Why Ancients awakened is one of the best mods on the current market

What is the best mod on the current market

  • Ancients awakened

  • Calamity

  • Thorium

  • Spirit

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TheForsakenOne

TheForsakenOne

Skeletron Prime
(Sorry for formatting and grammar issues)
Now, for those of you who might disagree with what i am saying, you really can't argue with game design.

So this has to do with modded bosses. As most of you know, in mods you use an item, and the boss spawns and fights you. The item is usually consumed.
This is Really bad game design, and a flaw that every major mod in existence suffers from (Aside from AA).
What this discourages is free (Non wiki-guided) gameplay, as you have to gather specific resources, which you often have to go out of your way to get (again, a new player wouldn't know where to go)
Lets compare the way that the first boss in calamity and AA are summoned

AA: Mushroom Monarch
  • Easy to obtain materials(Many players already Collect a large amount of mushrooms just by swinging their weapons/tools in the Purity)
  • Crafted at a normal crafting station
Calamity: Desert scourge
  • Difficult and out-of-the-way materials required (you have to go to the underground desert, a place most players wont go until mid-prehardmode)
  • Complicated and unnecessary recipe (Cacti? Sand? what is the reasoning behind doing a bit of collecting for the boss fight?)
  • Crafted at an anvil, which many players will only get after doing the basic exploration that you should already have the AA summoning item from.
This is where the problems start to show with calamity. You have to travel to a specific dangerous area of the world. Search for a specific deadly mob. And try to kill them, Praying that the 50% drop rate wont screw you over. While some might argue that "Its for the difficulty of the mod" it still discourages free gameplay, leaving many wiki-free players to miss the chance of fighting this boss during its intended period of time. AA on the other hand, gives a simple crafting recipe that most players will obtain the ingredients for just by swinging their weapons to fight a slime.
In vanilla Terraria, EVERY boss has some way to spawn it naturally (Without an item). Almost all of these ways have some form for exploration built into them. You have to explore to find the platera bulbs, To smash the shadow orbs, to find the dungeon. Almost all of these bosses can also be spawned in with an item, leaving less frustration in grinding them.
Calamity, and other popular mods, Go solely for the item-based spawning. And even though some might provide counterexamples (The Siren, the Aquatic Scourge) i can poke holes in each and every one of these bosses.
  • The Siren is RNG based, and you have to wait a random amount of time for her to spawn
  • Same with the aquatic scourge
  • And the buried champion (Thorium)
  • And the Aquatic depths boss (Also thorium) (okay, this one isn't as bad)
However, lets look at some Vanilla Bosses
  • Eye of Cthulhu: Spawns naturally after you get enough armor and NPC's
  • Eater of worlds: Smash three conspicuous orbs in the evil biome
  • Skeletron: Talk to the old man at night
  • Lunatic Cultist: Kill the four evil-looking guys at the dugeon.
Do you guys see what i mean? All these vanilla Bosses can be encountered naturally just by playing the game. In calamity, as well as in most other mods, This isn't the case.
AA actually takes a page from Vanilla's book and goes for natural progression.
  • Mushroom monarch: see above
  • Feudal Fungus: See Mushroom Monarch
  • Grips of Chaos: not the best example in the mod, and could use a natural spawning mechanic (This mod isn't perfect or finished)
  • The Broodmother/the Hydra: Uses the shadow orb mechanic from Vanilla
  • Snow Serpent/Desert Djinn: players will get their spawn items just by exploring the bosses respective biomes. Since the boss summon drops off of a mob in the biome (100% drop chance btw)
  • Saggitarius: No info since i'm not that far into the game, and the wiki has nothing
  • SIEGE bosses: no info
  • Rajah Rabbit: just kill 100 Bunnies
  • Equinox Worms: not the best example
  • Sisters of Discord: Again, not the best example (This tends to show in later bosses)
  • Akuma: Music changes in the Pagoda: New ore is used in crafting his spawn item
  • Yamata: Music changes in the Lake of the rising moon. New ore is used in crafting his spawn item.
  • Zer0: He is Literally floating in the middle of the void. If that's not discovering a boss, then i don't know what is.
So yeah, AA isn't perfect. But its definitely the best mod on the current market when it comes to game design (at least in this part of game design), And it will likely only continue to get better as time goes on.
 
I don't really understand. You say ancients awakened is the best mod despite giving very much evidence. The only thing you say is good about it is the boss spawning and that's it. And a chunk of them you say no info or not a great example. So what about the other parts, like quality of weapons, the actual bosses themselves, or balance? There's a magnitude of things that can make a mod good and a lot of it is subjective. So I believe it's pretty much impossible to call a mod "the best mod on the current market." Well, the only exception to this being my mods, which are undeniably the greatest mods ever created.
 
Caseratis said:
I don't really understand. You say ancients awakened is the best mod despite giving very much evidence. The only thing you say is good about it is the boss spawning and that's it. And a chunk of them you say no info or not a great example. So what about the other parts, like quality of weapons, the actual bosses themselves, or balance? There's a magnitude of things that can make a mod good and a lot of it is subjective. So I believe it's pretty much impossible to call a mod "the best mod on the current market." Well, the only exception to this being my mods, which are undeniably the greatest mods ever created.
Click to expand...
As i said at the end, Its the best mod in Terms of its boss spawning mechanics. The other parts of the mod are solid, but that's for another post.
 
You make it sound like Game Design is this objective thing that everyone agrees with. You do realize by calling boss spawn items really bad Game Design, this is a subjective opinion? You talk about naturally spawning bosses, yet the Mushroom Monarch does require a summoning item, even if the materials for it are pretty easy to gather. Only the Broodmother and Hydra can spawn without summoning items. Calamity has five bosses that can spawn without summoning items, which include the Hive Mind, the Perforators, Aquatic Scourge, Siren and Leviathan, and Polterghast. Thorium has four bosses that can spawn naturally, the Granite Energy Storm, the Buried Champion, Borean Strider, and the Abyssion. You say it’s a strength that Ancients Awakened has naturally summoned bosses compared to other major mods, yet both Thorium and Calamity have more of them. So, I can't even agree that Ancients Awakened has the best boss spawning mechanics are you say it does.

I wouldn’t call the underground desert that out of way, at least if you want an Extractinator. If anything, mods encourage you to explore a biome you normally wouldn’t explore. Now you have more of a reason to go to the desert, fight the mod specific boss there, and gain loot from the boss. So, I would count that as a good thing to help bring interest to less explored vanilla biomes.

How is the anvil not a normal crafting station? You may it sound like you have to go out of your way to get it. It’s something you can get the materials to craft right from the surface. How is it an advantage to craft a boss summoning item at a work bench compared to an anvil, which you’re almost certain to have after the first few minutes?

And while we’re on the subject of bosses, I feel some Ancients Awakened bosses are pretty simple in their behavior. The Desert Djinn only floats around summoning sand tornados. The Subzero Serpent acts like a worm that has a breath attack. By comparison, the Eater of Worlds has the unique behavior of splitting apart and each segment having its own HP and on expert, spitting vile at you. Now some of the other bosses do have more complex attacks, but I found those two particularly simple. Every boss in Thorium has at least a few attacks.

Ancients Awakened is improving every update, like any mod should when being updated. But I don’t think it’s quite on the level of Thorium and Calamity yet, especially when you tried to make it sound like it had better boss spawning mechanics compared to those two.
 
I've been a very long time fan of Thorium, even way back when they were on T-config. Diverman has always made his mod fair. I remember when he first released it there was this armor set that I REALLY loved. He knew it was op'd and nixed the set. That's one very small example. The point to playing mods is to have a different experience while making it balanced enough that it isn't too easy. Making enemies easy makes it likely that you'll lose interest fast. We play this game to craft and to explore while getting items. Thorium makes that happen while keeping your interest.

I've also been a long time fan of Calamity. Again, Drew has done nothing but continue to update and improve his mod even though he doesn't have to. He's made it less likely for the item to just be handed right over and us having to work for it. Again, that's what keep interest in playing up.

Keep in mind that these modders do it for free.

As for AA, yes, I've downloaded it. But it in it's current state scares the crap out of me because of how many biomes it has and how ambitious it is. That's fantastic and I hope it does succeed, however, not at the cost of me making a world, setting it up how I like, and me crashing. NothankyouI'llpass. To compare this mod to the oldies who have spent literally years perfecting their mods is ludicrous. I'm not ripping on this new mod at all. I'll play it even in time.
 
Tbh, AA relies too much on bosses and their drops to progress when there's plenty of other ways the player can progress in vanilla. That's my biggest gripe about the mod besides minor balance issues lategame
 
¿Por qué no utilizar los 3? Juego con calamity, torio y AA, está bien equilibrado, bueno, solo un poco, pero es divertido :)
 
Scratch Lunin said:
I do not, no.
Click to expand...
essentially a tl;dr for the whole thing: alphakip the mod's lead dev had been abusing his power to overwork the team and ERP with a couple members as his alternate persona, Liz. Recently, due to the pressure, a bunch of the devs did a mass exodus, which also resulted in the discord getting nuked, the wiki almost being deleted and the mod briefly being taken off the browser.
 
musicman655 said:
essentially a tl;dr for the whole thing: alphakip the mod's lead dev had been abusing his power to overwork the team and ERP with a couple members as his alternate persona, Liz. Recently, due to the pressure, a bunch of the devs did a mass exodus, which also resulted in the discord getting nuked, the wiki almost being deleted and the mod briefly being taken off the browser.
Click to expand...
A tragedy.
 
IZ.png
Soul_of_Cthulhu_(Ancients_Awakened).gif
Shen_Doragon_(Ancients_Awakened).gif
.
 
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