Balance question

[Pop Guy]

I have noticed that, always, when it is proposed to increase the power, capacity or "numerical parameters" of a character, the thing is seen badly, almost as if you are asking for something wrong or uninteresting.
This is not true, and I would like to explain why:
1) in the game there are already a "tide" of legitimate ways to make some of the most difficult challenges very easy: walls for dragonfly, tentacles for the queen of bees, and so on. Giving more tools only means being able to use more sophisticated strategies instead of the usual two or three ways.
2) Some characters are better in every respect than others. Let me explain: a Wolfgang consumes more food, but this "problem" can be completely eliminated with an advanced farm. On the other hand, a Wendy will always have a penalty of -25% damage, which will never compensate in some way.
A Wicker cannot sleep to recover sanity, but with other methods she can recover it immediately. Wigfrid will never benefit from vegetables.
I could go on but I'll stop here.
In short, they look like the third edition D&D classes: where a level 20 magician was better in every respect than a warrior, making him de facto useless in the party economy.
In such a context, with a similar difference in capacity, strength, resistance, versatility, synergy and power, where some characters can do everything and others almost nothing, it is obvious that to smooth out the differences some should receive pure and simple increases in characteristic .
But how can Abigail do less damage than a single Winona catapult? It is not enough to make it controllable, its level of power and resistance must increase, without there being anything wrong with it.
I mean, right now, who would take a Wilson, who doesn't do ANYTHING, compared to a Wortox who heals more companions at the same time and teleports?
In short, we have common people in comparison with Homeric heroes, but this is not good: in a single player YES; because there you choose based on the challenge you want to have. But in a group game if you choose a weak character you become superfluous in the team. If not harmful. And this is unpleasant for those who play.
Even worse if the other players "treat you badly" for your choice (which happens very often, in the Forge, where the other players didn't let you play if you chose Wendy or Wes).
In short, to rebalance all the characters, they should at least offer comparable styles of play in terms of "spending / difficulty / earning resources", while offering different challenges. And this sometimes also translates into a simple and pure increase in statistics.
As for Abigail.

[metallichydra]

perhaps you should wait until Klei have changed every character (like they did with Winona)

[GenomeSquirrel]

1 hour ago, Pop Guy said:

But in a group game if you choose a weak character you become superfluous in the team. If not harmful. And this is unpleasant for those who play.

This is false, there's a massive difference between providing a suboptimal surplus of resources vs doing actual harm

[TheOwl]

I agree with GenomeSquirrel. One of my friends mains Willow, the other one mains Wendy. And while the Wendy main is kinda harmful to the team because he dies a lot (dies to a tentacle, dies again trying to get his stuff back, then again trying to get his stuff back, then again following me while I get his stuff back), the Willow main is never superfluous. The character is not an especially good fighter or gatherer, but that doesn't stop her from gathering and fighting, picking berries, killing McTusks, farming spiders, etc.

Any person who knows how to play will not be superfluous, much less harmful. You just won't have as easy a time as with some other characters. Given that the game is not really hard when you actually know how to play, there is nothing wrong with that.

[Pop Guy]

1 hour ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

This is false, there's a massive difference between providing a suboptimal surplus of resources vs doing actual harm

 

53 minutes ago, TheOwl said:

I agree with GenomeSquirrel. One of my friends mains Willow, the other one mains Wendy. And while the Wendy main is kinda harmful to the team because he dies a lot (dies to a tentacle, dies again trying to get his stuff back, then again trying to get his stuff back, then again following me while I get his stuff back), the Willow main is never superfluous. The character is not an especially good fighter or gatherer, but that doesn't stop her from gathering and fighting, picking berries, killing McTusks, farming spiders, etc.

Any person who knows how to play will not be superfluous, much less harmful. You just won't have as easy a time as with some other characters. Given that the game is not really hard when you actually know how to play, there is nothing wrong with that.

 

3 hours ago, Pop Guy said:

In short, we have common people in comparison with Homeric heroes, but this is not good: in a single player YES; because there you choose based on the challenge you want to have. But in a group game if you choose a weak character you become superfluous in the team. If not harmful. And this is unpleasant for those who play.
Even worse if the other players "treat you badly" for your choice (which happens very often, in the Forge, where the other players didn't let you play if you chose Wendy or Wes).
 

These exclusion mechanisms transcend the player's ability or not. And anyway a good player will always do better with an optimal character, and a inexperienced player will always give more problems to the team with a weak character. Then it is obvious that if one is good he can play well with Wes too. But I don't think that's the point of the discussion, it doesn't center on what I was talking about.

1 hour ago, metallichydra said:

perhaps you should wait until Klei have changed every character (like they did with Winona)

Please read carefully what I wrote. It's about future character updates, and based on what criteria should be changed ;)

[GenomeSquirrel]

12 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

These exclusion mechanisms transcend the player's ability or not. And anyway a good player will always do better with an optimal character, and a inexperienced player will always give more problems to the team with a weak character. Then it is obvious that if one is good he can play well with Wes too. But I don't think that's the point of the discussion, it doesn't center on what I was talking about.

First, you need to define exclusion mechanism, because I don't see any exclusion.

Second, you need to stop oversimplifying, give examples, give whys and hows. 

When you say "a good player will always do better with an optimal character", here you need to say better at what tasks to give better relevance, because Wendy can outperform Wolfgang in terms of getting food, easy spider kills and bee kills leads ridiculous amount of honey

And your inexperienced player comment is false, remember that Wolfgang is a worse character than Wes when hungry, and an inexperienced player can absolutely be unaware of that trait or unable to maintain good hunger levels.

[TheOwl]

Same with Wortox: an inexperienced player will just keep getting killed by nightmare creatures.

An inexperienced Wickerbottom will have the same issue because of the sanity loss for stale food and for using the books.

An inexperienced WX will get killed before they can even get gears to upgrade themselves.

An inexperienced Maxwell will die because of his low health.

Really, "suboptimal" characters are usually the best ones for beginners, because they don't have any weird mechanics or big drawbacks.

[Toros]

Pop guy is obviously not really qualified to talk about balance, as demonstrated by trying to equate DST and forge which are wildly different gamemodes with wildly different balancing.

In DST every character can beat every challenge solo.  The Forge required teamwork to be successful, and the game didn’t start until everyone was ready.

You can’t compare the two at all, and only an uninformed or dishonest person would attempt to.

Even if one character is in all ways more mechanically powerful than another, both together is still even better than either alone.  You can’t “invalidate” another character.

 

[metallichydra]

52 minutes ago, TheOwl said:

Same with Wortox: an inexperienced player will just keep getting killed by nightmare creatures.

An inexperienced Wickerbottom will have the same issue because of the sanity loss for stale food and for using the books.

An inexperienced WX will get killed before they can even get gears to upgrade themselves.

An inexperienced Maxwell will die because of his low health.

Really, "suboptimal" characters are usually the best ones for beginners, because they don't have any weird mechanics or big drawbacks.

this is what Wilson is for

[Unn0ticedShadow]

All characters do indeed need to be balanced late game, or people will just go through the portal and switch to another character when the time comes.  If you are a Willow late game, where you probably have dwarf stars and sanity restoring items, there is no reason to not play Wickerbottom instead, as hunger and sanity should no longer are problems, and neither are light, rendering Willow useless late game (except for cooking items on the go).

While Wickerbottom has books of all sorts that can be used for tons of things, like killing the queen bee with tentacles and Krampus summoning with birds of the world.  To make this even worse, Wickerbottom is better than Willow early game, with unlimited food (except in winter) with ‘agriculture’ book, and even in winter with ‘birds of the world’, and a portable science machine!  

To conclude, there is no reason not to play Wickerbottom over Willow or Wendy, no matter at what time, and while some people say that they may still see Wendy mains, that’s no way to justify imbalance, as no matter what some people will always (and reasonably) care about balance, and without it will you play the better characters and not see the other characters for their unique dialogue and traits. 

Although they are getting reworked, so ‘wait for the reworks’ giving advice on how to balance the characters always helps, especially when people can’t agree on which characters need to be balanced.  All characters need to be balanced, at least in the Late-game.

(And Toros, Two Wickers is always better than a Wicker and a Willow)

[Pop Guy]

1 hour ago, Toros said:

Pop guy is obviously not really qualified to talk about balance, as demonstrated by trying to equate DST and forge which are wildly different gamemodes with wildly different balancing.

In DST every character can beat every challenge solo.  The Forge required teamwork to be successful, and the game didn’t start until everyone was ready.

You can’t compare the two at all, and only an uninformed or dishonest person would attempt to.

Even if one character is in all ways more mechanically powerful than another, both together is still even better than either alone.  You can’t “invalidate” another character.

 

Of obviously there's only your rudeness.
Anyway, what better example of the only event of the game where the concept of team was fundamental? Because in the Forge more than elsewhere the hostility of the other players was evident if you took a sub-optimal character, even if you were good, even if you could be fundamental for the victory, with certain characters you only took insults, and the experience was unpleasant . In normal DST the cards on the table do not change that much: banned players because they enter as Willow or Wes or treated badly because they chose characters that the community perceives as superfluous, how many times has it happened?
"It's a problem of the community, not of the game"
Not really: the game should guarantee equal "dignity" (in quotation marks for obvious reasons) to every choice, not to punctually make privileged choices, be it the Forge, the Gorge or the base game.
And I purposely neglect the PvP aspect, and only because that on the forum is not popular: but I would like to remind you that it is also a part of the game, and it would be very funny if the characters were all capable of "facing each other" on equal terms.
Anyway, peace and love, dear.

[Maxposting]

4 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

banned Willow and Wes, how many times has it happened?

Certainly you need to act like a complete noot noot for you to get banned, regardless of character choice.

[Pop Guy]

1 hour ago, TheOwl said:

Same with Wortox: an inexperienced player will just keep getting killed by nightmare creatures.

An inexperienced Wickerbottom will have the same issue because of the sanity loss for stale food and for using the books.

An inexperienced WX will get killed before they can even get gears to upgrade themselves.

An inexperienced Maxwell will die because of his low health.

Really, "suboptimal" characters are usually the best ones for beginners, because they don't have any weird mechanics or big drawbacks.

You for "inexperienced" talk about one who has just started the game. It doesn't take much to learn to survive with each character and take advantage of the benefits, stop believing that it takes a degree or 1000 hours of play to learn how to use Wolfgang or Wickerbottom decently  Obviously the first ten/fifteen hours a freshman will play better with Wilson. And the remaining 100 hours? Please guys, I for "inexperienced player" I mean one who knows the rudiments of the game and manages to survive with everyone, but not being an expert (ie: he never really deepened how it works the AI of the mobs, the methods of cheese, etc.) fails to exploit every nuance at the maximum power that guarantee the strongest characters. A player so obviously will make even less with the weaker characters. While an experienced player, who even knows how to trap butterflies (here on the forum there is a guide to this) will surely be able to shine with the characters that best allow "broke" the game.
Then of course, the novices who have just entered and are afraid of a turkey coming out of the berries will certainly prefer a Wilson.
But really, it takes little to learn to survive with anyone. And at that point it becomes important that the characters know how to offer as many opportunities.

[Unn0ticedShadow]

 

Spoiler

Certainly you need to act like a complete noot noot for you to get banned, regardless of character choice.

Not always, often Willows are the first people to be banned when a griefer is on the server, though I have never seen someone banned for being a Wes.

[TheOwl]

12 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

You for "inexperienced" talk about one who has just started the game. It doesn't take much to learn to survive with each character and take advantage of the benefits, stop believing that it takes a degree or 1000 hours of play to learn how to use Wolfgang or Wickerbottom decently Obviously the first ten/fifteen hours a freshman will play better with Wilson. And the remaining 100 hours? Please guys, I for "inexperienced player" I mean one who knows the rudiments of the game and manages to survive with everyone, but not being an expert (ie: he never really deepened how it works the AI of the mobs, the methods of cheese, etc.) fails to exploit every nuance at the maximum power that guarantee the strongest characters. A player so obviously will make even less with the weaker characters. While an experienced player, who even knows how to trap butterflies (here on the forum there is a guide to this) will surely be able to shine with the characters that best allow "broke" the game.
Then of course, the novices who have just entered and are afraid of a turkey coming out of the berries will certainly prefer a Wilson.
But really, it takes little to learn to survive with anyone. And at that point it becomes important that the characters know how to offer as many opportunities.

My friend who mains Wendy has played for 50 hours. Still has trouble keeping his sanity up and if I don't take them on for him, he'll die to Crawling Horrors pretty often. Still can't kite hounds. Still forgets to eat (he died from starvation when Deerclops came on the first winter during our last game... even though we told him we'd need to go away from base on night 30). Still has to be given instructions, otherwise he'll just stay at base doing nothing because "I don't know what I should do". Give him a character with actual drawbacks, and he'll be even more of a burden.

There is a need for balancing, true. But people trating you badly for your choice is a community problem, not a problem with the game. If my friend went on a public server as a Wicker, he'd probably be able to make all the people in that server ban all Wickers in every server they make afterwards. And having characters with not much good, but not much bad is not a bad thing. They're necessary.

[Toros]

39 minutes ago, Unn0ticedShadow said:

All characters do indeed need to be balanced late game, or people will just go through the portal and switch to another character when the time comes.  If you are a Willow late game, where you probably have dwarf stars and sanity restoring items, there is no reason to not play Wickerbottom instead, as hunger and sanity should no longer are problems, and neither are light, rendering Willow useless late game (except for cooking items on the go).

While Wickerbottom has books of all sorts that can be used for tons of things, like killing the queen bee with tentacles and Krampus summoning with birds of the world.  To make this even worse, Wickerbottom is better than Willow early game, with unlimited food (except in winter) with ‘agriculture’ book, and even in winter with ‘birds of the world’, and a portable science machine!  

To conclude, there is no reason not to play Wickerbottom over Willow or Wendy, no matter at what time, and while some people say that they may still see Wendy mains, that’s no way to justify imbalance, as no matter what some people will always (and reasonably) care about balance, and without it will you play the better characters and not see the other characters for their unique dialogue and traits. 

Although they are getting reworked, so ‘wait for the reworks’ giving advice on how to balance the characters always helps, especially when people can’t agree on which characters need to be balanced.  All characters need to be balanced, at least in the Late-game.

(And Toros, Two Wickers is always better than a Wicker and a Willow)

There are plenty of reasons to not play Wickerbottom over Willow, the most important being that every character can solve every challenge the game presents.  They can all survive in every season and defeat every boss.

If your reading comprehension was better, you'd have recognized that I said that any two characters are better than a single character alone.  Two Wickers may be better than a Wicker and a Willow, but A Wicker and a Willow are always better than a Wicker OR a Willow.

Every ally of reasonable skill level adds value on any character, and since no ally is required for any challenge the game offers, optimizing your character choice is never necessary at even a moderate level of skill.

15 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

Of obviously there's only your rudeness.
Anyway, what better example of the only event of the game where the concept of team was fundamental? Because in the Forge more than elsewhere the hostility of the other players was evident if you took a sub-optimal character, even if you were good, even if you could be fundamental for the victory, with certain characters you only took insults, and the experience was unpleasant . In normal DST the cards on the table do not change that much: banned players because they enter as Willow or Wes or treated badly because they chose characters that the community perceives as superfluous, how many times has it happened?
"It's a problem of the community, not of the game"
Not really: the game should guarantee equal "dignity" (in quotation marks for obvious reasons) to every choice, not to punctually make privileged choices, be it the Forge, the Gorge or the base game.
And I purposely neglect the PvP aspect, and only because that on the forum is not popular: but I would like to remind you that it is also a part of the game, and it would be very funny if the characters were all capable of "facing each other" on equal terms.
Anyway, peace and love, dear.

I have exactly the level of respect for your opinions that your reasoning has earned them.  I'm accusing you of ignorance and being unqualified to make accurate judgements based on the poor understanding you've demonstrated thus far.  It would not be rude to say you are unqualified to be a diplomat when you don't speak the language necessary to fulfill the job requirements.

Events are unlikely to come back anytime soon, so using them as the crux of your argument is both tactically unsound and logically irrelevant.  Even if we're pretending Forge/Gorge balancing and toxic behavior in the community was relevant, it wouldn't apply to DST which has completely different mechanics and balancing anyway.

The game doesn't need to guarantee equal "dignity" to every choice, because it is impossible to enforce equality of outcome without making every character the same.  The fact that you choose language like "dignity" and "privileged" in your argument make it even more clear that your argument is rooted in emotion, not logic.

You're not purposely neglecting the PvP aspect when you bring it up, and I also don't think an unpopular game mode for a game that was never balanced around it has any relevance to character balance.  Certain characters are clearly geared more towards combat, and pan flute destroys any balance PvP might have had because it is an automatic "I win" button on any character.

I've seen several of your other posts that were equally non-substantiative but when you make a thread and posit weak and easily dismissed arguments I felt a responsibility to refute them.

[Pop Guy]

36 minutes ago, Toros said:

There are plenty of reasons to not play Wickerbottom over Willow, the most important being that every character can solve every challenge the game presents.  They can all survive in every season and defeat every boss.

If your reading comprehension was better, you'd have recognized that I said that any two characters are better than a single character alone.  Two Wickers may be better than a Wicker and a Willow, but A Wicker and a Willow are always better than a Wicker OR a Willow.

Every ally of reasonable skill level adds value on any character, and since no ally is required for any challenge the game offers, optimizing your character choice is never necessary at even a moderate level of skill.

I have exactly the level of respect for your opinions that your reasoning has earned them.  I'm accusing you of ignorance and being unqualified to make accurate judgements based on the poor understanding you've demonstrated thus far.  It would not be rude to say you are unqualified to be a diplomat when you don't speak the language necessary to fulfill the job requirements.

Events are unlikely to come back anytime soon, so using them as the crux of your argument is both tactically unsound and logically irrelevant.  Even if we're pretending Forge/Gorge balancing and toxic behavior in the community was relevant, it wouldn't apply to DST which has completely different mechanics and balancing anyway.

The game doesn't need to guarantee equal "dignity" to every choice, because it is impossible to enforce equality of outcome without making every character the same.  The fact that you choose language like "dignity" and "privileged" in your argument make it even more clear that your argument is rooted in emotion, not logic.

You're not purposely neglecting the PvP aspect when you bring it up, and I also don't think an unpopular game mode for a game that was never balanced around it has any relevance to character balance.  Certain characters are clearly geared more towards combat, and pan flute destroys any balance PvP might have had because it is an automatic "I win" button on any character.

I've seen several of your other posts that were equally non-substantiative but when you make a thread and posit weak and easily dismissed arguments I felt a responsibility to refute them.

You talk like the fake-intellectuals in my faculty, you stay on a pedestal and make the lord of nothing :'D
The events have characterized the game for months, presumably they will come back but, even if it were not, they were a significant part of the game, I can use them as an argument. Your denying the thing is your devaluing them, but in my opinion they were instead the highest and most amusing point reached by DST.
And yes, it is possible to give "equal dignity" to every character by keeping them unique, games like Overwatch or similar are the proof.
Paradoxically, the same The Forge was much more balanced than the basic game, with only two really sub-optimal choices.
However, to put it in Italian: "so many beautiful things and good life" =)

[4 Da LOLs]

34 minutes ago, Unn0ticedShadow said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Certainly you need to act like a complete noot noot for you to get banned, regardless of character choice.

Not always, often Willows are the first people to be banned when a griefer is on the server, though I have never seen someone banned for being a Wes.

same the whole server based at spawn the second the Wes came through the portal they immediately were banned by everyone but me

[Toros]

7 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

You talk like the fake-intellectuals in my faculty, you stay on a pedestal and make the lord of nothing :'D
The events have characterized the game for months, presumably they will come back but, even if it were not, they were a significant part of the game, I can use them as an argument. Your denying the thing is your devaluing them, but in my opinion they were instead the highest and most amusing point reached by DST.
And yes, it is possible to give "equal dignity" to every character by keeping them unique, games like Overwatch or similar are the proof.
Paradoxically, the same The Forge was much more balanced than the basic game, with only two really sub-optimal choices.
However, to put it in Italian: "so many beautiful things and good life" =)

The language I have used is no more complex or advanced than you used in your initial post, but I'm glad to see you're taking refuge in an ad hominem.

Firstly, again, Forge and Gorge balancing is irrelevant to DST character balance.  They had different character mechanics and were inherently a competitive game mode.

Secondly, Overwatch is also a competitive game mode where there is a winning team and a losing team, whereas DST is not so the comparison isn't useful even remotely.

Thirdly, Overwatch is actively being balanced all the time and has always had inconsistent character balance.  Doomfist recently has been all over the place mechanically as has Mercy.  Even if Overwatch balancing was at all relevant to DST balancing, it is not even a good example of what you are advocating for.

[Unn0ticedShadow]

59 minutes ago, Toros said:

There are plenty of reasons to not play Wickerbottom over Willow, the most important being that every character can solve every challenge the game presents.  They can all survive in every season and defeat every boss.

Every character can beat every boss, but not nearly as easily as others, and characters should be balanced for reasons mentioned before, especially considering the together aspect takes away a lot of control over who picks who.  If the best reason to do something is because you can, often it’s not the most interesting to do, especially when it’s a whole character.

59 minutes ago, Toros said:

If your reading comprehension was better, you'd have recognized that I said that any two characters are better than a single character alone.  Two Wickers may be better than a Wicker and a Willow, but A Wicker and a Willow are always better than a Wicker OR a Willow.

My mistake there, but it’s pretty much unarguable that having a Wes is better than nobody at all.  No reason to insult though, let’s keep this argument civil.

59 minutes ago, Toros said:

Events are unlikely to come back anytime soon, so using them as the crux of your argument is both tactically unsound and logically irrelevant.  Even if we're pretending Forge/Gorge balancing and toxic behavior in the community was relevant, it wouldn't apply to DST which has completely different mechanics and balancing anyway.

The Forge/Gorge are still applicable in that they showed why we do need balance in a PvE game even when there was reason to play them (character achievements) and although the lack of vote kick option made it different, plenty of people would refuse to start a game with a Wendy or Webber.

59 minutes ago, Toros said:

You're not purposely neglecting the PvP aspect when you bring it up, and I also don't think an unpopular game mode for a game that was never balanced around it has any relevance to character balance.  Certain characters are clearly geared more towards combat, and pan flute destroys any balance PvP might have had because it is an automatic "I win" button on any character.

PvP was more of an afterthought than a game mode, so let’s avoid that for now

59 minutes ago, Toros said:

The game doesn't need to guarantee equal "dignity" to every choice, because it is impossible to enforce equality of outcome without making every character the same.  The fact that you choose language like "dignity" and "privileged" in your argument make it even more clear that your argument is rooted in emotion, not logic.

Your need to insult people who oppose your viewpoint also shows the same ‘emotional’ thought process.  This kind of thinking brings nothing to the table so let’s drop it.

Spoiler

The game doesn't need to guarantee equal "dignity" to every choice, because it is impossible to enforce equality of outcome without making every character the same.

This is not true, many games like LoL, and other have found great ways to balance characters, which is far from impossible while keeping characters fun, that doesn't mean we should give up on reaching partial balance either.

Spoiler

Pop Guy Said:

 

You talk like the fake-intellectuals in my faculty, you stay on a pedestal and make the lord of nothing :'D

Seriously Pop Guy?  I agree with your arguments (and am also italian) but your not making a point by insulting him, and proved his point.

[Toros]

17 minutes ago, Unn0ticedShadow said:

Every character can beat every boss, but not nearly as easily as others, and characters should be balanced for reasons mentioned before, especially considering the together aspect takes away a lot of control over who picks who.  If the best reason to do something is because you can, often it’s not the most interesting to do, especially when it’s a whole character.

My mistake there, but it’s pretty much unarguable that having a Wes is better than nobody at all.  No reason to insult though, let’s keep this argument civil for now.

The Forge/Gorge are still applicable in that they showed why we do need balance in a PvE game even when there was reason to play them (character achievements) and although the lack of vote kick option made it different, plenty of people would refuse to start a game with a Wendy or Webber.

PvP was more of an afterthought than a game mode, so let’s avoid that for now

Your need to insult people who oppose your viewpoint also shows the same ‘emotional’ thought process.  This kind of thinking brings nothing to the table so let’s drop it.

 

 

I haven't insulted anyone.  If you would've read my post carefully, you wouldn't have misunderstood.  Pop guy has demonstrated that he doesn't understand DST (or Overwatch) balancing.  I'm not saying either of you are incapable of understanding DST balance and I don't think that is true.

I can definitely say that if you think comparing a competitive game mode to a sandbox with completely different balancing and mechanics is a good idea you're not making a strong argument.

Tons of people play Wilson despite him being bottom 3 mechanically because they like his style and unless you're fighting raid bosses the things that make the top tier characters top tier really aren't important.  Many people just enjoy exploring and base building, and you focusing on the combat viability of certain characters is missing that.

For the third and hopefully final time, Forge/Gorge has no relevance to DST.  DST is not a PvE game, it is a survival sandbox.  Forge/Gorge didn't have any survival mechanics and Gorge didn't even have combat.  Comparing them for the sake of balance makes absolutely no sense.

I'm not saying that DST characters couldn't be more balanced.  They absolutely could be, and I expect they will be with the new balance philosophy Klei is displaying with Wilba 2.0, Wormwood, Winona, and Wortox.  But that has nothing to do with Forge/Gorge/Overwatch/Pokemon/Starcraft 2 which are all completely different in a fundamental sense than DST.

[minespatch]

6 minutes ago, Toros said:

DST is not a PvE game

If people could only understand that with Oxygen Not Included as its not a multiplayer game.

[Unn0ticedShadow]

Spoiler

 

21 minutes ago, Toros said:

I haven't insulted anyone.  If you would've read my post carefully, you wouldn't have misunderstood.  Pop guy has demonstrated that he doesn't understand DST (or Overwatch) balancing.

 

"If your reading comprehension was better" Not technically an insult, but most certainly meant to be one, or horribly written on your part, given your criticising reading comprehension, i'm going to assume the first one.

The game doesn't need to guarantee equal "dignity" to every choice, because it is impossible to enforce equality of outcome without making every character the same.  The fact that you choose language like "dignity" and "privileged" in your argument make it even more clear that your argument is rooted in emotion, not logic.

Maybe this isn't an insult, but you should be criticizing the points made by an argument, not the wording unless it's misleading.

21 minutes ago, Toros said:

 

I can definitely say that if you think comparing a competitive game mode to a sandbox with completely different balancing and mechanics is a good idea you're not making a strong argument.

A lot of the same ideas apply though, if other games can have good balance, don't starve can, there's nothing from stopping it.  I've already established that balance is needed at least in the late-game, as people will just switch characters, and even earlygame, if you take my Wicker vs. Willow example it's a lot easier to play as Wicker, sanity being a bit harder to manage is much better than freezing at low sanity.

Spoiler

Toros Said: For the third and hopefully final time, Forge/Gorge has no relevance to DST.  DST is not a PvE game, it is a survival sandbox.  Forge/Gorge didn't have any survival mechanics and Gorge didn't even have combat.  Comparing them for the sake of balance makes absolutely no sense.

All of these are PvE, Players Vs. Everything else, although it is not singleplayer, which is why characters need to be balanced, as people pick what is easiest and best, and people do, as statistics show Willow is a very rarely chosen character, Wes the least.  (He is an exception though, being the 'challenged character', but still proves the point)  While these are different, they all share the same PvE aspect, and do show how a character imbalance can affect that.  (There are not a lot of other PvE games with choosable unique characters)

Spoiler

Tons of people play Wilson despite him being bottom 3 mechanically because they like his style and unless you're fighting raid bosses the things that make the top tier characters top tier really aren't important.  Many people just enjoy exploring and base building, and you focusing on the combat viability of certain characters is missing that.

People play Wilson because he's the default character, not because of his 'style'.  WX is better than Wilson in every way other than taking rain damage, so if people cared about 'style' they would play him, being a straight up upgrade, they play him because he's familiar, not fun, but this only applies to him, not any other character.

[Toros]

28 minutes ago, Unn0ticedShadow said:

 

"If your reading comprehension was better" Not technically an insult, but most certainly meant to be one, or horribly written on your part, given your criticising reading comprehension, i'm going to assume the first one.

The game doesn't need to guarantee equal "dignity" to every choice, because it is impossible to enforce equality of outcome without making every character the same.  The fact that you choose language like "dignity" and "privileged" in your argument make it even more clear that your argument is rooted in emotion, not logic.

Maybe this isn't an insult, but you should be criticizing the points made by an argument, not the wording unless it's misleading.

A lot of the same ideas apply though, if other games can have good balance, don't starve can, there's nothing from stopping it.  I've already established that balance is needed at least in the late-game, as people will just switch characters, and even earlygame, if you take my Wicker vs. Willow example it's a lot easier to play as Wicker, sanity being a bit harder to manage is much better than freezing at low sanity.

I criticized you for misreading my post, and I spent plenty of time criticizing Pop guy’s argument before pointing out that words like “dignity” have no place in a discussion about character balance in a video game.  The stakes are not that high.  Criticism is not an insult, and especially when factually supported don’t take a moral stance at all.  You probably don’t enjoy being criticized, but your emotional response to me pointing out an honest mistake on your part is your responsibility.

This is now the second time that I’m stating that I agree that Don’t Starve can have better balance, but balance and variety are inherently opposed concepts.  The only way to achieve perfect balance is to have everyone be the same.  When two characters are not the same they will have different strengths in various situations.

I don’t see how characters being able to switch in the late game means balance is “needed”.  If we’re assuming people are going to swap to whatever character is immediately convenient they’re going to do a lot of swapping.  Wicker for books, Winona for catapaults, maxwell for gathering, Wendy for farming splumonkies, Willow for producing lighters, etc etc.

I agree that we can discourage that by providing benefits for playing a character instead of for having played a character, but swapping works both ways.

Specialists can swap to other characters when their talents aren’t needed as much, but other characters can also swap to specialists when their talents are.

The same person who player wicker before for her books might play Webber for gathering huge amounts of silk and glands when before they would just stick with Wicker.

There’s not a downside to better character balance but I think that ultimately if the goal is to see every character used it’s more important that they all have their own niche, which already seems to be the goal with recent releases.

P.s.  Willow doesn’t freeze in spring or fall due to low sanity anymore.

[GenomeSquirrel]

6 minutes ago, Toros said:

P.s.  Willow doesn’t freeze in spring or fall due to low sanity anymore.

She does if she gats wet, good luck not getting wet in spring