Weapons & Equip The Adventurer Play Style (Armor Loot)

Kefke

Steampunker
I almost hesitate to post this, since it's such a broad subject, but I feel like it's something that needs to be addressed. One of the great things about Terraria is that it caters to a number of play styles, keeping the game fresh. Recently, I hit on the idea to do an "Adventurer/Hero" playthrough. In other words, I would only use armour and weapons that I found or purchased. I wouldn't craft myself any gear. For the first hour or two, it was slow going, but rewarding. I quickly hit a snag, though. It was hard - really hard - to get any defence. With a bit of skill, some luck, and lots of perseverance, I eventually managed to come by a night vision helmet to go with my accessories (all but one of which gave me melee speed...and that one gave move speed), and began to plan out where I could get a more complete set. I knew that I'd already been denied one option, as I'd gotten a Crimson world, and thus couldn't farm up the ancient shadow set. So, I decided to go online and see what I could get, other than hitting the tundra to farm zombie Eskimos...

...as it turns out, the answer was not bloody much.

There just aren't a lot of armour sets that can be obtained as treasure. Nor are there many that can be bought. For instance, despite his declarations of having "well-ventilated armor" and "Sword beats paper! Get one today." the Merchant sells neither sword nor armour. Worse still, of the armour sets that are attainable, most have weak stats, and no set bonus - if they even make a set. For instance, while the marble cave gets an entire set, granite caves get just a helmet. In fact, most of the "ancient" armours, and the Viking armour, are just helmets too...so is the diving gear from the shark! There's tons of helmets, not many chestplates, and positively a dearth of pants. It's even worse in Hardmode, where only the tiki set met my criteria. I know that the play style I've set for myself is unorthodox, but after looking at the armour options, I was forced to conclude that it would be completely non-viable. Disappointing, given that the weapon selection for items obtained as loot is frankly fantastic, and it honestly feels like this could have been a fun, challenging, and rewarding way to play the game.

"Okay, Kefke, but what's the suggestion?"

So, with that long preamble out of the way, what do I want to do about it? Well, obviously I would like more armour sets made available as loot! There's a few ways that I can see this being done;

  1. More sets from vendor NPCs - Let the Merchant sell the entire mining set (heck, give him a basic sword to sell so he's not a liar). Give the Arms Dealer an early-game ranged set, like a cowboy outfit or something. Maybe a few basic sets for different styles from other NPCs as well. Weak magic or summoner armour from the Dryad, maybe? This is good for new players as well, since it gives them an introduction to the idea of "special" sets, and lets them start to plan out their playthrough early on.
  2. Armour stands in abandoned houses - The various abandoned house formations that generate are already great places for loot. People raid them for accessories, furniture, and sometimes even the materials they're made out of. So, why not add a chance for a mannequin or womannequin to generate in each, with a couple pieces from a random early-game armour tier still on it. It wouldn't mean much in the late game, but would make a really cool find early on. You could even include a chance of a weapon rack with a random metal tier item as well.
  3. More armour as drops - This is the big one. As I mentioned earlier on, Corruption worlds have an entire set that Crimson worlds don't. I don't think there should be situations like that. Add a "sanguine"/"scabrous" set to Crimeras. Give the "ancient" sets full armour, and maybe fill out some of the other loose pieces to make sets too or let them be used interchangeably with parts of other sets. Create a few new sets/pieces that drop from enemies, or can be found in chests. Having the sword shrines sometimes house an armoured figure instead of a sword in a stone who, if not rusted, gives a set of "enchanted armour" would be particularly cool. Add a mob or mobs that carry tier-appropriate gear, controlled by progress triggers, with a low chance of dropping their equipment.
As an aside, no more of this "no set bonus" nonsense, please? Let the parka protect against cold effects (Chilled, Frozen, and Frostburn). Make the gladiator armour a throwing set, since it comes from throwing enemies (or at least have some set defence to make up for how hard it is to get). Heck, it's tangential to this suggestion, but give the Obsidian Outlaw something - it's a crafted set that will almost always be obsolete by the time you get it! This is especially true for loose pieces. As I said before, let the non-set armours act as wildcards, at least for specific sets. It's not too fun having to decide between one good bonus on a helmet (because it's usually a helmet), and the bonus for a whole set of armour.

So, in closing, what I'm really asking for is not just armour that I don't have to craft, but reasons to get excited when I get a piece of armour as loot. It doesn't have to be easy - indeed it shouldn't be. Make players work for it, fighting and exploring across every last foot of their world to find everything. However, I firmly believe that the rewards should be there, not just for players with crazy ideas of handicapping themselves like me, but so that everyone can have that moment of "Look at this cool thing I just got!" when it comes to armour, and not just, "Oh. Another glorified vanity part that doesn't stack..."
 
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Didn't read it yet, i'll read it later.
I support this, gives more adventuring feeling to Terraria.
 
So, did you ever get around to reading everything?
I had forgotten about it since I (stole the first comment) aposted on this thread.
I just read it.

Terraria needs to have an adventure part to it, other than go mining and create this and that.
 
yep. this is something I would enjoy. not only is it more stuff to enjoy, display, and boast, but it's a good early game boost, one that would help many new players, moderate players, and pros. think of the tremendous help this would be on expert mode. where all the enemies AI's seem to be set towards one thing: making your life difficult, or nonexistent (in the game, not real life. this isn't SAO) being able to find some ready to go armor to help you out on your quest to defeat the moon lord, instead having to hide in a hole while you mine stacks upon stacks of ores (not all at once, but lets be honest, chlorophyte mining is horrible.) in order to finally make that set of armor that'll give you that much needed boost to kill that tough boss that's been giving you trouble. #support
 
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So, with the next update coming out Soon™, I think it's a good time to start talking about what can go into the next one. The new cosmetics we've seen highlighted have looked great, but meanwhile there's still mobs added a few updates ago that have no drops other than coins and their banner. I'm particularly looking at the Desert with this, which got new mobs, a challening weather event, and an overall difficulty buff, but only a couple of new hardmode-only drops for the added trouble, and one sword that I question if anyone but Yrimir could get before it's already obsolete (barring really lucky RNG). It would be nice if after all this cosmetic enhancement got done, we could look at maybe making the aspect of discovery when exploring more interesting again.
 
this is a really great suggestion, and I'd love to see it fleshed out more. what makes a good suggestion isn't just a loose idea thrown out there for someone else to expand upon, (although that is part of it) it's hours of painstaking research to find balanced stats for a weapon or armor, and an easy on the eyes layout. Take something like the alternate biomes suggestions, such as the cyber, or the confection. they're probably some of the most professional looking posts I've seen to date. I'm struggling to get my point across here, so I'm going to stop, and hope you get it.
 
Actually, I'm pretty sure what makes those kinds of threads popular is that they have high-quality sprite art. Statting out every little thing just tends to spark nitpicky arguments on whether that armour ought to give 5 or 4 defence, and the like.
 
Actually, I'm pretty sure what makes those kinds of threads popular is that they have high-quality sprite art. Statting out every little thing just tends to spark nitpicky arguments on whether that armour ought to give 5 or 4 defence, and the like.
you do what you want to do, I'm just throwing out my two cents. I love this suggestion regardless.
 
Yeah, true. I also did the same playthrough as you. But soon I realized the same thing and have to change the rules so that I can actually fish to get crates for the ores.
 
Give the "ancient" sets full armour...
Ok, I liked the rest of this post except for this part.

It's not that I don't like the idea, but it's that the Ancient Pieces aren't capable of getting new sets with them. The reason they exist is that they used to be the ORIGINAL armor pieces for the sets they were in. However, they were replaced with new sprites, and were kept in the game as Ancient things.

The sets were kept, and new helmets and such were designed for them. Unless the sprites are again updated, there will be no more Ancient armors because they were only replaced by the new ones.

HOWEVER.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to find the rest of the pieces the Ancient Pieces are in. For example: you should still be able to get the Ancinet Iron Helmet, and still be able to find the Iron Chestplate and Iron Greaves.

Again, I think this is a cool idea in general -- just change some things here and there to better reflect what the game can actually do.
 
Ok, I liked the rest of this post except for this part.

It's not that I don't like the idea, but it's that the Ancient Pieces aren't capable of getting new sets with them. The reason they exist is that they used to be the ORIGINAL armor pieces for the sets they were in. However, they were replaced with new sprites, and were kept in the game as Ancient things.

The sets were kept, and new helmets and such were designed for them. Unless the sprites are again updated, there will be no more Ancient armors because they were only replaced by the new ones.

It's a fair enough criticism. Not quite correct, however. There have been changes to the armour sets beyond just helmets. For example, here's a history of the Iron Chainmail sprite. Here's the Iron Greaves. As you can see, there's been some changes to the shape and colour. It's the same for gold. Necro too, but I think you get the point. The differences are minor, but there's enough that you could reasonably have them as a set, maybe with slightly different stats or set bonus to make up for the difficulty of acquiring them.
 
It's a fair enough criticism. Not quite correct, however. There have been changes to the armour sets beyond just helmets. For example, here's a history of the Iron Chainmail sprite. Here's the Iron Greaves. As you can see, there's been some changes to the shape and colour. It's the same for gold. Necro too, but I think you get the point. The differences are minor, but there's enough that you could reasonably have them as a set, maybe with slightly different stats or set bonus to make up for the difficulty of acquiring them.
Ah.

Thank you for sharing this, I never knew there were other sprites for those sets.

So, now I have no criticism :p
 
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