The BERNIE! Exploit Poll

[Mr.Mulk]

I understand foremost that the intended mechanic was for Willow to only have 1 BERNIE! at a time, and as such the exploit allowing players to stack multiple large BERNIE!s was understandably patched out.

However, I also am of the opinion that sometimes we learn more about the game through random chance, and to be quite frank the multiple BERNIE! exploit was actually really fun and made Willow interesting again, at least in my opinion. It's removal didn't make the game any more fun (which is what I look for in changes), it just made Willow worse. Which for a character who desperately needed this buff is quite the shame indeed.

Some might say it's overpowered, which foremost is a difficult thing to nail down on exactly defining. However, I would argue that even a large BERNIE! army was less effective than a proper Wicker Tentacle trap. The screenshots of people (always conveniently in creative mode) with 50 BERNIE!s undercut the amount of resources it'd require to set up and maintain such an Army, in comparison to a tentacle trap that literally drops most of the materials (along with some nice weapons) required to craft it. Sure, Bernie isn't destroyed upon "death" but it will still take a substantial amount of time to gather any significant amount of BERNIE!s and then they have to be repaired when they fall in combat.

It seemed like this update was designed to make Willow more summoner-like, which while I am not personally a fan of the idea I am willing to work with what I've been given. Perhaps a compromise would be best here, with either a server or Willow BERNIE! cap limit set so as to not flood servers. If they want to make her more summoner-like but limit her to a single summon this does seem to defeat the purpose of a "summoner" character, at least a stereotypical one.

I'm interested to see what people's opinions are on this in the comments, primarily because I don't actually know if I share the majority opinion. Please keep things civil as always.

[CutChemist]

Geez dude you guys complained about fire immunity and got it, just take what you have and enjoy the game.

[. . .]

1 minute ago, CutChemist said:

Geez dude you guys complained about fire immunity and got it, just take what you have and enjoy the game.

Complaining is love, complaining is life. Without complaining we can't achieve great things.

I complain I want BERNIE! army back .

[Mr.Mulk]

1 minute ago, CutChemist said:

Geez dude you guys complained about fire immunity and got it, just take what you have and enjoy the game.

I'm sad that this has to be stated time and time again.

1: Klei wants feedback, including constructive criticism. If there's something I think they did which isn't the best I'm actually helping them achieve the goal by providing my input on it. They certainly wouldn't want people to be silent on problems.

2: Critiquing a game I paid money for is completely fine, I don't understand the issue. If I was merely hating on Klei I'd understand this but I'm actually attempting to give them something to work with here. It is far from ungrateful to do so.

[lakhnish]

@Mr.Mulk Infinite Bernies has been patched before your post, as per this bug report here. That's what my thoughts are as well

Edit: Personally, don't really care. 

[FreyaMaluk]

Question comparing tentacles doesn't really apply... Tentacles cannot move... And don't taunt enemies to take the aggro of you

Big Bernie acts as a defender while tentacles do attack Wicker and everything indiscriminatly... 

Now on the "exploit"... I think it's a kinda cool feature.. How "balanced" it is its mostly a matter of personal interpretation.. But I believe it was a cool strat specially cuz you need some time to set it up... 

Later in the game with more resources and automated traps and farms that might change slightly.. But I still believe it was a cool and fun feature for Willow to make her feel powerful.  

Question 4 has 2 "yes" answers.?? 

[YouKnowWho]

I really really don't agree...

Maybe it's just me, but the idea of reducing all combat to "stay at base and feed the one-willow-army while they take care of any and all threats" really bums me out. It'd defeat any and all reason to have anybody actually work together on fights. 

And the argument that a summoner needs more than one summon is pretty weak since we'd already gotten a summoner in-game. Wendy. People seem fine with her only being a two-man army; unless we're going to need another thread, that is.

[Alexias]

You can’t justify something being OP because there is another thing is OP, that not how the balance work.

Stack of 2000 HP defenders was too much imo.

And if they’re going to re-add it then community will demand abigail get the same treatment, right now you can only active one Abigail.

 

[Mr.Mulk]

10 minutes ago, YouKnowWho said:

Maybe it's just me, but the idea of reducing all combat to "stay at base and feed the one-willow-army while they take care of any and all threats" really bums me out. It'd defeat any and all reason to have anybody actually work together on fights. 

I mean it's a marginal difference from the current status of combat, which boils down to "Wicker sets up boss arenas with tentacle traps and lures them into it" or "Wicker creates massive piles of food to give to Wolfgang who goes and kills everything for her"
Like I get to an extent it's subjective, but I don't think the game's combat was particularly invigorating here to begin with,

10 minutes ago, YouKnowWho said:

And the argument that a summoner needs more than one summon is pretty weak since we'd already gotten a summoner in-game. Wendy. People seem fine with her only being a two-man army.

It's why it's not the primary argument, also I'm really not a fan of making Willow and Wendy anymore similar than they already have become as a result of this.

14 minutes ago, FreyaMaluk said:

Question comparing tentacles doesn't really apply... Tentacles cannot move... And don't taunt enemies to take the aggro of you

Big Bernie acts as a defender while tentacles do attack Wicker and everything indiscriminatly... 

Now on the "exploit"... I think it's a kinda cool feature.. How "balanced" it is its mostly a matter of personal interpretation.. But I believe it was a cool strat specially cuz you need some time to set it up... 

Later in the game with more resources and automated traps and farms that might change slightly.. But I still believe it was a cool and fun feature for Willow to make her feel powerful.  

To clarify the comparison, it's because they ended up serving relatively similar purposes in different methods. Tentacles are extremely high dps but low defense, making them good for boss farming. Bernie was high hp (so effective defense) with much lower dps, making him good for boss farming, but not quite on the same level.

Really what I'm curious mostly about is the group who doesn't think it should be readded but then states Wicker's tentacle farms are more powerful. I'm assuming the opinion is that they don't like either, but the thing is we know no characters are getting nerfed, meaning Wicker gives a metric to work off.
 

@FreyaMaluk It's a joke because the moonwalking was hilarious

5 minutes ago, Namelessgamer said:

You can’t justify something being OP because there is another thing is OP, that not how the balance work.

Stack of 2000 HP defenders was too much imo.

And if they’re going to re-add it then community will demand abigail get the same treatment, right now you can only active one Abigail.

 

I judge something by how much fun it is, as this is a video game and satisfaction from playing should be the primary focus.
I've stated it before but there's a reason people play the meta, because to be quite frank they're fun. While it is certainly possible to make balanced characters that are fun as well, it would be better for the lens to be "fun first, balance later." In my opinion the removal made Willow less fun and didn't greatly benefit the game in any significant fashion.

[l0rdgumby]

Bernie moonwalking really broke the game there should be representation in the poll for that

[KainMorgen]

I don't care how OP multiple Bernies are compared to other abilites.
Just saying, that Bernie should be regarded as a unique entity per Willow. Each Willow should only have one Bernie at a time.
Just like one Wendy can only have one Abigail at a time. Totally makes sense from a lore perspective.

Wickerbottom's Tentacles arent a unique entity. They are just tentacles. And they are not pets. Spawn to many of them and take two wrong steps in your own trap and get rekt.

[Ressayez]

Either make it into a mechanic (allowing the amount of BERNIE!s to be proportional to the amount of Willows) or leave it alone. It was an exploit, I don't want an exploit to be added back into the game like this just because people find it fun.

OH WAIT, THEY DID!

• There can only be one active BERNIE! per Willow player, but they can now activate near each other.

Give it a rest already.

[GuyNamedChris]

I prefer the one large Bernie per Willow. If one falls the next one can be ready to beef up and take its place.

[Fiztahat]

sorry i don't really understand about this change.. so now my willow is can only have 1 bernie ? or i still can craft 2 bernie? because i really like to have 2 bernie + sew kit in my inventory, 1 for deploy, and when it's broken i deploy another one and then take the broken one, so i will not getting hit by mob (such as hounds, spider / etc ) when i want to take it and then i fix it..

[Faultz]

you can have multiple bernies made but only 1 active per willow

[seffard]

You cant resort to Wicker's tentacles as an argument because they may get nerfed when her rework comes. 

[FreyaMaluk]

Just now, seffard said:

You cant resort to Wicker's tentacles as an argument because they may get nerfed when her rework comes. 

I'm sure they won't... The devs themselves said they are not interested in nerfs but unique gameplay experiences. 

[h2mk]

16 minutes ago, Mr.Mulk said:

I judge something by how much fun it is, as this is a video game and satisfaction from playing should be the primary focus.
I've stated it before but there's a reason people play the meta, because to be quite frank they're fun. While it is certainly possible to make balanced characters that are fun as well, it would be better for the lens to be "fun first, balance later." In my opinion the removal made Willow less fun and didn't greatly benefit the game in any significant fashion.

The reason some people (or at least me) do not want this is because a lot of people don't find it fun and find it to be cheating.

"But you don't have to use the exploit right? Just play her without Bernie army."

Yeah but DST is an online game and you cannot stop a friend or random from using Bernie army. That seems to be why they removed fire farms from DST but not DS, right? Because in DS fire farms only affect one player, while in DST it can affect more. 

[Faultz]

Infinite bernies was a constant nightmare fuel farm.

If you really want to compare to tentacle.

There is no risk at all with Bernies

How many times have you died to a Tentacle tho ?

[Evivo]

Well as much as I love having Bernies fight for me while cackling madly the whole time, me and I'm sure a lot of people consider it a huge game breaker. Also I'm upset I never got to see Moonwalking Bernie...

[Well-met]

Tentacles hate your guts, can't move and certainly won't attack shadows.

This is about as dumb as claiming heal items are worthless because wortox exists.

[56933043043]

6 minutes ago, Hell-met said:

Tentacles hate your guts, can't move and certainly won't attack shadows.

This is about as dumb as claiming heal items are worthless because wortox exists.

To be fair, non-spoiling healing items are mostly inferior to healing foods in their current state.

[FreyaMaluk]

Just now, Sketched_Philo said:

To be fair, non-spoiling healing items are mostly inferior to healing foods in their current state.

Two words... Bundling Wraps

[Charsis]

If many big berny bug is reversed, guess might as well let green gem be dropped from deconstructing what it is in recipe of. Wicker books are op everyone knows that. But pretty sure she will get reasonable nerf when her character change comes around. If klei is looking to change characters best time to balance them well, but most of all make fun to play. Multiple berny can just make combat meaningless because of his versatility and make game even more boring than it is. Any combat problem, let berny army do it and just sit and wait till they done. Not really engaging is it?

[Seero]

3 hours ago, CutChemist said:

Geez dude you guys complained about fire immunity and got it, just take what you have and enjoy the game.

Jeez dude, might as well not make any suggestions