Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

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(I already have a thread on this, but I couldn't figure out how to delete it)

I have a suggestion regarding the map. Since the Bestiary is a world mechanic, and not by player, (which makes sense in regards to the Zoologist)
Can the Map be a world thing, instead of a player thing as well? I feel like this would add a little more balance to the game, and since the map is tied to the world anyway, just let all players contribute to this. You could even have a toggle for this, so in PvP worlds, other players don't benefit from your exploring. Since Terraria is a very Co-Op game anyway, It would make sense for the map to be Co-Op as well. I don't think this would be a super complicated thing to change, and it would help a lot of multiplayer worlds.
Also, if you found something really cool underground, the other players have to guess in order to get to you, if the minimap is universal, they can just follow your path.

Please consider
 
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Other people have mentioned the power gap between crimson and corruption and there's 2 cases.
First, the fishing poles. Despite being the same one for both biomes, the crimson one straight up has 2% more fishing power, and according to the wiki, 0.5 higher velocity. Is crimson supposed to just be better by design, or is there something worse about the crimson rod?

Second, Ichor and Cursed Flame debuffs are just wack. Ichor is an amazing effect, with +10 damage per hit being powerful throughout the rest of the game. Cursed flame? 6 damage per second. Even if you're only hitting stuff once per second in hardmore (Spoiler Alert: You're not) Ichor is still better. It also scales with how often you hit stuff, so that could be dozens of extra damage every second. To add insult to injury, about TWICE as many mobs are immune to Cursed Flame as Ichor.
So for changes:
Mob immunity to these is the same. Either make stuff like Skeletron Prime and Ice Elemental immune to Ichor, or make them take damage from cursed flame. Mobs should be immune to both debuffs, or neither.
Then, increase the damage per second of cursed flame to 25-35. Sounds like a lot, but Ichor is 10 PER HIT, and you can hit stuff around 3-4 times per second. That way, both will work for different playstyles (Hit hard or lots of small hits)
Or just give the flames something of an opposite effect to ichor, where instead of decreasing defence, it increases attack. Idk, just seems really weird how different in power they are.

Along with that, maybe make DoT effects stronger in general. Most non-Ichor flasks/ammo are useless because the debuff is too weak. And Ichor has the smallest immunity list in the game.

Or at least make them like x10 damage on bosses, so that you can have loads of DoT instead of Ichor if you wanted.
 
It's already been said, but I really don't like torch luck. That, and I find it weird that you can't place certain accessories in vanity slots any more for quick switching them with your current accessories. If its to balance being able to swap accessories on the fly (which even in best case scenario isn't that powerful TBH), just removing being able to right click to switch seems like an easier solution.
 
Other people have mentioned the power gap between crimson and corruption and there's 2 cases.
First, the fishing poles. Despite being the same one for both biomes, the crimson one straight up has 2% more fishing power, and according to the wiki, 0.5 higher velocity. Is crimson supposed to just be better by design, or is there something worse about the crimson rod?

Second, Ichor and Cursed Flame debuffs are just wack. Ichor is an amazing effect, with +10 damage per hit being powerful throughout the rest of the game. Cursed flame? 6 damage per second. Even if you're only hitting stuff once per second in hardmore (Spoiler Alert: You're not) Ichor is still better. It also scales with how often you hit stuff, so that could be dozens of extra damage every second. To add insult to injury, about TWICE as many mobs are immune to Cursed Flame as Ichor.
So for changes:
Mob immunity to these is the same. Either make stuff like Skeletron Prime and Ice Elemental immune to Ichor, or make them take damage from cursed flame. Mobs should be immune to both debuffs, or neither.
Then, increase the damage per second of cursed flame to 25-35. Sounds like a lot, but Ichor is 10 PER HIT, and you can hit stuff around 3-4 times per second. That way, both will work for different playstyles (Hit hard or lots of small hits)
Or just give the flames something of an opposite effect to ichor, where instead of decreasing defence, it increases attack. Idk, just seems really weird how different in power they are.

Along with that, maybe make DoT effects stronger in general. Most non-Ichor flasks/ammo are useless because the debuff is too weak. And Ichor has the smallest immunity list in the game.

Or at least make them like x10 damage on bosses, so that you can have loads of DoT instead of Ichor if you wanted.

Cursed flames got buffed in journey's end, it now does 24dps still way weaker than ichor.

The `velocity` of a fishing pole is completely irrelevant... it's just how fast the bobber gets launched. Most equivalent crimson items are slightly stronger just like how platinum is slightly stronger than gold or lead is slightly stronger than iron. Still not a good excuse for how big of a disparity there is between ichor and cursed flames.
 
I'll join in the chorus of people upset by luck, especially torch luck. I had been entirely unaware of the luck system prior to entering this thread, since the Wizard is just a shop I visit a handful of times per playthrough at best. But apparently I've been punished the entire game for playing what I can only assume to be normally, placing down torches so I can see what's going on (and my Hallow nearly entirely overlaps with my Snow, so I've been hit with a fairly severe penalty there). At the very least, the penalty for normal torches should go away, but I wouldn't mind seeing the entire system gone.

Anyway, I originally came to this thread to talk about darts. I've been a fan of them since the hardmode darts were introduced in 1.3 because they're very interesting ammo, but I think this patch is a bit off the mark. The current set of dart related gear was already strong enough for its place in progression, with crystal darts in particular being one of the cheapest answers to the mechanical bosses. The buffs they got weren't really needed. What I think they're lacking is a late hardmode dart gun, since even with the buffs they don't have enough damage to be a good choice later on. While I understand that new items are highly unlikely, I figure it can't hurt to ask; they don't need anything fancy (the ammo handles that part), just a dart gun with bigger numbers to stick around for endgame.
 
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Hm well, it's not an Item but can we get the "new Underground Jungle Music" and the "old Jungle Music" together? Both for the Undeground, alternating. It is a little thing... but in the deep of the Jungle it will be nice to have more differgenz Music.
 
Face Monster counterpart for Corruption. Please as of right now it's so easy to breeze through corruption enemies compared to crimson enemies for just slightly worse loot. Early game Crimson weapons should be buffed in my opinion. Also Cursed inferno is still bad less enemies should be immune to it or more enemies should be immune to ichor and not to cursed inferno.
 
I'll just say that in my opinion the luck mechanic is perfectly fine EXCEPT for the normal torches giving bad luck.

Also, considering how the summoners usually try to stay away from danger and let the summons do the damage, a bit more knockback on whips would be useful.

I also support the idea of the Traveling merchant selling stuff from the opposite evil biome, though to make it more fair I'd say he starts to do so only after Skeletron is defeated. Though for the evil mimic stuff, the easier solution would be letting souls of night be crafted into either crimson or corrupted keys to summon the mimics.

One last thing, I find that the armor set you get from the first new hallowed boss (not saying the name in case somebody doesn't want it spoiled) is a bit boring and slightly underwhelming. It's not BAD, just nothing special. Even something small like higher jump/slightly increased flight time would be enough to make it interesting. Or even slightly increased luck, considering it's now a thing.
 
Also, what's up with all the food items suddenly plummeting in duration? From 45 or 20 minutes to 8-10? This isn't a hugely significant increase in resource expenditure, but it is annoying.

Outside of Normal, food isn't a bonus, it's a necessity. The duration of at least the lowest tier foods should be tripled in Expert and quintupled in Master. Maybe double for everything else, I don't know; I don't have much experience finding the ingredients for the new foods. But the basic food buff should last much longer.

No non-visible accessories in social slots. Eating constantly. Torch luck. Why does 1.4 want me to spend 4 times as long fiddling with my inventory?
 
Im at early game in master mode with a group, I will mention 2 things that I think should at least be discussed.

First off meteors are kind of weird now progression wise right?

So we aren't the gods of gaming and we had some problems in master mode. One player plays mage and since the brain proved pretty difficult we farmed for jungle armor since meteors are not available at that stage anymore. But what's the point of meteor armor now for mages? At best its a sidegrade to jungle armor but it feels like it is not at the right place in the progression. IMO it should be moved to after eye (and maybe slime king) has been defeated. That way it cants absolutely be rushed super early but it wouldn't be debatably useless at the point it is available.


The second thing is that from what I'm seeing summoners should still get some help in prehardmode. Since we farmed in the jungle our summoner now has the jungle whip and the bird staff which is basically all the gear they can get until we beat queen bee or go to the underworld. The only other early game summon weapon requires farming when its bloodmoon. Meanwhile, both melee, ranger and mage get a lot of weapon and armor progression that is consistently available with crafting (or some other ways) even before summoning the eye.

It seems like there aren't any more early summon weapons because other classes can use them too which makes them stronger for free. So although this is hard to say, in my opinion, it would improve class balance if the base minion capacity would be zero instead of one. Accessories could get a rare +1 minion capacity modifier and summoners could get an early game armor that provides them with one minion capacity. This way the frog summon could be more common and maybe another stronger summon staff could be inserted into the progression before queen bee. Other classes couldn't take advantage of free summons and summoner could (with enough luck/ or reforging with tinkerer) get more minions in the early game which would make them viable just as early as melee, ranger and mage are. This would also make them totally unique as a class even in early prehardmode.
 
The stake launcher should get a buff, it lost its niche due to the buffed hallowed repeater. It has about the same dps, but its stakes only hit 10 enemies whereas the hallowed repeater can pierce infinite with jester's arrows. Stars are way more common now so jesters arrows are actually very cheap.

The stake launcher being a post platera weapon from the pumpkin moon should have noticeably better performance than the hallowed repeater, which is an item you can get as soon as you kill a mech boss.
 
Just dropping by to say that while I'm really pleased with this update so far, I'm disappointed that even with the abundance of balance changes, there's still no variation on potion sickness (aside from one specific potion), a mushroom that barely heals anything shouldn't give you sickness that lasts as long as a super potion. I don't think that would mess up the balance at all.

As a side note, you have this neat new thing where certain blocks crumble apart when you fall on them or pick them, the giant chunks of ice you can fall through should crumble apart too I think.
 
I was REALLY looking forward to Accessories getting revamped, but from what I see, more firewood was added on to the problem, instead.
Having made an entire suggestion dedicated to going over almost every accessory in the game and making them a worthwhile item to use, I'm definitely disappointed. I'm especially disappointed with the "We're talking about stat changes" remark, because a lot of the items I'm about to touch on can't be fixed by changing a few numbers and calling it a day.
Going over the items I found most notable (in spoilers because it's a lot):

I'm using my own sprites for some of these items because they were easier to access. Those'll be marked with an asterisk (*).

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Honey Comb: The damage the bees deal AND the amount of bees present are extremely low. With how much health you can lose from a single hit (especially as the difficulty increases), accompanied with damaging debuffs, these bees don't do nearly as much to enemies as the enemies do to you. If the enemy has any amount of defense, well, those bees better pack up and go home right then and there, because they're not gonna do anything. But I guess that's why it got a new tinker.
For a simple solution, I propose that the damage of the bees be upped to 20, and the number of bees spawned when hit upped to 4. 80 damage still isn't enough on its own, but paired with J Bame's proposal of having the comb give the Honey buff when hit, I think the Honey Comb will be able to stand on its own.

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Honey Balloon*: The only Shiny Red Balloon tinker that doesn't provide an extra jump, but instead allows for weak bees that only activate when damaged. There is no good reason to make this over the mobility of a jump balloon, but that doesn't mean it has to stay that way. An idea I had in my Accessory Renovations suggestion was to have the balloon grant you a jump that had 4 bees carry you up a short distance before fanning out to attack enemies. In order to differentiate the movement from the other balloons, I gave this jump noticeably-increased horizontal speed and control, though it only goes a block higher than the Tsunami in a Balloon.

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Tsunami in a Bottle: This bottle has no defining features to set it apart from the other balloons aside from being fished up. It goes a little higher than the Cloud in a Bottle, sure, but that's what the Blizzard in a Bottle is for. Why not make that water spray knock enemies back? The jump could last longer in water, too. Just spitballing ideas, really.

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Fart in a Balloon
The, uh, "Weird" Balloons**: Yeah, not really as much of a "balance" issue, but, no "Bundle of Weird Balloons" or anything like that? A bit of a missed opportunity, to say the least.

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Bundle of Balloons
Bundle of Balloons:
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This is a crime.​

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Pharaoh's set
Pyramid Loot *: You guys made an integral part of the Bundle of Balloons unobtainable in a large amount of worlds. Couldn't you have at least put the Pyramid loot in the Oasis Crates?

-Shark Tooth NecklaceShark Tooth Necklace: Basically increases your damage by a flat 2.5, which is definitely helpful for low damage weapons. However, it still gets outclassed by percentage damage increases fairly quickly once Hardmode rolls in, and its lack of tinkers leaves the necklace to be quickly forgotten. There's the Stinger Necklace, which... is actually a sensical combination and would be good if the bees were, but that still leaves the entirety of Hardmode Shark Tooth Necklace-less. An idea I had in my Accessory Renovations suggestion was to tinker it with the Putrid Necklace and Flesh Knuckles; while I did completely rework the Armor Penetration and Mimic-Accessory bonuses into a new function altogether, I think the combos are still a step in the right direction without any innovating.

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Putrid Necklace Tinkers: The aggro reduction is not very helpful, especially in Singleplayer. It doesn't cause enemies to stop targetting you once you get far enough away, which is the only real way that ability would remotely help. Right now, the damage and critical strike bonus is the only reason people actually consider the Putrid Scent, so I'm surprised it doesn't carry over to its tinkers.

-Flesh KnucklesFlesh Knuckles: 7 Defense really doesn't feel all that helpful compared to any damage bonus (save for the Shark Tooth Necklace), especially due to the increased aggro. This might be more of a personal gripe, but perhaps 10 Defense would be more helpful? Yes, I know Warding exists.

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Paladin's Shield: This thing's basically the Flesh Knuckles without the aggro but found way later in Singleplayer. I've never used it in Multiplayer, but 6 Defense doesn't sound like it'd help much against the usual damage plus what you take from protecting allies. To make this shield feel like more of a, well, paladin's shield, my idea is to raise the defense to 18, with an additional 4 being given for every nearby player. With an initially-high defense, the shield becomes worth using in Singleplayer while also being able to handle protecting multiple players.

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Hero Shield: The tinker makes sense, but the only actual benefit from making this tinker is a SINGLE point of defense, protecting you from less than a single point of damage more while turning you into more of a pinata for monsters. Regardless of whether the defense of the Paladin's Shield gets increased or not, having all of the Flesh Knuckle's defense carry over to the Hero Shield would make the tinker more worth the time and effort.

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Berserker's Glove: You're making me choose between a bit of defense and a whopping 12% more damage. While my proposed buff to the Flesh Knuckles would make the choice a biiiiit more of, well, a choice, the Mechanical Glove is still ultimately the better option. My proposal was to have the Berserker's Glove made with the Mechanical Glove instead of the Power Glove, but that would require the Fire Gauntlet to actually be remotely worth using over that new version of the Berserker's Glove.

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Fire Gauntlet/Magma Stone*: The damage AND melee speed bonuses get cut by a third in favor of a whopping 4 extra damage per SECOND. Crafting this item is a detriment.
On Fire NEEDS be replaced with Burning (or a version without the slowdown, as I know how volatile enemy AI is) to make the trade-off worth it. 50 DPS sounds like a lot, but it really isn't; not a single damage debuff in the game is even remotely helpful when compared to your damage output without it, save for maybe Daybreak. There is not a single in-game way to increase the damage of debuffs except for Oiled, and that debuff is only available late-game from one source, meaning debuffs don't really scale at all. Additionally, Underworld enemies shouldn't be immune to the debuff, save for the Lava Slime and anything else that's like 80% fire, that way it'll actually be helpful right when you get it.

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Jellyfish Necklace: The glow is only useful in water, but calling it "useful" implies that the glow is bright enough to actually see anything. In order to make it less situational while not actually changing its function, the glow should be active at all times, and should outdo the Shine Potion when underwater. That alone won't make the accessory worth using unlesa you're mining, but it's a start.

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Ice Skates: The Ice Skates are basically worse Dunerider Boots where you get ONLY the speed-up bonus on sand blocks, except that, instead of all sand blocks, it's ONLY ice blocks and thin ice. The Duneriders at least have the running capability.
A simple solution would be to turn that increased mobility on ice into slightly-increased mobility in general, with the effect becoming stronger on ice. This would make the Frostspark Boots tinker do something actually noticeable. However, this kinda conflicts with a later idea I'll be touching on, so, to present a more unique idea, the Ice Skates could increase "turning speed" (acceleration and deceleration) while preventing slipping on ice.

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Band of Starpower: This one should have been a no-brainer. A vital part of a mage's build is locked to Corruption worlds? These guys need to go in Gold Chests, same as Bands of Regeneration.

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Arctic Diving Gear: The addition of the Ice Skates doesn't really work with this item and feels shoehorned in. The Diving Gears are never worth equipping due to the lack of actual underwater areas to explore, anyways, but the Ice Skates, even with my proposed change, do little to improve on the Jellyfish Diving Gear. The Frozen Turtle Shell could replace the skates if its barrier also affected breath time and swimming, but all swimming accessories are pointless unless the ocean receives further expansion.

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Star Cloak: The stars are only good for melee attackers since they always land near you, which is bad, since an increasing amount of enemies begin to use projectile attacks as you progress through the game. Additionally, the stars themselves deal a pitiful 30 damage and are prone to missing. At the very least, these stars need to deal tripled damage and should be able to home in to some degree.

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Cross Necklace: This initially seems super useful to prevent consecutive hits, but then I realized that the Cobalt Shield does that job better by keeping me from being a living volleyball and bouncing back and forth between enemies, which is pretty much the only situation that the Cross Necklace would help in. In my opinion, this item needs a complete rework.
The extra invincibility frames could be given to the Cobalt Shield as an added bonus, actually; it's got the cross and everything.

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Mana Cloak: Mana Cuffs with a more offensive approach. I assume the comparatively abysmal mana restoration is due to the offense capabilities of the stars, but as I've said, said capabilities are not that great, and also 50 Mana that you have to go pick up takes up a LOT more effort than the instantaneous 100+ Mana heal that you can get from the Mana Cuffs (and the Mana Cuffs are good, by the way, not overpowered). All three stars should be able to be picked up and heal you, though perhaps the stars themselves should have better homing capabilities than my proposed Star Cloak change.

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Dunerider Boots/All base Running boot accessories: The Dunerider Boots are an objectively better version of the other boots, but only in the Desert, putting it in a really awkward spot. What makes things worse is that the increased sand mobility is LOST upon making the Spectre Boots. This is... a really strange design that both encourages you to get the Duneriders over other boots and makes the effort spent on them meaningless once you tinker them. To propose a potential fix, I'll be taking an idea from my Accessory Renovations suggestion:
Each Running boots accessory should have its own form of increased mobility on certain blocks while ALSO having a general mobility bonus. For example, my proposed Hermes Boots idea gave them further-increased speed on Forest Grass and Stone, with an additional bonus of 20% increased flight time; the Flurry Boots, meanwhile, increase mobility on Snow, Ice AND Slush while granting 50% increased deceleration. These differences should be able to carry over to the Lightning and Frostspark Boots in order to make the choice of which boots to use more meaningful.
This way, each pair of boots has its own reason to be picked over the others without making one better or worse than the others.

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Aglet: Movement speed bonuses aren't super noticeable to begin with, which fits an aglet a little TOO well. A single accessory with the Quick prefix basically gives the same bonus as the Aglet, so I propose that it grant +10% speed instead of +5% in order for it to actually have a reason to exist.

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Anklet of the Wind: I don't know why this existed before, but I can't believe nothing was done with it when 1.4 made Wind cool.
As-is, the Anklet is just a shoehorned material needed for the Lightning Boots that doesn't add anything that the Aglet could have. As such, I propose another idea from my suggestion: have the Anklet increase movement speed by 15-30%, depending on Wind Speed. Makes it a little more interesting, even if still lackluster.

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Obsidian Rose: Lava Charm, Obsidian Skin Potion, Water Walking Potion, literally just building a bridge, hooks, and extra jumps; all items that do what the Obsidian Rose does in some way, but better. Prevention is the better option, as always.
This item may need either a rework or additional effects on top of the lava damage reduction. I have my own idea, but I don't want to give entirely new ideas unless that's what you're looking for, which is what my previously-mentioned suggestion is for.

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Molten Skull Rose: The Magma Stone felt like it was crammed in just because it's another Underworld item, but after some thinking, I realized that this is the perfect blend between defense and offensive. The problem is that, once again, On Fire does jack squat against anything and is completely useless in the biome where everything is immune to it.

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Fairy/Flower Boots: I... don't understand why you would want to make this. The Flower Boots are completely cosmetic, and the Spectre Boots have another tinker that actually grants benefits. Perhaps if the wearer was healed a tiny amount for every flower they grew, it would be an interesting option.

Also, I don't know who on the dev team said that Cursed Inferno deals 24 DPS and Venom 30, but I tested it and that's the value over TWO seconds. The fact that you guys did actually tune up the damage, though, is really appreciated.

I made a second Accessory post waaaay later on in the thread that revises some of these ideas while addressing a few more accessories, which can be found here.
 
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Accessories could get a rare +1 minion capacity modifier
+1 to this. We have attack speed, overall damage, defense, movement speed, crit rate, and most damning, additional mana. Summoners seem to once again be left out. Call the modifier "Charismatic" and we have a good start. And if that means getting the base minion number cut to zero, so be it. Other class builds can put Charismatic on one of their accessories if they want a minion. cutting into their personal DPS/defense/speed in return for a little bit of autonomous damage. And it gives summoners another option, in that they have a choice between the usual defense/move speed choices or adding even more to their army.
 
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