Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

[Heroman3003]

But if only the biome torches did it, then pre-existing worlds wouldn’t get screwed over and only the ice, cursed, and ichor torches would be affected.

What about using torches in simple construction? Now I cant use jungle torches in my Snow Biome housing, or Ice torches in my Hallow housing without getting my luck screwed with. Light sources, for years, have been decorative with few exceptions being completely explicit about their abilities (such as water candle or heart lantern). Torches? No. They are basic light source and demanding I not use themed ones in wrong biome is wrong. Make some new item maybe that when put in right conditions boosts your luck or something. But dont ruin existing torches.

 

[Dapling]

I think it would be better if the luck effects were put on campfires instead of torches. Mention luck effects in the buff description and players have a way to know about the effect. There are campfires for every type of torch and campfires are often specifically places when the player wants to farm something, so all players have to do is place the right one.
That way it's much harder for players who are unaware of this to screw themselves royally when farming.

That could work too. Though many campfires don’t have alignment... wait.
How exactly do bone, gem, demon, and ultrabright torches affect luck?

 

[Dapling]

What about using torches in simple construction? Now I cant use jungle torches in my Snow Biome housing, or Ice torches in my Hallow housing without getting my luck screwed with. Light sources, for years, have been decorative with few exceptions being completely explicit about their abilities (such as water candle or heart lantern). Torches? No. They are basic light source and demanding I not use themed ones in wrong biome is wrong. Make some new item maybe that when put in right conditions boosts your luck or something. But dont ruin existing torches.

Housing blocks enemy spawns, which is what’s most important about luck anyway.

 

[DestroyerOfTheDestroyer]

I think it would be better if the luck effects were put on campfires instead of torches. Mention luck effects in the buff description and players have a way to know about the effect. There are campfires for every type of torch and campfires are often specifically places when the player wants to farm something, so all players have to do is place the right one.
That way it's much harder for players who are unaware of this to screw themselves royally when farming.

This is the way. YES. People don't place campfires for light most of the time, they place them for buffs, and buffs specifically. In the cases where they're placing them for aesthetics, they tend to match the biome they're in, because... well, they match, and it looks good. Adding a luck mechanic to campfires would thus be entirely in line with their existing purpose and not screw people over very often at all.

 

[GoldenTerrabyte]

This is the way. YES. People don't place campfires for light most of the time, they place them for buffs, and buffs specifically. In the cases where they're placing them for aesthetics, they tend to match the biome they're in, because... well, they match, and it looks good. Adding a luck mechanic to campfires would thus be entirely in line with their existing purpose and not screw people over very often at all.

With that in mind, how about this, in addition to all that?
Placing a campfire for a certain biome in an NPC's home can increase their happiness, if it's for their preferred biome.
i.e. The Dryad prefers the Jungle. Let's say that, for whatever reason, the player needs the Dryad somewhere else. A Jungle campfire in her house can increase her happiness, while allowing more freedom in where to keep her.

 

[Heroman3003]

With that in mind, how about this, in addition to all that?
Placing a campfire for a certain biome in an NPC's home can increase their happiness, if it's for their preferred biome.
i.e. The Dryad prefers the Jungle. Let's say that, for whatever reason, the player needs the Dryad somewhere else. A Jungle campfire in her house can increase her happiness, while allowing more freedom in where to keep her.

Indoor campfires seem extremely dumb from aesthetic standpoint though.

 

[The Storm]

I feel that fossil armour should've remained post-EoW/BoC and shouldn't have been nerfed so much. Since the underground desert was made much more difficult it's much more dangerous to get this armour, and it's objectively worse than the Ninja armour.

I do like the idea of luck, but the current way it's implemented is terrible, regular torches should not reduce your luck, and there's also no indication anywhere that they do in the first place. I also feel that if you place a correct torch in the right biome you should have some kind of luck buff or anything that indicates your luck has increased. Also what about all those old worlds that are full of regular torches? Is it really fair to make the game less fair to them without them having any idea why?

Indoor campfires seem extremely dumb from aesthetic standpoint though.

It would be better if they were simply within a certain number of tiles away from their house.

 

[GoldenTerrabyte]

Indoor campfires seem extremely dumb from aesthetic standpoint though.

It's possible a new item of some kind could be implemented, if this is a problem. I just think more options to increase happiness would do a lot for people who have problems with the system. I still definitely think the idea is a good one. Something like "place an object to remind them of their preferred biome" seems like a good compromise.

 

[11clock]

This has been an issue since 1.2, so I feel that it needs to be brought to light.

Evil biomes can permanently destroy the jungle biome, which is a required biome for progression. If an evil biome spawns near or on top of your jungle, it’s a race against the clock to get to the hardmode jungle before it is destroyed. Chlorophyte repels evil biomes, but that isn’t enough of a defense, given that one of my playthroughs ended up with a huge corruption hole in the middle of the jungle by the time I reached it (was probably an unlucky random spread from breaking altars).

Asking for a corrupted jungle is a bit much for this stage of the game’s lifecycle, so my request is to simply disable the “drying up” effect that evil biomes have on mud. This would give jungle and mushroom biomes complete immunity to the corruption, and thus the player won’t be pressured to get to the jungle content as fast as possible. They will still have to worry about other areas of the world that they care about, but it’s much easier to stave off evil biomes in those areas since you can just throw holy water everywhere to revert it.

 

[Heroman3003]

Good alternative solution to the "jungle gets rekt" problem would be a dark green solution for clentaminator that can transform dirt into mud (same way red/purple/blue solutions turn mud into dirt) and spreads jungle (with green solution no longer spreading jungle). That way there's no need for too many new mechanics, but you can if not save, then at least restore the jungle without too much pain.

 

[RavenMagus]

Hello!

Love the changes so far, but there is one negative change that greatly stands out to me, and that's in relation to the new Graveyard biome.

The new biome is a cool addition, but it simply spawns way too easily, dominating any other nearby biome. In particular, the biome is created way too quickly from tombstones spawned by player death.

I play on a server with 5-6 friends or so. If a few of us die in one spot, the screen already starts to turn grey. If we have a teamwipe on a boss, suddenly there's a graveyard biome right in the middle of wherever we were, spawning new enemies and making it harder to see things. If there's a tough fight right around town - most notably when we had an early Blood Moon - then we quickly have the darkened screen and mist obscuring things.

Previously, player tombstones were a neat memoir of battles past. Now they are an annoyance that we have to clean up after we die - which is extra annoying early on when breaking tombstones can cause a tough fight with a ghost.

I would ask that the required tombstone count for a full graveyard biome be increased, or a change wherein the biome spawns from tombstones that are placed by hand and not from ones that drop from deaths.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I perceive it as an issue of annoyance, not difficulty. I'm playing on Master Mode and I expect to get wrecked often. But graveyards are, more than anything else, annoying; and annoyance should spur change moreso than difficulty should.

 

[Tripoli]

Wow, the luck. Now that explains why i got ~3 times more drops than i expected while building pavilion in desert. I placed the right torches without even knowing, it seems. On the other hand i had several blizzards with no Ice Golems.

I have big philosophical problem with arbitrary punish/reward systems in games meant for sandbox or even roleplay.

Now we have two. First is Happiness, although we probably should call it Happines + Pylon Network Complex. Overall it's a well designed addition, that IMO gives player a reason to stay in Softmode a bit longer and test the limits of their creativity in exchange of monetary rewards and early teleporters. Plus NPCs were begging for revitalisation for a long time IMO. And if i want to keep all of them in khrushchevka, then by god i will do it despite the penalties which will become less severe as game progresses anyway. Some tweaks to this system are required and were already discussed ITT, i'll just add two more:
1) a way to ensure correct spawn of Traveling Merchant (TM) is necessary;
2) maybe it would require some randomisation element down the road.

The Luck is a different beast. Completely arbitrary, no explanation and no relation to... game lore, i guess. Follows you even past Moon Lord. Regular torches affect it as a cherry on top. And all of this to do what exactly? Force the player to craft and place correct torches in correct biome?

As i already gave you an idea on what to do with social accessory slots (Another fun and completely arbitrary addition, that bears striking spiritual similarity to both luck and happiness, as it punishes the player for not playing the game the way Devs want. My idea was to just roll it back.), here are my five potentially interesting kopeks on Luck that weren't discussed ITT yet: it should be reworked as an extension of Corruption/Hallow system turning it into Ecology system. Let's say that simple torches are a reliable proxy of world exploration done by the player. Then why not use all of them except for very specific circumstances (presence of town NPC immediately comes to mind, as we want players to build bases the way they like, aren't we?) to just alter spawn- and droprates. No alteration to TM inventory and stuff like that. And then player will have to enter Hardmode to get access to correct torches (or maybe completely new items) to repair the world. And now the most important part: as this rework would have a very 1.1 touch to it (the time when all we had to clean the world were Purification Powder and Dynamtie), make it Master Mode Exclusive. Because i secretly want nastier and more disgusting Master Mode with Corruptors spreading corruption and Clowns blowing up your base as in good ol' days.

Edit: btw, the graveyard just mentioned above. Now player has to clean the place or potentially get rekt. See what i'm talking about? That's a nice well-thought way to do this.

 

[Alaron]

Hello!

Love the changes so far, but there is one negative change that greatly stands out to me, and that's in relation to the new Graveyard biome.

The new biome is a cool addition, but it simply spawns way too easily, dominating any other nearby biome. In particular, the biome is created way too quickly from tombstones spawned by player death.

I play on a server with 5-6 friends or so. If a few of us die in one spot, the screen already starts to turn grey. If we have a teamwipe on a boss, suddenly there's a graveyard biome right in the middle of wherever we were, spawning new enemies and making it harder to see things. If there's a tough fight right around town - most notably when we had an early Blood Moon - then we quickly have the darkened screen and mist obscuring things.

Previously, player tombstones were a neat memoir of battles past. Now they are an annoyance that we have to clean up after we die - which is extra annoying early on when breaking tombstones can cause a tough fight with a ghost.

I would ask that the required tombstone count for a full graveyard biome be increased, or a change wherein the biome spawns from tombstones that are placed by hand and not from ones that drop from deaths.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I perceive it as an issue of annoyance, not difficulty. I'm playing on Master Mode and I expect to get wrecked often. But graveyards are, more than anything else, annoying; and annoyance should spur change moreso than difficulty should.

I have a different problem with them myself: there are some of the gravestones that I like using as decoration, and now trying to build using them will create a graveyard even when I don't want one. A hopefully simple solution to this is to create alternate gravestones crafted using the normal kind that appear identical but don't contribute towards creating a graveyard. Sort of like Stone Slabs vs Stone Accent Slabs, or Hallowed Armor vs Ancient Hallowed Armor.

 

[Coolqwerts]

just change world gen so that the corruption/crimson(especially) don't spawn on the jungle in a medium world or smaller. Make sure the crimson/corruption also don't "trap the jungle" as thats even worse.

 

[Coolqwerts]

Make it so that evil biomes(hallow, corruption, crimson) can't dry up the jungle until Plantera is defeated.

 

[Heroman3003]

I constantly have evil and jungle overlap and I play exclusively on large worlds, so that issue is bigger than just smaller worlds, its overall worldgen issue

 

[11clock]

Make it so that evil biomes(hallow, corruption, crimson) can't dry up the jungle until Plantera is defeated.

That would be better, but I don't see why this is even a mechanic to begin with. Why not remove it entirely? It doesn't really add anything positive to the game. Leave the Jungle out of the Hallow/Corruption war.

EDIT: Also, Hallow is not an evil biome. It's your best means of counteracting them. Hallow itself is not very threatening, mainly just hardmode forest and adds a couple enemies to the underground. And it doesn't eat the jungle, either.

 

[Coolqwerts]

I constantly have evil and jungle overlap and I play exclusively on large worlds, so that issue is bigger than just smaller worlds, its overall worldgen issue

the problem in large world's is the fact that there are multiple Crimson and corruption biomes meaning it's almost virtually impossible to get a jungle without an evil biome trapping or neighbouring the jungle.

 

[Tripoli]

That would be better, but I don't see why this is even a mechanic to begin with. Why not remove it entirely?

Because it's a cool little atavism of old terraria. Allows you to have fun time bomb-spamming and wall-surrounding neighbouring Corruption in softmode as if it was a tumor. Please don't remove it.

 

[Leinfors]

Looks like I've got some catching up to do tonight!

Will be reading, and probably have to summarize a lot!