A Better Abigail

[Masked_Misery]

After my previous thread discussing the concept that Abigail is too powerful, various arguments were made towards the areas where Abigail is also a problem.

 

Wendy can summon Abigail with minimalistic amounts of downside, and when Abigail is summoned she never leaves until she is defeated. This causes Abigail to be both an above average boon, and a below average nuisance.

On one side, Abigail can slaughter many lower level mobs with ease; and her damage scaling at night improves this even more. Against these mobs, Abigail has little chance of failure unless Wendy does not help her; or the mobs mass pile on her. Making her an extreme benefit.

On the other side, Abigail is also an annoyance. Because she never goes away, and her aggression clings to enemies, she is a blatant problem when players are trying to function nearby enemies but do not want to hurt them. Especially if you need those enemies alive, for whatever reason.

This could be viewed as balance, but in general; it does not feel like it. It feels like the developers made Abigail overpowered, but because they put so few limitations on her she ends up also being a hindrance to players. This is balanced, but having the scale tip violently in both directions at random is not a very stable or enjoyable balance. It ends up allowing the player to dominate absurdly sometimes, and other times be frustrated by unavoidable problems.

 

And so I suggest Abigail be changed to be a more drop-in-drop-out companion. Instead of requiring a large sanity cost and sacrifice to summon her indefinitely, Wendy should be able to summon Abigail briefly at the cost of some drops of sanity and health. Abigail then disappears by the next morning, and cannot be summoned again for another few days. Although, the cooldown would be lower then it is if she is defeated.

What this means is, players will be able to summon Abigail when they want to take on mobs or specifically powerful enemies. But, since Abigail disappears soon after; she will not hang around to the degree where she will hinder players who do not want her around. This satisfies both problems, she will no longer be a ceaseless source of lesser mob kills; players have to be selective, and she also no longer will be a constant third wheel; because she sticks around for only a short while.

Having the cost of summoning her reduced allows players to spawn her immediately on demand for help, at a small toll, allowing her to be used more strategically when you are in danger or need her assistance quickly. As opposed to running after butterflies, which is also a needlessly annoying concept.

[Masked_Misery]

Bump, because people are still at the old thread.

[TheKingDedede]

@ImDaMisterL, make sure to not throw out your back moving this.

[Pink_Infatuation]

I think most characters have a key aspect that they play around- Wickerbottom has books that she relies on for damage output and farming, WX has to find more gears and gets permanent bonuses, Webber has to live with spiders and does best when he does spider wars, etc. and simply put, Wendy's aspect is that she is weak and has her sister fight for her in most circumstances. It doesn't mean she can't fight at all, it's just less efficient. I see Abigail as such a vital part of her play style that I find it a little hard to understand making her only appear for a day every two or three days. Maybe if it was a little longer I could understand- like, 3 days? and the cooldown was shorter, so it'd be about a 4 day cycle. I don't play Wendy a TON, but I know one person who has put like 400 hours into playing her and they love her just the way she is, so maybe it's just how some people prefer their playstyles. I'm sure you could work out a mod for this for yourself if you'd like, since that's so encouraged around here. 

Another idea I just came up with similarly, that maybe you'd like, is what if you could only summon her during full and new moons? That's a longer cooldown if she dies- but it's permanent, so you're rewarded for using her effectively by keeping her longer. That's still kind of punishing for newer players, but assuming we're just talking about a mod for people like us who have more experience....

[fus7]

I never played as Wendy, except when I opened her in RoG, and I think she is the most useless character (after Wes and Maxwell). Dont understand why one should use Abigail, when you can learn kitting even a Deerclop or whatever. I cant imagine fighting with Klaus and Abigail aggros on Gem Deers.

[Donke60]

If I do drop in and drops outs there a lot of the mobs that are weak are like that because you often have to visit them a lot and the summon costs add up so you might as well not use her. I still enjoy that if you keep abagail alive you still get her to fight for you and most people abagail is easy to kill cause thats all she is a ghost if you fought ghost before you can deal with a wendy player. so I have to agree with the statments others have said if this is implemented you might not use wendy at all and just pick Wes who I do main.

On 2/24/2017 at 10:42 PM, Pink_Infatuation said:

I just came up with similarly, that maybe you'd like, is what if you could only summon her during full and new moons? That's a longer cooldown if she dies- but it's permanent, so you're rewarded for using her effectively by keeping her longer. That's still kind of punishing for newer players, but assuming we're just talking about a mod for people like us who have more experience....

That is how wendy was when she was introduced however abby was not permant and only stayed for the night I enjoy this idea at least it will stop newcomers for just turtling behind abagail and teach them how to fight correctly.

[JohnWatson]

My suggestion is to allow the Telltale Heart to be used on Abigail. When Abigail revives, she then dies immediately. Her skeleton can be hammered for bone shards. So now Abigail becomes an infinite source of bone shards.

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, JohnWatson said:

My suggestion is to allow the Telltale Heart to be used on Abigail. When Abigail revives, she then dies immediately. Her skeleton can be hammered for bone shards. So now Abigail becomes an infinite source of bone shards.

Can I have this as an animation gif please?

[56933043043]

11 hours ago, Donke60 said:

Can I have this as an animation gif please?

Close enough?

 

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, Sketched_Philo said:

I can't believe that actually happens that hilarious 

[Ressayez]

I think I see what you're saying. You know, if I had it my way, I think I'd just remove Abigail entirely, we need to teach these Wendy mains how to survive like men. What is this, a baby game? A game for little babies who need their minions to fight the big bad Deerclops for them? Real Don't Starve players know the only true way to play Wendy is without Abigail and without weapons. That's right, Wendy, in actuality should be restricted to beating mobs to a pulp with her bare fists. 

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, Ressayez said:

Don't Starve players know the only true way to play Wendy is without Abigail and without weapons. That's right, Wendy, in actuality should be restricted to beating mobs to a pulp with her bare fists.

I did that once but to kill one spider and the den can't tell you how many hits lost count but it took about an entire minute to do.