The summary is more of a way to avoid repeating the same thing over. Summoner progression and zenith nerfs don't need to be repeated 10 times. Sorry if I made it look like I'm demanding you answer 55 pages of suggestions, I think that is super unnecessary, but I guess the idea of bolding answered stuff made it seem so
Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Leinfors
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GoldenTerrabyte
Empress of Light
As far as the Zenith goes, I would MUCH rather that other things were buffed to be able to compete with it, rather than nerfing a fun weapon that's already at the very end of the game anyway.
SsIras
Terrarian
That was quite helpful. The list might get lost among all other posts though.
With that said I did like to propose changes to the chlorophyte swords. The partisan is alright, it does quite well for it's tier, but these two swords, despite having projectiles aren't very effective in my view, and since you're spending such a valuable resource, I feel they should do a bit more.
The Saber should benefit a bit if it shoot it's projectile a bit more often.
The Claymore projectile should do extra damage, maybe 130% base.
Also I think it's missing on that list, but I recall someone mentioning a nerf to spectre hood.
While using it, I found it has a very good healing power even for master mode, but the downside is also quite apparent. If you're on multiplayer it can certainly become a very good strat agaist bosses. So I suggest a weird nerf: make enemies more likely to target you while wearing the hood.
GoldenTerrabyte
Empress of Light
I honestly think that's a way better idea than outright nerfing it. Because it will force Mages to play more carefully, but it will also play right into their strengths in a good player's hands, as when you're a Mage it's easier to provide your healing when the enemies are closer to you. This is a good idea.
Maybe Crystal Bullets need a bit of a nerf, sure, but I think that other bullet types need a buff more than Crystal Bullets need a nerf, which heavily contributes to the overuse of Crystal Bullets since they are the only bullets that substantially affect DPS over just using an Endless Musket Pouch.
Almost all bullets in the entire game just hit a single target and maybe apply a debuff.
Just using a Megashark against a single dummy with a few kinds of bullets I got the following DPS results:
Meteor Shots: 220
Musket Balls: 400
Hight Velocity Bullets: 415
Ichor Bullets: 460
Cursed Bullets: 450
Crystal Bullets: 580
Do Crystal Bullets stand out here? Yes. But more importantly, no other bullets deal significantly more damage than Musket Balls.
Dart Rifles have more variety in their three hardmode ammo types than you have in almost a dozen bullet types you have at your disposal around the same time. One splits into multiple darts, allowing substantial single target hits on top of the ichor debuff, one rains down cursed flames on enemies that even linger for a little and the third one massively pierces and otherwise smart-bounces. The point being that you have three completely different choices here for very different purposes.
Only Crystal Bullets, Explosive Bullets and Luminite Bullets and Meteor Shots do more than hit a single target and possibly apply a debuff.
Luminite Bullets are obviously post Moon Lord and strong enough, but the other two could easily see some improvements:
- Using Explosive Bullets is extremely dangerous since you can literally shred your health in mere moments with these. If that wasn't the case, they might actually see use against grouped enemies in invasions due to their area of effect and high knockback. Without the self-harm, they'd be like Hellfire Arrows, but for guns and Hellfire Arrows are actually pretty decent.
- Unlike Luminite Bullets, Meteor Shots cause i-frames, so on all machine gun and shotgun type weapons, which make up 90% of the entire gun-arsenal, they are detrimental to use, which only leaves the Sniper Rifle as a possible weapon to use them with once in Hardmode. Give them the same ability as Luminite Bullets to allow for multi-hitting without i-frames and they would actually be useful on way more weapons.
Every other bullet type falls into the category of "slightly better Musket ball" as they only damage a single enemy and maybe apply a debuff that is usually more cosmetic than functional. These would be a lot harder to deal with because they would need something new for themselves.
I'll try to give some ideas for changes the HM Bullets that actually seem to be for combat, excluding Golden Bullets, which are solely for making money and Party Bullets, which are simply cheap.
- Cursed Bullets: Comparing them with the Cursed Darts, it might be a decent idea to give them a chance to spawn the same kind of lingering flame upon impact, which would greatly improve them against groups of enemies and segmented bosses like the Destroyer. Reducing the number of immune enemies could also lead to more satisfaction.
- Ichor Bullets: They are mostly fine due to them having more utility when used in muliplayer and since the dummy test does not include any damage bonuses that come from reducing enemy defense. The biggest dent in the usefulness of Ichor Bullets is that you can't use them like a mage can use a golden shower, so they see a lot less use as a result.
- Venom Bullets: Upon impact, they create a venom cloud that applies venom to all enemies within it. Also, drastically reduce the number of enemies that are immune to venom. Especially event enemies like Pirates, Hallow enemies, Slimes and many Jungle enemies do not need to be immune to this debuff.
- High Velocity Bullets: Basically Luminite lite bullets would fit these well. High velocity means high penetration in most cases, so it would be fitting if these could hit 3-5 enemies in a line.
- Nano Bullets: Probably the most difficult ones to work out. Almost all enemies seem to be entirely immune to this bullet's debuff, save for the ones that aren't even a threat to begin with maybe. If the intent is to avoid enemies attacking you, high knockback weapons or ammo will do a way better job since the confusion debuff is just way too unreliable in comparison. Might be best to discard the whole debuff and go for some smart bounce bullets with these ones.
In the end I wish there was a way to switch between or cycle through the ammo slots to be able to switch on the fly more easily, but that's probably not going to happen.
JohannSimm
Retinazer
The costs to make pre-Hardmode ore armors are currently far too high, particularly the weaker sets like Copper, Tin, Iron, and Lead. They should be significantly reduced. Right now there's no point to making them because the costs are so high, and the resources are needed to make other things. You never want to make them when you could focus your efforts towards getting a better armor. They should be trivial to make for the low worth they represent.
I propose that Copper and Tin require 30 bars to craft a whole set (down from 60), with Iron and Lead also requiring 30 (down from 75).
Silver, Tungsten, Gold, and Platinum should also have cost reductions. I would reduce Silver/Tungsten's cost to 45 (to match Meteor/Molten) and Gold/Platinum's cost to 60 (to match Shadow/Crimson).
The costs would then be more consistent with Hardmode ore armor costs (the most common of which are 45 and 54).
Also, Titanium armor's total bar cost is currently 59, rather than the cost of 54 that Palladium and Orichalcum have. This was raised in version 1.2.3 back when Titanium armor still had the Shadow Dodge set bonus. Now that it has a new set bonus, I think the cost should be reduced back to 54 to be consistent with the other two (and numerous other Hardmode armors that cost 54).
I propose that Copper and Tin require 30 bars to craft a whole set (down from 60), with Iron and Lead also requiring 30 (down from 75).
Silver, Tungsten, Gold, and Platinum should also have cost reductions. I would reduce Silver/Tungsten's cost to 45 (to match Meteor/Molten) and Gold/Platinum's cost to 60 (to match Shadow/Crimson).
The costs would then be more consistent with Hardmode ore armor costs (the most common of which are 45 and 54).
Also, Titanium armor's total bar cost is currently 59, rather than the cost of 54 that Palladium and Orichalcum have. This was raised in version 1.2.3 back when Titanium armor still had the Shadow Dodge set bonus. Now that it has a new set bonus, I think the cost should be reduced back to 54 to be consistent with the other two (and numerous other Hardmode armors that cost 54).
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Nicol Bolas
Terrarian
If this were a game about shooting targeting dummies, then that might matter. Of course, that's not what the game is about.
At present, different bullet types are not about making bigger numbers. They're about how you choose to play. Are you dealing with large bunches of enemies? You should go with explosive or crystal. Lots of fast-moving targets, or you need help aiming? Then HV or Chlorophyte, since they're more likely to hit. Want some debufs? OK, yeah, it's better to just side-board in some magic items, but if you are utterly dedicated to a ranger-only build, you have options.
Musket Balls aren't supposed to be made obsolete. There isn't meant to be some "much better than Musket Ball" gun ammo out there. Weapons are made obsolete, not ammunition. New ammo is for adding special effects; new weapons are for adding DPS.
JohannSimm
Retinazer
Seconded. Without this change, they might as well not exist.
EDIT: Since the game has Silver Bullets, it would be a fun and thematic change if they dealt additional damage to Werewolves.
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Talerax
Official Terrarian
Except that about half of ammo types are treated as just Musket balls with better DPS since their special effects are too weak. Meteor shots suffer from iframe, Ichor required too much management to take full advantage out of it that you better use golden shower for the same result, and other debuffs are practically useless with so much immunity out there. They need some buffs.
Well, some are actually already in good places. Like you said, High Velocity and Chlorophyte are good for improving accuracy. Explosive is kind of high risk high return in early hm so I think it's fine. I would say that Crystal has too much single DPS for a crowd control tool though.
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qwerty3.14
Terrarian
Crystal bullet's single target dps is so good that I've literally never heard anyone recommend it for crowd control.
Talerax
Official Terrarian
You're right. I just follow Nicol categorizing it as crowd control. But I guess a machine gun with high DPS ammo is never a bad crowd control. So, it still point out how op Crystal bullet is, it doesn't matter if it is mean for single target or group since it can do both really well.
Nicol Bolas
Terrarian
Meteor shots are for crowd-control. Iframes don't matter there, since the point of them is that they hit through targets, unlike most bullet weapons. For rapid-fire guns, you're able to hit rows of 6-7 guys.
Of course the Golden Shower is better. It's a cross-class effect, and generally speaking, targeted cross-class effects are more effective than mono-classing. It's better for a melee player to have a magic weapon to use at range, or a ranger to have a high-knockback melee weapon in case of close encounters. The way Terraria is designed, cross-class play is what you do if you care about maximizing your effectiveness.
Ichor bullets only exist for the benefit of players who choose not to use non-ranger gear. The same goes for melee and its near-pointless "flasks".
That's plain wrong, though. Alternate ammo types over the basic ammo are there to give you a bonus in damage output, be it situational or not, but usually at the cost of availability. In the ideal case, Crystal Bullets, HV Bullets, Chlorophyte Bullets etc. would all have their own niche in which they deal the most DPS, but most of them are just slightly stronger Musket Balls in all situations.
Using Crystal Bullets against groups? That only works better than all alternate bullets because they deal the highest single target DPS among bullets. Even if you shoot into groups, the number of shards that hit will be about the same with only marginal differences. That only tells me that there's no good bullet that actually is designed to work against groups.
Explosive Bullets would be an option, but a huge amount of people avoid things they can kill themselves with like the plague, so they barely see use as a result. This is especially true when you can just use bows/repeaters with piercing arrows instead. Or just use the explosive arrows that don't deal self-damage. Without the reward of being a lot more powerful, the risk of damaging yourself is just not worth it.
If a player misses a lot, that usually goes down to human error, not to the bullet not being fast enough. HV bullets or not, you don't hit if your aim is off. And if you have Chlorophyte Bullets, why would you use HV bullets?
JohannSimm
Retinazer
High Velocity Bullets could be buffed by having them ignore a certain amount of enemy defense, such as 20-25 armor penetration.
FLOWER/FAIRY BOOTS
I think the change that prevents bait and seeds/hay from dropping from flowers generated by Flower Boots and Fairy Boots should be reversed. Before 1.4 this functionality gave Flower Boots a niche purpose, but now they're not even useful as vanity items (they don't function in the vanity slot). While you wear them, they even prevent bait dropping from natural grass and flowers. Preventing the Flower Boots from growing more flowers while standing in place was a good change, but making them completely useless except as a novelty item was too much. In fact, it's now even harmful to use them, because the flowers they grow block normal bait-dropping grass and flowers from growing until they are destroyed.
To prevent exploits of this sort, there could be a period of 1-5 seconds after the flowers are generated where they won't drop bait and seeds/hay. This would prevent the kind of exploit seen in the video, so that the wearer would have to move some distance back and forth to ensure drops. I feel like that's a good compromise between pre-1.4 and post-1.4 in regards to these items.
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BlakeRossTheRabbit
The Destroyer
Yeah, that was one of the points I discussed when I posted that Zenith needs a nerf. All classes are perfectly balanced. Solar was buffed to be more tanky, Nebula was nerfed to be more glass cannon, but the Zenith, oh well, it breaks everything.
BlakeRossTheRabbit
The Destroyer
This is like, the most unbiased post I've ever seen, I pretty much agree with you, except with the quad-barrel shotgun. I genuinely hope most of these make their way into future updates.
Wormscarf67
Plantera
Can I just say that if this is added in, the drop chance for all the biome crates should be increased. I have had a hour-long fishing sessions with over 100 fishing power and crate potions, only to get 2 - 3 biome crates.
Chnapy
Terrarian
Both of these have been discussed already. New items, such as new crates, are outside the scope of what Leinfors is likely to get approval on. Adding pyramid items to crates is something he's already brought up and was explicitly denied.
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