How do I Stay Motivated?

[Birdy]

I've been playing this game for years, and I feel that it's time for me to get back into the game. Whenever I can, I want to start a new playthrough of the game just to see what's changed, as the last time I beat the game without any mods or cheat servers was say, back in 2016 and I had my brother to help me, but now that I'm ready to return (alone) to this game, I face the problem of staying motivated, how do I keep on the 2D grindset?

[Jeff]

How can you get "back into" the game if you have been playing it for years? How long has it been since you last played?

[Mars]

calamity.

[Birdy]

Originally posted by Jeff:

How can you get "back into" the game if you have been playing it for years? How long has it been since you last played?

dude i haven't played this game for more than fifteen minutes in like, two and a half years

[Birdy]

Originally posted by mop:

calamity.

Believe me I tried

[Spreading Butter Since 1764]

i face the same problem though i play used to play everyday but i find to still motivated is to play with people as it makes the game much more enjoyable

[Tomamto77]

playing with people on terraira makes it funner and you get more motivation becuase you know someone is going to hang out with you

[Gnome warlord]

yep multyplayer

[Rednax910]

try something new, all I can say.
I also had an "off period" for at least a year, eventually came back and started a new playthrough with no longterm goals at all, no expectations, just a basic roadmap (mine for ore gear, kill eye of cthuluh, continue from there). I stopped playing because I thought I didn't like the mining-oriented parts of progression. Going in neutrally was what let me pick up the game again and appreciate even more.

[Snark]

I too struggle to stay motivated while playing Terraria. Part is because I already know the way the game functions so even after long breaks it's not quite the same as playing for the first time.

However I also have another opinion as to why I struggle to stay motivated, and this one is a bit controversial. I think Terraria has become too bloated. There's too many things happening to you and being given to you, too frequently. For a person like me, it's just too overwhelming. For instance I find that there are too many weapons, too many materials, too many crafting stations, etc. Remember when there was only a crafting table, an anvil and a furnace? Did we really need 15 more crafting stations? A menu separating the different types of craftable items would have done just fine.

30 min into the game my inventory is already full, 2 hours into the game I already have 10 chests filled with stuff, too many things, too many materials I know I'll need down the line so I can't enjoy mining anymore knowing that I'll head down and immediately have to exert mental energy trying to figure out what to throw out, what to add in the piggy bank, what to keep, etc. And it never stops, the game never chills. There's just too many things and the game gives them to you too frequently.

Aside from being overwhelmed, I also think this fast pace has cheapened the experience, especially for the early game. Finding a weapon used to mean something, now you pick it up and 10 min later you have something better, it no longer means anything to me when I find these items. It used to be the case that I'd mine for a long period of time and eventually I'd find a golden chest with a cloud in a bottle. Now I mine for 15 min and along the way I'd find a 2 mushroom biomes, 4 golden chests, abandoned mine tracks and abandoned houses. I find more golden chests than normal ones.

The more stuff there is the less unique each thing is, hunting for Tim and his hat was an adventure of its own, walking around with a water candle trying to find him, there are so many enemies dropping unique things now, so many unique items being given to you every 5 minutes, why would you care about some random ass skeleton and his crappy hat?

Same thing with progression, when things progress too fast it doesn't feel satisfying anymore. People complained about pre-hardmode, the devs decided that it should be a rush fest. You no longer need to go out and search for stars, they're raining like crazy, you can just sit in your house trying to craft something and you'll gather them easily as they hit the roof every 10 seconds or less. The weapons no longer feel rewarding, why should I care about the muramassa when I know I'll quickly discard it? There used to be a bunch of unique looking armors that were all viable and did different things, now most of them are useless aside from being materials I guess and the progression involves you just going up in armor stats constantly.

People react negatively whenever someone brings the topic of grinding, but I think most games should have a degree of grind to them, grinding for the next piece of equipment, the next location, the next whatever, it gives proper pacing to the game and makes you appreciate what you get more. It's more satisfying mining for long periods of time only to discover a single chest with a unique item inside because you know that item will last you for a while before you find something else. It gives you the opportunity to use it, learn its quirks and get attached to it, so when you replace it, it feels like you're discarding something with sentimental value.

Meanwhile if you mine and you're showered with goodies to the point of loosing inventory space 10 to 15 min in the tunnel it suddenly starts getting annoying, overwhelming and frankly it makes the items feel less special. It's like you're just stumbling in random directions constantly picking up garbage.


What would improve it for me is lets say having a super large world, but the number of ores and chests and unique items is the same as a large world or a medium one so that you spend more time looking for stuff. Also once Tmodloader or whatever is finally fully updated I'll probably bring back a lot of the old values for drops and for crafting, make it less easy to find hearts or stars, etc.

[Alucard †]

Vergil? Is that you?

[Ninshu]

you don’t.

[Jeff]

The trick for me is to uninstall, play other stuff, and forget about the game. It will call you back when you are ready to enjoy it again.

Sometimes it takes months, sometimes years.
Sometimes burnout is for life.

[Birdy]

snark, im asking for a tiny bit of advice for a game i barely play and you wrote an essay, bravo man, bravo

[Greave]

basically your looking to hit a dopamine rush only terarria provided once upon a time, the same as minecraft did, and other games that stepped outside the mainstream box copy paste format and made it big :P. Heck even fortnite does it if you played it when it was still new, but you go back and your like "yeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh, no."

Switch genre's for abit, or if your switching back into terrarias niche "build/action", join a community.

Nothing kept me coming back to terraria as much as when I was moderating "b3cks" server, so I'd say community

Coming up with mini-games like navigating a fireball through a 1-block wide passage above 2 boxs to the other side of a twin maze to burn the cobwebs under the other player and have them fall in lava. ♥♥♥♥♥ unlimited with others. and some servers host BIG styles of this still, theres still servers out there with over 100 active players on AT A TIME. (yes.. at a time.) and with admins setting up events, and summoning players to zones etc for say soccer, capture the gem, etc, can be fun, it just wont be the adventure style "play the game right" stuff.

If thats what your after find another player and do a vanilla multiplayer run through, just its hard to keep 2 people motivated as one person is generally going to be on when the other isnt. interest gets lost when you come back and you were prehardmode, but now your in hardmode due to the host having 5 hours more progression etc.