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Shipwrecked Characters


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YES, I'M AWARE THAT SHIPWRECKED ISN'T BEING MADE ANYTIME SOON. I THINK THIS IS SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT THOUGH.

Also fair warning, a lot to read through. You would think I wrote an essay on this.

If Shipwrecked was ever released for DST, there would be a lot of things that would need to be adjusted. Item spawns, character abilities, etc. The characters in particular are the most important, as they give players new ways to play (like, being able to surf... or run faster... or be crazy op and find treasure everywhere).

Admitedly, the Shipwrecked characters are nothing special in singleplayer (with the exception of Woodlegs and somewhat Wilbur. But mostly Woodlegs, he's crazy fun to play as). However, with multiplayer, you start to realize that maybe they're extremely useful to have around. Especially Warly, whom would probably be the best character to have in a team. His Chef Pouch and portable Crockpot give his teammates a major boost, as he can cook Meatballs or Fishsticks on the go. Wilbur as well, since scouting the map as him would be extremely quick and he would be able to relay extremely useful info by day 6. (That, and throwing manure is actually a really useful ability, believe it or not.)

Walani would actually be a good pick for public servers, as she would be able to leave the starting island (which probably has nothing on it) as soon as she spawns. In addition, I feel like they would do something similar to what they did Wigfrid, and allow Walani to give her allies surfboards to ride around on.

Woodlegs wouldn't change that much, aside from giving allies an extreme boost by giving them chances for rare loot. (Seriously, this man can give thulecite armor and walking canes.) However, I feel like his treasure gimick would have to be changed somewhat, because the way it works now, someone would just randomly see his treasure and start digging. Making his X marks the Spots special and exclusive to him would make playing Woodlegs that much more important, as without him, you can't dig up his loot.

 

However, this completely changes when we talk about PvP. This was the reason I made this thread, but then I started going on specifically about their abilities.

Warly and Woodlegs suddenly look like big "kill me, I have valuable loot!" targets. Especially Warly, who has an extremely desirable portable crockpot and Chef Pouch. Woodlegs, if changed the way I proposed, wouldn't be amazing, however, he probably would still have valuables that are hard to get elsewhere.

Wilbur would probably become top tier in PvP, simply due to his poop flinging ability, and his running speed is an extra bonus too. Walani... uhhh... has a surfboard...

What are your thoughts about it?

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My guess why they won't add them, and why they might not add any more characters to DST is that it's very easy to make your own character through modding.

Also all the Shipwrecked characters have already been added by modders.

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43 minutes ago, StarmanNess said:

 

 

Wilbur would probably become top tier in PvP, simply due to his poop flinging ability, and his running speed is an extra bonus too.

I just imagined a monkey sinking a ship by throwing poop at it. Thank you.

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I've actually played warly modded with all debuffs
and he is really fun in DST 
He can also be a very stable character in DST as long as you know crockpot recipes his stats don't change that much honestly so you don't have to worry about doing crazy rebounds and can heal just with food

The only thing that I feel would need to change is warly hunger speed when he sleeps as it is his main way to gain sanity and because sleeping in DST is not instant his sanity gain is cut short over how quickly he wakes up to hunger this isn't a major problem but it is really annoying when you have done some shadow creature farming and you can't find a place to sleep or can't get out of danger

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Pretty much all of the SW characters are mediocre to weak in dst (and dst SW) and if you believe otherwise your analysis is flawed.

 

Firstly, Warly is garbage in any mode, solo or together.  No one makes insulated pack for a reason, and portable crockpot is near-useless on a team.

 

The reason for this is that the only place you want to leave the pot long enough to cook is the base, at which point the portability is pointless.

 

Wilbur's speed is heavily overrated.  He moves at 91.67% speed unless running and then moves at 133%.  Wolfgang is a constant 125% in and out of combat, and wicker and wx can work together for weeks of 150%.

 

Walani similarly needs buffs to not be useless the moment you get a science machine (which is immediately with a wickerbottom).

 

None of them are completely useless but the only one who is not outclassed for sure is woodlegs in a SW world.

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3 hours ago, Toros said:

Firstly, Warly is garbage in any mode, solo or together.  No one makes insulated pack for a reason, and portable crockpot is near-useless on a team.

But if he was given team perks similar to wigfrid you could have a backpack and an insulated pack all in one 
and I find his crockpot very useful as it can go anywhere so you can cook as you do other things like mine or gather materials
or make it go for a light to save on torches if need be though that last one isn't really useful

 

3 hours ago, Toros said:

 Wolfgang is a constant 125% in and out of combat,

Only if he is in MIGHTY and the perk is linear so it can't be a constant 125%

 

3 hours ago, Toros said:

Pretty much all of the SW characters are mediocre to weak in dst (and dst SW) and if you believe otherwise your analysis is flawed.

Just because you don't agree with us or others does not mean their reasoning is flawed its just we think or do things differently then you which impacts are experiences This statement and what makes a character useful is very opinionated as different players value different things. Which for some people place other characters higher on their personal list of what is or is not a good character.

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1 hour ago, Donke60 said:

But if he was given team perks similar to wigfrid you could have a backpack and an insulated pack all in one 
and I find his crockpot very useful as it can go anywhere so you can cook as you do other things like mine or gather materials
or make it go for a light to save on torches if need be though that last one isn't really useful

 

Only if he is in MIGHTY and the perk is linear so it can't be a constant 125%

 

Just because you don't agree with us or others does not mean their reasoning is flawed its just we think or do things differently then you which impacts are experiences This statement and what makes a character useful is very opinionated as different players value different things. Which for some people place other characters higher on their personal list of what is or is not a good character.

Getting a buff to be as good as Wigfrid is the definition of mediocre to weak.

 

Good Wolfgang players have no difficulty staying mighty early, and once they get a belt of hunger it's trivially easy to stay mighty and near full for the maximum bonus.

 

As far as the rest of it, mechanical strength and what you like are completely separate.  Play what you like, enjoy it.  But shipwrecked characters are mechanically crap in multiplayer just the same as singleplayer.

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3 hours ago, Toros said:

Getting a buff to be as good as Wigfrid is the definition of mediocre to weak.

 Well I just meant giving him craftables like every character in DST can do in DS he can craft his spice pack that being his only craftable would still be really good for some people

 

3 hours ago, Toros said:

Good Wolfgang players have no difficulty staying mighty early, and once they get a belt of hunger it's trivially easy to stay mighty and near full for the maximum bonus.

The whole player base isn't full of excellent Wolfgang players though.

 

3 hours ago, Toros said:

s far as the rest of it, mechanical strength and what you like are completely separate.  Play what you like, enjoy it.  But shipwrecked characters are mechanically crap in multiplayer just the same as singleplayer.

Well thats your opinion and most modders have given the SW crew a good start though their is no denying that they were made for single player and not mutiplayer

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46 minutes ago, Donke60 said:

 Well I just meant giving him craftables like every character in DST can do in DS he can craft his spice pack that being his only craftable would still be really good for some people

 

The whole player base isn't full of excellent Wolfgang players though.

 

Well thats your opinion and most modders have given the SW crew a good start though their is no denying that they were made for single player and not mutiplayer

Warly's craftables if they were free would still have him be far worse than Wickerbottom in utility and team support.

 

Replace Wolfgang with Wx for an easier, even more OP version who makes Wilbur even weaker in comparison.

 

It's not my opinion that some characters are stronger than others, it's basic math.

 

"No denying they were made for singleplayer and not multiplayer"

Literally none of the characters were made for multiplayer originally, and the ones that were changed for dst were worse 2 (Willow, Woodie) of three (Maxwell) times.

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3 hours ago, Toros said:

Warly's craftables if they were free would still have him be far worse than Wickerbottom in utility and team support.

 

Replace Wolfgang with Wx for an easier, even more OP version who makes Wilbur even weaker in comparison.

 

It's not my opinion that some characters are stronger than others, it's basic math.

 

"No denying they were made for singleplayer and not multiplayer"

Literally none of the characters were made for multiplayer originally, and the ones that were changed for dst were worse 2 (Willow, Woodie) of three (Maxwell) times.

Well then I guess its good that character love can be irrational.

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1 hour ago, TheKingDedede said:

@StarmanNess, are you aware of this?

 

Yea, I've been aware of it for a while. But since Kzisor/Fidoop haven't mentioned any character balancing (aside from Wickerbottom not getting her meteor book), I just kind of wanted to give a few ideas.

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1 minute ago, Donke60 said:

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Well then I guess its good that character love can be irrational.

Literally my first post was saying that there's nothing wrong with liking or playing whatever characters you want.  This is a game where skill is more important than character strength, so if you're good you can easily survive with wes.  I'd never criticize anyone for playing Warly over wicker, and the person I most often play dst with plays exclusively Willow, which I think is what you're reading into what I said.

 

But that doesn't change the mechanical mediocrity of the SW characters, Willow, Woodie, Webber, Wilson, in dst compared to the top characters mechanically, which is why I've made mods for improving some of them and use a mod that rebalances the others.

 

Enjoying a playstyle and mechanical balance are pretty much separate because proper nerfs/buffs retain the playstyle and spirit of the character while improving their relative power.

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This is the problem. People believe that characters are supposed to excel. Instead of characters having quirks and specialties which vary their game-play, people believe they are supposed to have class roles like in an RPG. And this has largely been enabled by the developers who have made certain characters into this.

Instead of Wolfgang being a character who simply gains power by being well fed and grows weaker when underfed in order to add reward, balance and punishment to gameplay; Wolfgang is simply eat-everything-become-Odinson-incarnate. There's no nuance or subtly to all the meta characters, they have big pay offs with big requirements; but players can easily fill these requirements and thus the character is only big pay offs.

It is the same with the Shipwrecked characters, Warly is not supposed to be the master chef; he's supposed to be the character that gives you unique eating mechanics to contend and benefit from. Their abilities should not be designed around making them classes, they should be designed around adding new dynamics to gameplay that have moderate benefits and debilitations which balance eachother out.

Going back to Wolfgang is a good example. If Wolfgang had relatively average hunger values, and significantly scaled down punishments and rewards for those values, he would become a regular character that simply fluctuates between above average and below average based on how you play. His ability to stay completely above average counterbalanced by increased sanity loss as well. But because the developers blew all of his abilities up, he is overpowered because he can achieved massive power from simply eating; which is something a capable player can handle easily.

And modelling balance off of player versus player only breaks things more. Because that further encourages every character to be a class that has a major benefit, particularly to keep up with the current meta, instead of just being a character with unique qualities and quirks.

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16 minutes ago, The Curator said:

This is the problem. People believe that characters are supposed to excel. Instead of characters having quirks and specialties which vary their game-play, people believe they are supposed to have class roles like in an RPG. And this has largely been enabled by the developers who have made certain characters into this.

Instead of Wolfgang being a character who simply gains power by being well fed and grows weaker when underfed in order to add reward, balance and punishment to gameplay; Wolfgang is simply eat-everything-become-Odinson-incarnate. There's no nuance or subtly to all the meta characters, they have big pay offs with big requirements; but players can easily fill these requirements and thus the character is only big pay offs.

It is the same with the Shipwrecked characters, Warly is not supposed to be the master chef; he's supposed to be the character that gives you unique eating mechanics to contend and benefit from. Their abilities should not be designed around making them classes, they should be designed around adding new dynamics to gameplay that have moderate benefits and debilitations which balance eachother out.

Going back to Wolfgang is a good example. If Wolfgang had relatively average hunger values, and significantly scaled down punishments and rewards for those values, he would become a regular character that simply fluctuates between above average and below average based on how you play. His ability to stay completely above average counterbalanced by increased sanity loss as well. But because the developers blew all of his abilities up, he is overpowered because he can achieved massive power from simply eating; which is something a capable player can handle easily.

And modelling balance off of player versus player only breaks things more. Because that further encourages every character to be a class that has a major benefit, particularly to keep up with the current meta, instead of just being a character with unique qualities and quirks.

I agree that balancing for pvp was a fundamentally poor decision, but  I think you read too much intention into the current character balance as well as shipwrecked's.

 

Warly is fundamentally poorly designed, because his mechanics don't align with his playstyle goals.  It is much easier and more efficient to binge eat every 1.76+ days or eat a meaty stew instead of eating a diverse amount of foods.

 

In addition, he has tuning problems on top of it.  Most of his custom recipes are crap, and he is weak despite starting with a boss item equivalent (insulated pack).

 

Walani has little reason to surf instead of upgrade to a better boat, and her perks don't translate well to a rog environment.

 

I like Wilbur, but his running and pooping and banana mechanics generally fall flat.

 

Woodie in dst doesn't have much upside and a lot of downside.  Willow's fire immunity was never a balance issue.  Wilson has always been obselete since other sources of beard hair were added.

 

Balance is a mess and the only explanations are inability or apathy.

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1 minute ago, Toros said:

I agree that balancing for pvp was a fundamentally poor decision, but  I think you read too much intention into the current character balance as well as shipwrecked's.

 

Warly is fundamentally poorly designed, because his mechanics don't align with his playstyle goals.  It is much easier and more efficient to binge eat every 1.76+ days or eat a meaty stew instead of eating a diverse amount of foods.

 

In addition, he has tuning problems on top of it.  Most of his custom recipes are crap, and he is weak despite starting with a boss item equivalent (insulated pack).

 

Walani has little reason to surf instead of upgrade to a better boat, and her perks don't translate well to a rog environment.

 

I like Wilbur, but his running and pooping and banana mechanics generally fall flat.

 

Woodie in dst doesn't have much upside and a lot of downside.  Willow's fire immunity was never a balance issue.  Wilson has always been obselete since other sources of beard hair were added.

 

Balance is a mess and the only explanations are inability or apathy.

Have not reached the point of playing all the Shipwrecked characters, only researched them. But even in that, heard of the meta for Warly of just eating food that completely fills him so he can outlast the day requirement. Although that could be fixed if they made it so the day requirement scales based on how much hunger the food he eats satisfied.

Balance in games is exceptionally rare anyways so it is not particularly outstanding here. But yeah on some characters it is absurdly obvious.

Wigfrid is not even fun because she is so overpowered. Normally Deerclops is potentially a crisis if you are on your own, and you have to find interesting ways to kill him like Klaus, tentacles or trap pits. But as Wigfrid, just need a hambat and that is about it. And the same goes for most other combat scenarios, she is so efficient that combat is about as threatening as it is in an anime MMO. The only difference between Wigfrid and the other meta is that her bonus is comparatively weaker but with no drawbacks. While Wolfgang's is much stronger but requires food in place. It's borderline irritating to see people playing as them in the server, because it's just like oh well they have to put zero effort into survival now don't they.

 

New solution. Remove all the character quirks and abilities, and just make their statistics the same as Wilson's. Honestly, that would probably make the game more fun because you wouldn't have Maxwell leveling forests, Wigfrid and Wolfgang soloing bosses, Wickerbottom auto-growing cops and WX78 running at the speed of light all the time.

If characters were all just made cosmetic, that probably would actually make the game more varied. Because people would have to actually survive instead of relying on their RPG classes to always win the game in the same way. The developers are clearly incapable of making the characters balanced. Warly, who has problems, is almost the only character in the game whose abilities are based on changing gameplay and not giving free class specializations.

Even the modded character Womp is more creative then the other characters, because he adds a clever mechanic for using wetness that benefits and hinders players alike. And while Womp also could be made more difficult and unique, at his base he is still far better designed then any of the base game characters.

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1 hour ago, The Curator said:

If characters were all just made cosmetic, that probably would actually make the game more varied. Because people would have to actually survive instead of relying on their RPG classes to always win the game in the same way. The developers are clearly incapable of making the characters balanced. Warly, who has problems, is almost the only character in the game whose abilities are based on changing gameplay and not giving free class specializations.

Even the modded character Womp is more creative then the other characters, because he adds a clever mechanic for using wetness that benefits and hinders players alike. And while Womp also could be made more difficult and unique, at his base he is still far better designed then any of the base game characters.

The unpopularity of some characters comes from the fact they are essentially "beardless Wilson"s+X, which is no better than playing another character and imposing restrictions yourself. That's why Womp looks better in comparison, because they already lack the interesting dynamics you speak of.

Difficulty tiers are more suited for single player, and "classes" aren't necessarily bad if it adds diversity. Though in the end it's a bit late to change the current DST cast except for Willow.

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4 minutes ago, HamBatter said:

The unpopularity of some characters comes from the fact they are essentially "beardless Wilson"s+X, which is no better than playing another character and imposing restrictions yourself. That's why Womp looks better in comparison, because they already lack the interesting dynamics you speak of.

Difficulty tiers are more suited for single player, and "classes" aren't necessarily bad if it adds diversity. Though in the end it's a bit late to change the current DST cast except for Willow.

The diversity the classes add however is based exclusively on allowing certain characters to perform certain tasks better. But this does not make things dynamic here. It simply allows certain characters to out-perform others, in ways that most of the time just end up ruining the game experience.

If every character was beardless Wilson, then the concept would not be negative because there would not be meta to out-shine the average; because every character would be average. Allowing players to choose characters based on appearance preferences over who wins, or does not win, the easiest or who functions in more useful ways.

Personally prefer Wendy the most, but cannot stand to play as her because of the meaningless gimmick of having to rely on Abigail and her choppy primitive A.I and time-based power fluctuations. Abigail is not a cool minion you can command or rely on, she's just the floating area of effect that babysits you. And this is the problem most of the characters have, their gimmicks are either boring, obnoxious or overpowered.

Wendy and Abigail are not the minion and master, it's the player and computer babysitter. Wigfrid is not the fighter with picky preferences, she's the easy mode with a pointless quirk. Wolfgang is not the mega cannon that requires lots of ammunition, he's just the god mode that requires some food. The concept the developers were aiming for is visible, but the result is completely lackluster or missing its purpose.

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3 hours ago, HamBatter said:

"beardless Wilson"s+X, which is no better than playing another character and imposing restrictions yourself.

I can not deny this because I here it many times and while of love having the game put restrictions on me for my own joy it still saddens me that noone gives characters a chance just because of first impressions but I can't blame them for that really. I just wish every character was given a fair shot that doesn't mean you can't hate a certain character but I don't think it's right to completely dismiss a character based on what somebody said without trying them first. One thing I do enjoy which about warly is I can turn his debuff into a strength even if only in theory but this is just me rambling.

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Characters have different abilties/ stats to stand out from each other, its what makes the game fun and brings a different challenge for each character you play as. If you don't like that, find or create a mod that can adjust to your preference of gameplay.

Also my muscles help me lift boulders.

Lets not change that fact.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, The Curator said:

If every character was beardless Wilson, then the concept would not be negative because there would not be meta to out-shine the average; because every character would be average. Allowing players to choose characters based on appearance preferences over who wins, or does not win, the easiest or who functions in more useful ways.

This will then depend on game difficulty for fun, and there will no longer be a reason to play once you "win".

31 minutes ago, The Curator said:

Personally prefer Wendy the most, but cannot stand to play as her because of the meaningless gimmick of having to rely on Abigail and her choppy primitive A.I and time-based power fluctuations. Abigail is not a cool minion you can command or rely on, she's just the floating area of effect that babysits you. And this is the problem most of the characters have, their gimmicks are either boring, obnoxious or overpowered.

Wendy and Abigail are not the minion and master, it's the player and computer babysitter. Wigfrid is not the fighter with picky preferences, she's the easy mode with a pointless quirk. Wolfgang is not the mega cannon that requires lots of ammunition, he's just the god mode that requires some food. The concept the developers were aiming for is visible, but the result is completely lackluster or missing its purpose.

Not sure whether it's a complete miss, as I see people liking the characters for the reasons you don't.

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