whoneedsnamestbh
Retinazer
This is one of my biggest issues with Terraria: being unable to predict or respond to some boss or enemy attacks. This causes several enemies and bosses, including the Moon Lord himself, to be somewhat unfair to dodge and degrade into a chaotic DPS race. That’s not fun for me, and I’ll assume a lot of other people as well. This suggestion will look at unfair enemies and bosses that do something wrong, and suggest what should be fixed about them.
Now, before you come marching in and telling me to get good, I want to point out something. There’s a difference between difficult attacks and cheap attacks. Getting good is a fair argument for pattern based bosses like Betsy and Empress or even Fargo Mod’s Mutant: bosses that I wouldn’t call unfair at all, no matter how fast or dense their attacks may be. But against things like second phase expert Plantera, Necromancer, Hornets or Moon Lord, they are unreasonably hard or impossible to react to or see before dodging them, and learnability comes down to figuring out how to *work around* the boss’s attacks instead of learning to avoid them. This is a separate issue, and one that causes two things: they become very difficult to learn to fight properly; and the solution becomes more of a workaround than a memory of the boss, which creates unfun battles. As such, I won’t be looking at attacks just by merit of being difficult, hard hitting, or annoying if the attacks are reactable or learnable.
There are two core components to fair attacks that I will cover separately: reactability and visibility.
All fair attacks should be reactable. The definition is obvious: being able to react to an oncoming attack. This can mean knowing what the attack will do just before it fires, but it can also mean the attack does the same thing at the same time every time and can be learned like Duke Fishron. However, unlike Duke, not every enemy is reactable or learnable.
Much of this problem can be fixed with the concept of telegraphs, which is a visible windup or track that allows the player to see and react to oncoming attacks. Telegraphs are often the difference between fast and inconsistent attacks being fair and unfair.
Let’s first look at an enemy that does this right: Giant Cursed Skulls. The projectile is fast, accurate, and fired from point blank, however it’s not often considered unfair to dodge. Why? Because there’s a short, but sufficient, windup to the attack. The Giant Cursed Skulls visually prepare the attack by opening their mouth before firing, giving the player *just* enough time to react and get out of the path of the shot.
Not every projectile enemy needs to do this. Spazmatism’s fireballs and Red Devils have projectiles that are slow enough to react to, Demons have a visual windup, and the Wall of Flesh has an obvious and easily learnable pattern to his lasers. In fact, most enemies don’t. However, there are some enemies who *desperately* need telegraphs or more clear patterns, and I’ll list them here:
Almost everyone hates Hornets and calls them snipers. Their projectile actually isn’t fast at all, but it’s considered a sniper attack because you can barely see them. This is a common problem with Terraria’s enemies.
A fair attack is at least reasonably easy to see. Skeletron’s homing skulls and Skeleton Archer’s flaming arrows are fair because they are visible, even though a lot of people dislike these enemies. In fact, most enemies don’t actually have this problem. But some do, and those ‘some’ desperately need a change.
Clutter also plays into visibility. If there is simply too much going on, it hurts visibility no matter how obvious an individual attack is because most people aren’t able to track so many different objects doing different things from different angles. Best example of this is Moon Lord.
I know not everyone will agree with this, but I wanted to suggest it anyway. As much as I love this game, hits often feel cheap for various reasons and some reactability and visibility would go a long way to making the game more fair overall.
Now, before you come marching in and telling me to get good, I want to point out something. There’s a difference between difficult attacks and cheap attacks. Getting good is a fair argument for pattern based bosses like Betsy and Empress or even Fargo Mod’s Mutant: bosses that I wouldn’t call unfair at all, no matter how fast or dense their attacks may be. But against things like second phase expert Plantera, Necromancer, Hornets or Moon Lord, they are unreasonably hard or impossible to react to or see before dodging them, and learnability comes down to figuring out how to *work around* the boss’s attacks instead of learning to avoid them. This is a separate issue, and one that causes two things: they become very difficult to learn to fight properly; and the solution becomes more of a workaround than a memory of the boss, which creates unfun battles. As such, I won’t be looking at attacks just by merit of being difficult, hard hitting, or annoying if the attacks are reactable or learnable.
There are two core components to fair attacks that I will cover separately: reactability and visibility.
REACTABILITY
All fair attacks should be reactable. The definition is obvious: being able to react to an oncoming attack. This can mean knowing what the attack will do just before it fires, but it can also mean the attack does the same thing at the same time every time and can be learned like Duke Fishron. However, unlike Duke, not every enemy is reactable or learnable.
Much of this problem can be fixed with the concept of telegraphs, which is a visible windup or track that allows the player to see and react to oncoming attacks. Telegraphs are often the difference between fast and inconsistent attacks being fair and unfair.
Let’s first look at an enemy that does this right: Giant Cursed Skulls. The projectile is fast, accurate, and fired from point blank, however it’s not often considered unfair to dodge. Why? Because there’s a short, but sufficient, windup to the attack. The Giant Cursed Skulls visually prepare the attack by opening their mouth before firing, giving the player *just* enough time to react and get out of the path of the shot.
Not every projectile enemy needs to do this. Spazmatism’s fireballs and Red Devils have projectiles that are slow enough to react to, Demons have a visual windup, and the Wall of Flesh has an obvious and easily learnable pattern to his lasers. In fact, most enemies don’t. However, there are some enemies who *desperately* need telegraphs or more clear patterns, and I’ll list them here:
Note that all solutions are not the *only* way to fix these issues, and are simply my personal suggestion.
Necromancer
Problem: The attack, with 600 velocity, is instant by all intents and purposes and humanly impossible to dodge, therefore you have to leave its line of sight. Theoretically, you could just go around a corner, but Necromancer starts firing almost instantly after teleporting and the shots can bounce into you almost anywhere.
Solution: ln the necromancer’s volley of 6 lasers, the first, third and fifth should not actually be harmful and instead be a dimmer, harmless laser. The second, fourth and sixth would follow the path of the previous one. This would visually mark how the player should dodge the projectile.
Nebula Floater
Problem: Nebula Floaters teleport unpredictably and instantly fire fast projectiles from this new angle, making them chaotic and difficult to respond to.
Solution: There are two fixes here that would make Nebula Floaters more fair. First, they should never teleport directly in the current path of the player, so that they don’t teleport right where you’re about to be and get a cheap contact hit off. Second, there should be a longer delay between teleports and when the lasers start being fired, so the player can respond to their new position.
Stargazer
Problem: Although not particularly dangerous, their attacks are still instant and can easily get free hits, which is more frustrating than anything.
Solution: Have a thin, dim laser marking the path of the laser for a short time before it fires.
Skeleton Sniper
Problem: An incredibly fast and hard hitting projectile that is often fired from dark areas or offscreen.
Solution: A dim red laser sight leading from the player to the Sniper as it prepares its shot, so the player can find out where it is and interrupt it or get behind cover if they’re paying attention.
Destroyer
Problem: Fast projectiles with almost random paths. If you ever tried to fight Destroyer with unoptimal weapons, you’d notice how much chip damage from projectiles you can’t dodge plays into the fight.
Solution: In addition to making Destroyer have lower health but resistance against piercing to open up more weapon options and not die instantly as I have suggested before, make the large lasers always focus on the player’s position instead of being spammed wherever the hell.
Moon Lord
Problem: The path of Phantasmal Spheres in the first phase (before the hands become True Eyes), which start to move several seconds after they fire, is unpredictable and the projectiles are often too dense and fast to move out of the way of after you do make out their path.
Solution: A short demon scythe-like accelaration period for the projectiles after they start to move, and a significantly lower max speed.
Problem: True Eye of Cthulhu deathrays can be fired from offscreen and sweep too fast for the player to successfully orbit.
Solution: The farther away the player is from the True Eye, the slower the deathray orbits, so that it is not too fast to react to from offscreen.
Necromancer
Problem: The attack, with 600 velocity, is instant by all intents and purposes and humanly impossible to dodge, therefore you have to leave its line of sight. Theoretically, you could just go around a corner, but Necromancer starts firing almost instantly after teleporting and the shots can bounce into you almost anywhere.
Solution: ln the necromancer’s volley of 6 lasers, the first, third and fifth should not actually be harmful and instead be a dimmer, harmless laser. The second, fourth and sixth would follow the path of the previous one. This would visually mark how the player should dodge the projectile.
Nebula Floater
Problem: Nebula Floaters teleport unpredictably and instantly fire fast projectiles from this new angle, making them chaotic and difficult to respond to.
Solution: There are two fixes here that would make Nebula Floaters more fair. First, they should never teleport directly in the current path of the player, so that they don’t teleport right where you’re about to be and get a cheap contact hit off. Second, there should be a longer delay between teleports and when the lasers start being fired, so the player can respond to their new position.
Stargazer
Problem: Although not particularly dangerous, their attacks are still instant and can easily get free hits, which is more frustrating than anything.
Solution: Have a thin, dim laser marking the path of the laser for a short time before it fires.
Skeleton Sniper
Problem: An incredibly fast and hard hitting projectile that is often fired from dark areas or offscreen.
Solution: A dim red laser sight leading from the player to the Sniper as it prepares its shot, so the player can find out where it is and interrupt it or get behind cover if they’re paying attention.
Destroyer
Problem: Fast projectiles with almost random paths. If you ever tried to fight Destroyer with unoptimal weapons, you’d notice how much chip damage from projectiles you can’t dodge plays into the fight.
Solution: In addition to making Destroyer have lower health but resistance against piercing to open up more weapon options and not die instantly as I have suggested before, make the large lasers always focus on the player’s position instead of being spammed wherever the hell.
Moon Lord
Problem: The path of Phantasmal Spheres in the first phase (before the hands become True Eyes), which start to move several seconds after they fire, is unpredictable and the projectiles are often too dense and fast to move out of the way of after you do make out their path.
Solution: A short demon scythe-like accelaration period for the projectiles after they start to move, and a significantly lower max speed.
Problem: True Eye of Cthulhu deathrays can be fired from offscreen and sweep too fast for the player to successfully orbit.
Solution: The farther away the player is from the True Eye, the slower the deathray orbits, so that it is not too fast to react to from offscreen.
VISIBILITY
Almost everyone hates Hornets and calls them snipers. Their projectile actually isn’t fast at all, but it’s considered a sniper attack because you can barely see them. This is a common problem with Terraria’s enemies.
A fair attack is at least reasonably easy to see. Skeletron’s homing skulls and Skeleton Archer’s flaming arrows are fair because they are visible, even though a lot of people dislike these enemies. In fact, most enemies don’t actually have this problem. But some do, and those ‘some’ desperately need a change.
Clutter also plays into visibility. If there is simply too much going on, it hurts visibility no matter how obvious an individual attack is because most people aren’t able to track so many different objects doing different things from different angles. Best example of this is Moon Lord.
Hornets
Problem: The attacks are small, the same color as the background, and can be launched from offscreen where the player can’t predict their path.
Solution: Change the color of the stinger. If they were a honey-orange and had a particle effect of the same color instead of a dull brown with a green particle effect, you’d be able to see them.
Everscream, Dreadnautilus
Problem: Some attacks (pine needles and blood spit) are simply too dark to make out in the dead night of the Frost or Blood Moon.
Solution: Either make the attacks unaffected by light levels, or visually glow.
Plantera (Expert, 2nd phase)
Problem: Plantera’s Tentacles are the same color as the background and as the vines that connect them to Plantera, making them very hard to distinguish.
Solution: Make them pink. Give them glowing pink petals like Plantera Bulbs, so that they have a clear and definite contrast to everything else going on.
Problem: Due to clutter, while avoiding Plantera, it’s very difficult to also see all the tentacles everywhere because it’s too much to pay attention to.
Solution: Make Plantera move slightly slower, and make the tentacles more stable and swing around less, so that the arena can still be dense but give the player time and room to weave through attacks.
Moon Lord
Problem: Screen clutter. Way too many particle effects and separate projectiles moving in different ways, making it hard to make out any one attack and hurting visibility.
Solution: Cut down on the particle effects, not everything needs to leave a line of glitter where it travels. The Phantasmal Eyes can also be less abundant - as an homing attack, they don’t need twelve of themselves fired per volley.
Problem: The attacks are small, the same color as the background, and can be launched from offscreen where the player can’t predict their path.
Solution: Change the color of the stinger. If they were a honey-orange and had a particle effect of the same color instead of a dull brown with a green particle effect, you’d be able to see them.
Everscream, Dreadnautilus
Problem: Some attacks (pine needles and blood spit) are simply too dark to make out in the dead night of the Frost or Blood Moon.
Solution: Either make the attacks unaffected by light levels, or visually glow.
Plantera (Expert, 2nd phase)
Problem: Plantera’s Tentacles are the same color as the background and as the vines that connect them to Plantera, making them very hard to distinguish.
Solution: Make them pink. Give them glowing pink petals like Plantera Bulbs, so that they have a clear and definite contrast to everything else going on.
Problem: Due to clutter, while avoiding Plantera, it’s very difficult to also see all the tentacles everywhere because it’s too much to pay attention to.
Solution: Make Plantera move slightly slower, and make the tentacles more stable and swing around less, so that the arena can still be dense but give the player time and room to weave through attacks.
Moon Lord
Problem: Screen clutter. Way too many particle effects and separate projectiles moving in different ways, making it hard to make out any one attack and hurting visibility.
Solution: Cut down on the particle effects, not everything needs to leave a line of glitter where it travels. The Phantasmal Eyes can also be less abundant - as an homing attack, they don’t need twelve of themselves fired per volley.
I know not everyone will agree with this, but I wanted to suggest it anyway. As much as I love this game, hits often feel cheap for various reasons and some reactability and visibility would go a long way to making the game more fair overall.
