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[Ochita]

I still want hell to be properly Cave Story "OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD"

falling blocks! IMPS EVERYWHERE, BARRIERS. SPIKES MAGMA

[freeformschooler]

I have a great idea for Terraria that would increase replayability exponentially.

Diablo-style items.

No, really, before you laugh, think about it. We have probably well over a hundred (two hundred?) items now, and we're able to just find a significant portion of them, and craft the rest. Even just for findable items, this would be amazing.

The idea goes like this: When finding (or optionally crafting) an equippable item (any item that can go in one of your equip slot, or possibly even just holdable items like how the water tube thing works), the item has a smallish chance to have some bonus(es), sort of like the "enchantments" in Diablo. For instance... Copper Helm of Pain. 10% damage-given-out increase while equipped. Gives a whole new reason to go back to wearing the item, doesn't it? At least until you find a gold helm with 15% damage increase and 10% longer breath when in water. So people would hunt even harder for chests and such, lest they contain an item with that perfect bonus. Or maybe you would just randomly craft an item that had a bonus. That would have people scrambling for every material they could squeeze out of the world, just to keep crafting.

Alternate idea, possibly in addition to the above: rarer (findable/craftable on a chance) equippable items with sockets. Every gemstone gives a certain sort of bonus, but is socketed permanently. The gemstones we have now would give only small bonuses, but perhaps there could be rarer, higher tiers of gemstones that gave larger bonuses, that would give people a bigger reason to keep mining them.

What do you guys think? I think there's not a chance in heck it would be added in Terraria, but it would certainly make the metagame and single player interesting, and keep the completionist addicted. After all, Terraria is based in a large part around the items.

[mattie2009]

someone made a suggestion about that. You get an NPC that makes sockets in weapons and armor as a 5% effectiveness cost per socket. Then you get another NPC that puts craftable special power up gems in the slots. *shrug* seems cool, but a bit roundabout.

[freeformschooler]

Yeah, just the sockets idea alone is pretty boring and stagnant, I think. I like the thrill of finding a high power item with wild enchantments.

[Haspen]

Yeah, just the sockets idea alone is pretty boring and stagnant, I think. I like the thrill of finding a high power item with wild enchantments.

'Glowy Golden Helmet of Thorns' that gives light and deals damage to enemies who poke you?

Oh hell I'm so with the idea now.

[nenjin]

I personally don't want Terraria to go anywhere near that. Diablo 3 is just around the corner, and I'm not looking for a game I like doing its own thing to jump on the "Blah blah of blah blahing blah" Item bandwagon. The fun of Terraria items is that they're well-situated within a progression scale and they're knowable. There are some players who love redundantly farming for gear, but if that's the way the bulk of Terraria items shook out I think I'd count it as a failure by Re-Logic. They've got an amazing world set up, good ideas, people capable of executing them and TIME. They don't need to start throwing randomly generated treasure at us to fill any gaps.

Customizing weapons is one thing. Randomized item properties on the other changes the nature of the game from "play it through" to "play it to the part where something good drops then stand in a corner and farm for 4 hours." There are some people who see themselves playing Terraria every day and romping through the same world chopping shit up looking for drops they don't need. I would hate for Re-logic to decide that's the kind of long-term gameplay they want to support. There are more interesting things to populate a sand box with for long-term game play that aren't loot. (Like the NPC groups that they've talked about.)

If I seem annoyed by the suggestion, it's because I've read it several times on the Terraria forums and I cringe when I hear people get excited about randomly finding a sword that makes light. With at least 5 ways of accomplishing anything in Terraria, it feels like serious waste of time to try and pack all these item properties, which are broken out over multiple pieces of gear and force you to make trade offs, on to one thing so it's "awesome." How boring.

[Wolf Tengu]

hmm.

[Biag]

That's true, but you have to admit that Terraria has absolutely zero replay value once you get all the stuff. That's gotta be addressed at some point if they want the game to last; ReLogic can only do so many content updates before they want to work on something else. You could say roguelikes have spoiled us and that we should accept that some games lose appeal eventually, but damn it, replay value is one of the most important things a game can have.

[nenjin]

That's true, but you have to admit that Terraria has absolutely zero replay value once you get all the stuff. That's gotta be addressed at some point if they want the game to last; ReLogic can only do so many content updates before they want to work on something else. You could say roguelikes have spoiled us and that we should accept that some games lose appeal eventually, but damn it, replay value is one of the most important things a game can have.

No argument here. That said, I've seen the whole game 3 times over and right now I'm 20 hours into a SP world and the best I've got is silver armor. Why am I still satisfied? Because I'm not playing the guy I created when the game released. I have friends that want to start every game with their best character....and that's why they're bored and I'm not. They're aware high-level gameplay needs more. I just don't think throwing out random loot, which has a trickle down effect on the rest of the game, is a real solution. It's a Diablo-kiddy solution and lord, after 10+ years of Diablo clones, I think we can try just a wee bit harder than that.

Honestly, I think Re-Logic needs to invest in: more structures appearing in worlds and b) heavier use of non-destructible or hard-to-destroy blocks. The fact that anyone with an Ivy Whip, Rocket boots and jumping accessories is not challenged by virtually anything in the game world is a problem. Hell is only scary because of the mob and the lava. Everyone I have ever taken to the dungeon has left feeling underwhelmed. Why? Because with so much power over our environment, we're not challenged. The Jungle is still the most interesting and entertaining biome to explore because it's got a variety of challenges. Water, lave, big drops, constructed out of an unstable material, thorns, fliers and plants that basically serve as obstacles. Hell, I'll make that c) Re-logic needs to invest in more obstacles to player progression, be they monsters, more hazards or more thoughtfully arranged biomes.

The player designed castles and stuff really show how, with some mechanics tweaks, stuff in Terraria could provide some actual, challenging exploration for high level characters. A tower covered with spikes that take forever to break, and force players to actually ascend the tower as planned, would be great. As opposed to now where someone would just grapple to the top, or build a 1,000 foot long platform to get to the top, and be bored in 5 minutes.

[freeformschooler]

That's true, but you have to admit that Terraria has absolutely zero replay value once you get all the stuff. That's gotta be addressed at some point if they want the game to last; ReLogic can only do so many content updates before they want to work on something else. You could say roguelikes have spoiled us and that we should accept that some games lose appeal eventually, but damn it, replay value is one of the most important things a game can have.

This is the only thing I was trying to combat. I don't think imitating Diablo is necessarily the way to do it, because while randomized items are cool, imitating the way you get them would take out part of the adrenaline rush, and lead to enforced farming. If they did in fact do all of the things I brought up, I think that yeah, it would probably be better off in a different game mode.

In many ways, I think there's better ways to combat the loss of re-playability in Terraria.

No argument here. That said, I've seen the whole game 3 times over and right now I'm 20 hours into a SP world and the best I've got is silver armor. Why am I still satisfied? Because I'm not playing the guy I created when the game released. I have friends that want to start every game with their best character....and that's why they're bored and I'm not. They're aware high-level gameplay needs more. I just don't think throwing out random loot, which has a trickle down effect on the rest of the game, is a real solution. It's a Diablo-kiddy solution and lord, after 10+ years of Diablo clones, I think we can try just a wee bit harder than that.

Playing a new character when I get bored of the old, highest-tier one is how I still play Terraria, from update-to-update. Like I said, I don't think randomized drops would be the best way to combat that being the biggest re-playability solution, but it is and option.

Personally, I think the biggest solution to replayability in the game is to add a whole new layer of things to do in it. More, even, than improving items with random drops, or improving items with more items, or improving NPCs with new kinds of NPC. I don't know what it would be though. I'm no game design genius.

It doesn't need a new layer of things to do to be fun. It's just a way to help the replayability.

Oh, and yeah, we probably have been spoiled by Roguelikes. All of us. Just for the record.

[nenjin]

Yalp.

One thing they do need to make good on is every mob having it's ultra rare drop.

Another is that money is still virtually worthless for anything besides health potions, Mini-Shark, dynamite and the mining helmet. They need to give us better uses for all that money we're accumulating. Money is one of those parts of the game that seems like it's going to be really important, and it turns out you never even have to think about it if you don't want to.

[Soulwynd]

I would love rogue-like style item drops.

Poisonous spear of jumping +2

[nenjin]

Speaking of poison, has anyone actually noticed an effect on teh poisoned throwing knives? I don't see them causing enemies to suffer poison damage.

[Haspen]

They don't poison at all. They are piercing knives.

Also I would like to see the random items... maybe from bosses only? That would get rid of 'farm' issue, unless you are masochist who wants to kill EoC 10 times to get 'helmet of something +1'.

[nenjin]

They don't poison at all. They are piercing knives.

Boo. Blue mentioned "poison" specifically in one of the dev blog posts on TO.