Terraria State of the Game - January 2020

[Empty air sandwich]

I have some words about master mode

-If you wanted master mode to include weapon upgrades to some old weapons to make them more viable like the rest (like WaterBolt etc), you might as well just make those global anyway for real gameplay value, making THIS exclusive to master mode sounds loose
-If master mode was to add more expert-style world/enemy changes, it probably would be a great idea to be adding more of those revamps to base expert already anyway, as things stand

I consider the point that just adding better exclusive equipment would beat the point of it being a higher difficulty. I don't see master as needing to be a complete base game revamp to expert as much as expert is to normal to the point of essentially having THREE different full-fledged world modes but for some reason separated primarily by pure difficulty choice, when there's already a perfectly healthy "easy" and "hard" choice to choose from in this game. Adding more equivalently-big cool stuff and features and upgrades and talent and everything JUST to lock them exclusively to 1% deathmode sounds like a big waste that also might just be annoying people from not playing on it themselves (imagine if WaterBolt did have upgrades but ONLY on master mode, now that sounds lame, especially if the Guide would tell you about the material you can't get anyway, or imagine if your class has a super integral fun new accessory that helps you and addresses a lot of imbalance issues but you HAVE to be doing a master mode playthrough to get it otherwise it doesn't even exist! ugh), and this is undermining the whole thing as an actual difficulty setting if the whole game is gonna move up for you everytime anyway. IMO master mode would already be neat this way as an expert+:

• -It's expert rules, enemy stats higher than expert, better coin drops and drop chances compared to expert.
• -ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF BOSS FIGHTS are different than expert in some way. ALL OF THEM need at least 1 change. Sometimes tweaked behavior, can spawn battle-relevant killable minions meanwhile, certain things passively make additional things like those waves on Chippy's modded video, Golem gets a side barrier and the fireballs are much slower but much bigger, Wall of Flesh respawns the tentaclies faster and they love to shield its weak points more, idunno. You could be bringing more enemy/boss changes to base expert too, but master mode REQUIRES boss fights upgraded from expert, this is the make-it-or-break-it point. They don't need to be super-ultra-major game-flipping stuff, but as they said, it can't be a "well if already beat that boss one time without my life dropping below X then there literally isn't a difference because it's just stats."
• -And the fun touch I thought is that EVERY BOSS IN THE GAME has a new skin for this mode only. Like those sweet boss sprite re-dos on the terraria subreddit which are mainly remastered cleaner coloring. This is neat videogame feedback because it helps reinforce that it's master mode difficulty, and if you watch someone playing against this it helps confirm that they're playing on master.
• -Add exclusive vanity if you want, and maybe some sort of visible badge for beating the game this way.

 

[MistaAnderson]

I approve of the vanity additions, reskins and such.

Honestly, I think it makes sense to just go the classic route and say that you can choose one of 3 difficulties when you start a game:

* Normal
* Expert
* Master

The higher your difficulty, the better drop chances, coins and rewards.
Slightly altered boss/mob behaviour in general, or at least some sort of upgrade to bosses.
Add some extra modifiers you can get for your gear that are slightly better than say, Mythical and the sort (only forgable in Master Mode).
Then add another accessory slot for Master Mode.

Done.

Whether Master Mode requires you to beat the game first or not, is something I'm iffy about. One of Diablo 2's most painful design decisions was forcing you through 3 difficulties throughout the entire story arc to get to Hell difficulty. Now that just sucked. I'd rather play Master Mode multiple times than to sit there and play lame-mode by force for a full playthrough.

 

[Revolyze]

Guy in video talks too much. I kinda wanted to know new information, not listen to his opinion for 8 of 10 minutes.

Yeah it's one of the unfortunate things about YouTube. They intentionally drag a video to hit 10 minutes so they can fit in a second ad to make more money. That video he concludes it like 10 times to make it longer and still didn't reach his 10 minutes so he just made the video arbitrarily longer lol.

 

[Nicol Bolas]

I find the conversation around Master Mode being mainly just a stat change to be fascinating. It's interesting to me because the argument is the opposite about how I feel about Expert Mode.

Expert Mode is not a mode I'm interested in playing. Terraria's default difficulty seems just about right to me; enemies are dangerous at the beginning but not overwhelming, bosses are tough but doable, and the amount of Hp and damage enemies take seems pretty well balanced. Basically, mistakes are punished, but we're not playing Dark Souls. So the stat changes in Expert Mode basically put me right off of it.

However, Expert Mode has two things that made me at least pay attention to it: new drops and new boss AI.

The new drops really annoyed me. Why? Because the Mechanical Minecart isn't just vanity or linked to Expert Mode play. It's not just any old accessory. It makes mine carts a preferred mechanism for traveling across the world. Even after teleporter wires lengths were expanded from their initial limitations, I still preferred building minecarts. A cart can stop anywhere along the way, while a teleporter is always point-to-point.

So basically, there was this mode I didn't want to play, yet I felt like the game was making me play it. I had to generate a new world, go kill the Wall of Flesh, then the 3 Mechanical bosses. And sure, I was doing this with Post-Moon Lord gear, so it wasn't especially difficult, but it still felt like busywork, like I was being made to play something I didn't want to play.

The other thing is that I would like to experience the new boss AI patterns that Expert Mode offers. But they are coupled with the stuff I don't want, like more Hp and more damage. Why is this necessary?

Basically, I'd like to have an Expert Mode that is all of the Expert Mode stuff except for the stat changes.

 

[Altaire]

I realize this and considered it when posting how I felt about it.

And it wasn't enough to deter you from posting it? Yikes.

He's absolutely right. If master mode is primarily just an adjustment to numbers and drop rates, the amount of "extra work" wouldn't even put a noticeable dent in 1.4's dev period, especially when it's (presumably) just percentile adjustments, as with normal to expert. I could manage that with minimal effort, and my programming chops begin and end at "I can stumble my way through doing some very simple things".

The bitterness over master mode is equal parts sad and hilarious. Expert mode is already the "harder version of the game, better loot" option, even if it's more or less become the standard. What point would there be in making master mode's draw be "it's EVEN MORE HARDER and EVEN MORE BETTER LOOT"? Again, expert mode has become the de facto "normal" difficulty for most people, because you miss out on so much content by -not- playing it. It also gets substantially worse for every additional person you add to your playthrough, because splitting one set of boss loot (instead of getting individualized loot bags) is pretty debilitating. Expert is already substantially harder than normal; a lot of people don't want that leap in difficulty, yet play expert anyway, because losing the added content is so much worse. What do you think is going to happen with master? The game is suddenly drastically more difficult, even compared to expert, and you still feel like you're cheating yourself out of metagame-defining tools (looking at you, Shield of Cthulu) by not playing it?

Like, really, think about it for longer than five seconds. With any of the new items they're adding in, they could either a) restrict the item to master mode, orrrrr b) not do that. Objectively, there's no difference in the amount of content we're getting. I'm sure someone (let's be real here, multiple someones) would chime in with "WELL THAT'S A DUM ARGUMENT CUZ THEY COULD JUST DO EVEN MORE CONTENT FOR MASTER, AND STILL GIVE US THE SAME AMOUNT OF OTHER STUFF". They shouldn't, but they absolutely would, so I'm going to cover my bases: If they were going to just create extra content to add to master mode, beyond the scope of what's already intended for 1.4, that'd be no different than if they just... Made the same amount of extra content and -didn't- restrict it to master mode. Are you seeing a trend here? Please, for my sanity's sake, say that you are.

The point of master mode is obviously not to be expert mode II. I don't think they ever said anything to indicate that it would be. Master mode is clearly just for the people who just want to make the game as unforgiving as possible, and that's fine. There is no incentive to play it, beyond challenging yourself and having better drop rates. Frankly, even then, substantially higher drop rates would still make master mode play quite a bit differently. There's a lot of stuff you seldom see in a normal Terraria playthrough, purely because the drop rates are so low.

Give yourself some time to reflect on it. 1.4 is clearly nowhere near release anyway, you've got more than enough time.

 

[MistaAnderson]

I find the conversation around Master Mode being mainly just a stat change to be fascinating. It's interesting to me because the argument is the opposite about how I feel about Expert Mode.

Expert Mode is not a mode I'm interested in playing. Terraria's default difficulty seems just about right to me; enemies are dangerous at the beginning but not overwhelming, bosses are tough but doable, and the amount of Hp and damage enemies take seems pretty well balanced. Basically, mistakes are punished, but we're not playing Dark Souls. So the stat changes in Expert Mode basically put me right off of it.

However, Expert Mode has two things that made me at least pay attention to it: new drops and new boss AI.

The new drops really annoyed me. Why? Because the Mechanical Minecart isn't just vanity or linked to Expert Mode play. It's not just any old accessory. It makes mine carts a preferred mechanism for traveling across the world. Even after teleporter wires lengths were expanded from their initial limitations, I still preferred building minecarts. A cart can stop anywhere along the way, while a teleporter is always point-to-point.

So basically, there was this mode I didn't want to play, yet I felt like the game was making me play it. I had to generate a new world, go kill the Wall of Flesh, then the 3 Mechanical bosses. And sure, I was doing this with Post-Moon Lord gear, so it wasn't especially difficult, but it still felt like busywork, like I was being made to play something I didn't want to play.

The other thing is that I would like to experience the new boss AI patterns that Expert Mode offers. But they are coupled with the stuff I don't want, like more Hp and more damage. Why is this necessary?

Basically, I'd like to have an Expert Mode that is all of the Expert Mode stuff except for the stat changes.

To me, Expert Mode should add a whole lot more difficulty in any area other than boss fights to make it more interesting. Faster-moving enemies, more resilient aggro, and just overall more difficulty, rather than requiring you to just live longer in boss fights. That's why I want a difficulty that finally just makes the game overall more difficult, rather than making already-tedious boss fights just more tedious and finesse-requiring.

I like the first day in Terraria the most, because it's where you are the most vulnerable and the world is scary. If Master Mode can bring that feeling back for the entirety of the playthrough, I'll be happy.

I can sympathise a little bit with your opinion on not forcing people to deal with added difficulty to get new items. But on the other hand I feel like not doing so would take away from the hardcore fans. Otherwise, Expert Mode would just be the same as unequipping your armor or purposefully reforging with bad modifiers. It just doesn't feel legit. There needs to be a prize at the end of the tunnel.

I think that as a middle ground, they could make adjustments that still give you "more" in Expert and Master Mode, but "more" in the sense that you don't need these things in a lesser difficulty anyway. You get stronger because the challenge is harder.

By the way, for the sake of not invalidating old loot, getting an "Upgrade Shell" (akin to the Broken Hero's Sword, with a broken sprite for its corresponding item) per boss fight next to the regular loot would be nice. They are capable of upgrading a specific random weapon, and in rare cases maybe even armor or accessories, to become stronger and better. Sometimes it can only upgrade Water Bolt, and sometimes it can only upgrade the Flamarang.
Demon Scythe becomes Dark Demon Scythe, Water Bolt becomes Frostspark Bolt, and so on.

The higher up the boss, the higher up loot you can upgrade. Your call on whether it's Expert or Master Mode exclusive or not.

Then give us special reforging modifiers that are only in Master Mode.
That means that if you really need them but you don't like hard difficulties, you can simply rescue the goblin in an otherwise plain Master Mode world, and reforge away, and then return to your normal difficulty world.

Better modifiers for reforging, extra accessory slots, stuff that makes you able to perform better and do more, are a nice way to reward Master Mode players while still not necessarily coming at the cost of fun new mechanics that are locked away.

I think a debuff-free Rod of Discord (with a hotkey even?) would be a great endgame item for Master Mode, since once you obtain it you kinda don't have more stuff to cheese anyway.

Having it be debuff-free just means quality of life, rather than interesting new mechanic noone else gets. In contrast, the Portal Gun is basically a great idea that doesn't work due to the game world not being flat.

Also please give us a Random Teleportation staff earlier in the game?

Add in some extra super-strong modifiers from reforging that are Master Mode exclusive, and there you go.

How about this too: Completing Master Mode once causes you to unlock Master Mode exclusives for normal play. In other words, if you've done it once, you'll never have to think about it again.

 

[Altaire]

I approve of the vanity additions, reskins and such.

Honestly, I think it makes sense to just go the classic route and say that you can choose one of 3 difficulties when you start a game:

* Normal
* Expert
* Master

The higher your difficulty, the better drop chances, coins and rewards.
Slightly altered boss/mob behaviour in general, or at least some sort of upgrade to bosses.
Add some extra modifiers you can get for your gear that are slightly better than say, Mythical and the sort (only forgable in Master Mode).
Then add another accessory slot for Master Mode.

Done.

Whether Master Mode requires you to beat the game first or not, is something I'm iffy about. One of Diablo 2's most painful design decisions was forcing you through 3 difficulties throughout the entire story arc to get to Hell difficulty. Now that just sucked. I'd rather play Master Mode multiple times than to sit there and play lame-mode by force for a full playthrough.

100% this.

Standardize content across all three, just vary boss/enemy stats, drop rates, gold. Possibly add some new behavior/attacks to certain enemies, like expert already does. Exclusive modifiers based on difficulty would be fine too, although I don't think it's really necessary.

If 1.4 took this route, maybe it'd put it in perspective for all the people who insist that master mode not being expert-expert mode is the end of the world.

 

[TheCosmicAppleΩ]

If Master Mode has drops but no new weapons/armor, I'm good with that. They're already adding a sword beyond Meowmere, at some point you can't have better stuff. I had envisioned a mode past Expert being entered by fighting the "Wall of Steel," that comes at you from two sides of Hell. It would be cool having to manage two parts of a boss, needing to kill one side before they squish you in the middle.

That reminds me of how the original design for the moon lord was to be fighting a moon falling from the sky, and have to kill it before it squished you, like in Tloz majoras mask

 

[Blue_M4ge🌳]

As hyped as I was ,I am genuinely disappointed about how they decided to execute Master mode. It’s honestly a shame the a new mode that had the potential to rival the Calamity Mod’s revengence mode is nothing more than a few stat changes. If we already know what a boss is going to do then what’s the point of extra damage. The only thing that more damage and more health does is makes bosses take longer to kill and leaves less room for error, making the difficulty feel artificial. What’s even more upsetting is that they waited this long to tell us this. Not only that, adding this mode would of been the perfect time to give bosses that did not get any new attacks when expert mode was released, ie: the mech bosses, some attention, especially since the point of this update was to go back and improve things that were lacking.

While I’m still excited for this update, I really hope that the devs consider making master mode more than just stat changes between now and then the update releases.

 

[Nicol Bolas]

To me, Expert Mode should add a whole lot more difficulty in any area other than boss fights to make it more interesting. Faster-moving enemies, more resilient aggro, and just overall more difficulty, rather than requiring you to just live longer in boss fights. That's why I want a difficulty that finally just makes the game overall more difficult, rather than making already-tedious boss fights just more tedious and finesse-requiring.

I like the first day in Terraria the most, because it's where you are the most vulnerable and the world is scary. If Master Mode can bring that feeling back for the entirety of the playthrough, I'll be happy.

If the game makes you vulnerable all the time, and the world is always scary... there's no sense of progression. It's all uniformly one note from beginning to end. What makes the end game feel like the end game is that early game content is trivial. It's that you can go back to earlier areas and feel powerful because all the stuff that used to kill you easily is barely a nuisance to you.

Also, it should be noted that Expert Mode already adds difficulty to the main game. Enemies do move faster, have more health, and deal more damage.

I can sympathise a little bit with your opinion on not forcing people to deal with added difficulty to get new items. But on the other hand I feel like not doing so would take away from the hardcore fans. Otherwise, Expert Mode would just be the same as unequipping your armor or purposefully reforging with bad modifiers. It just doesn't feel legit. There needs to be a prize at the end of the tunnel.

Then make the prize something people who aren't "hardcore fans" don't care about. The reason I cited the Mechancial Minecart is because it was the one thing from Expert Mode that I actually cared about.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

I disagree with the notion that something being harder needs to be more rewarding. It's a bragging rights mode like how older games treated "hard" modes. Nothing more.

Also, while I understand not wanting to play it due to the lack of rewards, but.. if it had extra rewards, wouldn't people be upset that you have to play a "lazy stat bloated difficulty" just to get new, possibly essential items as well?

 

[The Storm]

The reason I cited the Mechancial Minecart is because it was the one thing from Expert Mode that I actually cared about.

I honestly think that's one of the worst Expert item, as I never use Minecarts and you have to kill three bosses to get it.

If the game makes you vulnerable all the time, and the world is always scary... there's no sense of progression.

I completely agree with this, the game should allow you moments when you feel powerful, not all the time but enough to feel a sense of progression.

 

[Izzabelle]

And it wasn't enough to deter you from posting it? Yikes.

Edit: No. Because there's nothing inherently wrong in not liking certain design decisions or acknowledging how you feel about features. Especially on a forum in which to talk about those things.

It was unnecessary and condescending of you to attempt to write off my opinion. You don't get to dictate my opinion's/post's worth and you're not the authority on who can post what on these forums. Thanks.

 

[MistaAnderson]

If the game makes you vulnerable all the time, and the world is always scary... there's no sense of progression. It's all uniformly one note from beginning to end. What makes the end game feel like the end game is that early game content is trivial. It's that you can go back to earlier areas and feel powerful because all the stuff that used to kill you easily is barely a nuisance to you.

Not at all, sense of progression is entirely kept intact, and you just pointed out why. Because you do progress. As long as you keep getting stronger, getting better items, getting this and that, you will always feel like you're getting better against your foes.

Increasing the difficulty to make the "world always scary" just means that since the general difficulty has gone up, you have to be extra careful like when playing a really hard game.
It means that yes, it really helped getting a better weapon, but if you're careless, you'll still get killed pretty fast. This is in general what Expert Mode does, it's just a matter of amount, and how it's done.

I feel like most monsters should have a slight behaviour upgrade, in addition to speed/damage/health upgrades. For example, I think Possessed Armor are often cheesable if you have enough knockback on a Melee weapon, as you can just stand still and spam left click. How about making it so that they have a chance of randomly jumping when close enough to potentially dodge a melee attack, and having the jump cause them to ignore knockback completely? Or perhaps letting them go for a ramming attack where they sprint fast at you and reduce knockback by 50%?
Maybe have every 3rd zombie be able to sprint fast at you, and slimes able to split into more of themselves (half HP, double speed) when nearby, flinging the newly spawned half towards you as it spawns?

Or perhaps give Wraith the behaviour to sometimes, as they travel towards you, activate a "phasing" ability where they can become intangible and transparent for 0.3 seconds max. So every once in a while, at a small distance, they will charge straight forward at your position in a way that makes them only have a hitbox and hurtbox right before they hit your position - of course, all you have to do is move slightly backwards and hit them. And then every once in a while, they'll activate it later to purposefully phase through your position and hit from behind. If you see them activating the ability that close, you'll obviously know, and chances are you'll be on the move anyway, so you'll just kite them in until you can hit them again. But it still means you gotta think.

If this is the case, and enemies deal substantial enough damage (assuming you're not very much higher tier than them) it means that you can no longer be braindead while progressing, and have to actually watch out, or you can die from any foe that isn't miles below your level. Because most of them have some kind of "gimmick" to compensate for braindead DPS you deal. You are always vulnerable because sometimes an enemy can do strange maneuvers like phasing through you. This is fine one on one, but if you have loads of wraiths doing this, their positions can swap rapidly as they all phase around, and you can feel a sense of danger. The way it is now, you can literally just slay them all once they get close, the only way you can't is if your DPS is really low like in the beginning of Hardmode. 200 Wraiths just means tons of gold drops.

This means that if you were playing hardcore with permadeath, and they can phase, you have to be actually patient for 2 seconds to slay them as they spawn, rather than destroying a whole bunch of demon altars and going "yeah sure".

Chippy's video also showed off a mod where if an eyeball or EoC hits you, you become almost completely blind for a second or two, which is also a good idea, but should last a little bit longer and have a lower chance of being inflicted, so you can't just be like "imma spam left click, I know where I'm going"

Also, it should be noted that Expert Mode already adds difficulty to the main game. Enemies do move faster, have more health, and deal more damage.

I see no evidence that they receive a speed buff on the Expert Mode page, even though it's possible that some individual enemies do get that. They generally receive a 10% knockback resistance (which is great), and dmg/hp increase. Speed increases would matter a lot, and I'd like to see those, in addition to simple new behaviour patterns, like Possessed Armors randomly jumping to avoid closeup attacks, or charging in to ignore more knockback every once in a while.

 

[Nicol Bolas]

Not at all, sense of progression is entirely kept intact, and you just pointed out why. Because you do progress. As long as you keep getting stronger, getting better items, getting this and that, you will always feel like you're getting better against your foes.

Increasing the difficulty to make the "world always scary" just means that since the general difficulty has gone up, you have to be extra careful like when playing a really hard game.
It means that yes, it really helped getting a better weapon, but if you're careless, you'll still get killed pretty fast. This is in general what Expert Mode does, it's just a matter of amount, and how it's done.

I feel like most monsters should have a slight behaviour upgrade, in addition to speed/damage/health upgrades. For example, I think Possessed Armor are often cheesable if you have enough knockback on a Melee weapon, as you can just stand still and spam left click. How about making it so that they have a chance of randomly jumping when close enough to potentially dodge a melee attack, and having the jump cause them to ignore knockback completely? Or perhaps letting them go for a ramming attack where they sprint fast at you and reduce knockback by 50%?
Maybe have every 3rd zombie be able to sprint fast at you, and slimes able to split into more of themselves (half HP, double speed) when nearby, flinging the newly spawned half towards you as it spawns?

Then why would I play a knockback-based melee character? The whole point of knockback-based weapons is being able to force enemies to stay away. If that tactic doesn't work with any reliability, then I may as well abandon the tactic for something that does reliably work.

That's what I was talking about in my reply; the player needs to feel like they're getting somewhere in the game. If a player sees that knockback is a property of weapons, and then starts selecting weapons and accessors that improve knockback, then they should see that actually work. Yes, some enemies are more resistant to knockback than others, but the basic tactic should be functional. If you keep putting monsters in the game that negate the player's choices, then what's the point of the player making them? What's the point of the massive variety of weapons and skills if the only reliable tactic is to be a ranged/magic character and learn to dodge?

If this is the case, and enemies deal substantial enough damage (assuming you're not very much higher tier than them) it means that you can no longer be braindead while progressing, and have to actually watch out, or you can die from any foe that isn't miles below your level. Because most of them have some kind of "gimmick" to compensate for braindead DPS you deal. You are always vulnerable because sometimes an enemy can do strange maneuvers like phasing through you. This is fine one on one, but if you have loads of wraiths doing this, their positions can swap rapidly as they all phase around, and you can feel a sense of danger. The way it is now, you can literally just slay them all once they get close, the only way you can't is if your DPS is really low like in the beginning of Hardmode. 200 Wraiths just means tons of gold drops.

Again, this goes back to my point about giving the player a sense of accomplishment. Making the AI something that you can understand, compensate for, manipulate to your advantage, and ultimately trivialize is a good thing. It makes the player feel like they've succeeded at something.

It's the feeling you get when you realize how the Wraith AI works, so you then build your base so that they just can't get into it and just laugh at them during Blood Moons. Or you recognize that enemies can't open doors if something's in front of them, so you block off your base during Blood Moons that way. Or you look at a boss's movement pattern and build an arena to compensate for them.

These "gimmicks" exist to reward player knowledge, planning, and pre-combat strategy. If you're giving monsters random powers, mitigating pre-combat plans, or just outright overriding the player's ability to plan for an encounter beforehand, then all the player is left with is twitch skill.

I want to repeat this, because it's really important to understand: Terraria is not, and should not be, Dark Souls.

It's also important to realize that Wraiths don't just appear by themselves. It's nice to be able to think about what if a Wraith has some kind of invulnerable charge move, but thinking about that in a vacuum is meaningless. If there are Wraiths around, then odds are good there are other monsters around too. So while a player might be able to just back away from a charging Wraith by itself, that option becomes non-functional once there's something else behind the player.

Combinations of factors like this are why balancing enemy behaviors is so time-consuming. You can't just give monsters abilities in a vacuum and then just throw them in the game without a thought as to how they relate to each other.

Just look at the pre-Hardmode Surface-Forest biome monsters: Zombies and Wandering Eyes. Zombies absorb lots of damage, but can only come at you along the ground. Wandering Eyes fly. Combining these two means that jumping is now at least somewhat risky. If you have Zombies coming in both directions, you might want to jump over them, but you could also have an Eye coming at you. It should also be noted that this is part of the reason why Wandering Eyes don't come straight down; their mostly side-to-side movement style gives the player time to see them coming and deal with them. You have to get into the Corruption before you start finding monsters that fly directly down at you.

 

[rubeszilla]

Apparently the npcs poopin' it up was just a gag and isn't a real feature in 1.4.

Damn. Oh well, not playing 1.4 now.

 

[Altaire]

Edit: No. Because there's nothing inherently wrong in not liking certain design decisions or acknowledging how you feel about features. Especially on a forum in which to talk about those things.

It was unnecessary and condescending of you to attempt to write off my opinion. You don't get to dictate my opinion's/post's worth and you're not the authority on who can post what on these forums. Thanks.

...lol

Your "opinion" in this case is that what they're doing with master mode is "development time that would've been better invested elsewhere". As someone already pointed out for you, the amount of "development time" required for something like this is a drop in the bucket, relative to everything else they're doing for 1.4. It's almost definitely had next to no impact on the length of time 1.4 has been in development, meaning that the time investment doesn't really affect you one way or another. Conversely, it benefits anyone who would be interested in playing a more challenging version of the game (which is certainly more than the 1% of the playerbase that you seem to think it is). A sufficient number of people benefit from it, at no cost to you. Seems pretty ignorant to suggest that they shouldn't have bothered with it, just because it's not something -you- want from the game.

But, hey. That's just my opinion!

 

[Azurenova]

...lol

Your "opinion" in this case is that what they're doing with master mode is "development time that would've been better invested elsewhere". As someone already pointed out for you, the amount of "development time" required for something like this is a drop in the bucket, relative to everything else they're doing for 1.4. It's almost definitely had next to no impact on the length of time 1.4 has been in development, meaning that the time investment doesn't really affect you one way or another. Conversely, it benefits anyone who would be interested in playing a more challenging version of the game (which is certainly more than the 1% of the playerbase that you seem to think it is). A sufficient number of people benefit from it, at no cost to you. Seems pretty ignorant to suggest that they shouldn't have bothered with it, just because it's not something -you- want from the game.

But, hey. That's just my opinion!

I need something to want to play master mode, there has to be something whether its cosmetics or new ai. Bragging rights is not an incentive for me. especially since it would play the same as master mode with more grind. Also I am sure everybody is going to say they rest of 1.4 is massive, but with master mode being so insignificant in time whats causing the huge delay? New items should not cause this much of a miscalculation.

 

[ZeroJinKui]

that UI scale slider really stuck out to me... can someone explain to me what that does?

i'm trying to keep my excitement for 1.4 under control, cause i am on console and i know it's a long, long ways off for those platforms.

still, i am extremely thankful to pipeworks and re-logic for providing us with so much extra content and bringing it to consoles for free.

 

[Izzabelle]

...lol

Your "opinion" in this case is that what they're doing with master mode is "development time that would've been better invested elsewhere". As someone already pointed out for you, the amount of "development time" required for something like this is a drop in the bucket, relative to everything else they're doing for 1.4. It's almost definitely had next to no impact on the length of time 1.4 has been in development, meaning that the time investment doesn't really affect you one way or another. Conversely, it benefits anyone who would be interested in playing a more challenging version of the game (which is certainly more than the 1% of the playerbase that you seem to think it is). A sufficient number of people benefit from it, at no cost to you. Seems pretty ignorant to suggest that they shouldn't have bothered with it, just because it's not something -you- want from the game.

But, hey. That's just my opinion!

You're not using "ignorant" correctly. I think you intended to use "presumptuous" or "selfish" in the context you established.

I postulated under specific circumstances in which I would feel dev time would be better spent elsewhere. Indicated by the big "If" at the start of my post. That means my opinion about Master Mode isn't set in stone and is adaptable based on what is announced in the future for the Mode.

Comparatively, stat changing is simple -- if not tedious -- and generally, yes, a drop in the bucket when compared to the rest of the dev work. However, this was not the only thing in my consideration of "stat changes". Stat changes must be followed by associated balance testing. And both must be tested against the content of the game. You can't just make Wall of Flesh have 100,000,000 health for Master Mode and think "stat change done, moving on". Long story short, Master Mode is still a lot of work and requires a significant amount of time -- even if something else in 1.4 required more time or even more complicated work.

No where did I state that Master Mode is for 1% of the playerbase -- I don't have those kinds of numbers. But it is for a "smaller" % of the playbase if you consider who can take it on to begin with (factoring in Regular and Expert Modes). According to Steam, only ~37% of players have even defeated the Wall of Flesh. So by no means does Master Mode favor the player base at large. According to the devs, this is intended with the introduction of Master Mode. Personally, I don't like this kind of design decision in games -- I'd rather have something a larger % of the player base could enjoy or experience fully.

So because Master Mode (at the moment) seems to be nothing but stat changes ( a lot more work and time than it sounds) and intended for the smallest % of players (those who want a challenge beyond even Expert Mode) -- my opinion is that dev time could have been better spent elsewhere (possibly on something that benefits a larger % of players). And because it doesn't affect me in the slightest because I don't especially care; I would, again, not be phased if it were removed (until it has more gameplay hooks or somehow appeals to a larger % of players).

None of what I wrote is suggesting that they shouldn't have bothered with it, but illustrates how I feel about it as is. Which is to say; I'm not impressed or interested with Master Mode as recently detailed, but I have no notions that the dev team need change or remove it because *I* said so. But so that they have a clear picture of how their community feels about this Mode and it's details, I shared my opinion. Sharing my opinions and tastes are not the same as suggestions or demands on the devs.

It feels like you've inadvertently attached more audacity and ego to my posts than was warranted or evident, and now you have it in your head that I have to be taken down a notch or something. Chill dude. As I said before:

there's nothing inherently wrong in not liking certain design decisions or acknowledging how you feel about features. Especially on a forum in which to talk about those things.

It was unnecessary and condescending of you to attempt to write off my opinion. You don't get to dictate my opinion's/post's worth and you're not the authority on who can post what on these forums. Thanks.