Terraria Future and Spoilers Discussion Thread

[Loki]

Apparently this is a thing now:

It has always been a thing. This thing is beyond you.

 

[Fortanono]

So, let's discuss stuff. Around 10 new minibiomes? Hype.

And as seen in the Meowmere's Revenge video, one seems to be a Rich Mahogany/Jungle Grass underground cabin.

 

[Necrius]

Rewatched meowmere video and only now noticed that Cenx is floating in air with some sort of hook latched to the ground without pulling her to it. Special hook!

 

[Fortanono]

Rewatched meowmere video and only now noticed that Cenx is floating in air with some sort of hook latched to the ground without pulling her to it. Special hook!

Interesting.

 

[ExplodedCow]

I agree with Sarasala, Hardmode was the big thing for Terraria. There's been nothing bigger or better since, and I personally crave for more difficulty and another "mode".

I'd also like difficulty settings that primarily decrease invincibility time after hit. That'd make the game a lot harder Gonna make a balancing thread soon if I remember.

1.1 also had a direction to it. The later updates were more or less to fill in more stuff, but 1.1 felt like it advanced a story, by causing the world to change and become a threat in itself. Imo Terraria needs more story-feel like this, more actual advancement beyond just ores and bosses.

1.3 will have a new expert mode

 

[Necrius]

Some armors have complete side look, while several headpieces are turned a bit towards camera, making both eyes visible. Just got an idea - what if we actually get this perspective change in character appearance? Maybe idle animations or something like this. Also the look of those humanoid shapes on giant moon screenshot doesn't really appear to follow the "sideways humanoids" pattern.

 

[MistaAnderson]

1.3 will have a new expert mode

Not the same thing. At all.

 

[ExplodedCow]

Not the same thing. At all.

elaborate

 

[MistaAnderson]

I'm worried that the Expert Mode may be more and more elaborated on (Which is a good thing), but to the point that Redigit doesn't want to "exclude" non-elite players to the point where he'll have to balance it similarly to normal mode, in which case it won't be hard enough and we'll end up at the old problem - people will still complain about the game being easy, but this time, Redigit will say they have already been heard. Even though the implementation completely loses focus of what it was supposed to be - something extra and satisfying for the pro's to specifically address the game not being super hard for the ones who truly want that.

The reason I worry this will happen, is because he's adding a lot of content. It would seem unfair to add that much, and just rule out everyone who's not very good at the game from all the fun. This is why Expert Mode needs a lot of consideration.

elaborate

1.1 added a complete revamp of the entire game, 2 new biomes, every biome redone with new mobs and hazards, harder game difficulty, twice the amount of items, new types of accessories, new NPCs. By adding all this after the end boss, he more than doubled the length of the game.

Expert Mode enhances the game difficulty and introduces some slightly better rewards so it doesn't feel pointless.


Please don't compare those two concepts and tell me they look on par. This should have been obvious. A difficulty slider is not the same as a major content update. If Redigit makes it a large content update, the problem I mentioned at the top of this post will be even more significant. I seriously hope that he prioritizes difficulty with Expert Mode, even if he wants to add tons of content.

My philosophy on Expert Mode:

Sooner or later, if you truly care to play the game enough to experience all its riches, you will reach Expert Mode just like any other player, and you will get good. There should be rewards for all tiers of people, even some that are near impossible to get. There should be a pride in it, and a sense of entitlement and accomplishment.

Don't be too afraid to make the gamemode too hard. For now, be afraid not to make the effort worth it.

 

[FlakMaster]

people will still complain about the game being easy

These same people will always say it is too easy, because they can't comprehend the fact that they have had enough experience to know what to do precisely and they also lack the memories of how difficult something was when they first tried it. Therefore, this comment itself should always be ignored.

The game as it is (1.2.4.1) is still difficult. So much people get locked behind the Destroyer. I'm almost certain that the Destroyer is the #1 boss that people need help with, even though I would have thought it would be Duke Fishron (although, he is a hard boss to know about if you don't go to the wiki or forums). People that are going to be 'locked behind expert mode' would already be locked behind some content in the current game.

I trust the dev team enough that they know what they are doing with expert mode. It won't be able to get much harder than that without enforcing people to use specific tactics and gear (Gravity potion, asphalt bridge, life leech...that's probably why all the 'pros' say the game is too easy, because they exploit the hell out of things). And that is a route that I do not wish they take, because the player's skill should always be the #1 factor in an engagement.

A difficulty slider is not the same as a major content update.

That depends. If there's a bunch of new advanced AI's from the start in this new mode as well as exclusive mechanics, then that is still content nonetheless.

Also, expert mode isn't the only thing in the 1.3 package as we all know. We can't be sure until its release, but it could very well surpass the 1.1/1.2 update in content.

 

[Demon Master]

I believe 1.3 will be the most important update, as its reds final update. Will there be more items than 1.2? Well I don't know exactly how many items were added in that update, but I heard its over 1000. It will probably be less, but those items will probably be more significant and interesting. After all, they said the 1.3 item count would be better not bigger this time. Hopefully 1.3 will 'fill in the gaps' where content is currently lacking. Even though there isn't many places where this is the case, the desert and ocean could maybe be improved.

Since red is leaving I think he will want to use 1.3 to 'complete' the game.

 

[MistaAnderson]

@FlakMaster No offense, but your post seems more like an opinion than anything else. I'm among the players that found Terraria to be easy early on, and I can safely say the Destroyer is the easiest of the Hardmode bosses to me. It's been made even easier after 1.2 came out.

All you need to render the Destroyer completely defenseless is to make a far-up ceiling and wooden platforms below. He can't reach you, you use the Nimbus Rod/Golden Shower and he'll die within minutes. It's so easy to take him out it's almost funny.

When I play through the game, I try to avoid using sandbox mechanics to my advantage, and I mostly refuse to build bridges in hell, relying on the hookshot and rocket boots to move around. I try hard to make things challenging, and I play aggressively face-on despite being a mage.

That's why "people will always complain it's too easy but it's not possible to make it harder" does not make sense. It's your opinion, and I definitely don't share it. I still do pretty well in Frost Moon solo, and when I get to Fishron, I hear the Bubble Gun is gonna make things easier.

All in all, an Expert Mode is needed. And AI is definitely a major element to it, but I also want invincibility-time to be modified to work differently, as I explained in an earlier post here:

Spoiler: My post on the game design/balance so far

The problem right now is that due to the game design of Terraria, it's difficult to do what you're asking for without just simply hashing all values to be higher.

For instance, platforming is no longer an issue. Wings + Hookshot is everything you need to avoid letting the environment be a falling hazard, and you can navigate anywhere.
Due to invincibility time + healing combo, you are capable of facetanking just about any boss and horde.

The only way difficulty is being increased now, is by increasing enemy damage. That means balancing, so you give the player better armor and DPS inflicting gear. You're just changing the values in all areas to be higher, achieving virtually nothing but moving things up another tier.

If invincibility time is removed, you can't facetank high DPS enemies. Period.
If invincibility time is removed, rapid-fire actually serves a purpose in enemies, and they can trade off "high damage numbers" in favor of high frequency fire. More variation.
If invincibility time is removed, you can't use cheap tricks like dungeon spikes to stay immortal in every battle.

Take a look at other games out there of the Terraria-esque nature. Plenty of them allow you to take damage from rapid fire, have no invincibility time but simply cap the amount of damage you can take from any given "damage source". Invincibility time isn't in every game out there.
And it's not like the games who don't have it, cause you to instantly die due to the fact that you're taking damage every frame, and playing at 120 FPS makes you take 120*30 if 30 is the damage.

Invincibility time is sometimes a lazy way to avoid proper damage frequency calculation, and it causes problems in the long run, like the ones with healing.
If you don't understand how healing and damage works in a larger gameplay perspective, you're gonna have major issues and need to balance all other things to compensate for these mechanics not being properly implemented. Like in this case, where the game has turned into a simple race between healing fast enough, and taking high enough damage.

Due to quick weapons like the Razorpine, and the fact that you can set up Nimbus and other elements to constantly heal you, you can pretty much heal at an extreme pace. Lowering the health output you receive per healing "cloud" does not help.
It just punishes those players who fight fairly and without pro skill, who suddenly discover that they're receiving too little HP to survive.

This is, again, why lowering the amount of HP you can receive does not help. I told @Cenx this, I asked her to just simply cap the frequency you heal on to like 3x a second. She said she she had already tried that, afterwards I went and facetanked Frost Moon and proved that I healed far more than 3x a second on my Twitch livestream.

I'm not blaming her, we might as well have been miscommunicating, but my point is the game balancing. If you can't take damage in varying frequencies from varying sources (The code to achieve this can be very round, and not what it sounds like, by the way) you will essentially resort to the simplest method possible: Universal invincibility towards any damage, which is what's currently in place. This makes room for a ton of exploitation, temporary immortality and issues with healing that isn't frequency capped.

Honestly, if temporary immortality was removed, even healing wouldn't need much of a nerf if you were hit by more than one enemy. Sure, you can survive one Pumpking. Can you survive five?
Cause currently, it doesn't matter how many pumpkings are inside you. Might as well be 50 and that'll just give you more points and loot, the difficulty is capped to "whoever manages to get a hit" while you're still vulnerable, and how high that DPS is. Or actually, not DPS, just simply Damage in one hit. Currently, that guy is called dungeon spike, and his damage output is poor.

I probably don't need to tell you that while you can upgrade damage output, introducing more powerful versions of the immortality necklace won't be doable without major cutbacks on all other stats. And then people will abuse that too.

This is why you need to do damage debounce per damage source, and not on the player itself. So that a machinegun can still hit you 20 times a second, but standing inside a zombie will not damage you that insanely fast.
Standing inside 2 zombies will damage you per individual zombie, because they are individual sources of damage.
An individual mob can damage you in multiple ways though. Imagine walking into a spiky mob that also fires things, like a spiked slime. You need to take damage for both types of attacks independently.

Another thing I forgot to mention in the post is that you could just cap healing to a certain percentage. "You can only heal 10% total HP per 0.7 seconds" would make it so that low-damage weapons with a high DPS aren't completely useless for healing. You can just define a few rules/caps here and see which cap a weapon will hit first - it'll work smoothly for every weapon.

@MegaSharkinator1997 1.3 will be the largest and most comprehensive update for Terraria, unless dev plans change.

 

[ExplodedCow]

I'm worried that the Expert Mode may be more and more elaborated on (Which is a good thing), but to the point that Redigit doesn't want to "exclude" non-elite players to the point where he'll have to balance it similarly to normal mode, in which case it won't be hard enough and we'll end up at the old problem - people will still complain about the game being easy, but this time, Redigit will say they have already been heard. Even though the implementation completely loses focus of what it was supposed to be - something extra and satisfying for the pro's to specifically address the game not being super hard for the ones who truly want that.

The reason I worry this will happen, is because he's adding a lot of content. It would seem unfair to add that much, and just rule out everyone who's not very good at the game from all the fun. This is why Expert Mode needs a lot of consideration.



1.1 added a complete revamp of the entire game, 2 new biomes, every biome redone with new mobs and hazards, harder game difficulty, twice the amount of items, new types of accessories, new NPCs. By adding all this after the end boss, he more than doubled the length of the game.

Expert Mode enhances the game difficulty and introduces some slightly better rewards so it doesn't feel pointless.


Please don't compare those two concepts and tell me they look on par. This should have been obvious. A difficulty slider is not the same as a major content update. If Redigit makes it a large content update, the problem I mentioned at the top of this post will be even more significant. I seriously hope that he prioritizes difficulty with Expert Mode, even if he wants to add tons of content.

My philosophy on Expert Mode:

Sooner or later, if you truly care to play the game enough to experience all its riches, you will reach Expert Mode just like any other player, and you will get good. There should be rewards for all tiers of people, even some that are near impossible to get. There should be a pride in it, and a sense of entitlement and accomplishment.

Don't be afraid to make the game too hard. Be afraid not to make the effort worth it.

So that's what expert mode is. Thanks for the info

 

[MegaMage314 🌳]

I still don't think removing that completely removing the invincibility timer is a good idea...

 

[FlakMaster]

No offense, but your post seems more like an opinion than anything else. I'm among the players that found Terraria to be easy early on, and I can safely say the Destroyer is the easiest of the Hardmode bosses to me. It's been made even easier after 1.2 came out.

I was generally speaking. I also find the Destroyer tremendously easy, and literally questioned people how the Destroyer changed in 1.2.3, because I didn't notice a single difference. I also blasted to wave15 with a Ranger without life leech days after the Frost Moon was released. I'm very eager to see expert mode, but am keeping an open mind just so I don't assume it is going to be so much harder than it actually is.

My post was not merely an opinion, it is sourced from the many posts I have seen saying 'x is difficult' or 'how do I do y'.

I also need to restate that the 'it's not possible to make it harder' was said in conjunction with the relevance to skills and gear. It can't be made much harder without making people rely on 'cheesy tactics'.

 

[MistaAnderson]

So that's what expert mode is. Thanks for the info

To be fair, I was being simple. It will likely have slight improvements in rewards (the devs have talked about it, I think Red said the most) and will be something for the advanced players. It's kinda like playing Diablo 3 on a higher difficulty - with more challenge comes better loot. The AI should also get a very needed update, IIRC.

Point was, changing to Expert Mode won't give you a 1.3-esque amount of new content that is unavailable for everyone else. It's supposed to be something extra.

I also need to restate that the 'it's not possible to make it harder' was said in conjunction with the relevance to skills and gear. It can't be made much harder without making people rely on 'cheesy tactics'.

That's what we disagree on. You state that people deal with these bosses easily because they use tactics like asphalt and such. I barely even know there's asphalt in this game, and I fight WoF face-on without any Hellbridges. Nowadays people kill Skeletron on the first night, it's easy once you realize how much content there is. Get a few shurikens, make yourself a few wooden platforms, dodge his attacks and done.
Knowing how the boss acts is not a cheesy tactic. In the old days, games would force you to die over and over and over again, until you learned the patterns of a boss. It was a general expectation. If expert mode doesn't kill you a lot, forcing you to learn how the AI works, I would say it might be too easy.

The game has to much to offer that when Expert Mode hits, and if it hits well, you'll actually be forced to get armor before you kill Skeletron. Not just do it in the first night with Shurikens.
It means you have to actually prepare proper gear and go from "easy peasy" to "this is actually difficult".
But we'll see. Expert Mode hasn't hit yet.

 

[FlakMaster]

You state that people deal with these bosses easily because they use tactics like asphalt and such.

No no no, I'm very well aware that all of them can be killed without those kind of tactics. I rarely use them myself. But again, there's no expecting newbies (not necessarily unskilled) to perform as well at the same time. But all of the bosses in expert mode will be the same story as it is in the current version; people will learn the AI's inside out, then when they master it claim it is easy and attempt to kill them with the least powerful gear they can manage.

What I mean by 'forcing people to use cheesy tactics' is by, for example, making a boss so mobile and damaging that nearly everyone will just grab a gravity potion to abuse the mobility you can gain from that, which is what I hear some mods for the game already do. And as far as I can tell, this game doesn't have a lot of room for advanced attacks. But maybe I am wrong, maybe there really is a much more improved AI instead of going from braindead AI to one that can move around/through a dirt wall.

In the old days, games would force you to die over and over and over again, until you learned the patterns of a boss.

It still happens in this game, however most go with the 'magic mirror bail'. It's pretty much the same as death; you lost the fight and have to start the fight from scratch. Death doesn't have any more consequences than that apart from losing a few easy to acquire coins, unless you choose a higher difficulty if you like more punishments for the same thing.

Also, just to add:

Sooner or later, if you truly care to play the game enough to experience all its riches, you will reach Expert Mode just like any other player, and you will get good. There should be rewards for all tiers of people, even some that are near impossible to get. There should be a pride in it, and a sense of entitlement and accomplishment.

Not everyone gets good, regardless of how much experience they had. Me, a friend and his father used to do game nights Friday and Saturday weekly on Halo3 and Halo:Reach for years. My friend's father got slightly better over time, but he was still awful at the end of the day.

I don't believe that these lesser skilled players, however, should be locked out of expert mode, despite how hard everyone wants it to be for veterans. But that's why multiplayer exists, right? People need help in the current game, others offer them in the hand. You think this game is easy in single player, having at least two people makes every boss a breeze; I didn't even have to move to kill Plantera.

 

[scientistB]

I've been wondering: we were told that 1.3 is going to focus more on midgame than endgame content, if I'm not mistaken. So I ask, is it possible that this Lunar event, along with its weapons and armor, do not come after the Duke and Moons, but instead a little further back? I know it's a long shot, considering the insane new weapons with high damage as well as the SDMG to back it up. But it was just a random thought I had earlier.

 

[Everybody]

I've been wondering: we were told that 1.3 is going to focus more on midgame than endgame content, if I'm not mistaken. So I ask, is it possible that this Lunar event, along with its weapons and armor, do not come after the Duke and Moons, but instead a little further back? I know it's a long shot, considering the insane new weapons with high damage as well as the SDMG to back it up. But it was just a random thought I had earlier.

Where were we told this? I don't remember this, at all.

 

[Necrius]

I hope we will get another spoiler on April 1st. Like, some stupid joke spoiler along with the real one.