Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread

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I think unpairing debuffs is outside the scope of this thread; that sounds like an overhaul of how they are currently coded
 
I think unpairing debuffs is outside the scope of this thread; that sounds like an overhaul of how they are currently coded
That is incorrrect. They are already unpaired. Debuff damage for players is in Player.UpdateLifeRegen() and debuff damage for NPCs is in NPC.UpdateNPC_BuffApplyDOTs()
The code is not shared between player and NPCs at all, at least in the decompiled source code.
 
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That is incorrrect. They are already unpared. Debuff damage for players is in Player.UpdateLifeRegen() and debuff damage for NPCs is in NPC.UpdateNPC_BuffApplyDOTs()
The code is not shared between player and NPCs at all, at least in the decompiled source code.
Yes, but I recall Leinfors saying that Red intended debuffs to be this way (same for players and enemies). Unfortunately, this seemed like a good idea, but if it is a design choice by other devs, it is unlikely to get changed.
 
Yes, but I recall Leinfors saying that Red intended debuffs to be this way (same for players and enemies). Unfortunately, this seemed like a good idea, but if it is a design choice by other devs, it is unlikely to get changed.
Frostburn already deals different damage to players and NPCs (6 vs. 8 DPS).
 
Frostburn already deals different damage to players and NPCs (6 vs. 8 DPS).
This is on the long list of strange behavior or inconsistencies documented on the wiki but never filed as a bug on the official forums. Debuff changes probably require the devs to remember to update the player and NPC code separately. Frostburn has changed in the past and may have become out of sync during those modifications. I am tempted to file this as a bug, but I don't think it is appropriate to file a bug without actually testing it. Someone who has observed this in multiplayer should file a bug.
 
I think she is very hard. If i had Last Prism or like Zenith, i would rekt her. :rolleyes:
Well some advice is use buffs, and try here on normal mode or journey mode first, and slowly crank the difficulty up until you are able to get her on expert or master. Also heart lanterns, heart statues and at least make sure you use some of the dodging gear, like the master ninja gear and brain of confusion, and the hallow set, although it isn’t the daytime, it’s still good to get that chance to dodge attacks
 
I think she is very hard. If i had Last Prism or like Zenith, i would rekt her. :rolleyes:
She is unlocked post-Plantera but is probably not meant to be fought with Plantera gear (maybe event moon gear will help). Practicing her should help though, especially in learning how to dodge homing projectiles. I've always found the fight to be too random to my taste.
 
It wasn't an "intentional nerf" in a balance sense, it was a side effect of optimization changes that I was not aware of, and so it didn't find its way into the changelog at the time. I only recently found out about it myself.

Apparently the range check for the Scutlix Mount was extremely high, and the larger it was, the more performance impact it had. As a result of its off-screen range detection, it had an inordinate performance impact for something like a mount's attack (not a justified expenditure of performance). Its range was reduced substantially, as a result of that.

As this was not on my radar, I didn't make note of it at the time, but it has a very significant impact on its effective combat performance. After revisiting the situation, we've increased the range moderately from where it is (though still substantially lesser than it was prior to 1.4) and I'm proposing a damage buff to mitigate the loss. None of it is finalized, however.

Unfortunately, a complete revert of the range nerf is unlikely to happen, as it was having an impact beyond standard balancing effects.




Sharpening Station buff is in the changelog last time I checked.

It's very unfortunate and sad that The Scutlix's attack distance won't return completely, but We are looking forward to a nice damage buff that exceeds its weakening.

If possible, I would like the attack distance of Scutlix to be returned to about 50 blocks.
It makes me sad to see Scutlix not being able to find enemies on the screen.
 
I've just thought of something concerning the Terra Blade problem. To those who haven't seen it, here's the quote from Leinfors talking about it.
On review, yes, Cursed Inferno and Venom are doing half as much as I had intended them to do. They are still buffed substantially from how much they WERE doing, but the code has a 2x divider on DoT effects that was unclear to me, so the end result is less than expected.

This should be remedied in my balance review patch.

On an unrelated note, I have two particular scenarios that I'd be interested in ideas/solutions for. One of them has already been discussed heavily in this thread, though I'm not 100% satisfied with the ideas proposed, and the other is new.

So,

Situation A:
Band of Starpower is a fairly critical piece of many mage build tinkers, but is more or less Corruption exclusive, with the only way to get it being Hardmode-Graveyard seeds and fishing it up out of a Biome Crate (pretty significant hoops to jump through).

Goal:
Find a clean way to offer cross-world access to it that would also allow symmetrical application to the Panic Necklace.

Limitations:
- Can't require the addition of new items
- Ideally wouldn't remove the Band of Starpower from the Shadow Orb loot pool
- Can be symmetrically applied to Panic Necklace
- If its locked to Hardmode, its barely an improvement on the current method, so that is likely not a great solution
- Whatever solution is made here is not likely to be applied to the rest of the Corruption/Crimson alternates. This is exclusively oriented at the Band of Starpower (and the Panic Necklace due to symmetry).

There have been a lot of ideas tossed around in the thread, including putting it in Gold Chests, putting it in Sky Chests, making it craftable, etc. Right now, none of them feel quite right. I know "where I want to get to", but I'm not satisfied with a quality solution to doing so, and if we can't find an ideal solution, then it might not be something that we can do.


Situation B:
Terra Blade, True Night's Edge, and True Excalibur are fundamentally difficult to balance as a result of their source and tiering. On paper, they are the exact same tier, because once you get both of them, you can immediately upgrade to Terra Blade. This means that the Terra Blade can't be "as good as it deserves" because its actually the same tier as the True Swords, which limits it. It also means that the True Swords can't be as good as THEY deserve, because you need to reserve "upward mobility" for the Terra Blade. All 3 weapons suffer for it.

But that's not the only problem. Technically speaking, their tier is post-Mech. You can get these weapons as soon as you've beaten the 3 mechs. However, it is HEAVILY RNG locked, with Solar Tablets being locked to just before Golem. This is highly problematic, because if I balance them for post-Mech/pre-Plantera, they aren't strong enough when you are LIKELY to get them. But if I balance them for pre-Golem/post-Golem, then they are WAY too strong if you get them early. So, with that all said!

Goal:
1. Separate the tier of the Terra Blade from the True Swords. The True Swords should be unlocked at an earlier tier than Terra Blade, so that they do not immediately upgrade into it. This allows all 3 weapons to fulfill their own niches and have room to grow and stand on their own.
2. Figure out a solution to the Broken Hero Sword/Eclipse situation, so that the "tier" of the weapon isn't smeared across 2 and a half in-game tiers.
3. Ultimately, Terra Blade should be stronger than it is, but it is difficult to just buff it while it is currently hamstrung by the two issues stated above. Resolving the above two issues will allow me to buff Terra Blade, and probably both of the True Swords as well.

Limitations:
- It is unlikely that a new item will be added to allow for the crafting here
- True Excalibur's unlock must be, at minimum, post-3-mech, but the easier it is to unlock, the less room it has to grow over Excalibur
- The more space put between Terra Blade and the True Swords, the more they can stand apart
- Broken Hero Sword is not going away, but a sufficiently compelling argument could be made to see it moved to a different source. It could theoretically be only used for Terra Blade, and not for the True Swords.

I've done a lot of brainstorming on both of the above and I'm just not satisfied with any of the solutions we've come up with. Most of them have logistical issues that either make them ineffective at accomplishing the intended purpose, or mean they are likely to be turned down by Redigit.

I'm interested in any ideas you guys have to offer. :)
Many solutions have been proposed to hopefully remedy the fix, but it usually includes splitting the Solar Eclipse into too many tiers (post-1-mechs, post-3-mechs, post-Plantera, post-Golem).
The main problem is that the Solar Eclipse can either appear immediately after defeating a mechanical boss, or never appear at all because of how rare it is (5% chance). Therefore, a solution is to make their appearances more consistent. So basically, the solution is to make the Solar Tablets available quickly.

I've noticed that you only unlock the Solar Eclipse's tablets after defeating Plantera, and by the time you've gone to the Jungle Temple, you've probably also defeated Golem in the first place (as a first-time player) Why don't we unlock the Jungle Temple immediately after the defeat of 1 mechanical boss, instead of Plantera?
This may sound like a very prompt unlock for what is basically late-Hardmode content, and theoretically it does make the True Excalibur the same tier as the Excalibur, but the Jungle is not an easy biome to navigate, same for the Jungle Temple, and you actually need to defeat Mothron multiple times before being able to obtain the broken Hero Sword. It can be solved by unlocking the Jungle Temple only after the 3rd mech boss kill. (though I see it in the same light as Empress of Light being unlocked post-Plantera but needing post-Golem weapons to defeat reliably)
And if you're worried about the Lihzahrd Power Cells being available in the chests, there is a solution to that problem as well. A powerful Jungle creature can take care of it easily, just like with the biome keys.

One issue about this solution is that it makes the Terra Blade post-Plantera tier instead of post-Golem, and therefore denies it of the potential buffs it deserves.
 
You don’t if they are in the chests, you can use hooks to get into the jungle temple.
Hoiks aren't exactly the strat a regular player will use in progression, to be honest. As appealing as it may be, it still is sort of a bug interaction and allows for interactions that weren't planned, including being able to enter Temple without defeating Plantera.

(but oh well, you still can get lucky with Temple generating a chest with tablet outside, or grind lihzahrds if background walls appeared in front of the door)
 
Good news guys, after a few reworks, I've gotten approval on my entire balance proposal sheet, and I'm going to begin working on implementation.

Not really comfortable sharing the full extent of it, but I can say I have about 170 change lines on the doc, and some of those changes are VERY broad, like "rework all of the enemy immunities" is a single changeline, which will likely include hundreds of immunity changes. Others are much more specific/individual, like individual stat changes to an item.

As per my original 1.4 changelog, I'll try to be as detailed as possible where I can. I won't be able to list all of the planned hundreds of immunity changes due to the sheer mass quantity of it, but I intend to document all of the statistical changes for equipment, which are substantial.

It's very unfortunate and sad that The Scutlix's attack distance won't return completely, but We are looking forward to a nice damage buff that exceeds its weakening.

If possible, I would like the attack distance of Scutlix to be returned to about 50 blocks.
It makes me sad to see Scutlix not being able to find enemies on the screen.

The performance impact caused by the range scaled proportionally with the range. The higher the range, the larger the total area it was scanning for, and the more impact it was having.

However, I believe our increased range proposal is going to be JUST about 50, or 51. :)

It was originally something like 90 blocks, if my rough calculations are correct.

I think unpairing debuffs is outside the scope of this thread; that sounds like an overhaul of how they are currently coded

Unpairing (or pairing, if needed) debuffs is low-grade codework enough that it can be done in a couple of minutes by myself or Grox, with no need for taking the attention of the higher level coders.

The actual time investment will be manually reviewing all of the now decoupled immunities to make sure they are as wanted. I suspect the whole immunity project, both planning and implementation, could take me a day to do, and its one of the broadest scope changes on my approved list.

Yes, but I recall Leinfors saying that Red intended debuffs to be this way (same for players and enemies). Unfortunately, this seemed like a good idea, but if it is a design choice by other devs, it is unlikely to get changed.
Frostburn already deals different damage to players and NPCs (6 vs. 8 DPS).

In response to Sslras:
Initially, prior to 1.4, I was told to keep DoT scaling consistent. After continuing review of Ichor vs DoT discrepancies, it became apparent that this is not long term tenable without dramatically increasing the player damage of some DoTs to the point of unreasonable threat, so we might be decoupling a couple of them.

In response to MageKing17:
In essence, it probably shouldn't have been like that, but since Frostburn is rarely found "in the wild" so to speak, it wasn't a big deal. And if we go ahead with the decoupling, then it won't matter at all. :)
 
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Good news guys, after a few reworks, I've gotten approval on my entire balance proposal sheet, and I'm going to begin working on implementation.

Not really comfortable sharing the full extent of it...

Is pre-click item use included?

I was able to make the change as a Terraria Tweaker 2 plugin so it is extremely easy to test now. The change appears to be free from unwanted side effects because the code changes are extremely limited in scope and PreClick shares a similar enough code path to regular autofire that any bugs it might suffer from might already be present with autofire.

I seriously can't stand playing without the change after having experienced how much better the game is with it. It feels more like a bug fix than a balance change, though it certainly does influence balance slightly.
 
Is pre-click item use included?

I was able to make the change as a Terraria Tweaker 2 plugin so it is extremely easy to test now. The change appears to be free from unwanted side effects because the code changes are extremely limited in scope and PreClick shares a similar enough code path to regular autofire that any bugs it might suffer from might already be present with autofire.

I seriously can't stand playing without the change after having experienced how much better the game is with it. It feels more like a bug fix than a balance change, though it certainly does influence balance slightly.
I don’t think so, that also would be annoying if you were using a weapon, and you just keep clicking to use it although all those clicks don’t count only some of them do, but if that’s was a thing you would have to wait forever to swap to a different weapon.... but hey I I don’t need know anything about what’s added, it’s just my thought
 
Initially, prior to 1.4, I was told to keep DoT scaling consistent. After continuing review of Ichor vs DoT discrepancies, it became apparent that this is not long term tenable without dramatically increasing the player damage of some DoTs to the point of unreasonable threat, so we might be decoupling a couple of them.
That's great! This makes it much easier to balance DoT effects... the only problem left would be power scaling, but I'm sure you choose an appropriate way to solve that.

I think the amount of changes on your list should fix mostly everything (I imagine most of them are simple stat changes), I'm eager to see the patch notes.
s pre-click item use included?

I was able to make the change as a Terraria Tweaker 2 plugin so it is extremely easy to test now. The change appears to be free from unwanted side effects because the code changes are extremely limited in scope and PreClick shares a similar enough code path to regular autofire that any bugs it might suffer from might already be present with autofire.

I seriously can't stand playing without the change after having experienced how much better the game is with it. It feels more like a bug fix than a balance change, though it certainly does influence balance slightly.
It's an interesting "tweak" that I can't say I wouldn't like to be added in vanilla, but let's not get upset if it doesn't, it's a difficult decision to add it due to balance impacts alone, it may not seem like a lot, but I do feel a few non-autofire weapon would be heavily impacted and need a second review. It would definitively be a mod I did use all the time if I wasn't lazy enough to use Omniswing.
 
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