Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

[Schparks]

Any adventure world that had Hallow as part of the base world, because that's when you can do the building, now has an OP sword in it. If it doesn't matter much to you, I would say the majority of worlds are better off with the old Pearlwood stats. It was still the best wood. There is nothing else in the Hallow that is OP that you can get in a prehardmode world.

What about the Pearlwood sword is OP?

If you start off in a hardmode world, even if it is an adventure map, it still isn't going to do much against a hardmode enemy. The swing speed, range, and even damage isn't going to out-preform a lot of other weapons during that progression period. I can think of pre-hardmode weapons that still outclass it.

 

[Leinfors]

Any adventure world that had Hallow as part of the base world, because that's when you can do the building, now has an OP sword in it. If it doesn't matter much to you, I would say the majority of worlds are better off with the old Pearlwood stats. It was still the best wood. There is nothing else in the Hallow that is OP that you can get in a prehardmode world.

If its that big of a deal I'll just revert it to Ash Wood Sword stats and leave it at that. No fun allowed I suppose.

 

[Schparks]

Aw man...

I really liked the new Pearlwood changes. I always thought the set was supposed to be funny.

 

[Shyguymask]

I don't know if it counts as "balance" in this case, but King Slime being able to spawn naturally inside the underground layer in the Remix/Don't Dig Up seed is very unfair early game. What are you supposed to do when you're in tight tunnels and King Slime spawns & immediately start going after you? You have no space to avoid him. You just get trapped nearly instantly and die. I was exploring the left side of the underground with only a hook & hermes boots as my movement and I just lost 26 gold to lava after King Slime spawned & nearly instantly cornered with a spiked jungle slime.

This seed has its own balance changes and other adjustments specific to it, yet King Slime spawning in the worst & most unfair environment possible to fight a boss is a bad oversight.

 

[OblivionAXiS]

While I do think that nerfing Fledgling Wings' obtainability is good, I think that their current state is a bit sad. I have a couple suggestions to possibly make it a bit more reasonable.
1. A simple increase to its spawn chance. Maybe from 1/40 to 1/10. Also, if it really shouldn't be from the exact same source as Lucky Horseshoes, and I did like Lucky Horseshoes being found in the lower cavern layer, plus sky chests now have the Celestial Magnet, so even if you move the Lucky Horseshoe back to cavern chests they will still have 3 main items.
2. Remove Fledgling Wings from the normal sky island loot pool, but instead add a chance on world generation (maybe 1/2 or 1/3) for one of the sky islands to spawn with a locked gold chest (like in FTW seed or in 1.0), which will always contain Fledgling Wings. This gates Fledgeling Wings behind skeletron unless you get reeally lucky with a surface golden key, or are in drunk world. If you take this route, then Lucky Horseshoe doesn't necessarily need to be removed from the loot pool, although it still could because it means more Shiny Red Balloons and Celestial Magnets to go around, which both have a lot of important tinker combinations.

Edit: Oh, I just thought of something, although it doesn't directly affect my original message. Since Shiny Red Balloons can be obtained by shimmering Balloon Pufferfish, what if Celestial Magnet and Treasure Magnet could be shimmered into one another?

 

[Flubman]

Apparently, grenades hit 2-3 times in multiplayer now. CrabBar knows more about it, so if you need any more information, ask him.

I'm not sure what to do about Phoenix Blaster. I liked it when it was fast. It was fun. Maybe make it a little bit faster than it is now?

 

[Erinit🌳]

Not sure if this got changed, but increase the chance for the rod of discord please.

 

[Dreadnautilus5000🌳]

This might be me, but I feel like the quick stack to chests animation could stand to be slowed down. My eyes have trouble following the items.

I honestly disagree, it feels like it takes way longer to quick stack (I don't know when the items actually get put in the chest) than before 1.4.4. Also, the items seem to linger in front of the chest before they go inside, so you should be able to just immediately look at the chests to tell where the items are going.

 

[ShinyLine]

In the Loadouts topic, could you guys PLEASE add a button to change BETWEEN our Loadouts? I've been playing with a controller on PC and there is simply no comfortable way to change to Loadout 2 and/or 3 without slowly opening the inventory and clicking the actual Loadout icon.

Something like this:

Default: Loadout 1
First press: Loadout 2
Second press: Loadout 3
Third press: Loadout 1, looping back

And maybe with this button you could only change to Loadouts that have any equipment at all, so if I don't have anything in Loadout 3, it just loops between Loadout 1 and 2.

 

[Loki]

This exists on console and mobile, not sure about PC gamepad (just because I never use gamepad on PC and I’m not at my PC to check haha).

It’s just not mapped to a default (yet), but I’m looking to see if we have space - would likely only be added to Advanced Default since the other defaults are intended to be a more classic and simplified approach.

 

[ShinyLine]

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. "Cycle Loadout" doesn't exist on PC yet, as far as I'm concerned. Thanks!

This exists on console and mobile, not sure about PC gamepad (just because I never use gamepad on PC and I’m not at my PC to check haha).

It’s just not mapped to a default (yet), but I’m looking to see if we have space - would likely only be added to Advanced Default since the other defaults are intended to be a more classic and simplified approach.

View attachment 384786

 

[mathbrush]

I started a new Expert Don't Dig Up playthrough for this. I've beaten all PHM bosses and events except Skeletron and WoF so far.

Here are my thoughts:
-Light's bane and Blade of Grass seem well balanced. Both were significant upgrades to what I had before (ice blade -> light's bane -> blade of grass), but not overwhelmingly so. The extra reach that both had (with smaller damage) was really nice; for the Blade of Grass, it made it easier to chip away at Queen Bee but wasn't overpowered at all.
-Shadow armor change was weird mentally at first but now feels pretty nice; melee speed is useless for most melee weapons, let alone other classes
-Frostburn on ice boomerang feels pretty powerful; a lot of times I felt like it was doing most of the damage.
-Magiluminescence is so good. Even after the nerfs it's still awesome.
-OOA cheaper items and more medals is great. I'm a huge fan of OOA but I often got tired of grinding out each tier 5 times to save up for the next one.

-Underworld mimics might be a bit overtuned in this seed; they contain basically surface chest loot but early weapons only do 1 damage. It's kind of funny, and you can just go up higher and get the Underground chests, but I think lowering the defense in this seed only might be good (it may already be lowered, idk, but even lower might be good if this is how to get, say, Aglet).
-Lower-defense desert, less tomb crawler spawns, and lower rolling cactus damage are tuned very nicely; I still died several times, but it feels slightly safer than underground jungle now
-The surface in don't dig up is absolutely insane. Huge swarms of giant monsters. I figured the game was just telling me to stay out until I had killed more bosses. With tinkered Blade of Grass and shadow armor it's manageable, but the worm enemies honestly feel more dangerous than the Eater of Worlds did.
-Flinx fur consistent drop is nice
-NPC's not needing respawn conditions met after death is very nice.

 

[Cazmatism]

I'm going to take this time to emphasize that the Autofire option is an accessibility option. With very few exceptions, balance is NOT being changed to account for it. The game will continue to be balanced around the option being OFF, and outside of those exceptions, I am not going to be adjusting changes in light of the Autofire option setting (which came quite a bit after the balancing portion of the update was done).

Now, I'm still open to discussion on the subject of Musket and Undertaker, but only under a non-autofire premise. Would also point out that I took the base DPS into question, and it is intentionally higher partially to account for defense impacts, so that is going to reflect at least some of the discrepancy there.

Under a non-autofire premise, I still do think that undertaker needs a nerf here. After applying 10 defense, undertaker seems to be still better than musket (~74 dps vs ~66 dps). It takes around 30 defense to equalise the dpses of undertaker and musket, not a value they should be balanced around.

Taking an "equalisation" value of 12 defense, reducing undertaker's damage to 19 makes it exactly equal to musket at dealing dps with musket balls. This dps also seems to be the second closest you can get the guns together by only changing damage values.
For higher defense values, musket will be better
For lower defense values, undertaker will be better

tl;dr: Reduce undertaker damage to 19 to make it equal to musket against enemies with 12 defense

 

[Coolqwerts]

What is the point of even crafting the Trimarang? The amount of effort needed to get it is tedious even if it may be the uncontested best pre boss melee weapon available. It does not necessarily need a change but why go for it if it loses so much relevancy post boss?

As a side note non auto-fire is the standard. If you decide to play the game in its most natural state you turn off auto fire and swing so non-melee weapons(as they don't have a glove counterpart) who may do less damage but have auto fire compared to their high damage non auto fire counterparts can differentiate themselves. The Undertaker probably could use a small nerf but generally speaking its DPS is meant to be slightly higher reflecting the difficulty the crimson brings to the table (with the exception of the bosses where EOW is often considered harder on higher difficulties).

 

[Cazmatism]

What is the point of even crafting the Trimarang? The amount of effort needed to get it is tedious even if it may be the uncontested best pre boss melee weapon available. It does not necessarily need a change but why go for it if it loses so much relevancy post boss?

I am beginning to suspect it might need a KB buff, seems to have issues keeping enemies back sometimes where ice boomerang or shroomerang does not. I have not looked into it well enough though. As of it's obtainance I think it ends up being quite a neat option if you just so happen to come across, say, two of the material boomerangs in a playthrough, though explicitly grinding for it would certainly be painful, so don't think it need changes on that side.

As a side note non auto-fire is the standard. If you decide to play the game in its most natural state you turn off auto fire and swing so non-melee weapons(as they don't have a glove counterpart) who may do less damage but have auto fire compared to their high damage non auto fire counterparts can differentiate themselves. The Undertaker probably could use a small nerf but generally speaking its DPS is meant to be slightly higher reflecting the difficulty the crimson brings to the table (with the exception of the bosses where EOW is often considered harder on higher difficulties).

I find early crimson significantly easier than early corruption to explore, and apparently people seem to agree with that sentiment. I think the entire "crimson slightly harder and slightly better" part comes in hardmode, so it is fair enough to try and equalise them as close as possible. As it stands at the moment though, undertaker dps is just way higher compared to musket, even when I turn autofire off.


Can't put another post here, so I'll just put a new bug I found here:-
(Blade of Grass's razor leaves do not inflict poisoned DoT, only the blade does)

 

[MrD108]

I think I have a nice idea for the balance of the pyramid. Throwing a sandstorm in a shrimmer bottle should turn it into a pharaoh's robe, and throwing a flying carpet there should turn it into a pharaoh's mask. Thanks to this, in Hardmode we will also be able to obtain an outfit, while creating a circle of transformation.

I thought that the Molten skull inflicted hell-fire, while the molten charm gave 7 seconds of lava immunity?

Earlier yes, but now both accessories are created by combining Lava Charm and Obsidian Skull, so they have the same effect.

Two paths to the same destination. Not a problem.

This is the problem, it causes confusion.
1. You might as well remove the Molten Charm now as Magma Skull replaces it in all crafts and has even more of them.
2. We now have a name mismatch here, Lava Charm has replaced Magma Stone so it should be Lava Skull.
3. Really wondering, couldn't you just add a Lava Charm / Molten Charm to the Molten Skull Rose crafting tree instead of replacing the Magma Stone with it? It would then be a really cool fire accessory, and the Magma Stone effect could just fade away after using them to create Lava Waders.

 

[Flubman]

I like most of the changes in this patch. However, I'd like to nitpick a couple of things.

Like a lot of other people, I don't like the Fiery Greatsword name change (The rework to the weapon itself is good, though). I don't think "Volcano" is a bad name for a weapon, but it simply doesn't sound like the name of a sword. How about something like "Volcanic Greatsword" or "Erupting Greatsword"?

I don't like the reduced critter spawn rates in Jungle towns. I realize that frogs were kind of OP, but this change makes the Jungle feel somewhat more empty, which goes against all that 1.4 did to make the world feel alive. Perhaps revert the overall spawn rate change and only make frogs specifically less common?

EDIT: Now that Jungle town critter spawn rates have been reduced, I'm getting a lot more enemies spawning around my town. Is this intentional?

 

[Snickerbobble]

If its that big of a deal I'll just revert it to Ash Wood Sword stats and leave it at that. No fun allowed I suppose.

It would be a bit of a change, but pearlwood equipment could sort of fit into progression if floating islands (or even just some) had hallowed grass and trees. The starfury would beat it of course, but it could potentially have a slight use if an island is found without the starfury. A pre-hardmode hallow could be possible without breaking things, I think?

Could take it a step further and lock Harpy and Wyvern spawns to hallowed grass above a certain altitude, allowing people to build and live in the sky without interference of these mobs.

 

[SorbetCafe]

These were the case last I played but I'm not sure if they were addressed in 1.4.4.2:
-Hellfire treads are obscenely expensive, like 28 gold per reforge despite only taking spectre boots now
-You can't block swap onto the naturally growing plants grown on a planter box, you have to manually break each one and they also quickly regrow, which is really annoying when trying to build a bridge of sand on top of them or something.
The treads should have their price reduced and it'd be a really nice quality of life change to be able to break the background plants like most other background objects (i.e. placing a block on top of it destroys them instead of blocking the placement)

 

[Flubman]

I've seen some people complain about Phoenix Blaster being slower, and honestly, I kind of sympathize. I don't think the weapon is underpowered now, but I do miss being able to fire it rapidly. Maybe increase its speed slightly but not enough to make it OP?