Ideas for new boss-specific drops?

[Souper]

Hello everyone! After playing this game for a long ass time, I've gotten quite bored of going up against bosses for the same drops over and over. I'm a huge fan of unique items, or items that are hard to acquire but provide awesome benefits. I love games like Terraria where you are fighting a specific boss purely for that one item that completes your build until you inevitably farm another boss to fuel your never-ending power trip.

Anyway, as a software engineer by vocation, I've really been interested in a project where I implement boss-themed drops to the game via mods. I know this community isn't particularly fond of mods like this, but I'm sure there will be some who are. My plan is to add vanilla-friendly content that enhances the gameplay for those that are bored in the way that I am. I don't know about you guys, but I think Klei is horrible at designing boss drops, or really just some items in general. I feel like 80% of them don't even get used in an average length playthrough. Personally, I'm really bad at coming up with balanced, lore-friendly ideas, and that's why I'm turning to you guys!

So essentially, what would be a cool item you think a boss should drop?

The items should loosely fit this criteria:

1. Be uniquely obtainable by a specific boss

2. Be somewhat balanced (ideally as balanced as possible)

3. Be somewhat lore-friendly (e.g. Deerclops won't be dropping any nuclear warheads...)

4 (This one is optional). Include a description of the item design and the name, or even an actual design if you have one

5 (Another optional). Ideally, try to incorporate other already existing items that don't get used quite much (e.g. nitre. How can nitre be incorporated with the item you're thinking of in order to make it a more sought after drop?)

That's it! I look forward to hearing your ideas, if any.

[kiwikenobi]

I think vargs should drop lucky whistles, or some similar hound-taming item, since vargs don't drop anything unique at all as they are.

But unless I'm forgetting something, all other bosses already have unique drops, don't they?

[Owlrust]

What about a Bee Queen recipe for a club that uses stingers and deals bleed/poison damage?

[Mike23Ua]

Can I just have them all drop fragments of a relic that has to be assembled and put together to open a door way or portal?

I’m not a fan of items that makes staying alive even easier, but having to beat each boss and then take their dropped “Door Fragment” to unlock a new zone or something.. now THAT I could fully get on board with. 
 
You need every fragment from each boss to complete the relic.

Maybe it unlocks some new game++ Mode.

[Souper]

37 minutes ago, kiwikenobi said:

But unless I'm forgetting something, all other bosses already have unique drops, don't they?

Certainly! I just think most of them are lazily done. Examples of good boss drops are deerclops eyeball, fuelweaver drops, and celestial champion crown. There are more, but there are also a bunch of drops that I think are quite lackluster. It just doesn't make sense to pursue some boss fights when the drops aren't particularly fun or game changing. Like Toadstool napsack for instance. It's virtually useless outside of a few niche gimmicks, and even then it's certainly not worth fighting such an arduous boss for them. Malbatross drops are very lame for such a cool boss. Crab king drops are stupidly useless. You fight an incredibly tedious, difficult boss that ends up dropping a glorified water pickaxe. Antlion drops the most boring stuff in the game, all of which is almost completely useless if you're playing solo.

These are just my personal opinions though.

[jp2k43]

how about a shell species rarely dropped by the crab king capable of summoning rain,could have a name like storm shell or something like that.

illustrative picture

 

[cropo]

Rather than adding new boss drops, ways to alter existing boss drops similar to the suncaller staff becoming the mooncaller staff...like say changing the furnace to a cold version?

Re-implementing the Eyebrella that is held in the hand slot but otherwise functions the same as the hat slot variant? There are a few uses for this like being able to equip a tam-o-shanter in spring.

Giving Misery Toadstool a ''super'' mushroom hat variant that functions the same as the hunger-reducing ones, but doesn't rot food in your inventory at a faster rate.

Giving Varg an item similar to the Spider helmet the Spider queen drops. Extremely low durability, lowers sanity, makes wolves non-hostile. Even if you use this to bypass hound waves it would be dangerous to have them wandering off and killing things at random, especially fire hounds.

Making the Steel Wool from Ewecus able to be combined with the Pig Backpack to remove it's movement penalties making it a more realistic upgrade on the path to the Krampus Sack.

Giving Antlion a special desert gem that can be affixed to the telelocator focus, allowing this gem to be refueled with Nightmare fuel(the player would have to kill Antlion 3 times, and then fuel each one with nightmare fuel to cover all 3 slots) instead of outright destroying it like a purple gem. Allow the gem to also be combined with a Lazy Forager to turn it into a refuelable version like the Magiluminessence(it should be refuelable anyway).

Allow the Enlightened Crown to be dismantled and re-created into a hand-slot item enlightened torch, which functions the same but it takes the hand slot instead.

Give Crab King an altar that must be carried on the back like chess pieces. This altar can be slotted with gems for various buffs depending on what gems are used, eventually running out and consuming the gems. The player would have to actually carry the thing wherever they want and spend a wealth of gems on it, but the effects can give to buff the player might be worth the extra effort. Can be destroyed by giants.

 

Let the guardian horn be combined with a Pick/Axe and one of every rare gem to turn it into a refuelable pick/axe. The Moon Axe already surpasses it in spades for trees in terms of cost and efficiency which effectively makes it a ''slightly better pickaxe for an absurd price hike''. Letting the player neglect making their first Shootious for a refuelable ''better pickaxe'' would give a more significant choice before their first Fuelweaver kill.

[Cheggf]

5 hours ago, kiwikenobi said:

I think vargs should drop lucky whistles, or some similar hound-taming item, since vargs don't drop anything unique at all as they are.

But unless I'm forgetting something, all other bosses already have unique drops, don't they?

Treeguards are on the same level as vargs and they do not have a unique drop. Living logs are obtained from totally normal trees, those silly little mushroom cowards who I forget the name of, Wormwood, poison birchnuts, and maybe more I'm not remembering.

4 hours ago, Souper said:

It just doesn't make sense to pursue some boss fights when the drops aren't particularly fun or game changing. Like Toadstool napsack for instance. It's virtually useless outside of a few niche gimmicks, and even then it's certainly not worth fighting such an arduous boss for them.

You pursue the Toadstool fight for the fun of the fight, not the fun of the drop.

6 hours ago, Souper said:

1. Be uniquely obtainable by a specific boss

2. Be somewhat balanced (ideally as balanced as possible)

3. Be somewhat lore-friendly (e.g. Deerclops won't be dropping any nuclear warheads...)

4 (This one is optional). Include a description of the item design and the name, or even an actual design if you have one

Maybe it's just because I like Shipwrecked and that has a lot of reskins in it, but I think malbatross feathers being able to make a blue luxury fan would be cool.

[kiwikenobi]

@Cheggf I forgot about the many sources of living logs. ^o^;>

 

@Souper Ah, I didn't understand your original idea, that makes sense. I still think vargs could use a unique drop. And I like cropo's ideas about being able to upgrade the boss-material craftables into more useful forms.

[Souper]

7 hours ago, Cheggf said:

You pursue the Toadstool fight for the fun of the fight, not the fun of the drop.

And you're rewarded with lackluster stuff. I think that is poor game design. That's just my opinion of course, but almost every well-received game rewards you handsomely for challenging boss fights.

9 hours ago, cropo said:

Rather than adding new boss drops, ways to alter existing boss drops similar to the suncaller staff becoming the mooncaller staff...like say changing the furnace to a cold version?

Re-implementing the Eyebrella that is held in the hand slot but otherwise functions the same as the hat slot variant? There are a few uses for this like being able to equip a tam-o-shanter in spring.

Giving Misery Toadstool a ''super'' mushroom hat variant that functions the same as the hunger-reducing ones, but doesn't rot food in your inventory at a faster rate.

Giving Varg an item similar to the Spider helmet the Spider queen drops. Extremely low durability, lowers sanity, makes wolves non-hostile. Even if you use this to bypass hound waves it would be dangerous to have them wandering off and killing things at random, especially fire hounds.

Making the Steel Wool from Ewecus able to be combined with the Pig Backpack to remove it's movement penalties making it a more realistic upgrade on the path to the Krampus Sack.

Giving Antlion a special desert gem that can be affixed to the telelocator focus, allowing this gem to be refueled with Nightmare fuel(the player would have to kill Antlion 3 times, and then fuel each one with nightmare fuel to cover all 3 slots) instead of outright destroying it like a purple gem. Allow the gem to also be combined with a Lazy Forager to turn it into a refuelable version like the Magiluminessence(it should be refuelable anyway).

Allow the Enlightened Crown to be dismantled and re-created into a hand-slot item enlightened torch, which functions the same but it takes the hand slot instead.

Give Crab King an altar that must be carried on the back like chess pieces. This altar can be slotted with gems for various buffs depending on what gems are used, eventually running out and consuming the gems. The player would have to actually carry the thing wherever they want and spend a wealth of gems on it, but the effects can give to buff the player might be worth the extra effort. Can be destroyed by giants.

 

Let the guardian horn be combined with a Pick/Axe and one of every rare gem to turn it into a refuelable pick/axe. The Moon Axe already surpasses it in spades for trees in terms of cost and efficiency which effectively makes it a ''slightly better pickaxe for an absurd price hike''. Letting the player neglect making their first Shootious for a refuelable ''better pickaxe'' would give a more significant choice before their first Fuelweaver kill.

I really like all of these ideas!