Suggestion about Pearl's house upgrade cost

[Pig Princess]

I was among people who advocated for revisit of cacti flowers as a requirement of house upgrade, and now it was finally addressed. However, I have some issues with new recipe and would like to suggest another variant (as someone who did whole CC quest line a lot, including rushing moonstorms, on default settings and in lights out/taste of terraria presets/etc.).

First of all, mechanically it's good that one now can do crab king before summer (and there is no season lock anymore in general, I'm looking forward for fighting Crab king in spring and doing archives in summer). But cacti flowers fit nicely as rare and expensive ingredient, and now I have mixed feelings about them no longer being used. There was a suggestion in one of the threads to make growth formula force cacti blooming, which would solve problem of season lock, and cacti flowers as ingredient would remain rare and expensive (even more expensive in case forced blooming), and I quite liked that. Cacti flowers could have a limit per plant of how much times they can be forced to bloom (at all or per natural cycle, i.e. between summers), so flower salad wouldn't be too cheap compared to alternatives and mass-production of it would be still tied to summer. Cacti flowers could revert to their not blooming state after short period of time if not picked and require some time to enter blooming state, so one couldn't bypass low spoilage time of both cacti flowers and flower salad (in fact, this would encourage precise time managment). Cacti plants could require certain amount of growth formula power applied to start blooming, so one would either have to find enough bottles, or weave time growth formula needs to completely spoil into one's shedule. Another solution would be another source of cacti flowers that is not season locked (something like unique fish in specific ocean biome, mob that is hard to kill, reward after trading with old/new traders could all fullfill that purpose).

Another flower-like ingredient that is relatively hard to get could fullfill purpose that cacti flowers served (both in terms of mechanic and being in consistency with aesthetics of the house): evil flowers, lunar tree blossom, forget me lots, ferns, alive butterflies/moon moths (butterfies are flying flowers after all, and moon moth is it's lunar variant). My personal favourite are evil flowers, because they are rare to find naturally, yet player has multiple unique ways of obtaining dark petals if all natural evil flowers are picked: deconstruct nightmare fuel (CC rushers will have deconstruction staff anyway), die and haunt flowers/petals, + there are tumbleweeds even if world is plucked clean. Combination of mentioned things could work too: if evil flowers are too dark to fit Pearl's theme, then it could be both evil flowers and lunar tree blossom that are required, so they sort of balance each other from lore viewpoint.

Second of all, other ingredients in new recipe. I take it that intention was to include as much different materials from all over the Constant as possible in order to make player explore a lot and do different things, but only some of new materials fullfill this purpose.

1. Fireflies are good addition, because it encourages to explore at night decidious biome, moonstone forest, waterlogged, oasis desert (oasis lake, even though it's relevant only after/during summer), to lesser extent mosaic near rocky den and some grassland-containing biomes. Firefies also fit from the lore/aesthetic viewpoint, because Pearl's house starts to emit light after player upgrades it to 1st stage.

2. Cookie cutter shells, boards, marble remained the same, not much to say here. Rope requirement was reduced and moonrock increased, and even though it doesn't impact house upgrades cost much, I prefer old requirements (10 rope, 5 moonrock), because I could get enough moonrocks from moonbase set piece and occasional meteors from meteor field in mosaic, all before finding lunar island, doing archives or moonstone event. I had to return to Pearl's island because of cacti flowers, and at that point I already had moonrock from moonstone event and archives, but since Pearl's pearl is longer going to be locked behind summer, I wish I could do all quests before archives. If not, that's also fine, I guess I could deconstruct turf for 4 more moonrocks since I typically have 80% deconstruction staff anyway, and hope I can find 1 extra moonrock, or trust my ability to quickly find lunar island a bit more (with little map explored) before astral detector is available.

3. Cut stones are definitely out of place. Mechanically they add nothing and don't encourage player to do anything extra (like exploring mainland to find marble, picking cacti flowers, catching firefly, exploring ocean for salt formations, etc.) since player can just pick a few extra rocks in mosaic (player will visit and mine it anyway), hammer 2 more pig houses or pick some rocks during ruins rush from earthquakes/destroyed relics. Moreover, since there are already marble and moonrocks in house upgrade, cut stones are not needed from lore and immersion viewpoint either. They are there just because, and bloat recipe. I wish entities weren't multiplied beyond necessity.

4. Carpet. I like this addition: it can be dug in the world along with mining marble, it can be crafted with beefalo wool from beefalos, and even if there are troubles with beefalos, other sources of beefalo whool exist. I wish it was 4 pieces of carpet though, or 8 at that point, because I have nothing to do with these extra 3 in case I chose to craft it. It would also make more sence to move carpet requirement from tier 3 to tier 2 upgrade (carpet feels more substantial than some extra flowers and moonrock for decoration (old recipe)), but that's not a big deal, at least for me.

5. Lightbulbs are completely out of place, much like cut stones, but worse. Mechanically they add nothing extra, since 3 lightbulbs can be easily picked right near cave exit and player gets them along the way anyway (to upgrade from torch to lantern, to refill miner's hat). Even if house upgrade required 3 stacks instead of 3 lightbulbs, it would archieve nothing more than performing picking animation more times, as well as requirement to find muddy biome for those who don't do it anyway. At that point even lesser glow berry would make more sence for intent behind upgrade cost to be more clear (exploring caves), but still would make no sence from lore/aesthetic viewpoint. Plus there are also people who don't have caves enabled and do quests for fishing gear and such; since devs went as far as making sure caveless worlds have ways of obtaining lanterns and renewable fuel for lanters/miner hats (fireflies that respawn in waterlogged), it would be consistent to replace lightbulb with material that both add something meaningful in usual loop of doing these quests and doesn't make upgrate cost impossible/too grindy to match. Or outright remove the idea of lightbulb in upgrades, it doesn't have a place from lore perspective and just bloats recipe anyway.

With this explained, I would like to propose recipe that I see most fitting:

1st stage - 10 cookie cutter shells, 10 boards, 1 firefly;

2nd stage - 10 marble, 10 rope, (10-20 glass shards*, since house has windows after all);

3rd stage - 5 moonrocks, 8 evil petals, 8 lunar tree blossom.

* 10+ glass shards would ensure one can't upgrade house with glass shards from Pearl's island itself, and would require to either find lunar island first, or to visit grotto.

Alternative: keep old recipe + firelies, but add ability to make cacti blooming outside of summer with proposed restrictions.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i just want to point that flower salad still give friendship plus periodics bundles of thanks so they are still used

[Pig Princess]

31 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i just want to point that flower salad still give friendship plus periodics bundles of thanks so they are still used

I didn't mean that cacti flowers are useless, I use them myself in the form of flower salad for boss fights where I need healing (for Fuelweaver, for example) and for looting and destroying everything on monkey island; on public servers floral shirt is still valuable to me in the absence of eyebrella (+ during non-default settings gameplay). This post had another purpose.

But since we are discussing rare plants and crock pot dishes, it would be cool if one could give soothing tea to Pearl to get another friendship point/bundle of thanks (she even has bees on her island, maybe she can and would like to drink it after all).

[dois raios]

I respect your opinion doenst matter what it is, but i aint reading all this text ;-;

Btw I liked the new upgrade costs for crab's house. Seems reasonable.

[Wonz]

I hate speedrunning but I'm happy for speedrunners  not being stopped by season lock when it comes to fighting the "final boss" so the possible records don't have to be artificialy locked in summer.  

Those who don't like the change can still wait to summer if they want and just get flowers and drop them on the ground next to house for similiar experience it was before change. I have feeling they just don't like others being happy about not having to wait so long.

That's very good change klei thanks a lot for being thoughtful.