Weapons & Equip What Thorium Mod teaches us about early game.

Lets look at it this way.
Say you are a new player. You hear that Terraria lets you make all different kinds of cool choices for your playstyle. Many people don't get through pre-hardmode as fast, meaning that a new player will just see a linear set of things with only stat changes. Pretty much the only unique good set of armor you can get early is meteor, which at least requires you to get the demolitionist to get to the Crimson Hearts/Shadow Orbs. Most new players won't know about that, however.
Changes like these are not only meant for experienced players, but to make this game fun for new people who don't know how the game works.
New players will be more focused on the breath of traversal options in the game than with armor choices, so who cares. There are enough weapons to compensate, and each has a unique playstyle. They should not worry about multiple/class playthroughs at that stage yet until they have beaten the game at least once.

Besides, giving Summoners a weapon early would just create bad habits for new players, causing them to rely on the unreliable summons and rage quit when they can't kill bosses with them.
 
First of all, have you played recently? Molten is now melee and Shadow is now classless. Only Bee and Necro are locked behind bosses, both of which are easily cheesable with a minecart loop.

Jungle is pretty much the best early game place. Has lots of cool loot, shotguns and stuff, jungle armor, and is relatively easier to tunnel through than normal underground (since you can see trappers)

Reaver Shark is really easy to get once you have access to jungle grass.

Hellfire is also really easy to get if you are melee, just get aforementioned Reaver Shark and drop 3 NPCs in hell to drastically reduce spawn rates.

There is no such thing as "Mid" or "Early" pre-Hardmode, since the content is really easy to breeze through once you know what you are doing. Movement isn't THAT slow too, especially when talking about the Jungle, where movement is only slightly faster out in the open with max gear than when tunneling.
Shadow is melee. It improves melee attack speed. Molten has always been melee, and the point is that it's the last pre-HM armor to be obtainable, Jungle has hornets and most of the stuff you mention consist of cheesing the game.
 
First of all, have you played recently? Molten is now melee and Shadow is now classless. Only Bee and Necro are locked behind bosses, both of which are easily cheesable with a minecart loop.

Okay, you expect people to come up with all the iron and play around building minecart loops and all of that jazz, just to get an early game set of armor that has actual bonuses? lol

Jungle is pretty much the best early game place. Has lots of cool loot, shotguns and stuff, jungle armor, and is relatively easier to tunnel through than normal underground (since you can see trappers)

It also has fast-moving enemies that poison you, and most enemies in the jungle take 1 damage from most beginner weapons, unless you get lucky enough to find something like an enchanted boomerang, ice blade, etc.

Also, while tunnelling... you don't see a trapper until it is too late, because it's quite likely you won't be having a huge stash of hunter potions at that point in the game, either.

Reaver Shark is really easy to get once you have access to jungle grass.

Which requires you to go to the Jungle, survive there long enough to find a pair of Flower Boots, and a Flare Gun, and...... well at this point, you probably have everything else and don't need the silly Reaver Shark anyhow.

Hellfire is also really easy to get if you are melee, just get aforementioned Reaver Shark and drop 3 NPCs in hell to drastically reduce spawn rates.

What if you don't want to be a melee, though?

There is no such thing as "Mid" or "Early" pre-Hardmode, since the content is really easy to breeze through once you know what you are doing. Movement isn't THAT slow too, especially when talking about the Jungle, where movement is only slightly faster out in the open with max gear than when tunneling.

Early-game is ridiculously slow when you've still got a Pre-boss pickaxe, no boots, no hook, etc. It takes time to grab these things and not everybody is a speedrunner.

And you're further proving the point how much early game sucks when you're talking about cheesing bosses and zipping right to specific points that you are supposedly supposed to know about ahead of time even if it's the first time you played the game, just to get armor that doesn't suck and has actual stats beyond defense.

Maybe if the vanilla game had early-game armors like Thorium Mod does, then you wouldn't feel this overwhelming urge to speedrun right out of the gate so you can get equipment that doesn't suck and actually enhances your chosen playstyle.

Funny thing, that.

Thanks for helping prove my point.
 
Okay, you expect people to come up with all the iron and play around building minecart loops and all of that jazz, just to get an early game set of armor that has actual bonuses? lol
Yes. You want diversity in armor, prepare to adopt diversity in techniques.
It also has fast-moving enemies that poison you, and most enemies in the jungle take 1 damage from most beginner weapons, unless you get lucky enough to find something like an enchanted boomerang, ice blade, etc.
Imagine attacking them...or not being able to see tunnelers in the spore-filled caverns
Maybe play at 0 zoom for once.
Which requires you to go to the Jungle, survive there long enough to find a pair of Flower Boots, and a Flare Gun, and...... well at this point, you probably have everything else and don't need the silly Reaver Shark anyhow.
Just kill like 20 big bushes and you are good to go for bait.
What if you don't want to be a melee, though?
If you are ranged do skeletron. Ranged is one of two classes who can kill Skeletron as the first boss without cheese with relative ease, Melee being the other.
If you are magic reload until you get water bolt surface dungeon then go farm spores in jungle. alternatively cheese skeletron with amethyst staff then get waterbolt.
If you are summoner do reaver shark, get 51 hellstone, craft Imp Staff, then kill 3 bees with your minecart loop.

Early-game is ridiculously slow when you've still got a Pre-boss pickaxe, no boots, no hook, etc. It takes time to grab these things and not everybody is a speedrunner.

And you're further proving the point how much early game sucks when you're talking about cheesing bosses and zipping right to specific points that you are supposedly supposed to know about ahead of time even if it's the first time you played the game, just to get armor that doesn't suck and has actual stats beyond defense.

Maybe if the vanilla game had early-game armors like Thorium Mod does, then you wouldn't feel this overwhelming urge to speedrun right out of the gate so you can get equipment that doesn't suck and actually enhances your chosen playstyle.

If it is the very first time you are playing the game, you won't know enough to realize that swords, boomerangs, yoyos, bows, flails, and vilethorns are not enough diversity. They have different mechanics that are fun to play with for a new player. A new player would not have any concept of a "class playthrough". That is all.

If you are experienced enough to yearn for even more diversity, yet are too unskilled to perform sequence-skipping strats (which aren't hard, mind you), you are the problem. Terraria has a very good diversity to skill ratio that does not overwhelm the player nor make him feel limited at any particular point of skill level. The game increases the complexity of available weapons as you progress through the game, and sequence breaking isn't even that hard.

Half the game is about reshaping the environment to make boss fights easier. Minecarts are also a thing. It does not take a genius to put 2 and 2 together.
 
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Yes. You want diversity in armor, prepare to adopt diversity in techniques.

Or, you know, we could be reasonable and add more armors that are spread out a bit more instead of dumping a ton of useless crap on you at the beginning of the game that does exactly nothing, like Wood Armor. or Copper/Tin. etc. None of these armors are worth making or using. I'd rather we replace/repurpose those to actually make them somewhat useful.

Imagine attacking them...or not being able to see tunnelers in the spore-filled caverns
Maybe play at 0 zoom for once.

There's this thing called not being able to see through walls, but yet the vines attack you through walls. If you're tunnelling, and some vine suddenly pops in from out of your view (not because of zoom, but because it's, you know, somewhere you can't see it), you are likely dead before you can do much of anything because you're in a tunnel and with 100-160 health and starter stuff, you will die very fast if you're in the underground jungle. Those trapper vines do a lot of damage.

Just kill like 20 big bushes and you are good to go for bait.

20 big bushes? You maybe, might, get 5-6 bait out of that. You're trying to tell me that you routinely catch a Reaver Shark with an Iron Fishing Pole (which is the best you can get pre-bosses), with 5-6 bait? Okaaaay.

If it is the very first time you are playing the game, you won't know enough to realize that swords, boomerangs, yoyos, bows, flails, and vilethorns are not enough diversity. They have different mechanics that are fun to play with for a new player. A new player would not have any concept of a "class playthrough". That is all.

But yet if you're a new player who starts with Thorium Mod, and you see these early-game armors presented to you, then you go "oh hey... armor that increases my ability to heal? Huh. That'd be nice for a multiplayer playthrough." or "Armor that increases ranged damage? Maybe I should go make a bow now..."

If you are experienced enough to yearn for even more diversity, yet are too unskilled to perform sequence-skipping strats (which aren't hard, mind you), you are the problem. Terraria has a very good diversity to skill ratio that does not overwhelm the player nor make him feel limited at any particular point of skill level. The game increases the complexity of available weapons as you progress through the game, and sequence breaking isn't even that hard.

You're looking at it from the wrong end.

You're looking at it as an experienced player, already having played the previous versions of the game, the way it is now.

Try imagining what would happen if you were a new player, who loaded the game up for the first time, and very early in game, found your first set of armor, that had actual set bonuses even if they are small.

This would help teach you that different armors modify different types of damage, it would encourage you to seek out certain types of weapons based upon what armor you had found, and it would be more diverse and less boring which is a good thing, even for newer players.

I've talked to some people who've only played an hour or two of Terraria (like 20-30 people on my Steam Friendlist has Terraria and like 5-6 of them played 5 hours or less), and you know what they tell me?

One of the things I hear the most is "eh, I tried it and it seemed rather boring, all I did was swing a pickaxe and some blocks and it takes forever to kill anything, and you die in a few hits. I tried playing it for a few hours and all I got was useless armor and weapons that barely do much of anything."

Or something close to that.

Maybe the game wouldn't seem so boring if you weren't finding/making armors that have <4 defense (seriously, what the frick is the point of Wood Armor? IIRC, it gives a piddly 2 defense for the whole set combined, they could at least slap a "Bows have a 3 damage armor penetration" on the set bonus or something, to give you SOME reason to wear it).

I think at this point, you're just arguing for the sake of arguing, arguing against changes purely because you, the experienced, elite player doesn't think it's "needed".

That or you are just plain trolling.

EDIT: Also, have you actually tried Thorium Mod? If not then you don't even really have any first-hand experience to speak from because you haven't even seen it. Maybe if you had seen it, you might go "huh these are neat, it makes early game feel like hardmode, only easier".
 
But yet if you're a new player who starts with Thorium Mod, and you see these early-game armors presented to you, then you go "oh hey... armor that increases my ability to heal? Huh. That'd be nice for a multiplayer playthrough." or "Armor that increases ranged damage? Maybe I should go make a bow now..."
This is exactly what you do NOT want to instill into your player. Bows should be used because the player likes how they shoot, not because there is some armor with some +ranged dmg stat.
Wood Armor. or Copper/Tin. etc. None of these armors are worth making or using.
I would argue that those armors have saved my hide many times back when I was new.
This would help teach you that different armors modify different types of damage
This is exactly what you do NOT want to teach the player.
it would encourage you to seek out certain types of weapons based upon what armor you had found
You mean increase opportunity cost for switching from melee to ranged at literally the very start of the game? You get a bow because you like its stats and also because it's literally a bow and you just found it and crafted it our of curiosity, not because of the existence of "armor sets"
One of the things I hear the most is "eh, I tried it and it seemed rather boring, all I did was swing a pickaxe and some blocks and it takes forever to kill anything, and you die in a few hits. I tried playing it for a few hours and all I got was useless armor and weapons that barely do much of anything."
Tell them to not play on Expert and to brew Ironskin potions.
EDIT: Also, have you actually tried Thorium Mod? If not then you don't even really have any first-hand experience to speak from because you haven't even seen it. Maybe if you had seen it, you might go "huh these are neat, it makes early game feel like hardmode, only easier".
Yes. They have stupid classes like "Bard" and "Healer" which honestly is :red:ed. It doesn't fit into the game at all (thematically).
 
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This is exactly what you do NOT want to instill into your player. Bows should be used because the player likes how they shoot, not because there is some armor with some +ranged dmg stat.
Not like the late game is totally dominated by whether or not you are using a class
I would argue that those armors have saved my hide many times back when I was new.
Doesn’t mean that they make pre hard mode any more interesting
This is exactly what you do NOT want to teach the player.
But why? You want to hide the class system from them?
You mean increase opportunity cost for switching from melee to ranged at literally the very start of the game? You get a bow because you like its stats and also because it's literally a bow and you just found it and crafted it our of curiosity, not because of the existence of "armor sets"
Again, this just seems like you are trying to hide the class system. There’s a reason the class system is well known in terraria.
Tell them to not play on Expert and to brew Ironskin potions.
This is exactly what you do NOT want to instill into your player. Potions should be used because the player likes drinking them, not because there is a situation where it helps immensely.

Yes. They have stupid classes like "Bard" and "Healer" which honestly is :red:ed. It doesn't fit into the game at all (thematically).
Yeah you are so right, someone that uses magic by playing instruments and someone who uses magic to heal is so far fetched in our game about fighting giant eye balls, brains, walls of flesh, and a plant bulb that moves around with vines using our shark guns, magic laser beam cannons, and sword that shoots Nyan cats
 
Not like the late game is totally dominated by whether or not you are using a class
It's... not, actually. The late game gives a myriad of tools for hybrid classes to the point that in 1.3 the strongest pre moon lord build used different pieces of armor from summon/melee sets and summon/magic sets, while spamming a phantasm. Also, mobility accessories, once you get used to it, are better than every offensive or defensive accessory in the game. There's no point in trying to kill things faster so you take fewer hits or make your hits deal less damage when you can just not get hit, and mobility accessories are how you perform that. The point of that statement is that they're also classless.

(I agree with almost everything else you said, just had to point that out.)
 
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Also, mobility accessories, once you get used to it, are better than every offensive or defensive accessory in the game. There's no point in trying to kill things faster so you take fewer hits or make your hits deal less damage when you can just not get hit, and mobility accessories are how you perform that.

I personally find myself splitting between offense and mobility. Mobility is obviously important, if you can’t move faster than the attacks you can’t dodge them, it’s the biggest downfall for new players against bosses like Duke. But I find that the longer the battle goes on, the more likely I am to flub and get hit, or the harder time I have killing enemies or boss minions, and high DPS is great for outpacing the battle. Defense is less important because usually you either get hit few enough times to not make a difference or you get hit so much you’ll lose the fight anyway, so I usually don’t find myself running Worm Scarf type items, but I will use a shield to not instantly lose all momentum on getting hit.

My usual accessory builds have two offensive combat accessories, wings (duh), a dash, either boots or soaring insignia depending on where I am in the game, and a shield. On the rare occasions I do master I’d throw in a third offense accessory.
 
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Yes. They have stupid classes like "Bard" and "Healer" which honestly is :red:ed. It doesn't fit into the game at all (thematically).
How do Bards and Healers, two typical fantasy tropes, not fit in a game where one of the most iconic weapons is a half shark half machine gun, and where one of the main weapon types is literal yo-yos? In fact, I think they're relatively tame compared to other stuff.
 
I personally find myself splitting between offense and mobility. Mobility is obviously important, if you can’t move faster than the attacks you can’t dodge them, it’s the biggest downfall for new players against bosses like Duke. But I find that the longer the battle goes on, the more likely I am to flub and get hit, or the harder time I have killing enemies or boss minions, and high DPS is great for outpacing the battle. Defense is less important because usually you either get hit few enough times to not make a difference or you get hit so much you’ll lose the fight anyway, so I usually don’t find myself running Worm Scarf type items, but I will use a shield to not instantly lose all momentum on getting hit.

My usual accessory builds have two offensive combat accessories, wings (duh), a dash, either boots or soaring insignia depending on where I am in the game, and a shield. On the rare occasions I do master I’d throw in a third offense accessory.
It's not necessarily about moving faster, acceleration is just as important. You dodge things by changing direction quickly, not outrunning them.
 
It's... not, actually. The late game gives a myriad of tools for hybrid classes to the point that in 1.3 the strongest pre moon lord build used different pieces of armor from summon/melee sets and summon/magic sets, while spamming a phantasm. Also, mobility accessories, once you get used to it, are better than every offensive or defensive accessory in the game. There's no point in trying to kill things faster so you take fewer hits or make your hits deal less damage when you can just not get hit, and mobility accessories are how you perform that. The point of that statement is that they're also classless.

(I agree with almost everything else you said, just had to point that out.)
Thank you for letting me know, I can’t lie when I say I’m not the most experienced gameplay wise
 
How do Bards and Healers, two typical fantasy tropes, not fit in a game where one of the most iconic weapons is a half shark half machine gun, and where one of the main weapon types is literal yo-yos? In fact, I think they're relatively tame compared to other stuff.
not dps

every single one of terraria classes are specifically attuned for singleplayer dps playstyles that revolve around hitting things, and have vastly differing mechanics which limits their dps (short range for melee, mana sickness for magic, various minion bull:red: for summoner)
 
not dps

every single one of terraria classes are specifically attuned for singleplayer dps playstyles that revolve around hitting things, and have vastly differing mechanics which limits their dps (short range for melee, mana sickness for magic, various minion bull:red: for summoner)
This makes sense, although I do believe the proper phrasing would be it doesnt fit gameplay wise, and not that it doesn’t fit thematically
 
The challenge in terraria lies in positioning your character properly to deal enough dps and not die. Healers turn Terraria into some weird MMO thing whereby you go in and "heal", like an MMO - turning Terraria from a positioning challenge into some weird MMO thing.
 
This is exactly what you do NOT want to instill into your player. Potions should be used because the player likes drinking them, not because there is a situation where it helps immensely.
Such a boss reply, I had to comment.

Honestly, that other guy's ranting is so confusing. He says a summoner should not be provided with weapons and armour as it lends to bad habits: expecting a rubbish summon to kill a boss. But then, on the contrary, it is acceptable having one boss provide one armour set that is so easy to get with a minecart loop that everyone would think of doing.

Further, the apparent benefit of not having more armour is that one is freer to test the sundry weapons available without worrying about minmaxing the stat bonuses... even when most of these weapons are going to be rubbish at taking down bosses and cause bad habits?

He says diversity of armours engenders undesired behaviours in new players, and diverse techniques are better—such as the diverse technique of mass world creation until a dungeon spawns with a single weapon a new player should be solely reliant upon. So much for being free to try all those unique early weapon choices.

There is nothing to stop armours from existing without upheaving the whole early game experience, which to his jaded eyes is speedrunning and cheesing arcane mechanisms, literally minmaxing the game, but minmaxing armour set bonuses is too much.

No one is ever restricted from going without the class system all the way to Moon Lord, even with the massive choice of unique weapons and armous that reward class choice. The Wall of Flesh has a drop that specifically enforces a particular class damage type. It is not at all controversial that early game new players have a taste of that system the game makes very public. But he wishes to hide it, as you say, and instead tout the perfect meta of save scumming and minecart grinding.
 
No one is ever restricted from going without the class system all the way to Moon Lord, even with the massive choice of unique weapons and armous that reward class choice. The Wall of Flesh has a drop that specifically enforces a particular class damage type. It is not at all controversial that early game new players have a taste of that system the game makes very public. But he wishes to hide it, as you say, and instead tout the perfect meta of save scumming and minecart grinding.
I dont get the logic here either. The class system is a very big part of how the game plays and how the player builds their character up. Its malleable, versatile and very important information to know, so it would only make sense to teach the player about it early on.
 
I know the thread is kinda necro'd, but I caught something that was said that I somehow missed, a long time ago:

I would argue that those armors have saved my hide many times back when I was new.

This is (almost) impossible.

The Wood Armor Set, has a combined total of 3 Defense. In Classic Mode, Defense provides a 0.5 damage reduction, so that 3 Defense provides you with a whopping 1.5 damage reduction.

The weakest enemy in the game, the humble green slime, can do 5-8 damage, so after armor, depending on how rounding works, you take 3-6 damage.

Unless you are incredibly terrible at the game, I don't see this armor "saving" your butt, whatsoever. Anything above a green slime, we start moving up into the 15, 20+ damage per hit and that certainly won't save you then unless by some miracle you get hit and have 1HP left. This sounds more like winning the lottery and less about "wow I'm glad I had that wood armor on".

Wanna know what early-game armor is worth using and is easily obtainable during the first 5 minutes of gameplay? Cactus Armor. Same 3 defense, but the attackers take 15 damage (Classic Mode) when they hit you. Getting cactus armor could potentially be dangerous (not something you'd wanna do in hardcore, but we're talking about newbies and Classic Mode play here, don't forget the context).

It reinforces my point about early-game and early-game equipment: Most of it is copy-pasted with no effects beyond such meager statistical increases, most of which are too low to really mean anything in the end. Cactus Armor is one of the few exceptions and is probably the first set of armor a player should go for before their journey to getting something better, either seeking out enough hearts that they can survive the first two bosses without any more armor, or getting silver/tungsten or better. With 13 Defense, Silver Armor reduces damage taken by 6-7 per hit, and that is significant enough to be noticed. Add an Ironskin Potion and an accessory or two that has + defense and you could easily get up to the mid 20s defense.

But, again, that's not something you do at the very beginning of the game.

I bet a lot of newbies to the game look at that 1-2 Defense on Wood Armor and go "hmm... I wonder if that does anything?" and they craft the armor, and they note that they are taking pretty much the same amount of damage and they go "meh, that didn't do anything at all" and correctly conclude that they need way more defense than that for it to matter. Thsi would then surely lead the newbie to see other armors, such as tin and copper, and go "why would I go through that much trouble to make something that doesn't do anything whatsoever?"

This is why such weak equipment needs some sort of bonus for actually using it. Like the Cactus Armor. Despite having 3 defense, the Cactus Armor is instantly put into a "Why wouldn't you?" category, because of how nice 15 damage (plus mild knockback!) is at the very start of the game if you would happen to get hit.

It just kinda sucks to, you know, have only 1 such armor set at the beginning of the game. Wouldn't it be nice to have more than just one that has some sort of actual benefit to using it? Earlier in the thread, I used the example of maybe Wood Armor gives some sort of small armor pen bonus to bows to encourage one to use it for archery?

I noticed someone earlier used the arguement that players should choose what weapon they want to use because of their playstyle, well sure. Okay, if you wanna tank, grab cactus armor at the start. If you wanna archer, make wood armor (assuming it had the bow bonus I proposed). Maybe add similar bonuses to other armors. Small little things that are helpful at early-game but lose their luster later to encourage you to go after better equipment post-EoC.

Armor Pen is that perfect thing early-game because it is such a struggle to do more than 5 damage against some of the tougher stuff you find in the caves until you find a good weapon (EoC weapon, enchanted boomerang, an ice sword, etc) but yet once you do find good weapons, adding, say, +4 damage to your attacks doesn't mean as much once you start doing 20+ damage. You'll want better defense or better set bonuses soon.
 
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