Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

[Zenithmaker]

With 1.4.4.9's release just a few minutes ago, I feel that the balance iteration period of this update is over. As always, perfection is an impossible goal, but there is always room to continue striving for better. However, it will not be in the form of further 1.4.4 hotfixes.

I'll be leaving the thread open for a couple more days just to let any final thoughts settle, and then will close the thread again (I do not know if it will be re-opened for 1.4.5).

It's weird that xeno staff was nerfed. I agree that the staff is strong, but it is too difficult to get. You need to kill Martian invasion 2-3 times to get the staff, which makes many ignores it. Kill the lunatic cultist and get the stardust dragon is easier, and the weapon is better.
In my opinion,May1be the xeno staff should be nerfed, but as a compensation, it's drop rate should be increased. I have 2 ideas.
1. Let the martian saucer drop 2 different items like the moonlord.
2.Make the car key a independent drops, and let xenopooper drop from the normal enemy like the charged blaster cannon. this will make the weapon drop rate from 16.67% to 25%, and It's drops correspond to 4 class.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

Night's Edge got the deserved nerfs, but I don't think the current direction is the best. NE now has significantly lower DPS(96) than its ingredients, Muramasa(120) and Volcano(105). While NE is still a better weapon overall due to its superior range and coverage, it doesn't feel right that we must 'consume' the better DPS options to make one.

I think it's fine because horizontal progression is good. If you truly want to keep using Muramasa for its higher theoretical DPS on trash monsters, then you can just make a NE while having a second Muramasa sitting around. Also, frankly, as it stands, having Volcano be revamped into the cool weapon it became only for it to only really serve as an equalizing tool while sequence breaking in super-high difficulty levels because you mulch it into NE feels bad.

At that stage of the game, getting such a powerfully consistent and safe weapon should have a drawback, and I for one am more than happy to take a damage loss for the sake of having a weapon with such consistent performance. I need to do another solo playthrough now that NE was nerfed (I had used it once I got my first Muramasa, but stopped using it mid-Wall attempts due to announcements that it would be adjusted) but it felt like the weapon was playing the game for me.

 

[Flubman]

In hindsight, I feel like Lucy's tool speed should've been buffed to make the drop useful, but it's no big deal.

 

[Corpsey]

Is there some reason we can't craft Metal Shelf (or other shelves)? It would be nice to be able to craft them from iron/lead instead of having to create an entire new map and pillage dungeons for them. I was short TWO of these and in a multiplayer game with no way to get more to complete a design I had going without having to open an entirely new map.

 

[scientistB]

Oh, ow... 'Tis unfortunate to see some solid summon weapons get tuned down. I don't really have anything to say to it that wouldn't sound knee-jerk. But on the silver lining, Xenos are still more reliable and "long-ranged" than they used to be, despite the lower DPS. And Morning Star is faster than before, so it can still be used as reliable self-defense. And I think the tag crit values can be stacked with Kaleidoscope.
Appreciate the hard work as always.

 

[Leinfors]

Is there some reason we can't craft Metal Shelf (or other shelves)? It would be nice to be able to craft them from iron/lead instead of having to create an entire new map and pillage dungeons for them. I was short TWO of these and in a multiplayer game with no way to get more to complete a design I had going without having to open an entirely new map.

Added in 1.4.4.

 

[Corpsey]

Added in 1.4.4.

Ah.. recipe wasn't on the first community wiki link I clicked. Why does it need bone welder and ecto mist though? Perhaps I understand why dungeon shelf would be, but for the others it'd be more intuitive to make them without. Anyways, not a problem anymore.. friend and I finished the thing and just hacked the shelves in.

Spoiler

 

[SpiderOnTheWall]

Before this thread closes, i want to share some last thoughts.
Melee: Breaker Blade: I feel like this weapon is slightly too strong now for what it is. Maybe reduce its damage a bit (from 70-->68). So its breaker effect isnt too crazy.
True Excalibur: Feels a bit weak. For going close and beserk you should be able to do a bit more damage (from 72-->75
Terra Blade: The nerf was good but i think it needs some slight number change (damage from 85-->83). It's not too hard to get and surpasses a lot of later tier swords.
Horsemans Blade: I find it's damage increase to be a bit to high. Maybe dial it back a bit (damage from 150-->146). From True excalibur to this it's not too far. The jump feels a bit too far, especially since u get pumpkin heads who target enemies.
Ranged: Shimmer Arrows: For being transmutable from Wooden Arrows i believe these arrows are bit to big of a damage increase for that early on. Maybe make them not transmutable from Wooden arrows or they should be nerfed (smth. Like damage from 12-10)
Summoning: Spinal tap: It's the first whip in progression to have a multihit penalty of only 10%. Even durendal has 20%. I feel thats a bit inconsistent. (Multihit penalty from 10% --> 20%)
Accessories: Sandstorm in Bottle (and therefore the part of the sandstorm in its tinkers): It's way more obtainable now and therefore should be nerfed a bit(jump height from 20-18). Its by far the best Bottle variant.
Banners: Reduce the kill requirement of wyverns from 50 to 25. They are relatively uncommon so that would fit in my opinion.
Shimmer transmutables: Hel-Fire yoyo into cascade yoyo. The cascade can only be obtained pre-hardmode. Would be kinda nice to get it in hardmode for collecting if you didnt get one in pre-hardmode.
Debuffs: Betsy's Curse: I consider this an upgrade to ichor and its even more than double the effectiveness of ichor. I think it's defense reduction should be lowered from 40 to 30. Thats double of ichor. That would be way more consistent. Thats still 45 defense reduction with ichor and betsy's curse together, which is still kinda crazy.
I wrote this on phone, so i hope it doesnt clutter this thread.

 

[Shivan]

About the Legendary seed, i think you need to make sure the player has some access to the furnace somehow because in my seed i had the snow biome right over the starting point, and it took me like 3-4 hours of constanly dying to find stone to be able to craft the furnace. Maybe add the furnace to the merchant on that seed or make another furnace that can be crafted out of crispy honey blocks and wood.

I like the 1.4.4 buff to the Pearlwood Sword i think this gives players starting in hardmode a weapon that can do something, instead of being a useless item, i think its the equivalent to going to the desert biome on pre-hardmode to get the Cactus stuff. With that in mind, i think the Pearlwood Armor should be also be buffed, maybe make it the equivalent to the Shadow Armor with the only difference of only buffing mele crit chance as it would be intended to be used along the sword. That would make hallow the hardmode equivalent of the desert biome to get initial combat stuff.

 

[ShinyLine]

Melee: Breaker Blade: (from 70-->68).

True Excalibur: (from 72-->75).

Terra Blade: (damage from 85-->83).

Horsemans Blade: (damage from 150-->146).

These numbers are so insanely low (2-3) that they will not make any difference at all.

Ranged: Shimmer Arrows: For being transmutable from Wooden Arrows i believe these arrows are bit to big of a damage increase for that early on. Maybe make them not transmutable from Wooden arrows or they should be nerfed (smth. Like damage from 12-10)

Consider you need to find the Aether Biome in the first place. Maybe their damage could be nerfed, yeah.

Summoning: Spinal tap: It's the first whip in progression to have a multihit penalty of only 10%. Even durendal has 20%. I feel thats a bit inconsistent. (Multihit penalty from 10% --> 20%)

B R U H .

The Spinal Tap was specifically made to BE good against multiple targets in Pre-Hardmode, mainly to have a good Whip against the Wall Of Flesh. (Hitting The Hungries AND the Wall itself quickly goes up to +8 targets easily.)


Nerfing it like that would be extremely insane. It's fine as it is.

Accessories: Sandstorm in Bottle (and therefore the part of the sandstorm in its tinkers): It's way more obtainable now and therefore should be nerfed a bit(jump height from 20-18). Its by far the best Bottle variant.

It doesn't make sense to nerf something just because it is more obtainable. You still need to have a Pyramid in the first place, and if you don't or it has a Magic Carpet, you'll have to fish for it. No change needed.

Banners: Reduce the kill requirement of wyverns from 50 to 25. They are relatively uncommon so that would fit in my opinion.

Shimmer transmutables: Hel-Fire yoyo into cascade yoyo.

Ok, these are good ones.

Debuffs: Betsy's Curse: I consider this an upgrade to ichor and its even more than double the effectiveness of ichor. I think it's defense reduction should be lowered from 40 to 30. Thats double of ichor. That would be way more consistent. Thats still 45 defense reduction with ichor and betsy's curse together, which is still kinda crazy.

Consider Betsy's Curse is a magic-exclusive Post-GOLEM debuff. At that point, most enemies have nearly or even more than 40 Defense. Innecessary nerf.

 

[scientistB]

About the Legendary seed, i think you need to make sure the player has some access to the furnace somehow because in my seed i had the snow biome right over the starting point, and it took me like 3-4 hours of constanly dying to find stone to be able to craft the furnace. Maybe add the furnace to the merchant on that seed or make another furnace that can be crafted out of crispy honey blocks and wood.

I like the 1.4.4 buff to the Pearlwood Sword i think this gives players starting in hardmode a weapon that can do something, instead of being a useless item, i think its the equivalent to going to the desert biome on pre-hardmode to get the Cactus stuff. With that in mind, i think the Pearlwood Armor should be also be buffed, maybe make it the equivalent to the Shadow Armor with the only difference of only buffing mele crit chance as it would be intended to be used along the sword. That would make hallow the hardmode equivalent of the desert biome to get initial combat stuff.

You can already buy the furnace from the Merchant in that seed due to Not The Bees.

 

[J Bame]

Summoning: Spinal tap: It's the first whip in progression to have a multihit penalty of only 10%. Even durendal has 20%. I feel thats a bit inconsistent. (Multihit penalty from 10% --> 20%)

That's the gimmick of the whip, it's stated in its tooltip.

 

[Shivan]

You can already buy the furnace from the Merchant in that seed due to Not The Bees.

no, you can buy the anvil but not the furnace.

 

[chewythebigblackdog]

no, you can buy the anvil but not the furnace.

You can buy the furnace in both seeds. It's not even a seed exclusive thing, merchant will always sell furnace for 3 silver when in the jungle.

 

[khs8157]

I think it's fine because horizontal progression is good. If you truly want to keep using Muramasa for its higher theoretical DPS on trash monsters, then you can just make a NE while having a second Muramasa sitting around. Also, frankly, as it stands, having Volcano be revamped into the cool weapon it became only for it to only really serve as an equalizing tool while sequence breaking in super-high difficulty levels because you mulch it into NE feels bad.

At that stage of the game, getting such a powerfully consistent and safe weapon should have a drawback, and I for one am more than happy to take a damage loss for the sake of having a weapon with such consistent performance. I need to do another solo playthrough now that NE was nerfed (I had used it once I got my first Muramasa, but stopped using it mid-Wall attempts due to announcements that it would be adjusted) but it felt like the weapon was playing the game for me.

I think horizontal progression logic does not apply to Muramasa -> NE since one is an ingredient of the other. From my view, NE is intended to be the king of all pre-HM swords, and I don't think it should be weaker than its ingredients when used as a sword (i.e. attacking with the blade itself). After the nerfs, I was a bit disappointed by the DPS of NE when I upgraded it from Muramasa.

I suggested reverting the nerfs on damage and use time and nerfing the damage of the secondary projectiles (extended aura) to 67% of the base damage. I think it is a more direct and reasonable solution to NE's problem in 1.4.4 since NE's only problem was the secondary projectile.
NE's stats pre-nerfs were exactly the same as in 1.4.3 and it was underperforming to the point that it needed a buff. The primary projectile (aura around the blade) is a mere small extension of the blade and isn't so significant (judging by the fact that size buffs on many broadswords had little effect on their performance). The secondary projectile (additional swing of the aura) is what caused NE to be so OP since it greatly enhances the reach and it always swings toward the cursor, allowing you to attack enemies below you. (I personally think that the main flaw of broadswords is that it is impossible to attack from the above. Rather than changing its stats, reworking the broadswords to swing in the exact direction of the cursor would make them much more viable.)
33% is a bigger DPS nerf on the secondary projectile than the current 20% nerf, but I think NE will still be strong enough. (if it turns out to be too much then 25% nerf would be fine, or 33% + reverting pierce count/range nerfs..) On the other side, it rewards you for being closer to the enemy, as a melee weapon should, making a distinction with whips which do sort of a similar job. In other words, there will be a drawback if you decide to use NE as a safe and consistent melee option, but it also has the option to be a powerful and unsafe option. Also, I personally find melee weapons with faster attack speeds much more satisfying to use.

 

[mathbrush]

I've been playing through the getfixedboi seed on master mode (and doing pretty bad) and I wonder if damage scaling is off a bit for Deerclops. I had been fighting Eater of Worlds and Brain of Cthulhu with molten armor, bast statue, all the potions, etc. and dying over and over, losing 25% of HP per hit, it felt like.

With Deerclops, I only used iron skin and warmth, with around 59 total defense, and he was barely doing any damage. I'm sure it was due to my setup and the warmth potion, but it was so much easier than the other two fights that I wonder if there was some mistake (like forgetting to increase damage for legendary).

I'm fine if you leave it in; I suspect most people don't use warmth potion and it's nice to have at least one boss that isn't horrifyingly hard in this mode. Just reporting for reporting's sake.

Edit: Also, I was surprised in all my expert playthroughs that spiked jungle slimes now shoot a single stinger like a hornet from far across the room, in addition to their usual spread. In legendary mode, I'm not seeing it. Was it a change intended for legendary mode that got put in backwards instead? Or do all spiked jungle slimes always have the ability to shoot stingers from far away and I just never noticed it?

 

[Shyguymask]

Debuffs: Betsy's Curse: I consider this an upgrade to ichor and its even more than double the effectiveness of ichor. I think it's defense reduction should be lowered from 40 to 30. Thats double of ichor. That would be way more consistent. Thats still 45 defense reduction with ichor and betsy's curse together, which is still kinda crazy.

Betsy's Curse is a hard to obtain weapon from deep into Post-Golem, while Ichor is from Pre-Mech & very easily obtainable. it's supposed to be much stronger than Ichor and you provided no arguments as to why it's overpowered or otherwise problematic.

 

[Shivan]

You can buy the furnace in both seeds. It's not even a seed exclusive thing, merchant will always sell furnace for 3 silver when in the jungle.

NO, i did try that, first off the NPC happiness system is disabled so im not sure if that would even work or how the player would even know that whiout reading the wiki, what already tells you something is wrong if you need to read the wiki.

I didnt have underground jungle, i had underground mushroom biome with snow on top of it... i did dig to the left and the right, to the left i had desert, to the right eventually found stone AFTER LIKE 4 HOURS AND 100 DEADS, using the starting pickaxe whiout me being able to do much since i could not craft anything due to the lack of stone. Thats a flaw in the seed design, pure and simple.

And in case you ask, yes i did set up the merchant in the underground mushroom biome, and it didnt have the forge.

 

[Golden Heretic Snakeboat]

Or do all spiked jungle slimes always have the ability to shoot stingers from far away and I just never noticed it?

They have the ability to fire distance stingers on all difficulties, the spread stingers are expert exclusive

 

[Mille Marteaux]

NO, i did try that, first off the NPC happiness system is disabled so im not sure if that would even work or how the player would even know that whiout reading the wiki, what already tells you something is wrong if you need to read the wiki.

In fairness, I don't think it's a very far stretch for a player to regularly check the wiki when playing on a secret world generation mode that you would only know about how to trigger if you knew about the wiki or had friends who told you about how to get to it, usually through the wiki