Zemroda
Terrarian
Note: This is a repost of what I tried posting on the Terraria Reddit page (reddit.com/r/terraria). I REALLY want this idea to be at least considered by fellow Terraria players and maybe even seen by someone that is part of Re-Logic or affiliated with them to where the idea may at least be mentioned. Being realistic, it will probably never happen, but with every update I get filled with regret that I didn't at least try to say something about wanting this change made. If this change was ever made, I think I would finally be at peace with the Summoner and its new whips, even with its other problems.
The totally not another update after the "final update" of the Terraria Crossover with Don't Starve Together has been announced, which you can see discussed about by ChippyGaming here:
(I couldn't find the original trailer anywhere on YouTube at least, so forgive my poor internet-searching skills, I have a skill issue I guess).
As per usual, this is a time when Red and the Developers will be adding new content based on the cross-over, but often times changes to the gameplay of base Terraria itself are snuck in. A perfect example of this was the summoner sentry limit change that was introduced when the cross-over with Dungeon Defenders occurred. For those that don't know, before the Dungeon Defenders update you were able to summon one of each sentry that came from each of the sentry summoning staves (or "staffs," choose whichever you like), this included the Queen Spider Staff, the Staff of the Frost Hydra, the Rainbow Crystal Staff, and the Lunar Portal Staff. With this, you could have out four sentries all at once on top of your minion amount.
However, once the Dungeon Defenders cross over occurred, I'm guessing the Developers realized how broken the system with sentries were, as it seemed the system only check if you had one instance of the staff's sentry out, but didn't limit you on how many unique ones you could have, so with the Dungeon Defenders update you probably could have had upwards of 19 or 20 sentries out had they not change the system to include a maximum sentry count similar to the maximum minion count.
The point is, these cross over updates do have the opportunity to include quality of life or balance changes, thus, I don't think it is "out of the question" to see if another one of these gameplay balancing updates can be snuck in with this cross over as well.
To finally get into the title of this post, I would like this cross-over update to be a chance to add a simple change to the summoner's new whip weapon: The ability to right-click to attack with the whip that changes the minion's target focus instead, while left click on whips will hit the enemy without changing the focus.
For anyone who doesn't play the summoner's often, or simply doesn't care about the class as much as I do, the fact that the summoner's whips always change your summon focus is a massive deal to me. You see, before the Terraria 1.4 update, the summoner had a "management" playstyle, where, unlike the other classes which are almost completely about just point at the enemy and attacking as much as you can (though, the mage can do some more "setup" style things such as putting down Nimbus Staff rain clouds in choke points, or playing a "semi-support" role of applying debuffs such as armor reduction with the Golden Shower or acting as a literal support and healing the group, meanwhile, the melee can opt into a "tank" role and focus entirely on trying to get the enemies to attack them rather than their allies while absorbing or negating most of the damage themselves) the summoner was focused on placing sentries in strategic spots that would best be able to fight off any naturally spawning mobs, especially during a boss fight, and/or places where it could also have a clear and optimal shot at the boss or group of enemies. Meanwhile, you would be attempting to determine what enemy on the screen would be the optimal target to remove and you could change the "focus" of the minions by right-clicking while aiming on one of the enemies with any summoning staff, causing all of your minions to focus on that particular enemy. While this was going on, and assuming you're attempting a "pure" summoner playthrough, you would be focusing on dodging to keep yourself alive, as unlike the other classes, it doesn't matter if you're actively trying to aim at a boss or enemy, as long as you're alive you will be getting some damage from your minions, thus, you are incentivized to instead focus on the task of not dying, which is a benefit in its own right.
However, once the new summoner whips came out in 1.4, I felt as though the entire playstyle of the class changed. Due to actively having an actual weapon for the summoner to use, it started becoming very similar to the other classes in the style of "just constantly attack the boss/enemy" instead of the "strategic" planning style gameplay I loved. While you still can still perform some "placement planning" with the sentries, the minion focus ability has almost been rendered entirely useless.
The reason for this big claim is that, as aforementioned, it was a big deal to be able to choose what enemy the minions would try to attack, you could perform a lot of this "strategic" planning and "unit maneuvers" if you will. I feel as those it almost had a "Real-Time Strategy" gameplay to it that was very unique. But, now that has changed. The current Terraria 1.4 whips cause the focus to switch to whatever enemy you hit every. single. time. This completely makes the focus mechanic pointless in my eyes, as now any time you "plan" for your minions to attack a particular enemy, the moment you try to join in or defend yourself in a fight you immediately cause the minions to switch back to whatever you attacked.
Now, I'm not saying whips are bad, I love that the summoner finally has a way to interact as the player itself attacking instead of solely relying on the minions, and of course, you can still play the "strategic planning/placing" and dodging playstyle if you need, however, because the whip swaps the focus to every enemy you attack, the minions stop having the feeling of being their own "entity" that assists in killing whatever enemy they see in their line-of-sight, or whatever you've "told" them to target with the focus, and instead end up just feeling like 'extra DPS' due to the whip's focus causing them to always change to attacking whatever you were attacking. This leaves you with two options; either completely forget the playstyle of "strategic planning" and trying to do a bunch of sweaty thinking about where the sentries need to be placed and what enemy the minions need to focus on (or not focus on, as sometimes allowing the minions to just fight anything they see in line-of-sight allows them to divide and conquer a group of enemies and keeps random natural enemies from bothering a boss fight too much) and just constantly spam the whip and just pretend the minions just exist as "more damage" and nothing else (mostly during a boss fight, if you don't focus on anything or attack while roaming around they still "act" like entities by killing random things, but the moment you attack an enemy that goes away), or you can be a dingus and try to not use the whip at all in order to focus on that "planning playstyle," and as we know, losing the large chunk of the DPS from using the whip almost entirely makes that not an option.
So, this all culminates together in what I would like to see "snuck" in with this update; the ability to instead right-click with the whip to attack that will change the focus of the minions while having a left-click with the whip that will also perform the whip attack, but not change the focus. I feel like this is such a simple change to the whips, but it would make a massive difference. As you would finally be able to focus on enemies and then not interrupt the focus by attacking anything that exists in general. Additionally, this would still allow the player to still have the whip selected to perform specific minion focusing planning, while also still being able to attack without switching items, which sometimes can determine the outcome of a fight in a stressful situation where each millisecond counts. Meanwhile, and it's effectively the same "balance" effect in current Terraria, but due to the whip having a limited range, especially in the early whips, the summoning staffs could still have a focusing "purpose" of being swapped to in order to focus on far away targets that your minions could get to, but you can't - or don't want - to get to.
I'm not going to argue whether or not the "programming" of this would be difficult, it really seems to be a simple control change that adds a right-click to the whips. You can argue what you want, but it wouldn't really be any "adding" of new content, but a change to the way all of them function, which could have bugs and other problems, but overall I think it should be something relatively simple for the developers to tackle and sneak into the update. So, my overall message here is that hopefully "it's not too much to ask."
Also, extra credit if the developers could somehow make a sentry focus and a minion focus as two separate things, where your minions would go after your "minion focus" target and the sentries would go after a "sentry focus" target. This would add some real "strategic planning" RTS-style gameplay and it would make it super fun to have the sentries focusing on, say, a particular enemy while the minions are focused on a boss. However, this would make this whip change a bit funky, as now there would be two different focus groups. Perhaps the whip's right-click would only change the focus of minions, which makes a reason to switch over to the sentry staffs quickly to change their focus, or, actually incentivize you to plan where to place your sentries so their line-of-sight is what you want them to attack. All of that sounds like very exciting gameplay to me. However, it might make things a little too wonky, so if nothing else I'd like for this whip change, I don't want an extra idea like this to take the whole thing down.
I’m hoping that somehow this could be snuck into this cross-over update, or maybe a future “whip rework” update, whatever works for Re-Logic, because right now the summoner doesn’t feel the same as it used to.
TL;DR - Whips currently cause the minion focus to change to whatever you're attacking every time, which makes minions feel like they're only "extra DPS" during a fight. I want to see a left-click attack on the whip that doesn't change the focus and a right-click attack that does.
Thanks for reading.
The totally not another update after the "final update" of the Terraria Crossover with Don't Starve Together has been announced, which you can see discussed about by ChippyGaming here:
(I couldn't find the original trailer anywhere on YouTube at least, so forgive my poor internet-searching skills, I have a skill issue I guess).
As per usual, this is a time when Red and the Developers will be adding new content based on the cross-over, but often times changes to the gameplay of base Terraria itself are snuck in. A perfect example of this was the summoner sentry limit change that was introduced when the cross-over with Dungeon Defenders occurred. For those that don't know, before the Dungeon Defenders update you were able to summon one of each sentry that came from each of the sentry summoning staves (or "staffs," choose whichever you like), this included the Queen Spider Staff, the Staff of the Frost Hydra, the Rainbow Crystal Staff, and the Lunar Portal Staff. With this, you could have out four sentries all at once on top of your minion amount.
However, once the Dungeon Defenders cross over occurred, I'm guessing the Developers realized how broken the system with sentries were, as it seemed the system only check if you had one instance of the staff's sentry out, but didn't limit you on how many unique ones you could have, so with the Dungeon Defenders update you probably could have had upwards of 19 or 20 sentries out had they not change the system to include a maximum sentry count similar to the maximum minion count.
The point is, these cross over updates do have the opportunity to include quality of life or balance changes, thus, I don't think it is "out of the question" to see if another one of these gameplay balancing updates can be snuck in with this cross over as well.
To finally get into the title of this post, I would like this cross-over update to be a chance to add a simple change to the summoner's new whip weapon: The ability to right-click to attack with the whip that changes the minion's target focus instead, while left click on whips will hit the enemy without changing the focus.
For anyone who doesn't play the summoner's often, or simply doesn't care about the class as much as I do, the fact that the summoner's whips always change your summon focus is a massive deal to me. You see, before the Terraria 1.4 update, the summoner had a "management" playstyle, where, unlike the other classes which are almost completely about just point at the enemy and attacking as much as you can (though, the mage can do some more "setup" style things such as putting down Nimbus Staff rain clouds in choke points, or playing a "semi-support" role of applying debuffs such as armor reduction with the Golden Shower or acting as a literal support and healing the group, meanwhile, the melee can opt into a "tank" role and focus entirely on trying to get the enemies to attack them rather than their allies while absorbing or negating most of the damage themselves) the summoner was focused on placing sentries in strategic spots that would best be able to fight off any naturally spawning mobs, especially during a boss fight, and/or places where it could also have a clear and optimal shot at the boss or group of enemies. Meanwhile, you would be attempting to determine what enemy on the screen would be the optimal target to remove and you could change the "focus" of the minions by right-clicking while aiming on one of the enemies with any summoning staff, causing all of your minions to focus on that particular enemy. While this was going on, and assuming you're attempting a "pure" summoner playthrough, you would be focusing on dodging to keep yourself alive, as unlike the other classes, it doesn't matter if you're actively trying to aim at a boss or enemy, as long as you're alive you will be getting some damage from your minions, thus, you are incentivized to instead focus on the task of not dying, which is a benefit in its own right.
However, once the new summoner whips came out in 1.4, I felt as though the entire playstyle of the class changed. Due to actively having an actual weapon for the summoner to use, it started becoming very similar to the other classes in the style of "just constantly attack the boss/enemy" instead of the "strategic" planning style gameplay I loved. While you still can still perform some "placement planning" with the sentries, the minion focus ability has almost been rendered entirely useless.
The reason for this big claim is that, as aforementioned, it was a big deal to be able to choose what enemy the minions would try to attack, you could perform a lot of this "strategic" planning and "unit maneuvers" if you will. I feel as those it almost had a "Real-Time Strategy" gameplay to it that was very unique. But, now that has changed. The current Terraria 1.4 whips cause the focus to switch to whatever enemy you hit every. single. time. This completely makes the focus mechanic pointless in my eyes, as now any time you "plan" for your minions to attack a particular enemy, the moment you try to join in or defend yourself in a fight you immediately cause the minions to switch back to whatever you attacked.
Now, I'm not saying whips are bad, I love that the summoner finally has a way to interact as the player itself attacking instead of solely relying on the minions, and of course, you can still play the "strategic planning/placing" and dodging playstyle if you need, however, because the whip swaps the focus to every enemy you attack, the minions stop having the feeling of being their own "entity" that assists in killing whatever enemy they see in their line-of-sight, or whatever you've "told" them to target with the focus, and instead end up just feeling like 'extra DPS' due to the whip's focus causing them to always change to attacking whatever you were attacking. This leaves you with two options; either completely forget the playstyle of "strategic planning" and trying to do a bunch of sweaty thinking about where the sentries need to be placed and what enemy the minions need to focus on (or not focus on, as sometimes allowing the minions to just fight anything they see in line-of-sight allows them to divide and conquer a group of enemies and keeps random natural enemies from bothering a boss fight too much) and just constantly spam the whip and just pretend the minions just exist as "more damage" and nothing else (mostly during a boss fight, if you don't focus on anything or attack while roaming around they still "act" like entities by killing random things, but the moment you attack an enemy that goes away), or you can be a dingus and try to not use the whip at all in order to focus on that "planning playstyle," and as we know, losing the large chunk of the DPS from using the whip almost entirely makes that not an option.
So, this all culminates together in what I would like to see "snuck" in with this update; the ability to instead right-click with the whip to attack that will change the focus of the minions while having a left-click with the whip that will also perform the whip attack, but not change the focus. I feel like this is such a simple change to the whips, but it would make a massive difference. As you would finally be able to focus on enemies and then not interrupt the focus by attacking anything that exists in general. Additionally, this would still allow the player to still have the whip selected to perform specific minion focusing planning, while also still being able to attack without switching items, which sometimes can determine the outcome of a fight in a stressful situation where each millisecond counts. Meanwhile, and it's effectively the same "balance" effect in current Terraria, but due to the whip having a limited range, especially in the early whips, the summoning staffs could still have a focusing "purpose" of being swapped to in order to focus on far away targets that your minions could get to, but you can't - or don't want - to get to.
I'm not going to argue whether or not the "programming" of this would be difficult, it really seems to be a simple control change that adds a right-click to the whips. You can argue what you want, but it wouldn't really be any "adding" of new content, but a change to the way all of them function, which could have bugs and other problems, but overall I think it should be something relatively simple for the developers to tackle and sneak into the update. So, my overall message here is that hopefully "it's not too much to ask."
Also, extra credit if the developers could somehow make a sentry focus and a minion focus as two separate things, where your minions would go after your "minion focus" target and the sentries would go after a "sentry focus" target. This would add some real "strategic planning" RTS-style gameplay and it would make it super fun to have the sentries focusing on, say, a particular enemy while the minions are focused on a boss. However, this would make this whip change a bit funky, as now there would be two different focus groups. Perhaps the whip's right-click would only change the focus of minions, which makes a reason to switch over to the sentry staffs quickly to change their focus, or, actually incentivize you to plan where to place your sentries so their line-of-sight is what you want them to attack. All of that sounds like very exciting gameplay to me. However, it might make things a little too wonky, so if nothing else I'd like for this whip change, I don't want an extra idea like this to take the whole thing down.
I’m hoping that somehow this could be snuck into this cross-over update, or maybe a future “whip rework” update, whatever works for Re-Logic, because right now the summoner doesn’t feel the same as it used to.
TL;DR - Whips currently cause the minion focus to change to whatever you're attacking every time, which makes minions feel like they're only "extra DPS" during a fight. I want to see a left-click attack on the whip that doesn't change the focus and a right-click attack that does.
Thanks for reading.
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