Journey's End 1.4.4: Balance Feedback and Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Leinfors
- Start date
- Status
qwerty3.14
Terrarian
I just fought skeletron, I was using the snapthorn, flinx staff, obsidian armor, and feral claws. Skeletron got absolutely wrecked, I was getting 180-220dps, for most of the fight. Are pre boss weapons really supposed to get that powerful?
If the intention ever was flexibility, this implementation of the happiness system was doomed from the start. There's not much room for flexibility towards an optimised setup when there's predefined biome preference, lover, spacing requirements, and total neighbour count.
Maybe give the NPCs more than just 1 loved neighbour and 1 preferred biome to choose from. 3 or 4 of each would open up a lot more grouping options.
The "crowded" factor needs to go entirely. The pylon system already encourages natural development of satellite towns with separated groups of NPCs. The crowded factor doesn't do anything but further restricts build into specific ways.
It's especially problematic for small worlds. For example, in my current small world, I only have a pocket desert biome and a pocket hallow biome. I already have to build my pylon towns right at the biome edges to leave space for normal mobs and boss fights. 1.4.1's increased detection range means all my previously contented NPCs are now complaining about overcrowding. My houses have to be even further apart and I'll be left with practically no surface hallow or desert.
Maybe give the NPCs more than just 1 loved neighbour and 1 preferred biome to choose from. 3 or 4 of each would open up a lot more grouping options.
The "crowded" factor needs to go entirely. The pylon system already encourages natural development of satellite towns with separated groups of NPCs. The crowded factor doesn't do anything but further restricts build into specific ways.
It's especially problematic for small worlds. For example, in my current small world, I only have a pocket desert biome and a pocket hallow biome. I already have to build my pylon towns right at the biome edges to leave space for normal mobs and boss fights. 1.4.1's increased detection range means all my previously contented NPCs are now complaining about overcrowding. My houses have to be even further apart and I'll be left with practically no surface hallow or desert.
whoneedsnamestbh
Retinazer
I think Obsidian Armor is at fault for this. I’m running a new world for 1.4.1 and Flinx gear has been perfectly balanced for a mid pre-boss summoner.
A Snapthorn with the bonuses from Obsidian Armor would hit 3 times a second for 25 damage a hit.
Looking at Obsidian Armor again, the damage buff it gives is too high, but also potentially the whip speed buff. I think the range is fine - range is a much needed stat for whils, but perhaps the damage for the set and the whip speed should be tuned down.
whoneedsnamestbh
Retinazer
I think moral of the story is that Obsidian Armor and Vampire have been overtuned and Hornets and Imps need some love.
qwerty3.14
Terrarian
Obsidian armor is literally doubling my whip damage
MageKing17
Official Terrarian
I've personally experienced both sides of this; I once thought I had an NPC close enough for happiness bonuses, but it turned out they weren't, and I was annoyed. Then I had all my NPCs carefully placed at certain distances from each other, and then the update came and rendered that careful planning moot. On the whole, I think the longer range will probably be better for design freedom, but in the meantime, I need to redesign all of my towns; give it some time for people to get used to the new numbers and I suspect complaints will go down.
Serious question: why can't you just use music boxes?
EDIT:
Speaking of town happiness...
This doesn't seem to match the game's actual behavior. Firstly, the threshold for dialogue moving from "DislikeCrowded" to "HateCrowded" was increased from 6 NPCs to 7. That's purely cosmetic, though, since that dialogue shift isn't accompanied by any gameplay impacts. Secondly, 4 NPCs within a household went from having a 4% price penalty to having a 5% price penalty. That's not really a smaller start.
Last edited:
starman2995
Terrarian
These are my main suggestions/feedback (sorry if they were already suggested and I didn't see them):
1. Why can minion summons get useless modifiers like zealous when they can't even get critical hits? Not only is it really unpolished for the final version of the game, but it could very easily confuse people who don't know that minions can't get crits. I feel like either they shouldn't be able to get critical modifiers, or they should be able to get critical hits (I assume there is a reason they can't critical hit, but I don't know it).
2. I've noticed that with the finch staff, the finch automatically spawns if you spawn/respawn with it in your inventory, and I was wondering if this was a feature that could be implemented for all the summons. I'd imagine that it would pick the first staff in your inventory (going left to right, from the hotbar down). I think this would be a very nice quality of life change for summoners so that they aren't entirely helpless upon respawn.
3. This is a little more subjective and might not be entirely necessary, but I would really like the celestial magnet to be common to get from the traveling merchant, or just have a more reliable way of getting it overall. It is part of the celestial emblem, which in my opinion is one of the best/most important mage accessories. The fact that it is locked behind one of the rarest traveling merchant tables makes it very inconsistent to get, which could seriously hurt any mage run that could only be missing it.
4. This isn't a balance suggestion, but a U.I. suggestion. I really like the way the fancy health bar looks, but I can't stand playing with it because it doesn't display the actual health number you have like classic does. Would it be possible to combine the 2 in another option? Just having the numbers above the fancy health bar would make it perfect for me.
1. Why can minion summons get useless modifiers like zealous when they can't even get critical hits? Not only is it really unpolished for the final version of the game, but it could very easily confuse people who don't know that minions can't get crits. I feel like either they shouldn't be able to get critical modifiers, or they should be able to get critical hits (I assume there is a reason they can't critical hit, but I don't know it).
2. I've noticed that with the finch staff, the finch automatically spawns if you spawn/respawn with it in your inventory, and I was wondering if this was a feature that could be implemented for all the summons. I'd imagine that it would pick the first staff in your inventory (going left to right, from the hotbar down). I think this would be a very nice quality of life change for summoners so that they aren't entirely helpless upon respawn.
3. This is a little more subjective and might not be entirely necessary, but I would really like the celestial magnet to be common to get from the traveling merchant, or just have a more reliable way of getting it overall. It is part of the celestial emblem, which in my opinion is one of the best/most important mage accessories. The fact that it is locked behind one of the rarest traveling merchant tables makes it very inconsistent to get, which could seriously hurt any mage run that could only be missing it.
4. This isn't a balance suggestion, but a U.I. suggestion. I really like the way the fancy health bar looks, but I can't stand playing with it because it doesn't display the actual health number you have like classic does. Would it be possible to combine the 2 in another option? Just having the numbers above the fancy health bar would make it perfect for me.
MageKing17
Official Terrarian
It's an annoying technical reason because critical hit chance is determined by the weapon you're holding, not the weapon the projectile came from; if summons had regular critical hits, you'd have to keep the summon weapon out all the time for that bonus to actually apply (and everyone would just use the Sniper Rifle's massive crit chance instead). Changing that would basically require an overhaul of the entire projectile system, plus all summons would then need rebalancing. Very much not worth it for last-minute balance patches.
MrD108
Official Terrarian
Actually, since these are the last updates, if Re-Logic hasn't got its next production scheduled yet, someone who does it has a tremendous amount of time in total to thoroughly review the minion-critical system, should they be willing and more importantly, get permission from bosses.
jagriel
Terrarian
Music boxes are A: Expensive, B: Temporary, C: Don't change with weather and time, D: Only available in hardmode, E: Limited to one per area and don't work if you want to use it in a large area, and F: Are just a pain to set up.
jagriel
Terrarian
And as another point: The entire town thing is honestly the worst part about 1.4. Like, the mechanics aren't fun. As already described by others, it is extremely limiting to your builds and offers no flexibility while also adding in no good rewards for setting up towns. I already complained about the music so I won't go into it now but honestly I wanna delete the entire system and just go back to the simple 1.3 "towns".
I can't claim to agree with the Black Spot nerf, but I understand that it seems to be set in stone and I'm not going to try to argue against it. What I am going to ask for, please, is a replacement. You don't even need to make a whole new mount, just a recolored version with the original Black Spot stats crafted by using the Black Spot and Luminite Bars would be perfect. I absolutely loved the Black Spot and found it fun to use all the time even long after beating Moon Lord over a dozen times. If by that point in the game we can have Zenith, I think we can also have a mount that works the same way Black Spot originally did. Some might argue that the Celestial Starboard is a suitable replacement but personally I hate using that thing and for infinite flight it also uses up an extra accessory slot. I really hope you'll consider this, and thank you so much for all the years of incredible work on Terraria!
Pigman Δ
Retinazer
Well, a recolor isn't ideal but I'm guessing by this point they're probably done with doing any new sprites.
Starboard makes movement feel bad to me. It activates any time you're in the air which increases your horizontal movement speed, the physics of it feels weird to me, and for normal use I find the ascension speed too high. Also not a fan of the sound it makes whenever you're in the air. In comparison to an infinite flying mount, it also has the drawbacks of not being able to stay in-place midair without constantly holding two keys and to achieve the fast horizontal flight you have to be locked in place moving in a straight line horizontally instead of being able to also move vertically like a mount can. I've always felt it was unpleasant to control and as a result I never use it.
Lythael
The Destroyer
Yea its is. Its now not about how you want to build your towns. Its about how devs want you to do it.
Unless you want to deal with increased and prices (or lower chances for functional accessories in case of Angler - cause yes from what i recall happiness does affect Angler's quests).
This system punishes players for build diversity. Even more now after the detection range changes.
As i said in earlier post it would be nice if only "penalty" for unhappy / crowded npcs were "neutral prices" that would have been enough.
Pylons and reduced prices are enough of a incentive to build as the devs want us.
There is no need to punish players who still prefer NPC hotels.
Keep in mind tho this system doesn't need to be removed / reverted back to how it was in 1.3 but it would be much better for build diversity if they gave the "price penalty" same treatment as "torch bad luck" got.
This probably will never be changed but here is hoping they will consider this at least.
Let us build our towns how we want to. Without having to deal with being ripped off in sell/buy prices and angler quest reward chances.
Pigman Δ
Retinazer
I've said it before, I will say it again.
I don't feel like negative happiness really hinders me much.
You get a ton of coins in Expert and coin drops were buffed in 1.4.
When my NPCs are unhappy I don't feel any worse off as coins are plentiful.
Lythael
The Destroyer
Reforging : exists.
- Status