Master mode is terrible. [SPOILERS]

[Fox]

Disclaimer: if you're easily triggered by people criticizing your favorite game then I suggest you leave now, you have been warned. And before some super genius with an anime pfp shows up, no, this isn't a troll post, keep the "good bait" to yourselves.

So as we all know, master mode was introduced in journey's end, it provides a greater challenge for the more experienced players. However this is where problems show up, it's not rewarding at all for how difficult it is.

Look at expert mode, everyone who plays expert mode loves it because it introduces new and extremely valuable loot from bosses, but what about master mode? Pets and relics from bosses, that's it, no new weapon, no nothing. So, now you might say "but it increases the droprate of certain items", it does, but it's really not that good, or good enough.

I absolutely destroyed master mode because I'm quite experienced with how you should prepare before doing certain things, however it still required a lot of effort, what do I get for it? A relic and a pet lmfao.

They sure nailed the golf but master mode is the absolute opposite, master mode is obnoxious, annoying, and that's it, it's not FUN.

Terraria is a great game because it's rewarding, and they added a mode that is the complete opposite of that.

Before you start getting triggered and attempt to prove me wrong, no, neither the relics or the pets provide any boosts. Now, don't get me wrong, pets aren't bad by themselves, and the relics aren't bad by themselves either (you can still sell them) but the fact it's locked behind master mode makes them bad, the effort isn't worth it at all.

[Fox]

Messaggio originale di Actual Cancer:

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

You wrote that in a very matter of fact manner, and didn't say it was your opinion, should probably specify that.

My points still stand, by the way. If Master Mode and Expert Mode are the same difficulty (your words), then why should Master Mode offer better rewards? Plus, anzaman's right. The game already has several broken OP weapons that just melt absolutely everything. What more could you possibly want?

They advertised master mode as a challenging experience for more experienced players, and it wasn't any more challenging in my experience.

[Blank]

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

Messaggio originale di Actual Cancer:

My points still stand, by the way. If Master Mode and Expert Mode are the same difficulty (your words), then why should Master Mode offer better rewards? Plus, anzaman's right. The game already has several broken OP weapons that just melt absolutely everything. What more could you possibly want?

They advertised master mode as a challenging experience for more experienced players, and it wasn't any more challenging in my experience.

I see you're not interested in having a productive conversation and instead elect to be disingenuous, as that's the second time you've dodged those questions. Thanks for your time.

[Anzaman]

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

Messaggio originale di Izzy:

Expert is too easy compared to master mode. Even if its just damage and HP, its still way more fun than expert. Expert's only "challenge" was new boss attacks, but master mode combines them with damage and hp increase, also rewarding with cool mounts, pets, relics, and even increased drop rates.

"Cool mounts, pets, relics" speak for yourself lmao.

I mean, the Black Spot is Master Mode -drop, and is basically best mount in the game. So it is pretty cool and rewarding. Also, I enjoyed collecting the pets from bosses, but then again - I'm collector -type of player.

[Fox]

Messaggio originale di Actual Cancer:

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

They advertised master mode as a challenging experience for more experienced players, and it wasn't any more challenging in my experience.

I see you're not interested in having a productive conversation and instead elect to be disingenuous, as that's the second time you've dodged those questions. Thanks for your time.

I'm trying to answer many posts, bear with me, common sense to be patient in these types of discussions, you're not the center of attention here.

[Izzy]

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

Messaggio originale di Izzy:

I do, because that was my opinion lol

You wrote that in a very matter of fact manner, and didn't say it was your opinion, should probably specify that.

Wow, people have opinions. You didn't know that? You look a bit stupid, ngl

[Noel]

Messaggio originale di Anzaman:

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

"Cool mounts, pets, relics" speak for yourself lmao.

I mean, the Black Spot is Master Mode -drop, and is basically best mount in the game. So it is pretty cool and rewarding. Also, I enjoyed collecting the pets from bosses, but then again - I'm collector -type of player.

I personally love the new collectibles in master mode, but an entire new mode of just collectibles? At least expert had that and more.

[Fox]

Messaggio originale di Izzy:

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

You wrote that in a very matter of fact manner, and didn't say it was your opinion, should probably specify that.

Wow, people have opinions. You didn't know that? You look a bit stupid, ngl

Did you read what I said? "You wrote that in a very matter of fact manner" by that I mean you wrote that as if everyone should think that, come on, let's not resort to name calling, that doesn't make you any more correct.

[Fox]

Messaggio originale di Anzaman:

I'm just a bit confused about your conflicting messages.

In OP you basically complain that Master Mode isn't rewarding enough for how difficult challenge it is for player. But then you say that..

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

Yeah that's kinda counter intuitive to be honest, I betcha master would still be easy without that additional slot, they defeated the purpose of master mode with that slot.

But like you said - adding new accessory slot was counter-intuitive to the challenge and apparently defeated the purpose. So like what - they should have somehow added proper, rewarding drops to the game - "Pets and relics from bosses, that's it, no new weapon, no nothing."

Adding more powerful equipment, like the weapon, would have defeated the purpose of challenge even easier. They intentionally chose to give us relics and pets as rewards since they don't power-up our characters.

Master Mode bosses deal way more damage over Experts values It's extremely punishing if you f' up and get hit by their attacks. Get hit by Moon Lords beam of death, and you basically have no way of recovering from that.

That's why it's basically challenge run on top of Expert, they are testing if you know the fights. The additional accessory slot is there to be your personal "helper". Nobody is forcing you to use it if you don't want to for added difficulty.

Just because I agree with someone on something else doesn't invalidate my point, but okay.

An accessory slot you didn't earn isn't satisfying, even more so if it makes the mode you play in easier. When you get that sweet sweet demon heart from WoF, you're really happy right? It's an additional accessory slot, you should be. However if they give you an additional accessory slot from the beginning it makes the reward look worse because it matters less, even more so if the accessory slot isn't needed AT ALL from the beginning and only makes the difficulty more streamlined.

I'm not asking for overpowered rewards or anything, but actually useful rewards, I don't care about a trophy or pet, give me something worth my while, anything, reward = useful item and not reward = powerful item. Example of that is the slime mount from KS, it's extremely useful in niche situations, without necessarily being powerful, another example is the suspicious looking tentacle, provides light without being powerful.

It's not on top of expert, once you have played expert once or twice, you know the boss patterns, and master mode becomes cheese, maybe if you don't have a lot of endurance when fighting bosses it will be harder, I'll give you that one.

From my own experience master mode bosses don't deal that much damage compared to expert, as a matter of fact KS dealt less damage to me than a blue slime did, ain't that funny. There is a reason why I defeated almost every master mode boss on my first try, they're the same as expert but with more HP, end of it, as long as you're able to dodge the damage they do isn't a factor anymore.

Testing if I know the fights? I can do that in expert and have more fun.

edit: typo

[Light]

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

So, now you might say "but it increases the droprate of certain items", it does, but it's really not that good, or good enough.

Just because of this.

You're right. No need to read it all.

[Fox]

Messaggio originale di Actual Cancer:

I think you're missing the point of Master Mode entirely.

Master Mode is Terraria's ultimate challenge. There's no higher bar to aim for once you complete it. If you've ever played other RPGs, this type of game design should not be unfamiliar to you. Generally, a game would introduce maybe a superboss for example as a means to give the extremely hardcore players something to aim for. But what do you do after the superboss? Nothing, really. You've conquered the game's toughest challenge. You have nothing more challenging to look forward to.

My point here is that Master Mode is Terraria's version of "bragging rights" content. Those relics and pet you mentioned are trophy items that are only awarded to players who have beaten the game's hardest versions of the bosses we all know and love. After beating Master Mode Moon Lord, there's nothing left to do. This is nothing new, even in other games. Take many Final Fantasy superbosses for example. Many of them reward you with trophy items that you can show off to your friends and say "I beat this!". These items may or may not have any actual in-game functionality.

On top of that, Terraria already has several broken OP weapons/items that are awarded to players who cleared a playthrough on any difficulty. These items, such as the Zenith and Last Prism, can make short work of even Master Mode Moon Lord. What more do you want? A weapon that one-shots everything? Where would the fun be in that?

I think the trophy items that are awarded are plenty sufficient rewards, especially the pet. The pet is basically an "I beat Master Mode" trophy that you can take to other players' worlds and show off. If that sort of thing doesn't matter to you, then Master Mode was not designed for you. It's designed for people who are proud of their skills and want to test said skills against a game's toughest challenges, regardless of what the rewards are. People like this are in it for the satisfaction of being able to say "I did it!" rather than potential rewards the game might give you. If this is not you, best stick to Expert Mode, which is still plenty difficult, and has what you're looking for with Treasure Bags.

Now that I've answered Anzaman, you're finally the center of attention, grats.

Master mode isn't terraria's ultimate challenge in my opinion, I don't believe it's hard enough to be called that, it's impressive how underwhelming it is. I've played quite a lot of RPGs in the past, and I agree, defeating those superbosses is very satisfying. However, Terraria's master mode is not comparable, simply because it's the same patterns, a superboss is a completely new boss requiring a new strategy is what I remember from my RPG experience. Master mode has none of that. I personally wouldn't qualify it as the game's toughest challenge, but that's up to you really, if you're not very good at the game, then sure, you can call it that. (Before you say anything, no this is not a personal attack, so don't try to hold that against me).

I don't personally think master mode grants you bragging rights, at the end of the day, it's the same thing as expert, as I explained to anzaman: From my own experience, bosses don't deal much more damage thant their expert mode version did, as a matter of fact a blue slime did more damage to me than KS did in total. Good point about the relics and pets, however, not everyone thinks like that, I don't, I personally see a reward as something useful that will help you until endgame, and THEN you get the final reward.

No, I'm not asking for OP items or anything, that'd be completely stupid and idiotic.
In my books, a reward = useful item, not reward = extremely powerful item that annihilates enemies and bosses in one use. Now, I'm fine with OP endgame items, because they're endgame, you've finished the game, no real point to continue playing, so last prism, zenith and such are justified. A really good example of a useful reward is the slime mount from KS, very useful item in specific situations, and not overpowered, same thing for the demon heart from WoF, very useful item without being overpowered.

I don't think they are sufficient rewards, most people probably won't know what the pets are so using them to show-off is really stupid imho. "Master mode wasn't designed for you", how was it advertised again? "A challenge for the more experienced players"? The point of building up skills is the reward you get from it, if you don't get a worthy reward it will only result in disappointment, and nothing else unless you're into cosmetics.

edit: fixed a few typos but not all bcuz lazy

[AsbestosIsPoison]

The problem is, Mastermode just isnt very fun. No unique weapons / accesories that provide you with stat boosts and just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pets and only a handful of accesories? No thanks

Why go through the effort when you can have a better time playing expert and still get rewarded with around the same loot. Worst case scenario you can just go on mastermode world and grab what you want. But thats not fun

[Anzaman]

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

From my own experience master mode bosses don't deal that much damage compared to expert, as a matter of fact KS dealt less damage to me than a blue slime did, ain't that funny. There is a reason why I defeated almost every master mode boss on my first try, they're the same as expert but with more HP, end of it, as long as you're able to dodge the damage they do isn't a factor anymore.

Testing if I know the fights? I can do that in expert and have more fun.

Just hopped in to the game and summoned King Slime - every jump on me hit 80-100'ish. Whilst according to Wiki, Blue Slimes (pre-HM) hit only about 20'ish. So there's quite noticeable damage difference there.

As for King Slime damage numbers. According to Wiki his damage is 40 (normal), 64 (expert). So going for 90 from 64 is pretty noticeable increase. Especially in early game when you don't have that much of health or defense.

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

I'm not asking for overpowered rewards or anything, but actually useful rewards, I don't care about a trophy or pet, give me something worth my while, anything, reward = useful item and not reward = powerful item. Example of that is the slime mount from KS, it's extremely useful in niche situations, without necessarily being powerful, another example is the suspicious looking tentacle, provides light without being powerful.

You gave two examples. Mount and Light Pet, which Master Mode easily cover both categories. Black Spot, whilst not exactly boss drop - is the fastest horizontal mount in the game. Toy Tank -mount from Frost Moon fires rockets and bullets at nearby enemies. Hexxed Branch from Pumpkin Moon -event is fastest ground-based mount.

And then there's several Master-only light pets, such as from Empress or Golem.

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

It's not on top of expert, once you have played expert once or twice, you know the boss patterns, and master mode becomes cheese, maybe if you don't have a lot of endurance when fighting bosses it will be harder, I'll give you that one.

I said that it's on top of Expert since it inherits all of Expert Mode under itself. Otherwise we'd just have Normal Mode with some health and damage modifiers. :P

If you know the boss patterns that well, maybe you are just good at the game? Many people "tire" when they are required to concentrate on fast moving, high damaging mechanics over extended period of time. Whilst the bosses themselves might not be any difficult mechnically, it's increased challenge mentally. Which comes in the form of Master Modes increased Health, Damage, and Defense. I have seen some people suggesting using specific boss arenas where they'd utilize traps from Golems Temple. Those no longer work due to increased defense and health, so players need to adapt and think of new approach.

They told us many moons ago exactly what Master Mode would be, so it didn't exactly come out as surprise what it'd be.

I for one had my own fair share of pain and fun working towards Terraprisma -challenge. Which one would you say is more challenging to defeat: Empress of Light -fight where you need to survive 35 seconds against enraged form, or same fight where you need to avoid Sun Dance for 5 minutes?

Looking at Moon Lord as another example. His Deathray hits 150 in normal, 300 in Expert - hasn't listed Master as of right now. But I got hit by his attack, while fully armoured and got hit like 450. That's nearly all of your health pool gone instantly with single error.

It's the challenge in trying to push out as much as damage as possible within same time window for many bosses, whilst avoiding attacks that in many cases are 50% more lethal than in previous difficulty, Expert.

[Anzaman]

Messaggio originale di Connorgy U.K:

The problem is, Mastermode just isnt very fun. No unique weapons / accesories that provide you with stat boosts and just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pets and only a handful of accesories? No thanks

Why go through the effort when you can have a better time playing expert and still get rewarded with around the same loot. Worst case scenario you can just go on mastermode world and grab what you want. But thats not fun

They intentionally left "stat boosts and unique weapons" out since Expert proved that it was an error to add those in. People felt like they were forced to play Expert because of it, instead of their own choice of going for higher difficulty.

Is the concept of playing for challenge for sake of challenging content so dead nowadays? Can't people just enjoy it for their own fun. Is it really all about "muh loot"?

[wcc]

I agree something more exciting like Master-exclusive items would have been great, but apart from that I'm fine with the overall Master mode because I actually have to develop new strategies or optimise existing one. It does not feel like just a more tedious Expert mode to me.
There are two aspects in here:

• Bosses. I think the main reason why we feel different is that I'm not really good (i.e.: I really suck) in fast-paced games, and the movement patterns of many bosses feel erratic and hard to dodge. In Expert mode I could endure long enough to finally wear down the bosses before I lost breath, but that won't work in Master mode anymore, so I've got to refine my approaches and rethink my arenas. I'm not sure whether that's enough at the end of the day, but atm I'm doing slowly but steady progress with that.
  
• Ordinary enemies. Especially in the beginning it was really hard to make any progress at all. I had to play way more cautious and develop new approaches because just sprinting through the caves looting all biome chests on my way wasn't feasible anymore. (Of course, that's only particulary because of Master mode but also because the wordgen has changed.) But I liked that I was forced to build secured tunnels to get the first useful items and resources (esp. Jungle Spores), progress carefully and had to think over my next steps. That felt really different from Expert.

[Fox]

Messaggio originale di Anzaman:

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

From my own experience master mode bosses don't deal that much damage compared to expert, as a matter of fact KS dealt less damage to me than a blue slime did, ain't that funny. There is a reason why I defeated almost every master mode boss on my first try, they're the same as expert but with more HP, end of it, as long as you're able to dodge the damage they do isn't a factor anymore.

Testing if I know the fights? I can do that in expert and have more fun.

Just hopped in to the game and summoned King Slime - every jump on me hit 80-100'ish. Whilst according to Wiki, Blue Slimes (pre-HM) hit only about 20'ish. So there's quite noticeable damage difference there.

As for King Slime damage numbers. According to Wiki his damage is 40 (normal), 64 (expert). So going for 90 from 64 is pretty noticeable increase. Especially in early game when you don't have that much of health or defense.

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

I'm not asking for overpowered rewards or anything, but actually useful rewards, I don't care about a trophy or pet, give me something worth my while, anything, reward = useful item and not reward = powerful item. Example of that is the slime mount from KS, it's extremely useful in niche situations, without necessarily being powerful, another example is the suspicious looking tentacle, provides light without being powerful.

You gave two examples. Mount and Light Pet, which Master Mode easily cover both categories. Black Spot, whilst not exactly boss drop - is the fastest horizontal mount in the game. Toy Tank -mount from Frost Moon fires rockets and bullets at nearby enemies. Hexxed Branch from Pumpkin Moon -event is fastest ground-based mount.

And then there's several Master-only light pets, such as from Empress or Golem.

Messaggio originale di Ditzing:

It's not on top of expert, once you have played expert once or twice, you know the boss patterns, and master mode becomes cheese, maybe if you don't have a lot of endurance when fighting bosses it will be harder, I'll give you that one.

I said that it's on top of Expert since it inherits all of Expert Mode under itself. Otherwise we'd just have Normal Mode with some health and damage modifiers. :P

If you know the boss patterns that well, maybe you are just good at the game? Many people "tire" when they are required to concentrate on fast moving, high damaging mechanics over extended period of time. Whilst the bosses themselves might not be any difficult mechnically, it's increased challenge mentally. Which comes in the form of Master Modes increased Health, Damage, and Defense. I have seen some people suggesting using specific boss arenas where they'd utilize traps from Golems Temple. Those no longer work due to increased defense and health, so players need to adapt and think of new approach.

They told us many moons ago exactly what Master Mode would be, so it didn't exactly come out as surprise what it'd be.

I for one had my own fair share of pain and fun working towards Terraprisma -challenge. Which one would you say is more challenging to defeat: Empress of Light -fight where you need to survive 35 seconds against enraged form, or same fight where you need to avoid Sun Dance for 5 minutes?

Looking at Moon Lord as another example. His Deathray hits 150 in normal, 300 in Expert - hasn't listed Master as of right now. But I got hit by his attack, while fully armoured and got hit like 450. That's nearly all of your health pool gone instantly with single error.

It's the challenge in trying to push out as much as damage as possible within same time window for many bosses, whilst avoiding attacks that in many cases are 50% more lethal than in previous difficulty, Expert.

I mean you might be right, tiring out may be the reason why I think so low of master mode, but at the same time, I can't contain my disappointment because of how it was advertised, as a "challenge to the more experienced players", I thought I was gonna get absolutely destroyed but nope, it was really easy.