Portfolio/Multi-Topic some ideas for the game that might improve gameplay

[TwentY!]

If you disagree with any of this, say what you disagree about and why when responding to this, please.
Bosses

• master mode ai changes
  • Eye of Cthulhu: continues to summon servants when he charges in his second phase
  • King Slime: He will not take lava damage, his slimes do not drop banners nor do they count to the banner cost, he will leave slime on blocks and platforms he lands on that slows you down when you tough it
  • Eater of Worlds: now longer, and he can climb to all elevations, regardless of the amount of walls there are. it is also harder to kill the vile spit.
  • Brain of Cthulhu: his illusions deal contact damage, and the illusions now have their own marker on the minimap
  • Queen Bee: now moves a lot faster and is always moving
  • Skeletron: his hands deal increased knockback depending on their momentum, and there are also two indestructible walls that go from the top of the world to the bottom that generate each 800 blocks away from the sides of the surface dungeon. they layer over everything and do not destroy blocks.
  • Deerclops: her legs deal contact damage and knockback, her ice spikes move a lot further, at each side of the snow biome there will be large ice walls generated that layer over everything and do not destroy blocks, at half health a black ring surrounds her and she has more attacks. (For more info, see calamity infernum deerclops)(I think this should happen, at least something like this, in all difficulties)
  • Wall of Flesh: his hungries can now be resummoned and randomly detach themselves whenever, the lasers from the eyes go through walls
  • Queen Slime: Her slimes will not take lava or fire damage, she will not take lava or fire damage, she flys offscreen and despawns when out of the hallow
  • The Destroyer: now can make much tighter turns and can move up high in the sky without having to be touching a wall
  • The Twins: Retinaizer now charges in his second phase, when one breaks into second phase the other will too
  • Skeletron Prime: he now continues to swing his arms while his head spins, he deals higher knockback based on how fast his arms are moving
  • Plantera: moves a lot faster
  • Golem: his fireballs explode much like the Diabolist attacks, his body now flys, his fists will not retract until they pass the player position, he can have multiple fireballs out at a time
  • Empress of Light: despawns when out of the hallow, attacks are now completely randomized
  • Duke Fishron: Now reverts to second phase at 70% health and third at 40% health
  • Lunatic Cultist: can give you the debuff stunned, which renders you unable to move or use items
  • Moon Lord: his hands will occasionally try to slap you, picking up speed as they fly at you, and dealing damage and knockback proportional to how fast his hands moved
• there is also nondestructable arenas set up around the edges of biomes for the bosses deerclops, eater of worlds, brain of cthulhu, queen slime, empress of light, and duke fishron. they layer over all blocks and not destroy anything, but you can't move through them and they make it so you can't leave the biome you are supposed to fight the boss in. the rod of discord, rod of harmony, recall potion, wormhole potion, teleportation potion, potion of return, magic mirror, and ice mirror all allow you to pass this barrier, but if the boss leaves the biome it is supposed to be fought in it will attempt to fly off screen and despawn.

Biomes

• general
  • there is now a living tree that spawns in each biome in the middle of the surface. it is the same kind of wood as native to the biome, and it follows the tree style, providing early pre-HM loot to that biome.
  • each biome contains at least one lake big enough for fishing
• corruption
  • the corruption tunnels now are thinner and weave around some more
  • enemies spawned in the corruption now have triple the health and damage
• crimson
  • the crimson caves are now a little longer
  • the enemies spawned in the crimson now have triple the health and damage
  • crimson grass makes a squishing when you walk on it.
• sky
  • the sky islands now can generate in four different types:
    • a sky lake is a cloud with water in it big enough for fishing, no change from current type
    • a sky house is a floating island with some land. on that land there is a specific biome recreated, the kinds that can happen are tundra, desert, forest, jungle, corruption in a corruption world, crimson in a crimson world. there is a fountain of that biome present, and there is also a house made out of sky bricks with the average sky loot in it.
    • a sky island is about two thirds the size of a sky house, and it can generate with identical biomes as a sky house. it doesn't have a building.
    • a sky city is a group of two to three sky islands about 1.3x the size of a sky house close together. there is a sky themed building that connects them, and the sky islands in the city can generate with different biomes.

Structures

• Lizhard Temple
  • the jungle temple is now much more maze like, with a design similar to the dungeon
  • flying snakes move faster
  • the chamber where you fight golem is bigger
  • lizhard bricks can't be hammered
  • you can't place blocks on the lizhard walls
  • meteorites don't destroy the temple bricks
• Dungeon
  • Dungeon bricks can't be hammered or broken until after killing skeletron
  • dungeon crates can give you bricks of the other colors of dungeon

NPCs and towns

• NPCs no longer reference existing NPCs in other towns
• the nurse will now heal you part away for part the money (e.g. 100hp for one gold or you could do 50hp for 50 silver)
• the merchant buts things for more money as you progress through the game
• NPCs pathfind to their house and try to sit in the nearest chair in their house when it is night (they no longer open the doors and let the zombies in)

other

• otherworldly music now has a chance to play randomly the same way normal music plays
• there is now a mechanical bunny, as discussed here
• ambient sounds now play more commonly

 

[MoultonLava]

There is only one issue: There shouldnt be any structure changes in different difficulties. Other than that, I like this idea.

 

[TwentY!]

There is only one issue: There shouldnt be any structure changes in different difficulties. Other than that, I like this idea.

there are no structure changes in higher difficulties. the arenas for the biomes are present in all difficulties, and the generation of the temple is the same in each difficulty.

 

[geniusbot]

i like most of these but some of the boss changes would be annoying, also something i think should happen is more general exploration in hardmode (especially near the end)

 

[MoultonLava]

meteorites don't destroy the temple bricks

They never have been able to. The game literally doesnt allow this to happen. Also, the change to Deerclop's legs SHOULDNT be implemented. That is a major aspect of the fight.

 

[TwentY!]

i like most of these but some of the boss changes would be annoying, also something i think should happen is more general exploration in hardmode (especially near the end)

I added the part about the changes to the temple because of this. it was actually inspired by another thread I was on, where someone said there was no exploration aspect to hardmode. I didn't want to generate any new structures because it could destroy builds.

They never have been able to. The game literally doesnt allow this to happen.

I never tried it, but on the wiki it said that if you covered the world in chests and dug a hole to the temple you could use metiorites to break the bricks

Also, the change to Deerclop's legs SHOULDNT be implemented. That is a major aspect of the fight.

I say this should happen to make it harder to cheese the boss after seeing this conversation

 

[MoultonLava]

I never tried it, but on the wiki it said that if you covered the world in chests and dug a hole to the temple you could use metiorites to break the bricks

Where did it say this?

 

[TwentY!]

Where did it say this?

they must have removed it. It was also on the fandom wiki, which isn't as great.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

a lot of what i'm reading shows a consistent distaste for wide boss encounter areas or generally wanting to restrict player movement, but that kind of goes against the core of how the game plays.

another player fighting skeletron or empress of light across the entire world is not impacting how you fight them. why enforce a smaller arena?

i specifically want to address this though:

Empress of Light: despawns when out of the hallow, attacks are now completely randomized

this means that the empress of light despawns if you flight too high above the ground without more hallow biome present, while this boss also has attacks that encourage you to avoid them by flying upwards. can they be dodged by flying dowards? yes, but it's much more awkward since it leaves you in a bad position to deal with followup attacks.

furthermore, entirely randomizing attacks could lead to situations where you have multiple areas entirely cut off by Everlasting Rainbow, then Prismatic Bolt or Etherial Lance shows up and there's next to nothing you can do.

the solution to this ends up becoming turning the entire world's surface into hallow and having multiple floating actuated pearlstone chunks in the air to maintain a hallow biome to be capable of.. moving in one straight horizontal line

i do believe that a semi-randomized attack pattern can work for EoL, but it would need to function similar to a Tetris randomizer queuing up attacks in a cycle with checks to make sure you don't get something impossible to dodge because at the end of the day, this boss is designed to be a consistent challenge that you can battle without taking damage with enough practice

 

[TwentY!]

a lot of what i'm reading shows a consistent distaste for wide boss encounter areas or generally wanting to restrict player movement, but that kind of goes against the core of how the game plays.

another player fighting skeletron or empress of light across the entire world is not impacting how you fight them. why enforce a smaller arena?

I want to semi-restrict player movement with skeletron because I feel like skeletron should be fought closer to his origin point. the restricting people to biomes comes from the idea that a person can end up doing something strange like fighting a tundra boss in the desert.

i do believe that a semi-randomized attack pattern can work for EoL, but it would need to function similar to a Tetris randomizer queuing up attacks in a cycle with checks to make sure you don't get something impossible to dodge because at the end of the day, this boss is designed to be a consistent challenge that you can battle without taking damage with enough practice

The only reason why I want to randomize the attack pattern a bit is because I see people practice with the attack pattern, eventually making it so daytime EoL is like nothing.

this means that the empress of light despawns if you flight too high above the ground without more hallow biome present, while this boss also has attacks that encourage you to avoid them by flying upwards. can they be dodged by flying dowards? yes, but it's much more awkward since it leaves you in a bad position to deal with followup attacks.

I will confess that I didn't thing of going up when I made this post.

 

[MoultonLava]

The only reason why I want to randomize the attack pattern a bit is because I see people practice with the attack pattern, eventually making it so daytime EoL is like nothing.

That is the thing: Practice. This boss is meant to prove a challenge to people without being so unpredictable that it is unfun to fight. I wouldn't change anything about her fight. I do think that the For the Worthy change to her fight feels more impactful than randomizing the patterns.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

the restricting people to biomes comes from the idea that a person can end up doing something strange like fighting a tundra boss in the desert.

Yeah, most other bosses in this context have enrages outside of their natural biome. It's like if you try to fight Duke Fishron by kiting it outside of the Ocean area its damage goes up and attacks way faster.

I think that mechanics to keep bosses within their biomes are fine when applied in a fitting context, but entirely leaving isn't a fitting one most of the time. An example is Brain/Eater dropping aggro when you leave the evil biome to re-gain aggro when you walk back in, making sniping at them easier.

The only reason why I want to randomize the attack pattern a bit is because I see people practice with the attack pattern, eventually making it so daytime EoL is like nothing.

You don't see the hundreds practice runs that go into getting daytime EoL down to a consistent level, let alone getting it before Stardust gear is available.

It took me over 200 attempts learning the boss to get my first Terrarprisma on Expert with higher end gear, and that practice is only useful at specific equipment levels and setups. Even now that I'm comfortable with going for it pre-Golem, and after Legendary FTW/GFB Terrarprisma acquisitions before Moon Lord, I'm still not consistent enough to get a daytime EoL clear every time I drop a Lacewing on Expert or higher because you cannot make mistakes.

This boss is never reduced to "nothing" outside of specific post-Moon Lord setups and tremendously long minecart track kites, no matter how much you practice it.

I'm just going to refer to this video about Super Mario Bros speedrunning as an easier way to explain it:

(If the timestamp doesn't work, the important section is at around 1:22)

 

[Dapling]

Brain of Cthulhu: his illusions deal contact damage, and the illusions now have their own marker on the minimap

This doesn’t actually do anything because the illusions will never touch you unless you’re taking contact damage from the boss already. You may want to change it further.

Skeletron: his hands deal increased knockback depending on their momentum, and there are also two indestructible walls that go from the top of the world to the bottom that generate each 800 blocks away from the sides of the surface dungeon. they layer over everything and do not destroy blocks.

this one is insanely silly and I actually love it. The walls are so far away that they don’t really mean much so imo you could remove them.

there is also nondestructable arenas set up around the edges of biomes for the bosses deerclops, eater of worlds, brain of cthulhu, queen slime, empress of light, and duke fishron. they layer over all blocks and not destroy anything, but you can't move through them and they make it so you can't leave the biome you are supposed to fight the boss in. the rod of discord, rod of harmony, recall potion, wormhole potion, teleportation potion, potion of return, magic mirror, and ice mirror all allow you to pass this barrier, but if the boss leaves the biome it is supposed to be fought in it will attempt to fly off screen and despawn.

Let’s not do any of that please. Terraria is a sandbox game at its core and I would like to preserve that and keep all the silly engine cheeses. If you want tightly controlled rules maybe enforce them on yourself or make a mod to do it for you.

general

• there is now a living tree that spawns in each biome in the middle of the surface. it is the same kind of wood as native to the biome, and it follows the tree style, providing early pre-HM loot to that biome.
• each biome contains at least one lake big enough for fishing

I would make the trees have a low chance to spawn instead of every single biome, especially if you’re not making new items for them. They could get very repetitive very fast.
Lakes are always cool atmospherically so no issues there. Most biomes actually already do this too so it would mostly be a change to evil biomes and not much else.

• corruption
  • the corruption tunnels now are thinner and weave around some more
  • enemies spawned in the corruption now have triple the health and damage
• crimson
  • the crimson caves are now a little longer
  • the enemies spawned in the crimson now have triple the health and damage
  • crimson grass makes a squishing when you walk on it.

I don’t think tripling the enemy stats is a good idea. It basically turns the infections into a completely impassable wall and prevents you from seeing any of the biomes past them unless you build or mine past them which takes an insanely long and tedious amount of time. Maybe you could get away with doing that if the player is underground though.
Love the ideas for the actual worldgen and atmospheric changes though.

Lizhard Temple

• the jungle temple is now much more maze like, with a design similar to the dungeon
• flying snakes move faster
• the chamber where you fight golem is bigger
• lizhard bricks can't be hammered
• you can't place blocks on the lizhard walls
• meteorites don't destroy the temple bricks

I’m all for fleshing out the temple but… you didn’t actually flesh it out. The thing about temple anticheese is that there’s nothing the anticheese is actually protecting besides solar tablets, which are a qol item at best. There’s not really any point to doing all these anticheese measures if it’s not actually preventing the player from doing anything besides getting Wooden Spikes and easier ways to summon an event they could already summon.
You also made it literally impossible to place the temple furniture set inside of builds that would want temple furniture in them.

Dungeon

• Dungeon bricks can't be hammered or broken until after killing skeletron
• dungeon crates can give you bricks of the other colors of dungeon

Why are we preventing the player from going into the instant death zone again?
Wait we aren’t even doing that because the dungeon doesn’t even have any blocks blocking any of it besides the cracked bricks.
What’s this supposed to do?
Also: chlorophyte extractinator already accomplishes getting all the dungeon brick colors in one world. It really should be earlier in the game though. It’s too late for what it does.

Everything else I covered with a different point or just enjoyed.

 

[MoultonLava]

Lakes are always cool atmospherically so no issues there. Most biomes actually already do this too so it would mostly be a change to evil biomes and not much else.

Assuming that these are guaranteed to be the size required to fish with full power, I totally approve of this. This would make getting Salmon, the two fished biome weapons, the Wrath and Rage potion fish, and more easier to get. I really like that.

 

[TwentY!]

This doesn’t actually do anything because the illusions will never touch you unless you’re taking contact damage from the boss already. You may want to change it further.

in multiplayer the illusions chase after different players, and the minimap can be used to figure out where the real brain is because it has an icon.

Let’s not do any of that please. Terraria is a sandbox game at its core and I would like to preserve that and keep all the silly engine cheeses. If you want tightly controlled rules maybe enforce them on yourself or make a mod to do it for you.

I look at cheeses the way I look at transmutation. I don't approve of it because in speedruns or playthroughs it removes a lot of the fun of watching someone suffer while trying to kill a boss on legendary difficulty.

I don’t think tripling the enemy stats is a good idea. It basically turns the infections into a completely impassable wall and prevents you from seeing any of the biomes past them unless you build or mine past them which takes an insanely long and tedious amount of time. Maybe you could get away with doing that if the player is underground though.

I say this because the evil biomes don't seem to impact much, they seem more of a minor annoyance. another idea might be to have the enemies scale based on progression. I also like the idea of having it happen in the underground.

I’m all for fleshing out the temple but… you didn’t actually flesh it out. The thing about temple anticheese is that there’s nothing the anticheese is actually protecting besides solar tablets, which are a qol item at best. There’s not really any point to doing all these anticheese measures if it’s not actually preventing the player from doing anything besides getting Wooden Spikes and easier ways to summon an event they could already summon.

you can go into the temple pre-plantera and destroy/block all the traps, making it much easier to make it through when you kill plantera. I also randomize the dungeon so there is some remaining feeling of exploration in later game.

You also made it literally impossible to place the temple furniture set inside of builds that would want temple furniture in them.

that was an oversight.

Why are we preventing the player from going into the instant death zone again?
Wait we aren’t even doing that because the dungeon doesn’t even have any blocks blocking any of it besides the cracked bricks.
What’s this supposed to do?

I watched Throarbin's Terraria Survivor series and one of the people in it decided to hoik into the dungeon, grab a gold key from the wood chest, die, hoik in again but elsewhere, open a locked gold chest, take an item(it was a blue moon), and leave. This is an attempt to prevent that.

chlorophyte extractinator already accomplishes getting all the dungeon brick colors in one world. It really should be earlier in the game though. It’s too late for what it does.

I don't know much about what the chlorophyte extractinator does.

 

[chewythebigblackdog]

in multiplayer the illusions chase after different players, and the minimap can be used to figure out where the real brain is because it has an icon.

Unless it works differently in multiplayer, since 1.4.4 the brain disappears from the minimap in phase 2.

you can go into the temple pre-plantera and destroy/block all the traps, making it much easier to make it through when you kill plantera. I also randomize the dungeon so there is some remaining feeling of exploration in later game.

The temple enemies can still spawn pre-plantera, so going into the temple early like this literally accomplishes nothing. Also, while removing the ability to place blocks on lihzahrd walls does prevent hoiking into the temple, it also prevents the use of platforms for the golem fight, which doesn't seem like a good trade-off. You are also able to enter the temple via shimmer (which can be moved via pumps).

I don't really see the point of preventing the player from entering the temple early. It accomplishes basically nothing (aside from more consistent access to a pre-plantera solar eclipse, which literally only has 2 relevant drops)

 

[Dapling]

in multiplayer the illusions chase after different players, and the minimap can be used to figure out where the real brain is because it has an icon.

The illusions are clientside visuals and as a result only show up from your perspective. Every player sees different illusions and none of them will hit you unless you touch the main brain.

I look at cheeses the way I look at transmutation. I don't approve of it because in speedruns or playthroughs it removes a lot of the fun of watching someone suffer while trying to kill a boss on legendary difficulty.

Idk why you feel like everyone needs to impress you instead of playing the way they want, but okay. Also speedruns don't even have time to build arenas a lot of the time so I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish with that either. Terraria is a sandbox game with no clearly defined rules. You do not get to make rules for how other people play.
Try everything, but journey mode still has god mode 3 clicks from spawning into the world, characters and worlds aren't tied to each other, and the vanilla workshop has an all items filter the developers very intentionally put there themselves. If you want people to stop "cheating" by your standards, then you should probably come to terms with the fact that it isn't ever going to happen.

you can go into the temple pre-plantera and destroy/block all the traps, making it much easier to make it through when you kill plantera. I also randomize the dungeon so there is some remaining feeling of exploration in later game.

Why can't you destroy/block all the traps just as easily in post plantera exactly? There are no new enemies in there once plantera dies and you have faster mining speed and better mobility by that point of the game, so it's actually easier to save it for that late in the game if anything.

I watched Throarbin's Terraria Survivor series and one of the people in it decided to hoik into the dungeon, grab a gold key from the wood chest, die, hoik in again but elsewhere, open a locked gold chest, take an item(it was a blue moon), and leave. This is an attempt to prevent that.

If someone cheats in a multiplayer event or competition, disqualification is always an option. Unless there wasn't even a rule against that, in which case... maybe make a rule against that instead of forcing the game to do it for you? Or even better:

If you want tightly controlled rules... ...make a mod to do it for you.

 

[Yousef the H]

Deerclops: her legs deal contact damage and knockback

that's a core part of the fight, removing it means redesigning the hwole thing

Queen Slime: Her slimes will not take lava or fire damage, she will not take lava or fire damage, she flys offscreen and despawns when out of the hallow

limiting where you can fight the boss just makes players forced to make larger areas of that biome, it made some sense with eater of worlds/BoC but come on.

Empress of Light: despawns when out of the hallow, attacks are now completely randomized

ok good luck getting terraprisma when all her attacks are random, you do know every boss has a pattern that it defaults to yea? EoL would be the only one breaking that pattern.

Duke Fishron: Now reverts to second phase at 70% health and third at 40% health

you do know that third phase has 0 defense? it's not exactly much harder when it's a pattern that you'll follow for slightly longer now.

there is also nondestructable arenas set up around the edges of biomes for the bosses deerclops, eater of worlds, brain of cthulhu, queen slime, empress of light, and duke fishron. they layer over all blocks and not destroy anything, but you can't move through them and they make it so you can't leave the biome you are supposed to fight the boss in. the rod of discord, rod of harmony, recall potion, wormhole potion, teleportation potion, potion of return, magic mirror, and ice mirror all allow you to pass this barrier, but if the boss leaves the biome it is supposed to be fought in it will attempt to fly off screen and despawn.

there's no point in this, you're just forcing players to have a more awkward boss fight, while also limiting the ability to build in those biomes

enemies spawned in the corruption now have triple the health and damage
the enemies spawned in the crimson now have triple the health and damage

why, it's already a difficult biome that all new and even some veteran players avoid, hardcore runs don't even try to get there without tunneling/platforming above it

crimson grass makes a squishing when you walk on it.

ew please no

Dungeon bricks can't be hammered or broken until after killing skeletron

i believe only the surface ones can be broken, and i think that one's good to keep, as it helps a lot in co-op and in single player runs to have a bit more freedom before skeletron smacks you the moment he's spawned

the rest of the ideas are fine, but those are my nitpicks.

 

[TwentY!]

The illusions are clientside visuals and as a result only show up from your perspective. Every player sees different illusions and none of them will hit you unless you touch the main brain.

that i didn't know

Idk why you feel like everyone needs to impress you instead of playing the way they want, but okay. Also speedruns don't even have time to build arenas a lot of the time so I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish with that either. Terraria is a sandbox game with no clearly defined rules. You do not get to make rules for how other people play.
Try everything, but journey mode still has god mode 3 clicks from spawning into the world, characters and worlds aren't tied to each other, and the vanilla workshop has an all items filter the developers very intentionally put there themselves. If you want people to stop "cheating" by your standards, then you should probably come to terms with the fact that it isn't ever going to happen.

I just think it's poor sport wo I try to limit it.

limiting where you can fight the boss just makes players forced to make larger areas of that biome, it made some sense with eater of worlds/BoC but come on.

this is more to help prevent leaving the biome and letting the EoW or BoC un aggro on you and reenterng to fight it again

ok good luck getting terraprisma when all her attacks are random, you do know every boss has a pattern that it defaults to yea?

I thought of this and think a semi-randomized attack pattern is better. it just helps prevent cheesing.

there's no point in this, you're just forcing players to have a more awkward boss fight, while also limiting the ability to build in those biomes

no. the boss fight will be just the same if you just build in the biome, although when making this i forgot about going up, and I am not limiting the building ability at all, because there is still the entire biome to build/fight in.

ew please no

im just helping reinforce the gore theme of the entire biome. we already have it with driplers, so why not more?

 

[Mille Marteaux]

I thought of this and think a semi-randomized attack pattern is better. it just helps prevent cheesing.

i know i said this professionally before but dude

cmon

spending multiple hours to practice a fixed attack pattern so you can avoid taking damage is not "cheese"

you are actively engaging and getting better at the game by doing that. that isn't "cheese"

you cannot compare someone getting terraprisma to someone standing in a wooden box with a platform wall shooting at pirates from safety. that is what people mean when they refer to cheese - sometthing entirely safe that the enemy literally cannot do anything about.

a player dodging the empress of light's attacks is not cheesing the attacks. it is a player being skilled

that is the same kind of energy as people calling teamwork in games "cheating"