Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

[JohannSimm]

According to the Wiki, the stats boosts Spiked Jungle Slimes get upon entering Hardmode in Expert or Master mode are very low compared to other slimes. It ends up having almost less than half the health of common Blue Slimes, and its melee damage actually goes down. Compare that to the basic Jungle Slime, which gains bonuses comparable to the Blue Slime, and its damage nearly doubled.

There are also quite a few enemies whose damage seems to go down upon entering Hardmode in Expert or Master mode, including Angry Bones, Face Monsters, Blood Crawlers, and Harpies (for some odd reason only their contact damage goes down, which isn't even their main attack). I don't see why the damage has to go down upon entering Hardmode – there'd be no issue with it just remaining the same.

 

[Toxophilite [East]]

Personally I haven't played journey mode, but if something similar already exists in journey mode wouldn't that make my suggestion easier to implement?
As for the weird stack sizes, it would simply work the same as if you held right click where it would create the largest possible stack without going over a stack, for example with frostburn arrows it would craft up to 990 arrows per click.

The reason it works well in Journey Mode, is that once you research an item(s), you can just pluck them out of the void whenever you want, even if you misplace, delete or destroy them for some reason. You won't be able to do the same in Classic-Type worlds, which means, if you accidentally use all of your ores to craft bricks, or ammo by mistake, there's no take-backs. I can already hear the complaints now.

 

[qwerty3.14]

The reason it works well in Journey Mode, is that once you research an item(s), you can just pluck them out of the void whenever you want, even if you misplace, delete or destroy them for some reason. You won't be able to do the same in Classic-Type worlds, which means, if you accidentally use all of your ores to craft bricks, or ammo by mistake, there's no take-backs. I can already hear the complaints now.

Then don't hold shift when you try to craft stuff... minecraft has had this shift click to mass craft system for years now and I haven't seen anyone complain.

 

[Toxophilite [East]]

Then don't hold shift when you try to craft stuff... minecraft has had this shift click to mass craft system for years now and I haven't seen anyone complain.

I mean, you kinda have a point, but why separate CTRL & SHIFT for inventory management, only to reintroduce the same issue? Believe it or not, people deleting items, entire Armor Sets & Weapons was a pretty big deal before the changes, there's memes & horror stories all over the place. I still say Hard Pass, it's not worth it.

 

[Dapling]

I don't agree with this, please, no more screen clutter! We've finally gotten to a place where the screen is nice & clear, for the love of all-that-is-holy, I don't wanna go backward! If for some reason this idea goes through, please, please also make this a toggle on/ off option!

The text was not invasive at all above your health bar, and was more helpful than anything. I hardly see how moving the hearts down 5 pixels (probably less) "clutters" the screen.

 

[Toxophilite [East]]

The text was not invasive at all above your health bar, and was more helpful than anything. I hardly see how moving the hearts down 5 pixels (probably less) "clutters" the screen.

I always hated the old HUD, & preferred a more Castlevania: Symphony of the Night display, or any classic beat 'em up style of healthbar. Opinions aside:
I'm not sure what purpose it would serve & someone would need to explain that to me. From what I've seen, most players here have skewed opinions about numbers in the game already, in nearly all areas. No one can convince me that the average player, especially in this forum, is observing these numbers in a scramble...

The new at-a-glance approach is crisp, clean & effective design. For the twelve meta-gamers who are gonna obviously disagree with me anyway, with all things considered, at the very least... let it be an option that can be toggled on/ off. I just need a general idea of what I should be doing in combat, not an entire speedometer in my face, right beside my speedometer.

 

[Dapling]

From what I've seen, most players here have skewed opinions about numbers in the game already, in nearly all areas. No one can convince me that the average player, especially in this forum, is observing these numbers in a scramble...

Having the numbers there can help you realize if you can survive an attack that’s about to hit you. Having 150/500 life show up there is more helpful than glancing at the health, realizing that the number isn't there, and scrambling to multiply 7.5 times 20 (or 6 times 25 if you're picky) while you're actively fighting something.

It's more convenient to see exactly how hard an attack will hit you than just get a rough estimate.

 

[Nicol Bolas]

But that's what I don't understand, why give us a pretty useful mobility item (3 vs. 1 jumps) that can't be crafted in most cases?

Why does any item have an absurdly low drop chance? Why do you have to fight the Moon Lord over a dozen times to have a good chance at getting the one drop you actually want? Personally, I wouldn't give any item a drop chance less than 1/6 unless the monster were very common, but I'm not the one who designed the game. Whatever thinking goes into doing that would probably apply just as much to the Sandstorm.

 

[Nicol Bolas]

Having the numbers there can help you realize if you can survive an attack you're about to hit you. Having 150/500 life show up there is more helpful than glancing at the health, realizing that the number isn't there, and scrambling to multiply 7.5 times 20 (or 6 times 25 if you're picky) while you're actively fighting something.

It's more convenient to see exactly how hard an attack will hit you than just get a rough estimate.

Personally, I prefer numbers to arbitrary indicators. But I think you're overstating the point.

I don't think people go into a fight asking if they can survive an attack. It's more likely that you got killed by that attack last time, saw how much damage it did, and realized that you need to heal if you get too close to that much health again. And you can easily convert X damage to Y hearts on your own time, without time pressure.

So there's little difference between going into a fight with the mindset of "I should heal if I have less than 150 health" and "I should heal if I have less than 8 hearts."

 

[Dapling]

Personally, I prefer numbers to arbitrary indicators. But I think you're overstating the point.

I don't think people go into a fight asking if they can survive an attack. It's more likely that you got killed by that attack last time, saw how much damage it did, and realized that you need to heal if you get too close to that much health again. And you can easily convert X damage to Y hearts on your own time, without time pressure.

So there's little difference between going into a fight with the mindset of "I should heal if I have less than 150 health" and "I should heal if I have less than 8 hearts."

It's a difficult habit to get out of, especially considering it's one I've had for half a decade.

I tend to actively calculate and memorize how much damage each attack has while I'm fighting, and I'm sorry, but converting hearts to integers just becomes too much to keep track of while I'm already storing damage values and seeing if I can afford to take certain hits.

This isn't just a vanilla issue, it's a modded issue as well, and it shouldn't be.

 

[Ilmarinen]

My large world didn't generate any shrines,

1.4 completely ruined the chances for Shrines to appear and when they do they generate in a way that you basically need an external map viewer to find them. I don't understand this change.

 

[John Snail]

A few changes that'd be easy to make:
1. Enchanted Boomerang is way too easy to craft, especially with the addition of Meteor Showers. I'd change the recipe to

+

+

. They match the Enchanted Boomerang's colours, too!
2. Slime Staff should be craftable, perhaps with 25

+ 7

@

. Pre-HM Summoner has it rough, and this would ease things somewhat. Personally, I don't think this would take away from the hilarity of a slime randomly dropping it.

3. Move some of the FTW changes to Master. Mostly referring to the boss changes (Skyware Chests becoming locked Gold Chests is kinda cool, reminds me of the pre-1.2 days).
Of course, the sillier changes like random water pools being replaced with lava, bosses being bigger and smaller, pots and trees dropping lit bombs, painted Dungeon and Jungle Temple, etc. should stay in FTW. This would be as simple as changing their Main.getGoodWorld checks to Main.masterMode checks.

 

[Lana]

Hi.

Hopefully this is the right thread.

I took some pictures to illustrate an issue with the Angler's reward structure, specifically with the way the quality bonus works.

This is what 120 quest rewards look like on my hardmode character after the third bonus tier kicked in.

Notice it's almost all "quality" rewards. (The game classifies the costumes as quality too.) I only received potions 3 times, and got 0 decoration.

This is what 120 quest rewards look like for new characters in a new world. (This is done by completing 45 quests each on 3 new characters. There are 5 fixed rewards awarded at certain intervals, so I've excluded those. Shown here are the remainder 120 random rewards. The accessories, and therefore the accompanying duplicate protection, are naturally earned, starting from 0 piece. The first tier of quality bonus kicks in after the 50th quest, which is why I have to retire these characters before that, but they do inherit the accessories earned by their predecessors to maintain the duplicate protection.)

Notice the distribution of accessories, decorations, and potions. Only 6/12 of the full set of decorations, but it's a great haul as far as I'm concerned because the drop rates for decorations are low to begin with, and I got some duplicates there.

I understand the quality bonus is there so even the most unlucky will get their accessories for their phones, and that's great. Along with the new duplicate protection introduced in 1.4, most people should realistically be able to get their full set without too much of a grind. As you can see, I collected two full sets and more even without the quality bonus, just with duplicate protection. (For those unaware, the drop rate for "quality items" doubles between quest 50 to 100, and quadruples between 100 and 150, and the new 1.4 duplicate protection prevents the Angler from handing out accessories already in player inventory until the full set is earned.)

The tier three 6.67x bonus that kicks in after the 150th quest however is way too excessive. It effectively locks out the chance to earn any decoration (which is what I want) or meaningful quantity of potions (which I could use), while continuing to hand out items I already have multiple copies of (and I don't need anymore of these). Which is what my main character is experiencing.

I'm really not sure if this is the intended effect for the item bonus to be honest. It feels like a borderline bug.

Now you may ask why I continued turning in quests on my main character. Well, this was for a completionist Journey mode run and I was still missing a whole bunch of decorations. I didn't notice the issue until 250 quests in. After I did, I started storing the rewards to confirm my suspicion. I was still missing one particular quest fish for research anyway, so I didn't mind the concurrent experiment with recording the rewards.

I had to collect the rest of my decorations with throwaway characters though, because those just aren't happening anymore with my main character.

I realised the Angler is a meme subject for most people who only do enough for the accessories or the achievements. This isn't really an issue for these groups. For home decorators, hardcore anglers, purists, and completionists though, hopefully you can see why this is a problem. You just can't get the decorations with your main character anymore after a certain point.

 

[FLUX2226]

Why does any item have an absurdly low drop chance? Why do you have to fight the Moon Lord over a dozen times to have a good chance at getting the one drop you actually want? Personally, I wouldn't give any item a drop chance less than 1/6 unless the monster were very common, but I'm not the one who designed the game. Whatever thinking goes into doing that would probably apply just as much to the Sandstorm.

I agree that low drop chances are unpleasant, but they are still a better solution than "create 20 worlds to get 1 item". If I had to choose between these two, I'd pick the low drop chance.

 

[VDragunov]

You know what? That might actually be possible.

Buuuuut, I'll need to discuss it with Yorai.

Oiled works because it applies an NPC-side debuff, and so it can sync properly in MP.

Have a client-side "buff" to On Fire might not be mechanically possible because IIRC, there is nothing linking the On Fire debuff on enemies to the player. But balance wise, I think this could really work. Now its a mechanical issue to overcome.

Hi, I know literally nothing about coding.

But when I read this the first thought that came to mind is making players have a small buff to damage against foes with the debuff as long as the conditions are met (AKA: having magma stone or any of it's tinkers equipped). It would have a similar effect without causing that many issues in MP.

 

[Ilmarinen]

snip

It looks like that potions and decorations just need to be in their own independent loot pool and have a chance to always drop regardless.

 

[WatcherCCG]

I agree that low drop chances are unpleasant, but they are still a better solution than "create 20 worlds to get 1 item". If I had to choose between these two, I'd pick the low drop chance.

Agreed. This is less metagame-y and immersion breaking than constantly creating throwaway worlds. It wastes time and adds zero gameplay. Farming for it would still suck, but that's valid gameplay and something you can do in a reasonable timeframe.

 

[J Bame]

Simple one-line-of-code stuff:

• Make Panic! increase all damage by 20%
• Allow Deadly Spheres and Mini Twins to go through blocks. It's both very detrimental and tilting to suddenly see half your minions being useless because they get stuck underground.
• Shadow Armor set bonus to boost Melee speed by 15% as well. Nice indirect buff to pHm swords and gives this armor some value compared to Crimtane armor.
• Buff Orichalcum Mask to give +13% melee crit chance instead of +7% melee damage. Compared to the other two, the stats for this specific variant are not only laughably bad, they also break the "it boosts crit!" theme Orichalcum armor has.
• Tone down Necro Armor's set bonus a bit; down to 10% or 8%. The buff was welcomed, but I feel it's overdone and it's not on the class that needs this strong of an armor.
• A bit more crit for each piece of Jungle armor. It's just a bit too weak.
• Nerf Seedler. It's a Plantera drop that kills Moon Lord and isn't even bad at it.
• Make Flying Dragon a bigger sword with faster swing speed (not fire rate). It shouldn't just be at the level of Terra Blade given that it's on the same stage of the game as Influx Waver. With a much better sword hitbox it should become better against Pillar enemies than Influx, without outclassing it against bosses.
• Make Explosive Traps inflict On Fire!. Part of the reason Oiled sucks is that not many good weapons inflict fire debuffs at this stage of the game.
• Reduce Clown's damage in Master Mode. Hardest difficulty or not, one-shots from off-screen are not fun.
• Give Celestial Cuffs the +20 mana from Magic Cuffs. It's just weird that it randomly loses it and it could use the little buff.
• Simplify Thorns Potion's recipe. With the Cacti, the Deathweed, the Worm Teeth and the Stingers I'd argue it's harder to renew than literal Lifeforce.

More complicated and debatable stuff:

• Blood Thorn should work on platforms.
• Hitting a Worm-like enemy with a Whip tags every segment.
• Give Optic Staff the Raven Treatment. In other words, make them way faster because they spend way more time catching up to a boss than actually attacking it.
• Attacking while standing still with Shroomite armor no longer interrupts the cloaking.
• Equipping a Leg Piece cancels Wizard Set's set bonus. It's a bit artificial, but I think it's the easiest way to nerf it without gutting the stats of each part of the set.
• Make Star Cloak's Stars fall from above the cursor rather than above the player. They will still miss and not deal much damage, but at least they'll fall where we want them to go.
• Make Stars from Bee Cloak release bees on impact, and let those bees ignore defense.
• For accessories like Panic Necklace, Star Cloak, Honey Comb and maybe Cross Necklace that only trigger their effect when you take damage, make it so that the more damage taken, the stronger the effect. For example, if you take as much as 300 damage, Panic Necklace and Cross Necklace would have a longer duration and Star Cloak and Honey Comb would summon many more projectiles. This is the only way to make these effects worth it in the higher difficulties where enemies hit way too hard to make a weak damage retaliation effect worth it, without making them way too strong in Classic and pre-Hardmode.
• Taking a hit while Shielding with Brand of the Inferno or Captain America's shield should give you Striking Moment regardless of whether you parried or not. Trying to parry against any threat more competent than 1 Fighter AI will get you brutally killed because it requires incredibly precise timing and any projectile stops it. This way we can at least get the damage if we missed the parry.

 

[draeken]

@ Jota

• shadow armor already gives +21% attackspeed. If you add 15% it is 36%, which beats many HM boosts.
• Imo it is easier to just add wizard pants, code wise. Sprite wise nope, but well...

Cool suggestions overall

 

[qwerty3.14]

• shadow armor already gives +21% attackspeed. If you add 15% it is 36%, which beats many HM boosts.

Melee speed is a very niche stat. Most good melee weapon have no dps benefit from it. Yeah it will have more melee speed than cobalt armor but... no one uses cobalt armor.

• Imo it is easier to just add wizard pants, code wise. Sprite wise nope, but well...

No... no it isn't you literally just got to check if there isn't something in `player.armor[2]`