Portfolio/Multi-Topic Smoothing out progression: Weapon balancing, Hardmode ore balancing, Buff to base movement speed and also World generation options.

[J Bame]

This is why I proposed making swiftness potions easily available super early rather than a direct buff to base movement speed.

No one has it normalized to keep potions all the time, or consider them as something you'd use outside a boss fight. Especially this early into the game. This just doesn't work, you are assuming everyone will play the same way you do.

Swiftness potions are already available super early.

If your idea is to make earliest exploration less frustrating you can implement some option for the very early stage of the game. Something like "barefoot" bonus what works given you are not wearing anything resembling the boots including a pants parts of the armor and what doubles your acceleration on the ground.

This completely kills any incentive to make any of the early armors (whether cactus, wood, iron, etc) because it kills your mobility, and it would be very confusing and unintuitive

 

[Coleyohley]

No one has it normalized to keep potions all the time, or consider them as something you'd use outside a boss fight.

Now that's just simply not true; most people don't, sure, but there are several people that both you and I know who do this on the regular. Me, for instance, who has their entire top row of their void bag filled with potions that are kept active 100% of the time; I know plenty more who do the same.

Especially this early into the game. This just doesn't work; you are assuming that everyone will play the way you do.

There we go. Potions at the start can be pretty valuable until you get your farm set up, and that's about the only time they're a commodity. I'll accept that.

As for the idea, I agree, there really should be more than one way to obtain decent speed. Swiftness shouldn't be the only option.

 

[Lucky1]

You talked about the ore tiers in your comment. Now that I understand what you were referring to, i can tell you this: Balancing is part of every (progression based) game, especially in Terraria. The developers always want the game to feel smooth and fair, with everything available to you being viable for that point in progression and in line with how much effort you spent to get it. @Redigit🌳 has listened to the community countless times to buff certain underpowered weapons like the phaseblades and the harpoon, as seen in the spoilers for 1.4.5. Nobody would like to go out of their way to get an item, just for that item to be bad or even useless compared to other weapons available at that stage or even earlier. In the same way, weapons should not be too overpowered for the point you get it, like the Daedalus stormbow before the nerfs. This would make you rely more on the overpowered weapon instead of your skills and strategies.

Smoothing has nothing to do with balancing. Smoothing is the process of removing outliers. Balancing is the process of finding and setting the point what provides steadiness to the system. In theory, mechanical system can be balanced through smoothing, but most practical systems, especially games, because of their highly subjective nature, do not. Players are unique so there is no easily calculated center of mass. Each time you smooth certain outlier you risk that the whole system will be thrown off the balance completely. On the other hand, having outliers do not prevent you from finding a balance in the first place. Just look at the tightrope walkers.

This way, I'm always game for any innovations but I'm always skeptical as soon as I hear about nerfs for the sake of smooth balance.

This completely kills any incentive to make any of the early armors (whether cactus, wood, iron, etc) because it kills your mobility, and it would be very confusing and unintuitive

Base acceleration in the armor is very same as it is now. If anything, this bonus exists only to give the player opportunity to make said armor faster. Some players prefer to keep the bonus? Nice. Means that the game will become more interesting through wider spectrum of opportunities. "Confusing and unintuitive"? You wear armor, you movements are more restricted. Pretty intuitive and there is also the buff icon appearing and disappearing. Most buffs worked this way till now and that was fine.

 

[Meowlegend]

Base movement speed is awful. Making a new playthrough feels like the slowest thing ever at the start. God save you if you can't find a hermes boots early game.

 

[J Bame]

Base acceleration in the armor is very same as it is now. If anything, this bonus exists only to give the player opportunity to make said armor faster. Some players prefer to keep the bonus? Nice. Means that the game will become more interesting through wider spectrum of opportunities. "Confusing and unintuitive"? You wear armor, you movements are more restricted. Pretty intuitive and there is also the buff icon appearing and disappearing. Most buffs worked this way till now and that was fine.

I can't believe i have to explain this.

What is going to be the point of ANY of the early game armors if their bonuses are so small that the acceleration bonus is going to matter much more than anything they give (Wooden Greaves literally give 0 defense, making them not only useless but actually a strict downside)?. How exactly is a new player supposed to react to their movement suddenly becoming unbearable because they made Wooden Armor for a little bonus at the start? Hell, what game have you ever played that ruins your movement because you equipped something? How is this even related to the problem being discussed here, being that Movement in Terraria as a whole is based around Hermes Boots doubling movement speed, leading to gameplay without boots feeling extremely slow (which has nothing to do with acceleration)?

 

[Lucky1]

I can't believe i have to explain this.

What is going to be the point of ANY of the early game armors if their bonuses are so small that the acceleration bonus is going to matter much more than anything they give (Wooden Greaves literally give 0 defense, making them not only useless but actually a strict downside)?. How exactly is a new player supposed to react to their movement suddenly becoming unbearable because they made Wooden Armor for a little bonus at the start? Hell, what game have you ever played that ruins your movement because you equipped something? How is this even related to the problem being discussed here, being that Movement in Terraria as a whole is based around Hermes Boots doubling movement speed, leading to gameplay without boots feeling extremely slow (which has nothing to do with acceleration)?

Its related through suggested acceleration buff.

Terraria is not based around Hermes boots and its sprint ability. I'd pick Duneriders/Ice Skates any time. After first mech its all about asphalt and speed bonuses for me. Sprint is becoming not just useless but undesirable.

I've played Dark Souls (different ones).

Armor stats haven't change and its usefulness being exactly the same as before. If you prefer defense for exploration - you are good to go. You prefer mobility? Now you have this option too.

New player is supposed to make a choice between the two.

 

[Meowlegend]

I've played Dark Souls (different ones).

Dark Souls is completely different from Terraria, there is no way you actually want armors to ruin your movement speed in Terraria


I geniuely can't imagine not being able to walk because I equipped the Solar Flare armor in endgame

 

[Lucky1]

Dark Souls is completely different from Terraria, there is no way you actually want armors to ruin your movement speed in Terraria


I geniuely can't imagine not being able to walk because I equipped the Solar Flare armor in endgame

I was asked what game have I played where wearing armor diminishes your mobility and provided the answer.

Buff works as an extra. It changes nothing in the basic stats. Your Solar Flare Armor will work exactly the same way as before. And you will be walking in it with the exactly the same speed as before.

 

[muovd🌳]

I have updated the movement accessory section in the post. I have mostly added @Dapling 's suggestion, let me know what I should add to it. It seems like everyone agrees it should be buffed in some way, but we cannot all agree fully with each other.

 

[TMB50]

I don't see why should dungeon items be buffed to compete with Underworld chest ones: you're still going to go thorugh the dungeon to get the Shadow Key.

As for why would you want to make most Demonite/Crimtane stuff, it gets a lot easier to kill the BoC/EoW a couple more times to craft everything after the first time you do it. Specially as the respective flails, the Vilethorn (admittedly only really applies to EoW but still) and grenades go great on both.
Plus, Underworld enemies are strong by pre-HM standards. Of course you'll want to bring stronger stuff there. If anything, I'd wonder about the Vulcano's point when you're likely to be better off getting the Night's Edge ASAP, even if it does now have more identity than it's old self that lit enemies on fire for crappy DOT.


As for the discussions on the Starfire as a powerful pre-Boss weapon, it's hardly the only one: the Vilethorn stunlocks most non-bosses and is the earliest weapon you can reliably get that can hit through walls, the Minishark itself is expensive, but making the Arms Dealer happy is as easy as putting him in the Desert with the Nurse, which both makes it considerably cheaper and makes him give you more money for stuff you sell him and, if coupled with the Shark Tooth Necklace, gains a lot of DPS when it was already pretty powerful. And honestly, I'd say it's less annoying to get than the Starfury.

 

[muovd🌳]

I don't see why should dungeon items be buffed to compete with Underworld chest ones: you're still going to go thorugh the dungeon to get the Shadow Key.

Then why do they exist? You would only go there for the cobalt shield and shadow key, right? (and maybe the muramasa, just for the night's edge)
Dungeon weapons should have more purpose before you get the direct upgrades in the shadow chests. That is why i suggested giving them specific damage buff against hell enemies, so they could have more purpose. Another way to buff them would be to add a boss in progression between skeletron and the Wall of Flesh, that would drop the shaow key for the shadow chests. This would give the dungeon weapons more time to shine. Alternatively, instead of a new boss, the shadow key could be dropped by the deerclops instead. This would also make him more useful to fight, as his drops are mediocre at the moment.

As for why would you want to make most Demonite/Crimtane stuff, it gets a lot easier to kill the BoC/EoW a couple more times to craft everything after the first time you do it. Specially as the respective flails, the Vilethorn (admittedly only really applies to EoW but still) and grenades go great on both.

I agree, that is why I suggested giving them a buff, so this purpose would be fulfilled easier.

Plus, Underworld enemies are strong by pre-HM standards. Of course you'll want to bring stronger stuff there.

Yes, that is why i wanted the dungeon weapons to have bonuses against hell enemies. This would make the journey through hell easier.

If anything, I'd wonder about the Vulcano's point when you're likely to be better off getting the Night's Edge ASAP, even if it does now have more identity than it's old self that lit enemies on fire for crappy DOT.

I agree, but the volcano is still useable if you don't want to do skeletron in pre-hardmode.

As for the discussions on the Starfire as a powerful pre-Boss weapon, it's hardly the only one: the Vilethorn stunlocks most non-bosses and is the earliest weapon you can reliably get that can hit through walls, the Minishark itself is expensive, but making the Arms Dealer happy is as easy as putting him in the Desert with the Nurse, which both makes it considerably cheaper and makes him give you more money for stuff you sell him and, if coupled with the Shark Tooth Necklace, gains a lot of DPS when it was already pretty powerful. And honestly, I'd say it's less annoying to get than the Starfury.

The vilethorn and minishark are fine. The vilethorn is held back by range and the minishark has average DPS for the price you pay for it. I'd say that the boomstick is better than it in a lot of situations. The vilethorn and minishark also fall off against the late pre-hardmode bosses. The Starfury does not, however. It is also the easiest to get, as you only have to rope up to the sky a couple of times to get an island, or simply drink a gravitation potion.

 

[chewythebigblackdog]

Dungeon items are in a decent place imo (at least most of them are)

• Muramasa - used to make night's edge, also decent on its own if you haven't been to the underworld yet
• Cobalt shield - solid item (even though I usually am not the biggest fan of kb immunity), useful for a while
• Magic Missile - imo better at crowd control than the flamelash since it hits harder, shoots faster, and the aoe attack is on the initial hit (letting you knock stuff back better)
• Aqua sceptre - solid piercing weapon
• Handgun - material for phoenix blaster, one of the best pre-hm ranged weapons
• Valour - outclassed by cascade, but cascade takes some grinding to get so why not grind it with this? Hive-five also exists and is probably better than both though.
• Blue moon - this one's the only one that's almost completely irrelevant, it's just worse sunfury

Demonite & crimtane stuff is also perfectly fine, hellstone gear is intended to be gotten at the end of hardmode so it shouldn't really be comparable to that (the better comparison is jungle gear, which is about the same power level imo). Getting hellstone pre-skeletron is mainly something that people started to do when expert came out, for that extra oomph against a boss that many people have issues with. Also, what do you mean "amazon is easier to get than artery/malaise"? Defeating the eye of cthulhu is imo a lot easier than getting the materials for amazon (after the recipe nerf that is).

I also completely disagree on the "starfury is the most broken pre-boss weapon in the game" point. It's definitely up there, and it's a caver's best friend, but the damage leaves a lot to be desired if you aren't getting up close and hitting with the blade. This makes it fantastic against melee enemies (which is a lot of what you face early game). But then again, so are grenades (though less good against fliers), undertaker/musket, boomstick, and flinx staff, to name a few. It has decent longevity (imo it starts falling off after evil bosses), but so do the other weapons I mentioned. The only reason it seems to be good until wall of flesh is that if you restrict yourself to melee only, it's one of the only weapons with decent range. When you stop exclusively comparing weapons to other weapons within their class, the shortcomings of starfury (mainly mediocre damage in boss fights) become more apparent. People used to use it on wall of flesh as melee not because it was powerful enough for the fight, but because it used to be the only melee option that could hit the boss without putting yourself in extreme danger. Being able to hit through walls is a nice perk of it, but this trait also applies to vilethorn, basically every minion, and yo-yos (you can also just put a small hole in the wall and shoot through that, which works with most weapons.

 

[TMB50]

Then why do they exist? You would only go there for the cobalt shield and shadow key, right? (and maybe the muramasa, just for the night's edge)
Dungeon weapons should have more purpose before you get the direct upgrades in the shadow chests. That is why i suggested giving them specific damage buff against hell enemies, so they could have more purpose. Another way to buff them would be to add a boss in progression between skeletron and the Wall of Flesh, that would drop the shaow key for the shadow chests. This would give the dungeon weapons more time to shine. Alternatively, instead of a new boss, the shadow key could be dropped by the deerclops instead. This would also make him more useful to fight, as his drops are mediocre at the moment.

I agree, that is why I suggested giving them a buff, so this purpose would be fulfilled easier.

Yes, that is why i wanted the dungeon weapons to have bonuses against hell enemies. This would make the journey through hell easier.

I agree, but the volcano is still useable if you don't want to do skeletron in pre-hardmode.

The vilethorn and minishark are fine. The vilethorn is held back by range and the minishark has average DPS for the price you pay for it. I'd say that the boomstick is better than it in a lot of situations. The vilethorn and minishark also fall off against the late pre-hardmode bosses. The Starfury does not, however. It is also the easiest to get, as you only have to rope up to the sky a couple of times to get an island, or simply drink a gravitation potion.

Thing is, dungeon weapons are already pretty good on their own right and the Handgun can be upgraded into the Phoenix Blaster on top of having good stats on it's own right. Older versions of the Handgun were kinda bad, but nowadays, the Phoenix Blaster isn't even a major upgrade, albeit one worth getting. Moreover, weapons like the Flamelash still have downsides compared to the Magic Missile, and theWater Scepter is really good at stunlocking.

As for going to the dungeon... I normally fully explore it to get all the loot I can. The Muramasa is also easily the most comfortable sword for me to use pre-Night's Edge due to having autoswing, which is yet another plus.

Minishark doesn't really get to fall off on late pre-HM bosses: Skeletron has no defense while spinning and the WoF's eyes don't have any, either. As a result, the Minishark can easily do a lot of damage, specially as it benefits massively from silver and party bullets due to it's high rate of fire.

Moreover, the argument of "dungeon weapons should get a buff against Underworld enemies because they're immediately replaced by Shadow Chest ones" is quite shallow: not only is it a very circumstantial buff that only applies to a handful enemies, but starts from the position that you have immediately available Shadow Chests. In general, it seems to assume that you WILL reach the Underworld before the Dungeon. On top of this, three Dungeon weapons have piercing and, as such, are very powerful on Bone Serpents (Blue Moon, Water Bolt, Aqua Scepter).

 

[MoultonLava]

Chain knife
Way too short of a projectile travel distance compared to other flails available in the same point. Funtions very similar to spamming a boomerang up close, without the damage that boomerangs at this tier do, like the shroomerang for example. Chain knife is not worth the grind as a better melee weapon can be found by killing the spore bat, at a much higher rate. Can be balanced by increasing the projectile travel distance and maybe buffing the damage by 1.

Even WORSE for this weapon, there is another weapon normal cave bats drop that feels 10x more common, the Bat Bat. This weapon is superior to the Chain Knifes in every way, their range is actually very similar.

 

[Dapling]

Even WORSE for this weapon, there is another weapon normal cave bats drop that feels 10x more common, the Bat Bat. This weapon is superior to the Chain Knifes in every way, their range is actually very similar.

You’re probably right, and the depressing part is that the bat bat isn’t good at all either.

 

[MoultonLava]

You’re probably right, and the depressing part is that the bat bat isn’t good at all either.

Getting it early in a playthrough is great, though. It is generally better than the ore swords, and while it has very minor healing, it is healing.

 

[Dapling]

Getting it early in a playthrough is great, though. It is generally better than the ore swords, and while it has very minor healing, it is healing.

Bat Bat has basically the same dps as Gold Broadsword (technically less but the difference is less than 1 base dps so again, it’s basically the same) except it has extremely low speed and unremarkable knockback which prevents it from keeping enemies away from you like gold broadsword does (which has almost 20% more knockback and swings over 2x faster). Platinum Broadsword is even better than that in every way.

It also heals only 1.33 hp/s if you land every hit, which is… not great considering how low its range and control are. You’ll probably take more damage trying to use it than the amount you’ll end up recovering.

(Not to mention that the ore swords aren’t known for their power to begin with)

 

[MoultonLava]

Bat Bat has basically the same dps as Gold Broadsword (technically less but the difference is less than 1 base dps so again, it’s basically the same) except it has extremely low speed and unremarkable knockback which prevents it from keeping enemies away from you like gold broadsword does (which has almost 20% more knockback and swings over 2x faster). Platinum Broadsword is even better than that in every way.

It also heals only 1.33 hp/s if you land every hit, which is… not great considering how low its range and control are. You’ll probably take more damage trying to use it than the amount you’ll end up recovering.

(Not to mention that the ore swords aren’t known for their power to begin with)

True, but there are a few advantages to it. 1: you don't need to spend precious bars on it, and 2: it is much bigger and easier to hit.

 

[trya]

Idea: Cobalt Arrows & Bullets. Their one gimmick is they fire 2 bullets/arrows at a time. This gives people reasons to mine cobalt.

this wouldnt be too bad but would palladium be used in this as well?

 

[Im_ConfuzzledCobalt🥐🌳🐿]

That would be pretty overpowered, the damage of the bullets/arrows would have to be like 2 or something for it not to be overpowered

It could be made where they have horrible accuracy, where instead of them firing in a straight line, they fire in a V Shape, making them only really good at close range.

this wouldnt be too bad but would palladium be used in this as well?

Yeah, and it would have the same function.