You’re playing Terraria, and you can’t move around quickly; everything costs too much, and progression feels near impossible; it’s time for the ultimate Guide to NPC happiness in Terraria. NPC happiness wasn’t always a part of Terraria, but since its addition in the 1.4 update mastering, NPC happiness is crucial to enjoying the game to its fullest.
To create happy NPCs, you need to match up two NPCs who like each other in a basic house that caters to their needs, whether they are looking for a room to themselves or a more communal area.
This can be an effortless procedure though you will often need to be creative and search out extra information to ensure you are fostering happiness correctly.
We will dive into every NPC in the game and teach you what you need to do to make them happy with the right combinations so you can start setting up pylons all over the map and enjoy those reduced shop prices.
The Importance of NPC Happiness
In older game versions, players often built a single structure and placed all the NPCs like a handy prison system. However, with the 1.4 updates, NPC happiness added many more layers to the game, and you don’t want to keep too many NPCs in the same location anymore.
By keeping NPCs happy, you can benefit from reduced prices at their shop, and if you keep them satisfied, they will offer to sell you pylons for the Biome where they are located. This is pretty important as pylons are one of the most useful structures in the game.
It is also essential because making your NPCs unhappy will increase prices and make the game more difficult to enjoy. Happy NPCs will discount their prices to 75%, while unhappy NPCs can raise their prices to 150%. NPCs must be maxed out on happiness to offer pylons at their shop.
NPCs
This more introductory section explains how you obtain NPCs and the principles you want to keep in mind as you increase your collection. NPCs are a massive part of the game, and making the proper preparations for each one you pick up will help ensure you don’t miss out on anything.
NPCs will only spawn during the daytime hours. Each NPC that spawns will require a house to live in. When an NPC dies, it will sometimes respawn in a natural place away from your base.
The main times when an NPC will not spawn are if a house is in an area affected by a lot of Corruption or Crimson or if an event is happening.
As long as all the NPC requirements are met, and suitable housing is available, you can expect NPCs to spawn, and a banner will appear under the occupied room. There are 26 total NPCs in the game, including Santa.
Pylons
Despite being extremely useful, there isn’t much to know about Pylons other than that you want as many as possible. This is because each Biome-specific pylon will instantly teleport to that area, making the game much easier to navigate.
There are nine pylons, but you won’t find one for every Biome. The nine pylons you can buy in the game are Forest, Desert, Snow, Cavern, Ocean, Jungle, Hallow (only available in hard mode), mushroom, and Universal. The universal pylon is the last one you can find and can be placed anywhere, but we will discuss it later.
To use a pylon, you have to right-click it to open up your map and then left-click the pylon to transport it instantly. While you don’t need every pylon to beat the game, they certainly accomplish your specific goals much easier.
The Keys to Happiness
There are multiple factors to remember when aiming to maximize your NPC’s happiness. Every NPC in the game is given their likes and dislikes to determine where you should place an NPC and who you should place them with.
For most NPCs, you can talk to them, and they will likely tell you who they like and whether they are enjoying their situation; sometimes, they will also reveal the areas they desire. To maximize happiness, you want to place at least two but not more than three NPCs in a suitable structure in their preferred Biome.
A general rule to live by is one neighbor within twenty-five blocks is preferred and no more than three neighbors for every one hundred and twenty-five blocks.
Aiming for two NPCs is preferred because sometimes the third one can make everyone happy harder. You also want to ensure that one of the NPCs you choose sells things, or else it won’t work.
Creating a Suitable Home
You will want to remember many rules when creating a house for your NPCs, but once you get the basics down, it isn’t too difficult to quickly put together a structure.
First, every home requires at least 60 blocks of the total area, including its frame. Aiming for the minimum dimensions of 5×12, 6×10, 7×9, or 8×8 will ensure that you have enough space to work with.
The house can be in any shape if it meets the requirements. Every home should have player-placed background walls, comfortable furniture, a light source, and an entrance.
Usually, a chair and a table are needed though you can also use other options like a workbench or bed. You want a flat surface and a place for them to sit or lie down.
You can use a door, trap door, tall gate, or platform for the entrance. The entry doesn’t need to be used. It must be theoretically accessible even if the NPC can’t fit through the opening.
The house cannot be all platforms and requires at least one concrete block to stand away from the wall. If your home is 750 blocks or more, it will be considered too big to qualify. Some objects can obstruct the interior and disqualify it as an NPC house. Once again, too much Crimson or Corruption nearby can disqualify a place, but this isn’t true for Hallow.
Assigning NPCs to a House
Usually, NPCs will automatically start migrating into whatever house is available, but this isn’t very helpful for maintaining their happiness. You will want to use the housing menu to reassign them to their proper place, and you can find it right above your equipment menu on the right side of your screen.
The banners will display which NPCs live in which houses, and then you can select their banners and move them around. There is also a question mark icon that you can use to determine if a house is suitable for living.
Each NPCs Preferences
This section will feature a short description of each NPC in the game, complete with their likes and dislikes, so you can quickly start planning how you want to set up your villages before we get into it though 6 NPCs in the game will not be mentioned past here due to their unique natures.
The three town pet Town Cat, Town Dog, and Town Bunny can affect NPC’s happiness, but they aren’t counted as neighboring NPCs, so they can’t negatively or positively affect them beyond that.
Check out the Terraria wiki here for all the information you need for every NPC in Terraria.
You also have traveling NPCs who will not move into houses: the Traveling Merchant, Old Man, and Skeleton Merchant.
Expert Tips
With all their preferences out of the way, here are a few more tips to help you get the most out of your happiest NPCs. With creative buildings, it is possible to create houses that fit into multiple biomes allowing you to grab numerous pylons from one shop.
You can also create an artificial Biome almost anywhere by constructing a bubble house above ground with 80 blocks of the Biome you want to make.
Finally, to get the universal pylon, you can purchase it from the Zoologist once you have 100% of the bestiary, and it can be placed anywhere and doesn’t require 2 NPCs nearby to function like the rest them.