Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

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Leinfors said:
When you really sit down and look at what Holy Arrows do, their original implementation was absolutely way too strong.

Each arrow generated 2 stars. Each star did 100% of the full weapon/arrow damage. Each star was also capable of piercing once, hitting up to 2 times.

Now, its true that under typical scenarios, the arrows wouldn't always be accurate, or the piercing frames would cause one star to miss, or that the extra pierces didn't come into play. Absolutely.

However, this meant that EVERY arrow fired with Holy Arrows was capable of doing theoretically up to 500% total damage. Against a single target, you would probably regularly doing 200%/300% damage per shot fired. On groups, or cluster-bosses like Skeletron Prime/Destroyer, you were often taking benefit from those additional pierces as well. Their base ammo damage isn't even anything to scoff at either.

What other arrows can do that? Unholy and Jester can pierce, and so multiply their damage, but only on groups. Ichor causes the debuff, and so enhances all of your attacks, but its never even a 100% DPS hike. No other single arrow is capable of dramatically multiplying single target damage like this. When you realize that all other arrows are balanced around roughly "100-110% weapon damage", with at best some piercing options, there isn't really a justification for a single early Hardmode arrow being capable of doing this sort of damage multiplication.

Now, we realize that this arrow has existed in some form since very early in Terraria's history. We couldn't justify completely squashing it. But a dramatic nerf was warranted. As it currently stands, the loss of the piercing, and the reduction of the bonus damage to 50% (instead of 100%) allows Holy Arrows to do as much as 200% weapon damage to a single target (after defense, of course). No other arrow is capable of anything like that, except for Luminite Arrows, and those are end game.

So in essence, they are still arguably the strongest arrows pre-Endgame arrows in the entire game, except for group scenarios. By a relatively substantial margin, to boot. So I don't see any reason to buff them, to say nothing of returning them to their original form.




I'll admit, I've long been on the fence about Tsunami. Its clearly one of the best Ranged weapons in the game, arguably the best for some scenarios, and that has an impact (a negative one) in my opinion for all subsequent/tier-equivalent Ranged items. After all, its not much of an upgrade if you keep using the same item.

However; I am not a ranged player, by nature. I don't have a very strong feel for the Tsunami itself and its relation to other weapons. Furthermore, while it appears to be too strong, it is not so grossly overpowered that it is ruining things.

And so, I've always been torn on whether or not it warrants a nerf, and moreso due to the fact that I am not certain exactly what the nature of such a nerf would need to be to be reasonable, and not too extreme. In the end, I've settled on letting sleeping dogs lie.

Razorblade Typhoon is getting some attention in the next update, however, a sort of buff/nerf that I hope will make it a better weapon all around.



We are looking into some range adjustments for individual Whips, and Morning Star is included in that.
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Will any of empress’ drops be getting a buff? Many people I have talked to have agreed that eventide, stellar tune, and nightglow all deserve buffs, as they seem underpowered compared to other weapons at the point in the game where a player would defeat the empress.
 
Terrablade101 said:
Will any of empress’ drops be getting a buff? Many people I have talked to have agreed that eventide, stellar tune, and nightglow all deserve buffs, as they seem underpowered compared to other weapons at the point
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GoldenTerrabyte said:
I'd definitely rather see other Ranged weapons get buffed to be capable of competing with the Tsunami, rather than the Tsunami getting nerfed. Having more viable options is better than having less. I do also agree that a lot of the Empress weapons are somewhat underwhelming, and could be buffed as well. I don't have a problem with the Duke's drops being powerful, I have a problem with the other things at a similar tier not being good enough to compete.
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I couldn't agree more. I do love the empress, and her fight is my favorite in the game. However, I feel like her drops just need some buffs. The average player isn’t defeating her until post golem and duke, which then by that point there is so many other weapons that are available that empress’ drops just are completely overshadowed.
 
Terrablade101 said:
Will any of empress’ drops be getting a buff? Many people I have talked to have agreed that eventide, stellar tune, and nightglow all deserve buffs, as they seem underpowered compared to other weapons at the point in the game where a player would defeat the empress.
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What other weapons are you comparing them too? If it's the tsunami or razorblade then I don't think they need buffs, since the razor blade and tsunami are way to strong and need to get nerfed.

Also the kaelidoscope and starlight are much weaker than the other 3 Empress weapons you mentioned.
 
qwerty3.14 said:
What other weapons are you comparing them too? If it's the tsunami or razorblade then I don't think they need buffs, since the razor blade and tsunami are way to strong and need to get nerfed.

Also the kaelidoscope and starlight are much weaker than the other 3 Empress weapons you mentioned.
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I’m also comparing them to pillar weapons. Most people aren’t defeating empress till post golem, and at that point, you can just start the celestial events and make the fragment weapons. Nebula blaze and arcanum are much much better than the stellar tune, and the phantasm is much much better than the eventide. Yeah, starlight and khalidiscope also deserve buffs too.
 
Terrablade101 said:
I’m also comparing them to pillar weapons. Most people aren’t defeating empress till post golem, and at that point, you can just start the celestial events and make the fragment weapons. Nebula blaze and arcanum are much much better than the stellar tune, and the phantasm is much much better than the eventide. Yeah, starlight and khalidiscope also deserve buffs too.
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The steller tune can attack through blocks, it's better in dungeons and caves than the blaze and arcanum.

Phantasm is in a whole other leage of its own and should be nerfed.
 
qwerty3.14 said:
Phantasm is in a whole other leage of its own and should be nerfed.
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It was already nerfed lol. But I also don't think the Empress drops need to be on par with the celestial event ones, but rather fill in the gaps of what they can't do, like how Eventide is piercing, Phantasm is not, so it's much better in certain scenarios. That said I think some drops need to get buffed, like the Nightglow.
 
BlakeRossTheRabbit said:
It was already nerfed lol. But I also don't think the Empress drops need to be on par with the celestial event ones, but rather fill in the gaps of what they can't do, like how Eventide is piercing, Phantasm is not, so it's much better in certain scenarios. That said I think some drops need to get buffed, like the Nightglow.
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Yeah, the nightglow definitely needs a buff, and the starlight does too in my opinion. I personally wish that the stellar tune did more damage because it’s such a rare weapon. 2% and 5% drop rates on a BOSS is very minimal. I want it to be worth the grind, because most of the time a player won’t be able to defeat empress enough to get the stellar tune until post golem and duke. Even if you did defeat her once, it’s hard to continually defeat her if it’s pre golem and pre duke. I feel like stellar tune should be just as good as other weapons around post golem and post duke as that is when the player is going to obtain it.
 
This might be too much to ask, but Hardmode Corruption/Hallow spread needs to be changed. The Hallow always seems to appear in such places where the surface Hallow will be way to small, or be virtually nonexistent. Of course you could always buy Hallowed seeds from the Dryad and make your own surface Hallow, but new players would never think of doing this and end up missing out on a large part of the game without the help of the Wiki. Another annoying thing is how corruption spreads in the jungle. Instead of turning mud and jungle grass into it’s own corrupted variant, it replaces the mud with regular dirt, permenantly ruining the integrity of the biome (unless if you happen to have 5 stacks of mud on you for some reason).
 
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Peenj said:
Another annoying thing is how corruption spreads in the jungle. Instead of turning mud and jungle grass into it’s own corrupted variant, it replaces the mud with regular dirt, permenantly ruining the integrity of the biome (unless if you happen to have 5 stacks of mud on you for some reason). Sometimes when you defeat the WOF the corruption will spawn INSIDE the jungle, creating a huge ugly line of mess that will take a very long time to fix.
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A little known fact is that Corruption can't spread near Chlorophyte Ore, so almost all of the Underground Jungle is naturally protected from it. That last sentence is also not true, the V of Corruption/Hallow can't cover the Jungle.
 
Jota Bame said:
A little known fact is that Corruption can't spread near Chlorophyte Ore, so almost all of the Underground Jungle is naturally protected from it. That last sentence is also not true, the V of Corruption/Hallow can't cover the Jungle.
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My bad, It’s fixed now. However I remember seeing a post about the WOF causing corruption in the jungle In a similar manner to what I described. Also I am aware that the corruption doesn’t spread near chlorophyte but surface jungle corruption is still annoying.
 
I've got some armor re balance suggestions. I made a post similar to this one a while back but I've come up with some more ideas.

qwerty3.14 said:
My armor balance suggestions, these should all be easy to impliment.
Reduce the cost of this armor from 60 fossils to 12, if this is supposed to be early game armor it needs to be cheap, as of right now it is much easier to get ninja armor. If your character is early game enough to benifit from fossil armor they're early game enough to get a bigger benifit from extra bone javelins.
Reduce the crit bonus from 15% to 10%, this armor needed a buff but I think it got buffed a little too much
Give this armor 'exotic' stats, it might still be a bit weak but it will at least be more interesting, mages get mana regen, warriors get knockback, and rangers get erm... bullet damage?
Give this armor the best pre mech raw offensive stats, maybye reduce it's defense a little to compensate.
Make the offensive stats on this armor a bit lower than mythril but add 5 defense to each piece (total of 15 extra defense). It won't have the damage reduction of later armor's like turtle so this shouldn't be too overpowered.
It should have a little less defense than adamatite, and a little less raw offense than mythril.
The legs need damage or crit, if you're doing melee then melee speed is too niche of a stat to stand on its own, if you're a ranger then you don't even care.
Buff the debuff it inflicts.
I like the idea of adding a dash, but if that isn't approved I'd simply suggest converting the crit bonus to more damage. Summoner is the best hybrid class and it can't benefit from crit boosts.
Holy guard is overpowered.
Instead 'dodging' attacks make holy guard reduce damage by 50%.
This would have been weird if it was still called 'shadow dodge' but the 'guard' implies damage reduction instead of evading completely.
GIve the leaf crystal homing, it will make it more reliabe, and considering that chlorophyte ammo has homing properties it certainly fits thematically.
I understand the concern with spamming the specte bolts, they create lot of dust and when you have a lot of those projectile it hits the dust limit very quickly. I've seen this happen in a mod.
Maybye you could make the armor 'track' how much damage you've delt then while it's on cooldown then add some of that to the next spectre bolt.
If you feel that's too hard than simply add some stats too the mask, shroomite armor gets past its mediocre set bonus with good stats.
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Reduce magic damage on wizard hat, from 15% to 10%, I get that this set is suppose to be glass cannon but this is a bit too much cannon.
The magic hat's set bonus could get a small buff to +100 mana, so it'd be a viable altrnative to the wizard hat.
Increase the crit chance on each piece to 7%, this would make its offense comparable to meteor armor. The question of which armor you use depends on whether you want to completely eliminate the mana cost of one weapon, or reduce a little bit on all magic weapons.
The movement speed bonus granted by shadow armor is effectively useless by the time you get it. Since you probably have hermes boots at this point, and a shield of cthulu.

The melee speed is also kinda underwhelming it only really gives a good boost to 'true melee', meanwhile molten armor increases the damage output of melee weapons that are actually good.

My suggestion is to replace the set bonus with 17% melee critical chance this will give it enough offense to be competitive with molten, with the main difference between the sets being melee speed vs. defense.

Change ancient shadow armor to be crafted from demon alters just like ancient hallowed armor. This would make it less tedius to obtain, and now that shadow armor is actually good it would prevent obtaining it pre EoW.
This armor is overshadowed by spooky armor, which you can get pretty soon after. I feel like it should at least have some niche. The hallowed set already functions as a 'defensive alternative', so I don't think it could fill that niche well.

I suggest giving each piece of tiki armor 10% melee speed, since whips can benefit from melee speed. Although it probably won't be overall as useful as spooky, it could serve as an interesting alternative.
Nerf the critical rate on squire greaves from 20% to 15%
Buff the critical rate on monk pants to 15%
For some reason squire armor had both better offensive and defensive stats than monk, also the squire greaves were tied with Valhala and Shinobi for the best raw melee offense leg in the game. These changes will not only make monk a more viable alternative but will make upgrading from t1 OOA armor to t2 OOA armors a bit more impactful.

Give the Valhala knight's helm 10% melee damage, it will still be weaker than the shinobi infiltrator one, but at least the full set won't be so far behind offensively.

Valhala Knight Greaves are indisputably better than shinobi with both more movement speed and defense. Move the movement speed advantage to shinobi and pretend there is now a 'super impactful' decision between 6 defense and 10% movement speed!
 
qwerty3.14 said:
I've got some armor re balance suggestions. I made a post similar to this one a while back but I've come up with some more ideas.
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All of my balance changes (barring emergency last minute adjustments) are finalized and being pushed into a beta build for our testers to start reviewing today.

Its not likely I'll be making any dramatic changes from here on out, as I'll be focusing on QA stuff.

However, I'll note that there are at least several changes in your list that are identical or very close to changes that have been made!

I'm going to ask about posting some previews in the next week or so, but I'll have to get the go-ahead from Cenx for that! So stay tuned! :)
 
Leinfors said:
All of my balance changes (barring emergency last minute adjustments) are finalized and being pushed into a beta build for our testers to start reviewing today.

Its not likely I'll be making any dramatic changes from here on out, as I'll be focusing on QA stuff.

However, I'll note that there are at least several changes in your list that are identical or very close to changes that have been made!

I'm going to ask about posting some previews in the next week or so, but I'll have to get the go-ahead from Cenx for that! So stay tuned! :)
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I’m sorry if I sound like a broken record, but any word on if the stellar tune or any of empress’ drops will be buffed in 1.4.1?
 
Terrablade101 said:
I’m sorry if I sound like a broken record, but any word on if the stellar tune or any of empress’ drops will be buffed in 1.4.1?
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Stellar Tune specifically is kinda like The Axe. Its there half as an easter egg, half just for fun, and its balance isn't extremely high importance. However, part of its relative weakness is that it has pretty potent wall hacking abilities, which not too many magic weapons offer at that level, or any other. That was a significant consideration in its power, so it isn't on the agenda to be buffed.

Nightglow is getting some minor work, but more functionality polish that significant buffs.
 
Leinfors said:
Stellar Tune specifically is kinda like The Axe. Its there half as an easter egg, half just for fun, and its balance isn't extremely high importance. However, part of its relative weakness is that it has pretty potent wall hacking abilities, which not too many magic weapons offer at that level, or any other. That was a significant consideration in its power, so it isn't on the agenda to be buffed.

Nightglow is getting some minor work, but more functionality polish that significant buffs.
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Very understandable. Thanks for explaining, and for being a great dev and answering questions and concerns!
 
While this isn't necessarily an item/balance issue, I still would like to share my thoughts here:

I really loved being able to change the options for items like the ruler/mechanical lens without opening my inventory. All of the options for items like that would just be on the side of the screen and I could quickly change whether or not all wires are visible. This was removed in 1.4, and now you have to open your inventory to have access to these options. I understand having a bit of a cleaner look is nice, but I think the convenience of always being able to change these options is massively useful.

Maybe an option in the interface section could be added to enable or disable item options while the inventory is closed?
 
Just to throw a cent here. Nerfing a weapon does not take away the pool of options, in fact, most nerfed weapons in the latest version are still really good, but what nerfing can do is make players be able to explore other alternatives.
Nerfing Tsunami is a good idea because it is one of the few weapons that can beat everything else in its tier, it wouldn't be a good idea if you had to nerf a lot of weapons along with it.
This doesn't cut the fact that some weapons from that tier should be buffed, since we're trying to bring them to the same tier as a (nerfed) Tsunami.
With most balance changes already in testing stage now, I can say we probably will get justifiable changes that we can agree it, regardless if it's just a nerf to a few Fishron drops or a more broad set of changes to post-golem weapons.
 
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