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tribow · 1 year ago

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Terraria is such a lovely game, but I have a singular tiny problem with it:

Hard Mode. (long post below).

Hardmode is the one part of the game that breaks Terraria's flow.

The gameplay loop of Terraria is as follows: Explore > Gather resources > Craft gear > Battle

Then it repeats. It's a super good loop, but once you enter hard mode a step gets removed: exploring.

At first that sounds stupid. Don't you have to explore for the hardmode ore? Isn't there corruption/crimson and hallow that you need go to? What about going back into the dungeon and the temple?

All true, but there's a problem with most of that. You already explored most of these places in pre-hardmode. The environment itself is no longer a threat to your survival since you have gear for flying around and negating fall damage. The biomes can no longer offer you equipment that is worth your time. Yes, there are a plethora of new enemies to encounter and defeat. However, outside of that there is not much new to discover unless it exists in an area of the map you haven't looked at yet.

To find the hardmode ore, most players will just retrace their steps in areas they have already explored to see if there's ore there.

The infected areas of the map may bring you to unexplored locations, but at this point of progression those locations are unlikely to provide anything new outside of an enviornment to fight the hardmode enemies.

The dungeon was likely fully explored in pre-hardmode, so the biome chests have already had their locations revealed. There's nothing new to find there, only something new to fight.

The one exception here is the jungle temple. You cannot enter it in pre-hardmode without some shenanigans. There isn't much to find in there, but it is a place where the environment itself will challenge you. It's a nice buildup towards a boss and the lihzards are enemies that you haven't dealt with anywhere else until that point.

Okay so....what's the big deal? Exploring doesn't net you as many rewards anymore, but there's plenty of new content to play with! There's all of these new enemies, events, and bosses that happen in hardmode.

Well, each step in a gameplay loops feeds off of each other. Exploring and facing the environment feels great because it pays off with allowing you to gather resources and fill up your inventory. Gathering resources and managing inventory feels great because it pays off with allowing you to craft better gear. Crafting gear feels great since it allows you to fight stronger enemies and bosses with much less difficulty. Fighting bosses is great not only because the fight is fun, but once a boss is defeated it usually opens up new avenues to explore.

So lets remove the exploring step, now you're just revisiting areas. How do you gather resources? Ore and fighting. You're no longer charting unknown territory so most of these enemies are just getting in the way of your task. Survival is way easier with the new movement tools you have when revisiting. While cathartic, you're just trying to dig and these pesky enemies keep bothering you. Either that or these pesky enemies aren't dropping the resources you want. For efficiency, you may carve out an area to farm the enemies because it's too much of a hassle to chase these pesky enemies around in tight spaces. Defeating bosses feels great, but now I gotta go to the jungle again? To the dungeon again? To the Jungle again? To the mushroom biome again? (For Duke).

Doesn't this sound like a chore now? This would not happen in pre-hardmode.

Fighting enemies and ore digging is still a part of it, sure, but in pre-hardmode you also find a lot of chests with useful resources. Ores are just the breadcumbs to reward you while you keep moving along. Enemies do still get in your way, but they're not just halting your digging. You gotta fight through them to discover more of the land. It's harder to just run away in pre-hardmode as your movement is more restricted and there's plenty of dead ends since you haven't been digging anywhere yet. You're not just fighting them for resources, you're fighting to survive down there because you may find something super useful and you don't want to go through the rough journey of getting back there if you die.

In hardmode though, death isn't as much of a theat. When you die in one location, you can just shrug and go somewhere else after you respawn. It wasn't that important to be there, you could gather the same resources in another location especially if you're in a large world. (Lowkey this is part of why I like mediumcore playthroughs. It makes the threat of death so much more meaningful in hardmode).

Alright so, that's the problem. What's the solution here? Is hardmode just an inherently inferior experience to pre-hardmode in Terraria? No! Of course not! The idea is great, it's like you get to play a new game+ with a crazy amount of new content. The idea is fantastic. We just need to bring exploration back into the loop.

Right when hardmode starts a bunch of infection spreads right? Make it generate some structures too! The corrution/crimson biomes could have these new shadow/crimson hearts in random locations within the infection that have this tough outer shell. It takes a while to dig through and bombs won't work, but getting inside and blowing up the heart can net you some of those rare drops from the enemies in the area. Speaking of which, you would be fighting them for the right to dig into there. Naturally, sitting in one location to dig will make more enemies surround you. This may sound like a repeat of the problem with the "pesky" enemies, but now you're trying to survive here. You must secure this opportunity since breaking that heart may let you skip hours of farming. You got here because you explored, now we're feeding into the loop again.

For Hallow, there could be a large castle/spire structure that generates on the hallow surface. You can only enter through the bottom. Scattered all over the castle/spire could be rainbow chests that have some useful hallow gear that you would need to grind for otherwise. At the very top there would be multiple chests to reward getting all the way up there. This place could function like the jungle temple where there's tons of traps and idk, maybe there could be locked doors too. Obviously you shouldn't be allowed to dig any of the tiles from this structure until you reach the top. Since this would be a big structure, there's a solid chance it could just absorb a town you built for NPCs. I like the idea that in the event this occurs, your town NPCs could be held hostage in there until you save them.

You know what bothers me? It's the fact that mimics appear in hardmode. Mimics exist solely to exploit a player's excitement when discovering treasure. Yet, they only appear when chests no longer matter! Crimson/Corruption/Hallow chests don't even exist! The only player that would be fooled are ones who have NEVER seen a mimic like that before. So.....what if those chests did exist? Some chests could be generated in the infected biomes when hardmode starts. Just being able to open them sounds a little too easy though, so what if you need the a Key of Night/Light to open them? You could even get these keys from the previous locations I already mentioned.

Honestly there could be a bunch of new chests that generate in hard mode for all biomes. They'll have essentially any item that you would need to farm/grind enemies for, but you gotta find 'em. Maybe they could have hardmode bars too! (I know this makes less sense lore-wise since pre-hardmode chests exist to imply that people have explored the world before you did. But lets just say the mimics wanted an excuse to make you actually want to approach them.) Heck shadow more shadow chests could show up in hell with hardmode hell items just to give that biome SOMETHING for hardmode. besides enemy grinding.

What about the dungeon though? EZ. You know the jungle key right? Well lets have the dungeon generate with a bunch of jungle doors deeper into the dungeon so part of it is locked off until you can beat plantera. There could also be a harder dungeon slime with jungle keys so you don't have to farm Plantera for more keys. There's a more than a solid chance that the biome chests will generate behind those jungle doors so you you're not just retracing steps.

For the jungle.......it would be really funny if the underground jungle just re-does its worldgen after the mech bosses are defeated, but now with chlorophyte. You gotta start that exploration from scratch, but luckily the temple, surface, and pre-existing mini-biomes will remain unaffected. Idk I don't have any good ideas to make the chlorophyte hunt more interesting.

That aside, I feel a change like this would do wonders for hardmode. There's already a good amount of content mods that implement ideas similar to this. Stuff like Calamity, Spirit, and Shadows of Abaddon feature world gen that only happens/is accessible in hardmode. Other mods have been utilizing subworlds to introduce new areas to explore. A great example of this is The Stars Above which has you visiting other planets. It's a shame that vanilla hardmode Terraria is lacking in terms of this aspect. (Although I do think several mods, including the ones I mentioned, still fall into the trap of removing exploration at certain points of progression.)

Personally, I believe that this fault in hardmode is just a symptom of this game getting so much love, support, and content over the years. Many of the hardmode bosses were once the final boss of the game. I doubt hardmode progression was made with exploration in mind because...well that's where the game ended. Now that we're here though I can't help but notice the issue. I don't think hardmode is necessarily "bad" as it's still plenty of fun, but I undoubtedly enjoy pre-hardmode more than I do hardmode because of this little problem.

#terraria #hardmode #long post #look i make somewhat big posts sometimes but this is ACTUALLY a long post #I'm probably gonna post this on the terraria forums too since it seems a little silly to leave it on my blog #game design

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velphinizen · 1 month ago

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So I was in a particularly masochistic mood and remembered that I have Fire Emblem Fates installed on my PC-uh, I mean my 3DS. So after getting a few cosmetic mods, looking up good banes and boons for Ninja Corrin (the protagonist), then spending thirty minutes trying to stop Ryoma and Xander from crashing the game, I was finally ready to experience the world of Conquest.

Oh, and I chose Hard mode on Classic 'cause I ain't no bitch.

Also, I'll be calling Corrin "Hikari" for the rest of this LP, as that's what I named her and also what's on screen. It's less confusing that way.

With that all out of the way, I present to you:

A Brief LP of Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest

Part 1: Two Chapters in and We're Already Committing War Crimes!

So is this a bad time to mention I've only ever played the first, like, five chapters of Awakening? It was mostly a snooze-fest, even on hard, so maybe this won't immediately kick my face in?

Well, I guess there's only one way to find out...

*Ahem*

Our journey begins in a northern fortress in the northern country of... Nohr...

Please tell me Hoshido isn't Japanese for "South" or some stupid shit like that...

Regardless, Hikari has a weird dream in which she's not a loser from Medieval European Larper Land, but actually a loser from Weeaboo Anime Land.

What a CRAZY, absolutely BONKERS dream.

Anyways, she beats up her brother, Xander, and the other Nohrian siblings pull up for the only familial affection any of them will ever receive.

After all, their mothers are all different women (and dead.) Also, their father is King Garon.

Truth be told, I'm honestly surprised they're THIS well adapted.

*cough* BULLSHIT *cough*

Wait. Are they implying that Nohrian royalty are routinely raised in a fortress in the middle of nowhere—forced to remain behind it's walls with no human connection aside from the butlers, maids, and the rare occasion when one of their siblings stop by?

Because if so, that's fucking awful. Why on earth would Hikari ever side with Nohr?

Wow. That's EXACTLY what they're implying.

But there's no time to dwell on that right now! We have to go see the boss man himself at his...

Big Fuck You Evil Fortress™

Ladies, Theydies, and Gentlemen:

Welcome to the Thunderdome!

We arrive at King Garon's Panoptical Prison of Despair. Here we see the Nohrian siblings inform him that Hikari won a scripted fight against Xander, officially making her ready to leave the ivory tower and join the war effort.

What a loving father.

It's truly heart-warming the way he refers to his children as nothing more than mere weapons to bring ruin upon the lives of innocent civilians.

And as for why we're meeting him in his Panoptical Prison of Despair? Well other than the fact that he practically lives here, he wants to see Hikari demonstrate her newfound abilities on Hoshidan Prisoners of War.

Ah... Classic father/daughter activities!

Don't you just feel your heart melting already?

Nah. That's the Nohrian-ist Norian I've ever seen.

Didn't you know? The best Medieval European larpers have Japanese names.

Oh yeah, and FLAMING RED FUCKING HAIR.

Anyways, what were we doing?

Oh yeah...! Now I remember...!

We're being ordered to execute prisoners via live combat exercise!

Yippee!!!

Oh.

Okay, well... I'll admit that I'm a little bit rusty.

But surely, if I try again, I'll-

Uh oh.

Alright... Fine... Maybe I'll get it next ti-

. . .

I... I just don't get it... The game hasn't even started yet...

Whatever...

It's time for the big attempt 4!

Alright, baby! Fourth times the charm! Let's go!

I've got the enemies right where I want them: being forced, single-file, down two choke points. They're ranged attackers, though, so I just have to make sure Gunter and Felicia don't die and-

FUCK.

. . .

*Sigh...* Okay... Let's take it from the top...

See? That wasn't so hard. I just needed to lock in.

But yeah, we sure massacred those POWs. They're dead for sure!

Or not.

I'll give the game props, though. I think this is the first time I agree with a protagonist calling a previous bout of gameplay tough.

Even if it was the TUTORIAL.

Anyways, what's next?

Oh right! Grampa's off his meds again!

Hikari, being one of two Nohrian royals who aren't in a permeant state of dissociation from all the atrocities they're ordered to commit, refuses to execute the prisoners.

Forcing them to fight and then beating them up is A-Okay, though.

King Garon, upon hearing such a solid moral argument, immediately hits her with an irrefutable counter:

But unfortunately for him...

Hikari is a master debater.

So long story short: Xander sucks up to their mutual abuser like a traumatized child, allowing King Garon to pass the privilege of "on-the-spot executioner" to him.

Hikari obviously tells him to kick rocks. She didn't just block a Garon Blast™ to give up now.

Besides... What's he gonna do? Kil-

. . . !

. . .

Well goddamn...

Idk. Place a few bets, I guess? Your father just casually orchestrated a deathmatch between your brother and sister, so you could at least do SOMETHING.

Gee, you're kind of a dick.

Anyways, Leo summons a tree or something, and it both breaks up the fight and kills the prisoners. Except it didn't. They've only been rendered ""severely weakened"" and I guess King Garon was just too lazy to check. Wow. That's convenient.

Then, once King Garon has settled down for his iconic mid-afternoon nap, Hikari and Xander set the prisoners free:

And by prisoners, I mean the two named ones. Yeah. Those soldiers they were fighting with? Dead. Dead as hell.

"Kind heart" my ass.

And so Chapter two of Fire Emblem Fates is concluded. I have no idea if I'll make more of these, but with how notoriously difficult Conquest is, it's bound to be an interesting playthrough.

#lp #let's play #fire emblem #fire emblem fates #fe14 #fe fates #fates #fire emblem fates conquest #fe conquest #conquest #commentary #plot summary #story summary #gameplay summary #blind playthrough #conquest-hardmode-lp

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