Xylia
Terrarian
I've been playing Thorium Mod lately, and I would have to say that the mod does a very good job of pointing out certain areas that the vanilla game could really use a facelift.
Now, before I get into my suggestion(s), I would like to clarify something:
I am not suggesting that we should implement anything from Thorium Mod directly into Vanilla.
What I am suggesting, however, is that we should take a step back, and analyze what the creators of Thorium did and why.
The first thing I immediately noticed about Thorium Mod, is that you are given a number of options right from the get-go as to what equipment you would like to use, and what sort of playstyle you would like to employ. With the Vanilla game, my playthroughs always tend to look somewhat the same: You start off getting some Ore Armor, probably Silver or Tungsten because Wood, Cactus, Copper/Tin, and Iron gear is just too ineffective to even be worth making. I'll usually make a Cactus Sword and a Cactus Pickaxe (because Cactus is so easy to get), but I probably won't get the armor because reducing damage taken by 2 isn't really worth messing with to be honest, when the weakest enemy in the game hits you for 7-11 damage.
Once I get that, then off to EoC I go; I will probably use a Cactus Sword until one of the following happens:
1). I find an Ice Blade (uncommon, I try to avoid the underground Ice because it's annoying at this stage of the game)
2). I find an Enchanted Boomerang (RNG)
3). I build enough housing to get the Demolitionist and buy enough grenades
4). I find something else like a Starfury (which requires me finding Grav Potions which is highly RNG)
Anyhow, once I have those, I will either seek out an Amazon (if I found an Ice Blade or some form of Enchanted/Ice Boomerang) or I'll simply use one of the above to kill the EoC, or barring that, I'll just use Fire Arrows and some form of bow.
Either way, the playthrough always follows that same path because to be honest, unless I go sequence breaking, it's the only viable path through EoC.
With Thorium Mod, however, all of that changes because they added a Pre-EoC boss and several armor/weapon sets:
1). Grand Thunder Bird: Is farmable without too much trouble; you need some iron, a couple stars, and some new drops from vultures to spawn him and he can be fought with just basic gear and is slightly easier than the EoC. He drops a couple different weapons, the best of which (IMO) is the Didgeridoo which I found myself using for half of Pre-Hardmode.
2). Thorium Ore: This makes an armor set, and several weapons including a gun, though from my experiences the stuff is harder to find than Gold/Platinum.
3). The Flute: This can be found in Wooden Chests and is good enough to help you through several other areas you wouldn't normally go to quite yet.
4). Aquatic Armor: If you don't mind some careful farming, one could kill pink jellyfish and crabs near a beach and get themselves a suit of this stuff. Also makes some throwing weapons and melee weapons that do DoTs.
5). Harpy Armor: If you found another weapon (like the flute, which is an excellent choice), you could try to find a sky island using grav potions or something and farm harpies for feathers and a new crafting material. This also gets you a weak pair of wings (!!) and can be done as soon as you begin the game once you get a weapon good enough to kill harpies.
6). Ice Armor: Ice creatures now drop Ice Shards which can be used to make an armor set and some weapons, IIRC, a gun included.
7). Grand Thunder Bird also drops Sandstone Bricks which can be used to make armor and gear mostly meant for throwing.
8). Cloth Bard armor can be made from Silk.
9). Healer Armor: I forget what you make this out of, IIRC, drops from enemies in the Underground/Cavern Layer.
And I think I'm forgetting some early-game armors. Some of these even have upgrades (the Bard and Healer sets), but the point is..... so many options. Early game isn't so boring now, it actually feels more like the rest of the game, especially post-hardmode where you have all of these options as to what to use.
The extra boss gives you the leg-up that you need to explore the Underground Desert (which becomes a viable part of your progression as a result, because you can explore that). If you can get a Didgeridoo off of the Grand Thunder Bird, you can easily survive in there with some care if you make either the sandstone brick armor or the bard armor. Due to how the place is set up, and how easy it is to find some underground houses, I was always of the opinion that the UD looks like a great beginner's area... except the enemies are just too strong unless you get extremely lucky with RNG.
Not so, in Thorium. Given all of the above options, many of which have very low RNG, you can go here pretty much first-thing after maybe a little spelunking to find yourself some starting gear to kill the GTB with.
So, what can we learn from Thorium Mod?
Simple: Early Game in Vanilla just doesn't have enough variety, enough options. Most of the weapons are very samey, carbon copies of each other. A Silver Broadsword is the same thing as a Tungsten, as a Gold, as a Platinum only they do slightly different damages. Anything less than Silver or Tungsten armor is not worth making for the amount of effort you need to put into acquiring it.
Thorium Mod gives you stuff that's not really overpowered, but yet interesting at the same time. Projectiles that home, Projectiles that bounce off of walls. DoT melee weapons. Wings. A craftable gun (and ammo). All of this, without doing too much damage to be overpowered.
Well, okay, the Didgeridoo is on the upper end of the power scale for early-game, but it's a boss drop. It at least is fun to use, and doesn't look/sound/function exactly like nearly every other weapon in its class until late hardmode when we finally start getting variety in weapons.
So my suggestion, would be to sprinkle a few more options, some of which would have very low RNG attached to them (farmable in some way) to early-game progression.
And the Underground Desert.... seriously.... that needs to be viable near the beginning of the game. So much wasted potential. Right now in Vanilla, you have no real reason to go there until way later, but yet there are a few items (like the Mandible Blade) that have damage so low that they look like beginner's weapons but yet are dropped by mobs you couldn't possibly kill unless you get lucky and trap one in terrain (and probably get killed by something else while trying it).
Oh, and one last thing Thorium Did: almost all of its melee weapons are autoswing AFAIK. Which all weapons should be. I don't like tiring my finger (and my mouse button) out spamming clicks using early-game vanilla weapons.
Now, before I get into my suggestion(s), I would like to clarify something:
I am not suggesting that we should implement anything from Thorium Mod directly into Vanilla.
What I am suggesting, however, is that we should take a step back, and analyze what the creators of Thorium did and why.
The first thing I immediately noticed about Thorium Mod, is that you are given a number of options right from the get-go as to what equipment you would like to use, and what sort of playstyle you would like to employ. With the Vanilla game, my playthroughs always tend to look somewhat the same: You start off getting some Ore Armor, probably Silver or Tungsten because Wood, Cactus, Copper/Tin, and Iron gear is just too ineffective to even be worth making. I'll usually make a Cactus Sword and a Cactus Pickaxe (because Cactus is so easy to get), but I probably won't get the armor because reducing damage taken by 2 isn't really worth messing with to be honest, when the weakest enemy in the game hits you for 7-11 damage.
Once I get that, then off to EoC I go; I will probably use a Cactus Sword until one of the following happens:
1). I find an Ice Blade (uncommon, I try to avoid the underground Ice because it's annoying at this stage of the game)
2). I find an Enchanted Boomerang (RNG)
3). I build enough housing to get the Demolitionist and buy enough grenades
4). I find something else like a Starfury (which requires me finding Grav Potions which is highly RNG)
Anyhow, once I have those, I will either seek out an Amazon (if I found an Ice Blade or some form of Enchanted/Ice Boomerang) or I'll simply use one of the above to kill the EoC, or barring that, I'll just use Fire Arrows and some form of bow.
Either way, the playthrough always follows that same path because to be honest, unless I go sequence breaking, it's the only viable path through EoC.
With Thorium Mod, however, all of that changes because they added a Pre-EoC boss and several armor/weapon sets:
1). Grand Thunder Bird: Is farmable without too much trouble; you need some iron, a couple stars, and some new drops from vultures to spawn him and he can be fought with just basic gear and is slightly easier than the EoC. He drops a couple different weapons, the best of which (IMO) is the Didgeridoo which I found myself using for half of Pre-Hardmode.
2). Thorium Ore: This makes an armor set, and several weapons including a gun, though from my experiences the stuff is harder to find than Gold/Platinum.
3). The Flute: This can be found in Wooden Chests and is good enough to help you through several other areas you wouldn't normally go to quite yet.
4). Aquatic Armor: If you don't mind some careful farming, one could kill pink jellyfish and crabs near a beach and get themselves a suit of this stuff. Also makes some throwing weapons and melee weapons that do DoTs.
5). Harpy Armor: If you found another weapon (like the flute, which is an excellent choice), you could try to find a sky island using grav potions or something and farm harpies for feathers and a new crafting material. This also gets you a weak pair of wings (!!) and can be done as soon as you begin the game once you get a weapon good enough to kill harpies.
6). Ice Armor: Ice creatures now drop Ice Shards which can be used to make an armor set and some weapons, IIRC, a gun included.
7). Grand Thunder Bird also drops Sandstone Bricks which can be used to make armor and gear mostly meant for throwing.
8). Cloth Bard armor can be made from Silk.
9). Healer Armor: I forget what you make this out of, IIRC, drops from enemies in the Underground/Cavern Layer.
And I think I'm forgetting some early-game armors. Some of these even have upgrades (the Bard and Healer sets), but the point is..... so many options. Early game isn't so boring now, it actually feels more like the rest of the game, especially post-hardmode where you have all of these options as to what to use.
The extra boss gives you the leg-up that you need to explore the Underground Desert (which becomes a viable part of your progression as a result, because you can explore that). If you can get a Didgeridoo off of the Grand Thunder Bird, you can easily survive in there with some care if you make either the sandstone brick armor or the bard armor. Due to how the place is set up, and how easy it is to find some underground houses, I was always of the opinion that the UD looks like a great beginner's area... except the enemies are just too strong unless you get extremely lucky with RNG.
Not so, in Thorium. Given all of the above options, many of which have very low RNG, you can go here pretty much first-thing after maybe a little spelunking to find yourself some starting gear to kill the GTB with.
So, what can we learn from Thorium Mod?
Simple: Early Game in Vanilla just doesn't have enough variety, enough options. Most of the weapons are very samey, carbon copies of each other. A Silver Broadsword is the same thing as a Tungsten, as a Gold, as a Platinum only they do slightly different damages. Anything less than Silver or Tungsten armor is not worth making for the amount of effort you need to put into acquiring it.
Thorium Mod gives you stuff that's not really overpowered, but yet interesting at the same time. Projectiles that home, Projectiles that bounce off of walls. DoT melee weapons. Wings. A craftable gun (and ammo). All of this, without doing too much damage to be overpowered.
Well, okay, the Didgeridoo is on the upper end of the power scale for early-game, but it's a boss drop. It at least is fun to use, and doesn't look/sound/function exactly like nearly every other weapon in its class until late hardmode when we finally start getting variety in weapons.
So my suggestion, would be to sprinkle a few more options, some of which would have very low RNG attached to them (farmable in some way) to early-game progression.
And the Underground Desert.... seriously.... that needs to be viable near the beginning of the game. So much wasted potential. Right now in Vanilla, you have no real reason to go there until way later, but yet there are a few items (like the Mandible Blade) that have damage so low that they look like beginner's weapons but yet are dropped by mobs you couldn't possibly kill unless you get lucky and trap one in terrain (and probably get killed by something else while trying it).
Oh, and one last thing Thorium Did: almost all of its melee weapons are autoswing AFAIK. Which all weapons should be. I don't like tiring my finger (and my mouse button) out spamming clicks using early-game vanilla weapons.