My journey with this game was weird, because I was brought into Terraria with flaky, inconsistent gamers.
That being the case, I have mixed feelings about progression.
Terraria 1.3.1 - 1.3.4: I had no idea what to expect, I just wanted to be a Mage & the players I was with pretty much gave me all of my equipment. I think we made it to the Wall of Flesh before everyone started playing other stuff & I simply lived on servers & did PvP. I tried my best to go through the game from the very start, earning all of my stuff & seeing where it came from, but I just couldn't do it, it was too boring. All the grinding, digging, cutting down trees, stuff being locked being certain Bosses, it was all too much. This was around the time 1.3.5 or the
quality of life stuff was gonna be released, so I tried to give it another go...
Final Rating 1.3.4: Pre BoC was terrible IMHO!
Terraria 1.3.5 is release & I have a blast! Early-game is still a bit boring, but not nearly as much of a hassle as it was in 1.3.4. I also have a warped view about this version for the game, because a ton of stuff was added in, but I was still playing on an older map. I missed out on
Hidden Gratto Shrines, some of the newer Mini Biomes & a few other things I can't remember that well, so I wanted to try again with the updated maps to see what I could
see. Overall I decided it wasn't perfect, but it was probably the best we were gonna get. The new addition were pretty cool, I just wanted the game to feel a bit more polished if this was gonna be the final update.
Final Rating 1.3.5: Pre Skeletron was kinda boring, but not awful...
Terraria 1.3.6 is announced & boy am I excited! I didn't really care much about the new
stuff, I just wanted the game to feel like an actual videogame. I wanted more tool-tips, more tutorials, a more user-friendly UI
(game options, etc), just overall more polish, the game was already pretty complete in my eyes. Of course a good while passes & 1.3.6 turns into 1.4.0 & I absolutely loose my s**t! I didn't wanna miss out on any of the newer content this time around, so I spent the time between update to study the game from top-to-bottom, building stuff, comparing upgrading paths, the works. By the time 1.4.0 was released, I consider myself a Terraria
aficionado, I could tell you about some of the most obscure s**t ever, but I was extremely specialized, as I'd put stuff like PvP & number crunching on the backburner. In short, I made it all-the-way up to the point where I can Summon & fight the Moon Lord, he's all that's left really...
Final Rating 1.4.0.5: Post Golem is surprisingly the least entertaining portion of the game IMHO, but it's still pretty d**n fun!