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[nenjin]

If he hadn't gone into the caves though, he'd never have enough health to beat iCthulhu as quickly as he did.

In Pbat's case, beating Cthulhu doesn't didn't do him any real good. 

-He got enough demonite to maybe make a tool or an item.
-A Life Crystal.
-The Dryad basically just sells anti-corruption items.
-He got 2 or 3 gold for beating Cthulhu.

Compare how much he struggled early on (admittedly with low health) versus when he had:

At least full copper armor.
Gold weapons and tools
A grappling hook.
A bazillion potions.

The game clearly gets easier when you can just sit there and take the damage while you potion. Naked, most starting enemies do between 6 and 14 damage a hit. Each heart stone buys you 20 hp, full iron armor deducts between 2 and 8 damage on most enemies up to the corruption and beyond the mushroom deeps. Damage goes from like 4 on basic enemies with a copper sword to 14 on basic enemies with a gold one.

So, I think in terms of time spent (because Crystal Hearts are totally random) you're better served amassing the supplies and gear you need in order, before moving on and looking for the rare, random stuff in harder places. If you want it to be painless and quick, anyways.

As for the Eye, he won that because of Shurikens as much as health. (For their speed and damage, they're far better than bows for killing most stuff that's irritating you. They probably deserve to be less good.) If he'd had to do that with a bow, it would have taken him the entire night and probably most of his potions. If he'd had to do it with a sword, he probably woulda just died 1,000 times.

[Aqizzar]

Can it not just be said, and accepted for once, that one of the very good reasons the game is only being played in a closed-alpha-test is precisely because they haven't stopped to work on anything like "balance"?  These guys are demonstrating the implemented features of the game, not making a video strategy guide.

[nenjin]

Sorry, after watching close to 8 total hours of "Cave, splat. Cave, splat. Cave, splat. Cave, splat. Yay, we finally accomplished something" I'm feeling the need to stratergize so in MP it's not 2 hours of group stupidity. 

I also think, with release coming soon, that we aren't going to see seismic changes in balance before we get a chance to play. It's pretty much a given that caves = time sinks for many reasons. 

[nenjin]

Oh man, your inventory is per character.

Yes, that means you can take characters, items and stuff across servers.

Cue the spammers! Sort of does make me sad that they don't seem inclined toward any level mechanics though.

And apparently when you smash those dark orb in the corruption pits, and the meteors come down, they smash into the terrain and create meteorite ore, that spawns all these little floating meteorites.

I'm starting to think they've done pre-development work on this....because the amount of stuff that's done, and the level of polish for 5 months of work is kind of astounding, even for a 2d game.

[Urist Imiknorris]

http://terrariaonline.com/threads/the-yogscast-part-1-im-a-2d-sprite-and-im-digging-a-hole.651/

[Ochita]

Hmm... It makes me want to actually play with someone, just so then it would be faster, but I would only get half the resources..

[Frumple]

Sorry, after watching close to 8 total hours of "Cave, splat. Cave, splat. Cave, splat. Cave, splat. Yay, we finally accomplished something" I'm feeling the need to stratergize so in MP it's not 2 hours of group stupidity.

Strategizing... I'unno, I'm sorta' doing it, but it's hard for me to really measure without actually, yanno', playing. Both the dev lpers and Pbat have absolutely glaring combat flaws - P's really weak with the grappling hook (which is just lawlrape in the caverns -- latch onto the ceiling, drop a torch from your inventory, spam with bow/shuriken. Everything dies!) and th'dev fellows have generally crap timing abilities with their swings and seem to have no survival instinct when it comes to not getting hit. These critters aren't moving in any way we haven't seen a million and one times in old platformers... not being where the slime is shouldn't be that difficult

Being a bit overly critical, sure, but the controls seem fairly responsive -- a lot of the damage in both LPs seem to be coming primarily from carelessness, maybe lack of familiarity, or just no attempt at actually, yanno', timing their swings. PBat's a bit better at it, but still... I can't help but think that th'GBA castlevanias (which have plenty of weapons with similar swing actions) would chew them up and spit 'em out. The critter patterns I've been seeing so far are really, really, easy to deal with and basically make damage a highly unlikely thing, if you bother to do something besides just kinda' swing randomly... though even that'll work with silver+ broadswords, especially if you've got two folks to synchronize their attacks. Buzzsaw blade walls!

The cthulhu eye fight seems to be a really simple one if you bother to do some setup before hand. A large box, just the right size to grapple around, or a large open area seeded with grapple target platforms, would be perfect for it -- you just use the hook to dodge to <2k hp charges while spewing shurikens, which you can easily have a 200+ stack of from the merchant. That's solo, too -- with multiple people, a couple of dedicated cthulhu-eye matadors bouncing around while folks a fair distance away spew ranged attacks would drop th'eye toute-suite. >2k hp, you just spew shurikens. That'll kill both the eye spawns and do plenty of damage.

Proper use of dirt would make a lot of both lp's problems just disappear, too. Regularly putting some 1-2 spaced dirt lines above the players could massively reduce the chance of something dropping on top of 'em when they're cave diving. I could see using the bow in conjunction with rapid dirt emplacements to easily handle attacks -- seven or so blocks, three on each side of your and one, maybe two just above, would render you mostly invincible to everything except worms and able to fire and murder with impunity... if you don't just, yanno', hang from the ceiling.

I'm really stoked about what I'm seeing, but it definitely seems like a more competent player is going to be able to just demolish the early challenges that we're seeing. Groups of said players... man, devastation everywhere.

Anyone else think that the value of tools are being heavily underestimated in both LPs, so far? I keep wanting to strangle P for not getting a bloody gold pickaxe

[Urist Imiknorris]

I think I'm going to stick to the surface until I have enough copper, iron, and stone for armor, tools/weapons, and a couple rooms for NPCs.

[adwarf]

I WILL BUILD STUFF ( I am not much for going places I cna't see well in.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I am not much for going places I cna't see well in.

That's why you I'm going to buy a mining helmet.

[Soulwynd]

Oh man, your inventory is per character.

Not exactly. You buy a piggy bank, which gives you a limited storage which is shared between servers.

[adwarf]

Yep, and thanks I forgot about the Mining Helmet !!!!! SPELUNKING !!!!! I now like you.

[Ochita]

B12 should make a dwarf fortress server..
(Make a stone fortress on the surface, apply dirt over it so its 'underground' and with plenty of magma everywhere..)
It must be done.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Go watch the trailer, at 3:45. Eater of Worlds. Giant worm made of what looks to be modified Eaters of Souls that splits when you destroy one and then you have multiple giant worms fighting you.

[nenjin]

I think the main issue is...these people are doing LPs. We'll most likely be playing SP or at least MP without an audience. It's hard to play well, I think, if you're trying to narrate to people all the time coherently. In Pbat's case, lots of times he's too busy talking to play.

but I imagine it would help a lot, unless the boss has long range attacks that strike through blocks. Or if the boss is a worm. Worms are just scary.

Watch the Cthulhu Eye boss fight. He completely ignores terrain, as do the other huge bosses we've seen. So they just streak through you and do horrible damage. Surviving boss fights seems to be about having enough potions, having enough armor so you live long enough to use said potions and having enough/the right type of weapon so hitting the boss isn't a total pain in the ass.

Though I like how if you know each boss you can build an arena for each one to make the fight easier.