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About Maxwell.. (frustrated)


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I really want to like him so badly. I've forced myself to play him for well over 30hrs. It was a frustrating and tiresome experience. I really like his personality and monologue. His health can be managed with care. The downside for me is the shadow puppets. They are presented as a benefit and beg to be used even after they prove their infuriating qualities.

For the benefit of cutting wood quickly I get to spend every other moment running away from tress hoping I was quick enough to stop them from clear cutting everything especially the twiggy tress in my base. I could dispel them sure; but then I get to waste two days farming fuel. The miner and digger cost just as much and face the same AI issues but are only useful some of the time. I won't even go into the duelists, which really should be the redeeming light for Maxwell. They are not.

Being able to read books is fine. Rarely see Wickerbottom. In fact I usually play solo because most people join, say "Where the base" wander around for a few minutes then leave after dying in darkness. (That's what I've experienced during 80hrs+ in DST.) 

I've seen a dozen threads complaining about Maxwell being underwhelming, they are reminded that Maxwell is more of a gatherer. He's more like a destructive nuisance. In every thread I scroll through hoping to hear from development about how they feel. I wondered if they themselves played the game with the community. Did they meet up later and say "Yeah this is fine, works great."

The sale brought a lot of new players. Any links to the Devs commenting on Maxwell?

I might give in and go with everyone's champ Wolfgang. ;\

 

 

 

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 Well Maxwell himself was problematic in the original Don't Starve to you can say it's a plus that they made his puppets actually useful now but the problem you face is Also the  problem I am many others face.  The only solution I could offer you is look in the workshop to see if there is a mod that allows you to control them as transfer all your other questions I unsure so i will say no

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If you're not one of those people who get disgusted at the mention of mods, @rezecib made a rebalance mod that changes a bunch of character mechanics, beefalo domestication, misc. changes, etc. Here's the description of what he changed regarding Maxwell:

 

Maxwell:

  • Can now change his minion types by giving them items, or make them stop working, but they cost 5 fuel and Maxwell starts with 5 fuel instead of 6
  • Minions all have 75 health, and non-duelists have 1/5 of the duelist regen
  • Minions now match Maxwell's movement speed
  • Chopper minions no longer run away from poison birchnuts
  • Duelist minions have improved kiting (will still have trouble with groups of enemies)
  • Two new minion types: torchbearer, porter (picks items up)
  • Minions can be given hats. Armor hats give 25% reduction and prevent a hit from doing more than 45 damage, all other hats are cosmetic.

So if you're interested, here's the link:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741879530&searchtext=rezecib

 

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Sounds more like you haven't got enough time under your belt in DST and/or the right mindset when playing Maxwell to see how to most effectively use his minions rather than an actual problem with the character.

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11 hours ago, KoreanWaffles said:

Honestly, they should just allow you to toggle your puppets on and off.

It's not perfect, but it would be simple and easy to implement.

For instance, if you hold an axe, all the lumberjacks know to chop. Hold a pick, they know to mine. Wouldn't be too hard....

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13 minutes ago, Weirdobob said:

For instance, if you hold an axe, all the lumberjacks know to chop. Hold a pick, they know to mine. Wouldn't be too hard....

But then the 2 choppers + 1 digger combo couldn't work, or just extremly complicated, cause you'd have to change tools constantly. Also you couldn't hold a lantern or a torch in the hand as they work during the night or in the caves.

Beside that I'd also like if we could temporarily "switch off" the puppets.

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8 hours ago, fimmatek said:

Beside that I'd also like if we could temporarily "switch off" the puppets.

That'd be interesting, actually.

Turning them off makes them "Shadow dancers" and all they do is run next to you and /dance

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18 hours ago, Quyzbuk said:

Sounds more like you haven't got enough time under your belt in DST and/or the right mindset when playing Maxwell to see how to most effectively use his minions rather than an actual problem with the character.

Agreed, OP comes off as a pretty inexperienced player.

Nightmare fuel is ridiculously easy to come by once you've learned to kite crawling horrors and terrorbeaks and Maxwell can utilize his minions for perpetual unending insanity. I don't see how the ability to level an entire forest for logs/living logs in one fell swoop is negated by you not wanting to dispel your minions when you're finished. Same goes for quarries and marble forests, go and get stacks of rocks/nitre/flint/gold/marble and dispel your minions, I'd say that the four nightmare fuel it costs for the maximum amount of minions (this is considering you get back four from dispelling them on your own accord) makes these tasks worth it.

I'm sorry that you think Wickerbottom is an underutilized character from being on pubs/setting your server to public, I assure you, she is not. Try asking some of your friends if they are willing to come on and craft you some books and if you don't have any friends with the game or who are unwilling to help out, make some who have the game and won't mind lending a hand. Hell, I'd be willing to do this simple task for anyone if they can provide me with the materials and crafting stations.

This video by @JohnWatson might help you, though he uses Wolfgang, kiting nightmares is possible with any character, no speed boost is needed.

 

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On 6/1/2017 at 1:08 AM, Quyzbuk said:

Sounds more like you haven't got enough time under your belt in DST and/or the right mindset when playing Maxwell to see how to most effectively use his minions rather than an actual problem with the character.

23 hours ago, Ressayez said:

Agreed, OP comes off as a pretty inexperienced player.

Nightmare fuel is ridiculously easy to come by once you've learned to kite crawling horrors and terrorbeaks and Maxwell can utilize his minions for perpetual unending insanity. I don't see how the ability to level an entire forest for logs/living logs in one fell swoop is negated by you not wanting to dispel your minions when you're finished. Same goes for quarries and marble forests, go and get stacks of rocks/nitre/flint/gold/marble and dispel your minions, I'd say that the four nightmare fuel it costs for the maximum amount of minions (this is considering you get back four from dispelling them on your own accord) makes these tasks worth it.

I'm sorry that you think Wickerbottom is an underutilized character from being on pubs/setting your server to public, I assure you, she is not. Try asking some of your friends if they are willing to come on and craft you some books and if you don't have any friends with the game or who are unwilling to help out, make some who have the game and won't mind lending a hand. Hell, I'd be willing to do this simple task for anyone if they can provide me with the materials and crafting stations.

This video by @JohnWatson might help you, though he uses Wolfgang, kiting nightmares is possible with any character, no speed boost is needed.

 

I disagree with both of you. I waited a while to reply to consider you might be right. I'd regathered my enthusiasm and gave Maxwell another (a few) go. At what level of experience would Max's quirks make playing him fun? Anything combat related is an aggravating experience. Having to choose between a backpack and armor has never been so apparent than when playing with Max. 

After doing some reading I decided to try again, during the playthrough I took some of the duelist shadows up against some spiders. They died in seconds to 4 spiders. Accidentally got hit by a Merm, nearly died. Running for life from bats that wandered far from a sinkhole. Forgot to dispel choppers, chopped 3 of my twiggy trees. Even with log armor making a mistake against the clockworks is costly.

What really ended it was watching the duelists die immediately from fighting a few spiders. Could I just get them to help with SPIDERS?

It's fine if your'e happy with Maxwell. He's an okay errand boy for the group. No level of experience will excuse the poor A.I., only make it easier to mitigate the unnecessary shortcomings of what should be an advantage. I usually play solo, he's not worth it solo. He's a frail gatherer and that seems to be what the devs intended. 

120hrs of study and participation is enough to identify imbalance and frustrating mechanics. So stop it, please. 

 

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50 minutes ago, CantBreathe said:

I disagree with both of you. I waited a while to reply to consider you might be right. I'd regathered my enthusiasm and gave Maxwell another (a few) go. At what level of experience would Max's quirks make playing him fun? Anything combat related is an aggravating experience. Having to choose between a backpack and armor has never been so apparent than when playing with Max. 

After doing some reading I decided to try again, during the playthrough I took some of the duelist shadows up against some spiders. They died in seconds to 4 spiders. Accidentally got hit by a Merm, nearly died. Running for life from bats that wandered far from a sinkhole. Forgot to dispel choppers, chopped 3 of my twiggy trees. Even with log armor making a mistake against the clockworks is costly.

What really ended it was watching the duelists die immediately from fighting a few spiders. Could I just get them to help with SPIDERS?

It's fine if your'e happy with Maxwell. He's an okay errand boy for the group. No level of experience will excuse the poor A.I., only make it easier to mitigate the unnecessary shortcomings of what should be an advantage. I usually play solo, he's not worth it solo. He's a frail gatherer and that seems to be what the devs intended. 

120hrs of study and participation is enough to identify imbalance and frustrating mechanics. So stop it, please. 

 

You could have 5000 hours and I would still say the same thing I'm about to say to you, you are doing it wrong.

 

Duelists are there not to do the work for you, but to assist you. This is not an Abigail that just charges in with reckless abandon and does the ol' tank and spank. Let a duelist hit a spider first, then kill everything that goes after it while it holds aggro for you. Conversely, you could hold the aggro for them if you want, proper kiting and combat prowess on your part will largely determine how much help they will be for most creatures. For Maxwell, teamwork means giving the enemy something else to shoot at. 

 

As for your general play, his whole challenge aspect is that he has a significantly lower health pool than the rest of the cast. If you are still unable to work with that, the problem is not with the character, it's with your playstyle.

 

You need to learn how to make his perks work for you, not the other way around.

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I main Maxwell, I have 3k+ hours , I believe you're not using him right. I'm curious to why you have shadow loggers always spawned? I only ever have shadow puppets whenever I need them. I play solo a lot myself and with Thulecite Armor or even bone armor+helm mobs are no problem. I have armor and weapon hotkeyed so switching is not a big deal. Honestly I've never used shadow duelist. 

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22 minutes ago, CutChemist said:

I main Maxwell, I have 3k+ hours , I believe you're not using him right. I'm curious to why you have shadow loggers always spawned? I only ever have shadow puppets whenever I need them. I play solo a lot myself and with Thulecite Armor or even bone armor+helm mobs are no problem. I have armor and weapon hotkeyed so switching is not a big deal. Honestly I've never used shadow duelist. 

Thanks for the insight. Were you able to solo fuelweaver with Max?

Do you use Dark Sword/Night Armor?

Why Max over Wolfgang?

Thanks

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32 minutes ago, CantBreathe said:

Do you use Dark Sword/Night Armor?

I use dark swords almost exclusively as Maxwell. And night armor can also be fairly helpful as well if you need extra defense. All you need is a top hat or better and you can break even with the drain of the armor (but don't forget you'll still lose sanity from darkness, monsters and getting hit while wearing the armor). I'd also recommend having some healing salve or something like that on hand. You can't afford to lose much health and that can help you (or a friend) out of a tricky situation in a pinch.

39 minutes ago, CantBreathe said:

Why Max over Wolfgang?

Because sometimes it's fun playing as a (semi) underpowered character then a super overpowered one.

2 hours ago, Quyzbuk said:

Duelists are there not to do the work for you, but to assist you. This is not an Abigail that just charges in with reckless abandon and does the ol' tank and spank. Let a duelist hit a spider first, then kill everything that goes after it while it holds aggro for you. Conversely, you could hold the aggro for them if you want, proper kiting and combat prowess on your part will largely determine how much help they will be for most creatures. For Maxwell, teamwork means giving the enemy something else to shoot at. 

I'd rather just spend that sanity and nightmare fuel on a dark sword and get the job done myself. Duelists are horrible unless you want to farm nightmare fuel. When they agro a spider, they get swarmed by them way too quickly for you to take the agro yourself. And when the puppet ends up dying in a couple of hits, everything is now going to focus on you.

Heck, even Webber is better at handling his minions then Maxwell. They're more disposable, you can have as many as you'd like and they even have more health then Maxwell's duelists. And all you need is a little bit of monster meat...

Yes. I just said that Maxwell's duelists aren't much better then common spiders. It's because they really aren't.

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13 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

I use dark swords almost exclusively as Maxwell. And night armor can also be fairly helpful as well if you need extra defense. All you need is a top hat or better and you can break even with the drain of the armor (but don't forget you'll still lose sanity from darkness, monsters and getting hit while wearing the armor). I'd also recommend having some healing salve or something like that on hand. You can't afford to lose much health and that can help you (or a friend) out of a tricky situation in a pinch.

Because sometimes it's fun playing as a (semi) underpowered character then a super overpowered one.

I'd rather just spend that sanity and nightmare fuel on a dark sword and get the job done myself. Duelists are horrible unless you want to farm nightmare fuel. When they agro a spider, they get swarmed by them way too quickly for you to take the agro yourself. And when the puppet ends up dying in a couple of hits, everything is now going to focus on you.

Heck, even Webber is better at handling his minions then Maxwell. They're more disposable, you can have as many as you'd like and they even have more health then Maxwell's duelists. And all you need is a little bit of monster meat...

Yes. I just said that Maxwell's duelists aren't much better then common spiders. It's because they really aren't.

I really appreciate your input and support about the duelists. 

I really want to be able to play a world solo. Including reseting the ruins by defeating fuelweaver.

Wigfrid and Wolfgang can definitely do this. I'm not sure about Maxwell or my true favorite Webber. (At least not without exploits)

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24 minutes ago, CantBreathe said:

I really want to be able to play a world solo. Including reseting the ruins by defeating fuelweaver.

Wigfrid and Wolfgang can definitely do this. I'm not sure about Maxwell or my true favorite Webber. (At least not without exploits)

I've seen someone kill the fuelweaver with Wes before. So Maxwell and Webber should definitely be capable as well. I'd get to stocking up on gunpowder to actually bring down his health to a manageable level.

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3 hours ago, CantBreathe said:

Thanks for the insight. Were you able to solo fuelweaver with Max?

Do you use Dark Sword/Night Armor?

Why Max over Wolfgang?

Thanks

I use gunpowder for fuelweaver, it's one mob with too many variables with a character with low hp. I use only dark swords and the occasional ham bat when spelunking. I do use nightarmor in fact it's one if my favorite armors. Also when it's not summer or winter I always wear a helmet weather it's a wig helm or thul crown. I also find it imperative to have healing salves and jelly beans in my backpack at all times. I can post a screen shot of my inventory when I get on my computer later.

I use Max cause I'm residentsleeper and don't like chopping and mining so I let the minions do the dirty work for me XD. Also I just like the character altogether 

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1 hour ago, Sinister_Fang said:

I'd rather just spend that sanity and nightmare fuel on a dark sword and get the job done myself. Duelists are horrible unless you want to farm nightmare fuel. When they agro a spider, they get swarmed by them way too quickly for you to take the agro yourself. And when the puppet ends up dying in a couple of hits, everything is now going to focus on you.

That's not how aggro works in this game, nor are we talking about when you have more nightmare swords than you know what to do with. When a the target of an NPC dies, they return to whatever state they would otherwise be in unless you do something to provoke them to come after you next.

Unless you're aggro'ing a couple dozen spiders at a time and/or tier 2 spiders (warriors/spitters/etc) you should have no problem quickly cutting down each and every spider that comes to attack your duelist while they kite the swarm for you since regular spiders do not fight back if you keep hitting them. Anyone who has used Chester/Hutch as a meatshield, or assisted another player knows that the enemy will zero in on their aggro target, leaving you free to pick groups of enemies off one by one safely.

 

2 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Heck, even Webber is better at handling his minions then Maxwell. They're more disposable, you can have as many as you'd like and they even have more health then Maxwell's duelists. And all you need is a little bit of monster meat...

Webber's ability to draft spiders to his side hardly qualifies as minion handling when it's the same thing as any other character getting a pig/bunny/rock lobster to help out, the duelists at least are summonable on demand, require no upkeep, don't steal potentially valuable loot, and follow you between transitions to and from the caves. What's more is that you won't endanger a non-Webber teammate when those spiders do their own thing again, nor are you forced to finish the fight or flee, hoping that you can forcibly drag your conscripted army away from something you might not want to kill or before they get wiped out themselves.

Wendy is the only other true alternative with a minion, with the exception of course that Abigail enters a cooldown when killed, and requires a kill to summon.

2 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

Yes. I just said that Maxwell's duelists aren't much better then common spiders. It's because they really aren't

For more dangerous creatures they may not be, but depending on what you are trying to accomplish, they do their job with significantly fewer potential downsides.

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3 minutes ago, Quyzbuk said:

When a the target of an NPC dies, they return to whatever state they would otherwise be in unless you do something to provoke them to come after you next.

And if you're trying to draw the agro of spiders away from the puppet then you're going to be hitting spiders. So yeah, there's going to be a good chance you'll be hitting spiders when the puppet dies and they all turn to you next.

16 minutes ago, Quyzbuk said:

nor are we talking about when you have more nightmare swords than you know what to do with

I'm just saying that the nightmare fuel and the sanity drain is better spent using a dark sword. In the early game when you don't have much nightmare fuel you're not going to want to waste it on something that will just get itself killed pretty easily.

12 minutes ago, Quyzbuk said:

Webber's ability to draft spiders to his side hardly qualifies as minion handling when it's the same thing as any other character getting a pig/bunny/rock lobster to help out

I was pretty much just comparing duelists to spiders because they're really not all that different stat wise. But you bring up another good point. Why waste sanity and fuel for a sub-par minion when you can just go get a few pigs that do the same thing, have more then double the health and deal similar damage.

24 minutes ago, Quyzbuk said:

the duelists at least are summonable on demand, require no upkeep, don't steal potentially valuable loot, and follow you between transitions to and from the caves.

Good points, but duelists do have an upkeep. It's your maximum sanity. And maybe that one fuel you get back for dismissing the puppet yourself. I still don't think these pros outweigh their cons though.

25 minutes ago, Quyzbuk said:

For more dangerous creatures they may not be, but depending on what you are trying to accomplish, they do their job with significantly fewer potential downsides.

In any situation I could safely use a duelist in, I could just get the job done myself. Never once have I thought "Man, I wish I had a duelist helping me right now". I would like to see a scenario that duelists are actually useful in other then farming nightmare fuel. Personally, I've only been able to successfully use them when fighting treeguards. But again, I have no problem at all taking care of them without the aid of duelists.

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16 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

In any situation I could safely use a duelist in, I could just get the job done myself. Never once have I thought "Man, I wish I had a duelist helping me right now". I would like to see a scenario that duelists are actually useful in other then farming nightmare fuel. Personally, I've only been able to successfully use them when fighting treeguards. But again, I have no problem at all taking care of them without the aid of duelists.

That is true for most seasoned / veteran players that visit these boards, but before we get our farms going, before we start teleporting everywhere, before we are truly set up to focus purely on the most challenging stuff the game has to offer in any given world, it still is nice to be able to call in support on demand to just make things just a little less of a nuisance.

 

(Also when you get caught away from your base with a hound attack impending on the surface, they can be quite handy for a practical example)

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