NPCs & Enemies NPC Happiness System needs reworked.

Terminus.

Terminus.

Terrarian
I just started playing this game today and I just found out how convoluted the NPC Happiness system is.. I was looking forward to making a big fortress and having all the NPCs together like a big community where they can all walk around and interact with each other etc. Now I'm learning NPC's need to be in this biome or that biome and like or dislike eachother , and only 2 NPC's per location and at this tile distance etc .

If you want a big castle with all the NPC's together that should be completely fine they should be happy and the player should not be penalized at all. If you want NPC's around the map in different biomes/houses thats fine too . Neither should be penalized . Pylons need rethinking.

NPC's should not like or dislike each other. and sell/buy for less because of it.
NPC's should not have biome preferences and sell/buy for less because of it.
maybe Pylons could be rewards for boss kills in the particular biomes? I don't know this answer or solution but it should be discussed and reworked .
 
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At first, I was not happy with the change, pretty much for similar reasons. Now that I have gotten used to it, I actually find it better in a way.

I have always built a giant npc prison: big ol' box with everyone trapped in their respective "houses". This works, but keeps you in one place - every time I wanted to go somewhere else it meant a trek across the map. I could have set up teleporters, but trailing the wires all over was a pain.

With the new npc system I use the whole world a lot more. When I get to a new area, I chop a few trees, and quickly build a two room house. It takes me just a few minutes, and it's ready for people to move in. I leave a space in between the rooms for the pylon, and once two fairly friendly npcs move in, I buy one and place it down.

Once that's been done a few times it's trivial getting around. If I need something from the Hallow, I just teleport there, rather than make my way across the map.

The npcs happiness at first seems like an inconvenience, and it can be when you don't have many and the ones you do have are not fans of each other. After a while though, most of them don't matter. Am I bothered that the Stylist's prices are high because she's unhappy? Not really, because I never buy things from her. It's the same with most of them.

I keep the Goblin Tinkerer happy to keep reforges cheap, and that's pretty much it. Everyone else I use so rarely, it's not really a problem.

As long as the npcs are happy enough to sell pylons, I'm good. If there are npcs you use all the time then keep those ones happy, and everyone else you can shove anywhere once you have what you need from them.
 
Having a big fortress with all the NPC's together feels much nicer , like a big community . sure keep the Pylons thats fine , maybe just have them sold for a lot or something and place-able around the map or sold when certain criteria is met . but the NPCs liking and disliking eachother and distancing them etc while being penalized for all of this is just way too much especially for a newb player like myself to the verge of just not wanting to play now. :/
 
Terminus. said:
Having a big fortress with all the NPC's together feels much nicer , like a big community . sure keep the Pylons thats fine , maybe just have them sold for a lot or something and place-able around the map or sold when certain criteria is met . but the NPCs liking and disliking eachother and distancing them etc while being penalized for all of this is just way too much especially for a newb player like myself to the verge of just not wanting to play now. :/
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I think that having smaller towna all across the world feels even more like a communtity. Sure, one big base is bigger, but multiple towns throughout the world actually feels like youre colonizing it, turning it into a place where people can live, as opposed to one small spot of civilisation in a barren and harsh world.

Also, you cant really blame these NPCs for having preferences, they are, at the end of the day, people. Virtual people, sure, but people. So are they really at fault for actually wanting to live normally and not be locked up in what is basically the bare minimum?
 
Terminus. said:
players that don't want to have their NPC's spread out in pylon outposts all over the map shouldn't be getting heavily penalized for it.
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I feel that, as a possible compromise for you because I was like you and hated not having my townies together, npcs don't increase their prices when unhappy, but will still give better prices when given what they want. No penalty, plus option for better rewards. I also wouldn't call it a 'heavy penalization', it's just higher prices and no pylons, you can still play however you like.
Doodles said:
I think that having smaller towna all across the world feels even more like a communtity. Sure, one big base is bigger, but multiple towns throughout the world actually feels like youre colonizing it, turning it into a place where people can live, as opposed to one small spot of civilisation in a barren and harsh world.

Also, you cant really blame these NPCs for having preferences, they are, at the end of the day, people. Virtual people, sure, but people. So are they really at fault for actually wanting to live normally and not be locked up in what is basically the bare minimum?
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You. I like you. This is why I originally started spacing out my townies, to make it feeling like I was exploring and colonizing the land. Then I just started doing it because I liked it better than my normal 'prisons', plus it's fun to make houses that match the biomes.
 
Can't even make a Town ingame apparently. that was my intention when I started playing was to make a Town of people but we get super penalized for doing so which is really stupid. if you want to make 2 man houses spread around the map you should have all the power to do so. if you want to make a Town with all the NPC's in one area you should have all the power to do so. why penalize one way of playing over another?
 
Just get rid of them. They don’t add anything to the game, they just punish people for building the way they like to. I LOVE building huge castles but then overcrowding was added to the game and now I’m punished for completely arbitrary reasons.

There really isn’t any reason NOT to get rid of overcrowding at this point.
 
Terminus. said:
Having a big fortress with all the NPC's together feels much nicer , like a big community . sure keep the Pylons thats fine , maybe just have them sold for a lot or something and place-able around the map or sold when certain criteria is met . but the NPCs liking and disliking eachother and distancing them etc while being penalized for all of this is just way too much especially for a newb player like myself to the verge of just not wanting to play now. :/
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Is your base around spawn?
 
In higher difficulties, money is a non-issue outside the Goblin Tinkerer. Just farm more money, they aren't going to complain about that.

But 1.4.1 has made it more convoluted and harder to obtain pylons or reduce costs to its lowest value due to the nerf to space bonuses. Rather than multiple different combinations to unlock a pylon, you're forced to use one specific combination to buy a pylon or wait for multiple stages of progression to pass. And these combinations involve hunting for more NPCs than was originally required which is a big hassle, especially with stuff like the Stylist or the Golfer. Infact, there's only one way i know of to get a Snow Pylon before Skeletron and that involves combining Angler/Painter/Golfer into the snow biome, which is a huge headache. Its getting very railroady with regards to housing.
 
Xurkitree1 said:
In higher difficulties, money is a non-issue outside the Goblin Tinkerer. Just farm more money, they aren't going to complain about that.

But 1.4.1 has made it more convoluted and harder to obtain pylons or reduce costs to its lowest value due to the nerf to space bonuses. Rather than multiple different combinations to unlock a pylon, you're forced to use one specific combination to buy a pylon or wait for multiple stages of progression to pass. And these combinations involve hunting for more NPCs than was originally required which is a big hassle, especially with stuff like the Stylist or the Golfer. Infact, there's only one way i know of to get a Snow Pylon before Skeletron and that involves combining Angler/Painter/Golfer into the snow biome, which is a huge headache. Its getting very railroady with regards to housing.
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In regards to getting all pylons early on, I figured it's actually way too easy, even if requires moving NPCs around multiple times.
The merchant gets so happy by having both the golfer and the nurse nearby, that it gets his happiness level past the threshold, where it matters if it's not his favorite biome. Therefore, he'll sell all pylons whichever biome he is in, as long as has the nurse and the golfer nearby. The only exception I assume is the desert pylon, because the merchant hates that biome, so I'm assuming (did not actually tried) that even this way, he would not sell the desert pylon.
However that one is very easy to get via Dye trader + Arms Dealer or Arms Dealer + Nurse.

Using that, all pylons can be acquired prior to even defeating any bosses. Even if you have to move the same trio around several times. And of course, you do need to move in others into the towns for the pylon to function, but that's usually not a problem.
So, I do think it's pretty easy.
 
Sora_92 said:
In regards to getting all pylons early on, I figured it's actually way too easy, even if requires moving NPCs around multiple times.
The merchant gets so happy by having both the golfer and the nurse nearby, that it gets his happiness level past the threshold, where it matters if it's not his favorite biome. Therefore, he'll sell all pylons whichever biome he is in, as long as has the nurse and the golfer nearby. The only exception I assume is the desert pylon, because the merchant hates that biome, so I'm assuming (did not actually tried) that even this way, he would not sell the desert pylon.
However that one is very easy to get via Dye trader + Arms Dealer or Arms Dealer + Nurse.

Using that, all pylons can be acquired prior to even defeating any bosses. Even if you have to move the same trio around several times. And of course, you do need to move in others into the towns for the pylon to function, but that's usually not a problem.
So, I do think it's pretty easy.
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Yeah , I'm brand new to the game literally second day playing and I really dislike the entire NPC Happiness system. its like huge immersion killer knowing they hate eachother and need so many tiles of distance from eachother and don't like biomes etc etc .. its like they're preteen children and im the baby sitter , kills me
 
Terminus. said:
Yeah , I'm brand new to the game literally second day playing and I really dislike the entire NPC Happiness system. its like huge immersion killer knowing they hate eachother and need so many tiles of distance from eachother and don't like biomes etc etc .. its like they're preteen children and im the baby sitter , kills me
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I get not liking the system itself, but, i mean, its not like the npc's reasons for disliking eachother are bad or anything. Examples include, the Zoologist hating the Arms Dealer and Angler for how cruel they are to animals, or the Truffle hating the Clothier and Witch Docter, for always trying to eat him or use him in potions respectively.
 
Terminus. said:
Yeah , I'm brand new to the game literally second day playing and I really dislike the entire NPC Happiness system. its like huge immersion killer knowing they hate eachother and need so many tiles of distance from eachother and don't like biomes etc etc .. its like they're preteen children and im the baby sitter , kills me
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It makes sense, and usually not that difficult to deal with, but I do too, usually have lots in a smaller place at the very start (though I usually try to build towns of multiple houses, each able to hold 5-6 NPCs, then move avan some, as soon as other towns are up, but it's convinient that way first - and convinient the other way later, because pylons allow quick access to those NPCs, as well as the towns themselves function as awesome fast-travel anchors. It helps a real lot with moving around the world, functioning as outpost to help with scouting areas, as well as resting spots and all.

Plus it allows for all sorts of creative ideas we rearely thought about before, when our main focus was usually a town in the middle.
Ah, also, "so many tiles" are actually just 25 blocks. it's a ridicolously small detection range, that is actually very annoying, if you ask me, because if you want the benefits of NPCs who like each other, you will end up with someone living in someone else's bathroom or such, to be within the 25 blocks range. it's annoying. It's easier to have them not notice each others as neighbors, than to have them notice (and complain about overcrowding - actually not, but they're about equally common to happen.)
 
Blue_M4ge said:
Honestly I’m kinda split on this, I like the pylons benefits that this system offers, but as someone who likes to build giant bases in my worlds I don’t want to be punished for doing so.
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Exactly how I feel.

maybe the Pylons can be rewards for boss kills in the biomes? no idea the answer to this but there has to be another solution to give players Pylons other than splitting NPC's all over the map .
 
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Terminus. said:
Exactly how I feel.

maybe the Pylons can be rewards for boss kills in the biomes? no idea the answer to this but there has to be another solution to give players Pylons other than splitting NPC's all over the map .
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I do think it's very convinient you can get most of them very early game, so you can set them up to help scouting the rest of the map, and prepare for fighting many bosses much easier (because you don't have to walk through half the map just to get to a beehive or something)
(most pylons works both the surface and underground! which allows for choosing the locations of towns according to where it's the most convinient for you)

also, mind it, the pylons are an alt. way for teleporters. if you just started the game, you probably don't know them, but teleporters can be bought much later in the game, and while have no restrictions like having NPCs nearby, setting them up requires wiring them together, which is both ultra expensive and takes a long time and much effort for very long-range teleporting, plus you can't exactly wire that many together, or it will be kind of complicated.

teleporters help a real lot. but they're a huge pain to set up.
that's why I think, pylons are awesome, because you can get them even pre-bosses, they're not expensive, and very easy to set up, it's just that they come with a few restrictions too. but compared to teleporters, I do think, pylons are super convinient. but then again, it might be just my opinion.
 
Sora_92 said:
I do think it's very convinient you can get most of them very early game, so you can set them up to help scouting the rest of the map, and prepare for fighting many bosses much easier (because you don't have to walk through half the map just to get to a beehive or something)
(most pylons works both the surface and underground! which allows for choosing the locations of towns according to where it's the most convinient for you)

also, mind it, the pylons are an alt. way for teleporters. if you just started the game, you probably don't know them, but teleporters can be bought much later in the game, and while have no restrictions like having NPCs nearby, setting them up requires wiring them together, which is both ultra expensive and takes a long time and much effort for very long-range teleporting, plus you can't exactly wire that many together, or it will be kind of complicated.

teleporters help a real lot. but they're a huge pain to set up.
that's why I think, pylons are awesome, because you can get them even pre-bosses, they're not expensive, and very easy to set up, it's just that they come with a few restrictions too. but compared to teleporters, I do think, pylons are super convinient. but then again, it might be just my opinion.
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No one said Pylon's aren't great its just how they're currently implemented is the issue.

If players want to make 2-NPC Pylon huts in all the biomes thats fine ,but everyone should not be forced to do it. and currently the game is forcing everyone to do it if they want Pylons, max selling/buying prices, etc bonuses. a lot people like having all the NPC's together in a big castle because it looks cool but we're penalized for doing so now.

making an NPC Castle is like playing chess now to not eat penalization and no access to Pylons and all other bonuses. so people that like castles with all NPCs together are nerfed. needs rebalanced , tons of people agree.

They should give access to Pylons a different way instead of splitting up your NPC's all over the map in linear 2-man Pylon Huts. also the NPC's not liking eachother just feels bad and all the penalization that comes with it is begging to be reworked.
 
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