Hey, I've started a new world recently on journey mode and I've been trying to go for a completionist route, get every single item in the game and meet their respective duplication thresholds. This has brought to light quite a bit of issues I have with said thresholds, and especially some item's rarities or availability. So instead of raw item stats I'd like to start a discussion over that, since some items are just unreasonably grindy.
Sure, some of these might be a bit overpowered for the average player's eyes, but journey mode was sold as an accessibility pick, so I feel lowering the bar for some of them might make the game more fun for the people that need it (as well as compulsive hoarders like me). This first post will be focused on normal mode since I haven't progressed too far into hardmode quite yet, mainly due to the grind and also because I suck, but if this reaches some success I'll come back and share my findings on hardmode.
>Sandstorm in a bottle/Pharaoh vanity set/Magic Carpet
While you only need one of each they are EXCLUSIVELY spawned inside pyramids, and are not available through oasis crates. That has resulted in me having to create 5 other worlds just to get both the set and the bottle, and *I still didn't get the magic carpet*. That's really restricting in my personal opinion.
Suggested fix: Including them in the oasis crate pool
>Biome crates
So from my experience fishing with crate potions, fishing potions, the fiberglass rod and golden worms as bait - I've found that these are stupidly rare. Maybe it's just my particular setup but they felt just as rare as golden crates. Now, golden crates requiring 10 of them to duplicate is fine, seeing they are available everywhere, but to have to fish 20 of each biome crate to unlock all of them for duping (Due to having both pre- and hardmode variants) is just an unreasonable time sink. For comparison, by the time I ended the oasis crate grind I had around 134 regular crates, 70-ish iron crates and 9 golden crates.
Suggested fix: Either make them more common or lower the threshold to around 3 for duping
>Jungle Grass Seeds
While breaking jungle grass isn't particularly difficult, not only does it have a crazy low drop rate but you're also having to walk around in the jungle for extended periods of time. This was the only grass type that really proved to be an issue, even mushroom seeds were significantly easier to obtain due to the layout of them as well as the chance to get them from mushroom trees. It *might* be because I'm doing this on a drunk world, meaning I have a very small jungle, but it's still worth noting.
Suggested fix: I feel only requiring 10 or even 5 would be far more reasonable than 25
>Cascade
While this one isn't grindy or unreasonably difficult to obtain, it's just that I believe you cannot get it at all if you enter hardmode? I might be wrong on this one, but still, I don't feel you should be able to just miss out on a weapon like that.
Suggested fix: Adding them to the hardmode obsidian crate pool, or even the shadow locked chest things you can get from the crates pre-hardmode
>Living Loom, Finch Staff, other living tree loot unavailabe elsewhere.
After actually getting a world without even a single living tree in a previous playthrough it really makes you realize just how many items are just flat-out unobtainable unless you luck out with worldgen. All of them can't just be shoved into fishing crates, but I wouldn't mind seeing certain NPCs selling them or some becoming mob drops (Witch Doctor and Dryad could easily be selling a living loom for example, and the finch staff could be a rare drop from bird critters)
>Terragrim
Terragrim
Suggested fix: Maybe a Journey-Exclusive crafting recipe? Likely available post-skeletron/early HM?
>Skeletron and Wall of Flesh treasure bags
Not too bad considering skeletron only requires you to wait 3 in-game days and the WoF can be done on another world to avoid completely blighting your world, they are still worth mentioning just in case changes to journey mode aren't particularly focused on balance or have a low grind tolerance.
Suggested fix: Only requiring one of each isn't necessary, but appreciated
I do have a very relaxed playstyle so those were the only one I *personally* found worth mentioning.