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kozykricket · 2 years

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Issues with Enchanting

NOTE: I feel like I didn’t get across everything I wanted to here, especially in a clean organized manner, and I think I’ll rewrite this but I want to get it out now. Do expect a “Rewrite” of this post thats more organized, this was a bit of just my “flow” writing Don’t read this unless you really want to know some random dudes opinion on funny block games grindy magic. --------------------------------- So, I may complain about enchanting in the future but I want to make it known what my overall position is on the... enchantments political compass of sorts. Off the bat, do I think its... Grindy? Yes A fun concept? Yes Newer enchants show more of its potential? Yes XP is a good system? No Should be mandatory to bypass tedium? No Should be direct stat upgrades? Depends, but generally no Before we get into the issues with it, I’d like to point out that XP, Enchanting, and the end were all added in a rush in the miku era for the game to be a “finished” game for 1.0 release. An insane rush of Progression Shit, and besides the end being half-addressed in 1.9 (and I don’t think it should be addressed further until the rest of progression leading to it is fixed more) most of what that rush-for-content era has left us with is... unbalanced, wonky, grindy systems. There are some design decisions with enchanting that I think may be outdated. Notably, I feel that enchanting was originally just supposed to be a way to power up your tools even further, and to be a rare commodity, not necessarily something needed, as the games scale was overall smaller. I’ve also heard developers say that they didn’t like the idea of you having the same tool forever, and thats why the notorious “Too Expensive!” anvil repair limit exists. (I’ll get back to anvils later) So thats the basis - it was a system of upgrading your tools, challenging to get to do at all, and... well, I think “you shouldnt keep the same tools forever” is where it immediately falls apart due to item despawning being an issue in Minecraft, and that itself being a debate of itself But then that gets into whether minecraft should be challenging, whether despawning is actually a challenge or fair punishment - losing your items is in concept the same as no longer being able to repair your tool. Should minecraft be punishing like that? Depends on who you ask - that goes beyond the scope of this post. I’ll be moving forward with the attitude of... its too punishing right now, and that you shouldnt need to grind so hard to get back on your feet after losing your items. Remember 1.9? Added mending? I believe mending was supposed to be an ultra rare commodity - to defy what durability had been all about for years... having a tool be temporary, which I think is a respectable decision, and I personally believe temporary tools can be fine, especially in minecraft if we keep death as fairly punishing... the problem is how grindy it is to get tools back once you lose them, whether it be by death or breaking them - I’m fine that we can’t repair them forever... except we can... with mending. We defy the original purpose of “Too Expensive!” and the problem is that a rare-ass enchant is the only way to bypass it. Mending is meta, we all know this. Yet at the same time, theres no interesting, consistent way to obtain it that doesnt feel like cheesing the game or exploiting it. So, what are the Main Issues(TM) Before you even get to the enchants themselves, theres already a problem - XP. Most resources in minecraft have a fair way to casually obtain them and a way to autofarm them. XP doesn’t really have a way to consistently get it in bulk without it being either an autofarm or frustrating (or both!) XP scales so that its harder to get up one level the higher leveled you are, which is frankly just annoying. Granted, enchanting isnt as annoying as it originally was, sometimes costing 40 whole levels. Now it only costs 3, but those 3 levels from 27 to 30... are MASSIVE! if you do a max level enchant (which, why wouldnt you once you can, thats another problem) then... well, lets get onto the next issue RNG You sometimes don’t get what you want. Frankly, I think people blame mutually exclusive enchants like smite/sharpness or fortune/silk touch too much, instead of blaming getting an underleveled enchant, or just not getting an enchant at all. But we have grindstones now, you say! Rerolling is just more grind, I say If you were to enchant a diamond pickaxe and get Efficiency 3 Unbreaking 2, would you accept it? Maybe, but probably not if you care for maximum convenience. If you disenchant it, you dont really get a proper reroll. Theres no influencing what you get other than objectively just having more bookcases for better enchants. Who likes seeing “Fortune II” on their pickaxe? To me, whenever I’m not using Fortune 3 on an ore, I feel inefficient. Don’t get me started about “why would you ever enchant something that isnt diamond?” and feeling like you’re wasting levels. Anyways fortune leads into another problem

Enchanting is the only solution to many problems Now, minecraft is all a game about player choice, right? You can choose to go mining deep down or go to mountains for iron... player choice is something Mojang wants to focus on, yet enchanting is so obviously the Best Solution to a lot of problems, and so necessary in progression. Fortune objectively gives you more materials like iron, which is very useful. Silk touch is incredibly convenient, saving loads of smelting time. There are tons of enchants that are straight up stat upgrades - protection just straight up makes you safer! Sharpness is just more damage! Efficiency is faster! If you want to dig out a large area, and you’d like to do it a bit more efficiently... Well, tnt isnt very viable in survival, especially for collecting the resources, and for precision. Haste is locked behind beacons, and even then you still need enchants for haste to really work. Enchanting is just too good, and a lot of the stat upgrades are boring Finally, anvils I said I would get back to anvils, and... yeah, they’re a big issue too. “Too Expensive!” are nightmarish words to hear. It just feels like a punch in the gut, the way something gets more expensive the more you combine/repair it. Its annoying! I think anvils are a relic of when they wanted tools to be finite, but as the games scale has grown I think it would be fair to either allow us to repair our tools more, or better... what would ALSO solve death being so frustrating... streamline the process of getting a tool back, enchanted and all. Some of this could be solved by making enchants less necessary, or less leveled... or more consistent. Frankly, anything

#im still somewhat tired writing this #this is so unorganized god #mineblr #it was your choice to read this #minecraft #enchanting

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kreuzdrache · 4 years

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LONG RANT/REVIEW ABOUT TERRARIA 1.4

Long post ahead lol

I beat finally beat Moon Lord a few days ago on Master Mode, so I figured I can finally drop some thoughts about the update as a whole.

For the most part: I love it!

Like, previously mentioned, I enjoyed the new content added to the game. Admittedly I did not use a lot of the new items, due to them being outclassed by the time I did found them, but they were still nice to have.

The two new bosses: Queen Slime and Empress of Light were also a welcomed addition, and finally makes the hollowed biome feel more complete. Queen Slime was a bit more chaotic than I would have liked, but it was not a big deal breaker. Empress of Light on the other hand was perfect for the most part! Her attacks easy to see and easy to understand, as well as being a pretty spectacle to behold. Might take a few times to understand her patterns, but her summoning item spawns fairly commonly in the hollowed biome in the outer 2/3rds of the world, so you will have plenty of chances to practice against her without spending too much time and resources.(Unlike Moon Lord............) She is definitely my new favorite boss(and Terrarian waifu...).

The new music themes added were also great. They even included the option for the Party Girl NPC to switch out the Terraria soundtrack with the Terraria Otherworld soundtrack after you go talk to her in a world generated with the seed “05162020 “. These tracks are also very good! Although, Otherworld’s Night theme does feel a bit out of place with terraria:

youtube

Seriously, this is terrifying! I thought I was playing a crafty sandbox game, not survival horror! Then again, Terraria does have the Blood Moon enemies, the entirety of the Crimson biome, and Wall of Flesh; so perhaps it is not all out of place.

Little things like the bestiary, the updated backgrounds and trees and flowers swaying may not be be needed, but they are nice and help enrich the experience of the game. I really like reading through the bestiary just to see why the descriptions are for some of the enemies. I especially love how the backgrounds show little details, like shooting stars in the sky, an Eye of Cthulhu floating in the mountains, birds flying in formation, clouds forming various shapes, and even a large meteorite falling in the sky.

Pylons...I like them, but I do have issues. They do cut down having to travel across the map as well cheap and easy to set up. All these do come with drawback though, compared to to making a more traditional network of teleporters. You cannot use them during some events, like invasions or lunar events(This is a big one.) If your housing npcs powering the pylon dies, then pylon doesn’t work, until you replace them or the died ones move back in. BIOME SPREAD CAN AND WILL MESS UP YOUR NETWORK. Whether it be through displacing your npcs or because biome is different from the placed pylon. You can also only have one of each pylon, so no two cavern pylons or ocean pylons for fast travel. You can buy a universal pylon though, after filling out the beastiary 100%, which also works for any area and does not require npcs near it, so that’s useful.

NPC Happiness, I was kinda disappointed. On one hand, I like that they are not super demanding: Just pair them up with npc they like and place them in biome they like and they become happy and lower prices of their services. On the other, I was kinda expecting more challenge: Like, the nurse npc greatly prefers crystal furniture, or the Witch Doctor npc wants his house built with Rich Mahogany instead of normal wood, as ideas. But again, this probably for the better, cause it makes things much more easier to work with.

Luck. OOH BOY, I do not get the inclusion of luck. Yes, I know they got rid of bad luck from the code, but I still think luck is pointless in the game. Luck is a hidden mechanic that is not really explained well at all, apparently affects your loot drops, finding bounded npcs like the Wizard, Stylist, ect, rare spawns like golden critters and Pinky, gaining healing hearts from downed enemies, ect ect. I do not know how accurate the wiki page is but reading it is not exactly instilling me with confidence on how useful the stat really is if you go all in. Like, I would do easy stuff like slapping down biome torches and garden gnomes in my arenas, but I would not bother waiting till lantern nights and making luck potions. By the way, luck potions require pearls, and those are fished from the desert biome and are rare from oysters, especially the pink ones that give you best luck potions are the rarest at around 1/125 oysters. Yes, you have to depend on luck, to gain a temporary buff to make you lucky in game. Silly, I know. Its a lot of effort for a small increase, I just do not think it’s worth it. If the goal was to help players with making better drops rates, why not just make better drop rates for the items, instead of making the player jump through so many hoops??? Or make an accessory or even an armor set that makes drop rates better, or something, I dunno. This mechanic just feels so unnecessarily esoteric, and for little benefit too.

Master Mode: I already mentioned in previous posts, but I disliked it. Greatly. I love Terraria, but it is tedious game. Master Mode cranks up that tedium by a lot, due to higher spawn rates enemies, higher damage from enemies, losing all your carried money on death(But thats not that big of deal, especially when you get the piggy bank), and more enemies have more hp. It is just not fun to deal with. Especially when doing lunar events, those are especially hellish in Master Mode.

Journey Mode: I do not get it. “Its creative mode with extra steps” as said by a youtuber is the perfect explanation. Why make the player go through all the trouble to unlock infinite copies of items by making them play through the game again? Honestly, if I knew how much I was going to dislike Master Mode, I would have skipped that and made Journey Mode character and world instead. I will most likely still play through journey, but having to go through all the same game to unlock infinite copies of items is still going to be tedious, even with god mode on.

That is my big issue with Terraria 1.4, nothing really seems to address the tedium issue. I am not asking for all good loot to get handed to me on the first kill a mob, but would it really affect the game negatively if stuff like biome keys, rod of discord, or even silly things like the jellyfish necklace were a little bit more reasonable to farm for? Perhaps make the whole lunar event a little less tedious, by cutting down the required amount of kills before you can turn off the pillars’ shields? And/or give us more fragments so we can craft more Sigils if we fail the event and just want to farm Moon Lord? Did Revear Shark really needed to get nerfed? Were explosives for harvesting meteorite too good? I dunno.

Despite my negativity, I am still actually largely positive to the game and I would still recommend it, either if you have not played the game in while or if you have yet to play the game even. Its on sale on steam right now for 5 USD or 10 USD through GOG. Even if you do miss out on the sale, it is still VERY worth the 10 dollar price. Also the soundtrack is still rocking.

#long #long post #rants #terraria: journey's end #terraria #terraria 1.4

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