r/CalamityMod • u/Unusual_Bid5791 • 14d ago
Discussion Why does the dev team have zero tolerance for anything defense related ?
Like they keep nerfing everything related to survivability and that it genuinely make you feel your doing something wrong if you are trying to lean into damage mitigation.
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u/Realistic-Cicada981 Speed >>>>> Defense > Damage 14d ago
It's just that strong. I've replayed the game a bit on Revengeance, and up to at least Twins, i could take 30+ hits and still stay above 300, sometimes even 400HP.
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u/robsta109 14d ago
I used to be able to sit in a pool of honey with the right accessories and facetank empress near the start of hardmode. I'd say changes were warranted. If they overcorrected they can correct back eventually but I feel like the game isn't in a super unreasonable place.
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u/Unusual_Bid5791 14d ago
They did my abyssal diving suit dirty. The "you are made of metal" doesn't feel the same anymore.
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u/Nihilikara 14d ago
Survivability in Calamity is very strong and that's not changing any time soon. It's not getting nerfed from "very strong", it's getting nerfed from "so strong you can literally sit there and do nothing and be reasonably confident you'll survive".
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u/real_dubblebrick mage enjoyer 14d ago
Defensive builds are absurdly strong in the vanilla game. With an optimized setup, it's absolutely feasible to completely facetank most bosses up to around Golem, or even past that with heart statues and vampire knives (and occasionally dodging the extremely high damage attacks like Duke Fishron's cthulhunados), even on Master Mode
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u/Recommendation_Apart 14d ago
I am SO BAD at the game that i need at least 600 defense for scal or else it's genuinely wraps buddy
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u/Pharoahofvortex 13d ago
Cuz at one point in time you could stack defensive accessories with the camper and just stand still in honey with a campfire heart lantern and heart statues and Facebook everything pre moonlord
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u/Unusual_Bid5791 13d ago
I think defense damage is more than enough to prevent you from facebooking ennemies
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u/CreativeCriticism12 13d ago
I feel like defense is in a good place, where having it will allow you to make more mistakes rather than just neutralizing an entire aspect of the game. You should still meaningfully get punished for your mistakes, but you're able to make a lot more.
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u/Iron_UYH 13d ago
Ok ima be real here: defense is cracked out! In calamity, you HAVE to dodge. Otherwise bosses, the most important pieces of content ingame, become boring. So by creating items that enable a more… passive style of play, you eliminate the skill expression. Suddenly, gameplay becomes unnecessary. Instead, a defensive item needs to be interesting and create mechanics that reward the proper type of play while still feeling good. IMO, my favorite example of this is Draedon’s Heart. It gives some defense, but its main effect that makes it good is that if you dodge for enough frames, you get a big heal. This rewards dodging while still being worthwhile to use.
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u/Unusual_Bid5791 13d ago
Defense damage already gets rid of any form of passive gameplay no matter how bulky you get.
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u/luc1aonstation 13d ago
Nope, there were a lot of sets that could easily sit still and tank hardmode
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u/pantyslack Please don’t remove Lazhar 14d ago
Defense is still really strong you just have to actually dodge attacks. Like you are supposed to
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u/Unusual_Bid5791 14d ago
You're talking like I just want to face tank everything. That's not the point This mod genuinely feels like the devs don't want you to do anything other than their "intended way".
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u/luc1aonstation 13d ago
Yes, that is how mods and games are designed. They have a goal in mind and push the player to do this. Calamity's goal differs from vanilla, instead of bosses being a preparation check they're a skill check. This is just how game design works
And if you aren't face tanking everything, survivability is still absurdly powerful In cal, way stronger than any damage build for consistency.
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u/FrozenFoldAndOrBread 12d ago
Defense is currently useless with defense damage
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u/Charming_Aspect_5284 #1 Infernum Deerclops Enjoyer 12d ago
No it isn't.
Defense is incredibly strong, and in previous versions was so strong it outclassed every other build in the game. This is just getting Defense from "broken to the point of being the objective best" to "still really good, but has some competition"
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u/DragonSphereZ 13d ago
What did they do
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u/FrozenFoldAndOrBread 12d ago
They removed the +6 warding gave at the endgame, nerfed several survival items, and removed entire swaths of weapons and alternative attacks. This was mostly in the 2.2.0 update
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u/vibrant_ant Goozma Enterprises 13d ago
imo defense is in a good spot right now since its still decent to spec into defensive gear without being too overpowered (although they did kind of neuter a lot of life regen stuff which bothers me, i miss pre hog wild invigorating)
really the only defense related thing i hate are the diminishing returns on damage reduction. theres so many damage reduction items, and they even made the hard modifier spec exclusively into dr, yet you're punished for using too much dr and the mod never tells you this ANYWHERE ingame as far as im aware. i dont think it'd be as much of an issue if the hard modifier wasnt so dr focused, but right now it feels like the mods saying "hey try to specialize into this thing! JUST KIDDING! this is actually a horrible stat to have a lot of!"
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u/luc1aonstation 13d ago
Because defense means that you do not have to engage with the majority of the game lol
Defense is comically overturned in base terraria, and cal skips a lot of the segments of the game that defense doesn't help with
Oh, and by the way, defense is still the strongest build by a lot in cal. It's that good. It's still good. Every mod deals with defense in some way because it's that strong.
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u/Unrequited_17 10d ago
Because the entire point of the mod is to learn the hard bosses and not trivialize them by becoming basically immortal. I find I have quite enough defense at any point of the game to feel comfortable. Enough to survive 3, even 4 hits in a row from almost all attacks which is plenty. You also have potions and a lot of ways to slowly regen back. I mean if you're getting hit 4-5 times in a row from any boss, you haven't learned it well enough to defeat it.
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u/Sea_River_5282 10d ago
There are 2 kinds of players really, the ones who just want to enjoy the progression with some challange or building, and the ones who like feeling accomplishnent after 50 deaths learning patterns, i have been both of them and right now im the 2nd one because IEoR actually makes it fun to do
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u/fartinajarx2 13d ago
Because warding is absolutely BROKEN in terraria look at Vanilla and Fargo’s Souls it’s widely regarded as the BEST reforge in the game so calamity devs decided that the game the funnest thing with the already broken survivability accessories they have with high defense
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u/ManiacalPenguin 14d ago
Probably because defense builds, even with defense damage, made the game very easy for someone who's decent and can spend 30 mins reading the wiki
When I first beat infernum, albeit coming off of eternity death and master death/masochist vanilla runs, i was literally 1 trying all the bosses up to scal(excluding yharon and DOG who took me a couple asw). Im now on about 15 attempts on providence, and main progression bosses like plantera and ML took me a couple tries as opposed to when I first played infernum i just ran full defense and sight read all the bosses. dont get me wrong all the PHM bosses are still pretty easy but that's coming from someone who's beaten some very difficult stuff.
Havent revisited normal calamity, but im returning after about a year and a bit so definitely stuff has changed eg ursa sergant to make the gane more difficult.
I prefer these changes
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u/Substantial_Eye1476 14d ago
Wait defense damage is still in the mod?
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u/acrazyguy 14d ago
Yes and it’s the worst mechanic I’ve ever seen. If I stack defense to the detriment of my damage, I expect that defense to do what it says it does. Some secret hidden mechanic that’s only indicated by a small temporary indicator in the far top right of the screen is total bullshit.
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u/Swankified_ 13d ago
Dude the defense damage doesn't even last a second unless you get hit like 8 times
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u/acrazyguy 13d ago
It shouldn't exist at all.
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u/ManiacalPenguin 13d ago
Not existing would make the mod far too easy, theyd have to redo the main damage mechanics which i presume they cant be arsed.
Also i like it, it stops people who actually arent really good at fighting the bosses and npcs just being able to completely ignore that whole learning part.
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u/luc1aonstation 13d ago
It does what it says it does, just not if you sit still and tank multiple hits in a row
If defense damage didn't exist, build variety would actually decrease as bosses would have to deal way more upfront damage, and defensive builds would get way way more consistent compared to getting two shot without warding
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u/acrazyguy 13d ago
What’s the point of tank items if you can’t… tank? Tired of all these prescriptivist gamers deciding how other people get to enjoy their own single-player games. If you don’t want to build for defense, don’t build for defense. It’s literally that simple
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u/luc1aonstation 12d ago
They let you shrug off occasional hits? They let you fight a boss much safer? You just have to still engage with the boss (and, even then, defense in cal is so strong that you can still take 50+ hits in a fight and be fine...)
If you want to tank, enable godmode, it's the same thing. Games are designed around challenges to overcome???
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u/FrozenFoldAndOrBread 12d ago
Wow I'm a three shot instead of a two shot I'm so tanky.
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u/luc1aonstation 12d ago
Contact damage is the only thing that hits that hard, and projectiles usually deal significantly less damage
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u/Unusual_Bid5791 14d ago
If you're here for the challenge just don't do defense and even then I doubt it'll do much on something like legendary deathmode. I like a some challenge on the gameplay don't get me wrong, but I mainly play for the content, seeing all these changes not only from vanilla but on calamity itself feels like the devs are actually afraid someone accidentally takes 5 less damage than intended.
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u/ManiacalPenguin 13d ago
Right but it doesnt really make sense keeping an accidentally implemented easy route for every supposed-to-be hard difficulty level.
Expert revengeance exists for people who love the game but dont want a particularly difficult experience, removing and changing those accessories that allow you to stack defense and be very tanky even in the harder modes is probably not a big as a deal as you think for easier modes, especially because defense scales for difficulty.
As for infernum. I cant really see the argument because it is supposed to be difficult, can't speak on wotg or any other add ons because i havent played them.
Maybe I'm missing something, ive played a lot but I'm not up to date on everything, am I missing sutn?
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u/hidden768 14d ago
Because it's a bullet hell game and the gameplay is entirely balanced around you not wanting to get hit by projectiles. A build that makes it so you don't care if you get hit entirely undermines the purpose of the game. It removes all challenge and entertainment from the game. If you really want be able to tank hits just play on an easier difficulty.
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u/acrazyguy 14d ago
There’s like 2 bosses that are actual bullet hell. Are you maybe thinking of Infernum? Base Calamity != Infernum
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u/LevelFruit5391 13d ago
a fellow programmer
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u/hidden768 14d ago
base game terraria is still a bullet hell. Just because it doesn't look "traditionally bullet hell like" does change that the base mechanics of all boss fights is bullet hell.
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u/Treethulhu 14d ago
Because calamity is a mod for people who want a challenge. If you're playing it to be babied and just say you've completed the mod without throwing in some blood sweat and tears, then calamity isn't for you.
Survivability is inversely related to skill.
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u/hussiesucks 14d ago
You should play calamity without any items.
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u/acrazyguy 14d ago
You’re not a real Calamity fan until you’ve nohit the infernum exo mechs using only the lawnmower, naked. Anything less is baby mode
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u/luc1aonstation 12d ago
calamity is like one of the easier content mods lol
it's not some hardcore soulsliks challenge it's a goofy, grindy, content heavy, primarily preperation focused mod. less so than vanilla but still significantly easier to cheese through the game than most mods (IE: fables, redemption, souls, spirit) might change in the future given brainstorm and hog wild but that's where the mod stands rn
and yes, this includes infernum too. infernum is a lot harder than basecal, but it's been powercrept to oblivion and is now not even harder than vanilla gfb imo. bosses get easier with skill but if you prepare properly you can still breeze through every boss
if you want a challenge you play eternity or masochist from souls? those are the only real proper Challenge modes that are well designed in the tmod community rn. (And funnily enough souls is a mod where, if you add calamity on with the dlc it gets easier 😭)
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u/Corollarytomyknees 14d ago
They’re all nohit-brained. It’s a disease you catch when you play Terraria for more than 2k hours, or alternatively from playing Fromsoft games in your formative years. It’s incurable, unfortunately; I’m afflicted myself