Beta Improvements Suggestions

[Pticman]

The idea of this update is very interesting. This is a late game content that should set new challenging tasks for the player, affecting the whole world as a whole and adding new rewards for overcoming them. However, at the moment there are a number of problems that do not allow this idea to come true.
I have divided the problems into two categories > the nature of the portal and new equipment.

A) The nature of the portal

The portal represents the invasion of the forces of the moon into the constant. The nature and goals of the portal are not completely clear, but one thing is for sure > the world is changing and the player will have to adapt to new conditions.

The portal presents two main threats to the player :

a) When growing, the portal destroys natural structures
b) Invasive plants begin to gradually take over crops, spreading over considerable distances from the portal itself.

Since at the moment the portal cannot be closed or disabled, its nature can be compared with seasonal natural phenomena: cold in winter, rains and lightning in spring, heat and fires in summer.
The player cannot turn them off, but can prepare for them by overcoming game challenges. At the same time, he has control over the situation, knowledge of game mechanics ensures survival. In winter - a thermal stone, in spring - an umbrella and a lightning rod, and so on.

Since the portal changes the world completely, representing an additional game challenge, the player must have the ways to control it.
Let 's return now to the threats from the portal >
 

1) The portal should not be able to summon next to the player's buildings. Do not forget that this content is intended for late game. The late game is a sandbox consisting mainly of the construction of the base and its decor.  In case if the portal can be summoned next to the buildings, there should be ways either for
a) closing it, or
b) control of the spawn point, otherwise the gameplay component of the sandbox is destroyed.

Another possible solution may be that after killing the lunar champion, only a certain number of portals (2/3) will be called up, then you need to re-kill the champion for their appearance. But then the concept of the portal as a constant change in the world disappears.

2) New plants
Firstly, the mechanics of spawning new plants are unclear. Sometimes they spawn in large numbers, sometimes in small ones, sometimes they settle next to the portal, sometimes they ignore the plants next to the portal and settle far beyond it.
In addition, there are no effective means of combating them. A large amount of health + more damage than bosses. The process of their destruction takes a lot of time + their number is constantly updated.

The game turns into a gardener's simulator, where you are constantly trying to uproot a weed.
How to solve this problem?
1) Plants should infect crops close to the portal, without spreading over a very long distance. So the player will have time to solve the local problem until the situation on the map gets out of control.
2) A significant reduction in plant health, possibly damage. I would suggest reducing the health of the plant itself and its root by half (1000>500, 200>100)
3) There should be the maximum possible number of plants on the map, depending on the number of players on the map and/or settings.

In addition, the resources received from the portal are unbalanced. Briliances are fairly easy to get, while killing a complex mob gives only 1 brightshade. I would improve the drop count to 2.5

B) New gear
Now I want to move on to a smaller problem, but nevertheless also important - new equipment. It's no secret that it still requires improvements, especially because it is represented al late game content. Here are my suggestions >

a) New armor
I believe that not every armor should have super high protection rates, even in late games. We already have tulecite armor, night armor, marble armor, which perform the role of high protection against simple mobs.
However, I would like this armor to reveal its strengths better, namely protection from moon creatures /penetrating damage, as well as increased damage to shadow creatures.
My Changes :
-one set of armor protects by 10% against moon creatures, two sets by 30% (25% now)
-one set gives 10 protection against planar damage,  two sets 30 (20 now)
-one set gives +10% damage to shadow creatures, two sets +30% (10% now)

This change will increase armor protection against moon creatures and significantly increase damage to shadow creatures.

b) The Staff

The staff is completely unplayable at the moment. Low damage per second, low durability, expensive crafting. The total damage of the staff is 500 units (!), which makes you smile.

My Changes :
-increase damage from 10 to 20
-increase durability  from 50 to 100
-each use of the staff restores 1.3 sanity

This change will allow the staff to unfold its potential in combination with the crown of enlightenment. Using a staff with a crown will not lower the character's sanity, allowing 62.5 damage to ordinary mobs and 82.5 to shadow mobs. In total, the staff can deal 6250 damage from a distance. However, the player still has to monitor the level of sanity for the effectiveness of the staff against mobs with a high aura of insanity.

3) The Sword

In general, the sword performs its function. Has the same damage as the shadow sword, doubled durability, does not lower the sanity, has a bonus against shadow creatures. Can be prototyped now which is huge.
And of course planar damage, which in theory should be effective against creatures with armor.. only it doesn't work.
I would like the planar damage to ignore any armor in the game, so it will increase the functionality of the sword overall.

4) Bombs

The only equipment I wouldn't upgrade. They are good in the state they are in now

5) New pickaxe/axe and shovel.

The new pickaxe is just a reprint of a pickaxe/axe, and although I have nothing against two similar tools with different crafting so that players have different opportunities to get resources, it's a bit strange for a late-game content tool. If it was a pickaxe/hammer.. it would be much better.

The purpose of the shovel on the other hand is completely unclear. There are so many things you can think of. Digging up the non-diggable (perhaps too much for one tool) or simply speeding up the digging process. At the moment, transplanting a grass farm from one place to another takes a lot of time, the animation of the shovel takes forever. Speeding up the animation or being able to dig up plants in a small radius would solve this problem.

Thank you for reading this post, it turned out to be longer than I thought, but I tried to convey all my impressions from the beta.

[Electroely]

I believe the Brightshades will always seek out the largest clusters of agricultural plants they can find. At least, those are my observations from a couple hundred days of these things invading my base and obsessively using the console to make sure no strays spawned where I wasn't looking. I'm personally a fan of this approach - I've had none of these plants appear anywhere but in my gardens, and that made the collection of Brightshade Husks much easier.

I definitely agree with a large health reduction - I've implemented a 50% health reduction through a mod on my own world, and I've been having a blast with it. I think 50% might be too strong of a reduction... but I believe that if their health were to be reduced it should definitely be in the range for a player to kill the plant after only killing the vine once, if they are using the Brightshade Sword. With some experimentation, I found that 700 health for the main plant and 150 for its vine make for a good difficulty without introducing too much tedium.

I'm actually a fan of the Brightshade Pickaxe as a surface alternative to the Pick/Axe - the Brightshade Husks are almost directly delivered to you and the others are obtainable from mining the Pure Brilliance at the marked map location. I think this approach of alternatives to existing gear can work if the obtaining method is good - and I believe the main issue with the obtaining method is how tedious the Brightshades are to kill every time. The Brightshade Bombs are a good utility item outside combat with more Brightshades. I've used them to clear out a large number of Powder Monkeys trying to get at an unreachable banana and to destroy a large amount of giant crops that I didn't have time to manually break, due to spoilage. A throwable 200-damage explosive has just the right amount of niche uses that I really hope they don't change these in the future.

Some of the items are definitely never worth crafting, though... A substitute to the Regal Shovel doesn't work because it's really easy to obtain golden tools late-game. The pickaxe has the advantage of mining faster (which has been made a requirement for 2 mineable objects recently introduced), so I think the shovel should have something to match. One idea I've seen on these forums that I'm fond of is changing the Pickaxe to be a Pickaxe + Hammer, and changing the Shovel to be an Axe + Shovel. Those pairings of tools work well for raiding the Ruins and collecting logs, respectively, and it would make both items worth crafting provided the axe is faster at chopping than regular axes.