[Early Access] The Terraria Update (17.0) Notes and Discussion

It’s here! It’s finally here! For months, we’ve been itching to get the Terraria crossover into your hands. (Paws? Mitts? Cybernetic robo-arms?) The Terraria Update, out now on PC and PS4, is one of our largest content patches to date. We hope you have fun with those badass Terraria weapons while we continue working on Phase 3 of our Journey to Release Plan, which contains updates to Endgame, Loot, Inventory and much more that you’ve been asking for.

We had the pleasure of working with Re-Logic this year on this fun collaboration, and we can’t say enough about how amazing and talented they are. We’re so thankful to call them our friends. But we’ve even more thankful for you, our dear Defenders. Whether you’re just joining our community today or you’ve been with us for years, we appreciate your support!

(Before you read on, we wanted to let you know that we're doing a Dryad giveaway on Twitter!)

Features

Terraria Crossover

• New Hero: The Dryad
  • The Dryad is the physical manifestation of the will of Terraria itself. With the wisdom of untold ages, she takes up arms to protect and defend her home against evil and corruption. Her World Tree is an anchor for all of her ferocious defenses.
  • Abilities
    • Ability One - Dryad’s Blessing:  Blessing surrounds the Dryad with leaves, shielding her and increasing her armor. When corrupt, Blessings deals damage around her.
    • Ability Two - Powder Toss: Purification mushrooms heal nearby allies and slow enemies. Corrupt mushrooms deal damage and stun when they expire.
    • Ability Three - Starfall: Starfall damages enemies and leaves behind a star that Dryads gather to replenish their mana. When corrupt, the star explodes and deals damage to enemies in its range.
    • Ability Four - World Tree: The World Tree provides the power that the Dryad needs to summon her defenses. It restores 5% of a hero's max HP over time while giving +20% Hero Crit Damage and +10% Hero Crit Chance to nearby heroes.
  • Defenses
    • Defense One - Moss Hornet’s Nest: The Dryad summons a hornet's nest that periodically summons a hornet which viciously attacks an enemy. When corrupt, it spawns more hornets.
    • Defense Two - Harpies’ Perch: The Dryad summons a dangerous Harpy that hurls feathers. When corrupt, the feathers pierce enemies in their path.
    • Defense Three - Slime Pit: Slime Pits spawn slimes that targets enemies and explodes, dealing damage to enemies on impact. When corrupt, they deal more damage in an area and oils enemies.
    • Defense Four - Angry Nimbus: The Angry Nimbus follows enemies, dealing damage over time and drenching enemies. When corrupt, it periodically zaps enemies for high storm damage.

• New Map: Forest Biome
  • Experience the new Terraria themed map that includes some new mechanics that can change up your defense! (Can you say crafting stations?)

• New Incursion: Dawn of the Blood Moon
  • The Blood Moon has come to the Forest Biome and brings a host of different enemies and a new larger threat...

• New Enemy: Demon Eye
  • These pesky critters will fly around and poke you to death in the Forest Biome! Make sure you have some anti-air ready!

• New Boss: Eye of Cthulhu
  • Have you seen his final form!? (2spooky5me)

• New Weapons: Cranked up to ELEVEN
  • We added at least one new weapon for each hero in the game. Check out the Wayfarer to see all the new Terraria-themed weapons!

• New NPC: Wayfarer
  • The Wayfarer has traveled far to peddle goods from the recent Incursion for all heroes to enjoy! Say “Hello!” to him in the Heroes Marketplace.

Try the Dryad Right Now!

• Want to try out the Dryad before you unlock her? Head to the portal in the Heroes Marketplace and select Normalized Mode! This will let you experiment with the Dryad’s defenses and abilities in the Forest Biome.

Enhanced Training Dummies

• We’ve added new training dummies in the Heroes Marketplace and the Private Tavern.
• These new dummies will provide significantly better ways for players to track their BIG DEEPS.

Item Stacking Changes

• Multiple items now stack higher than they did previously. Just a little preview of our upcoming Inventory UI revamp hotness.

Updated My Heroes UI

• Much more informative and interactable (Google says this isn’t a word, but we don’t care) Hero UI while we work on our new UI improvements. Tooltips are finally working on this menu for PS4!

Loot Change

• Any gear with class specific passives will now be locked to that class. This is in preparation for much larger itemization changes coming in future patches!
  

Balance

Monk

• Base resistances buffed to make Monk more viable in melee.
• All root motion has been removed from combat animations.
• Sky Dragon’s Fury and Thunderball got a balance pass.
  • Damage Range increased from 100-200% to 140-200% Hero Damage.
  • Thunderball now procs 100% of the time with an 8 second internal cooldown.
  • Thunderball damaged once per second, instead of three times per second.

Squire

• Base resistances buffed to make Squire more viable in melee.
• Root motion removed from Light and Heavy attack stances.

Bug Fixes

🔥 Community Bug Fixes 🔥

This section is dedicated to bugs reported on our Bug Reporting site! Bugs labeled “Hot Issues” are next on our priority list. More community bug fixes coming in the next patch!

• Every time Frostbite Towers would try to attack the same enemy, or if an enemy would die, they’d have to re-target, which caused their firing to break. This is no longer the case. Ice to meet you, bug.
  • Thanks, Zimmermann!
• Buff beams were able to buff other buff beams. (Buff-beam-ception?) AND Buff auras buff Buff Beams which no longer buff buff beams, which no longer buff buff buff when you buff buff your buff buff.
  • Zimmermann crushing it with the buff bug reports!
• EV2’s Heat now resets to 0 when build phase begins.
  • Thanks for staying on top of this bug, K-ToF!
• “Hide Enemy Health Value” was causing Health to not display on towers and cores. Now it’s always visible.
  • Thanks for the report, Ancient Ogre!
• Some Steam achievements were not unlocking after completing the requirement.
  • So glad to finally crush this bug. Thanks,K-ToF!
• Mystic’s Dark Ritual blade was only dropping with set passives.
  • Good looking out, Hom-Sha-Bom!
• PS4 - The Logo and Intro Video did not have any sound. Now you can hear their velvety goodness.
  • There’s still a sound issue where you can hear the Main Menu music during these cutscenes. We’ll get that one next. Thanks for the report, Plic!
• Hero Critical Damage no longer bugs out when swapping characters, which caused some serious damage discrepancies. 
  • We came, we saw, we CRUSHED that bug. Thanks, Pandynator!
• Updated some text warning people that Mystic’s Split Vipers Skill Sphere does not overwrite the reduction of damage of Slow Death.
  • Good catch, Dreamanime!
• The toggle checkbox in the Options Menu for turning Damage Coalescing on and off now works correctly.
  • Pandynator is life. Pandynator is love.
• The Abyss Lord’s Colossus would attack slower after being upgraded.
  • Thanks, JoghurtDipper!
• Mystic’s Sand Viper tooltip no longer contains the “Enemies Chilled” stat.
  • Thanks for pointing that out, Talis Cat. Maybe we should add some random stuff to other defense tooltips just to keep you on your toes...
• Activating the Trick or Treat chest on the wave 7 of the Temple of the Necrotic would spawn an invulnerable skeleton.
  • Uhhhh, surprise? Good catch, Klaga!
• Abyss Lord’s Orc Blockade’s base would become displaced during Frenzy.
  • Thanks, Buddyvv!
• The Apprentice’s Harbinger Staff was spawning anon-textured AoE graphic on the ground.
  • Graphic is now TEXTURIZED thanks to Dreamanime!
• The Spooky Event title was not being rewarded.
  • A spoopy thanks to Virydis!
• Altar Assassins now primarily target players. If they can’t find a player, they will attack cores.
  • Thanks for the report, o0Exile0o!
• On Altar of Athame, it was possible to place defenses floating above the altar.
  • Thanks, geo981010!
• Sky Dragon’s Fury passive typo fixed.
  • And with this report, Zimmermann takes the cake with the most reported bugs fixed in this update!

General Bug Fixes

• The toggle checkbox in the Options Menu for turning Damage Coalescing on and off now works correctly.
• New Defender Medal Monthly Pets no longer show up as regular monthly pets at the Petrinarian.
• Hotswapping characters properly resets pet ability cooldowns.
• Skeletons no longer spawn in non-combat phases.
• Skeleton enemies no longer leave a lingering purple visual effect after death.
• EV2’s passive “Torpedo Range” got a language pass.
• The Challenge “Defender of Etheria” can only be completed in campaign and had its description updated to reflect thatintention.
• Keybinds now save when you rebind keys at the title screen
• Returning Players occasionally had the Monk and Huntress still locked when returning to the game after being inactive for awhile.
• Mystic’s Dark Torment towers would not despawn.

PS4-Specific Fixes

• When a Split-Screen player joined, sound effects stopped working until you opened the Options Menu.  There might still be occasions where this occurs. Please let us know on the Bug Reporting Site!
• The Reward Select screen in Onslaught wouldn’t show up correctly in Split-Screen.
• Scaled up the R3 button icon so that it’s more readable.
• Tooltips weren’t showing up on Item Enhancement.
• The Main Menu was interactable (dang it, Google, we’re making this a word) while the Intro Videos were playing.

Known Issues

• Watermelon is spelled with two “L’s” in Etheria…
• Phoenix projectiles spawned from Blaze Balloons via the From Ashes Passive are travelling along the ground… we’re trying to build their self-esteem back up and playing some Kenny G so they can soar once again.
• Split-screen players loading into Curse of the Blood Moon Incursion (especially on Normalized) may be missing ability icons. Hotswapping resolves this.
• My Heroes screen has some issues. We’re aware and working on them.
• Nature’s Growth does not buff other World Trees at the moment.
• If you jump mid spawn animation, the Mystic will become invisible… use that information how you will…
• We saw an issue - once - with hero decks missing heroes when loading into the normalized Curse of the Blood Moon Incursion. We couldn’t repro it, but if you manage to figure out how to reliably produce this result let us know please.
• The pressure sensitivity on some controller faceplate buttons can create some weird ‘intermediate’ press states in the newer UIs and on the Dryad’s jumping to flying transition. TL;DR - Press hard or go home.
• If you cast a Dryad ability while transforming it will resolve as though it were cast in the starting form rather than the ending form.
• Frostbite Tower does not attack the training dummies in the tavern(s). (Don’t lie Zimmermann, you were going to report this if we didn’t call it out).

Set aside those "nerfs" and "reworks" in this patch and it's a burner!

This new map is awesome. Huge, nice features, huge, well thought, huge, wide lanes, huge ... wide lanes!

The details are well done. The torches blew my mind.

The update is astonishing. I will have more to say once I finish gearing my Dryad. 

I know this is not relevant to the post but I want to say thank you again  [[4370,users]] for helping me with my problem earlier today.

The dryad is underwhelming as a builder but great as a DPS class.

Love the new map, the water on the waterfall seems to run in the opposite direction from the back.

You gave us a new npc that sells some of the silliest weapons from Terraria yay, but you really have to work on their rolls.

Stacking items, good job! Will Vials be allowed to stack beyond 99?

The change to loot was a gigantic surprise slap in the face, yes we get it it'll make more sense in a future update but why not leave it till then instead of ticking off your player base now?

Fuse the builder passives of the dryad to make the towers more viable instead of building 1 dryad for 1 usefull tower.