Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

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I think almost everyone has expressed only wanting to see a minor adjustment here, so that seems way too dramatic to me, and one that is literally shifting in favor of an unpopular mechanic that I'm not trying to make worse. This would make groups of frogs actually weaker than they were in 1.4.
It already has shifted in favor of an unpopular mechanic. Having damage not dealt while the tongue was out ensured you could never get max dps from a single frog. Scaling for additional minions is now worse especially for enemies with large hitboxes. When frogs have collision inactive it leaves room for additional frogs to be useful.

You haven't offered any alleviation for the local immunity/static immunity minion dichotomy.

The typical pattern is a player with a minion heavy build finds a new summon weapon at a higher tier, sees a bigger damage number, and replaces all summons with it. If their minions are switched from local immunity to static immunity damage against single targets, especially bosses where DPS is most important drops dramatically. The reason that this is happening is almost completely hidden from the player. This user experience is terrible and should be prevented somehow. I don't care how, I just want this bad experience to go away.
 
This user experience is terrible and should be prevented somehow. I don't care how, I just want this bad experience to go away.

I'll have to refer back to an answer to previous discussion, but the end answer to this is the roughly same . . .

What you are asking for is not something I can grant, and has not been approved in the past. It is not exclusive to minions, and is actually a fundamental design quirk of Terraria since its inception, and remedies for its existence were so late in coming that it is not viable to apply it wholesale now. This is not a change that is within my power to make.

And to avoid beating a dead horse which will go no where in this thread, I won't discuss it further, lest I give the impression I can, in fact, change it.
 
So, firstly I want to say, rhat I like a lot of changes, you've made but there are some things, that I didn't really like or want to recommend you to do:

1. I am still not satisfied with Fledgling wings being generated in Sky chests. You can obtain them before any boss and they provide too good mobility for that stage (basically, they are lucky horseshoe an shiny red baloon combined with extra gliding speed increase). I think, that they should be bough from Zoologist (I think they kind of fit her theme of animal-themed items) after Skeletron to fix this problem (you may make it, so that they spawn after you have certain percentage of Bestiary completed to motivate people to hunt for rare enemies and explore their world, which is a good thing). I think that unless you nerf those wings (and you souldn't as it will be bad for Journey Mode players), you should make them obtainable in late pre-hardmode to balnce them out.
2. As long as it is sad to see True swords not requiring Broken Hero Swords, I understand why this decision was made. I think, that Souls of Mecahnical Bosses are a quite good replacement. But Chlorophyte... it is just strange and it'd be nice, if both swords required Souls in their recipes to make it consisitent (like it was with Broken Hero Swords). And I also think, that Light Discs should be buffed (they can technically be obtained after just one Mechanical Boss, but I think that they should be useful after three Mechanical Bosses too, as players can kill Destroyer as the last Mechanical boss (also, it's not about 1.4.1 change, but could you buff Flamethrower a bit?))
3. Despite you've buffed Chlorophyte armor, it is still worse than Hallowed armor. And it is not because Hallowed armor is overpowered. It is because it doesn't add anything quite useful to craft it, as after Planter you can use that saved Chlorophyte to craft better armor (and bullelts, if you're playing as a ranger) and, besides that, it is not a big upgrade from the Hallowed armor (especially because Hallowed armor's Set bonus is more useful during boss fights).
4. I am pretty sure it was already pointed out, but making QUAD-Barrel Shotgun shooting SIX bullets is a bit illogical.
5. I think that Unholy arrows weren't needed a nerf.
6. I haven't tested buffed Arkhalis yet, but on paper it still looks undepowered, if you compare it to other Developer's weapons. For example, Red's Throw does more damage than Yelets, while Arkhalist should deal even more DPS, as it doesn't have any range compared to that YoYo. I am not the best at balancing, but I would certainly at least make it do twice more damage. And I think, that it is ok to make this sword a bit overpowered (as you've done witb Betsy' Wrath), considering how rare it is, getting it should feel like an insane luck, and it should be useful until at least Post-Plantera tier (as Red's Throw is).
7. Again this is not fully about a 1.4.1 changes, but can you make it, so that Finch Staff can be dropped from Trees (as you've made it with Living Wood Staffs)? A lot if people like completing the game with One-class-only restictions and not getting Finch Staff in a Living Wood Chest (or the lack of Living Wood Trees completely, as I had in my first 1.4 world) can make pure summoner very difficult, as you'd have to search for crittes and build for all town NPCs eithout any weapon, to get access to Leather Whip. Also, to tell you the thruth, I was expecting Finch Staff to be obtainable through shaking trees, when I played 1.4 for the first time and avoided wiki for a couple of days not to have any spoilers.
8. Thus was mentioned above, but it is sad that two of the new costumes (Timeless Traveller's and Plaguebringer's sets) are locked by the world Evil (I know, that I can make artificial biome or go into a different world, but a lot of people prefer one player-one world type of playthrough and they won't be able to get another set until Hardmode). And besides that, I think, that Plaguebringer's set fits more with Corruption's theme (because of cursed flames behind it) and Timeless Yraveller fits Crimson's theme more (because the helmet clearly has bone parts and Crimson't theme is Fleshy-Bloody-Bony. (And also, we have that amazing background with large skeleton in Crimson, which may lead to some sort of "Lore" that part of the helmet were made from its bones, which sounds quite cool!). So, if you don't want to change the recipes entirely, I'd at leask ask you to swap those sets' recipes.
9. I think that Onyx Blaster should be nerfed a bit more.
10. Once again not about 1.4.1 change, but can Flame Walker boots (and its upgrades) damage enemies with flames? (Still worth trying to get this feature, hahah). Also, can you somehow make Fairy boots not useless??? Also, maybe Flower boots should be able to spawn Strange Plants rarely, that will make them A LOT better and give them a use other than being a vanity item?

Other than that, I really like what you've made with Terraria items' balancing as now a lot of previously underpowered weapons/accessories are better and a lot of overpowered weapons are more balanced! That makes game feel more finished and that's amazing!
 
There's one concern I have: What effect has putting True Excalibur at Chlorophyte-tier had on the viability of the other Chlorophyte-tier melee weapons? From what I can tell those weapons were already underpowered – considering the high amount of Chlorophyte bars needed for the True Excalibur, mightn't this be the final nail in the coffin for the Chlorophyte Claymore, Partisan, and Saber?
 
I agree that Chlorophyte doesn’t make much sense in TEx’s recipe.

If I were to do it, I would do it as:

-True Night’s Edge: Night’s Edge, 20 Soul of Night, 20 Soul of Fright. This would do two things: give Souls of Fright more relevance, and fit with the idea of the Night’s Edge.

-True Excalibur: Excalibur, 10 of each boss soul. This would separate it from TNE, because TNE would technically be post-1 mech with this, and Chlorophyte really isn’t all that separate from 3 boss souls. Plus it makes a lot more logical sense than Chlorophyte.

-Both swords would have minor nerfs for their tier.

Obviously, it’s probably not possible to change Terra Blade’s recipe *again*, and it isn’t bad as is, so not an urgent change
 
I agree that Chlorophyte doesn’t make much sense in TEx’s recipe.

If I were to do it, I would do it as:

-True Night’s Edge: Night’s Edge, 20 Soul of Night, 20 Soul of Fright. This would do two things: give Souls of Fright more relevance, and fit with the idea of the Night’s Edge.

-True Excalibur: Excalibur, 10 of each boss soul. This would separate it from TNE, because TNE would technically be post-1 mech with this, and Chlorophyte really isn’t all that separate from 3 boss souls. Plus it makes a lot more logical sense than Chlorophyte.

-Both swords would have minor nerfs for their tier.

Obviously, it’s probably not possible to change Terra Blade’s recipe *again*, and it isn’t bad as is, so not an urgent change
True Excalibur is balance to be Chlorophyte tier, the Chlorophyte gear isn't.
The BEST approach would be to buff Chlorophyte gear.


I would say though that I did prefer if both true swords shared the same crafting recipe, but that's not the decision they took and I think that's fine, I understand that they wanted both weapons to be relevant at one point.

But yeah, having three different swords in one tier with one being very superior to the others isn't the best design, but I think that's a minor issue in the end, as basically every ore sword has a superior counterpart.

Also Leinfors is clearly not fully satisfied with how this change went, but the lack of appropriate materials to fix that is probably the issue.
 
The Chlorophyte Saber and Partisan are mainly useful just for passing through walls. I use the partisan almost entirely for stabbing through the Jungle or the Dungeon, and True Excalibur can't fire through thick walls.

The claymore is a little different, since its orb is more similar to the True Excalibur, but it also pierces more enemies and is cheaper and does more damage per shot. This, with its arc, makes it more useful for exploration, like all the Chlorophyte gear.
 
Flamarang is certainly far more reliable than before, but its DPS is not. At most its DPS is only slightly better than a Molten Fury with Hellfire Arrows, and this is while standing literally next to a target, at range it's significantly weaker. More base damage wouldn't hurt.
 
1. I am still not satisfied with Fledgling wings being generated in Sky chests. You can obtain them before any boss and they provide too good mobility for that stage (basically, they are lucky horseshoe an shiny red baloon combined with extra gliding speed increase). I think, that they should be bough from Zoologist (I think they kind of fit her theme of animal-themed items) after Skeletron to fix this problem (you may make it, so that they spawn after you have certain percentage of Bestiary completed to motivate people to hunt for rare enemies and explore their world, which is a good thing). I think that unless you nerf those wings (and you souldn't as it will be bad for Journey Mode players), you should make them obtainable in late pre-hardmode to balnce them out.
Featherfall potions have been in the game for far longer and have way more both utility and height, and I don't think anyone calls them overpowered. Also, rocket boots have much more height as well.
 
I am extremely pleased with the changes made to enemy immunities in 1.4.1. There is now far more consistency and balance in terms of enemy immunities across-the-board. Still, I'd like to point out some remaining suggestions and inconsistencies relating to enemy immunities:
Poisoned
  1. Many enemies still have immunity to Poison that is unnecessary. This includes many Crimson enemies. Face Monsters, Blood Crawlers, Floaty Grosses, and Ichor Stickers could all have their immunity to Poison removed. This would be consistent with Corruption enemies, as most Corruption enemies (with the exception of slimes) don't have immunity to Poison. These immunities do nothing but impact the effectiveness of Poison on Crimson worlds, and they aren't strictly necessary either.
  2. Snow Flinxes and Corites also have unnecessary immunity to Poison. Corites might have it because Meteor Heads do, but Corites are presumably biological in nature, like the other Solar Pillar enemies.
  3. Since the Wall of Flesh has had many immunities removed, it'd also make sense if it were vulnerable to Poison, since few other Underworld enemies are immune to it (except for Lava Slimes).
  4. Queen Bee should definitely have immunity to Poison, as most Underground Jungle enemies have this immunity, including all other Hornet and Bee enemies. Queen Bee also inflicts Poison herself.
  5. Everscream is immune to Poison, but Mourning Wood is susceptible to it. Either Mourning Wood should be made immune to Poison, or the Everscream should be made vulnerable to it. Both are plant creatures, so there's no reason for the discrepancy – in fact, the living Everscream looks like it should be far more susceptible to Poison than the blackened, twisted Mourning Wood.
  6. The Twins are mechanical, and so should be immune to Poison.
  7. The Empress of Light is a spirit of the Hallow, and so shouldn't be affected by Poison either.
  8. Several non-biological enemies that should be immune to Poison still aren't. Angry Tumblers should be completely immune to it; so should Scarecrows, Elf Copters, and Gingerbread Men. I don't know whether the Nutcracker is intended to be a construct or an actual, living Nutcracker, but if the former, it should also receive Poison immunity. Martian Probes should also gain immunity to Poison, like many other Martian machines did in 1.4.1.
  9. Pixies should still be immune to Poison, as they are presumably a kind of spirit. They had this immunity before 1.4.1, but it was removed.
  10. Flying Snakes should be immune to Poison, even though they do not inflict it. This is because Lihzahrds (who don't inflict Poison either) are immune to it, and it seems strange that Flying Snakes wouldn't as well.
  11. Windy Balloons should have immunity to Poison, despite dying in a single hit.
  12. Unlike all other skeletal enemies, Old One's Skeletons aren't immune to Poison. I've already reported this as a bug.
  13. Also – I don't know if any NPCs currently have debuff immunities, but the Witch Doctor and Skeleton Merchant should both have immunity to Poison, as the former is a Lihzahrd and the latter is a skeleton.
On Fire! / Hellfire
  1. Granite Golems and Granite Elementals should regain immunity to On Fire and Hellfire (Magma Stone debuff), to be consistent with Rock Golems and similar enemies.
  2. It'd make sense if all Solar Pillar enemies had this immunity, as I'd imagine they are pretty heat-resistant. Currently, only Corites do.
  3. Sand Elementals should have it, as they are made out of hot sand, which I'd imagine isn't very flammable.
  4. Chaos Elementals, Illuminant Slimes, and Illuminant Bats should have this immunity, as they are composed of pure energy.
  5. Betsy is a fire dragon, so it's only logical that she should have immunity to fire.
  6. The same goes for the Mourning Wood, which employs fire attacks. Many Pumpkin Moon enemies are immune to fire, and it feels strange that the one that is specifically linked to fire is not.
Frostburn / Frostbite
  1. Pigrons should gain immunity to Frostburn / Frostbite. Most Ice biome enemies have gained immunity to Frostburn and Frostbite (Frost armor debuff) in 1.4.1, but the Pigron is seemingly the only enemy that hasn't.
  2. I also suggest that Duke Fishron regain this immunity, since he comes from the deep, cold ocean, and is related biologically to Pigrons.
  3. Either Frozen Zombies should gain immunity to Frostburn / Frostbite, or Zombie Elves should lose it.
Cursed Inferno
  • Since Clingers inflict Cursed Inferno, I think it'd make a lot of sense if they were immune to it. This would form parity with Ichor Stickers being immune to Ichor.
Shadowflame
  • It'd make sense if Fire Imps were immune to Shadowflame like other demonic enemies. Since the Wall of Flesh is stated to be demonic in the Bestiary, it'd make sense if it were also immune to Shadowflame.
Confused
  1. Drakanians are still immune to Confused, but Drakomire Riders aren't for some reason. If it isn't possible to make Drakanians susceptible to Confused, Drakomire Riders should also be immune, as it makes no sense that the stronger version of the enemy is susceptible to it.
  2. Despite inflicting the debuff, it may not be necessary for Brain Scramblers to still be immune to it.
Immunity to all debuffs (except whip tags)
  1. I haven't been able to test whether this is true or not, but enemies that are immune to most debuffs – like spirit enemies – should still be susceptible to the Stardust Cell debuff, Dryad's Bane, and Midas. If they aren't, it's the same problem as those enemies earlier being immune to whip tags.
  2. Angry Nimbuses are an elemental enemy, but I think they should gain the same immunities as spirit-type enemies. After all, you can't use Acid Venom on a cloud, or set it on fire.
  3. Shadowflame Apparitions are now only immune to Shadowflame and Confused, but since they are technically a spirit enemy, I think they should regain their former wider range of immunities. You certainly shouldn't be able to poison them or use Acid Venom on them.
  4. The Lunatic Cultist's Ancient Dooms are currently only immune to Confused, but as they are technically another kind of summoned spirit, they should have the same immunities as Phantasm Dragons and Ancient Visions
 

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I'll also chime in to say that I love the Spinal Tap. Its gimmick is much-appreciated for the Wall of Flesh, which was previously a huge wall (ha) for Summoners on Master Mode, at least in my opinion. It does a good job and can even survive early Hardmode until a better whip is acquired.

On the topic of the Optic Staff: I've been an overly-dedicated Summoner main since 1.2.4. The Optic Staff was a true prize to me, as it was a reward for beating the Twins with my Spiders (which couldn't latch onto foes back then). I used it for almost everything; the other two mechs, Plantera, and the Pumpkin Moon (alongside Pygmies).

That being said, I'm still willing to believe that the Optic Staff is and always has been good, but I think it's less used for a couple of reasons: One, new staves have been introduced that perform much better than the Twinions. Two, Expert Mode didn't exist back then, so it was generally fine to take hits once in a while if it meant getting close to deal lots of damage with the Twinions. I feel like there wasn't as much insane mobility back then compared to now. And now that a lot more people play on modes where a single hit can mean the difference between life and death, I feel like mobility has become more of a meta than building defensively; as a result, more flying around means more downtime for the Twinions to catch up to you and not deal damage.

Now of course, Twinions are still viable even for Expert/Master Plantera because you're probably not going to rocket away at light speed due to being underground. Though, I will most likely still prefer Bats over Twinions in this scenario (though the latter does have good piercing capabilities for all those Plantera Tentacles).

So my idea is, what if Retinamini was changed to still be able to fire at enemies while catching up to the player? I say this because I often see Retinamini in particular still facing the enemy it wants to attack, while in return-to-sender mode, only resuming its assault once it reaches the player, which would require the player slowing down in the midst of a probably intense boss fight.
So would that require too much work, I wonder?
Maybe that's just me?

Anyway, Vampire Frogs. I think they're in a fine spot right now because of the hoops you need to jump through to get them. If Froggy really is going to get a nerf, I would probably do no more than decrease his damage by 1, or slightly increase the frames between attacks. Very slightly.
 
Hey Leinfors, everything looks solid imo, hugely excited for mobile to drop tmw. Just a small thing, has there been any mention of adding a sprite for the greedy ring? With the change to vanity slots, a small red pixel dot on the hand would make me unreasonably happy. A quick recoloring of the diamond ring sprite would more than suffice imo, but no biggie either way.
 
The issue with the frog buff, is that the new hitbox is always active and deals damage EXTREMLY quickly, this wasn't just a reliability buff but a massive dps buff thanks to the increased attack speed. Tone down the attack rate to be the same as the speed it sticks out its tongue.
So the vampire frog's tongue cycle is 20 frames (though it could hit for more than just a single frame in the original version).

This would be a very dramatic nerf, literally cutting its DPS by 50%, and leaning more towards "decreasing returns for more frogs" that people are trying to advocate against.

I agree that Vampire Frogs need a nerf, but I’m gonna go against the grain here and say that nerfing the rate at which their body deals damage, at least all the way down to the rate of their tongues, probably isn’t the way to go about it.

Leinfors and qwerty already established that this change would tank an individual frog’s DPS while improving their group capabilities. However, at the state of the game Vampire Frogs become available, group capabilities aren’t the priority. You have 3 minions max, 2 whenever you’re not in battle because summoning potions take time to make. Additionally, although Vampire Frogs are the ‘hog hitframes’ type of minion, due to their unique jumping patterns they usually aren’t hitting the same enemy at the same time, so for the first two minions or so, having extra minions does make a difference. This is especially obvious against groups of enemies where the frogs jump back and forth, and anything that can fly. This means that cutting down the rate of their lasting hitbox so much may just be a fatal hit and not actually let frogs redeem themselves until post-QB when the player has four or more minions.

Second, I’m assuming their role in progression is to bridge summoners over the world evil bosses, by their mechanics and what you need to actually kill blood moon fishes. Their lasting hitbox lets them take care of the Worm efficiently, similarly capable to a Vilethorn or Demon Bow with Jester Arrows. However, if anyone remembers 1.4 release, they didn’t hit anywhere near often enough to do jack to the worm. They’d hit two segments at a time, pause for about a second as they jump to try to follow the segments they attacked, and hit two completely separate segments. And honestly, a snapthorn doesn’t cut it for the worm because of its diminishing piercing and limited firepower on its own. Their lasting hitbox is pretty essential to take care of the Worm. Right now, they may be a bit too good at the worm, but that’s better than incompotence, and honestly, breaking the worm applies to 30% of weapons at the world evil tier already.

I can also bring up the Brain because I play drunk worlds almost exclusively now, and honestly they only do ‘okay’ against the brain already. The creepers are erratic and airborne, which Vampire Frogs obviously wouldn’t have strenghts against, but they manage due to the fact that they can jump through several at once. This gets weakened if the lasting hitbox is nerfed. However, that’s a lesser issue because a Snapthorn can take care of the creepers somewhat well. The second phase is the problem because whips don’t have nearly enough knockback to keep the Brain away. Their lasting hitbox, I noticed, is the only reason the Brain can’t just run you down in the second phase.

And lastly, although they need a nerf, they don’t need a major nerf. They already struggle against flying enemies and only really show their teeth in grounded combat, as well as beinf admittedly kind of stupid. They already pull around the same DPS as the post-worm minions on average, more when grounded but being quite a bit worse as soon as they have to jump to reach their target. They are also quite a pain in the :red: to get, even with all the buffs to blood moon fishing, because you still have to kill (usually multiple) Blood Moon fish to get it.

Vampire Frogs do need somewhat of a nerf in my opinion, I’m not going to argue that. But it doesn’t need a huge one, and I would prefer if it wasn’t in the form of nerfing the rate of the lasting hitbox by such a substantial amount. Nerfing it somewhat may be fine, but too far and it takes a fatal hit for the reasons I mentioned above.

Instead of nerfing the hit rate of the body, I personally would make the body deal less damage than the tongue, down to maybe 8 or 9 (about 2/3 that of the tongue). This would allow the body to be nerfed while keeping the tongue attack’s ability (and helping to establish the tongue as its “main attack”) as well as keeping some of its potency in the niche it’s meant for.

If that’s too hard to make, then I would just cut the overall damage down to ~11 and/or give the body hitbox a *slight* nerf in how fast it can hit.
 
... Instead of nerfing the hit rate of the body, I personally would make the body deal less damage than the tongue, down to maybe 8 or 9 (about 2/3 that of the tongue). ...
If one frog was by himself he would alternate tongue and body damage, but with two or more frogs, tongue attacks would have to share iFrames with body damage. Higher priority frogs would always deal tongue damage and lower priority frogs would only deal tongue damage if all higher priority frogs are outside of the enemy hitbox. In groups only the highest priority frog will consistently show damage numbers when making tongue attacks. This behavior happens now and may become more noticeable if there are two distinct damage values.

The most effective way to establish tongue attacks as the main attack would be to spawn a projectile during tongue attacks, similar to how Desert Tiger gets an additional projectile for the pounce attack. Probably not a change that could be made now.
 
I have to say that something needs to be done about enemy and boss multiplayer scaling on master difficulty. With even just 2 or 3 extra players things get frustratingly broken.
 
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If one frog was by himself he would alternate tongue and body damage, but with two or more frogs, tongue attacks would have to share iFrames with body damage. Higher priority frogs would always deal tongue damage and lower priority frogs would only deal tongue damage if all higher priority frogs are outside of the enemy hitbox. In groups only the highest priority frog will consistently show damage numbers when making tongue attacks. This behavior happens now and may become more noticeable if there are two distinct damage values.

The most effective way to establish tongue attacks as the main attack would be to spawn a projectile during tongue attacks, similar to how Desert Tiger gets an additional projectile for the pounce attack. Probably not a change that could be made now.

That’s a good point, I didn’t even think of that. In that case I’d vote for a damage nerf to 11, or a small rate in body hit rate and a damage nerf to 12.
 
This isn't really a balance thing, at least I don't think, and it doesn't have to do with 1.4.1 specifically, but is there any reason the Celebration Mk2 (and Mk1 for that matter) doesn't get liquid rocket effects? Since the Mk2 is also the fastest way to mine most blocks it would be a nice QoL change if it could be used for generating liquids as well, instead of having to use the Snowman Cannon for that. And since placing/deleting liquids is the only reason to use liquid rockets instead of normal rockets, it doesn't make much sense that some launchers can't use them for that.
 
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