Wow, your post gave me an intense nostalgia trip! I remember nearly everything I was doing around that time too, when 1.4 was still only supposed to be 1.3.6. It's still trippy for me, only because I remember thinking, 1.4.0 seems too good to be true, I have a feeling if this game ever comes out, the world is gonna end... & here we are.
I was hoping for something like
Master Mode in the next update, more like
Nightmare Mode, but what we got is fine in my opinion. There's so much more new content, that the higher difficulty wasn't nearly as important to me as it was a year ago.
I agree, but I've come to realize that a large number of Terraria fans are teenagers & preteens, can't really expect them to have a grounded perspective when it comes to logistics & benevolence. A large number of these massive updates are free, for a game that's $5-$10 USD, depending on where you buy it. This isn't to excuse a game being poorly made, or the developers being lazy, by any means, but that's not the case here anyway. The Developers for this game are working their a**es off...
I really feel like
that's a challenge left for those who know this game so well, there's no other challenge to do but this one. I might try it myself, 4-5 years from now, but I'm in no rush to do it any time soon.
I think a lot of people have a gross misunderstanding of challenge & difficulty. If the only intent is to make something
hard, much thought doesn't need to go into the design, just make everything kill the player in one hit & justify it by
over-explaining that the game is designed to be challenging. The real arduous tasks, is designing an interesting situation that just so happens to be difficult.
Everybody isn't
technically inclined to design good games, even if they have strong opinions about them.
What's cool about this feature,
that I see as overlooked, is that there's nearly no limit to this zany idea; & I'm fairly certain that no one saw this addition coming.
Enemies being able to kill the player faster isn't always the kind of challenge people are looking for, but it certainly helps in limiting the number of mistakes a player can make before they are punished with death.
ForTheWorthy, from what I hear, changes the game fundamentally; which sounds interesting itself. A lot of players, from what I've seen here (& on Steam), have a gross misunderstanding of difficulty in games anyhow, so until I play the mode myself, I'll refrain from judgment on why they still seem dissatisfied.
It sounds that way, but masochism isn't the only thing players want from challenging games. For me, I like the
puzzle-solving method of winning battles, some players like being shocked by gimmicks & learning from ignorance, which is also a puzzle. Then of course, some players like torturing themselves for the bragging rights, there's no one way that players enjoy difficulty in their games.
A masochists' wet dream, through & through.
I'm sure someone has, I'd actually be pretty shocked if someone hasn't already!