably hand pick things to respond to moving forward, given my time constraints. Things I find particularly interesting/likely, or things I probably won't be able to do but want to comment on. I will still read every single post, of course.

Do as you can and want, dont overstretch beyond your limits. Especially on limited time.

 

[J Bame]

I think we can all agree that True melee swords in Hardmode need a buff.

Leinfors has repeatedly said that if one of these swords gets a buff, then ALL others would fall behind, so all the swords would have to be buffed at once. This means that significant buffs to these swords are unlikely, as the number crunching alone would take a solid amount of time.

That said... i took the time to compile almost all Hardmode broadswords and propose stat buffs to all of them. With these buffs all these swords should at least become usable.

Note that some of these are a little more drastic than others I may have proposed doubled DPS for a pair of them

 

[GoldenTerrabyte]

This may be out of the scope of what you can do, but I think it's a very good idea for QoL, so I wanna hear what people think.

I propose a little change to the functionality of the Void Bag. It would be awesome if, when you put something in your Void Bag, then picking up more of that item prioritizes putting it into the Bag, even if you have space in your inventory.
i.e. Put a dirt block in the Void Bag, and dirt will go into the bag before your inventory.
This would help the item fill its purpose even more effectively, by allowing you to keep your main inventory clean even easier.

I understand if this is too far outside the scope of what you can do for this patch, but I thought I'd put this one out there.

 

[MrD108]

I will still read every single post, of course.

In this case, it is better to edit old posts with new ideas or create new posts?

 

[NeoPhantom]

In this case, it is better to edit old posts with new ideas or create new posts?

I dont think editing is a good idea, we cant expect him to go through every page in this place of the off chance someone edited a post somewhere every time he wants to checks the comments… that’s just unnecessarily tedius.

 

[Leinfors]

<Extensive post on Whips>

There are only a few specific recommendations here, but they are mostly pretty reasonable. Leather Whip price adjust, I'm already looking at.

Morning Star and Cool Whip are on my list to evaluate.

<Paintings>

Definitely a lot to say here I'm interested about. I'll follow up on a few options and see what might work. Renewable/accessible paintings is something I care about.

Endless Musket Pouch & Endless Quiver
* Now can be used as an alternative to Musket Balls & Wooden Arrows in recipes (i.e. Holy Arrows requires 200 Wooden Arrows, 3 Pixie Dust, and 1 Unicorn Horn, but can now also be crafted with Endless Quiver, 3 Pixie Dust, and 1 Unicorn Horn (The quiver is not consumed of course)).
Now we don't have to buy extra standard ammo to craft other ammos.

I don't know how mechanically plausible this is, but I really like the idea. I'm interested in looking into it.

Would you be open to changing the stats of mounts/accessories?

Certainly.

In this case, it is better to edit old posts with new ideas or create new posts?

I receive no notifications if you substantially overhaul/add new content to an old post, so I may easily miss that. New posts (with a link to an old post if relevant) is great for me!



I've read all of the posts in detail, even if I did not respond to them. I've collected a list of things I'm currently looking at, and will be continuing to review, process, and refine my considerations over the coming weeks.

 

[MrD108]

I receive no notifications if you substantially overhaul/add new content to an old post, so I may easily miss that. New posts (with a link to an old post if relevant) is great for me!

Then I will quote my second post, which I have edited several times.

#12 Putrid Scent - the 5% bonus to damage and the chance of a critical hit should be transferred to accessories made of it. The aggro-diminishing bonus is useless in single-player, and 5% isn't enough to spoil the balance, but makes it more profitable.

#13 Umbrella and Tragic Umbrella - as they are umbrellas, they should neutralize the damage taken by Angry Nimbus.

#14 Leather Whip - The first whip in the game, but it costs quite a lot for an early weapon, which is why many players prefer to go and get the Snapthorn early. I suggest changing the price from 15 to 10 gold coins.

#15 Phasesaber and Phaseblade - they are weak and it cannot be hidden. I propose adding a unique feature, which is deflecting projectiles, or at least deflecting laser projectiles.

#16 Spears - Could have a new right-click attack of spinning the spear around the player, similar to flails, but the spear would spin slower and have two ends (one could deal more damage than the other).

 

[CellarDoor96]

Since I mentioned Moon Lord before and I've seen some discussion of Deerclops, I figured I would touch on a few other bosses/minibosses that might need some tweaks.

Golem: It's a meme at this point how easy he is, but it's less clear how he could be fixed. I know that in FTW worlds he's actually really hard, mainly due to how quickly he attacks and moves, so siphoning a little of that magic into his regular fight could go a long way. I also think it would help a lot if his fists didn't retract when they take damage. Either of these changes would help a lot more than just a damage or health buff.

Lunatic Cultist: He's my personal favorite boss, but he's also really easy. Similarly to Golem, it would help a lot if his attack cycle were sped up, and his attacks could also stand to be a bit more spammy with their projectiles if possible. Also, I've suggested elsewhere that Gravity Globe be moved to the Cultist and his treasure bag made available, so I'll just throw that in again.

Solar Pillar: It feels weird that it's so much harder than all the other pillars. Part of it is that its mechanics are designed to force you to fight in a way that's antithesis to how you're used to fighting at this stage of the game, but then its enemies don't really need to deal as much damage as they do. I'd recommend either reducing the damage of its enemies by around 10-20%, or reducing its enemy spawn rate.

Hemogoblin Shark and Dreadnautilus: They're a lot harder than they feel like they should be for their place in progression. I'd recommend just an across the board damage/health/defense nerf for both of them of about 10%, and Hemo Shark should also take a little more knockback.

 

[Flubman]

A minor tweak:

Why not make it so that all the vanity minecarts are somewhat faster than the regular minecart? It would give the concept of a vanity cart purpose that isn't aesthetics. How about we keep the current top speed of 66 mph for the regular minecart but increase the speed of vanity minecarts to, say, 72 mph?