Terraria’s Nightmare! Is Throarbin Tougher than Ever?

Is Terraria too difficult for new players two months ago I released a video discussing why I think Minecraft has garnered more popularity in sales than Terraria claiming that progression is the main reason but if you want to hear more thoughts on that you should check out that video after this one the

Reason I mentioned that video though is because there were many comments from people arguing another reason for Minecraft’s greater success this reason being how easy the game is leading to a greater potential audience but this confused me Minecraft is easy so much more so than Terraria that

It would impact the market pool and chase people away this quite honestly was not something I had even considered so that’s what we’re going to do today answer the question is Minecraft truly easier than Terraria now I’ve played Terraria for some 10 years while I’ve

Only played Minecraft for 3 or 4 so I must admit that does skew my view of the two games but I think it does so in a maybe interesting way I agree with grew up playing Terraria all day long while all of my peers and I’m sure many of you

Grew up playing Minecraft and this is an important difference between me and just about everyone else I know one reason for a game being simplistic or easy is so that it’ll have a larger appeal to younger audiences who may struggle with more complex ideas and this is something

Many of you mentioned on my previous video that Minecraft was made for kids while Terraria was not and that is true and that may have played more of a role than Terraria NE necessarily being harder than Minecraft is but for today’s video we’re just going to focus on the

Difficulty aspect of things so I started playing Terraria right about when I was 13 or so so I suppose that would make me a newly minted teenager when I first started playing I remember I was pretty confused as to what I was supposed to do

All I knew was that I wanted to explore a bit build a little and kill the occasional zombie my most distinct memories are building a tower of dirt up to space because I was curious if I’d find anything turns out there were harpies up there and I probably spent

Almost an hour just trying to kill one of these things with a copper shortsword or whatever the starting weapon back then was the only other memory I have is the a cthulu randomly spawning one night freaking me out and leading to me wanting to kill the thing I messed

Around with the game for a little while and started to get involved in the community and by that I mean I watched from the Shadows until one fiful day I came across a boss list on Wiki up to this point I didn’t even know the game had bosses even after having fought one

This led to me diving into a rabbit hole of the Terraria Wiki until at last I entered hard mode and beat the mechs who were the Final Bosses at the time 10 years later and I’m still playing the wonderful sandbox and have gained perhaps a notorious reputation for not

Reading the wiki because I never have ever since I beat the game that first time I only glance at it here or there when I forget things I mention all of this because I probably would never have gotten into Terraria if I hadn’t relied on the crutch of the wiki and not

Everybody is willing to do that in fact kids those between 5 and let’s say 12 are probably the least likely to research questions for a game they play because well they don’t really do research of any kind at that age and though maybe that’s too broad of an age

Group especially since I did it when I was 13 so maybe those younger ages between 5 and 8 might be a better marker but even then I guess the internet is now a lot more pervasive than it was when I was a kid even though at the time

It already kind of was but all the same I’m going to make what I think is a reason able assumption that most children aren’t researching games and looking at their wikis maybe I’m wrong about that but for the sake of today’s video we’ll make that assumption I guess

The only exception to that is if we count mindlessly watching YouTube content as research which I guess would probably be the case for that age group so question answered right my first run basically required the wiki and I even tell people all the time that if they

Want to try the game for the first time they should probably be ready to use the wiki or or else invite a friend who can teach them well I don’t think it’s that simple and that’s why I wanted to make this video in the first place all these

People claim Minecraft is easier to get into than Terraria that it’s easier for kids but is it really as I mentioned before I didn’t play Minecraft as a kid so perhaps I can’t speak to that but I can speak to my view of the game being simpler than Terraria after all since I

Started playing Minecraft such a short time ago I can remember vividly what it was like when I first started playing Minecraft I found the whole experience to be quite boring and uninteresting I don’t have any footage of this so I’ll just put up some random new stuff I

Recorded from the same world now I had tried Minecraft for a Solid 5 minutes or so before I actually started playing the game and had gotten so bored I never tried it again but I made a deal with a friend this time that if he played Terraria that I’d play Minecraft and

This is when I first started actually playing the game so in my first few minutes of hopping onto the server with him and yeah yes it’s a Bedrock server they aren’t really that different guys and yes I have tried Java but in the first few minutes I was already lost as

To what I was doing and the only reason I didn’t close the game immediately was because of my friends who were holding my hands through the whole experience after getting my bearings I was more or less given a plot of land to work with and from there I started fiddling with

The game because that’s what my friends were playing and it was a way to hang out once I got more familiar with the mechanics I ventured off to make my own settlement and this is probably where I started to kind of enjoy the game it was

Sort of fun making my own house though I must admit it was also frustrating as all get out because creepers wouldn’t stop blowing up my home to this day I think creepers are bad game design change my mind once I basically had that all figured out there were only two

Really kind of related things that I found enjoyable enough about the game to continue playing one of those things was animals since I like animals so I started collecting them and the other was horses and probably spent more time colle collecting them than all the other

Animals combined and no I never did stop collecting horses don’t question it with all that said there are still basic mechanics I never learned or never would have learned if my friends hadn’t taught me in fact even with my friends there I probably would have abandoned the game

Anyways if one of them hadn’t given me fully Enchanted netherite gear and tools he may have done this so he could conscript me into a secret military but that’s besides the point once I had fully Enchanted netherite I felt like was finally able to actually play the game quite possibly my biggest complaint

Against Minecraft is durability and how intolerably grindy it is yes I know durability is a feature other games have but I hate it in just about any game and in Minecraft in particular some games like breath of the wild use durability in a way that I think benefits the game

And encourages the player to play the game in a way that it was intended meanwhile durability in Minecraft just means I have to keep going back to the same caves to mine the same ores to get the same tools that break just as fast maybe this is intended but I think

That’s a bad intention The Mending enchantment is literally an essential to most people’s gear because nobody wants to have to continuously recraft the same gear over and over and over again and try to get those same enchantments all over oh wait I think this might be a

Little off topic rant over now still though for a new player neite and mending are not even a concept in your mind to me they were essential to playing the game and I literally would have quit playing if I lost all of my gear and I knew of other people who had

Done just that so what does the average Noob playing the game for the first time do what do they see in this game why do they see it as being so simple well I have a few theories for one maybe there’s a misconception about the game

Being easy and the game taking a long time let me explain in Minecraft especially at the start for a new player it can take quite a long time for you to get anything even after you get fully equipped it takes you a while to move around from place to place gather

Resources and more let’s say a new player opens up these games and all they want to do is build a house in Minecraft you can build one pretty quickly I guess depending on your definition of a house but you’ll soon want to expand and add onto the tiny little space while in

Terraria you build your little shoe box and you’ve already got everything you need you don’t feel cramped in the tiny space you built in Terraria so rather than spend the next several hours adding to your house you instead Venture off into the world and search for something

More to do meanwhile in Minecraft you’re still playing with your wooden box and trying to expand it to suit your needs slowly punching trees to the ground in fact in Terraria you’re given a suitable axe for chopping trees upon spawning while in Minecraft you actually have to

Go out and mine some stone or or just to make an act so you no longer have to suffer with bloody knuckles and so it takes the Minecraft Noob a much longer time to get started in the game while in Terraria it takes a relatively short time I think people might say Minecraft

Is easier because it took an hour to get started while in Terraria you’re expected to continuously expand on your knowledge at a rapid Pace in the first 10 minutes you’re already wondering what next and so Minecraft feels easier because you’re still playing with your wooden box in the time the terrarian is

Fighting other worldly entities which I guess leads to another good point as far as difficulty is concerned and I think this is the most convincing one let’s take the same example as before a noob jumps into each game and what do they experience in the first few minutes well

In Minecraft you’re gu in wood blocks and killing passive mobs while in Terraria you’ve already died to a slime multiple times unlike Minecraft Terraria has enemies that spawn during the day and this alone makes the game much more difficult since in Minecraft you can peacefully get going while in Terraria

You could very well encounter your first enemy seconds after spawning in sure slimes aren’t the hardest to deal with but a noob may not know the best way to handle them but I think this poses an interesting question that I had never considered before does the average person want to die

Oh wait that’s that sounds wrong what I mean is when your average Joe opens a game how does dying in game impact their experience in Minecraft you likely won’t die until the first night at which point a new player may be overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of zombies skeletons

Or the dreaded creeper leading to them dying my natural instinct is to point out that you lose all of your gear in Minecraft while you get to keep all of your stuff in Terraria I want to say this makes Terraria easier but I think that would actually miss the

Point when you lose all of your stuff in Minecraft your next step is to either go and retrieve your lost possessions or else restart the process of gathering basic materials meanwhile in Terraria you immediately start your adventure once more what does this result in you dying far more often in Terraria

Regardless as to how much I personally hate happen to do the Walk of Shame back to your loot in Minecraft I believe the young kid or even the old old adult actually doesn’t mind that as much as they mind dying repeatedly it doesn’t frustrate them nearly as much I think

There’s an inner feeling that death in a game means failure and so when you die as often as you do in Terraria a young kid or hyper Casual Gamer might get frustrated and quit the game so in this way Terraria is definitely more difficult than Minecraft though I guess

That wasn’t really all that difficult to prove considering Minecraft is so easy that these literal tiny children are able to hold their own but wait a minute that means I’ve once again answered the question Minecraft is easier than Terraria and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with how hard the game is

To understand just that people are annoyed by dying so often well I think that may answer the question when it comes to Little Children the elderly or the man or woman who picks up a game once in a blue moon and whose favorite game is probably Animal Crossing what

Then of the actual Gamers those of us select hardore Corfu those between the teenage and young adult years where we spend countless hours conquering stupidly difficult challenges because we have nothing better to do with our lives is Terraria too difficult for them as well I think that in order to answer

That question we have to think about it a bit differently this is where Terraria being difficult to understand may come into play a bit more us true gamers are not phased by some death loop as long as we’re having a fun time and by we I more

Mean you the actual Gamers I’m more of a Casual Gamer but not nearly as casual as those who might be giving up a lot sooner than I would maybe I’m mid-tier gamer I don’t know but if we can all be honest with each other for a second nobody thinks

That early game of either Minecraft or Terraria is riveting stuff the beginning of both is nothing more than a Mad Dash to get the gear required to do the things you actually want to do but the game game still has to give the gamer a purpose and a reason to continue playing

We all have thousands of games at our fingertips and most people have three or four go-tos if this gamer is going to give a brand spanking new title a try then it’s got to be worthwhile or else they’ll toss it aside and return to one of their favorites this is where I think

The time it takes to get materials plays a role once again the gamer collects all the materials they need and no time at all in Terraria and is already thinking about what to do next while in Minecraft you’re still Gathering materials hours into it keeping in mind we’re talking

About new players not those who already know the game and can get plenty of materials in Minecraft in no time at all perhaps at this point the sunk cost Theory comes into play if you’ve played a game for a few hours why not a few more after all you’ve barely scratched

The surface in Minecraft but Terraria makes you ask the question what next in the first 15 minutes and the answer to that question can make or break a game for a player so the sooner a player ask that question the sooner they may leave but what are the complexity side of

Things I wouldn’t think that this would be a problem for the true Gamers but if the comments from my video are any indicator I think it might actually be there are so many things you can craft in Terraria and so many specific game functions you must do or can do while in

Minecraft you just kind of do whatever with the blocks now I think Terraria does give the player several in-game indicators as to what you should do next the AA Kulu will randomly spawn and maybe King Slime will even naturally spawn after some exploration which is the game telling you that there are

Bosses in this game that there is some sort of progression art but is the new player interested enough in the game to continue exploring to the point that these events can even happen it doesn’t take that long but it can take a while for a new player and I honestly can’t

See why they wouldn’t maybe leave the game before they reach that point but again from the comment and what I’ve heard from other people including my friends they get overwhelmed by the game in no time at all and declare it boring after spending a mere 5 minutes of

Playing it and I think this might just be because these people grew up playing Minecraft I think there is a bias and a natural forgetfulness we all have for the games we grew up playing most people grew up with Minecraft and since we already discussed how little kids will

Find that game easier they are more likely to stick with that as they get older and now they are these older gamers these people grew up playing Minecraft and after being engrossed in it they learned more and more things over the years whether by their own exploration

YouTube videos or the wiki and they’ve probably forgotten that’s how they learned they learned the game gradually over the course of many years and thus don’t understand when someone like me who knows nothing of the game would see it as difficult and hard to get into on

The flip side I can see the same thing with Terraria I grew up with it and used online resources to help play it the first time I read the wiki and over over the course of years I’ve gradually learned more and more to the point that

I forget how hard it is for new people to figure out the same things that I did but maybe a step back is needed to fully grasp this let’s take another sandbox for example Starbound I remember purchasing this game because it looked like a space exploration version of

Terraria so I opened it up and sure enough there were similarities but after 5 minutes I no longer understood what I was doing and quit the game thinking it was boring but why this experience actually convinces me that if I had not grown up playing Terraria and if I opened it for the

First time today that I’d have the same experience as many other new players I’d test the water for all of five minutes get confused and leave but clearly I love this game enough to make a YouTube channel centered around it so how is it that I like the game today if I’m

Certain I would have quit the game if I were once again new to it I think this might come down to our age when we were kids we had seemingly endless free time and we spent a good chunk of it not most of it playing video games so we had all

The Time in the World to try and learn new games and pour endless hours into figuring out their every mechanic we also didn’t have money to buy games ourselves so we probably only had a few that our parents would get for us on top of this Minecraft was and still is a

Cultural icon so of course more and more kids would pick up that game as their favorite YouTubers and their best friends started to play it as well a whole generation grew up playing Minecraft because it was the biggest game of its generation and then since it was a multiplayer sandbox that wasn’t

Hardcore and had a very simple and easy to understand aesthetic there was boundless potential I was just one of the lucky few and yes I mean lucky since I got to play the better game who fell through the cracks and went to Terraria instead maybe this is because I was all

Already a young team when I was first exposed to Minecraft and Terraria and Terraria targets and older audience or maybe it was just because I like being a contrarian so I refused to play Minecraft because it was popular whatever the reason Terraria is the game

I grew up with and no while Minecraft is the game almost everyone else grew up with and knows but that was when we were kids now we’re old and cranky and can’t be bothered to spend countless hours researching a game just so we can play

It we have jobs or school or if we’re lucky friends to hang out with we want a game that we know so we can pick it up and have fun with the little time we have to play games we don’t want more homework and I think that both games

Require that I believe that if your average gamer went into Minecraft or Terraria entirely blind meaning they add absolutely zero exposure to either game before first entering into it and they did so alone they would quit they wouldn’t get very far unless they’re the kind of person that just

Enjoys sandbox games in which case they’d enjoy both and so I believe that neither game is truly easier than the other for the gamer but I do think Minecraft is easier for the kid which allows Minecraft to grab an audience at a much younger age who then will stick

With it as they grow and of course it does mean that they have a much larger audience pool that can buy their game maybe I’m wrong and I’d be curious to see how an ENT enely new person would engage with Terraria without any help maybe I can convince one of my friends

To play the game while I watch them like they’re some sort of lab rat so I can figure out the answer to the question myself but first I want to hear your opinions am I right in my assessment or did I get a few things wrong I’d love to

Hear your thoughts so let me know what you think down below because I do read all of my comments and remember Terraria is fact the better game