Wendy's Character Refresh

[Vultureneck]

I figure Wendy's refresh is a ways a way but all this new content keeps making me think about it. These are some thoughts on her current powers and new ones I thought would be useful and thematic without being weird or overpowered. This isn't a template for how I'd like her to be but a list of every idea I'd consider putting into the rework, because not all of my ideas are completely fleshed out and if they were all used she might be convoluted.

->Wendy can summon her dead twin sister Abigail.
Love how the damage changes based on the night cycle, and how there's murder involved in summoning her. I think her stats are fitting as well.

->Wendy loses 25% less sanity from darkness and insanity auras.
I love the idea of this perk, but becaus she deals less damage it takes longer to kill enemies she typically loses as much sanity as other characters anyways. If she had immunity to insanity auras from monsters (because she's not scared of them) you'd actually notice the effects of the perk and it wouldn't even be that powerful. Mostly because this is really only significant during boss fights and even without them making you crazy she'd still be the worst character to fight them.

->Wendy gains sanity by murdering things in her inventory.
...I don't think more sanity perks is what she needs but I like the idea.

->Wendy feels a kinship with the dead
Wendy can craft gravestones as well as appease ghosts.
Don't really know where this one can go. It seems interesting, but I can't think of any way to use gravestones or befriend ghosts without it being to complicated.

->Abigail now has simple commands like "stay here, I'll be right back" or "Dont attack those three tentacles"
The commands might be annoying to implement and this is clearly way too overpowered so maybe not, lol

->Wendy gains extra sanity while sleeping if Abigail is summoned but loses sanity instead if she is not.
Wendy often talks about how broken she is because Abigail isn't there, it'd be interesting if her sister being there more of an impact then just combat, such as a good night's sleep.

->Wendy does 25% less damage.
Wendy hits like a little girl.

->Wendy takes 25% more damage
Wendy takes hits like a little girl. It's like the opposite of Wigfrid's damage resistance, Wendy isn't that good at fighting without her sister.

->When Wendy is insane more shadow creatures spawn.
Wendy is a highly disturbed individual, and the horrors she face are greater than most. More shadow creatures can spawn and target Wendy while she's insane, similar to the nightmare amulet's effect.

Lemme know if you think any of it sounds interesting, what seems pointless, overpowered or any ideas that you guys might have about it.

[Tapirus]

5 minutes ago, Vultureneck said:

->Abigail now has simple commands like "stay here, I'll be right back" or "Dont attack those three tentacles"
The commands might be annoying to implement and this is clearly way too overpowered so maybe not, lol

Usually I prefer don't talk about refresh suggestions, but actually  this is something good and requested by the community since a while. So, Klei should keep this in consideration for the twins's update.

[Pop Guy]

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->Wendy can summon her dead twin sister Abigail.
Love how the damage changes based on the night cycle, and how there's murder involved in summoning her. I think her stats are fitting as well.

Her statistics are suitable in DS, but for the average of DST they should be doubled.
I also believe it should have a more massive regeneration, like Winona's catapults.

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->Wendy loses 25% less sanity from darkness and insanity auras.
I love the idea of this perk, but becaus she deals less damage it takes longer to kill enemies she typically loses as much sanity as other characters anyways. If she had immunity to insanity auras from monsters (because she's not scared of them) you'd actually notice the effects of the perk and it wouldn't even be that powerful. Mostly because this is really only significant during boss fights and even without them making you crazy she'd still be the worst character to fight them.

Nice idea, but it wouldn't change the way you play Wendy significantly. It's a side dish, surely it would have its utility niche.

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->Wendy gains sanity by murdering things in her inventory.
...I don't think more sanity perks is what she needs but I like the idea.

Like above.

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->Wendy feels a kinship with the dead
Wendy can craft gravestones as well as appease ghosts.
Don't really know where this one can go. It seems interesting, but I can't think of any way to use gravestones or befriend ghosts without it being to complicated.

Interesting idea, even if we have to rethink Wendy's abilities in a completely new way. Being able to create an army of ghosts is certainly something that would make her a very funny character.

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->Abigail now has simple commands like "stay here, I'll be right back" or "Dont attack those three tentacles"
The commands might be annoying to implement and this is clearly way too overpowered so maybe not, lol

It is very simple to implement instead, many modders have succeeded in a simple and elegant way. Despite I'm main Wendy, without the ability to control Abigail, I wouldn't play whit her.
Trust me, it's the most important thing to implement

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->Wendy gains extra sanity while sleeping if Abigail is summoned but loses sanity instead if she is not.
Wendy often talks about how broken she is because Abigail isn't there, it'd be interesting if her sister being there more of an impact then just combat, such as a good night's sleep.

Another very marginal feature, even if pretty

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->Wendy does 25% less damage.
Wendy hits like a little girl.

A little annoying, but ok.

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->Wendy takes 25% more damage
Wendy takes hits like a little girl. It's like the opposite of Wigfrid's damage resistance, Wendy isn't that good at fighting without her sister.

Here, this is an interesting concept. Wendy I see her as a summoner who must avoid melee and help summoned creatures (Abigail) from distance.

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

->When Wendy is insane more shadow creatures spawn.
Wendy is a highly disturbed individual, and the horrors she face are greater than most. More shadow creatures can spawn and target Wendy while she's insane, similar to the nightmare amulet's effect.

Mmh, I don't know, Wendy has always had an affinity with disturbing things, it seems to me outside her character to be attacked more by the shadows.

1 hour ago, Vultureneck said:

Lemme know if you think any of it sounds interesting, what seems pointless, overpowered or any ideas that you guys might have about it.

Some time ago I advised how to modify the features of Abigail to make she enormously more useful and fun. I copy-paste my comment from the discussion, maybe you might like:

Spoiler

The mods are basically two: Flexible Abigail and Tweak Abigail.
The first one does something very simple: if you hit Abigail to send she away, the flower allows you to recall she immediately. Very useful and intelligent.
The second one is a bit more complicated: it allows you to put Abigail in "hostile" mode (where it will behave as it normally does in the basic game) or "peaceful" (where it will do no harm to any creature EVEN if they attack Wendy. In this mode Abigail will also tend to distance you from enemies).
Not only: the mod allows you to change every Abigail parameter, and adapt it to your needs. I worked hard to make Abigail strong enough BUT not broken. It wasn't easy, I did several tests, but in the end I think I made she perfect:
Life must be set at 200% 
Damage must be set to 200% 
The damage area should be set to 150%
The damage to players I suggest you keep it 100% in case of PVP, otherwise the other players are too disadvantaged.
The movement must be set to 130%
Regeneration when Abigail is peaceful must be 10 (so putting her in peace also has the function of making her recover more life)
Regeneration when Abigail is hostile must be 5
Armor at 0%. Absolutely.
All the rest leave it to original as well (evocation time, mental health penalty upon evocation, etc.)
I advise you to keep your eyes red = hostile; white eyes = peaceful to understand the mode in which she is found.
In this way Abigail is able to tank in bosses, but she is not able to kill anyone without the support of Wendy (not even at night, not even the Goose who is the weakest). However, she will give a HUGE hand: it is basically a tank that will take a lot hits, for you.
To make the experience even more fun, I suggest you also install The Forge Battle Pack: add lots of perfect items to support Abigail (the stirrup of life, the crystal tiara, etc. etc.) as well as, above all, a garment that increases the damage of her companions BUT does not give protection to Wendy.
These three mods as a whole make Wendy's gameplay unique, wholly revolving about how to make the most of her and her twin. How it should be 

[Vultureneck]

@Pop Guy I play on ps4 so I'm getting whatever they give me, but the effects in those two mods would be amazing, especially when the console auto targets Abigail and I send her away >.>                    As it is Abigail is usable in some boss fights but typically only by crafting a bunch of flowers and summoning her over and over again when she dies, and I'm not sure how I feel about that

30 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

Mmh, I don't know, Wendy has always had an affinity with disturbing things, it seems to me outside her character to be attacked more by the shadows.

I think your right about this, I was trying to think of some interesting weaknesses involving insanity/shadows but I think those areas don't work well as a weakness for her. 

You brought up some good points I haven't thought of before, and most of the changes i thought of won't really affect gameplay that much. Over the next couple of days I'll try to come up with some changes that would be more meaningful, rather than a bunch of small ones that are kinda neat lol.

[Cpt. KatKit]

I think she should lose her damage penalty at night and have ways to reliably heal a living Abigail that don't involve having a flower shop in your inventory. 

[Bobert216]

What if Wendy had a special weapon that when something is killed with it provides some bonus, or maybe summons a ghost (or if you want to put a lot of work in the ghosts can be specific to whatever is killed) but it deals pitiful damage like maybe fist damage or even lower, making her rely on Abigail to use it properly otherwise the durability loss isn't worth it, I Imagine that this would be hell to balance but if combined with the commands that were mentioned above you could have Abigail not finish something off if you command her to not fight and that could make it more consistent

 

Edit: Maybe it also lowers sanity on swing instead of durability or something, or maybe just lower sanity on kill like with Abigail summons

[thistownneedsguns]

isnt wendy already really good?

 

or are the devs reworking all characters?

[reverentsatyr]

20 minutes ago, thistownneedsguns said:

isnt wendy already really good?

 

or are the devs reworking all characters?

Wendy is considered a pretty bad character. And yes, every character is going to be reworked.

[blacknight7890]

I've said it before, but along with having better control over abagale, I think abagale should be able to haunt things just like dead players can, it would have a niche use, yes, but haunting things can have some useful effects and if you can do that while not actually being dead, it will save people a lot of revives, and it would give Abagale utility that she just doesn't have right now.

[Ryeknox]

Couple idea's I've thought for wendy/Abigail.

1.  Wendy can use Abby's flower to produce/create flowers on the ground at cost of health. OR Abigail randomly poops flowers  during the day.
2. Wendy can instruct Abigail to sacrifice her ghost. to revive other players. Doing so sends Abigail back into her flower and resets her timer, but players revived don't suffer health penalty. Like they would with portal or telltale heart.

[unicornninja]

Wendy's abigail powerful about kill little things like spiders because of AOE but it's reign of giants so Wendy can't kill bosses because she's so weak also Abigail dies so quick against bosses. I want her to be powerful. Also her sanity power doesn't work any. She's like other characters. 

[Pop Guy]

4 hours ago, Vultureneck said:

but the effects in those two mods would be amazing, especially when the console auto targets Abigail and I send her away >.>                 

even mouse and keyboard play bad tricks, hatred when I hit Abigail for mistake :'D But then, I will have the right to decide whether to dismiss her, right? Having to wait three to four days each time is only unnecessarily penalizing and boring.

4 hours ago, Vultureneck said:

As it is Abigail is usable in some boss fights but typically only by crafting a bunch of flowers and summoning her over and over again when she dies, and I'm not sure how I feel about that

Yes, it's the only way to use she in combat, and she still remains quite sub-optimal. But now that Klei have given 51 of damage and 2000 HP to the Willow's bear we can well hope for a significant increase in the Abigail's characteristics 

[Vultureneck]

3 hours ago, Bobert216 said:

What if Wendy had a special weapon that when something is killed with it provides some bonus

If we have a ceremonial sacrificial dagger it better have bonuses against volt goats lol.

4 hours ago, Cpt. KatKit said:

I think she should lose her damage penalty at night and have ways to reliably heal a living Abigail that don't involve having a flower shop in your inventory. 

This, lol. You can heal Abigail, but only with things like healing salve, but it doesn't heal her any extra and she doesn't wear armor so it really is just a waste. New Wendy item, GHOST healing salve (yeah, definitely going with that name) Uses a spider gland and some nightmare fuel or something,  and it heals ghosts to full. Or maybe give a telltale heart to Abigail and it fully heals her.

8 hours ago, Vultureneck said:

>Wendy feels a kinship with the dead
Wendy can craft gravestones as well as appease ghosts.

I thought more about how this might work, Wendy can place a bouquet of flowers on a grave, if she does a ghost spawns from it and follows her. She can craft graves using maybe 8 boneshards, a night, 3 boards and 2 cut stone (for a casket and a headstone)

[CarrotCakes]

Whenever I play Wendy, which is basically all the time, I've always found myself disliking how her ghost functions in the game setting.

Certainly, she's useful in the earlier stages of the game, but as the game progresses on, I find myself using Abigail less and less.

On the other hand, however, the idea of being forced to rely on Abigail is something I personally dislike. Giving Abigail a straight up stat buff, or being able to directly command her, for example, is something I would like to avoid. Rather than using Abigail as a typical meat shield/mass mob killer, I believe that they should instead complement each other, and make her somehow scale in similar usefulness in the later parts of the game.

Abigail tends to fight things aggressive mobs, and never runs away until that thing is dead. This makes her a nightmare for traversing the swamps because if a stray tentacle hits Abigail, she's going to be battling it out with something that's going to end up killing her. For that reason, I think she needs improvements to her AI. A mod I frequently use makes Abigail run to Wendy when she goes off screen, which I think is a fantastic idea. The idea of Abigail always following Wendy, no matter what, just makes sense, in my opinion.

Abigail's stats are decent in the early game. She can mob spiders, bees, hounds, and pretty much any other early game threat. And, to be frank, I find that uninteresting, considering that to spawn Abigail in, Wendy has to murder a creature, which incurs a sanity penalty.

The idea of murdering a mob to spawn Abigail could be taken a step farther. By that, I mean that Wendy killing certain mobs can affect how Abigail functions, which I think would be an interesting concept.

A rough example of this would be killing a rabbit as Wendy would spawn in a relatively weak Abigail, but killing something like a spider warrior would spawn a tougher Abigail, maybe with different perks too.

I'd also like to see Abigail scale in usefulness, somehow or another. One idea that pops into my head is the idea of Abigail scaling in power if Wendy kills an aggressive mob directly. How this could work is Wendy keeping her flower in her inventory. The more aggressive mobs she kills without dropping the flower down, the more powerful Abigail becomes, and summoning Abigail after reaching a certain milestone in aggressive mobs killed would make her stronger.

Honestly, this does seem pretty strong to me, so having Abigail on a timer until she despawns would be a nice way to balance her out.

The day/night cycle affecting Abigail's damage output is an interesting concept, and personally, I don't think that particular thing needs a change. To me, it's fine as is.

@Vultureneck The damage taken penalty idea that you mentioned seems like a good idea, although that's just because I'd like to see more players utilize the Night Armor that so many players often ignore, and having to wear Night Armor to combat her damage taken penalty increase would be nice to see. 

Your idea of having more nightmare creatures spawn when she goes insane seems like a great idea too. I think that by adding that perk, as well as taking into account her damage taken penalty bonus would make her a really fun character to try to play with.

I agree with @Pop Guy on the idea that the sanity reduction feels more like something Wendy just gets on the side. I'm not sure how this can be changed, perhaps it doesn't need a change at all. I always felt that the sanity reduction never really mattered on Wendy, but that's kind of hard to observe anyway because the ability is innately passive, and doesn't feel all too affecting overall.

Of course, these are just my thoughts, and it's ultimately up to Klei on what they would change about Wendy, but I just wanted to put this out there.

[maradyne]

11 hours ago, Vultureneck said:

->Wendy feels a kinship with the dead
Wendy can craft gravestones as well as appease ghosts.
Don't really know where this one can go. It seems interesting, but I can't think of any way to use gravestones or befriend ghosts without it being to complicated.

Expanding a bit on 'in touch with the nature of death'. A few mod ideas that I had a long time ago.

 - Can revive Skeletons/Reconstructed Skeletons as followers (stronger/faster at night, like weaker Pigmen; equippable)
 - Ghosts don't aggro, and upon seeing her become followers (stronger/faster at night, like weaker versions of old Abigail)
 - Reconstructed Skeleton; 2 Bone Shards, 1 Honey
 - Can revive a skeleton by using a revival item on it
 - Can spawn a Ghost by using a revival item on a grave
 - Black Heart; 6 Nightmare Fuel, 6 Monster Meat, 6 Beard Hair; the victim comes back insane but with only a 10 point health penalty, and any user besides Wendy receives a hefty sanity loss

...funnily enough that last one would mesh well with Lunacy.

The idea was to keep Wendy in line with AoE and her familiarity with blurring the line between life and death, while expanding on those traits.
Originally intended as parts of a Wendy update to pair with a fully fleshed out Abigail character mod with her own revival mechanics, abilities and such, buuut...the character updates have been about as strong as Wendy would be with all of these and control of Abi at the same time, so here lol.
No matter what, Abigail herself definitely needs some work.

[AceTheMartyr]

7 hours ago, Bobert216 said:

What if Wendy had a special weapon that when something is killed with it provides some bonus, or maybe summons a ghost (or if you want to put a lot of work in the ghosts can be specific to whatever is killed) but it deals pitiful damage like maybe fist damage or even lower, making her rely on Abigail to use it properly otherwise the durability loss isn't worth it, I Imagine that this would be hell to balance but if combined with the commands that were mentioned above you could have Abigail not finish something off if you command her to not fight and that could make it more consistent

 

Edit: Maybe it also lowers sanity on swing instead of durability or something, or maybe just lower sanity on kill like with Abigail summons

YO this got me thinking if wendy was insane or abigail-less abigail would manifest the air around her fists/weapons with a purple aura or something although this does just basically get rid of the 25 dmg debuff  tricky thing to balance as you said 

7 minutes ago, lifetheuniverse said:

Expanding a bit on 'in touch with the nature of death'. A few mod ideas that I had a long time ago.

 - Can revive Skeletons/Reconstructed Skeletons as followers (stronger/faster at night, like weaker Pigmen; equippable)
 - Ghosts don't aggro, and upon seeing her become followers (stronger/faster at night, like weaker versions of old Abigail)
 - Reconstructed Skeleton; 2 Bone Shards, 1 Honey
 - Can revive a skeleton by using a revival item on it
 - Can spawn a Ghost by using a revival item on a grave
 - Black Heart; 6 Nightmare Fuel, 6 Monster Meat, 6 Beard Hair; the victim comes back insane but with only a 10 point health penalty, and any user besides Wendy receives a hefty sanity loss

...funnily enough that last one would mesh well with Lunacy.

Originally intended as parts of a Wendy update to pair with a fully fleshed out Abigail character mod with her own revival mechanics, abilities and such, buuut...the character updates have been about as strong as Wendy would be with all of these and control of Abi at the same time, so here lol.
No matter what, Abigail herself definitely needs some work.

the ghosts/skeletons would have to be close to useless for any other character mains to not whine xD the idea is cool tho unfortunately balance is a trapeze act  also the black heart recipe isnt 6 beard hair a bit much? xD personally i would just revive someone with a telltale and build a booster shot. Although maybe i just got bad RNG with beardlings

[maradyne]

Other than making the recipe amounts 666 for joeks, the Black Heart recipe was meant to be a mix of utility and alternate sourcing. Removes most of the usual revival health penalty with an immediate sanity hit instead, without using gems. Kinda like a mobile Meat Effigy with different after-effects. Something to tap into Wendy's experience with death and let her provide direct, noticeable usefulness to the team...while making use of her dark mental themes.

Beardhair/Nightmare Fuel can be obtained en-masse by a Wendy mid-game with an occasional Splumonkey genocide. Wilson and Beardlings sources sure, but with a Wendy around they're just a small supplement.

 

As for balance...
Catapults and Wortox healing.
That's all I have to say there lol.

[AceTheMartyr]

41 minutes ago, lifetheuniverse said:

Other than making the recipe amounts 666 for joeks, the Black Heart recipe was meant to be a mix of utility and alternate sourcing. Removes most of the usual revival health penalty with an immediate sanity hit instead, without using gems. Kinda like a mobile Meat Effigy with different after-effects. Something to tap into Wendy's experience with death and let her provide direct, noticeable usefulness to the team...while making use of her dark mental themes.

Beardhair/Nightmare Fuel can be obtained en-masse by a Wendy mid-game with an occasional Splumonkey genocide. Wilson and Beardlings sources sure, but with a Wendy around they're just a small supplement.

 

As for balance...
Catapults and Wortox healing.
That's all I have to say there lol.

yea i feel like the wortox healing needs to be cut down by like 10 hp honestly LOL and winona catapaults need to be refilled or something xD

[csc_unit]

Hoy Ok. So I really think most of the rework should be all around Abi, the character, the twin partner, the AI. I like the concept of Wendy being weak without her dead sister. I like the way Wendy/ Abi is a really good character against large groups of small mobs and very bad against single large mobs (aka bosses). However, there needs to be something new around Wendy/Abi that makes her more attractive later in game when you need to tackle those big large mobs; I'm a bit tired of fighting along a dead Abi laying in her flower watching me wacking my lil spear like a wimp. This "something" should be from Abi (we get to it further down here). Abi's stats don't need change I think. If Klei makes her stronger, she'll kill small mobs instantly and thats gonna be too powerfull. Changing the stats will make fighting large groups of small mobs too easy and boring, especially if, like I'm about to suggest, Abi's gameplay evolves with the rework. Soo, Wendy and Abi keeps their respectives stats!

That said, why Abi needs most of the rework? Because she is one of the twins! Klei made bunch of pins and toys ; Abi is popular and should be more important. At the moment, when playing Wendy, Abi feels like a very simple standard follower. Abi can only attack, she does nothing else and she does so without warning on anything that is not friend. Big dumb dumb this Abi, it's hard to believe she's her twin sister. 

I want to play Wendy and Abigail. The basic orders/commands, as people and OP said before is a must thats for sure. As I said I don't have giants ideas at the moment. But There could be something like a defense stance you can activate where Abi does not attack or barely.

Defense stance activated! : When in defense stance, Abi loses her AOE effect and start kiting and to "aggro" the ennemi. She becomes more transparent (like a ghost that she is) and therefore the mob does not deal lots of damage. This has for main purpose to save Wendy from the ennemi luring him away. Wendy can also use this at her advantage to attack the boss while Abi has the attention. However, this stance has an insanity aura effect on Wendy cause se doesn't like to see her sister fades into oblivion. The stance has a timer, if Abi fade completely, she disappears without leaving the flower . 

That would make Wendy and Abi a more viable character late in game.

This plus something that is not related to fighting for Abi would be great but I don't have any idea as of for now. 

[pedregales]

I know that it makes no sense in-canon (and that it probably is a nightmare to implement, so is never going to happen), but it would be cool if we could play as Wendy and alive-Abigail. Starting with 2 characters to which you can control (you can play Wendy or Abigail at any given time) and command (you can make the other sister passive, aggressive, help you gather resources, etc.), and having to manage both of their needs (health, hunger, sanity, cold/heat, wetness, and maybe something else), would be tricky and interesting. Of course, this means that Abigail-ghost would be lost, if one of the sisters die, they should behave as a regular player ghost that follows the living sister around until revived, but is unable to do damage and has an immense insanity aura for all living players. But the idea of Wendy being able to control ghosts could be used here as a sort of replacement of Abigail-ghost, I suppose.

[maradyne]

Eh, rule of W.

...I did make up a pretty extensive design for a playable Abi to act as a pair with the Wendy rework ideas I had mentioned above, but I don't think Abigail as a concept would make a good official human character. Ghost Abi is an iconic part of Wendy's playstyle; best if she stays in her role, but gets improvements.

[Footman Crouch]

Give abigail ability to wear hats, miner hat, straw hat, rain hat, football helmet.

It match her sister and help her out when she's not killing things.

[Well-met]

Make her completely immune to all sanity auras, good or bad. Darkness included.

Give her a very costly recipe for an item that buffs Abi late game, like the purple armor in Forge 2.

As much as I like the idea of a living Abi, I don't think it'll work. Being "haunted" is a core part of her design. That'd be like removing fire from willow.