Game Mechanics Modifier Reworks & New Modifiers

TheSeunger · Nov 8, 2022

As we know, modifiers are a major part of our equipment but cost ludicrous amount of money to get the ones we desire. Money issue aside, this topic aims to talk about updating pre-existing modifiers we have in the game, adding completely new modifiers for pre-existing minion and sentry Summoner weapons, and new set of modifiers for armors.

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Updating Pre-Existing Modifiers

Legendary / Unreal / Mythical
Damage: +15% -> +20%
Speed: +10% -> +15%
Crit Chance: +5% -> +5% (unchanged)
Size (Melee): +10% -> 20%
Velocity (Ranged): +10% -> 15%
Mana Cost (Magic): -10% -> -15%
Knockback: +15% -> +15% (unchanged)
Tier: +2 -> +3
Value: +209.85% -> +300%

Ruthless is now considered a Melee Modifier with the addition of Ranged and Magic variants

Ruthless (Melee) / Merciless (Ranged) / Heartless (Magic)
Damage: +18% -> 25%
Speed: +0% -> 10%
Size (Melee) +0% -> +5%
Velocity (Ranged): +0% -> +5%
Mana Cost (Magic): +0% -> +5%
Knockback: -10% -> -15%
Tier: +1 -> +2
Value: +12.78% -> +81.42%

New Modifiers for Summoner Weapons (excluding Whips)

Modifier	Damage	Mana Cost	Minion Count*	Minion Size**	Minion Knockback	Tier	Value
Competent	+10%	-15%	+1	+5%	-	+2	+60.02%
Helpful	-	-15%	+1	+10%	-	+1	+32.25%
Loyal	+15%	-15%	+2	+15%	+5%	+2	+92.83%
Disagreeable	-	+10%	-1	-5%	-5%	-1	-19%
Disobedient	-10%	+20%	-2	-	-	-1	-34.39%
Incompetent	-20%	-	-3	-10%	-20%	-2	-48.16%
Crazy	+10%	+15%	-	-	-	-1	-12.58%
Oblivious	-	+10%	-	+10%	+10%	+1	+18.59
Ambitious	+10%	-10%	-1	-5%	+10%	+1	+43.5%
Confident	+15%	+20%	+1	-	+15%	+1	+11.94%
Wise	-10%	-10%	+3	-	-	+1	+18.59%
Relentless***	+25%	-	-	-	-15%	+2	+81.42%
Legion****	+20%	-15%	+3	+15%	+15%	+3	+300%

*Minion Count works very differently for sentries; every additional Minion Count gives +0.5 Sentry Count, and if the Minion Count enters a negative value, only 1 minion/sentry can be summoned
**Minion Size works very differently for sentries; it will enlarge or shrink fired projectiles instead of the sentry itself
***The Summoner variant of Ruthless
****The Summoner variant of Legendary, Unreal and Mythical

As minions/sentries cannot crit without the assistance of endgame Whips, the 'Critical Strike Chance' is omitted.

New Modifiers for Armors

Modifier	Damage	Defense*	Health	Health Regeneration	Mana	Mana Regeneration	Critical Strike Chance	Tier	Value
Firm	+1%	-5	-	-	-5	-	+3%	+1	+10.25%
Bold	+2%	-10	-	-	-10	-	+5%	+1	+21%
Daring	+3%	-15	-	-	-15	-	+7%	+1	+32.25%
Lunatic	+4%	-20	-	-	-20	-	+9%	+2	+44%
Scrubbed	-5%	+5	+10	-	-	-	-	+1	+10.25%
Polished	-10%	+10	+30	-	-	-	-	+1	+21%
Shiny	-15%	+15	+50	-	-	-	-	+1	+32.25%
Pristine	-20%	+20	+70	-	-	-	-	+2	+44%
Daunting	+4%	-	-20	-	-5	-	+1%	+1	+10.25%
Intimidating	+6%	-	-30	-	-10	-	+2%	+1	+21%
Unnerving	+8%	-	-40	-	-15	-	+3%	+1	+32.25%
Barbaric	+10%	-	-50	-	-20	-	+4%	+2	+44%
Good	-	+2	+45	+0.5 Health / sec	-	-	-	+1	+21%
Healthy	-	+4	+90	+1 Health / sec	-	-	-	+2	+44%
Imbued	-	+2	-	-	+20	+0.5 Mana / sec	-	+1	+21%
Blessed	-	+4	-	-	+40	+1 Mana / sec	-	+2	+44%
Vested	-	+2	+25	+0.2% Health / sec	+15	+0.2% Mana / sec	-	+1	+21%
Empowered	-	+4	+50	+0.4 Health / sec	+30	+0.4 Mana / sec	-	+2	+44
Omnipotent**	+5%	+7	+45	-	+10	-	+4%	+3	+72.25%

*If Defense goes into negative value, the player will only have 0 Defense
**Tends to be rarer to acquire via reforging

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After spending nearly 3 days on this due to how the tables worked and having to... individually stylize them, hopefully this was worth the effort. Maybe not every idea or change would be taken into consideration, but at least it is now done. (Thank goodness for saving drafts.) I am fully aware there are similar ideas to this one, but I've put more in-depths in terms of details and... other things.

Let me know what you think of this and also let me know if there are any suggestions to add or improve the idea.

firecat666 · Nov 9, 2022

Do you have any good idea on how to improve the reforge system to better handle weapons that can only have universal modifiers? The only idea I've had in 10 years is to just let those weapons get any modifier but have the game simply ignore the bonuses the weapon can't use (it already works like this in the case of summon weapons and reforges with crit bonuses).

TheSeunger · Nov 9, 2022

Unfortunately, no.

But there is something I've noted ever since 1.4.4 was released and those are called "token values" which enables pre-existing weapons to have much more desirable modifiers like Unreal and Mythical, though this involves increasing their knockback values and/or mana cost values to an appropriate threshold.

Though, it is up to the devs to decide which pre-existing weapons deserves a buff to gain access to those better modifiers.

If the weapon is a Ranger weapon, it simply needs to have a token knockback value of 0.25 or greater in order to access desirable modifiers like Unreal.

If the weapon is a Magic weapon, it needs to have BOTH token knockback value of 0.25 or greater and mana cost of 5 or greater to access desirable modifiers like Mythical.

Summoner weapons shares the same modifiers as Magic weapons, unless they have no knockback like the Blade Staff, then their best modifier would be Demonic, even if the crit rate is useless, the damage boost is what matters.

If the weapon in question has no knockback value, then the weapon can only access common/universal modifiers like Demonic.
The same if the magic weapon in question costs 4 or even less mana per use, only accessing to modifiers like Demonic.

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As of current, the Bee Gun and the Wasp Gun have a token knockback value of 0.25, enabling them to have more desirable modifiers like Mythical. They both cost 5 and 10 mana respectively.

The Amethyst Staff and Topaz Staff have their mana cost increased from 3 to 5 and 4 to 5 respectively, enabling them to have desirable modifiers like Mythical. They both have innate knockback.

Low-tier Bows like the Wooden Bow, Copper Bow and guns like the Minishark have no knockback value, thus their best modifier is Demonic.

Both Wand of Sparking and Wand of Frosting are both low tier magic weapons that have no knockback and costs 2 mana per use, thus cannot have modifiers that affects knockback or mana cost effectively. Thus, their best modifier is Demonic.

TL;DR version:

Weapon	Knockback Value	Mana Cost Value	Token Enabled?	Best Modifier
Minishark	0 (No Knockback)	N/A	No	Demonic or Rapid
Blade Staff	0 (No Knockback)	10	No	Demonic, Deadly, Hurtful or Mystic
Bee Gun (pre-1.4.4)	0 (No Knockback)	5	No	Demonic or Mystic
Bee Gun (1.4.4 and later)	0.25 (Extremely Weak)	5	Yes	Mythical
Amethyst Staff (pre-1.4.4)	3 (Weak)	3	No	Demonic
Amethyst Staff (1.4.4 and later)	3 (Weak)	5	Yes	Mythical
Star Cannon (pre-1.4.4)	0 (No Knockback)	N/A	No	Demonic or Rapid
Star Cannon (1.4.4 and later)	3 (Weak)	N/A	Yes	Unreal
Wand of Sparking	0 (No Knockback)	2	No	Demonic
Wand of Sparking (TheSeunger Edition)	69 (Insane)	69	The better question is, are you worthy of the WAND?	Mythical
Last Prism (pre-1.4.4)	0 (No Knockback)	12	No	Demonic, Deadly or Mystic
Last Prism (1.4.4 and later) Yes, you read this right, this thing got BUFFED	0.25 (Extremely Weak)	12	Yes	Mythical

Having understood that, at the very least, you can suggest to the devs which weapons deserve to have token values to gain access to the best modifiers possible. With the exception of those with fixed use time (spears, flails, yo-yos, etc.) as I believe are non-negotiable due to how they work initially.

There are some weapons I'm not even aware that have passable token values, so may be worth checking each weapon out that isn't melee or summoner.

firecat666 · Nov 9, 2022

No, I wasn't talking about those weapons that in principle could have Legendary/Unreal/Mythic but can't due to <reasons> (Chain Gun being a notable late-game example that remains after 1.4.4).

I'm more interested in things like flails, boomerangs and certain weapons with a unique type of attack like Vampire Knives, etc, that can only have universal modifiers due to <other reasons>. In principle those weapons could benefit from either the size or the speed bonus of Legendary, though not both, but they all end up only having access to univeral modifiers. Curiously, the Piranha Gun can get Unreal even though it's not affected by the speed bons.

TheSeunger · Nov 9, 2022

Yeah, I figured that is what you meant. Those weapons (spears, boomerangs, fails, yo-yos, etc) have fixed use time, so they can't have modifiers that affects speed, meaning they cannot have Legendary. Though, I do believe they can be improvised as you said.

Chain Gun is an interesting case where it wants speed modifiers with 15% or higher to get any notable difference in firing speed. Unreal only boosts speed by 10%. So my suggestion to the devs is to lower the use time and treat it the same as every other gun.

Or, adding a brand new modifier to the universal modifiers group would be "Improvised". This modifier slightly changes the behavior of the equipped weapon while also improving its damage and use time or size. Though, the effects of Improvised varies between each weapon in the Other categories and melee weapons that aren't swords.

Cave wizard · Nov 10, 2022

I'm not sure about making legendary-tier modifiers even more powerful, because it indirectly nerfs all other modifiers. The value increase actually makes the player waste even more money on reforging if they for whatever reason want another modifier. I'm sure summoners that have gotten several mythicals before finally getting ruthless know what I mean.

I've always found the modifier restrictions confusing and bizarre. Several weapons can't obtain certain modifiers because they lack the required stats, but there already are a bunch of weapons in the game that can get modifiers that don't affect their stats. Crit chance on summon weapons is one example, and summon modifiers in general are very misleading with most stats not affecting the actual summoned entity but rather the very uncommon act of summoning it. As mentioned above, the piranha gun can get the undreal modifier despite not receiving any benefit from some of the stats. Legendary flails can be obtained through a secret seed, even though they don't get any benefit from the size bonus. Clearly, it's possible for weapons to have modifiers with stats that don't affect them. So why isn't that the default? If a modifier has a bonus that doesn't apply to the weapon in question, simply ignore that particular bonus (and ideally, remove it from the displayed list). If a weapon has a stat that is too low to obtain a particular modifier, just either ignore that stat or round it up/down. Magic weapons being buffed by having their mana usage raised is an example of this. Why can't they just obtain mythical by default, and if their mana usage is too low, just use rounding to keep it unchanged? I'm genuinely confused by this system and its contradictions.

firecat666 · Nov 11, 2022

Cave wizard said:
I'm not sure about making legendary-tier modifiers even more powerful, because it indirectly nerfs all other modifiers. The value increase actually makes the player waste even more money on reforging if they for whatever reason want another modifier. I'm sure summoners that have gotten several mythicals before finally getting ruthless know what I mean.

Maybe if they implement summon weapon modifiers they could give their legendary-equivalent a damage bonus equal to ruthless to end this problem. I always get mythical because I like the speed bonus but ruthless is tempting sometimes.

Aceplante · Nov 11, 2022

Um, you mean +20 PERCENT for the armor reforges right?

TheSeunger · Nov 13, 2022

Aceplante said:
Um, you mean +20 PERCENT for the armor reforges right?

No, just flat increase at the cost of raw damage.

Aceplante · Nov 13, 2022

TheSeunger said:
No, just flat increase at the cost of raw damage.

+20 is WAYYY to op, thats more than any shield, and basically DOUBLES any armor it's put on.

then again, I admit I have no clue how defense reduction actually works, but it shouldn't double the armor, or in pre hardmode, be MORE than late pre hardmode gear. Maybe if this addition was capped at 25% of the armors defence, so like 40 to 50, or 20 to 25

Game Mechanics Modifier Reworks & New Modifiers

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