Npc happiness

Anyone else bothered by aspects of the new happiness system? If you have more than 3 npcs prices skyrocket, and it feels like I’m being punished for building the way I prefer which is large cities. I hate small cities and like building large ones instead. I don’t think players should be punished for the way they prefer to build, and I’m wondering if anyone else feels this way also.

honestly I would be totally okay with it if prices couldn’t go above what they normally are. I would be okay if other players got reduced prices for smaller cities but I wish it wouldn’t exceed standard price, that just feels like unfair punishment.
 
If you have more than 3 npcs prices skyrocket

That's not what's happening. You have to put more than 5 NPCs in the same ~120 block area to get prices to increase past the normal cost.

What's probably happening is due to NPC neighbors not getting along. You have to either use the Wiki or go to each NPC and figure out what they're unhappy with specifically.

it feels like I’m being punished for building the way I prefer which is large cities.

Did you miss the big, front-page post on the feature? It's supposed to punish you for building that way.
 
That's not what's happening. You have to put more than 5 NPCs in the same ~120 block area to get prices to increase past the normal cost.

What's probably happening is due to NPC neighbors not getting along. You have to either use the Wiki or go to each NPC and figure out what they're unhappy with specifically.



Did you miss the big, front-page post on the feature? It's supposed to punish you for building that way.

It increases if there’s over 3 in a 25 block radius, that’s insanely close. Also it’s not even “encouraging” players to build different, it’s forcing them too.
 
It increases if there’s over 3 in a 25 block radius, that’s insanely close.

Yes, it increases. But you said "prices skyrocket", and that's untrue. 3 NPCs in an area merely cancels out their happiness bonus. Before, their prices were at 90% of normal; after, they're at 100%.

That's hardly "skyrocket"ing, wouldn't you say? That's why I suggested that if you're seeing a "skyrocket", you're probably seeing dislikes getting involved.
 
No, I'd honestly prefer the new system. I love building small towns in Terraria and using the pylons so I can get to each town really fast.

So, what you love is building small towns and being able to teleport between them. OK, fine.

But what does increasing prices for those who want to build large towns do to improve things? How does that enhance your play of the game? Is juggling the various wants from your NPCs just to get a decent price an effective part of "building small towns in Terraria and using the pylons so I can get to each town really fast"?

No; it is unnecessary and ultimately unrelated to what you enjoy about the mechanic. Take away the happiness system and give players access to Pylons just by having the NPC sell them if they're in their preferred biome, and you get the same system and you can build in whatever way works for you, but without all of the problems we're talking about here.

It seems to me, by the design of the feature, that this was initially about stopping "NPC Prisons". The Pylon system was bolted on as a way to make the forced spreading out of NPCs playable. That is, it is a punishment with a reward attached that makes avoiding the punishment tolerable.
 
So, what you love is building small towns and being able to teleport between them. OK, fine.

But what does increasing prices for those who want to build large towns do to improve things? How does that enhance your play of the game? Is juggling the various wants from your NPCs just to get a decent price an effective part of "building small towns in Terraria and using the pylons so I can get to each town really fast"?

No; it is unnecessary and ultimately unrelated to what you enjoy about the mechanic. Take away the happiness system and give players access to Pylons just by having the NPC sell them if they're in their preferred biome, and you get the same system and you can build in whatever way works for you, but without all of the problems we're talking about here.

It seems to me, by the design of the feature, that this was initially about stopping "NPC Prisons". The Pylon system was bolted on as a way to make the forced spreading out of NPCs playable. That is, it is a punishment with a reward attached that makes avoiding the punishment tolerable.
I completely understand what your saying and I was just stating my opinion. Yes they do need to stop the part of NPCs increasing their prices. That change was completely unnecessary. But it does change the whole point of the NPC happiness system. And it was a HUGE part of the update. But that's just me. 👍
 
So, what you love is building small towns and being able to teleport between them. OK, fine.

But what does increasing prices for those who want to build large towns do to improve things? How does that enhance your play of the game? Is juggling the various wants from your NPCs just to get a decent price an effective part of "building small towns in Terraria and using the pylons so I can get to each town really fast"?

No; it is unnecessary and ultimately unrelated to what you enjoy about the mechanic. Take away the happiness system and give players access to Pylons just by having the NPC sell them if they're in their preferred biome, and you get the same system and you can build in whatever way works for you, but without all of the problems we're talking about here.

It seems to me, by the design of the feature, that this was initially about stopping "NPC Prisons". The Pylon system was bolted on as a way to make the forced spreading out of NPCs playable. That is, it is a punishment with a reward attached that makes avoiding the punishment tolerable.

I fully agree, and I understand not wanting players to make npc prisons, but at the same time that would end up taking away players freedoms to build how they like, I never make prisons, I just make huge cities. But yeah taking away the prices would make it totally okay, or at least don’t let them exceed 100%
 
I think the Pylons by themselves are enough incentive to spread out. You can choose between the convenience of having everyone close by in a megabase, or building small towns and having a quick teleportation system. The happiness system is actively pushing you away from the megabase playstyle. Instead of just rewarding you for playing a certain way, you are also being punished for playing differently.
 
I think the Pylons by themselves are enough incentive to spread out. You can choose between the convenience of having everyone close by in a megabase, or building small towns and having a quick teleportation system. The happiness system is actively pushing you away from the megabase playstyle. Instead of just rewarding you for playing a certain way, you are also being punished for playing differently.

exactly, no game should have to punish their players for preferring a building style.
 
YourLocalTerrarian, I have some problems following what you're saying. (not being sarcastic here) You say you like big cities but talk about 3 NPCs together in a 25 blocks radius. So by "big cities" do you mean everything crammed up together? Because I can imagine you can build a really large scaled city where each npc only got 2 NPCs in it's own 25 blocks radius with there own houses without a problem. But I guess you're kind of building an appartment block then?

An example from my old expert mode run:

Capture 2020-04-15 22_32_34.png


The factory and the tavern on the left side and of course the prison like thing in the middle I did from the start on would have the problems. But all the other NPCs with their
corresponding houses should be fine.
 
Because I can imagine you can build a really large scaled city where each npc only got 2 NPCs in it's own 25 blocks radius with there own houses without a problem.

You might want to check the happiness level of your NPCs. First, the isolation rule is that each NPC only has one other NPC within 25 blocks, not that there are 3 NPCs within the same 25 blocks. And I can see that your structures won't really allow that. So most of your NPCs with that housing are not going to get the 90% isolation bonus.

Next, there's a rule about having more than 3 other NPCs within 120 block; for each additional NPC beyond 3, a small unhappiness penalty is added. And 120 blocks is pretty far. So even your tall structures are likely getting some interference.
 
You might want to check the happiness level of your NPCs. First, the isolation rule is that each NPC only has one other NPC within 25 blocks, not that there are 3 NPCs within the same 25 blocks. And I can see that your structures won't really allow that. So most of your NPCs with that housing are not going to get the 90% isolation bonus.

Next, there's a rule about having more than 3 other NPCs within 120 block; for each additional NPC beyond 3, a small unhappiness penalty is added. And 120 blocks is pretty far. So even your tall structures are likely getting some interference.

Sorry, you may have misunterstood something there. This is a screen from my old expert mode playthrough that I'm not playing anymore (and neither could becaus of tmodloader). I just wanted to give out an example for a possible large scaled city but like I said myself this doesn't match with all of the houses on the screen.
 
YourLocalTerrarian, I have some problems following what you're saying. (not being sarcastic here) You say you like big cities but talk about 3 NPCs together in a 25 blocks radius. So by "big cities" do you mean everything crammed up together? Because I can imagine you can build a really large scaled city where each npc only got 2 NPCs in it's own 25 blocks radius with there own houses without a problem. But I guess you're kind of building an appartment block then?

An example from my old expert mode run:

View attachment 272093

The factory and the tavern on the left side and of course the prison like thing in the middle I did from the start on would have the problems. But all the other NPCs with their
corresponding houses should be fine.

Sort of, I build much larger and differently shaped rooms. I would understand if there was a room size limit instead of a npc radius limit. I just think in general raising prices because npcs are close together is a terrible way to deal with this. I would be fine with the reward system being pylons or discounts, im just against the prices raising over 100%.

if it was that way I would totally just bite the bullet and keep building the way I like too, but people who want to utilize discounts and pylons could also too.
 
Does it really though. I just end up building more spread out "prisons". LOL

exactly, when spreading out the cities I feel like I don’t give enough care to them, I just lazily build them as fast as possible and don’t put up much decorations or anything. Compared to my old building style I would build large cities, but fill it with decorative items in order to make it look nice.

Having cities spread out is supposed to be convenient because if pylons, but I think it’s far more convenient to have my shops chests and crafting stations all in one city.
 
I can't understand why I can't chain them up and use the new whip on them every day.
:red: NPC happiness, my happiness is more important!
 
Ehh, I don't really understand much of the criticism with it. You can still create big cities, you'll just need to space things out more with "filler" buildings without npc in them just for visual purposes; just terraforming and decorating the natural scenario. Things like playgrounds, parks (as in, tree farms and stuff. The new tree types are pretty cool.), waterfalls among many other things.

If you don't really like building stuff and is annoyed because this supposedly takes away from the pratical purposes of the "hotel to the skies" square buildings with all npcs crammed into it then there's even less reason to complain, really? Having a few houses for 2~3 npcs in each biome with pylons is not only a faster way to move around the world, but also faster to access a specific npc in general. I always found myself taking longer to find a specific npc in the midst of a 10+ house compared to now where I can instantly access a spot.
It's also a lot better when you place a farm of some sorts somewhere near the spot, like hellevators to specific underground crimson/hollow/corruption farms in their respective biomes, etc.

The new options for the mannequins also allow us to make some really interesting fake npcs for towns, if you are creative enough.

The only real downside I've found to this is that if you want to place a specific npc in a specific biome that they dislike for your own headcanons and personal stories and character interactions, it might not be really supported.

But overall I really like the new system and have no complains about it, unlike the Lucky one.
 
Ehh, I don't really understand much of the criticism with it. You can still create big cities, you'll just need to space things out more with "filler" buildings without npc in them just for visual purposes; just terraforming and decorating the natural scenario. Things like playgrounds, parks (as in, tree farms and stuff. The new tree types are pretty cool.), waterfalls among many other things.

If you don't really like building stuff and is annoyed because this supposedly takes away from the pratical purposes of the "hotel to the skies" square buildings with all npcs crammed into it then there's even less reason to complain, really? Having a few houses for 2~3 npcs in each biome with pylons is not only a faster way to move around the world, but also faster to access a specific npc in general. I always found myself taking longer to find a specific npc in the midst of a 10+ house compared to now where I can instantly access a spot.
It's also a lot better when you place a farm of some sorts somewhere near the spot, like hellevators to specific underground crimson/hollow/corruption farms in their respective biomes, etc.

The new options for the mannequins also allow us to make some really interesting fake npcs for towns, if you are creative enough.

The only real downside I've found to this is that if you want to place a specific npc in a specific biome that they dislike for your own headcanons and personal stories and character interactions, it might not be really supported.

But overall I really like the new system and have no complains about it, unlike the Lucky one.

I haven’t looked into the luck system, how does it work?
 
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